The Essential Function

Well, churches are in decline. This is a sign of something. Lots of believers are taking this as a sign that Armegeddon, or something worse is on the way. It means the anti-Christ is possibly here, or soon to be born. Others are taking it as a sign that religion is showing its outdated nature and is finally being forgotten. Neitzche prophesied God's death centuries ago, and we are just now catching up. Some, are taking church decline as a sociological problem: churches aren't managing to be relevant enough to draw people in. Thus the triumphant rise of church marketing and preachers ripping fashion and dialects off the latest Apple ads on TV . . . God save us.

We live in an age where religious institutions are doubted. Even in the midst of my beloved Texas, where the church reigns supreme I get the feeling that there is a haunting discomfort to many in the religion industry; as though troubled days are ahead. My preacher often talks about how "we're losing our young adults", and he's far from being the only preacher who shows concern at this state of affairs. In fact, most preachers I've listened to say something similar on a fairly consistent basis. Part of me trust that they are concerned for good reasons. Part of me wonders how much they are concerned for the fact that, should our country continue to secularize, they might not have a pay check. Or, that their check might not be substantial enough to send their kids to private school and private universities.

So, what of it? Should I be concerned that the Church, at least on American soil, is declining? Should I mention here the fact that I don't really go to "church" anymore? Believe me, I am a spiritual and religious person. I have faith. Yet it's true, I find traditional church now to be a basic waste of time. And, I feel oddly unapologetic about that. I see our secularizing culture, and I can't say it really bothers me. I recall having a conversation with a friend not too long ago about how truly refreshing it was, as a Christian, to have non-Christian friends. Almost like we needed both and had been trapped by our religious cliques for too long. We needed a breath of fresh air, apart from the stale lifeless air inside our church walls. How ironic.

I feel I should also address how many people these days claim a personal spirituality. Being secular does not automatically make people irreligious, as opposed to what church culture would have us believe. Our society is now more aware and more hungry for the spiritual realm than it had been in quite some time. Note all the shows on TV dealing with spiritual themes. Note all the movies dealing with the occult. Note even the general interest in non-traditional views on Christianity, the Da Vinci Code being only one of many examples. Our society is far from being disinterested in religion.

Anyway, all that is brought on by the new book I'm reading. What I read today was not anything new, but it was said exceptionally well. The point was that the apparent decline in religion is actually no decline at all. The leading sociologists of our time all agree that religious tendencies in our culture are just as strong as ever, only they are being channeled outside the church. For example, the fervor we witness in ecological activism, or the desire of certain people to overcome poverty are very religious in their attitudes.

What we see instead of a total decline in Church (and religion in general) is a complete change in its function. Whereas before the Church made attempts to be the sole purveyor of authority in all aspects of life, it now has had to accept a thoroughly non-authoritative approach to all activities. This is an agonizing redefinition for those who would cling to tradition, one that is being met with the most obtuse and indignant resistance. Yet, society has seen what a pathetic and ruthless monarch the Church can be, and has wisely chosen to deny it that role as far as is possible. So what now? The Church cannot be a dictator any more, not even a quiet one. Instead, it must find a new function outside the realms where it had for too long attempted to vie for power. Politics, law, education, among others are now for the most part secularized and therefore closed to religious persuesion. But, is this a bad thing? Could we not view it another way?

". . .Religion (or the Churches) has been liberated through the progressive differentiation of secondary functions (i.e. economic and educational) and could now concentrate on its proper task."

Instead of clinging nostalgically to our past when we religious people reigned supreme, maybe we could see the present, with all its irreligious contours, as a time of purification and liberation to be who we were meant to be all along! Only a fool of a Christian would state that churches with their checkered history had lived up to the Savior they claim. Now is a time of reclaiming our original heritage. Not that of dogmatic, self-assured Pharisees. Our heritage is a humble man of firm faith who loved others painfully. Our heritage is that of a man who chose no sides, in order to remain free enough to not be coerced into some ideological doctrine that sacrifices the fragile ones of humanity in the ritual of its own self-worship. Our heritage is not Church, but the Son of Man. Our heritage above Church is God's Kingdom. For if God's Kingdom is a ruin, then the Church, Christ's Bride, has no home, no shelter, no safety.

Let the Church die. If God raised the Groom, he can raise the Bride as well. Instead let us focus on the Kingdom coming. Let us set the world right, starting with the brokenness at our fingertips in the world we live in daily.

Instead of a concern for losing young adults, and a worry of losing what once was in regard to the role of the Church, maybe we should worry at the identity in Christ that we seem to have long lost and forgotten about: the essence that we have maybe never even realized we failed to grasp. Maybe the secular humanism that seems to have swept our world is good for us. We need it in order to discern who we were never meant to be, and need it more to grasp who we should have been all along. When we live up to that to which we have been called, to him by which we have been called, perhaps the world may follow suit: looking like Jesus as they learn to call on his name. . . .