St. Jon the Evangelist
There is a good deal of hand-wringing over the looming death of evangelicalism. For good or ill, younger folks, at least many of those with whom I speak are finding less and less that resonates with the many-headed, yet faceless, beast that has dominated Western American Christianity for the better half of a century. And this is terrifying older folks who have gone, and are still willing to go, to the mattresses over matters of confession and practice. It's not that confession and practice don't matter to a lot of these younger people, it's rather a matter of confession and practice being shown in something other than confession and practice. That is, they seem to have little interest in worshipping a god that is all about creating well-trained parrots.
I suppose that has to happen if the Good News remains good news, but I wonder if this is helped along by the fact that evangelical churches largely agree to be happy accomplices to the powers that want to destroy us.
Oh, this is about Jon Stewart again.
Movements die, and evangelicalism as a movement is/was not long for this world, but how much does a comedian acting as a prophet help to pull the plug? Stewart is willing to clearly lay out the picture and call evil what it is, while we, as churches, suggest this is no concern of ours, it'll be fine because God tells us we don't have to worry, or worse we say it's our job to support the oligarchs that want to determine an existence for us wholly at odds with what it means to be human (as far as Christians may be concerned).
4 comments:
You seem so deadset against the church being the church. For Lent, you suggest that we give up our practices. Here, you look forward to the end of Christianity (to be replaced by a religion led by John Stewart and Rachel Maddow?). Obviously there is a thread of ideas throughout your posts that is against the church.
Why is that? What do you think the church is for?
I mean that seriously. I don't mean there's no reason to be critical, I mean if one's going to have a critical view, then what comes next?
T.C.
Who is this then, who engages thoughtfully if critically?
Tom Cruise?
This first thing that comes to mind as an answer is Woody Guthrie's Jesus Christ, but that may not be helpful.
So the second thought that comes to mind is clarifying that I am not "against the church being the church" (though I may find the idea of THE CHURCH problematic). I want to want nothing more than for Christians to be the church if that means we are a community of people called as and being disciples of Jesus. It may be less obvious, but should be part of the deal, that the things I think I see and articulate critical of what we do as Christians (and sometimes I think that ought to be distinguished from followers of Jesus- as snooty as that sounds) are for us, so we may be better at being "the church" (as arrogant as that sounds).
That's why.
And so what I think "the church" is for is to make us people that can serve God by showing/reflecting the love that we understand is first shown to us. I think this requires this critical self-reflection. The Word should first confront us in our world- even/especially our Christian world.
I don't know what comes next, and depending on what you mean, I don't know that it matters. I mean that if we are faithful and loyal first to the Good News, not to any particular expression of Christianity, not to any other ideology that makes us feel good about the world we are in, not to anything else, then what what comes next might be or look like is not a concern of mine.
That's a big "if" though, isn't it?
Thank you.
It may be less obvious, but should be part of the deal, that the things I think I see and articulate critical of what we do as Christians (and sometimes I think that ought to be distinguished from followers of Jesus- as snooty as that sounds) are for us, so we may be better at being "the church" (as arrogant as that sounds).
So you are not against the church, but against Christianity for the sake of being the church?
-Tom Cruise
Your welcome.
In a word: yes.
Post a Comment