Posted by Eliza on: 02.01.2007 /
The discussion in the first half hour of Class #13 was a review of Class #12, The Church. I wondered how much of what the pastor said in this review others Christians would agree with, and how much others might disagree with. My writeup of Class #13, Prayer, should be done within a few days (delayed due to time constraints this week).
Some comments that came up in the review include:
1) The text asked what the church consists of, & everyone answered “the people”, and the pastor added comment that “There is only one church.” It seems apparent that he & his church believe that Lutheran Church - MIssouri Synod is the one church, & the others are mistaken. Couple of things about this:
First, he said at this review that there are ~2 million members of LCMS in the US. I found later that ~78% of the US population identifies as Christian; this would be ~235 million people. That means that only ~1% of Christians in the US are LCMS. Now, I know that majority doesn’t rule in determination of God’s truth, but I do wonder whether anyone in LCMS ever puzzles over why their membership is so relatively low if they really do have a better grasp on the true message of Scripture. Why wouldn’t people be inspired to accept Lutheran beliefs, in droves?
Second, the pastor talked about how it would be unbiblical, un-Christian, & unloving for the LCMS to stay in its corner & wait for others to come to them. Instead, they should go out & try to engage others. Would this mean, evangelizing other Christians? What does that look like & how does it go over?
Third, the pastor explained a bit more about how there could be some “true Christians” in other denominations - he talked about “fortuitous inconsistency”, where someone has “wrong beliefs” but a correct foundation. For example, he talked about how some Christians believe in “theistic evolution” instead of 6-day creation, said he didn’t believe theistic evolution was true, but as long as someone had the rest of Christian beliefs correct then that one error wouldn’t be the deal-breaker (that’s my terminology, not his).
Fourth, there are at least 2 people (a married couple) besides me who are not current church members - I lump them in with the church members in my writeups because they’re clearly Christian, but actually they’re not Lutheran. They expanded on their “journey” during this class review; they’ve belonged to several churches in the past 3 years, basically said they have been church-hopping. They periodically ask about Lutheran beliefs (compared with other denominations), & they asked a few questions during this review. Finally the pastor said, “I don’t mean to sound condescending, but not everyone has studied it like I have.” The couple seemed to accept that & didn’t pursue their line of questioning further, but I couldn’t help but thinking that argument would only work in a setting like this. I imagined him saying that at a meeting of pastors from different denominations, and imagined it would not go over well!
Finally, I went up to the pastor after class & asked him about the printouts he’d given out at class #12, from 2001 from the LCMS website, comparing LCMS to other Christian denominations. I told him I’d looked at the website but hadn’t been able to find those writeups, only found some writeups of less mainstream groups. He said that the writeups were indeed there, he’d looked just recently, and I probably hadn’t looked in the right place, though when he mentioned what he’d seen (including writeup of Baha’i faith) it sounded like the list of less mainstream groups. I was interested to know whether or not the LCMS website still has those comparisons, because it seemed like something that other denominations might well complain about (but I have no idea how relations between these various denominations are, at higher-up levels).
2) The pastor described the church as visible (people) and invisible (God). I hadn’t heard that before, thought it was nice.
3) He also repeated something the text had said in lesson #12, the church is militant and triumphant. (The text actually said, the church militant will become the church triumphant.) Everyone (except me) had nodded when the militant-and-triumphant description came up the week before; I was puzzled. At class #12, the pastor had said “The world hates the church. The enemy never lets up.” He mentioned “spiritual warfare, ” and he described a constant fight against “our own sinful nature”, the sinful world, and Satan. At this review, he added that it was in a constant battle, also, against false teachings and false prophets.
I can see how the church might feel it’s in a constant battle against internal and external sin - especially a church which sees sin in as many places as this church does. And I know that some Christians envision us in the midst of an ongoing war between the forces of good and evil - Gregory Boyd mentions this early on in Letters From a Skeptic, and some people here have mentioned that they share this view. But it’s such a negative view! It doesn’t seem to fit with the broad acceptance & welcoming that Jesus demonstrated - is it more from Paul’s view of flesh (& earthly things) = sin? Or, where does this view come from?
