Paul to the Galatians:
"I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another gospel, only that there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. Am I now seeking the favour of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. For I would have you know brothers that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man, for I neither received it from man nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." Gal 1:6-12
Speaking of his own country, the United States of America, Greg Boyd has this to say:
Traditionally,
Christians have believed that the Church is God’s main vehicle for carrying out
his will “on earth as it is in heaven.”
In my early years as a Christian, I was convinced this was true. But over the years I’ve lost confidence in
this – which is a little strange, I suppose, since I’m the pastor of a fairly
large evangelical church.
The seeds of doubt
were planted in my college years when I first studied the Church’s bloody
history. Almost all varieties of the
Church – Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Orthodox, and so on – tortured and
murdered people “in Jesus’ name”. How
could this be if the Church is God’s main “vehicle of salvation”?
During that time, I
also became aware of how central following the example of Jesus is to the New
Testament’s understanding of what it means to “be saved”. This slowly opened my eyes to the radical
contradiction between the lifestyle Jesus calls his followers to embrace, on
the one hand, and the typical American lifestyle, on the other. Yet it struck me that the Church in America
largely shares – even celebrates – the typical American lifestyle. Research confirms that the values of
Americans who profess faith in Christ are largely indistinguishable from the
values of those Americans who do not.
How could this be if the Church is God’s main “vehicle of salvation”?
Finally, what caused
my confidence in the Church to bottom out completely was a movement that arose
in the 1980s known as “the Moral Majority”.
Christians in this movement tried to grab political power in order to
“bring America back to God”, as they put it.
Things are only marginally different here in Australia. Here, we have “Family First” that bears many
similarities to the Moral Majority.
Perhaps the biggest difference in Australia is the percentages of people
calling themselves “Christian” and the church attendance figures reported in
our national statistics collections – generally a little lower in Australia
than in America.
And my concerns are virtually identical to Boyd’s. If you’ve been reading other posts in this
blog, you will no doubt have discovered this.
And I share Boyd’s central question here: how can the Church be God’s
main “vehicle of salvation” when it has consistently tortured and murdered
people; when its values are largely indistinguishable from the world; and when
it tries to use the world’s political systems and methods to bring the
particular country “back to God”, whatever that means?
How can the Church do this? I
believe it can purely and simply because: a) it is not God’s ecclesia but a
human organisation; b) it translates the bible however it wishes to support its
beliefs; c) it defines key theological ideas and terms as best fits its agenda;
d) it preaches a wide variety of what apostle Paul called ‘other gospels’
instead of the “good news of the Kingdom of God”.
And there is one other matter of primary importance in relation to
this. Jesus said His good news of the
Kingdom of God shall be heralded among all nations as a witness, then the end
shall come. If the ‘end’ has not yet
come, perhaps the main reason is that, whether we think so or not, Jesus’ good
news of the kingdom of God has not
been heralded among all the nations. I
am not convinced that it has been even in my own nation Australia.
From early days in my walk of discipleship to Jesus in the 1960s, I have
involved myself in all sorts of evangelism and outreach work to children, youth
and adults. As a teenager in Ipswich,
where I lived until 1968, I would stand on the street corner with the adults
singing, preaching and testifying to Jesus.
I grew up in the Open Brethren assemblies around Brisbane in Queensland
and personally knew two ‘evangelists’ with national ministries: Bill Newman and
Alan Bartlem. The Wynnum assembly where
I fellowshipped, was large by Brethren standards and regularly hosted bible
conferences, missionary conferences and evangelism outreaches. I usually got involved as much as I could in
all three. In my two years at bible
college in Sydney in the 1970s, I led the student street outreach ministry for
three out of six college terms. In my
youthful enthusiasm, I wanted to be able to preach like Billy Graham – as I’m
sure many young people did in that era.
But the further I went on in life and in my walk of discipleship, the
more uneasy I became about what was being passed off as evangelism and the
so-called gospel. However, when I attempted
to raise my concerns, I was belittled and given instruction similar to that
given to William Carey in the late 18th century: “Sit down, young
man; sit down and be still.” What would
I know, I’m just a kid.
But God persisted. He would not
let me go. No matter what I read or how
I looked at the bible, the Holy Spirit kept pressing on me that I should not
let go. Not far into my walk of
discipleship, I discovered that I was not the next Billy Graham – I was not
called or gifted as an evangelist, but as a teacher and prophet. As a teacher, I could teach the good news of
the kingdom of God, but if I tried to be a ‘preacher’ of the church’s ‘gospel’,
I failed every time. In the end, I
stopped banging my head against a brick wall, as the saying goes, and gave
myself to my gifting, calling and ministry.
However, that often led to still more conflict, since no ‘evangelist’
was interest in listening to my concerns about the preaching that was going on
or about the content of the so-called gospel that had been popularised since
the rise to prominence of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and many
similar organisations around the world at that time, including here in
Australia. There was but one thing I
could do: chisel away at the calling and ministry I had from God based on His
gifts to me when I submitted to His love and power in my life.
What I discovered was that evangelists listened to evangelists,
particularly the ones who held similar views.
Evangelists with different views – or other leaders who were not
evangelists – were considered of little value if they questioned the words or
the practices of the dominant gaggle of evangelists. After all, the only true measure of ‘success’
was souls saved, hands raised, sinners prayers prayed and, maybe, numbers of
‘new christians’ referred to local churches for ‘follow-up’.
Despite it all, we were still going backwards – and we still are to this
day. Yet, to this day, the same attitude
prevails: evangelists will not submit themselves to teachers and/or prophets,
nor to the apostles God gives to His people – despite what their precious bible
says.
So the pattern began to become clear to my mind. There is, whether we like to think so or not,
a structural hierarchical preference in the church: pastor – evangelist –
teacher (as a maybe). And this is only
slightly different from the structural hierarchical preference that arose from
the Protestant Reformation: pastor – teacher – evangelist (as a maybe). What the church says goes, even when it is
contrary to what the bible strongly suggests.
Indeed, the church translates and reinterprets the bible to suit its
particular proclivities and preferences.
And here we are back at the same old same old again. Church, gospel and sermon/homily is the order
of the day and anyone who thinks different is disdained or told to sit down and
be silent. “Evangelists” eventually
become “pastors” in churches; teachers and prophets are subjugated to
“pastors”; and the same old show goes on – ad nauseam. One has to wonder why, when we are so
passionate about the bible and our doctrine of inspiration, our practices are
so vastly different from what was taught by Jesus and the first apostles,
particularly Paul. Especially so, given
that apostle Paul was the one who was given – by the will of the Father and the
power of the Spirit – the revelation of the administration of the new covenant
and the mystery of Christ and His Body.
Well – wonder no more. There are
a number of what are to me very obvious reasons why this state of affairs
persists. One is what I call
“schizophrenic theology” (we will get to that); another is our insistence on
rejecting the commands of God and instead following and maintaining human
traditions (Mark 7); another is our blissful and possibly deliberate ignorance
of the stark contrast between the church and the ecclesia of Jesus and Paul;
yet another is what in 1974 René Padilla called ‘American Culture
Christianity’. I am sure there are more
that could be added, but this will do for the moment.
So my question remains: why are our practices and our message so vastly different from what was taught by Jesus and Paul? That's what we come to now.
Talk again soon,
Kevin.
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