There is an article in a local entertainment magazine this week that caught my eye. The story was about how a couple of churches in Louisville - Sojourn Community Churchand St Francis of Assisi Catholic Community - who have provided church space for rock concerts.
Both churches sound like interesting places. St Francis sounds like a progressive Christian church where I might find some common ground and Sojourn, which is described in the article as having "conservative religious beliefs," nonetheless seem like cool people. I know at least one or two folk who go there and can find some good common ground amongst them, too (if nothing else, their annual celebration of Turn Off Your TV week sounds like great fun!)
The concerts are not "christian rock" concerts, but rather just secular bands, including uber-progressive Steve Earle's son, Justin Townes Earle. It was an interesting, positive article that represented both churches well.
But there was one line in particular that caught my attention...
"Rock is supposed to be anti-establishment - what's more establishment than church?"
Owch.
The church of Christ - who so upset the establishment that they crucified him! - whose church has been persecuted by the establishment deeply and frequently through the years - this church in THIS country has come to be understood as PART of the establishment.
Owch.
Not that this comes as a surprise to me, nor that I think this reporter has reported wrongly. I think this is indeed the attitude towards the church because the church has too often allowed herself to be coopted by the establishment.
And I think that's a shame.
I was listening to the Thom Hartmann radio program the other day and he interviewed a guy by the name of Frank Viola. Viola has teamed up with George Barna and written a book "Pagan Christianity":
ReplyDelete"Book Description -
Have you ever wondered why we Christians do what we do for church every Sunday morning? Why do we "dress up" for church? Why does the pastor preach a sermon each week? Why do we have pews, steeples, choirs, and seminaries? This volume reveals the startling truth: most of what Christians do in present-day churches is not rooted in the New Testament, but in pagan culture and rituals developed long after the death of the apostles. Coauthors Frank Viola and George Barna support their thesis with compelling historical evidence in the first-ever book to document the full story of modern Christian church practices."
www.paganchristianity.org
It was an interesting interview. Viola thinks that most of what we do in the church has nothing to do with Jesus.
Since the church is now considered "establishment" maybe that's true.
You mean, putting up flags of our country and a "christian" flag in front of our sanctuaries wasn't done originally? You mean, we didn't HAVE sanctuaries, originally?
ReplyDeleteInteresting...
Excellent thoughts, Dan. I've often preached, and have long held, that we as a church are not called to blend in with anyone or anything. Rather, we are called forth as a sanctuary, the "sheep amidst wolves", counter-cultural to anything worldly. Yet too many churches are in such "recruiting modes" that these sanctuaries no longer resemble anything except a celebration of all that is worldly, and we justify ourselves by reasoning that if we can just get them in the door they will, at the very least, be exposed to the Gospel.
ReplyDeleteIs this not quite like how the early Church hijacked Christmas from the Winter Solstice by incorporating pagan practices and symbols and making them somehow relevant to the Gospel in an attempt to reach pagans?
You really got me thinking about Dan. I linked here and am continuing the discussion at my place.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Bob
As the oft-quoted Annie Dillard says in Teaching the Stones to Talk: "Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews."
ReplyDelete(Antidisestablishmentarianism has always been one of my favorite words.)
Thanks, Michael.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Payne Hollow, Bob. Stop back anytime.
Brd, thanks for the quote. And I was just guessing that if antiDISest... etc is a word, that antiestab... is one, too. Right?
Oh, and welcome to Payne Hollow, Michael.
ReplyDeleteI thought you were another Michael and didn't realize you were a newcomer. Thanks for stopping in.
It certainly must be a word, though 3 letters shorter than it's ambagious cousin.
ReplyDeleteOh, man. Ambagious?? Great word! You stumped me.
ReplyDeleteFor the similarly stumped:
Ambagious: adjective, roundabout; circuitous: ambagious reasoning.
Thanks for advancing at least my word power.