Dark Brightness

Against Churchians.

Posted on 01/10/2014 | By Chris Gale | 8 responses

I want to follow up in part on yesterday. I want to talk a bit about creeds, and then about the problem with churchians, and why such people exist.

The key thing about the church is that it is in the world but not of it. Churchians want to be in the world, and of it. But the world only wants you if you play by their rules. Consider how the MSNBC treats Mike Rowe, and who is the true leader.

I sat out of view of the camera while he taped a segment for The Ed Show on MSNBC. (Flirting with a cute production assistant to help pass the time.) I remember marveling at what I saw. That this television show supposedly represented the very pinnacle of my profession. And yet the host spent most of the brief segment ignoring Mike’s quest in favor of goading him for appearing with Mitt Romney on the 2012 presidential campaign trail. “Gotcha journalism” at its best. I shook my head in amazement as I lost my last remaining shreds of respect for mainstream media.

Back out on the street Mike was clearly disappointed, though he remained calm and philosophical. “People watch his show because they want to see a fight,” he said. “He said exactly what his audience want to hear.” His colleague Mary Sullivan told him that 30 people unfriended him on Facebook since the segment aired a few minutes earlier, but 150 people had added him. He nodded his head and gamely signed a few autographs for passersby before we crawled into the back of a chauffeured black Chevy Tahoe.

Instead of going back to the hotel Mike said that we were making a brief detour to have a “chat” at a restaurant around the corner. “Oh shit,” I remember thinking to myself. This was where I was going to get my ass chewed out for having wasted his time. As I glumly exited the back of the SUV I noticed several people dressed in character wandering up and down the streets in advance of New York Comic Con. And as we went inside and seated ourselves at a table, I braced myself for the tongue-lashing that was sure to come. But it never did. Instead of reaming me out, Mike basically offered to call it a day and compensate me for the expenses I’d racked up to that point. He felt sorry for me. Though I didn’t take him up on his offer, I was overwhelmed by his generosity.

It’s not the media. It’s Mike. Mike offers to take responsibility: Mike gets his hands (metaphorically dirty) and tells the author of this post that his investigative journalist piece will never run in the media, and offers to pay back his expenses.

Not any editor: not the media. The subject. Mike takes responsibility, even though the Journalist is clearly struggling with booze and depression.

And this resonates with today’s text. For the first test for a Churchian is that The Churchian considers himself to be better than those around him, regardless of the facts.

Isaiah 65:1-9

¹I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that did not call on my name. ²I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; ³a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks; ⁴who sit inside tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat swine’s flesh, with broth of abominable things in their vessels; ⁵who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day long. ⁶See, it is written before me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their laps ⁷their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together, says the LORD; because they offered incense on the mountains and reviled me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their actions. ⁸Thus says the LORD: As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, “Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,” so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. ⁹I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there.

Revelation 3:1-6

1″And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars:

“I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead. ²Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. ³Remember then what you received and heard; obey it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. ⁴Yet you have still a few persons in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes; they will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. ⁵If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the book of life; I will confess your name before my Father and before his angels. ⁶Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

The second test is that the Churchian is spiritually dead. You are walking into a zombie church: the people may be breathing, but the spirit of God is not there. And here lies a problem. There will be a remnant within that church. God’s will save and sanctify people in the most difficult of conditions (the liberal, the rich, the comfortable, the talented and the privileged). Even at places like MSNBC.

But the life is somewhere else. The question then, is how does one discern? My first word is that one should pray. Pray deeply, and pray fervently, for the words and creeds that the church officially subscribes to may be subverted by the clerical churchians who run most things. I am sure I have said these things before, but I think we need a list of tells. So this is a start: the combox is open for further suggestions.

• The church is old. Got nothing against gray (or balding). But if the majority of the congregation are grey, the place is in trouble. If the church thinks more about their building, or preserving their liturgy than mission, the church is in trouble. If there are no families, the church is in trouble.
• The church is female. There are no men beyond that point in puberty when a young man can tell their mother to piss up a rope. The only men in the building are old (above,) gay, or disabled. The church often has a female pastor or priest: the elders are female, and it feels cloying and far too neat.
• The church has no credal statement. Now, using old creeds does not count here, in fact that is recommended. If the elder-ship is held to the creeds and does not deviate from that, the gospel will be proclaimed, and perhaps, even the clergy will be saved.  And, no I don’t accept the Pentecostal idea that the Holy Spirit means that we don’;t need no stinkin’ creeds. They give a plumb line, a backbone: and I have seen, in my life, viable and good church groups go liberal in in the first generational change of leadership.
• The clergy are fashionable. All the current progressive tests are kept rigorously. The congregation is inclusive (read gay friendly), non judgmental (read baby momma and frivorce friendly).
• The sermons are therapeutic.  They do not confront us on our need to repent. They do not make us guilty, when we should be guilty. There is no prayer of confession. This is one of my pet hobbyhorses: I have a fairly good therapist training, thank you very much, and I know that the kind of platitudes that are said in this high church of Therapy are not what therapy is about. Or salvation. Or life.
• Love has left. Social power structures reign. I know more about who is sleeping with whom, than what is happening to mitigate the issues the children have:  the power structures of soft power (which properly belongs in the tea shops and cafe(s) where the women who lunch meet during the week) are played out within the church.
• The church gets good press. It is seen as progressive, enlightened, fashionable. It is not seen as retrograde, fundamentalist, and against the fashionable minority of the day.

The question then is what to do. One can be part of the remnant, and we need to pray for the faithful laity who are in these congregations. One can be in a faithful congregation in a denomination that is relentlessly churchian: this is the situation I find myself in. Denominational labels do not mean that much (which is why Ratzinger left when he got ill — he has so many frankly anti-Christian branches within the Catholic flock that he was putting out fires two or three times a day).

But, as a lay person, I need a healthful church. I do not need Churchians in my life, but Christians: I need the support of Godly men in raising my sons. (If I had daughters in the household, I would need godly older women as well, but my household is not gender diverse). While a faithful congregation exists, I will remain part of it. However, if if fails and falls, I will find another one. That is my duty as head of this household.

For in this world the fate of the Churchians was described by their apostle Vladimir Ilych: people vote with their feet. They leave.

And in the next life, we will have to give account. Let us then give but one account: Christ was faithful for us, for we continually fell, and fail.

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Chris Gale

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