Third Millennium Church

The Viral Church

In the last Church Practice article we showed the problems that exist in the current Evangelical ecclesiology. Essentially the church has the structure of a business, with the final product not being monetary profit but converts. As Marx's critique of capitalism shows, a business will do anything to gain efficiency and maximize profit. Thus, the church ceases to be a place of love, caring and acceptance and becomes a place of conformity, obedience, and aggregation of power. Why? Because what matters to a business is the business, not the workers. Likewise, what matters to the church is the continued existence of the church, not the well-being of the people in the church.

But the church was never meant to be modeled after corrupt human institutions like businesses. Jesus said, "The lords of the gentiles exert power over each other, but it is not to be this way with you." We are not to pattern our gatherings after human institutions, and certainly not hierarchical institutions. Everyone in the Body of Christ is equal, and Paul in Corinthians spends some time developing this metaphor. "Does the eye say to the hand, I don't need you?" Furthermore, Jesus consistently denounced the aggregated power structures that the Pharisees had constructed in favor of individual response and connection to God.

Take John 8. The woman caught in adultery had no case; she was guilty. The bible is quite clear on what should be done to her and the Pharisees were biblically correct in wanting to stone her. Jesus by his act dissolved the power and authority of men and their systems of power, who use the bible to further their own stations. Jesus' remark about "you without sin cast the first stone" is telling. Human aggregations of power only serve to hide the sins of those in the power structure. We are all still human and frail and sinful. But those in the power structure can pretend that they are holy because they can always draw attention to a worse sinner who has no power in their system. Further, by vouching for one another they can maintain the illusion of holiness. If anyone should challenge the system there are dozens of sins in her life the church can expose, ensuring that they remain silent. The church has become the machine.

The Viral Church, however, has none of these characteristics. It is interesting to compare the church as it appears in the New Testament with the abomination called the church today. Small groups of believers met in houses and supported each other, praised God, and invited friends to join in. No power, no station, no lord of the manor standing above everyone else. Instead of the church taking money from the people, the church distributed money to people. Instead of political power, the church was persecuted.

The Viral Church is small. No more than a handful of friends and family, perhaps 15 people at most. The benefit of a small church is that there is nothing for the power mongers to desire. Who wants to be lord of 15 people? Wooo! What power! What prestige! The Viral Church has nothing to covet; it cannot serve as a power base.

The Viral Church is nonprofessional. With such a small group of people, there is no need for a priest. No one needs to be formally trained in hermeneutics or pastoral ministry. No one needs to quit their day job. In the New Testament, most of the church consisted of slaves who didn't have the option to quit their jobs. There was no such thing as the clergy. There is no need for clergy today. The Viral Church makes do without leadership. Chaos? Not with 15 people there isn't. There is no staff. There is no secretary to run off with the pastor.

One argument against a nonprofessional church is that heresy could come into the church because people are not trained. Well, heresy is in the church at the moment, spewing out of the mouths of people who have all sorts of degrees and training. How does training stop heresy? Think of the highly-trained pastors who are racists, or sexually immoral, or think that everyone but their sect goes to hell. How has training in any way helped the church? People will always believe what they want to believe. I know many ministers who sign statements of faith they don't really believe. What does a master's degree teach you about loving people? I have heard scripture twisted in English and in Greek. I have seen people with terrible character in positions of power. Training does nothing; it is worthless. In fact, since most theological training is indoctrination in a sect's particular set of heretical beliefs, I would argue it does nothing but perpetuate the wicked system we currently have. Fuck it. Give me someone with true character over those with Master's degrees any day. (Full disclosure: I have one of those degrees.)

The Viral Church is money free. Since the group is small there is no need for buildings or church vans or pastoral support. There is no need for a collection. People can give their tithe to the poor and needy. Keeping money out of the church also helps to make it unappealing to the power mongers. When church budgets reach the millions, graft and theft are rampant. Every church I've been involved with has mishandled money in one way or the other. Best to just dump it; we have no need of it. Want to take the church out for coffee? Try paying out of your own pocket. There's no priest, so anyone can lead the church. If you want to set up a soup kitchen, you'll still need to set up a charity to manage the funds and such, but that is not the church. The church could participate in a soup kitchen, but the church is not a soup kitchen. The church itself needs no money.

