The Glorious Church

It has been almost five years now since a group of us started meeting weekly in a house in one of the suburbs of Bloemfontein.

We have never had a name or the need for one. In fact, we have been highly suspicious of church names since the outset (See related blog posts here and here).

Recently I decided to do a blog for our fellowship, and so I was faced with the dilemma of a name. There was only one that I could truly embrace, that accurately reflected what I had come to learn and believe about the glorious church of Jesus Christ over the past 3 decades of my life: The church’s name is… The Church.

Of course I mean “Church” in the sense of the Biblical “Ekklesia”, that is, the “Assembly” or “Gathered Community”. I certainly do not mean it in any one of the other ways sources like Webster define it, such as “a building for public Christian worship”, or “a religious service in such a building”, or “a Christian denomination”.

Some of us appear to have a need to read more into this word than what the New Testament means by it. The error is quite understandable. Apart from the words that we use on this planet to speak about the Godhead, it is the single richest word in existence. Of course such a word calls for scrutiny and exploration. Of course it seeks an expression that will truly reveal its essence. Of course it calls for all kinds of synonyms.

But in doing so we need to go deeper, not wider. Such a word can never be expanded. It has to be expounded. And you are not doing so if you use adjectives like “First”, “St. John” or “Shekinah”. Even “Covenant” and “Grace” do more to detract from the glory of this word than add to it. If you choose to highlight one attribute associated with the Ekklesia you inevitably make the others fade into the background. Church names, like idols, have the habit of turning on you in the end.

There are great synonyms in Scriptures for the Ekklesia, such as “the wife of the Lamb”, “temple”, “body” and so on. These will take you deeper, not wider, and they should be reserved for that purpose. There are others, too, and even if you manage to fit all of them on the sign outside your building, they will still mean nothing to the casual observer. To truly understand something of the church’s nature requires the best part of a lifetime, which means you can save yourself the trouble of trying to provide a synopsis by cramming a selection of her attributes into a name.

There is no name more beautiful to me than my wife’s, for it represents to me all that she is. She need not be called The First Glorious Revien Beautiful Wife Mother Lover of the Cedars of Lebanon (yes, she descends from there), for I know her to be all those things. I may whisper them to her, but I have no need to see them printed in her passport. This knowledge is reserved for those who are close to her.

Less is more, we often say, and this is truer about the name of the church than most anything else. Writers know that one of the golden rules of their trade is to never overstate the obvious. In fact, you should hardly ever state anything that your readers can figure out for themselves. Don’t preempt the mystery. Don’t rob them from the exhilaration of the quest and the glow of discovery. Refrain from the temptation to mediate the revelation. Trust God’s Spirit to decode their parables.

And so we adopted the only naming convention that we can find in the Bible. We called ourselves “The Church in Bloemfontein”, followed by the street address of the house where we meet. We make it very clear on our blog that the name does not belong to us but to the body of Christ in Bloemfontein, that we are not the only church in Bloemfontein and certainly not more officially so than any other one of the local churches. The only distinction is the address, which is part of our name for the sake of maintaining the principle of locality.

We’re challenging others who meet like us to do the same, although we certainly won’t split hairs about it.

What do you think?

The Illusion of Assault

And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” Luke 9:52-56

There is much talk nowadays about doing “simple church”, and many of us are rejoicing about this. I remember a time when any such allusions were regarded as insubordinate, extreme and even heretical. But the times… well, you know the Bob Dylan song.

There’s just one problem: Shifts of this magnitude stir up lots of discussion, and, in the process, provide platforms for the disenchanted. And so we find ourselves with a new type of ally, namely those who have joined our ranks because they believe that they share a common enemy with us: The institutional church. There is a great danger here, and that is what I wish to address in this article.

For starters: Everybody knows (ok, should know) that sharing an adversary is a dangerous basis for unity. The euphoria of swopping trench tales eventually wears off, leaving us with an awkward alliance that we may not know how to escape from. For those of us who shared the actual trenches the illusion of camaraderie and the inevitable nostalgia is even greater.

Remember the episode where Frasier and his old buddy Woody Boyd spent a delightful evening catching up and exchanging stories from the old days? Frasier is tricked into thinking that the experience is authentic and indicative of a real and lasting friendship, and suggests a follow-up lunch at a Mexican diner the next day. But the thrill has evaporated, and afterwards Frasier is forced to admit that he no longer enjoys spending time with Woody. The reason? They have nothing in common except a few old stories. Frasier then faces the problem of communicating this to Woody without hurting his feelings. Whilst contemplating his dilemma he has to endure several more strained visits.

The episode is hilarious and tragic at the same time. It illustrates all too clearly what happens when people team up for the wrong reasons, and wrong reasons there are many. Nostalgia is one of them, especially the kind that comes from having bandaged one another’s wounds.

The Illusion of Assault

There is a way to escape the inevitable breakup, but it comes at a price. When people unite on the basis of a common enemy they can always sustain the cozy we-feeling by preserving the consensus that they are, in fact, still under attack. The illusion of assault, we can call it. It is a strategy that is employed, usually outside of awareness, when the benefits of coping with an assault begin to outweigh the ones associated with the cessation of the assault. Preserving buddyhood is a great reason for allowing your mind to treat you so treacherously, but there are, in fact, a myriad of reasons for keeping your enemies alive.

Take, for instance, the phenomenon of combat neurosis or, as it is oftentimes called, “shell shock”. The soldier who returns from war, but dives under a table and draws his gun every time a vehicle backfires in the street, feels more secure expecting to be attacked than he does enjoying the safety of his hometown. It is in his interest to hold on to the illusion that the battle is far from over as he cannot imagine himself without the comfort of the coping mechanisms acquired during the experience that almost cost him his life. Without a threat these nifty survival tactics become dispensable, hence the illusion of assault. It is not unheard of to miss the smell of Napalm in the morning.

