THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

I am struck today as the media goes wild here in California, of how parallel people’s feeling about politics and religion really are. The rhetoric I am hearing today and have been hearing for some weeks now is amazing in its parallels to the rhetoric one hears in some churches. Most amazing is people’s fervor about this particular election; the fervor genuinely rises to the level of a religious fervor.

One has to wonder if the fervor over politics has always been this intense. Given that the phrase "never discuss religion and politics" is as old as the hills, one might be inclined to think so. I; however, think there is a tenor to political debate in this day and age that is new and intense. There is probably a book in exploring how this level of commitment and rhetoric came to be, but I think the answer is fairly simple – the Church has abdicated its role as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong in our society.

In the 60’s when people really began to question things, the Church refused to fight for that role, preferring to let the debate role to the place where it is today. This is a large and very fundamental shift in how our society operated. We went for a place where the government had a certain, limited role, and the Church was the place with the authority over personal morality to a place where authority over personal morality is seeded to the government, therefore subject to political debate, and the church is relegated to a role of religious entertainment.

This societal shift is not; however, the subject I really wish to explore here. Rather, I wish explore the parallel rhetoric between churches and political parties. Specifically, I want to look at the proposition that sometimes one has to set aside one’s personal agenda in favor of the greater good that is the party or the church’s agenda.

Let me put this into concrete terms. Many, many on the so-called "far" right have been asked to set aside their concerns about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s social politics because it is what is good for the party. The argument goes that it a moderate in one statewide office is better than nothing in any office, that Arnold in the mansion helps W in ’04, that improves the odds of conservative bench appointments…. On the church side I have been told things like we have to add all this staff because people are not volunteering, it is just necessary to help the church continue. Or how about, "Well to much talk about genuine commitment just turns people off, we need to lay low on that stuff for the good of the church." I could go on.

Here’s the point, the compromises of the type we are contemplating here not only allow for the survival of the institution, whether church or party; they also change the very nature of the institution itself. Electing Arnold does preserve power for the party, but it also shifts the party significantly to the left. Compromising about what a church asks of its members not only helps the church survive but also moves the church towards ever more reliance on paid staff.

As I have said before, I can agree with this phenomenon in a political party, after all a political party is in its basest form is simply a group of similarly minded people gathered together for the sole purpose of obtaining and using political power. If in fact political power is meant to serve the will of the people, then if the will of the people is moderate, then the party should likewise be moderate. If one is a "far" right individual than one is in the minority and one loses – that is the nature of a republic.

But Church is an entirely different thing. Church exists to serve God, not "the people." The church at its basest is a collection of people that have committed their life to a God just, moral, and unchanging. Changing the Church so that it might survive is a statement from an entirely wrong perspective; such a statement serves the Church, not God. God will see to the survival of the Church.

I do not care about the good of the Church. I do not care about the good of Young Life. I do not care about the good of any ministry of congregation; I care about whether those ministries or congregations serve themselves or God.

This week, I was treated to a "State of the Congregation" speech. It went to great lengths to describe the accomplishments of this particular church in the last year. Each and every one of those accomplishments was a new program, a new building, and a trip to somewhere – things of the church and things of the world. Why can’t such a speech talk about how many people made initial commitments to Jesus? Why can’t they talk about the number of hospital calls made? How about the number of meals served to the homebound or poor? Maybe we could report on the number of people that kept prayer journals, or that read the Bible through during the year. Even these things are programmatic and temporal, but at least they strike closer to the heart of the matter than staff growth and classroom renovation.

I have decided that rhetoric matters. If you are going to have a church building, then classrooms will from time to time need to be renovated. But such renovations are not the stuff by which a church should be measured. How we talk about these things matters. Listing them among the "accomplishments" of a church means they are the yardstick by which we measure church success, therefore, we should not talk of them in that fashion, doing so changes the nature of the church.

The Church should not be subject to change. The Church is subject to an eternal perspective. The Church does not exist for its own preservation, it exists to be God’s vessel on earth.

Don’t tell me what is good for the church, tell me what is good for God. You want to convince me to do something, tell me how it serves the Lord, and don’t give me some convoluted argument about what is good the Church is good for God, I have seen their interests diverge far too often to buy that line.

 With Love,