This critique of Gospel™ reminds me of the contemporary critique of "Big Agriculture" or capitalism. Both the conservative and liberals are criticizing it. Say, the food pyramid came about to get more food to more people, so no one is starving anymore. But people are dying of a number of diseases linked to overconsumption of non-nutritious food. In a similar way, I think no one is starving for the very basics of the gospel. The Gospel trademark was a good way to multiply a lot of minimally nutritious teaching and make it profitable and stamped of approval, similar to something being USDA certified.
Also, we need a voiceover for this!! I need to hear King Laugh narrate.
I am so grateful for these essays. I couldn’t read them fast enough and intend to go back to them multiple times. Never has theology made me want to both laugh and cry so much!
After becoming a believer, I was a faithful churchgoer for about ten years. I was so excited to be part of the “body of Christ.” I slowly became aware of these exact patterns and suffered a lot of dysfunctional “leadership” as a result.
I reluctantly stopped attending a few years ago. Attending churches like this made me less loving, less powerful, more anxious and confused… I believe this kind of “discipleship” is not just disappointing or unfortunate but truly harmful. I’m still looking for a community that loves the way God loves.
Thank you for this encouragement. Definitely feeling like a wilderness, which part of me feels awful for saying (there are so many churches and Christians around, who am I to call it that). But I'm happy to be in company with other sojourners, even if separated by time and space :)
“second order burdens of anxiety about how our burdens might burden others” 😂 very much what I’m on the path of releasing these days! Definitely allows for a lighter (maybe even sustainably tolerable) yoke.
The difference between critique and criticism is that criticsm’s only goal is to tear down and replace, whereas critique attempts to build up something into a better state. This was a very useful and helpful critique.
I happen to think that the underlying critique is that the American Protestant tradition changed theology into an act of knowledge instead of an act of faith. Faith is a virtue that brings a state of communion, whereas knowledge is a form of power that sets one above the thing that it studies. Knowledge is important, but it is something of a shadow virtue - it’s bad when it replaces the light virtues. (Knowing your wife means more than than knowing facts about her, but you also cannot truly know her without gaining facts along the way)
Sidenote: I tend to think of the Bible as the cornerstone of cosmology. It isn’t the whole foundation, but it sets the rest of the foundation in order. It gives us a story that fractals out and touches things that we experience. It is not an extended encyclopedia that gives us all the cosmological info we need.
I appreciated this one, a lot.
PS you can’t fault baptists for rebaptizing tho. It’s in the name. 😂
Good discussion. A friend of mine has made some of these complaints before (though not as many, and not as specific). His response is that he's contemplating moving to a Simple Church / house church. For my part, I don't think I really mind the expository model (in the context of a church that also gets together for Bible studies and community groups), except perhaps what you call "Every passage is the Gospel." In my mind, I call this "Every Sunday is Easter."
But then I grew up in a Mainline church that NEVER preached the Gospel, such that I didn't understand what the Gospel was, or what the whole deal was with Jesus, until college, despite having heard so many sermons. I think I'd rather my kids hear the Gospel too much rather than not enough, once they're old enough to sit with us for the sermon. You didn't really mention the Mainlines, but for those who have left the Mainlines (which at this moment in time is a LOT of churchgoing evangelicals), I don't think I'm unusual in having a very conscious desire for my church to not "go the way of the Mainlines."
There's also an issue in that in a growing church, the sermon needs to appeal to those who attend church seldom, and who might be visitors. There's a challenge in trying to appeal to both visitors and long-time members. Again, I think the way many churches do it is to make the sermon more visitor-friendly and have Bible studies, community groups, or small groups for members, which perhaps should be more directed towards the topics you mention.
It also seems that a lot of what you're discussing here implies a smaller church. The idea of audience response, for example (I'm assuming we're talking about more than an "Amen" from the back). Which takes me back again, to my friend and his idea of moving to a house church.