Victims of abuse oftentimes do the same. Instead of assessing those around them realistically they prefer to see them as extensions of their abusers, even sabotaging relationships and invoking conflict to prove the point. Or they find themselves attracted to partners who display the very tendencies they have fled from in previous disastrous relationships.

There is a security in knowing how to protect oneself. There is also an addictive element to the relief and elation that comes from surviving a harrowing ordeal, and so it is not difficult to understand why some survivors develop a psychological need to be exposed to further assault.

Having said this, let me add that post-traumatic stress disorder is a much more complex phenomenon than that which I have described above. It is not my aim to minimize the severe challenges faced by survivors of war and abuse. Rather, it is too create a parable by borrowing an element associated with the psychology of defense and survival.

When the Struggle Becomes an End in Itself

In my own home country of South Africa we are currently seeing an even purer display of the illusion of assault than those mentioned above. The struggle against Apartheid is something of the past, yet a number of prominent contemporary activists insist on singing the old struggle songs and shouting rhetoric such as “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” at their political gatherings, and this they do at the obvious dismay of thousands of farmers who have to cope with an epidemic of farm murders that have swept the country in recent years.

Why? There are a number of reasons, but an important one is that struggles such as the South African one brings with them a lot more than the prospect of political liberation. They also bring brotherhood, sacrifice, martyrdom, clandestine meetings, hope, anticipation, exhilaration, adoration of the saints in exile and prison, and so on. Heck, who would want to trade that for the non-eventfulness of serving under a democratically elected government, especially if the streets are crime ridden and you are jobless? And so the illusion of assault is employed to preserve the spirit of the struggle and to keep up the hope of a better tomorrow. But this can only happen when the old enemy is caricaturized as a current threat that has to be resisted. Even though the Boer and farmer no longer pose the same threat to the oppressed masses as they did decades ago, the controversial slogans suggest that they do.

Again, I am not denying that a people’s liberation involves much more than a democratic election, or that it takes a lot of time and effort to mend the effects of past injustices. What I am suggesting is that it is inappropriate to do so with a spirit of militancy that belonged to a period that many would describe as a war.

The Curse of Apologetics

This brings me back to the topic under discussion: The church of Jesus Christ, especially as she is busy emerging worldwide. There is a rising global awareness that the best adjectives to describe her are ones like “organic”, “simple” and “relational”. Whilst the new Christianity is by no means a homogenous movement with a uniform agenda or belief system, it is certainly true that an increasing number of fellowships are discovering that all efforts to escape institutionalism are doomed unless they lead to, and find their culmination in Jesus Christ. And so the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ are coming back into focus in many churches worldwide, so much so that one can only ascribe it to the gracious work of the Holy Spirit.

Many of the people involved in these fellowships, and even leading them, have never seen the insides of a theological seminary. This is no tragedy as their peculiar focus on Jesus Christ, prayer and the Scriptures more than compensates for their lack of theological training. Like Peter and John, the fact that they are common and uneducated is irrelevant as it is clear that they are companions of Christ.

It is clear, then, that the emergence of this radiant bride calls for a new type of reflection. Theologies that were constructed to assist us with the business of institutionalism will only work up to a point for her, and sometimes they won’t work at all (My seminary textbook on liturgical processes during the Pentecostal church service is a case in point). This is true for each one of the classical theological disciplines, but it is especially true in the field of apologetics.

Why? For two reason. Firstly, Apologetics is the one discipline that depends heavily on an enemy for its existence. The name says it all. Derived from the Greek apologia, which means to “speak in defense”, it is known as the “discipline of defending a position”. Think about this for a moment. We have a ministry of defense right in our theological backyard. But also think about the implications. If the business of defense produces fringe benefits, as we have seen, it places us in a precarious position. The church is by no means immune to the illusion of assault. Our best witness is history itself.

Secondly, our vulnerability in this regard is not merely circumstantial to Christianity’s sad history of division and institutionalism. It is causal. To say so is not to radically oversimplify an extremely complex issue. Rather, the observation is based on the nature of Christianity itself. What distinguishes Christianity from other ideologies and religions is the way in which it addresses itself to the issues of retaliation and revenge, and this includes defense.

Christianity could just as well be called the art of response. Get this wrong, and the whole thing falls apart. But more about this a little later.

Revolting for Christ

The most famous incident in church history of “speaking in defense” took place on 31 October 1517, when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door in the university town of Wittenberg, protesting the selling of indulgences. To this day Protestants worldwide celebrate “Reformation Day” as an annual religious holiday. In many German states and even some countries, such as Slovenia and Chile, it is a national holiday. In fact, the very word Protestant was birthed during the events that flowed out of Luther’s protest. Derived from the Latin protestari, it means to publicly declare or protest.

This already raises a red flag. To call oneself a “Protestant” is to adopt a religious tag that speaks of resistance and defense. You are a “protester”, which makes one wonder what you will be if there is nothing left to protest against (Oops, I need an enemy to preserve my identity…). Of course not many Protestants reflect on this obvious logic, but that is indeed the implication. The word “Reformation” suffers from the same disease. It suggests a course of corrective action, a response to something gone wrong. But what if there is nothing left to reform? Yet the term is almost consecrated in some circles, as though the true church was born in 16th century Germany.

This, of course, is sheer nonsense. The Protestant Reformation, or “Revolt”, as it is often known, was a legitimate and necessary response to a sick movement that masqueraded as the church of Jesus Christ. But that is all it was. It did not usher in a new golden era of revolution that was intended to last until the second coming. Neither did it add a spice to the business of doing church that had been missing up to that point. Yet that is the message that is often conveyed.