And the view that “the world hates the church” - I’m sorry, but that comes across as paranoid. I know, I know, my point of view is probably just so far off-base that I can’t hope to see the evil that constantly threatens the church. Cynical interpretation: it sounds like a useful battle cry for rallying the troops around the church & supporting it ever more vigorously…though one wonders, if they were a little more generous in their judgment of other denominations, maybe they wouldn’t feel so alone?
4) The text asked: “Why is it correct to say that the Christian church began with Adam and Eve?
Now, maybe the answer is leaping from your lips at this very moment. But the students in this class flailed around, mumbling various suggestions (including one who said: “It isn’t correct” - calling it like he saw it, but incorrect according to the pastor). Any ideas on this one?
Well, here’s the funny thing: it was the atheist in the class who finally answered this question the way the pastor (& text) wanted it answered! I remembered the interpretation of Genesis 3:15 that the pastor had stressed in class #3, so I raised my hand tentatively and squeaked out something about how the pastor had said that God had promised to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 that He would send Jesus. The pastor was pleased that somebody “got” it, expanded the answer for the class, & meanwhile you could have tipped me over with a feather, I was so startled to have been the one to give the answer he wanted! (The line is: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Her offspring = Jesus; serpent is Satan; as I remember the explanation, Satan would bruise Jesus’s heel by crucifixion but would be bruised more significantly, in fact conquered, later by Jesus’s triumphant return. I think that’s how it went, in class #3 more than 9 weeks ago!)
Anyway, this reminded me of the time in high school when the only student who could answer one specific confusing question in English class about a part of speech was the exchange student from Brazil, for whom English was a foreign language. That’s me - the exchange student, for whom the Bible is a foreign language.
5) In class #12, several metaphors for the church were listed in the text, without scriptural citation. I’d looked them up later. In this review, I raised my hand and asked about the metaphors “body of Christ” and “Bride of Christ” for the church - said something like, it seemed like they weren’t meant to apply at the same time. The pastor laughed (though noone else did), and seemed to like the question. His explanation made sense, that “body of Christ” was when Paul was talking about the people of the church having different strengths or roles as they worked together, whereas “Bride of Christ” was used when talking about readying the church for Christ. I had more questions about the metaphors, but saved them for after class.
After class, I asked the pastor about “New Jerusalem”, which appears in Revelation 3:12 (as the city of God, descending from heaven) and in Revelation 21:1-2 (the holy city, as a bride). The descriptions of New Jerusalem are those of a city - walls, etc. He said that just as you can’t separate the church from the people, you can’t separate the city from the people, so that’s how “New Jerusalem” refers to the people, who are also the church. The holy city is referred to as the bride, and in Rev 21:9-12 as the Wife of the Lamb; I asked about city = bride/wife, that was confusing to me, & he said that in Revelation the metaphors changed & merged into each other (which seems true; I tend to stop reading when that happens, it’s confusing).
Well. I have to say, the explanation of New Jerusalem as people who believe in Christ seems like quite a stretch to me - the words really paint a picture of the buildings, not the people, for me. Also, the author was originally Jewish; I picture what a sparkling new city of Jerusalem, complete with renewed temple, might have meant to him. I wonder, too, how other Christians besides this pastor interpret “New Jerusalem” in Revelation.
6) The text review had several questions about pastors’ roles & responsibilities. The pastor added something I’ve heard before, that pastors are called to their positions. But he said it in a different way than I’ve heard, as “Pastors aren’t hired, they’re called by God.” Yet as he described the process it sounded like the literal call comes from a congregation (parish? or is that only in the Catholic Church?) & the pastor has to decide whether or not to answer that request, goes & visits (& preaches), after that might or might not be invited/requested indeed to lead that congregation, & has to decide how to answer that request. Which left me a bit unclear as to where in the process God is involved, all along the way in the decisions of every party involved, or only in the communications with the pastor & the decisions the pastor has to make? Is there no written contract between the pastor and the congregation?
7) The pastor has been stressing the significant role that church members play in the church’s workings, & said that Pastors are like player-coaches. That seemed like a good analogy, except for the difference in theological education - that seems like an important difference between the pastor and the other “players”, especially in a case like this, where the pastor made that comment in (1) above, stating he had a greater claim to understanding about right beliefs because he’d studied it more. I’d guess, too, that pastors generally receive deference due to their position. (And, to take the analogy to lengths it wasn’t intended for, the pastor wears a “uniform” - black shirt, white collar - & the other players don’t.) Seriously, though, since I have no exposure to church: How do church congregations tend to think about their pastor(s), & how do they treat them? How do congregations/members see their own role in the church, & how is appropriate involvement encouraged?