This critique of Gospel™ reminds me of the contemporary critique of "Big Agriculture" or capitalism. Both the conservative and liberals are criticizing it. Say, the food pyramid came about to get more food to more people, so no one is starving anymore. But people are dying of a number of diseases linked to overconsumption of non-nutritious food. In a similar way, I think no one is starving for the very basics of the gospel. The Gospel trademark was a good way to multiply a lot of minimally nutritious teaching and make it profitable and stamped of approval, similar to something being USDA certified.
Also, we need a voiceover for this!! I need to hear King Laugh narrate.
I am so grateful for these essays. I couldn’t read them fast enough and intend to go back to them multiple times. Never has theology made me want to both laugh and cry so much!
After becoming a believer, I was a faithful churchgoer for about ten years. I was so excited to be part of the “body of Christ.” I slowly became aware of these exact patterns and suffered a lot of dysfunctional “leadership” as a result.
I reluctantly stopped attending a few years ago. Attending churches like this made me less loving, less powerful, more anxious and confused… I believe this kind of “discipleship” is not just disappointing or unfortunate but truly harmful. I’m still looking for a community that loves the way God loves.
Thank you for this encouragement. Definitely feeling like a wilderness, which part of me feels awful for saying (there are so many churches and Christians around, who am I to call it that). But I'm happy to be in company with other sojourners, even if separated by time and space :)
“second order burdens of anxiety about how our burdens might burden others” 😂 very much what I’m on the path of releasing these days! Definitely allows for a lighter (maybe even sustainably tolerable) yoke.
The difference between critique and criticism is that criticsm’s only goal is to tear down and replace, whereas critique attempts to build up something into a better state. This was a very useful and helpful critique.
I happen to think that the underlying critique is that the American Protestant tradition changed theology into an act of knowledge instead of an act of faith. Faith is a virtue that brings a state of communion, whereas knowledge is a form of power that sets one above the thing that it studies. Knowledge is important, but it is something of a shadow virtue - it’s bad when it replaces the light virtues. (Knowing your wife means more than than knowing facts about her, but you also cannot truly know her without gaining facts along the way)
Sidenote: I tend to think of the Bible as the cornerstone of cosmology. It isn’t the whole foundation, but it sets the rest of the foundation in order. It gives us a story that fractals out and touches things that we experience. It is not an extended encyclopedia that gives us all the cosmological info we need.
I appreciated this one, a lot.
PS you can’t fault baptists for rebaptizing tho. It’s in the name. 😂
Good discussion. A friend of mine has made some of these complaints before (though not as many, and not as specific). His response is that he's contemplating moving to a Simple Church / house church. For my part, I don't think I really mind the expository model (in the context of a church that also gets together for Bible studies and community groups), except perhaps what you call "Every passage is the Gospel." In my mind, I call this "Every Sunday is Easter."
But then I grew up in a Mainline church that NEVER preached the Gospel, such that I didn't understand what the Gospel was, or what the whole deal was with Jesus, until college, despite having heard so many sermons. I think I'd rather my kids hear the Gospel too much rather than not enough, once they're old enough to sit with us for the sermon. You didn't really mention the Mainlines, but for those who have left the Mainlines (which at this moment in time is a LOT of churchgoing evangelicals), I don't think I'm unusual in having a very conscious desire for my church to not "go the way of the Mainlines."
There's also an issue in that in a growing church, the sermon needs to appeal to those who attend church seldom, and who might be visitors. There's a challenge in trying to appeal to both visitors and long-time members. Again, I think the way many churches do it is to make the sermon more visitor-friendly and have Bible studies, community groups, or small groups for members, which perhaps should be more directed towards the topics you mention.
It also seems that a lot of what you're discussing here implies a smaller church. The idea of audience response, for example (I'm assuming we're talking about more than an "Amen" from the back). Which takes me back again, to my friend and his idea of moving to a house church.
Thanks, Thomas! Just wanted to point out that King Laugh replied to you in a separate comment.