It's a bizarre analogy, I know, but it's the best pop culture reference I had for the conversation between Rachel Held Evans and Ken Ham. They were sparring over this Tennessean story that was picked up by some national news outlets. No, Rachel is not Sookie, and Ken is not Bill. That's not the point. We outsiders are Sookie. The Church is Bill Compton. Not sure where Rachel fits in this analogy. I like what she has to say, and I only disagree with one incredibly important part.
The idea of reform was addressed in the last post, particularly my skepticism about the American Church's ability to reform itself. That led to three comments I want to address and a message that shall remain anonymous unless the writer chooses to identify himself. Leighton first wondered about an abstract concept called Church. He's painfully smart, and here are his words:
I think a good test to see who fits in the category described in your first paragraph would be to see who's talking about saving "the Church," as though there is such a thing. Those who are involved with actual living people and attending to their needs don't ever seem to feel the need to justify their involvement in feeding the hungry and comforting the oppressed. It's the ones who cry the loudest about reclaiming (or worse, preserving) the institution who are in the danger zone. By the time you have to retreat to abstract ideas to find something of value, the war is long lost.
I agree with him. It's an overused word, and it needs some definition. What I meant when I used it was the organizational structure formed by the evangelical/fundamentalist consensus, which is to say, many denominational churches in the evangelical category, as well as most independent churches in the charismatic/pentecostal tradition.
Cheek said that it's impossible to institutionalize without succumbing to the failings of institutionalization, a process that eliminates the possibility of reform. I think that's a fair paraphrase. It's actually way smarter when he says it:
I'm convinced that any reform movement that takes the institutionalizing step past its first generation is doomed to fail because institutions are ultra-conservative by their very nature. As soon as you start paying executive directors and hiring summer interns, you give up the will to overturn the system since despite whatever you might say, you are now a part of that system.
The message went like this, sort of: a German monk was talking about the need for renaissance in the Church because it was impossible to reform structures that were flawed to begin with. That sounds right to me.
The last email was from Matt Mikalatos, and he's the author of Imaginary Jesus, a book I reviewed rather uncharitably. Matt has apparently forgiven me, and speaks very kindly to me now. His comment was that he hopes that reform can still happen in the Church. Here are his actual words:
...as one of those evil evangelical people who wants your precious (yes, I wants it), of course I remain hopeful that meaningful change can come from within the church. From, you know, focusing on Jesus. I know, even people in the church seem to think that's idiotic.
Before we get back to Sookie, it's safe to say I'm skeptical of Matt's hope for reform from within. I believe vested interests count more than principles when it comes to organizations, even religious organizations. (How else to explain the cover-up of pedophiles in the Catholic Church? Or the Health & Wealth "Gospel"? Or Rwanda?) But my last post in the series illustrated why I'm deeply skeptical of the chances for reform, and what I missed, Cheek nailed. Leighton is right, of course, that a broader definition of church that takes into account "Christ-followers" without regard to their relationship to an organizational entity is far more capable of reform than an organizational structure with all the correlative vested interests. (That's an extrapolation from his post, albeit a fair one, I think.) And the monk is right, of course, that you can't reform a system that is so corrupt and so deep into its death rattle that it looks like a sewer system installed in the 18th century. Can you keep fixing the leaks, or do you eventually have to rip the whole thing out and start over? Hmmm. Sometimes broken really means broken, especially when the congregants already believe they're saved and that is what matters. Holy baby Jesus, I've said all along that substitutionary atonement breeds complacency and arrogance. Please show me where I'm wrong.
Anyway, Rachel is irritated with Ken Ham because so many of her friends have left the church over the creation/evolution issue. Really? You must come from a very provincial group. Perhaps that is their issue, but most young people leave the church for radically different reasons: they like fucking, drinking, smoking, dancing, philosophy, justice, or a myriad of reasons having to do with a loathing of hypocrisy, politics, or human weakness. They seldom leave over creation/evolution. I'm sure it's a problem in fundamentalist churches, but it hardly constitutes a movement. The real problem is soteriology and methodology, but I've said enough about that. I only mention Rachel because of Sookie. The other possibility for this analogy is that the institutional church is Bill and those who want reform are Sookie. The werewolf is the hope of reform by means of a different path.
If Matt gets what he wants, and I really am on his side, and his next book is called Night of the Living Dead Christians, so he has a vested interest in supernatural, monster metaphors, then Sookie better dump Bill and get to humping werewolves, because you can't bring back the dead, unless you're Jesus, and the church is only interested in a particular Jesus, not the real one, a reality Matt understands too well. The Jesus who died "just for me" is fine, but the Jesus who wants me not to be a dick, well, that's a bit too much to ask. And the Jesus who isn't interested in issues like literalism and creation/evolution is not Bill's Jesus. Bill's Jesus is serious and hard and consumed with shit that doesn't matter, like six-day creation. I mean, fuck justice, we've got to figure out whether Jesus actually rode a velociraptor or not. The metaphor, although stretched to the breaking point is pretty solid, and the metaphor requires that there be a reevaluation of priorities, and it's best to consider hybrid forms, kind of like werewolves.