Comment by: Stephan
1Eliza, Great summary. They really should pay attention to your insights and pay you a consulting fee.
A couple of questions you asked:
Jerusalem was (and is) obviously a literal city, but it has always been something more to the Jews. It is a symbol for their connection to God. The New Jerusalem, as I see it, is a symbol for God’s new relationship with His people, and the fact that perfect oneness has been restored. So I think it might be a literal city someday, but more than that it is a metaphor for a restored relationship.
The first questions has a wide range of answers, depending on the church. Some still revere their pastor as next to God. Others treat their pastor like any other member of the congregation, just one who happens to preach on Sundays. I’m somewhere in the middle. I do think being a pastor is a special call (which is part of the reason I have never become a pastor), but I don’t believe this makes that person any more special or more loved by God because of what they do.
Regarding the whole called/hired question I think it’s hard to tell where God hand starts and our hands end sometimes. We try to work with Him on this sort of thing.
My church is sort of a unique situation. About 8 years ago (I wasn’t there at the time) they went through a tough period where they were without a church building and, for unfortunate reasons, had to part ways with their pastor. They asked two members of the congregation to lead them while they searched for a new pastor. After months of deliberation they came to the conclusion that one of the members they had chosen for the interim should stay on and become the pastor. He was 40 years old and had never been a pastor, nor did he have any desire to be a pastor. But after much prayer and consideration he came around and accepted the call. He had never even been to seminary and had to finish his degree while carrying out his church duties. He is still the pastor of our church today.
The second question is also all over the map. Different churches have different governmental structures. Some see the pastor as the boss and the congregation as the servants. Others see it the other way around - the congregation runs the show and the pastor takes orders. Still more sort of combine those two. I believe everyone should participate in ways that use their gifts. Encouraging people to do so is another matter. Most churches find that it is an active minority that makes the church function, and most people just show up on Sunday mornings. Every church I have been part of has that issue. Maybe you, as our new paid consultant, can suggest a way to work on that!
I like the player-coach analogy, too.
Comment by: ncxian
2I have often heard it said that there is only one church, but it usually means that all Christians are one body. And not that some Christians have been or should be amputated!
Comment by: Rachel
3Phewww…that’s a relief!
Usually “the church militant” refers to Christians on earth and “the church triumphant” refers to Christians in heaven, sort of a division between those who are still carrying out their mission on earth and those who have completed their mission on earth. Both groups are considered part of the church or “body of Christ.”
I agree that the pastor’s vision of “the church militant” sounds very negative. He seems to describe being a Christ follower as being a hated and beleaguered warrior under constant attack. I see it more as working to help bring about the kingdom of God that Jesus talked about, the vision of peace and justice and righteousness and humility and wholeness, “the dream of God” as both Brian McLaren and Desmond Tutu like to say. To me, being a Christ follower is hopeful and joyful.
It especially bothers me when American Christians complain about how “persecuted” they are when we are living in a culture where we are in the majority and enjoy full protection of our religious freedoms. What an insult to the many people all over the world who suffer torture, imprisonment and even execution for their religious faith!
Comment by: jim henderson
4Eliza - I love your work - I just wanted to say that and tell you I will be back soon to respond more thoughtfully
Comment by: Mike O
5Elize - I regret not having paid more attention to these summaries. You really do a great job of encapsulating your thoughts, perceptions and questions.
It’s almost like we’re talking over coffee.
Comment by: Karen
6As a scientist, you’re very used to thinking logically, looking at numbers, and digging into these kinds of puzzles, Eliza. It’s second nature to you. But that mindset simply isn’t encouraged in many religious groups - as you’ve found here. The pastor has studied this and he knows best! Right? His people are trained to accept that and not question him. So, while something like this seems fairly obvious to you, and you do the research and find the paradox, it probably doesn’t even occur to most of them to follow suit.
I was involved in helping with members class at my church for a while. The vast majority of the people going through the new membership process were already Christians, but from other churches - either they had moved to the area or left another church or denomination. Very few - maybe 15%? - were new converts to Christianity, either from another religion or from not attending church at all.