Confusing Form for Content

The error is understandable. The Reformation created a subculture that introduced a multitude of people to the realities of grace, the accessibility of Scripture, the priesthood of the believer (well, up to a certain point) and so on. Can you blame anyone for wanting to fiercely protect a discovery of this magnitude? Of course not. The problem arises when the form of the thing is confused with its content, when the rediscovered realities of Christ is thought to be somehow connected with the idea of the Reformation, or with Luther, or with the distinctive Calvinistic theology that emerged out of the soil of protest against Rome.

To make this connection is to bestow divinity on things that are finite, which happens to sound chillingly similar to a textbook definition of idolatry. The problem with idols is that they are lifeless, and that their novelty wears off before you can say totem pole. And so idol worshippers are forever pressed to come up with gimmicky ad-ons to keep their dopamine levels at bay. This explains why so many religions eventually go the route of sex, drugs, rock and roll and human sacrifice. It also explains why so much of contemporary Christianity is… contemporary. But most of all it explains why so many of us religious people have a deep psychological need for an enemy. As we will see in a moment, defense is a religion in and of itself. Nothing raises dopamine like a good fight, and so, of all the religious gimmicks in the world, this one comes out on top. Add it to the most mundane of all sects and you will soon have a revival on your hands.

The problem with the Reformation, however, is bigger than the mere burden of keeping its stowaways alive. It’s also bigger than the accompanying temptation to employ the illusion of assault in order to do so. The problem with the Reformation is that it was birthed out of a reaction to begin with. The idea of assault was not an afterthought, or a mere fine method to put some sparkle back into a revival that had fizzled out. No, it was a reality, and a very real one at that, right from the first thud of Martin’s hammer on the Castle Church’s door. And so the dynamics associated with defense and survival provided momentum to the whole Reformational adventure from the word “GO!”

The result was more damaging than we realise, not only for those who associated themselves with the Reformation but for the whole of Protestantism (there’s the word again), and that includes you and I. The glorious liberties of grace and all its accompaniments came to be associated with the Reformers and their theology, as we have noted. But worse than that, this entire unnecessary association merged itself with the idea of defense. To think of grace, faith and the Scriptures was to think of Luther, and to think of Luther was to think of a God-inspired revolt. Freeze Luther’s frame and the background will freeze with it. There you’ll see a Pope who is the Antichrist and a few heretics smoldering at the stake. Naturally, for you cannot sustain the spirit of the revolt apart from its enemies. And so you’ll need the Pope to remain the Antichrist and the heretics to remain on the grill for your reformation to remain a reformation.

This game gets really involved. Watch carefully and you will see something else in the background. You will see your fellow protesters who were fighting for the cause, and you will wonder about those who are absent. You will especially wonder about their spirituality, or the lack of it. They do not participate in your revolt and so they are not to be seen in your frame. They are not fighting your war, and so they are not allies and certainly not comrades. They do not speak the language that you speak. They do not understand where the real threat is and nothing about the solution. Oh, they are welcome to enlist, but they must first come for a briefing. A rather intense one. And what if they are unwilling? Or if they drop out during basic training? Well, as the Scriptures say, those who are not for us are against us (Jesus did say that somewhere, didn’t he?). Point is: In your mind those who do not share in the form of things will appear to be missing out on their essence. You have confused the two, remember?

There have been millions of Christians throughout the centuries who discovered the Scriptures without Luther, God’s sovereignty apart from Calvin and absolute grace without predestination. That is not a problem, and it should not be one. There is no need to enlist these believers as co-apologists for our cause by baptizing them in the rhetoric that have become so indistinguishable (in our minds) from the actual issues. If they have the Scriptures and the Spirit of Christ they already are that. They don’t need the buzzwords and insignia as proof.

And just in case Reformed Christians think I’m picking on them, there are millions of Christians who have discovered holiness apart from Wesley, the gifts of the Spirit apart from Pentecostalism, the locality of the church apart from Watchman Nee and, believe it or not, water without the Baptists. Must these souls be briefed in order to obtain the fullness of their discovery? By now you should know the answer.

But there is another angle to all of this, and here it gets really ugly.

Inflatable Shermans

The other day I found myself staring at a picture of the legendary M4 Sherman tank. These impenetrable pieces of armour were used extensively during World War II, and contributed greatly to the Allied forces’ victory.

There was only one problem. The one in my picture could not drive, or shoot, or even withstand the smallest piece of shrapnel. It was inflatable, you see. A big piece of nothing filled with hot air, ready to pop at the slightest scuffle, good for nothing except perhaps a children’s party.

Not quite. These dummy tanks were just as important during the war as the real Shermans. Examples abound, but one stands out: The legendary landings of the Allied forces at the beaches of Normandy was preceded by a deception operation, codenamed Operation Fortitude, during which the illusion was created that the main invasion of France would occur in Scandinavia and the Pas de Calais rather than Normandy. To accomplish this, inflatable rubber tanks and other military decoys were strategically deployed where German intelligence could spot them. Hitler fell for the deception and prepared his Panzer units accordingly. In fact, he was so convinced by the facade that he initially mistook the actual invasion at Normandy as a diversionary tactic. The operation succeeded beyond anybody’s wildest dreams.

Dummy tanks represent everything that real armour is not. They cannot harm or shield anyone, and they are easy to destroy. Yet they are formidable and indispensable weapons of war. Is there a contradiction in there somewhere? Not at all. The first thing you want to do with expensive military equipment in a war zone is to conceal it. And the best way to conceal it is to create the illusion that it, and your troops, are somewhere else. It is one of the oldest tricks in the book, which is why the enemy of Christendom uses it so effectively. A fake enemy leads to a fake defense, diverting the troops from the real enemy.