The Viral Church is a group of friends. Many churches consist of groups of strangers fighting for social dominance and prestige. This is why the Evangelical church is full of back-biting, hatred, gossip and liars. Such tools are useful in climbing social ladders, but they have no place in the church. If the church becomes a small group of friends, there will be no prestige to fight over. No one will brag at work about how they are the head of Sunday School at First Baptist. No one will care. The Viral Church can dispense with all of the social trappings that the existing church wallows in. It can be a group of friends. People who love God gathering together. Will there still be dicks? Yes, there are always dicks, but there will be nothing for the dicks to reign over. There is no kingdom for them to usurp. At worst, they will be annoying.

The Viral Church knows it does not have all the answers. The days of promoting one sect over another are over. Even Jesus didn't have all the answers ("When am I coming back? Only my Father knows.") and we as humans know even less. Since the church will no longer hold the keys to the kingdom, every Viral Church stands among equals. Don't like this group? Try that one. Don't like that group? Try another. Who cares? This allows diversity in the Body of Christ, since no one church is claiming to be the "right" church. Different Viral Churches could have radically different theologies and emphases. Pick one that you enjoy; it's as simple as that. No politics necessary.

The Viral Church is viral. Since it is just a group of friends, the church grows by people making and inviting friends. Humans are social creatures; we all live and die by our relationships. Thus, the Viral Church is based upon those relationships. When a given Viral Church starts to get crowded it splits apart, sort of like families do. There is no creed; there are no requirements. You don't make your friends fill out a statement of faith before they can be your friend, do you? Why should the church be any different? People with common interests will naturally group together. Likewise, if you go to a viral church that believes something you don't, stop going. Or stay. It's really no big deal, since we are not saved by how we think anyway. But that is the topic of another essay.

One argument against the Viral Church is that it precludes mass worship. I don't think it does. If you want a mass worship festival, set one up. Get a bunch of bands together and have a concert. And really, I've heard more bitching about mass worship than almost anything else in the church. The songs are too fast! The songs are too slow! The music director won't let us play guitar! The worship leader always plays guitar! I don't like those Jewish songs! Blah fucking blah! Christ, you'd think the church was in some deep persecution the way people bitch about worship. So I say, forget mass worship. It doesn't work. Get together with your friends and worship God however you want. Sing hymns if that's your deal. Listen to death metal if that's your deal. God really doesn't care. We just need to get over ourselves.

And that's ultimately what the Viral Church is about. Humans getting over ourselves. Your beautifully constructed building with the thousand seat arena and the grand organ and the dozen Sunday school rooms means exactly Jack to God. All that matters to God is your heart and your character. Burn the rest of this shit; it does not matter. The reason the church has failed is that it spends its time concentrating on the worthless human prideful pursuits instead of trying to help people live honest lives of character and grace.

Love. Freedom. Diversity. This is the Revolution.

Why We Need a New Ecclesiology

How do normal, happy, well-adjusted people turn into the wicked liars that inhabit most Evangelical churches? The people are not the problem. People are just people. We all have our faults and sins, and we all have our moments of kindness and good will. No, the reason that wickedness pervades in the church is because of the church structure, because of the way that men have set up the church.

Jesus saved his worst insults and accusations for the men who ran the church of his day, the Pharisees. You have to understand that this was not religious rivalry; at the time Jesus identified fullly with the Jewish religion. Jesus' problem with the Pharisees was an internal Jewish dispute. He was not upset with the Pharisees because they did not accept him as Messiah, he had not made that pronouncement yet, but rather because they had corrupted the leadership of God's people.

I make the same claim against the current Evangelical church. The leaders in the current church have corrupted God's church and have caused God's people to become narrow, selfish, wicked people. The leaders are snakes, whitewashed tombs, who work tirelessly to make a convert and then cause her to be further from God than she was before she walked into their church. The Pharisees are the true enemies of God.

Strong statements, but I only repeat what the Master has already said in the same context. And, considering the Evangelical church is in such a state of failure, the need for strong statements has come. What's that, you say? The Evangelical church is strong and growing? Ah, you've made the mistake of confusing outer appearances with the inner soul. Allow me to become more explicit in my critique, although I do so love the language that Jesus used to tear down the evil that men do.