My, how generous of him! ;-)
Sure, that’s exactly what it is. It’s not much different from what the Bush administration has been doing around election time for the last few years: Raise the terror alert level, start talking about 9-11, make ominous speeches about “mushroom clouds” and “sleeper cells.” Keeping people in a state of fear and reminding them of the threats of “the other” (gays, liberals, feminists, whatever) keeps them motivated on behalf of your cause.
Hee, hee! I love your mind, Eliza. :-)
Comment by: Helen
7lol - good job, Eliza!
The poor pastor - evidently none of the people who might actually join his flock (or are in it already) were listening as well as you.
Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised though. After all, if you didn’t listen well in class I doubt you would have made it through med school; from what I hear it’s very tough.
It would be nice if somewhere in his subconcious the thought would arise “Hmmm…so it’s possible to understand all this stuff without agreeing with it…”
Well, clearly there is a perception difference; the question is, who is seeing things as they really are, and who isn’t.
I found this paranoia frustrating when I was in church. Some Christians are more paranoid than others; I found it varies from Christian to Christian. As you pointed out, it’s hard to imagine how people that paranoid can really be like Jesus, going out and talking to people of the - gasp! - world.
I like your final questions. I’m reposting them on Church Rater:
Church members and pastors
Comment by: Eliza
8Thanks for all the comments! I appreciate your reading my class writeups & commenting, and I apologize for their length. (How else can I try to convey the richness of 2 full hours spent at each session?!)
I just want to say, I really appreciate the positive & accepting atmosphere here & on the other OTM blogs. It occurred to me the other day that if OTM had been a conservative Lutheran organization, I wouldn’t have lingered here like I have! ;)
Stephan, it’s interesting that your church found someone in its midst to serve as pastor. It must have been a huge change for him to take this role on & to go through seminary. Do you know how he feels now about having been so called?
Also, I like your reminder on this:
Karen, I think your comparison with politicians’ use of fear is quite apt. Maybe that’s why Bush & friends seem to be so adept as using the fear factor? (Years of exposure to it in their fear-stressing churches?)
Comment by: Julie Marie
9I’ve been a member of two types of churches - Catholic and conservative evangelical. The preist in the Catholic church I attended the longest (a small church tucked in between large apple orchards in rural upstate New York) was treated very protectively by the female part of the congregation - they definitely “mothered” him and would do anything he asked to help with the church. He was the leader, and most definitely chosen by God in our eyes, but the relationship between him and the congregation was really quite personal and warm. It was so different from what I expected it to be!
I started attending the CE church when it was relatively small compared to the size now, so I got to see the relationship between pastor/congregation change over time. Seacoast is the senior pastor’s baby and it has grown - my has it grown over the years! The senior pastor is an excellent speaker and really good at explaining how to apply biblical concepts to 21st century life. He is viewed as a teacher and a leader and definitely chosen by God. He is not as protected, I don’t think, as the priest was, by the congregation…but that may be, in part, a result of the size difference between the churches. Seacoast is so large now, with multiple campuses all over the state - there is no personal relationship between the senior pastor and the congregation. Nevertheless, church members are very proud of their senior pastor, and very supportive of him. “Greg says” punctuates many of the conversations between church members - and although we’ve been gone from the church for almost a year now, my husband and I still find ourselves quoting him from time to time.
Comment by: Mike O
10Funny! To quote the wisdom of Rachel in #3 above,
Karen in #8 …
Umm, so by your logic then, acknowledging a threat makes you paranoid? How about wise?? In your example, the threat is real - there really are terrorists out there - yet you discount it because it’s from Bush (OK, maybe not *bacause* it’s from Bush, but you know what I mean). You seem to have trouble getting past the possibly paranoid and political motives. What if the threat was real? What would you have Bush do in that case, knowing people won’t trust your judgement?
Comment by: Eliza
11One goal of terrorism is to cause people to live in fear. It seems to have worked. While I wouldn’t have us become complacent about the possibility of future terrorist attacks, it seems so ironic to have our government back away from our foundational values in a reaction to the possibility - yet to be increasing worldwide rancor, & especially Arabic rancor, against the US by our misapplied military efforts to combat terrorism by invading Iraq. Bush says we will never relax until terrorism has been wiped out…I have news for him, it never will be. He calls the terrorists evil; I would like to remind him to hate the sin, not the sinner. Without attention to the factors which turn people to terrorism, there truly will be no end in sight.
