thirtynine

THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

October 12, 2002

Peggy Noonan wrote a bang-up editorial (you may have to register to read this link) in Friday October fourth's edition of the Wall Street Journal. The piece is both homage to New Jersey and a critique of Bobby "Rolexes" Torricelli's speech withdrawing from that state's senatorial race in the upcoming election. She has a few lines in there that really set me to thinking:

Politics is messy and imperfect. But it is grating to be told by a politician all the things he gave us.

Here is a rule you can rely on: The kind of politician who insists he is in "public service" and not in "politics" is the kind of politician who'll ultimately think that his constituents owe him. And so a speech that started out strong wound up weak, a goodbye that started out moving ended up as merely manipulative, and a testament that started out seeming candid ended sounding like mere blowhardism.

These few sentences sum up so much of what I think is wrong with the church…no seriously. Let's examine it. First we probably need to start with the fact that church and politics are much more closely related than we like to think they are. Suspend, for a minute, spiritual pretensions and just concentrate on the earthly effort involved. Both are efforts to rally hopefully large numbers of people to a single viewpoint and then use that viewpoint to persuade them to behave in a specific manner. Not such a bad parallel after all when you think about it.

This, by the way, is why there is an establishment clause in the constitution. Because of the similarities, it is simply too easy to pervert the church into another governmental power base. Any student of history has seen it happen again and again. What many fail to appreciate is that the establishment clause protects the church as much as it protects the government. It is not just about preventing oppression in the name of religion; it is about keeping both government and religion within their proper spheres of influence. One should always remember that the constitution was designed primarily to LIMIT the powers of government. But, I digress.

Having established the parallel, let's look at the quote. Start with the last sentence. How often when the church goes wrong is that an accurate description of what happened? Let's look at each phrase in turn.

The strong end up weak. The church has available to it the greatest source of strength and power known. Have you ever asked yourself why the church is so timid? - Particularly in this day and age. I personally think it is because we confuse meekness and timidity. Jesus tells us to be meek in the Sermon on the Mount. Timidity is a result of a lack of power or the confidence it breeds. It is possible to be confident and meek, but not confident and timid. The church has essentially punted its moral authority in society because of its timidity. That is a crying shame. We have a power infinite and strong. The church is a lot of things, but weak should not be one of them. IF we are weak, and we really are, it is because we have failed to tap the power available to use. And so in this phrase we seem to be headed in the same direction as former Senator Torricelli.

What is moving and evocative ends up as mere manipulative technique. Herein lies my issue with almost all programmatic responses to human failings; anything that can be reduced to technique will, by definition, be manipulation and not produce genuine change. You have heard me berate programs, virtually any program before. There is nothing, nothing I hate more in church than being manipulated. You see God wants the whole package from us. Yes He wants us to change our behavior, but not because we were manipulated in a certain fashion, but because we have been transformed internally so that such behavior is natural. Manipulation is usually very effective in producing a certain response; answering an altar call, giving up dancing, you name it. Being a Christian is not about overcoming an addiction to sin, you know, "Once a sinner, always a sinner." Being a Christian is about being transformed into someone who has forgotten what sin is, let alone how to do it. The best manipulation can hope for is to help you overcome the addiction. (By the way, this is where the church and politics should separate -- the church has the power to transform, politics does not.)

What is candid ends up sounding false. How many times, O Lord, have I been drawn in by sermon or book that made it sound so good only to discover the clay feet inside. Of course, leadership in any church are still sinners, but sinners don’t make clay feet. Unrepentant, arrogant sinners make clay feet. Humility is the key. When a pastor preaches, the word he gives must be a potent part of his life. Of course he will often fail, but that is where humility comes in. He will own his mistakes and use them to shape his future behavior. This is so vitally important because nothing robs a message of its truth faster than failure of the speaker of the truth to live in its context.

The first sentence on the quote is informative too. Church is also messy and imperfect. Church is full of sinners and church often really, really screws things up. And it is really grating when churches and church leaders tell us how wonderful things are when things are so rotten on the inside.

I could exegete this thing all day, let's cut to the chase. Torricelli was a crooked rotten dirty politician in a system that produces good only through the humility and subsequent efforts at improvement of those within. When the humility, when the confession, when the repentance is removed from the system it is ugly, and it ceases to function.

Church is even more that way. It is an imperfect gathering of imperfect people. The good we produce in ourselves comes in spite of our failings, not because of our efforts and abilities. When we lose sight of our sinful nature, everything just gets ugly, and grating, and annoying, and painful.

I prayed for God to grant me humility once in high school. ONCE. To gain humility, one must be humbled, and that just flat out hurts. Since that time, I have never advised anyone else to do so, it feels kind of like advising him or her to have surgery without anesthesia. Here's the problem. I think God works harder to teach us the lesson of humility than any other, whether we ask Him to or not. We however, need to learn to hear it. I do not think my prayer caused God to alter events. I do think it made me receptive to the lesson I was being given. I also think the earlier in the game we are willing to hear the lesson, the less it hurts. In the retrospect of middle age, the pain I felt in answer to that prayer was nothing compared to the pain I have felt later in life.

Bob Torricelli clearly has not heard the lesson of humility. Withdrawing in shame, he spoke pridefully. Caught in evil, he pronounced his good. As the church shrinks and loses relevance, what is the correct response? Most of the responses I hear now grate.

Why don’t we start on our knees.

With Love,