questions for a domesticated church

On occasion, I wonder: Have we, the Church, domesticated Christianity? That is, have we taken the seed sown by Jesus and cross-pollinated it with the notions of our postmodern, post-Enlightenment world? Do we cultivate and modify the Gospel to suit our tastes and lifestyles rather than altering ourselves to its standards? These are questions we must consider.

 

Do we perceive our world through the lens of Jesus’ teaching, or do we turn the tables – proof-texting the Bible with the skepticism of scientific-method minds? Is Scripture a document which we edit and rewrite (read, “retranslate”) to fit more seamlessly and inconspicuously within the confines of our cultural context? Or is its truth so absolute and binding that, jarring and incongruous as it may be with the surrounding philosophies, it speaks to all people across all eras without need for revision?

 

In our desire for comfort and security, have we made Christianity safe? Have we tamed the Lion of Judah? I’m reminded of an interchange from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lucy Pevensie questions Mr. Beaver about Aslan, the lion whose character represents Christ. “Is he – quite safe?” she asks. Mr. Beaver’s reply is as profound as it is powerful: “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” Jesus will not be made into something he is not. He is no docile pet, harmless like a declawed housecat. Nor has he promised us a journey free of peril.

 

I cannot help but suspect that this tamed rendering of the Gospel is, in large part, responsible for much of the apathy within and toward churches today. Sadly, the version embraced by so many more closely resembles the contents of a textbook than the power of God. Its tendency is to skirt any serious discussion of the supernatural, denying the reality of daily campaigns waged by angels and their fallen nemeses. In this same edition, prophecy, tongues, and healing are dismissed as relics of a primitive and superstitious world, now mere anachronisms to our rationalized understanding of God. Those few “spiritual” gifts which have escaped redaction are the more innocuous and explicable ones such as teaching, administration, and encouraging – skills which can readily be attributed to human aptitude.

 

This all, I believe, comes back to the workings of our sin-stained human nature. It ceaselessly tries to take center stage and make us the central character. So, consciously or unconsciously, we fight a bent to view God as a reflection of us – someone we can understand, confine to a list of principles and predictable behaviors. How easily we forget that we are his reflection and, as such, are primarily spiritual. In short, we do ourselves and posterity a disservice by making faith more about intellect, emotion, or habit than the spiritual essence that it is.

 

We live in a tug-of-war world, strained between competing realities. But we must not permit our senses to trick us; the spiritual is predominant. And we need a faith that is broad and encompassing enough to navigate this life while pointing us onward toward the next.