Tag Archives: Church

Of Movies and Church Corruption

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Birkebeinerne Carrying Håkon Håkonsson – by Knud-Bergslien, 1868

I watched a Norwegian movie this past weekend called “the Last King” (that’s the English title, “Birkebeinerne” in Norway). The story takes place in the year 1206, and tells of 2 soldiers (Birkebeinerne) carrying the future king of Norway, Håkon Håkonsson, to safety when he was a baby. Because he and his mother were living in a village in territory controlled by an opposing faction in Norway’s civil war, the dangerous ski trek through a blizzard in the mountains, carrying a little baby, pursued by enemies wanting the baby (and any supporters) dead, makes for a great story. In fact, the epic true adventure is commemorated each year in Norway with the 54km (33.5mi) Birkebeinerrennet ski race, where participants carry a 3.5kg (8lb) backpack to pay tribute to the 2 soldiers carrying baby Håkon.

While I enjoyed the movie, there was a particular theme in the movie that caught my attention for its cynicism. Part of the plot of the movie is a villainous Catholic Bishop wanting to dominate all of Norway, who orders the hunting down and killing of the would-be heir to the throne. The audience is taken into the dark cathedral, where the Bishop gives his goons the following pep talk before dispatching them on their deadly mission:

“We have just received word from Nidaros. King Håkon is dead. The Birkebeinerne have lost their unifying force. The time of kings is past. But, the Church will always endure. When one man falls, another will take his place. And he answers only to God. We rule Eastern Norway. Western Norway is next. Soon the Church will have dominion over all of Norway. But one task remains. King Håkon is survived by a son. Today, an innocent boy. Tomorrow… our mightiest foe. The boy is being hidden on a farm in our territory. The man who finds the king’s son, shall enjoy great wealth all of his days. Show no mercy during your hunt for the child, for the Lord is eternally merciful, but He also requires sacrifices. Let law and order yield along the way… and bring me the boy’s head.”

Whether the Bishop in the movie is historically accurate or not, this evil Bishop is unfortunately how many people view the Church, and consequently Christianity. But is that an accurate portrayal? Reports of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church, the marital infidelity of Protestant pastors, greedy televangelists, charlatans of the “Prosperity Gospel”, and corrupt “Christian” charities stealing donations only add to the impression of a corrupt and scandalous church no better than the rest of the world, and indeed, worse for the hypocrisy. But let’s compare our movie villain, the Bishop, to what the Bible teaches.

  • The Bishop desires a physical empire for the Church, yet  Jesus told Pilate at His trial that His kingdom is not of this world [Jn 18:36]. Rather, while foxes had holes, and birds had nests, He had no home [Mt 8:20]. The warnings of the moral dangers of chasing wealth and power are too many to mention here. However, our dear Bishop could’ve at least remember the model pointed to in Hebrews where the author talks of heroes of the faith who “went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated – the world was not worthy of them.” [He 11:37-38] This desire for earthly power is not an example of the Church’s calling, but rather of the universal fall (corruption) of mankind explained in Genesis 3.
  • The Bishop offers lifelong wealth as a reward to the one finding the king’s son for him. Yet riches were never a motivation of Jesus, His apostles, or any of the early Christians. Jesus said to store up for ourselves treasures in Heaven rather than on earth, and that man cannot have both God and money as his master [Mt 6:19-24].  He even warned how easily riches could get in the way of one getting to Heaven [Mt 19:23-24]. Instead, we are to seek His kingdom and His righteousness first, and God will provide what we actually need [Mt6:33].
  • The Bishop specifically said to “show no mercy” and to kill an admittedly “innocent boy” who might become his foe someday. Jesus disagrees. As He put it, “Blessed are the merciful” [Mt 5:7], “Love your enemies, and pray forthose who persecute you” [Mt 5:44], and do not simply refrain from murdering someone, but rather do not even be angry with them [Mt 5:21-22]. Paul likewise said to “overcome evil with good”  [Ro 12:21]. A far cry from the Bishop here.
  • The Bishop’s reference to God requiring “sacrifices” in this context is just an awful perversion of God’s Word [Mk 12:33].
  • The Bishop said to set aside law and order to accomplish his orders. Yet Paul and Peter both told all Christians to obey the civil government whenever possible. The only real biblical exception is when civil obedience would require disobedience to God [Ro 13:1-7, 1 Pe 2:13-16, Ac 4:18-22]. The Bishop was right that we answer to God, but God has also said that we must answer to the rulers He has allowed to preside over us.

