2nd man united

The Church Building is Pagan? - Part 2

Adapted from Chapter 2 of Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna. Prior posts follow:

Introduction to Pagan Christianity

Traditions Passed Off as "Christian"

The Church Building is Pagan? - Part 1

Following the Constantinian era, church buildings passed through various stages, but little changed with the dominant architectural features that fostered a monopolizing clergy and an inert congregation.  If you follow the development of the architecture of the church building throughout church history, you see a reflection of man’s quest to sense the divine with his physical senses.  While aesthetic experiences can surely turn the heart toward God, Christianity is about connecting with God spiritually.  By the fourth century, the Christian community had lost touch with those heavenly realities and spiritual intangibles that cannot be perceived by the senses, but which can only be registered by the human spirit (see I Corinthians 2:9-16).

 

So really, who cares if we meet in these types of buildings today? What’s the big deal as long as we’re seeking God and fellowshipping together?  If you think this way, you are overlooking a basic reality of humanity.  Every building we encounter elicits a response from us.  By its interior, it shows us what the church is and how it functions.  This principle is expressed in the architectural motto, “Form follows function.”  The social setting of a church’s meeting place is a good index of that church’s understanding of God’s purpose for His body.  Church buildings are not inherently bad.  But, just like any atmosphere, they shape our understanding and functioning of the body of Christ.  At a deeper level, we have managed to orchestrate much psychological and aesthetic experience in them that should never be confused with spiritual experience that we are called to have in Christ.  

 

The next time you go into a church building, translate the architecture by asking yourself how the form affects the function.  Notice how it’s not designed for intimacy or fellowship.  Notice how open, participatory meetings where anyone is free to express Christ are virtually impossible.  Notice how the idea of a church building encourages compartmentalization of church life.  Notice how it fails to encourage natural and intimate connection with other believers.  Notice how it encourages a denial of the priesthood of all believers.  Notice how it is a contradiction of the very nature of the ekklesia – which is a countercultural community.  Notice how it impedes the understanding and experience that the church is Christ’s functioning body that lives and breathes under His direct headship.  This characterizes Western Christianity.  Worship is seen as something detached from the whole fabric of life and packaged for group consumption. 

 

The pulpit fosters a focus on preaching as the central way to know God and grow spiritually as well as elevating and placing the preacher above God’s people.  The pew is a symbol of lethargy and passivity that inhibits face-to-face fellowship and has made corporate worship a spectator sport. The steeple comes from the notion that Christians have to reach into the heavens to find God even though He is with us.  In short, Christian architecture continues to encourage the unbiblical division between clergy and laity and stalemate the functioning of God’s people.

 

So, how did the early church do it without buildings?  There were meetings in homes throughout the cities.  Each home gathering contained roughly 30 to 35 people, but did not see itself as separate from the one church in a particular city.  The entire church in a particular locality would come together for specific purposes in existing facilites by renting or borrowing large spaces to accommodate everyone.  When a gathering grew too large to gather in a single home, it would typically multiply into separate home meetings, but see itself as one church meeting in multiple locations.

 

Church leaders often quote Hebrews 10:25 (“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together”) when telling members they should “go to church” on Sunday mornings.  But, the New Testament vision of the church meeting is one in which every member functions and participate in the gathering.  The church building defeats this purpose by its architecture. 

 

Real estate owned by institutional churches today is worth over $230 billion.  Church building debt, service, and maintenance consumes about 18 percent of the $50 to $60 billion tithed to institutions annually.  The crazy thing is, all of the traditional reasons for “needing” a church building collapse under careful scrutiny.  The truth is, it’s nothing but overhead.  That’s quite a bit of money to sanctify brick and stone.

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Retelling the Story of the Church

Adapted from The Forgotten Ways Blog

A paradigm, or systems story, “is the set of core beliefs which result from the multiplicity of conversations and which maintains the unity of the culture.”  The ‘petals’ in this diagram are “the manifestations of culture which result from the influence of the paradigm.”   

When people try to change the order of things, they concentrate on the petals; that is, they try to effect change by looking at structures, systems and processes.  A lot of energy (and money) is put into the change program, with all the usual ‘selling the vision’ exercises, consultations, workshops, and so on. In the first few months things seem to be changing but gradually the novelty and impetus wears off and the organization settles back into something like its previous configuration. The reason for this is simple, though often overlooked—unless the paradigm at the heart of the culture is changed there will be no lasting change.  

Machiavelli was right, “Nothing is more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than achieving a new order of things.”

Try this: in the diagram above, put the word ‘Christendom institution’ at the center, and then ponder the impact on the ‘petals’.  Now, put the word ‘organic Jesus movement’ in the center. What happens to the ‘petals’?

Ivan Illich was once asked what the most radical way to change society was; was it violent revolution or gradual reform? He gave a careful answer. Neither. Rather, he suggested that if one wanted to change society, then one must tell an alternative story. How true. We need to retell the story of the church and mission in light of the organic living systems perspective.

Neutralizing the Al Queda Movement

I thought this post on the Forgotten Ways blog by a guy named Brant Hanson was neat because I tend to look at the institutional system and explore how to be more effective.  Here, we look at a networked system and explore how to make it more ineffective.  These characteristics are ways of doing things in most of our churches.  If we could get Al Queda to do this, they'd be rendered just as ineffective.

To effectively neutralize the Al Queda movement, let's get them to do the following:

1.  Complexify the message - Right now, it's so simple, it can pass from one to the next and be easily grasped by the uneducated, the young - everyone.  This is dangerous because it's highly contagious and people on the street feel capable of enlisting others in the cause.

