Viewed through a smoky glass

Remember when, no matter the issue, the church was on the right side of it? Well, me neither, exactly. The 50s, those good old days before (fill in whatever you want to fill in here depending on your side of the argument), weren't really so darn good.

The 60s, a time of free love, weren't so lovingly played out in some parts of the country, and the split in some churches began during this time.

The 70s were miserable for some, and more issues boiled to the top of the church debate scene. The 80s? The 90s? The past decade? Mega churches, non-denominational mega-churches, grew like weeds in the field, but mainline denominations began to lose the very breath of God and their numbers crashed like the 2008 recession.

Where did the church lose its edge? Where did the church lose its fight? Where did the church become so splintered that no one knows what is the right side of any argument? And when did the church simply give in so as to not lose more numbers?

There was a time, though, when the giants of our lives didn't scare us. I was reading this this morning and I thought of what exactly David was saying here:

³⁴ But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵ I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. ³⁶ Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. ³⁷ The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine."

The armies of the living God don't scare anyone any longer because the armies don't stand against the giants any longer. The question is why? When did the church become placid in its ability to take stands?

I think it was soon after the church became the church.

Within a 100 years of the church becoming the church, already Jesus was having to correct. To the church in Ephesus, they forgot their first love. To the church in Smyrna, they were told to welcome persecution. In Pergamum, they were told to repent. Thyatira was told they had a false prophetess in their midst. Laodicea had lukewarm faith. Only Philadelphia was doing exceptionally well and had endured patiently.

 

And where are these churches today?

 

Exactly.

 

Now, I'm not talking about the debate over worship style or what one MUST wear to church, or coffee hutches built into sanctuaries or whatever the latest craze might be. Not disputing that argument, I'm simply saying that's a fight for another day. What I am saying is that in a world where disagreement equals hate, we at least need to discuss what are those issues that we must reclaim as a church, the church universal at that.

 

What we need, I believe, is a concerted effort to have discourse about the big issues of the day and come to a consensus about what the truth is? I also believe, rather strongly, that without the Holy Spirit, we have no chance of ever doing that. That's what leadership does: in love without fear, we speak out about what is wrong. Church leaders did that in the 50s and 60s about civil rights. Church leaders are doing that today about both sides of some very contentious issues today.

The problem is, as I see it, that neither side is willing to listen to the other, and the world is simply chuckling as more and more come in the front doors of our churches and leave more quickly out the back.

We can't answer the simple questions about loving our neighbor without a discussion about who our neighbor is. We can't tie the harder knot, loving our enemies, till we address the simpler one.

Today, we simply facebook vocal shots about the opposition and call each other names. If one disagrees with an issue, one is immediately a hater or someone attaches a -phobe to the end of the adjective that subs for the name of the individual.

Oh, you have your Mark Driscolls out there and your Rob Bells and those folks who believe so strongly in their own beliefs that they will tell you without question that what they believe is not only right but the only way to think on ANY subject. But too many simply ignore the tough subjects in favor of preaching and teaching the easy ones.

I believe that one must figure out ones own theology, but the Holy Spirit makes adjustments all along. The simplest of facts is that not all the denominations, all the faiths can be right if they are all in disagreement. Truth is truth. Jesus is Jesus. And the rest is man's arguments.

Clearly times are changing fairly quickly now. How we deal, as a church, as a faith, with changes in culture will decide in many ways what the future of the church is.

In other words, do we compromise on everything, or is there a line in the sand that must not be crossed? I'm not in any way saying I have all the answers. I don't. I'm just a simple ex-sports writer who is grateful that God's grace covered even this foolish one. But I'm committed to prayer, study and discussion to attempt to find enough common ground that we can say this is what the church believes and commit to it. The United Methodist Church has such a vehicle, by the way, called the Discipline. The only problem there is though the Discipline continues to evolve, groups have decided to ignore the portions of this book they believe to be wrong despite the majority disagreeing. What good is a discipline if it is ignored.

I know only this: Jesus said of Laodicea, he would spit them out of his mouth because of their lukewarm attitudes and actions. While Bible study numbers fall to the ground like Icarus seeking the sun, while Sunday Schools go the way of black and white television, while youth's are allowed to decide when and how often they go to church, we fail as a church.

One must commit; with prayer and with much thought, one must decide on a side. Eventually that's what we have. And without true study of the scriptures, we have little to go on.

Whether Facebook friends like it or not.