THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408120081
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E8 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Issues of Faith
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
This week's guest columnist is David H. Smiley, addressing the issue, ``Is the institutional church necessary?''
Next week's guest columnist, the Rev. Joan Hedrich Wooten, will take an opposing view. Reader Response will follow on Aug. 27, with a ``final word'' commentary by Betsy Wright on Sept. 3.
David Smiley is a personal computer consultant. He lives with his wife and four children in Virginia Beach.
CHRISTIANS START an institution by purchasing land and building a ``church'' on it. Little do they suspect that the institution is a millstone that will hinder all their efforts.
It is a wonder of self-deception that all Christians admit the church is not the building, yet few can conceive of a church without one. They proceed to behave as though God were dead, entombed in their own little shrine.
Each congregation considers its property a small investment in bringing redemption to their community. They fail to consider that they have already bought a stake in the existing order they should be confronting.
With few exceptions they accept tax exemption, which makes their property a tax burden to others who may not share their beliefs. With church property in the trillions, Christians cannot imagine why their unbelieving neighbors are resentful. Did Jesus call us to exploit our neighbors or to minister to them?
The church they build, furnish, maintain and staff typically absorbs half or more of what the flock ``gives to the Lord.'' The financial burdens of maintaining their institution will slant their views of the Gospel in support of local vices and prejudices. Opportunities to help the poor will become inconvenient beyond token holiday gestures. Preaching the Gospel to the poor goes by the way because many middle-class worshippers prefer the idyllic ambience of their church to facing the ugly realities of life's underside. We refer the poor to the soul-grinding welfare state.
The institution of the church attracts people who want respectability, social contacts, a pretty place for weddings, with a tax shelter rolled in. They prefer the comforts of formal religion to the discipleship of which Jesus spoke.
Institutional competition and materialism, plus neglect of the poor and defenseless, casts doubt on the goodness of God and fosters unbelief. The increasing opposition faced by Christians is less a reflection on Jesus than on institutionalism. Many people, seeing the callous neglect, have rejected Jesus, the Scriptures and God. Much of the demand for abortion grows out of the tendency of church people to shun and stigmatize women pregnant out of wedlock instead of extending compassion and nurture.
Believers are beginning to see that the problem is deeper than ordinary human frailty. Christian columnist and former Silent Majority publicist Cal Thomas acknowledged in a July 10 column that Christians have lost their real authority because they have not practiced what they preach. In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Thomas was asked if any institution is in a position to help in the present crisis.
``No,'' Thomas said, ``Institutions are the problem. Christ did not come to establish institutions. He came to establish a relationship.''
Jesus told us there would no longer be a prescribed place for worship (John 4:21) because he was replacing the temple (John 2:18-20). Christians themselves are temples of the living God (I Corinthians 3:16, 6:19) and, as a spiritual community spanning the ages, are the temple God is building on the cornerstone of Jesus (Ephesians 2:19-22). To represent any earthly place as God's house is a denial of Jesus' person and work.
Believers would recover the spiritual reality they have lost if they gathered in homes to encourage and strengthen one another. This is the purpose Scripture gives for ``gathering together'' (Hebrews 10:25). Christians would find deeper fellowship, and free their money and time to feed someone who is hungry, teach someone to read, visit a prisoner or aged person, or defend someone who is being exploited.
Christians must return to grass-roots ministry that changes society from the bottom up, or continue to follow the pied pipers of power religion seeking to impose a legalistic piety from the top down.
In a climate of cultural warfare, everyone loses in the confrontation between left and right.
Christians can rebuild the moral foundations of our society by claiming God's ageless promise: ``If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.'' (II Chronicles 7:14) MEMO: Every other week, Betsy Mathews Wright publishes responses to her
opinion column. Send responses to Issues of Faith, The Virginian-Pilot,
150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va. 23510; call (804) 446-2273; FAX
(804) 436-2798; or send e-mail to bmw(AT)infi.net. Deadline is Tuesday
before publication. You must include name, city and phone number.
by CNB