hope in the hot mess that is the church

two churches, bubbles burst, and sticking with God's people

Jean¹ came to church broken. She had come to faith through a college ministry that discipled her in a heavy-handed, borderline-abusive manner that left her confused and unsure how to be a Christian without a micromanaging leader. Now she was emerging from that context. She knew it wasn’t healthy. But she wasn’t sure how to follow Jesus without a pastoral figure running her life.

Sometimes, I think that the primary calling I have as a pastor is to just be a healthy Jesus-follower who stands up in front of other people. If you’re a healthy Jesus-follower, that probably doesn’t sound like a very tall order. But I’ve ministered to enough people who have been spiritually abused to know how rare that kind of pastoral leadership is.

pastoral job description

I spent my young adult years researching church history looking for a time when the church wasn’t broken. When church leaders were integrated and authentic; when church goers were humble and sacrificial.

There have certainly been brighter moments in history, unique and sweet times of the Spirit’s movement. But the church is, was and—until Jesus comes again—always will be broken. It has always been this way.

there is no golden age

Anyone who has studied the history of the Christian church knows that it’s littered with compromise, intrigue, political maneuvering and injustice. Maybe we see all these vices in a previous age of church history. Maybe we’re tempted to think it’s at its worst right here and now.

We convince ourselves there was a golden age when we got everything “right.” For you, that could be the Reformation. Or the religious freedoms enjoyed by the early European-American settlers. Maybe you think it was the age of the Puritans, or, quite the opposite, the high Middle Ages. Maybe you dream of a return to the purity of the early church. Or perhaps you want to skip all the way back to the time of the apostles when Peter and James and Paul were planting churches and writing Scripture.

choose your golden age

Wherever you happen to think the lines around that “golden age” ought to be drawn, I’d like to take it upon myself to burst your bubble.

I don’t want to burst your bubble to replace it with a bubble of my own. I’d like all our bubbles to burst so we can get down to the business of being the church and learning to follow Jesus together.

the two churches

Historian Rodney Stark, in his book The Triumph of Christianity, describes “two parallel churches,” which he calls “the Church of Power and the Church of Piety.”

The Church of Power emerged after the Roman emperor Constantine began to favor Christians in the 4th century with enormous wealth and cultural status. Stark writes, “Most clergy of the Church of Power were sensible and temperate men, but they tended to be worldly in both senses of that term—practical and morally lax.”²

You’ve likely heard the stories: supposedly celibate bishops and popes being succeeded by their illegitimate sons; important church offices being purchased with large donations; church leaders wearing suits of armor and leading armies into battle to fight “God’s enemies.”

is that you, pope julius?

4th century writer Eusebius described the “wicked rapacious men” who had “slipped into the Church.” And in response, the first monastics took to the Egyptian desert to make a serious attempt at following Jesus away from all the corruption. As the politics of the Church of Power threatened the integrity of the Body of Christ, the Church of Piety emerged.

Again and again leaders of the Church of Piety attempted to reform the Church of Power, and during several notable periods they managed to gain control… and impose major changes. But most of the time, the “church” was the Church of Power.³

Maybe you’re thinking, “See! It’s all Constantine’s fault! Before him, the church was pure!” But no, allow me to burst that bubble too. Many of the earliest Christian writings we have were written in response to moral crises. The Galatians abandoned the gospel (Gal. 1:6-7). The Corinthians were tolerating incest (1 Cor. 5:1). And out of seven churches in Revelation 2-3, only Smyrna and Philadelphia went without rebuke.

In other words, there is no golden age. The church has always been a hot mess.

hope in the hot mess

I am often tempted to succumb to cynicism. I meet people like Jean all too often. People who have been hurt, broken, used and abused by leaders in the church. Sometimes those leaders think they are promoting something like the “Church of Piety,” but they do it with a militant fervor that would make Al Qaeda blush.

Many of us have avoided the kind of hurt that people like Jean have endured. But we’re still disillusioned by the frequent abuses and institutional failures of churches we’ve invested our lives in.

Maybe you’re like me; maybe you’re tempted to succumb to cynicism too.

But if we let cynicism seep in, we won’t realize the purpose of the hard things God the Father allows us to endure—in and outside the church. In Romans 5:3-5, St. Paul wrote,

suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Somehow, this suffering is sacramental. Even when things appear bleak, when the Church of Power seems to be snuffing out the Church of Piety altogether, God is at work to use that suffering to form us into a people of endurance, character and hope. In God’s purposes, there is hope in the hot mess that is His Church.

And if you see me standing up front next Sunday, you’ll know I still haven’t lost hope.

What about you? Are you tempted to lose hope when it comes to the Church? What makes you feel that way? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

1. Not her real name.

2. Triumph of Christianity, 300.

3. Triumph of Christianity, 303.