Eclectic Christian

Anyone who has been reading Eclectic Christian for a while would have noted that generally I try to keep things positive. I have written several posts on the topic of the need to get along better in the Christian Church. You can read them here under the category Eclectic Christian.

While reading at jesusshaped.wordpress.com I came across the following comment from a “Pastor Tim”, please read it, take it to heart, and use it to shape the way you write your blogs. (UPDATE: While I generally agree with Pastor Tim in this post, I think he was a off target in addressing it to Michael Spencer who I have generally found to be very encouraging.)

Heavy sigh.

Maybe I’m being a big baby, but I am in need of a little encouragement right now and thought that this site might be a good place to find some. It often is. Very briefly, here’s the background:

I’ve been a pastor now for 16 years, and it has been a tremendous experience. The journey has been exciting, even if quite difficult at times. I have seen God at work on a regular basis, and I have also seen the enemy at work. I have been both supremely blessed and severely disappointed. I have often experienced the power and presence of God in my life and ministry, and I have also gone through some dry spells on occasion. Ministry for me has been, to borrow a phrase from Dickens, “the best of times and the worst of times.” And through it all, God has been faithful. I wouldn’t trade this life and calling for anything in the world. I love the Lord, and I love his church.

One thing that I have never been able to accept, however, is the inordinate amount of sarcasm, derision, criticism, acrimony, insult, and denigration that the universal church seems to receive on a regular basis—not only from scoundrels outside the fold, like Hitchens and company, but even more so from the acid-tongued believers within the gates who seem to equate harshness with holiness, vitriol with valor, and stridence with instruction. Pastors are especially subject to the pain of incessant and unbridled criticism for the jobs we do—or don’t do—and how we’re leading our congregations to hell in a hand basket. We seem to have more church experts on the sidelines evaluating our work than church members in the trenches doing the work. Do I need to spell out how dispiriting that can be?

Is there anything—anything!—that we pastors can ever do, say, preach, or promote that will meet with universal joy and acceptance by Christians throughout the world? In our quest to fulfill our pastoral callings, will we ever measure up? Will we ever “get it right” to everyone’s satisfaction? Will we ever worship correctly in the eyes of the spiritual watchdogs? Will we ever publish anything that gets approved by the biblical discernment crowd? Will we ever do anything that inspires the critics to put down their pens for a moment and simply praise the Lord with us as we battle the world, the flesh, and the devil? Will we ever enjoy a respite from faddish programs and quick fixes that promise everything and deliver nothing?

Yes, folks, I do know the Scriptures. And I know that there are times when serious flaws and errors need to be highlighted and then corrected. But is the church really supposed to be everybody’s perpetual whipping boy? Must we poke ourselves in the eye every single chance we get? Must we constantly despise ourselves in order to be happy in Jesus? Must we argue our way to the future? Must we shoot our wounded but never wound our shooters? Must we constantly insult and harangue the bride of Christ, thinking her dress will finally get clean if we throw more digital mud at it? We’re starting to act like the teenage girl who intentionally cuts herself in the bathroom out of sheer desperation of soul.

Every single day I read nearly a hundred Christian blogs, and it’s starting to get oppressive. We’ve got self-appointed prophets in pajamas all over the place posting their pot-shots ad nauseum. We’ve got ecclesiastical Absaloms in every village preying on people’s discontentment in order to advance their own prescriptions, only to have those prescriptions dangle from the trees of irrelevance and ineffectiveness over time, gasping for air. We’ve got trendier-than-thou Shimeis with lattes in hand, hurling their verbal abuses at the church, to the point where conscientious pastors and hard working volunteers have been numbed into saying, “Let them curse us. Maybe we deserve it. Maybe God is judging us.” Will it never end?

The other day I was thumbing through a Christian book catalogue and saw an older volume that caught my attention. I got choked up when I read the title. Then I cried. Then I actually sobbed. “From whence cometh such emotion, Tim?” I’m not sure, but I had a sense that maybe our collective criticisms of the church in recent times have gone too far. Way too far. We’ve crossed a line. We’ve insulted the Lord’s wife. We’ve abused her one too many times, and her groom is not pleased.

The book was called, “What’s Right with the Church.”

Maybe I need to turn off my computer and go crack open that book. Maybe all of us would benefit by doing such a thing periodically. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I know this: The Christian blogosphere can be a real joy killer. The constant lament of what seems to be wrong doesn’t ever seem to make things right. It just leaves me wondering why anyone on the outside would ever want to come on the inside and become a pin cushion—not only for the world but for the church as well.

But then I remember that the Savior was pierced, too, and in that I find comfort. Maybe the church is following in his footsteps better than we realize.

If you can, try to say something uplifting tomorrow.

Tim