Here we are touching on a question that may have been lingering in the back of your mind since you started reading this article, especially if the idea of laying down your weapons makes you feel uncomfortably vulnerable: Does the illusion of assault imply that the church no longer has enemies, is not under attack and need not be vigilant? Of course not. It simply means that we run the risk of seeing them where they are not. And once that happens we become extremely vulnerable to a second, greater error, namely not seeing them where they are. We have become fixated with dummy tanks, and the real ones are loading their guns while our backs are turned to them. The illusion of assault is more than a silly waste of time. It is Satan’s most effective diversionary tactic.

The Primacy Effect

Let me illustrate by asking you a simple question. When I say the word “devil”, what image pops into your mind? Perhaps, like me, you will see Hot Stuff, the mischievous little red devil with his diaper, pointed tail and pitchfork. The reason why this particular slide imposes itself on me every time I hear the word is that it was the first one ever presented to me, and you know what they say about first impressions (or the “primacy effect”, if you are a cognitive psychologist).

But there is a problem with my picture. Trace its origin and you are not going to end up in the pages of the Bible, but in the fertile mind of legendary Harvey Comics illustrator Warren Kremer. The problem with Kremer’s creation, and other similar classic Harvey Comics titles, such as Casper the friendly Ghost, Spooky and Wendy the Good Little Witch, is not that they expose innocent children to the horrible world of devils, spirits and witches, as concerned parents oftentimes fear, but that they introduce children to a world that has absolutely nothing to do with any of these things. And so, by having received a substitute, our kids become blinded to the real. Note that the substitute does not need to be evil, and that it can even be cute, for the real evil is to be found in the diversionary tactic.

We may convince ourselves that we have not been conned, but most of us simply think further along the same lines until we come up with an image of Satan that looks like the cover of Uriah Heep’s 1982 album Abominog. Look carefully and you’ll see that it’s still Hot Stuff, the red horned devil with the pointy ears. You are now an adult, but you are still looking at the dummy, not the real thing. And you are, most probably, protecting yourself and your children against the dummy, not against the real thing. To protect them from Satanism is to keep them away from the tattooed kids with their black clothes and heavy metal music, not from the influence of their Uncle Bill who is an elder and also a racist. Uncle Bill may very well be the embodiment of evil, in the same class as the religious leaders to whom Christ said “you are of your father the devil”, but you are oblivious as your definition of evil has already been taken. Like Hitler, you are so enamored by inflatable Shermans that you have withdrawn all your troops from the place where the attack is actually going to take place. Sad to say, you are going to lose the war…

On a Positive Note

All is not lost. Earlier I mentioned that Christianity could just as well be called the art of response, and in closing I would like to elaborate on this. Our salvation and deliverance is to be found in this single insight. Taken to its logical conclusion it will protect us from the illusion of assault and from all the decoys of the enemy.

Christ modeled the art of response through his death on a cross, a death that he could easily have avoided by using the most basic of defense strategies. Yet he did not, and by commanding us to take up our crosses and follow him, he commands us to respond to our enemies in a very particular way – as he did to his. Not retaliatory, but gracefully. Grace is more than being forgiven. It is to respond in love when no such love has been earned. It is to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you and turn the other cheek. This is the example of Christ, and we are commanded to follow in his steps.

Note the words of Peter, as well as the implication that this most fundamental tenet of our faith has on our defense of it:

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly… Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing… But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

At the heart of Christianity lies the art of defense, that is, responding to those who threaten, intimidate and even attack you. The illusion of assault, more than anything else, brings with it the potential to interfere with this process. It provides the enemy access to the nerve center of your faith.

The Serpent’s Promise

Perhaps some illumination is necessary at this point. The Christian’s duty not to retaliate does not mean that there is no retaliation. It simply means that the retaliation does not come from the Christian. Why? Because it comes from God. Retaliation is God’s prerogative, not ours. As we read in the letter to the Romans:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The message is clear. When we “repay” we are trespassing on God’s territory. To take vengeance is to play God. Whatever we wish to accomplish through the law of tit-for-tat, God says he will accomplish in his own manner. To interfere with this process is a form of unrighteous self-exaltation.

Think about this for a moment. At the heart of the first sin, and every single sin that issued forth from it, lies a single motive: To be like God. This was Satan’s sin, and it was Adam’s. Adam identified himself with the satanic nature through his endeavor to be like God. Christ, the last Adam, did exactly the opposite. As we read in the letter to the Philippians, he “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” His obedience masterfully illustrates the reversal of the curse associated with stolen godhood.

With the satanic temptation came a promise: You shall surely not die. This statement was no coincidence, nor a mere refutation of God’s statement that disobedience would cause death, the aim being to dispel any hesitance, fear or doubt on the humans’ side. Rather, the serpent’s second statement elaborates on his first one. These words describe the very essence of divinity: Eternal life. This was the coveted reward associated with Satan’s offer to “be like God.” Become like God and live forever. Become like God and preserve your life.

Here we finally uncover the reason behind the universal need for defense. The almost addictive quality associated with the act of defense, the heady feeling of oneness with co-defenders, the magic atmosphere of the aftermath; all of these can be explained in five words: You shall surely not die. Most importantly, the fanatic religious zeal that so often accompanies the act of defense is explained by these words. In the final analysis, defense is a spiritual exercise, a religion. As in the case of virtually all religions, its aim is immortality.

All of this would have been quite acceptable, were it not for the fact that those five words were never uttered by God. They came from Satan, which tells us something about the true nature of defense. This does not mean that the quest for immortality is inherently flawed, or that those who seek it are evil. Not at all. It simply means that immortality was never intended to be our problem. We were never meant to carry the burden of preserving our lives.

