Thesis 1: Church Ain't Church

Church Ain't Church

Simply put, the church we attend on Sundays isn’t what Christ intended for us. The Church we know is a human performance centred on the quirks and desires of powerful, corrupt men.

Let’s go back to the source (the Bible): the reason we’re here as believers is to love God/JC/HS, to love and serve our neighbours, and to make disciples. That’s it. Everything else is extra.

Churches in the early years of the Common Era (or CE, the nonreligious term that’s replaced AD; BC is now referred to as Before the Common Era, or BCE) happened wherever early believers happened to be, and most often in private homes. In those places, it was simply fellowship that happened, getting together and hanging out in JC’s name. Sometimes they’d go someplace wet to baptize people who said that they wanted a part of the action. And occasionally they’d read letters from the travelling wise-guys who acted as mobile leadership and advisors.

However, a couple hundred years into the CE, as is wont to happen with sinful, fallen humans, we start to see evidence that certain men had begun consolidating power and people to shore up their own worth. The communal approach in small groups began to morph into bigger groups, which needed bigger spaces, and selfish men stepped forward to lead, but really to take control. The problem wasn’t so much with the size of those spaces (although the megachurches we see today are a huge problem, more on that later), but that those spaces were used to focus inwards, catering to their own people rather than meeting the needs of the surrounding communities, and the “leaders” using those spaces to further their own aims.

We have some big gaps in church history from then on, due to the evil rampages and crusades of power-hungry dudes (a favourite pastime of corrupt men is grabbing land and destroying any knowledge that doesn’t fit their one narrative), but by the time folks started caring about keeping records again, the new picture of Church becomes clear. Big churches. Solitary leaders. Money, money, money. And uncountable altered, conflicting versions of scripture that, you guessed it, tried to sell what those men were making.

In short, Church became about taking rather than giving. And this is the model we still have today, where scores of people who seek to be Christian gather in enclaved buildings once a week to sing and pray and make offerings to, well, themselves. Christ’s church was never meant to be large buildings packed with individuals concerned with their own “stuff.” The 20th-century fabrication of “our personal lord and saviour” now drives most of what we do. (Homework: do a survey of the proportion of prayer dedicated to praying for others vs praying for ourselves, and it makes this point very nicely.)

Hold on, churches do good things, right? Sure. But if we weigh the amount of giving, community-loving, and need-meeting against the costs of maintaining the structure of Church (not to mention the obscene wealth that some sects are accumulating), that good is quickly put into humbling perspective. And yes, some churches are doing more in their communities than others, but when the building and spaces are empty for most of the week, the occasional food bank and homeless shelter isn’t addressing the issue in a meaningful way.

What do do, though, is of course the big question. Ideally, we’d close and/or demolish the churches, sell the buildings and land, return the proceeds to our communities, and send believers back into their homes to listen to and serve their neighbours. That’s what the Bible envisions when it talks about churches.

I know, I know, what about all that clergy? One of my good friends is the pastor of the church I attend, and I’d feel for them and their family if suddenly everything got pulled out from under them. (Suggestion: use some of those funds to send them back to school.) Or what about mortgages and investments and vehicles all those other things that further indenture us to our “stuff”? Or the ridiculous amounts of audio/visual production gear we use for the performances our services have become? What will become of the ridiculous theme parks and other attractions that sects are propping up? (Personally, I think the Noah’s ark one would make for a spectacular bonfire.) These are all good questions.

But in general, I’d say we Kondo the fuck out of it, only instead of asking if the “stuff” we’re assessing brings joy, we ask ourselves if it’s directly serving our neighbours. If yes, we try to discern if it’s stewardly to keep using it; if not, we end our relationships with it with extreme prejudice.

Keywords: Church Ain't Church; Faith; Deconstruction; Religion; Christian; Christianity; Church; Sin; Corruption; Scandal