Leave, in Order to Stay

 Judgement starts with the Temple of Christ. 
          (1st Peter 4.17)    

Christ's Bride -- that's us Christians -- are responsible for this dumpster fire of a culture incinerating around us.  Plain and simple.  The students have taken over the classroom that Christ gave and assigned, to us, and we -- again, the Church, the Teacher -- have decided as-of-late to take-up cigarette smoking in order to have a few "well deserved" breaks in a veiled attempt to avoid the difficult work of discipling the students.  We figured the class had been cruising along and doing so well for the last several centuries we could "let up" a bit and relax.  Negatory.  Culture is always the external manifestation of its dominant religion, and ladies and gentleman, what you're seeing ain't Christian. 

So, we're needing to roll-up the shirt sleeves and get back to our job that the King kindly gave us to do.  

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations....teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."    (Matthew 28.19-20)

The fundamental, wholistic re-formation of our culture begins (again) with us -- the People of Jesus -- and that launches in the forge and flame of worshipping the triune Creator -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- on the Lordsday, and doing it not as babes of the Old Covenant (Gal. 3:24-25), but rather we undertake it maturely in imitation of our perfect King (Eph. 4.11-15; 1st Cor. 2.13-16) as New Covenant "grown ups" wisely finding His prescribed, sacred "institution" through command, narrative, and example.  That means we must....

Leave the mainline, man-fabricated church and locate a Primeval house fellowship

You're going to have to leave it in order to truly stay, dear Christian. 

Leave, in order to stay.  Our ”mainline” McChurches are fragmented, impersonal and disconnected which essentially is a thriving, robust model of isolation; there's just crumbs and wee droplets of spoiled, spilt grape juice there now dear Christian.  It has had, here and there -- by the grace of Christ -- something to bless the world, but it's hollow, fabricated, and idolatrous. 

We are in dire need of smaller congregations that are living out candid, interwoven lives and families, filled with close, dependent, one-anothering for God's glory and the love of our unbelieving neighbors. So, come to Christ's Institution He lays out in His Word, and not man's.  

You might as well do it now, because soon enough in The United State all true followers of The Way will be meeting in homes and celebrating real Communion meals together due to our despotic, anti-Christ civil government (this'll be a "good" thing, painful at first, but it'll get us where we need to be and go!).  

Sell the buildings now, and encourage your elder/pastor to get an everyday job that brings in most of his money (not all though, if possible, we need to be financially supporting those men who do the arduous, tiring work of sheparding and teaching among us (1st Timothy 5.17-18; Matt.10.10; 1st Corinthians 9.14); and, yes, even in smaller, house congregations), and then don't look back!

Ye Olde Meaning of Priesthood of All Believers

"Luther's greatest contribution to Protestant ecclesiology was his doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Yet no element in his teaching is more misunderstood. For some it means simply that there are no priests in the church, the secularization of the clergy. From this premise some groups, notably the Quakers, have argued the abolition of the ministry as a distinct order in the church. More commonly people believe that the priesthood of all believers implies that every Christian is his or her own priest and hence possesses the "right of private judgment" in matters of faith and doctrine. Both of these are modern perversions of Luther's original intention. The essence of the doctrine can be put in one sentence: 
Every Christian is someone else's priest, and we are all priests to one another." 

       - Timothy George, from his book The Theology of the Reformers (pg.95-96)

A House with Many Rooms: A Horror Story (with a Happy Ending)

 Perhaps an accurate parabolic metaphor for the established faux-church in the West is to imagine a beginning where a four-walled house was built by God on the apostles teaching, principles and practices.  Over the many years, Holy Spirit continued to call His chosen people into that inner house where they were comfortable and could stay in peace.

      Soon though, over time, many of these folks decided that the apostles commands and practices just weren't addressing their "times" and "contemporary situations", so they proceeded to tear a hole in one wall and build on a room where about a 1/3 of the people moved into.  Several decades go by and this happens again where another hole and another room are created and many of the remaining people in the original room leave to move into the newest room.  And this tearing holes and adding new rooms continued on and on to where some even built second and third stories rooms on top of those original first story additions!

      This is where we are now.  The vast majority of those calling themselves followers of Jesus in the West no longer live in the original room of the apostolic principles, models and commands given to us by our Creator in His Word; rather, most now follow the "additions", meaning the worldly traditions of men, wrongly believing those to be what the Word teaches.  

       This all sounds a bit dire and gloomy, and no doubt about it, it truly is to a large degree!  But, as I understand the Scripture's future forecast, I am not depressed whatsoever because while the People of Messiah in the West are getting the beat-down right now (I know some rapturists/dispensationalists are giddy right now as they watch the evening news or getting their news feed online) and being forced in our day to take three steps back, I see that this is being Providentially done for the further advancement of the Kingdom (and by that I mean here, on Earth, and not in Heaven now or in the future ethereal by-and-by...).
         It is my understanding that this current low-point in western Church history -- which needs to emphasized because the Church as a whole is not floundering and flopping around as we are in the West -- has been allowed to happen so that we all can take a breather in order to fix a firm, solid grip on the Battering-ram (ya know, that one smashing Hell's Gate(s), Matthew 16:18), and give us some running room (that's the three steps back) to deliver another crashing blow to that gate (I can see a hinge has broke off and several boards are splintered where one can see through holes to the inside...   I'd give it  perhaps another 2000 years and it'll likely be over and finished.)

        All this to say:  Stay in the traditions of Scripture and not the additions of men.  Those Scripture traditions are our normative practices, and can be found in the examples, commands, and narratives that are shown in the Word in a positive light and Jesus approved way.

To follow those traditions of God will not be easy in the flesh, but it will be done with Christ and thus it truly will be.

