Why go to Church?

So, it's been a while since I've posted. I've quit feeling guilty about it honestly; I've come to realize that it's just part of life.

I do, however, endeavor to be more active on here because as of late I've found I have ideas I'd like to flesh out. So here's the topic of the day and it's a big one that I've been kicking around for some 9 months, give or take.

Why go to church?

Before diving in, I'd like to remind the reader that this blog is specifically my open letter to the Christian church, so I'm not going to be discussing arguments for or against Christianity or religion per se. Instead my question is looking more at why a believer should go to a formal church at all. To begin, let me display some of the basic arguments/counter-arguments that many bring to the conversation. I'm going to give these in the form of affirmative statement (AS) - rebuttal (R):

AS1: Christians need community with other believers in order to reaffirm their faith and gain encouragement, correction, growth, etc. in the Christian life

R1: As a believer, one can find community with other believers in ones life without going to a formal church institution. This can be done through social groups, both formal and informal and not always in the same physical location, thanks to technology.

AS2: Christians need a church to help them learn more about the Christian life and how to live out Christ's message, usually via sermons, Sunday school classes, etc.

R2: There is nothing that a church/pastor can teach you that can't be learned by studying on your own, either at a library or online. The church doesn't hold special knowledge that can't be learned elsewhere, though to learn it elsewhere requires a certain level of self-motivation.

AS3: Believers need a place to worship God, both corporately and individually.

R3: One doesn't need to attend a formal church gathering to worship individually OR corporately. Several world religions (including Christianity) have long-standing traditions of worshiping solo and informally with other believers. The institution is simply not necessary.

So where does this leave us? 

Well I'm not certain, to be honest. I for one love going to church because I see a lot of value in the liturgy and tradition of being anchored to the catholic (little "c") church; of course this is an insufficient reason in and of itself, but it's one of my main reasons. Others are because I feel I have something to offer other congregants in the way of instruction and wisdom due to my years of study in theology and the church, but those are of course not all of the reasons.

Mainly, I wanted to point out with this brief article that there is a slew of arguments for and against being a part of or even just casually attending a formal church. I think this topic does take on new impetus for re-visitation in the current religious environment in the west as denominations are dying out and Christians of a new generation are exploring new ways to embody Christ in the world.

I'd love to hear the readers thoughts on the topic; if you are a member or even a regular attendee of a church, why do YOU go? or if you've left the formal institution that is Christianity, why did you leave?

pax,
CM

Killing the Gospel Message

I have been a part of America's Christian subculture for my entire life. Honestly, I am grateful to say that. That being said, there is one thing that has recently been in my mind and I'd like to share it with you. Just to keep this post honest, I will be up front with you, my reader, this is a charge against Evangelicalism as it has come to be represented today. My charge is this: in Evangelical Christianity - which represents a large portion of the Christian presence in the world - we have become increasingly concerned with the spreading of the Gospel message; in fact this term "Gospel message" is often used (or its derivatives, message of the Gospel, message of Jesus Christ, etc.) with little explanation or correct context. Furthermore, I would simply like to conclude that

The Gospel is not a message but a story

It's pretty common knowledge in Christian circles that the word "gospel" translates fairly accurately to "good news" and while a "good news message" makes sense in our linguistics and "good news story" seems a bit odd, if we understand what the content of that good news is, then the latter becomes the more desirable understanding.

You see, a message is static; it's unchanging and non-evolving.  While there is great theological grounds for arguing the immutability of God (though I don't personally believe this is so), we ought to be careful to not project that quality onto the events of the incarnation. The good news is that God came to show us how to be human and reestablish the connection between Creation and Creator; this is really good news and this is not a static idea. A message is given once and does not change after it is given. You can rephrase a message, you can twist a message and you can import your own meaning into a message, but a message is what it is regardless of the interpretation.

By contrast, a story is inherently evolving; it is full of life and energy with surprises and struggles, conflict and resolution. There is an outcome in a story and there is a core theme that guides the story, but there are also developments and the introduction and exit of characters. Sounds a bit more like life, doesn't it?

The Gospel is not the sum of the events in the first century 

Instead, the Gospel is the good news that our Creator longs for us to be right with him again and so the greatest lengths were not too far to go. The events of the incarnation are a testament to the reality that God loves creation. 

It seems to me that throughout human history, God had consistently tried to bring this Gospel to humanity by directly speaking to humans. We see it with Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David and so on and so forth, but each time, humans took the story of God's love which is inherently full of life and turned it into a stagnate message in the form of laws. Let us not do the same. For Evangelicalism, the charge is turning the story into a message for our own ego gratification. We need to know that we're right, we need to know that I'm going to be on the ark while the rest of the world drowns, that I have my golden ticket into heaven. But this kills the spirit of the story of love - the Gospel that Christ brought to us. So, God decided to adopt a different tactic; he came himself in a way that was not so obvious to hand deliver, so to speak, this story of love. The author stepped into the story and flipped the world of the characters on its head.
The most beautiful truth is this:

We are a part of the story

Humanity hasn't gone extinct. Christ has not returned yet. The story is not over.

When we shape our work in ministry and Christian living around portraying a message, it becomes like trying to ask your wife to buy a new guitar (personal experience here people) without making it sound like you're just being kind of selfish with the family money. If, however, your concept of being a representative of Christ is shaped around a story, your interactions with everyone become more about telling them about your childhood, about a road trip you took once or about good memories with friends.

The Gospel is our responsibility as Christians; the story of love that God told us with his own mouth is ours to retell. Kill the message of the gospel so that the story of the Gospel can live.

Peace,
C.M.

St. Patrick

Happy St. Patrick day!

Here is a link to a great and brief source on the historical St. Patrick.


It is incredible to remember that it was out of his love for God that he felt compelled to go back and seek salvation for his previous captors. Having watched the movie "12 years a slave" yesterday, it is hard to imagine a slave longing for charity for his captor. What a shining example of the power of God's love in a man's life.

Peace,
C.M.

An Integrated Reality

 "As the body is clothed with cloth and the muscles in the skin and the bones in the muscles and the heart in the chest, so are we, body and soul, clothed in the Goodness of God and enclosed."

                                                                                         -- Julian of Norwich

The above quote from Julian of Norwich (likely not her real name, but we don't know much about her at all except that she lived in the 14th century and was an English "nun") is an incredible word picture about God's hold on us.

In many Christian songs we use romantic language like this, but how often do we take that romantic language and really mediate on it?

Notice Julian's progression from outside of the body -- the clothes -- and moves inward to our heart and even the soul. We're enclosed, enfolded, engulfed in the divine goodness of God. This reminds me of another church lady named Hildegard who often wrote of Jesus' hug; yes, a divine hug. Being wrapped in the arms of Christ. Here Julian takes it a step farther: our skin is the very goodness of God.

Personally, I don't draw a very sharp line between the body and soul of a human. As such, physical experiences like exercise, eating, sex and great discussion over coffee can be incredible spiritual experiences. 17th century Christian monastic, Brother Lawrence wrote in his famous work, Practice of the Presence of God, that he was as much at worship in a busy kitchen at the monastery as he was on his knees in his prayer chamber. What if we strove for that? What if we made a conscious effort -- not necessarily all of the time, but honestly tried -- to think of our physical, day-to-day activities as small theophanies? 

As Christians in the U.S. I know that it can feel a little like there is a sharp distinction between what we do in "worship" (usually a misconception of what it means to devote a small amount of time to God) and what we do in our lives (or what I would call your true worship). It is because of this tendency that we must make time to acknowledge the integrated connections between our muscles, heart, and soul and how the reality of God's existence is "written in our very skin".

Peace,
C.M.