From Wikipedia’s page on the Homand Security Advisory System:
Comment by: Karen
12I’m not criticizing Bush & Co. for recognizing the threat. My gosh, we all know in a post-9/11 world, that there’s a real threat - and we should have known long before that as well.
What I’m critical of is the timing of the “threat talking points,” which Eliza has illuminated, above. It’s been quite obvious that around election months, dire threats are bandied about in scary speeches, mostly delivered by VP Cheney in that Darth Vader-esque style of his. Could it be that the threat levels and threat talk gets boosted for political reasons? Some have suggested as much. I agree with them.
Several commentators have recently recalled FDR’s famous line during WWII - The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. Perhaps that sentiment suggests that our leaders were more courageous back in those days, when the threat - from Hitler himself (a pretty darn scary guy with a real ARMY supporting him and the goal to take over the world) - was at least as serious as it is today. Probably a lot more so.
Comment by: Mike O
13Absolutely! On that point we can agree. But let’s bring this back to the Lutheran topic that started it - the topic of the church using scare tactics, paranoia and fear to get people to follow.
Again, on that point I can agree … the church HAS done that. And Christians, likely becuase they were raised in that church, do it without even realizing it. Because we see a threat that we believe is real - hell - what would you have us do, knowing that people won’t believe us?
Then this manifests itself in non-adherants not liking that message, or the tactics, and doing what *they* think is right by trying to convince people of *that* threat (that threat being the church trying to manipulate the people through fear). And I think that may be where the church sees people working against it, or to quote Eliza in her original post …
So if there’s paranoia, it may be justified or even self-inflicted. But that doesn’t change the validity of the original perceived threat - hell.
Do the political motivations of the Bushites make the reality of the threat any more or less real? I don’t think so … the threat is either real or it’s not. Parlaying that into political leverage may be wrong … it may not be … but it doesn’t change the validity/non-validity of the message.
I’ll give you that it is often used manipulatively, and the paranoia may be a self-inflicted wound. But the way I see it, warning people about an impending danger … regardless of whether or not they’ll hear it … is something you do for people you love. And in this case, IF the church could preach it’s message motivated by love, would that make it better?
Comment by: Eliza
14Mike O, these are very good points. One thing I’ve learned at OTM is to appreciate (or, try) that believers are very concerned about the fate of us nonbelievers. I know it may seem incredible that there are those who just don’t realize what a grave danger they face, & who won’t take the basic steps to protect themselves, and I know that you care. (I’m referring to Hell, not to the threat of terrorism. The latter we can agree is out there.)
For me, personally, imo, BICBW, etc etc, my skepto-meter is set off by 2 things:
(1) When the information that there is an incredible threat, but also a route to an incredibly wonderful alternative, all comes from one source, my skepto-meter hits red-line. I’d like to have some kind of independent verification (some other source that can reliably convince people who don’t already believe the bad news).
It’s like hearing or reading “I’m telling you, you have a fatal disease that you wouldn’t otherwise know about, at least not in time to cure, and I’ve got the only cure, and you can’t listen to what anyone else besides me says about this.” Red-line, for me. I want a second opinion, CT scan, something besides the one source. Perhaps to my own future detriment, you may say; yes, I think I have factored that in. I’m just using a very different set of assumptions as I calculate mentally how likely it is to come true.
(2) It occurred to me in a recent class session that portraying our earthly existence as debased, awful, etc, sets up a “grass is greener on the other side” dichotomy with the afterlife, for believers. I’ve lived 43 years, & I look around, & I wouldn’t have described things as being as awful as the pastor does. (Sure, it’s not perfect. Whatever.) So, skepto-meter goes off again, where’s the independent source of information to verify this, does the church depend on convincing people of this, etc.