Let’s think about that for a moment. The essence of divinity is eternal life, as we noticed a moment ago. This life is in God alone. It exists in him, not as a quality that he has, but as the essence of who he is. That is what makes God God. And so Satan’s promises, that we shall “be like God” and “surely not die”, are one and the same promise.

The point is that we were not placed on this planet to seek eternal life, and the reason has just been stated. Eternal life does not exist apart from God, and so it cannot be pursued as a thing in itself. Seeking eternal life without seeking God is like trying to be full without eating. It is really an extremely futile exercise. The only possible way out of the dilemma is to play God, and while that may be nice as a game, it is a waste of time as a means to immortality. We are not gods. We are life receivers. We need the Deity to breath into our nostrils. Without receiving life from God we are mere dust. That is where we come from and that is where we will return.

That’s rather a depressing conclusion, and so the effort to make Satan’s words believable has dominated the history of the human race. I do not need to prove this point. More able commentators have already done so. The one work that stands out in this regard is the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. Ironically, Becker did not write as a Christian or to confirm the Christian thesis. It is an unbiased and objective assessment of humanity’s greatest predicament and their obsessive efforts to escape from it, and herein is its authority. Becker offers no real answers, which is the way it should be. There are no answers, except the maxim that God is life and that immortality can only be found in him. He is our defense, and once we realize this we can lay down our arms. That is the point. When we do defend our faith it is a very different type of defense to the one that is associated with the will to survive. It is the defense spoken of by Peter and Christ. It does not have victory as its aim, but service.

The church has been deceived in this area time and again throughout her history. In the name of defense she has become the harlot, not the bride, with her cup filled with the blood of the saints. Christ’s prophecy that “an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God” has seen fulfillments ad nauseam. The exhilaration of the battle never had anything to do with God to begin with. It was and is purely psychological. To win is to be number one, and to be number one is to survive, to be immortal, to become one with your fellow survivors. Ever wondered why you feel so strangely alive each time your favourite team scores a goal?

It is a sad fact, but one that we may not deny. Our church history is oftentimes nothing but the history of our collective combat neurosis. In South Africa we use the word “bossies” (Afrikaans for “bushes”), derived from the Angolan “Bush War” of the eighties and nineties and referring to the soldiers who came back home with a strange look in the eye. Like many of these men, we end up abusing our own family. Like them, we have left the war, but the war has not left us. We only feel alive when we fight, and so that is what we do, justifying it under the banner of “defending the faith”.

It is for this reason that we need to rethink this issue. The Bride of Christ, as she is busy emerging worldwide, has no share in any of this, and that is why we need no allies in our ranks who are there because they are angry or because they think we share a common enemy with them. No, the bride is not interested. She does not join the crusades. She does not lead the inquisition. She does not approve of Michael Servetus’ murder. She does not declare drowning the third baptism and “the best antidote to Anabaptism.” She does not experience any schadenfreude when she learns that a money-hungry televangelist’s marriage is falling apart. She does none of this.

Contemporary examples of the above abound, and they are too many to mention. But I’ll give you just one. I am not a particularly great fan of Benny Hinn, for a number of reasons. But one of them is not his belief that there are nine people in the Trinity. Even though he actually preached this during a sermon in October 1990, he later recanted. Yet the internet is full of websites using his initial statement as evidence that he is a heretic, without any reference to his retraction. There is one term for this: False testimony. It is a sin and it should be repented from. Christ’s bride has no part in this either.

She does none of the above and she has no part in any of the thousands of atrocities that have falsely been committed in her name. No, she follows her Lord and Husband who prayed with his last breath for his persecutors. She does this, because she has learned from him that to lose your life is to save it.

Do we want to be part of her? Then this is the lesson we must learn.

PS: The picture of the tank fooled you, didn’t it?

The Agelesness of the Gospel

The little front wave ran up on the sand
and frothed there, wildly elated
“I am the tide,” said the little front wave
“And the waves before me are dated!”
Simeon Stylites

There was a time, not too long ago, when it was fashionable to accuse evangelicals in the West of having holier-than-thou attitudes. The charge was intended to convey condemnation, not praise, and was sometimes deserved (when religious arrogance and spiritual pride were referred to) and other times not (when serious efforts at sanctification caused the offense). Whatever the case, it seems that those days are disappearing. A more accurate description of current evangelical attitudes would be “trendier-than-thou”. “Hipness” is now seen as a greater spiritual accomplishment than holiness, and to be cool is better than to be consecrated.

As Society goes, so goes the church…

Theological shifts of this magnitude do not take place in a vacuum, of course. Evangelicals have seen a number of them over the past few decades, and almost without exception they have occurred as a result of mind shifts in the secular environment. “As society goes, so goes the church,” observes Michael Horton in Made in America, his landmark book on modern American evangelicalism. We could add “As the American church goes, so goes the church in South Africa”, which is why Horton’s book should be read by every serious evangelical in our country, and especially by ministers and seminary students.

Horton is not the only author of note who has documented the Christian church’s history of tagging behind the world like a little brother following in the gang’s footsteps. In the late sixties Francis Schaeffer wrote The God Who Is There and Escape From Reason, showing us how trends in secular philosophy have shaped and reshaped theological thinking over the centuries. Neil Postman famously pointed out in Amusing Ourselves To Death how the “Age of Show Business” replaced the “Age of Exposition” toward the end of the nineteenth century, and how this transition influenced the Protestant concept of the worship service. Dan McConnell’s A Different Gospel exposed the modern Word Faith Movement by revealing that its initiators were merely aping the early mind-over-matter gurus and founders of what became the positive thinking movement, and that they have never had a theological leg to stand on.

