As I’ve hopscotched around the internet the last month I’ve come across a G. K. Chesterton quote that offers some wisdom in how we relate to the church. He is speaking of his love for England, but the love he shows for England here is a terrific example of the love we can and should have for the church. This is from an article by Joseph Sobran:
G.K. Chesterton, with his usual gentle audacity, once criticized Rudyard Kipling for his “lack of patriotism.” Since Kipling was renowned for glorifying the British Empire, this might have seemed one of Chesterton’s “paradoxes”; but it was no such thing, except in the sense that it denied what most readers thought was obvious and incontrovertible.
Chesterton, himself a “Little Englander” and opponent of empire, explained what was wrong with Kipling’s view: “He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reason. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English.” Which implies there would be nothing to love her for if she were weak.
The analogy I am making here is probably pretty obvious – substitute the church for England. In our current climate few admire the church, but many claim to love the church. Yet I wonder if most of those who claim to love the church aren’t like Chesterton’s Kipling – trying to find reasons to love an institution they can’t admire.
The church’s critics today are legion, sadly I have been one. These days I’ve come more to see my obligation to simply be a faithful son of the church and not it’s critic. Most of us would, at least in some vague theoretical sense, acknowledge that if the church is Christ’s bride then she is our mother. But does anyone criticize their earthly mothers the way professing Christians criticize the church?
Well, I suppose I know the answer that last question and it’s a legitimate one – the church as Christ’s bride and the Christian’s mother is only one metaphor for it, there are plenty of other metaphors and descriptions of the church that give us grounds for critical engagement. Where there is sin in the church, it’s most faithful sons must be willing to confront that sin. Still, it ought to be sin that we confront. Much of the criticism we level at the church isn’t because she is obviously sinning, it’s because she isn’t living up to those worldly standards her children have adopted.
Lately I find myself asking “what if the church never gets better?” I mean this for the local church I pastor and for local churches everywhere and for the universal church in general. What if the church never gets better? Will God’s love for her diminish? Will the efficacy of Christ’s shed blood be diminished? If God loves the church why can’t we? Or, to put it another way, what grounds do we have for rejecting what God loves?
And please understand here that I am not speaking of those churches that obviously have forsaken the true preaching of the Word and administration of the sacraments. What if your average old run of the mill local church that gives you the Word and sacraments, never gets better, whatever “better” means? Will you still love her and be faithful to her, even if she appears so “weak” that there seems no good reason to continue loving her?
November 14th, 2010 | 6:32 am | #1
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November 14th, 2010 | 6:49 am | #2
“And please understand here that I am not speaking of those churches that obviously have forsaken the true preaching of the Word and administration of the sacraments.”
Out of curiosity, which churches would that be?
November 14th, 2010 | 9:32 am | #3
“Most of us would, at least in some vague theoretical sense, acknowledge that if the church is Christ’s bride then she is our mother.”
If the church is Christ’s bride, and you and I are the church, then you and I are the bride of Christ. The conclusions follow from the premises, and this is a consistent argument. You have some unstated premises in your statement above that produce an illogical argument that the church is our mother, don’t you?
November 14th, 2010 | 1:52 pm | #4
And so the strongest rebukes of the church have to be sounded by non-Christians, while Christians continue to do the exact opposite of what St. Paul advises:
As compared to mere admirers, strong and incisive criticism is actually more befitting of a faithful lover.
November 14th, 2010 | 2:35 pm | #5
C.Ehrlich said,
“As compared to mere admirers, strong and incisive criticism is actually more befitting of a faithful lover.”
Well said. We have the responsibility and challenge as the Bereans in Acts 17 to search the Scriptures to see if these things are so.
November 14th, 2010 | 3:44 pm | #6
“For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” -Paul the Apostle, with his inspired words to the saints at Rome.
Every Christian lives for our Lord, and we will die for our Savior. That’s what this word here tells us.
I know I don’t live for the Lord asa I want to, and I feel like, and know that i actually live for myself. However, the truth is that Jesus is our Lord, and Paul is here writing to saints. Jesus is Lord of the living saints, and all those who have gone on to be with their Lord.
He loves His Church: His saints. And He will never let any one take us from His everlasting omnipotent hands. John 10
November 14th, 2010 | 4:46 pm | #7
The assumption being made here is that the traditional manifestation of what we know as “church” is a faithful representation of the gathered church. Many faithful Christians who love His church have come to the realization that what we in the West know as “church” is not only not a faithful representation of the church as originally constituted but with the rituals and traditions built into it, it actually hampers the spiritual growth of God’s people. One absolutely can love the Church and yet reject the traditions that men have created. In fact I would argue that if you truly love the Church, you are obligated to compare our practices with Scripture and reject those practices we don’t see commanded or modeled in its pages.
November 14th, 2010 | 5:20 pm | #8
TUAD – I am thinking of churches that deny any part of the apostles creed in general, but in particular those which deny the Trinity, the exclusivity of Christ and the resurrection.
Steve Drake – sorry, I made a leap in logic here that didn’t follow. I’d just point out that the general protestant tradition, at least when it came to the early reformers still held to the idea that the church is our mother. More specifically, the Jerusalem above is the church, or bride – Revelation 21:9-11. The Jerusalem above is our mother – Galatians 4:26. Also, I know there are those who would disagree with this but I take the woman in Revelation 12 to be a symbolic representation of the people of God of both testaments – Israel and the church.
C. Ehrlich – I guess you and I run in different circles. Pretty much all I hear from Christians, at least of the evangelical stripe, is criticism, be it on a local level or, especially, on the internet. We’re awash in “Revolutionaries” and people who love Jesus but hate the church and think of the church as pretty much unChristian. I can’t think of anywhere I have heard anyone say anything comparable to what Chesterton says here of England, that we are to love the church simply because she is the church.
November 15th, 2010 | 1:32 pm | #9
“TUAD – I am thinking of churches that deny any part of the apostles creed in general, but in particular those which deny the Trinity,”
Shun the teachings of Oneness Pentecostal Churches?
Sounds right to me. Although I do note that T.D. Jakes has an enthusiastic following as a Oneness Pentecostal preacher.
deny…the exclusivity of Christ and the resurrection.”
Shun the teachings of the Unitarian Universalists?
Sounds right to me.
November 15th, 2010 | 11:11 pm | #10
[...] couple of days ago I did a post called “Why Love the Church” wherein I analogized from some words of G. K. Chesterton to the effect that we ought to love [...]
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