1. Theological Failure. The church bases its theology on poor hermeneutics, causing them to inject their own theological preconceptions into their teaching. The primary focus of this failure is an abandonment of salvation as a free gift for the modern doctrine of salvation by belief. In other words, you are saved if you agree with certain key doctrines, not whether you trust in Christ or not.
2. Moral Failure. The chuch glorifies the sins that it commits: pride, envy, greed, lying, gluttony, etc. and treats them as if they were righteous acts. Then it takes sins that no one in the church wants to commit: homosexuality, drinking, smoking, etc. and makes those into the worst of mortal sins. By whitewashing their own sins and overstating the sins they don't commit, the Evangelical church sets up a system of lies and hypocrisy that it uses to punish those who disagree with them.
3. Political Failure. More and more Evangelicals have become convinced that a Christian may only be a Republican. This causes them to render unto Caesar what is God's, and to become serfs of the Republican power structure. Since they have sold out to a human institution, their theological positions have been compromised. For example, churches that think smoking is morally wrong continue to support the tobacco industry because the Republicans say they must.
4. Ecclesiastical Failure. The church is supposed to be the gathering of believers, nothing more, nothing less. As currently instituted, the Evangelical church is either an extended social club with all the baggage common to that institution (black-balling, politics, ostracization, peer pressure) or a small band of the "Elect" who know the secrets of eternal life and who pity the rest of us who will burn forever in the fires of God's anger. Churches which are loving, accepting, humble, gracious, and forgiving are rare and ephemeral. Perhaps, for a season, a pastor who knows the real deal will be able to make the church what it should be, but he is soon overwhelmed by the money, the power structure, or the men who hold the lease.

These failures are due in part to a bad ecclesiology. The church structure has been modeled after a business, with a CEO and board of directors who manage the money and allocation of resources (people). As with any business, profit is the ultimate goal. In the context of a church the profit is not in money, but in popularity. The goal of a church is to have as many people as possible in that church. One would think that if all the Christian churches truly were interested only in spreading the gospel that they would not care which church a person attends. This is not the case. There is always the undercurrent that only one's particular sect really has it "just right". So the goal is to get everyone into our church. Every Pentecostal church rejoices when a Baptist "converts" and comes over to the right way of thinking. And vice versa.

Since the goal of the church is to attract and retain a population, the church uses all the normal systems that humans use to control one another. Peer pressure ensures that everyone in the church thinks and behaves the same. Ostracization is the threat used to keep people in line. If you start to think differently than the church, there will be hints that you aren't welcome, with the final stage being a full disfellowshipping. For most people, it's easier not to rock the boat and so they stay and swallow whatever they must.

Businesses have expenses and so the church must institute a tithe to pay for the staff and buildings it needs to keep everyone in one place. This is important, and why the weekly church service is mandatory. The church would have a harder time controlling people if it did not build a sense of shared experience, which is what the weekly service does. If you look at the way an Evangelical church service is structured, the high point of the sermon is either preceeded or followed by the collection. Obedience to the teaching of the church is reinforced by obedience to the tithe. When people invest their money in something they have a natural desire to see it succeed. This is the true importance of the tithe. Proof that the tithe is essential to the working of the Evangelical church is simple: if it's not essential, stop taking a collection. You won't find a single church that will do this. Their structure demands strict monetary obedience by the church population. Pastors know who tithes and who doesn't. Believe me, I've been there at the meetings where it was discussed. They try to play off the collection, as if it were a necessary evil, but in actuality it is a core part of their mechanisms of control.

So the church as currently structured has very little to do with the message of Jesus and the way the church was meant to be. It was never meant to be a monolithic power structure capable of building huge buildings and aggregating hundreds or thousands of people in one place. It was never meant to enforce conformity of doctrine or thinking. It was never meant to lift up leadership into a position of power over people. Finally, the church does not have authority over every part of our lives. I know pastors who think the church has the final say on who you marry, who your friends are, how you vote, how you spend your money, and what sexual positions are allowed. This must stop.

It is no wonder that with such manipulation in the church, that the people begin to be narrow and vindictive. They are under pressure to conform, and are probably hiding many sins behind their church smile. You'd lash out at someone who was different too in their position.

How must the church be structured for the next millenium? That is a question for the next article in this series. As a preview, the church will not be about buildings and staff and sectarianism. It will not be about conformity and money and power. In fact, for the church to survive the next millenium, it must be something quite different.