abandoning their posts
“American pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationary and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts, their calling. They have gone whoring after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn’t the remotest connection with what the church’s pastors have done for most of twenty centuries.
A few of us are angry about it. We are angry because we have been deserted…. It is bitterly disappointing to enter a room full of people whom you have every reason to expect share the quest and commitments of pastoral work and find within ten minutes that they most definitely do not. They talk of images and statistics. They drop names. They discuss influence and status. Matters of God and the soul and Scripture are not grist for their mills.
The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper’s concerns–how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money.
Some of them are very good shopkeepers. They attract a lot of customers, pull in great sums of money, develop splendid reputations. Yet it is still shopkeeping; religious shopkeeping, to be sure, but shopkeeping all the same. The marketing strategies of the fast-food franchise occupy the waking minds of these entrepreneurs; while asleep they dream of the kind of success that will get the attention of journalists.
The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades.”
From the introduction of “Working the Angles” written by Eugene Peterson
Lance links up this in a recent thread from stupidchurchpeople.com
August 21st, 2006 at 4:51 pm
wonderful, wonderful quote.
August 21st, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I wish I knew how to do that block quote thingy. Anyway I posted a link to this blog on another thread but I have copied this blog post because I think it is relevant to the above. This is from canadian blogger Tim Challies.
“I used to watch a lot of the show “King of the Hill.” For those who don’t know it, it is an animated show targeted at adults (like The Simpsons and any number of other shows these days, most of which are not worth watching). The main character is Hank Hill, a proud, Republican Texan who has dedicated his life to selling propane and propane accessories. He loves country music, football, Willie Nelson, Sweet Lady Propane, and of course, God. His love for God is presented as real, but somewhat inconsistent, as we might expect for a Texan who has lived his life amidst one of the strongholds of institutionalized religion. While it is a fun and usually innocent show, I stopped watching it a few years ago.
One episode from a few years ago caught my attention. It was called “Reborn to be Wild” and was nominated for an award by The Writers Guild of America. This episode continues to come to my mind these days, especially as I read Phil Johnson’s posts about the Fad Driven Church and Steve Camp’s articles about “God is my Girlfriend Songs.”
While my memory of the show is getting hazy, I found a substantial number of quotes from the show at various web sites, enough to provide a good summary of the episode. In this particular episode Bobby (Hank’s son who must be twelve or thirteen) becomes involved with a youth group and the far-too-cool youth pastor, Pastor K. Hank is reluctant to have Bobby involved in this type of group, where all the kids skateboard, listen to loud music and generally try to make God cool. Bobby becomes captivated by the group and seeks to impress his parents with his new friends.
BOBBY: These are my friends from the youth group. They’re cool and they’re totally Christian.
Bobby begins to absorb the message of this youth leader and begins to wear a “Satan Sucks” t-shirt.
PASTOR K: To be tight with the Lord, you gotta take your faith to the limit. You know what I’m talking about?
KID: The power!
PASTOR K: That’s right! Nothing runs without power. Your amp is useless unless it gets that juice, and so are we. So you gotta test all things to find the good.
BOBBY: But how do you know what’s good?
PASTOR K: It’s whatever sticks to your spirit, man, whatever God tattoos on your soul. We’re all searching for that eternal ink.
Bobby begins to show the influence of the pastor and the other kids.
BOBBY: And then Cain was all like “I ain’t s’posed to be lookin’ out for my bro, yo.”
LUANNE (Bobby’s Cousin): I didn’t know that was in Genesis.
Hank expresses his concern to Pastor K.
PASTOR K: Dude, you don’t have to act or dress a certain way for God. You can hang with him any way, anywhere. Don’t you think Jesus is right here in this half-pipe?
HANK: I’m sure he’s a lot of places he doesn’t want to be.
Meanwhile, Bobby has started collecting all the Jesus Junk that seems to be part-and-parcel of this little Christian subculture. His mother tries out one of his video games.
PEGGY (playing an “Exodus” video game): Whoo! I’m out of Egypt! And look at Moses dance!
Hank and Peggy talk to Bobby and express their concern with what he is learning and how he is acting. He pulls the “you just don’t understand” card that is always popular with teens.
BOBBY: You guys just don’t understand how I feel about Jesus!
A few days later Bobby ends up on stage, leading the crowd at a wild Christian rock concert.
BOBBY: I’ll say holy, you say ghost! Holy!
CROWD: Ghost!
BOBBY: Holy!
CROWD: Ghost!
PASTOR K: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want! He make me lie down in green pastures!
BOBBY: They’re green, y’all!
Hank confronts Pastor K one more time, expressing his disgust with the music, the look and the lifestyle.
HANK: Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better, you’re just making rock n’ roll worse.
PASTOR K: You people are all alike. You look at us and think we’re freaks. Come on, even Jesus had long hair.
HANK: Only because I wasn’t his dad.
Jessie (I cannot recall her relationship to Pastor K) encourages Pastor K.
JESSIE: Never come between a kid and his dad. If the man doesn’t want his boy praising like you, that’s cool.