The New Covenant knows nothing of the Word "Sacrament"

"Properly speaking, New Testament Christianity knows nothing of the word ‘sacrament,’ which belongs essentially to the heathen world of the Graeco-Roman empire and which unfortunately some of the Reformers unthinkingly took over from ecclesiastical tradition.  For this word, and still more the overtones which it conveys, is the starting point for those disastrous developments which began soon to transform the community of Jesus into the Church which is first and foremost a sacramental Church" 

       - Emil Brunner in his book The Misunderstanding of the Church (1952), pp.72-73

Emperor Constantine's "Favor"

 "For far too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (ca.285-337) caused the triumph of Christianity.  To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax. ...Constantine's 'favor' was his decision to divert to the Christians the massive state funding on which the pagan temples had always depended.  Overnight, Christianity became the most favored recipient of the near limitless resources of imperial favors.  A faith that had been meeting in humble structures was suddenly housed in magnificent public buildings."

- Rodney Stark, excerpt from For the Glory of God: How Monotheism led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts, the End of Slavery

The Habitual Misleading of Christ's People

Check out these covers to books and magazines below.  They all portray the Congregation of Jesus as a building. 

Is there any wonder why we have such a difficult time shedding this idea of "the Church" as a time (i.e. Lordsday, from 10:00 to 12:00), place, or just merely an architectural structure?

I propose leaving behind the word "church" and using either "congregation" as William Tyndale translated the greek word "ekklesia", or speak of the "gathering" of the People of the Way. 

An Analysis of Jim Belcher’s book “Deep Church”

 This is an Open Letter from Jon Zens to Jim Belcher concerning Belcher's book entitled Deep Church (Christianity Today's Book of the Year 2010)

I posted this years ago on my other blog, but wanted to include it here even though it has some age on it now.  I do so because Jon Zens does such a fine job pointing out the entrenched, traditional presuppositions in the McBox Church that are unseen even by a pastor-man -- Belcher -- who really believes he's showing us "deeper" Church life when in reality it's just warmed-up, Big Eva tradition gruel.

It's really an excellent analysis, and the Biblical principles that Zens presents are timeless, evergreen ones that concern Christ's Ekklesia. 

Posted on Frank Viola's blog August 31, 2010

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Dear Jim,

     I read through Deep Church once, and then went through it a second time quickly.  In light of your burden for unity and mutual understanding, I’m writing this letter to you – before publishing a review.  I hope by now you have received the 1986 Searching Together, “Desiring Unity…Finding Division: Lessons from the 19th Century Restoration Movement” that I sent you September 30th.  This piece expresses the ongoing passions of my heart.  I really appreciate your emphasis on listening to and caring about what others with differing viewpoints say, and being open to learn from various traditions (p.85).

    As I read DC I noticed that we had some common “friends.”  You mentioned your stint at Cal State/Northridge.  I attended there 1963-1965 as an art major.  I became a follower of Christ during my second year there.  I was born in Barstow, and lived in Canoga Park from 1956 – 1967.  I had John Frame when he started as a teacher at Westminster-Philadelphia in 1970, and deeply appreciated him.  I also had C. John Miller as a professor at WTS, and he had an influence upon me that was more caught than taught.

    There are many aspects of DC that I would be drawn to interact with, but I’m just going to focus on the handful that I see as crucial for getting to the root of the matter.

Organic vs. Institutional

      Obviously, words are used in various ways by different people with shades of meaning.  It seems like you want to maintain some conception of the church as organic, but it ends up in an institutional shell.  To me, it looks like you are mixing apples and oranges when you state that the church is “institution” in terms of its activities (electing officers, etc.) and “organism” when church people go out into the world as salt and light (pp.191-192). The images of the ekklesia are all connected to “life.”  Wouldn’t one feel awkward saying, “This bride is an institution”?  As Frank Viola notes, “Each image teaches us that the church is a living organism rather than an institutional organization . . . . The church we read about in the NT was ‘organic.’ By that I mean that it was born from and sustained by spiritual life instead of constructed by human institutions, controlled by human hierarchy, shaped by lifeless rituals, and held together by religious programs” (Reimagining Church, p.32).  Based on the NT description, I would maintain any notion of “the church is an institution” is an oxymoron.  The ekklesia is a “new being” of life in the Spirit.  To connect “institution” with a beautiful woman is inappropriate.

Why Is 1 Cor.14 Not Practiced?

     You assert, “Since the Bible does not give us enough information to construct a worship service, we must fill in the blanks” (p.137).  Why do we feel compelled to find a “worship service”?  There is no evidence that the early church had “worship services,” as we conceive of them.  The largest insight we have about a Christian gathering appears in 1 Cor.14.  We have these glimpses because Paul was correcting a problem.  In this passage we see...

Meeting the King's Demands

"What is called "Christianity", and what has come to be called "the church", has become a tradition, an institution, and a system quite as fixed, rooted, and established as ever Judaism was, and it will be no less costly to change it fundamentally than was the case with Judaism. Superficial adjustments may be made -- and are being made -- but a very heavy price is attached to the change which is necessary to really solve the great problem.  It may very well be, as in the time of the Lord, that the essential light will not be given to very many because God knows that they would never pay the price.  It may only be a "remnant" -- as of old -- who will be led into God's answer because they will meet the demands at all costs."

   - T. Austin Sparks
   Excerpt from his article "In Spirit and Truth"
   First published in A Witness and a Testimony magazine, Mar-Apr 1967

The Path of "Tradition" and "Custom"

 The Calf-Path

A poem by by Sam Walter Foss

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;

But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed (do not laugh)
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way.
And lost one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.

Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

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Think.... seminaries, adult-only Communion that's served with cracker bits and grape juice, and wealth devouring church buildings...