And is seems quite possible that being repeatedly told that life on earth is awful convinces people to see it this way, and to yearn for the gleaming, perfect alternative that the one source assures us is there. It’s interesting that we know nothing about what Heaven would/will actually be like - people have different conceptions of it, & there are really no details given, & noone (to my knowledge) has come back to report on what it was like. (Yes, I know Paul writes about someone, maybe himself, who went to third heaven & came back. But that’s in the same source…)
Comment by: Karen
15Mike, I mentioned the political maneuvering of the present administration only as a comparison point to what Eliza was talking about, because there seem to me to be some similarities. But it probably was a poor comparison, given that politics always brings up a lot of side issues that cloud the discussion.
I think we’re talking about different things here, and perhaps I misunderstood Eliza’s original comments.
What I got from Eliza’s report: the pastor comes across as paranoid when he portrays the church as constantly under siege from “the world” that hates it. Yet we live in a society that’s overwhelmingly Christian, with elected officials who overwhelmingly position themselves as Christians (particularly those currently in power), where Christian culture, music, preaching, evangelism and influence are inescapable and hugely powerful.
That pastor may have been talking mainly about spiritual siege in a more supernatural realm, but that victimhood mentality (”the church is under persecution!”) is often used by certain Christian groups in the U.S. very effectively to boost membership and financial donations. It puts people in a seige mentality where they feel they need to withdraw from society, and that leads to a whole host of other things that I think are unfortunate for everyone involved.
That’s what I was talking about. That may not have been what the Lutherans were saying, however.
Comment by: Rachel
16I completely agree, Karen. And it is SO disrespectful to the great many of our fellow human beings who actually DO suffer horribly for their religious or political beliefs. Listening to pampered American Christians whine about the “persecution” they suffer has long been a pet peeve of mine.
Comment by: Helen
17Rachel wrote:
Mine too, Rachel. It seems so ungrateful when they do that.
Comment by: Mike O
18I guess I get that. That’s the benefit I see to me talking to non-Cs - that thought makes perfect sense and it would have never occured to me or the people I associate with. It’s a good point.
Amen to that, sister!
I was reading Luke this morning, and in Chapter 21 I came across a passage where Jesus’ disciples area asking what will be the signs of the end times, and he says this:
I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, and I probably shouldn’t quote scripture out of context like that, but the point is, it’s not a mentality that the churches made up. Jesus himself started it. In fact, I can’t think of any off-hand, but there are probably prophecies in the old testament to that same point.
I just ask that you don’t go overboard on this passage … I only bring it up here because it applies - Christianity is not a “paranoid” gospel.
At least it’s not supposed to be.
Comment by: Rachel
19You make a good point, Mike. Jesus did predict persecution for his followers. And many down through the centuries have suffered for their faith, from believers killed in the Roman Coliseum in the first century to believers tortured and imprisoned in North Korea in the twenty-first century. But that is simply NOT the experience of American Christians today.
There are Scripture passages, including the Revelation of John, which are directed to Christ followers suffering oppression and which encourage them to persevere and remain hopeful in the face of great trials. And there are Scripture passages directed at Christ followers who have power and privilege, warning them about the dangers of pride, violence and materialism and urging them to use their resources to do justice and to care for the needy.
American Christians are in the second category. But rather than hear and accept the challenging words directed at the wealthy and powerful, we have preferred to fancy ourselves in the first category.
Comment by: JG
20I agree. I can’t comment on the Amercian scene but as a general principle, I believe persecution can take different forms though persecution is perhaps not the best phrase to use.
“Persecution” can take place within the church rather than being from outside. So taking Rachel’s point, if someone seeks to challenge the established order, the pride, violence, materialism etc, that message does not always go down very well. And this can have consequences for those who seek to bring such a message.
Comment by: Stephan
21He’s a PK (Pastor’s Kid), and he never realyy rebelled against it, but when anyone talked to him about becoming a pastor he said, “That’s my dad, not me.” He really loves his role now and fits it very well.
My church is actually rather odd this way. We have had several members elevated to ministry positions (myself included) for a time, and then they go back to being members of the congregation. We have at least four former staff members that still attend the church, and five current staff members who were hired out of the congregation. One person (who has off and on been the music leader (he and I are now job-sharing the position)) jokingly said we are the Hotel California of churches - “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave”.
My mother once met a Christian from Africa who said he prayed for American Christians every day and felt very bad for them. He said, “How can you trust God when you don’t live with a lion outside your door?” We as Christians really don’t have much to fear here other than complacency.