2.  Construct a less "flat," more hierarchical structure - Currently small, underground groups can move nimbly and autonomously, complicating efforts to thwart them.  A more regimented, stratified approach where some members are left thinking "I can't know enough to do anything" would bring the movement to a halt.

3.  Foster "expert" culture, and barriers to entry to the "expert" class - Promote the idea that the message is not only highly complex, but only some can truly understand it.  Construct extensive barriers to entry to the presumed expert class.  Promote the idea that cells lacking a certified member of expert class are not equipped to be activated.

4.  Focus on knowledge, rather than doing - Complexification and expert-class development will make cells spend immense amounts of time studying the work, even debating theories of the work, rather than doing it.  Better yet . . .

5.  Equate STUDYING the work with the work itself - The cells are called to act, of course.  But if we can convince operatives that the work is in trying to understand the complexity of the work, they'll be effectively neutered.  We need to get them to spend large amounts of time in study, gathering to study, believing we don't know enough, hiring new experts to teach them again and again, and attending teaching events.  They'll actually believe they're doing the work when they attend teaching events by experts.  This will render the cell, and the whole movement, harmless!  Convince them that the most radicalized, militant among them are merely called to bring other non-activated members to the cell events.

6.  Sabotage cell multiplication - VERY important!  Cells that operate under simple principles with motivated operatives that are devoted to multiplication are very, very dangerous, fast-growing and pop-culture endangering.  We must stop this in its tracks and this is done in multiple ways.

A.  Foster egos and small-time celebrity - By convincing operatives to set up individual fiefdoms, fewer autonomous cells will be activated.  Rather, the emphasis will be on building larger, individual cells with numerous unactivated members. 

B.  Make the basic structure highly difficult to replicate - Al-Queda cells currently are, by necessity, simply-structured and easily replicated.  Propogate the idea that for cells to begin, there must be planning, experts and capital that are simultaneously accumulated.  Expert motivational speakers will be necessary, plus paid staff with highly specific training and talents.  Operatives will see massively "successful" large cells and attempt to duplicate them with very limited success because of the huge inputs required.  This will greatly inhibit growth. 

C.  Convince philosophy-aligned, but non-active members to choose from among the most entertaining, high-quality cells that offer services for them - Not only will this engender a harmless, internal focus; it will require immense amounts of resources and energy.

7.  Make operatives really, really busy - Replace simple, animated mission with lengthy lists, charts, and programs for cell maintenance.  Convince them that this institutional maintenance is actually the mission itself.  This will leave them with no time for conducting actual mission.

8.  Get Al-Queda to seek government approval - Offer tax incentives if necessary.  The larger cells requiring large edifices will also require tremendous amounts of capital.  This will also allow a measure of control by threatening the cell's tax status and thereby threatening funds for internal programs, when necessary.  Better, they'll consider actual operational cells that exist without this government approval to be invalid!

9.  Co-opt Al Queda with the larger culture - Once members are convinced that cell maintenance and study are actually their "mission," the rest of their lives can be harmlessly integrated with the culture at large.  They'll be indistinguishable from non-members.

10.  Convince members to wear Al-Queda t-shirts with funny sayings and stuff - It'll work to thwart an evil message.  It even works with the good ones.

The Body of Christ Cliche

A cliche is "a phrase, expression, or idea that has been overused to the point of losing its intended force or novelty, especially when at some time it was considered distinctivley forceful or novel."  Is it me, or is the Body of Christ metaphor for the Church becoming cliche?  It seems to me like people are just throwing the term around everywhere I go.  The have a basic understanding of the concept, but the practical implications are lacking.  Sadly, I think we are missing so much to be had from it.

In I Corinthians 12:12, the Apostle Paul describes the Church in this way;  "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.  So it is with Christ."  So Christ is exactly like the human body when it comes to structure.  The human body is many body parts that are connected in such a way that they look and operate like one body.  So, Christ is many Christians that are connected in such a way that they look and operate like one Christian.  So, let's go get a bunch of ropes and crazy glue and attach ourselves together, cram into a big house and open one bank account for all of us.  Or, let's learn together what the body of Christ truly is and align ourselves with it!

Both the human body and Christ contain what is known as anatomy and physiology.  Although they may only look like words some kid may have spelled to win this year's national spelling bee, they are vital concepts to understanding this analogy.  And for those whose only memories of these terms recall drawings of naked and transparent bodies in Health class text books, let's make sure we understand what they are.  Anatomy is the structure of the parts of the body and how they fit together as one cohesive unit to carry out the body's physiology, or intended function.  In other words, structure determines function. 

Every time a question is asked as to why a human body part functions a certain way, the answer is always the same; because it's structured to.  Seriously, if it was only for looks would anyone have any feet?  Have you taken a good look at those things lately?  The brain is structured to transmit signals.  The heart is structured to pump.  The stomach is structured to digest food; and so on.  If you change the structure of those parts in any way, you change how it functions. "So it is with Christ."

Download "The Anatomy of the Church" podcast for further discussion at 2ndmanunited.com

The Anatomy of the Church

The first Confronting Our Christianity podcast "The Anatomy of the Church" and its show notes are available. 

Summary:

The body of Christ, functioning as it was designed to, seems to be a very elusive reality today.  Do we need to re-think what it is we're doing and how we're doing it?  In I Corinthians 12:12, Paul describes the church in this way; "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.  So it is with Christ."  While it may seem simple to understand, we seem to be having a great deal of trouble finding the right structure for the body of Christ.  In this episode, we take a look at the most important principle to consider when it comes to our practice of church.

Download The Anatomy of the Church show notes