THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

August 10, 2002

As one travels the route of the transcontinental railroad, perhaps the most striking feature is that by and large it remains a functioning railroad. Sure the beds have been improved, ties replaced and rails upgraded. In many sections the rail bed has been moved a few feet in one direction or another, generally to compensate for a highway being built along the same route, but its still there and it is still working. Particularly across Nevada and Wyoming one could see massive trains, often one-half to one-mile long, pulled by three and four locomotives. The amount of material that we saw moved by rail in our short trip was staggering. The amount of coal alone would power Los Angeles for a long time.

But we also visited ghost towns, a lot. Some were completely desolate and abandoned. Others had some people living there, but they were very much a thing of the past. Finally some were small, isolated bedroom communities, a fraction of what they were in their heyday, but still vital and living and proud. The reasons these communities ghosted varied. The most desolate was because it was on the only section of the route where the railroad was moved substantially. Some were mining towns that played out. Others were places where the highways did not follow the railbed.

The total picture of the trip was one of a literal "living history." Railroads are in large part considered a thing of the past, a historical artifact. The particular railroad I was following is almost entirely viewed in historical terms, but here it was vital and functioning with its myriad changes through the years visible.

Needless to say, I thought about the church. More specifically, I thought about the place where I left off last week. The question I left us with concerned the negation of older knowledge by newer knowledge. Does the new negate the old, or should it more properly build upon it? It should be obvious that I believe the later, but let's look at why.

Consider, for a second, scientific models that describe the behavior of an atom. The first such model in this century was by a man named Niels Bohr. Bohr's Theory of atomic structure is essentially a failure. He set out to model a hydrogen atom in isolation and succeeded, but as soon as one tries to apply that to any other atom, or a molecule, it breaks down. This is not a good scientific model. Yet, it is taught to every student of chemistry and physics in the world. Why? The answer is simple it introduced a concept so important and so revolutionary that its value in the development of modern atomic theory is beyond measure. That concept is "quantization." Don’t worry about what it means, just know that without it most of modern technology could not have been invented. And, more importantly to the educational process, it is much easier to understand that concept quantization in the Bohr atom than in more developed atomic theory, so the "failed" theory is taught as a means to introduce the concept.

New knowledge does not negate old knowledge it builds upon it. New knowledge must revere old knowledge for without the old knowledge; we could never arrive at the new knowledge.

So I feel about the church and argue strongly against all the changes. Many people have said to me that the changes are minor -- it is just a little modernizing. Unfortunately, that is not the rhetoric I hear. The rhetoric about change in the church is large rhetoric; it's about reinvention and discarding the old, and irrelevancy. To borrow from the railroad analogy, the rhetoric about the church is not "Let's put down new ties and switch to diesel power." Instead it is "Let's get into the trucking business because trains are rapidly becoming an irrelevancy." These are dangerous words indeed.

That the church needs to do things differently cannot be denied. Declining attendance, declining giving all point to an institution that does not seem to be working. The same was said about the railroads as passenger service declined and declined. But the railroads did not go out and get in the bus and truck and airline business. They concentrated on what it was they did well (moved huge amounts of material over long distances really inexpensively) and as freight carriers they continue to do nothing but grow.

Maybe, just maybe what the church needs to think about now is what is it that it really does well and concentrate there. Let me lay a theory on you…

For centuries the church has used entertainment as a means of attracting people to it. Art, music, drama, theses things have been a part of church practice forever. But they are not the purpose of the church; they are a tool the church uses to attract people to it for its real purpose. What's that real purpose? Simple, spreading the Kingdom of God.

In modern times; however, entertainment has become an institution unto itself. People do not need to go to church for entertainment because they can go to the movies or a play, or stay at home and watch TV for that matter.

Maybe the church needs to take a lesson from the railroads. Instead of trying to compete with all the entertainment options out there (like the railroad getting in to the bus and airline business) maybe the church needs to look at what its real strengths are and try and capitalize on those.

The church's real strength is not in entertainment; it is in changing lives.

With Love,