And so it goes on. The materialistic eighties gave us the prosperity movement, the emancipation movement preceded the drive to allow women into the ministry and the homosexual hot potato landed in the lap of the church after the world had grown tired of passing it around.

The Drive to be Relevant: Spiritual or Carnal?

When we look at these examples our understanding of how worldliness operates in the church is broadened, but we also begin to see through a modern myth, namely the belief that the current obsession amongst evangelicals to be relevant for their target audience is a spiritual one. As in each of the cases mentioned above, the roots of this particular new fashion are undeniably secular and carnal, and have been well documented not by hysterical critics of the church growth movement, but by astute scholars like Marshall MacLuhan, Christopher Lasch, Neil Postman and others. When we study the works of these men it becomes glaringly obvious that the origins of the new Christianity can be traced not to the teaching of Christ and the apostles, but to the marketing revolution of the previous century that gave us modern advertising and the dreaded television commercial. This was when the customer became king, when product research became market research and, as Postman has pointed out, when advertising oriented business away from making products of value towards making consumers feel valuable.

In church terms we could say that the audience became sovereign, an ecclesiastical paradigm shift of gigantic proportions clearly articulated by the World Council of Churches’ pronouncement in 1966: “The world must set the agenda for the church.” The world has been more than happy to do this, and so was birthed the notion that the gospel must be packaged differently for each segment and subculture of society according to their particular preferences. This has led to a fascination with terms such as Generation X, Boomers, Busters and so on. Each generation needs to be studied, understood and approached differently, we are told, or the gospel won’t have any effect on them.

And so we find ourselves with a philosophy of ministry that changes as often as its temperamental audience, with the average minister finding it impossible to keep up. Naturally, we also find ourselves with a new kind of ministerial elite, for those who do manage to keep up are the new pundits, cutting-edge possessors of information needed by the rest of us to do ministry effectively.

A Subtle Substitution at a High Price

Perhaps this is a good time to remind ourselves of Screwtape’s devious advice to his understudy, Wormwood: “If they must be Christians, let them be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing. The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart.” It seems that Wormwood has been busy lately.

We could join the world and bow before the god of novelty, yes. We could confess that newer is better and spend our ministerial lives feverishly chasing after each trend, fashion and new wave. But when we do this, let us remind ourselves that what is deemed most relevant in theology is often moldy in a few days, as Thomas Oden has wisely cautioned. And let us not forget Dean Inge’s chilling warning: He who marries the spirit of the age will soon find himself a widower.

Centuries ago, Vincent of Lérins expressed the standard of Christian orthodoxy as “that which has been believed everywhere and always by everyone.” His words remind us that the gospel is ageless and exalted above the tides of change in this world. It has never been fashionable, and it cannot go out of fashion. Like its Author, it is the same yesterday, today and forever.

(This article was first published in Baptists Today)

Elders: A Natural View

One of the first things a person has to do when rethinking the idea of “church” is to seriously reconsider what the Bible means when it speaks about “elders”. The two concepts are intertwined and inseparable, and so there are as many views on eldership as there are on church.

This is a huge topic and I can only touch on it here, but I believe that a few basic principles can make the world of difference in how we approach this subject. The same applies to a myriad of other fuzzy church issues, and so my aim is not only to make a remark or two about the issue of recognising an elder but to suggest where one should start when thinking about such issues.

Two Vital Distinctions

Where does one start? I often say to people that early Christians had two things that we do not have in our day and age, and I believe it is vital that we see this before attempting to shift from an institutionalised form of Christianity to a natural one (which happens to be what this blog is all about):

1. Early Christians did not have any books or how-to-manuals manuals on doing “organic church”. This makes sense if you consider what the term “organic” or “natural” means. Fish do not need to earn degrees in ocean population at the Oceanographic Institute, as some of us are finally figuring out, but neither do they need lectures on organic fish life. What they need is the nature of a fish.

2. Early Christians did not have two thousand years of church tradition to contend with. Their church experience began at point zero, and so it could not be anything but natural. Their collective dedication to prayer, teaching, fellowship and the breaking of bread was a spontaneous manifestation of the Christ life within. They were not following a liturgical pattern and they were not trying to regain something they had lost. They were just BEING. We, on the other hand, have some serious unlearning to do before we can start our race. We are like a group of marathon runners on a lost bus steered by a drunken driver in the back streets of a city we do not know. The race has begun, but we are not there. To do what we are called and equipped to do is simply not possible. Of course, we can rationalize our predicament: We can put on our running shoes, convince ourselves that we are moving in the right direction and even rejoice at the speed we are traveling with (no runner can equal this!). On the other hand, we can rise up, curse the driver, force the bus to a standstill, get out, vow to never set foot on another bus and start walking or jogging (bound together by the camaraderie forged by our harrowing experience). Either way, we are not where we are supposed to be and we have not even begun to do what we are supposed to do.

There is much to be said about this, but that is not what I want to do here. The point that I want to make is that we, 2000 years down the line, need to first find our way back to the starting point of our race before we can start with it (no rocket science here!). This is our challenge, and from such a vantage point we may very well argue that we require a type of training that was unnecessary in the early church. I suspect that this is the very reason why someone like Frank Viola wrote Pagan Christianity before he wrote Reimagining Church and Finding Organic Church. The fish have been taught that they are scuba divers, and so, unlike their great ancestors, they need training (un-training?) to come to terms with their own identity.

Letting Go…

Once we grasp this, it becomes much easier to approach thorny issues such as eldership. If the first challenge is to rid ourselves of traditional ideas, than that is what we must do. If I close my eyes and think of the word “elder”, the first image that appears in my mind is one from my early childhood. I see a group of somber men, dressed in black suits and white ties, sitting in reserved pews in a front section of the traditional Reformed church my family and I attended. It is now decades later, but that picture still imposes itself on me and seeks to define what eldership is all about. And so I start my quest with a severe handicap.