PASTOR K: Yeah, but –
JESSIE: Now go finish the show before they start moshing out of anger instead of jubilation.
The show wraps up with Hank teaching Bobby an important lesson.
BOBBY: When I turn 18, I’m going to do whatever I want for the Lord. Tattoos, piercings, you name it.
HANK: Well, I’ll take that chance. Come here, there’s something I want you to see. (Hank takes down a box from the shelf and opens it up) Remember this?
BOBBY: My beanbag buddy? Oh, man, I can’t believe I collected those things. They’re so lame.
HANK: You didn’t think so five years ago. And how about your virtual pet? You used to carry this thing everywhere. Then you got tired of it, forgot to feed it, and it died.
BOBBY (looks at a photo of himself in a Ninja Turtles costume): I look like such a dork.
HANK: I know how you feel. I never thought that “Members Only” jacket would go out of style, but it did. I know you think stuff you’re doing now is cool, but in a few years you’re going to think it’s lame. And I don’t want the Lord to end up in this box.
BOBBY: Hey, what’s this picture? Mom used to have blonde hair?
HANK: Farrah Fawcett was very popular back then.
This particular episode was written by Tony Gama-Lobo & Rebecca May. I don’t know if they are believers, or merely outside observers, but they made some astute observations. Hank’s concern is one I share when I look at the way some Christian kids are encouraged to behave. Too often it seems that God is treated as just another product. Children are unable to seperate Him from the other fads that sweep through their lives when they are young. Beanie Babies and Ninja Turtles come and go. For too many children, God does the same. As long as God is all the rage they are happy to acknowledge Him, but as soon as He goes out of style, they put him in a box like all the other fads. He ends up on the top shelf, along with the Revolve Bible-zines, the “Got Jesus?” shirts, the purity rings and the WWJD bracelets. God is thrown aside as just another fad.
Just a short time ago, someone sent me a clip from a more recent episode of the show. http://youtube.com/watch?v=QtI2pa2m5cg Hank and his family are seeking a new church and have tried church after church. Peggy recommends the local megachurch as a great alternative and goes on to describe all the amenities the church has to offer. Hank’s response is classic: “If I wanted to go that route, I could just walk around the mall and think about Jesus!”
These episodes reveal to me that the world, the people outside the church who are looking in, are increasingly amused by what they see in Christianity. They see the fads, the trends and the kitsch and the laugh. Contemporary evangelicalism has become the butt of far too many jokes.
http://www.challies.com/archives/002027.php
August 21st, 2006 at 7:24 pm
I found the article, The Church of the Comfortable and Tolerant quite good.
August 21st, 2006 at 8:42 pm
I have just started to read the book titled “THis little Church Went to the Market” It seems to go along this line of thinking and asks the question is the modern church reaching out or selling out. IT is only a small book but has already got me questioning man issues in the modern church
August 21st, 2006 at 9:31 pm
1987.
This is the year “Wrking the Angles ” was written… boy if he thought that then, before Amway minds got involved, what would he think now?
August 21st, 2006 at 9:52 pm
What I find amusing is that Hill$ong love quoting from “The Message” - Especially Darlene and Bobby. When I was at the Hill$ong College we had Gordon Fee of “How to read the Bible for all It’s Worth” fame as a guest lecturer one day. Gordon Fee is Professor of New Testament at Regent College Vancouver. Eugene Peterson is Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology at Regent College Vancouver.
It is interesting that Hill$ong are drawn to these guys but they don’t listen to what they are saying…And that was written in 1987??? Wow!
I wish I had read it earlier than today!
August 21st, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Take a look at Pagan Christianity , I have only seen good reviews on it. Basically, the “modern church” started down the wrong path at the beginning of the 3rd century.
‘Wrong path’, as in, not lining up with the early church of the NT.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
I’d be interested to hear about the Australian experience. I see a similar decline into commodification in a small minority of Australian churches. Most churches seem to be keeping the faith - but I’m sure other folks here will disagree.
What’s happening in the Churches of Christ scene, Phil?
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:08 am
I followed the link back to stupidchurchpeople and left the following comment there:
Somewhere in here someone said:
“What can we do? Get on our knees.”
Fair enough. Then, when you’re done, get up off your knees and do something.
8/22/2006 7:11 AM
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:52 am
I might jump in to answer with my experience of CofC, theist. I would say that CofC is probably similar to a lot of denominations in that there are a range of experiences and expressions. In Vic-Tas we have affiliated churches which use a “megachurch” model, right down to the small local corner church.
I think where I have seen the commodification “gospel” most in our denomination is in that band of larger bible belt churches which are all close to a thousand other bible belt churches. Both explicitly and implicitly there is advocacy of a “supermarket” model - where christianity and church becomes as low cost as possible. Where people can walk in and take what they want and leave the rest on the shelf. The theory is that making engagement low cost means that more people (particularly young people) will jump on board.
Apart from being a betrayal of the gospel, I just don’t think this is true. My experience with genx/geny people in a disposable world is that things that are low cost are perceived as low value, whereas things that are high cost are perceived as high value.