The dead and the living…

Today, I treated myself to a little bit of devotional reading out of the “Devil’s Dictionary of the Christian Faith” by Donald T. Williams. A dear man in Wisconsin gave me this book, and I miss him and his wife greatly, despite their both being Red Sox fans.

Warning: do not read this book if you’re one of those picayune sticky beaks who think Jesus was the idea of your clan – you know, one of those tall goomers running around saying that those who are “not such” are “not much.”

In this marvelously impertinent work of satire, Williams’ final missive is an appendix entitled, 101 things to do with a dead church.” I suppose Dr. Williams’ goal in his book is an homage to the ‘Wittenberg Door’ skewering of cultural evangelical Christianity, (his circle). While the issues are different, the spirit of Williams’ work is a welcome tonic for the particular kind of morass that is a tendency the Reformed enclave of the American church.

Conscious (not consciously) Reformed people, however, do not usually identify as evangelicals, and are uncomfortable with being associated with evangelicalism‘s individualistic democratic religion with all its’ doxological improvisation, moralistic pietism, anti-intellectualism and confessional naiveté. Williams’ skewering of these things may make a Reformed person applaud, but our oh-so-proper Reformed camp has its’ special brand of bovine night-soil, with our insular (nearly cultic) social structure, doctrinaire snootiness, and affected monetary stinginess.

Confessionally Reformed and Presbyterian (i.e, not mainline) Christians are uncomfortable about being stuck with neo-conservative evangelicalism (and the Republican party) being our face to the world, but maybe the soft facile underbelly of protestantism known as evangelicalism has something to teach us.

Could we not hear a little more from folks about the difference Christ has made in their lives? Emotion makes us uncomfortable though, it smacks of the error of ‘enthusiasm’ so we say, ‘settle down, we’ll have none of that here, show some decorum and stop calling attention to yourself.’ No wonder our young people clamor for a place where there passion is appreciated. We’re slouching toward ‘mainline-ism.’

Why is it that only the elders get to hear testimonies of a changed life, and they hear it only when admission to membership is the subject. It pains me to say that I have heard people in our churches more often say something like, ‘I have never changed, I’ve grown up always being a Christian. God knows my heart, after all.”
They mean something good with this, I know, except that there’s a little problem. The scripture simply says nothing like this is a valid testimony nor is it a ground of assurance. We don’t normally come into this world already regenerate. We come as depraved sinners into this world, and at some point regeneration happens as the Spirit wills. Certainly it CAN be that eighth graders profess faith in Christ when the pastor teaches catechism classes, or and each student professes to believe what they have been taught – but look at the condition of things out there.

So Williams and his inimitable way, offers 101 things to do with a dead church. A good many who are regenerate, zealous, and instructed find themselves among these walking dead. Their examples are those kind of life long subscribers to the ersatz religion of ‘Churchianity,’ with its stubborn mentality, obsession with money, and over-emphasis on authority. These church leaders’ warp-ations prevent them from admitting they ever had to change; they live trusting not in Christ, but in ‘perfect upbringing’ and live a life relatively chastisement-free – without knowing the badge of sonship that proves true faith. They have no answer for the question, “What is the hope that lies within you?”
Try this in your church: propose a Lord’s Day activity of showing mercy to unbelieving others by mowing their lawn, visiting on the street, or spending time with them at their house between your morning and evening services…. The nay-sayers who accuse you of breaking the Sabbath will likely be those who have no living witness at all.

Or, try this: have your most radically changed people testify of the new freedom they have found of Christ during a prayer time or Sunday School. Look around, and at yourself, and you’ll see that the most irritated will probably be the ones who are truly and spiritually dead…

Really, there are 101 things to do with people like this…