Clearly I need to let go of this image before I can start my journey of discovering Biblical eldership. To try and erase such a powerful memory is futile, and so the best I can do is to stop believing in it as a legitimate portrayal of eldership. (This is no small task. If you struggle to question your own dearly held convictions, I highly recommend that you read Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. It is the best work I have read on the subject of challenging one’s own assumptions and opinions.) Once I have managed to do this I need to find my way to the starting point – to the place where the first Christians were when the race began. Only then can I begin my journey.

Back to Point Zero…

If you could travel back to first century Palestine and ask someone to do the exercise above (close your eyes, think of the word “elder”…), what image would come to his/her mind? The closest we can come to actually doing this is to find a contemporary culture that resembles the one in which the church was birthed. Like flies in amber, such cultures do exist in and around Palestine, frozen in time and unaffected by the events that have marked 2000 years of history in the “West”. It was in such a culture that the author J. van der Ploeg once asked an interesting question. In his own words:

In 1947, I asked an Arab priest from Beisan in Palestine, who was well-acquainted with the Arab nomads or semi-nomads, how one became an ‘elder’ of the tribe. He replied that he was not able to say, for there are no rules or laws to determine it. It seems that when a man reached the point where people often ask his counsel and he has the moral authority such as elders have, he is admitted by common, often tacit, consent into their ‘college’. So there is tacit admission into the group of elders, no nomination, nor application of a rule according to which one becomes an ‘elder’. The qualification is a man’s moral authority. It is my clear impression that a person became an elder in Israel in the same way, and this explains why our texts say little of it. (J. van der Ploeg, ‘Les Anciens dans l’Ancien testament, p190-191)

I suspect that this piece of information provides more insight into the question of electing church leadership than the majority of current books on the topic. It is not difficult to imagine how someone with the above understanding of eldership would have thought about a gathering of believers overseen by a group of elders. It is not difficult to conclude that that is exactly how the early church thought about eldership.

I have mentioned that there is much more to be said about the topic than this. My main aim is to provide a basic framework for reconsidering our presuppositions and getting back to Biblical ones; to think “naturally” again. We have to be guided by Scripture, but our premise must first be correct. The issue of eldership is but one example. There are many more.

Do you Speak Christianese?

…they shall call his name Immanuel which means, God with us. Matthew 1:23

It is ironic that some of Christendom’s greatest efforts to proclaim and exhibit God’s presence on earth have frequently caused exactly the opposite. God is usually obscured, rather than revealed, to the very degree that our religious attire, architecture, titles, music and language become strange and otherworldly. We then portray him not as “with us” but as distant, elusive and incomprehensible.

Our habit of speaking “Christianese” is a prime example. Like medieval ecclesiastical Latin, many of the terms that Christians use in everyday language is completely incomprehensible to people outside the church. Sadly, due to the fact that a number of Biblical Greek words were not translated into English but transliterated (the transcription of a word in one language into corresponding letters of another language without regard to the original meaning), Christians possess a distinct vocabulary that is gobbledygook to outsiders.

Consider the sentence: “A bishop and an apostle went to the church to speak to a pastor and a few deacons.” This sentence is not only unintelligible to a person untrained in religious language, but is also interpreted completely differently by people from different denominations. It is noteworthy that these terms had no religious connotation in the original Greek, but were everyday terms used to convey obvious meanings. And so a Greek simpleton in the first century would have understood the above sentence as “The supervisor and the delegate (or “sent one”) went to the gathering to speak to a herdsman and a few servants.”

The difference in meaning between the two sentences is astounding. The former is ambiguous whilst the latter portrays Christianity as a practical, functional, down-to-earth faith that calls for personal involvement.

God does not speak Christianese. He speaks in a way that we can all understand.

(Bloemnews 18 February 2011)

Judging Books by their Covers

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 2 Corinthians 4:5

According to an old saying one should never judge a book by its cover. Whilst this is true, one should also not ignore the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) messages that a book cover may convey. Sleazy magazines, for instance, can usually be judged by their covers.

With this in mind I cannot help but wonder about the fairly recent trend of putting full blown pictures of Christian authors on the covers of their books. If the aim of a book is to exalt Jesus Christ and him alone, why do I have to stare at the face of the author every time I pick up the book? Can you imagine Paul having his face painted on the scroll that contained the epistle to the Romans? Neither can I!

Reading James Chen’s transcribed talks in the remarkable little book The Passing of the Torch recently, I came across an interesting first-hand account that strengthened my misgivings. Chen, who was a friend of the well-known Chinese Christian Watchman Nee, said the following during one of his talks: “If Watchman Nee were here and if he heard me mentioning his name, he would be very unhappy. I feel I am saying too much about him. He never wanted anyone to exalt Watchman Nee more than Christ. He felt very deeply that his name should never take up even a little bit of the attention due the name of Jesus Christ. The Christians and the churches all over China, although they respected Watchman Nee, seldom mentioned his name – but they exalted Christ. Brother Watchman Nee was not our head, but Jesus Christ was our Head.”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

(Bloemnuus 10 December 2010)

What’s in a Name? II

The What’s in a Name post (January 2011) has attracted quite a bit of traffic and some thought-provoking discussion, and so I was inspired to dedicate my weekly newspaper column to the topic:

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus … to the church of God that is in Corinth. 1 Corinthians 1:1-2

In the city of Toronto there is a church with the name The St. Francis National Evangelical Spiritual Baptist Faith Archdiocese of Canada. And no, it is not the longest church name in the world. Ever heard of The House of God which is the Church of the Living God the Pillar and Ground of the Truth without Controversy, Inc? It’s in Ansonia, Connecticut, in case you want to pop in for a morning service.

