Certainly people can throw rotten tomatoes at the established church if
they so desire, but it gives me the image of the Bride of Christ being pelted with
criticism as she walks down the aisle to meet her Groom.
June 19, 2013
The Bride of Christ
I listened to the 40-something speaker decry the traditional church in
favor of a home-based church model. He described his previous experience as
being all encompassing – he was the right hand man to the preacher and the
go-to-guy for everything going on in the church. Disillusioned, discouraged,
and spiritually drained he walked away from the mega-church and for four years
wandered in the wilderness. With some pushing and prodding from friends he discovered
an outreach church in another State, which he now describes as the ‘real’ church.
No one would doubt his enthusiasm for the Lord’s work, but his anger with the
organized church permeated his presentation.
As he denounced the traditional church, some in the audience nodded in
agreement as they reflected on the faults within their own church. I on the
other hand, wanted to stand up and say, ‘Wait
a minute…The traditional church has a few warts, but we are still the body of
Christ too!’
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I am completely convinced the Bride of Christ needs criticism. I would dare to say that the quantity of things wrong with her far outnumbers the quantity of things right with her. And some good criticism will help. But the pelting is a dire mistake. Neither she nor anyone else should be pelted with criticism.
-----Criticism serves two very special and useful purposes. The first is an effort to effect the target of the criticism. The intended effect can be either detrimental or beneficial. Accordingly, the second very useful purpose is its exposure of the critic’s heart as being either malevolent or benevolent.
-----I think Jesus loves the benevolent critic as a hero. But here we must pay regard to the truth about things. A critic may desire to be benevolent and try hard to be so, but, being misguided or in some other way mistaking the circumstances and natures of things, his criticism might actually be malevolent. Not only does such an error lead to the unintended detriment of the critic’s target, but it also leads to a mistaken discernment of the critic’s heart on the part of his onlookers. Thus, it makes mess everywhere.
-----Religion should not be as highly a personal thing as it is today. There is a big push to make it so totally personal that when anyone’s belief in anything is acknowledgeable, then no belief in anything becomes actual. Even recognizing the wider latitude the Bible gives for variation of personal beliefs (Romans chapter 14,) it is not this way because the truth is supposedly variable. It is this way because man is definitely fallible while the truth is constant. Until he has his fallacies untangled and straightened out into truth, he yet must believe something.
-----The church, then, is the collection of all these fallible humans working out their own salvation with fear and trembling, but for now, knowing only in part as seeing through a mirror dimly. If one knows more clearly than another, does he have love if he does not try to help the other know better? Criticism will be part of the process. And when many together could well know better, that criticism will be of a church. But whether it is of an individual or of a church, criticism is unacceptable if its effects will not be beneficial. And I am sure I am right in saying, “…will not be…” instead of, “…are not intended to be…”
Love you all,
Steve Corey
PS - Though the quantity of things wrong with the church may be more numerous than the quantity of things right, her quality infinitely outweighs her detriment.
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