If you don’t feel comfortable going to a church where the sign outside takes more space than the parking lot, you can always go to one of the trendy “emergent churches”. They have short hip names like Apex, Liquid, Quest and so on. Or, if you want something really unpretentious, you can pay a visit to the Scum of the Earth church in Denver, Colorado. These guys are not only humble; they want everyone to know it.

Can you imagine if Paul had to write Colossians 4:15-16 in our day and age? “Give my greetings to The True Holiness Divine Revelation Church of the Apostolic Succession and to Nympha and The Church of Our Lady Of Perpetual Succour. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in Touch Not My Anointed; and see that you also read the letter from Touch Not My Anointed” (No disrespect intended; these are all actual church names!)

Perhaps we can learn something from the churches of the New Testament. They had no names but were named according to locality, loudly proclaiming that their only identity was to be found in Christ and Christ alone.

(Bloemnuus 4 February 2011)

Jesus’ Prayer for Unity

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. John 17:11

Years ago I had the privilege of asking Dr John MacArthur (pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and one of the world’s most eminent Bible teachers) about the verse above. If Jesus Christ prayed for unity, I inquired, why is the church divided into so many factions? His response was simple and to the point: Jesus’ prayer was answered. Christians are united in Christ, regardless of the absence of any visible evidence to the fact.

I have always held a deep respect for John MacArthur, but his answer really did not satisfy me. Like many others, I simply could not believe that the unity that Christ had in mind was merely the mystical union of Christ’s body in “heavenly places”. Surely this unity was an obvious conclusion after Pentecost and did not need to be prayed into existence by Jesus? No, I was convinced that Jesus prayed for a practical, visible expression of the spiritual unity between Christians.

The main problem with my understanding of this issue has to with the seeming practical impossibility of it ever happening, which explains why many scholars are reluctant to accept it. Reformed Christians frown at Charismatics and call them happy-clappies, only to be called the frozen chosen in return. Catholic nuns have no desire to become fundamentalists, and so on. Denominations, it seems, are here to stay.

Yet it cannot be denied that millions of Christians worldwide are finding one another outside denominational boundaries on an unprecedented scale. Some prefer to remain in their churches, others are leaving in droves. Whilst European cathedrals are becoming museums, non-denominational house churches are mushrooming worldwide. This revolutionary new Christianity, it seems, is also here to stay.

So, instead of being critical, why don’t we rather ask: Is Jesus’ prayer being answered?

(Bloemnuus 9 January 2010)

Christ our Life

What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation… 1 Corinthians 1:30

When one studies the works of the great devotional Christian authors a common theme emerges: The centrality and sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Writers like Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, A.W. Tozer and Watchman Nee did not become famous because of great literary skills but because of their unswerving commitment to Jesus Christ. The title of one Nee book summarises it well: “Christ, the Sum of All Spiritual Things”.

Countless Christians have drawn the same conclusions as these writers without ever having read their books. The reason? They read the Bible, and the focal point of the Bible is Jesus Christ. The New Testament paints a much more comprehensive picture of Jesus Christ than the traditional ones that many of us have grown up with. For instance, millions of Christians have been taught that Christ died for us, but only a fraction of them realise that he also lives for us. As Paul wrote: “I live no longer but Christ lives his life in me” (Gal.2:20). Living by the life of Christ is what Christianity is all about. In Col. 3:4 we read that “Christ is our life” and in 2 Cor.4:10 that the life of Jesus must be manifested in our bodies.

This glorious truth does not only apply to our personal faith but also to its corporate expression. When Christians gather together they do so to manifest the life of Christ. The body of Christ under the headship of Christ must be made evident for Christ to be revealed, and this can only happen when all members are encouraged to share Christ.

Worldwide Christians are beginning to do this, with remarkable results, proving that the priesthood of all believers is not just a theological idea but a practical possibility.

(Bloemnuus  26 November 2010)

What’s in a Name?

Is it any coincidence that the first man-made religious effort in history included a building project, the desire for a name and a split soon afterwards? I think not. Paul Zietsman, who is part of a house church down in the Cape, sent me the following:

Something I have been pondering for a while:

Is “denomination” not the actual stronghold of the institutional church?

Why do I think thus?

To unite together under a name (except that of Christ) is a phenomenon of man which first reared its head at Babel:

And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower, and its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth. (Gen 11:4)

I realised that without a name:

You cannot register and own property…

You cannot open a bank account…

You cannot apply for authorisation or recognition of your organisation…

You cannot be taxed…

You cannot blow your own trumpet…

You cannot peddle your brand…

You cannot hold people together…unless there is a greater binding factor…

To put it the other way around….If you remove the name (denomination) the institutional church cannot exist, it will collapse overnight. No buildings, or bonds, no payroll, no bank account. There must be a registered name to be a recognised legal entity. The New Testament church existed and flourished without these entrapments (individuals in the church owned property, assets etc. but not the church). The NT church was never a “legal entity” and therefore it was impossible for even the Roman Empire to get a grip on them. That is why governments in the East Bloc and China all approve of the state-recognised churches. They are registered, can be prosecuted and controlled. You cannot outlaw something that does not even have a name. They can forbid gatherings (as they do in some countries) but they cannot get a grip on this – as they cannot get a grip on the underground church. But as soon as a name is registered (guess who approves registrations, and thus who has an unspoken hold and authority over the church…and who can then make laws that govern those organistaions who apply for approval and recognition…and then lawsuits can be filed, like Laurie Gaum sued the Dutch Reformed Church for ending his employment.) A name gives the powers of this world control.

So now we see churches trying to form a unity, and they can become “inter-denominational” but they cannot drop the names altogether, because then they will cease to exist.