Is the Bishop’s behavior an example of Christian practice? Hardly! On the contrary, it’s strongly opposed to what Jesus actually says. In fact, the Bishop’s attempt to kill a baby he fears will become his enemy someday is more reminiscent of King Herod trying to have Jesus killed as a baby [Mt 2:13,16]! While the Bishop was a fictionalized church leader, the examples I listed earlier are very real headlines. Nevertheless, each of them is also behavior that clearly goes against the Bible. Discounting all of Christianity because of some of these bad examples would actually be to commit the logical fallacy of composition: “arguing from the part to the whole, ignoring the fact that what is true of the part is not necessarily true of the whole.”[1] Are these perpetrators corrupt? Absolutely. Do they invalidate Christianity? Absolutely not. Their behavior doesn’t flow from the Bible, and is, in fact, opposed to it.  So next time you’re tempted to cast a cynical look at Christianity because of disobedient Christians or people only claiming to be Christians [Jn 15:8,14,16], keep that cynicism focused on the person whose actions actually warrant it, and not the faith they are disgracing.

[1] Peter Kreeft, Socratic Logic (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2010), p. 87.

Club Church

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club_churchIt’s been said that to succeed in business, you must find your niche and play to your strong suit, whether that’s low prices, high quality, large variety, customer service, etc. And if you offer a product or service that people want, but no one else is providing, you’ll be well on your way to market domination as long as you don’t sabotage yourself with bad choices. Does that apply to how churches “market” themselves?

The church is described in the Bible as the “body of Christ”, and like a human body, there are many functions performed by different parts of the body.[1] There should certainly be ministries to widows and orphans [2], teaching of sound doctrine [3], praising God,[4] fellowship with other believers,[5] and celebrating communion,[6] and more.[7] But where do you fit in building that new basketball gym? Is that a ministry to local kids “starving” for court-time? Or maybe “fellowship”? What if we actually try teaching our youth our creeds and statements of beliefs and why we believe those to be true? Will that cut into pizza and video game time at youth group? Will half the youth group stop attending if we stop babysitting them and start training them to face the battles they’re otherwise heading out to unprepared? What if the power went out, and our well-choreographed worship presentation didn’t have working microphones and amps, and the words to the songs weren’t conveniently displayed on large screens for us to lip-sync with minimal effort? Would we all just go home for lack of entertainment?

Now, before I get branded a crusty old curmudgeon, I understand that many times that basketball gym is keeping kids on the street from looking to gangs for their social structure and their role models; I understand that pizza is a fellowship meal just as much as other foods have been through the centuries; and I understand that kids have played games of one sort or another whenever they congregate, whether modern video games, or kick-the-can, or whatever made-up game could be invented on the spot, for as long as kids have been kids. I’m also not advocating that more contemporary churches burn their electric guitars and sound booth and switch to a Gregorian chant for their worship. But I am asking whether we’ve started majoring in the minors, so to speak – focusing on the details around the edges and forgetting the focal point of all history. When many of Jesus’ wannabe disciples had left Him to go find new entertainment, and Jesus asked the disciples if they too would leave Him, there are some things they didn’t say in response. They didn’t say they were staying because of His engaging style, His charisma, His warm personality, His concern for the causes they personally identified with, or a lot of other reasons people give for attending particular churches. Peter nailed it when he replied “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.“[8] That’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it? If we forget that, we are in danger of becoming just another passing social club.

However, the church makes a poor social club. The world will always be able to offer more enticing clubs. After all, clubs promise immediate gratification and don’t ask for lifelong commitments; they’ll stay conveniently compartmentalized in whatever area of your life you set aside for them; they don’t ask for your all; they certainly don’t ask you to be willing to endure suffering or even physical death for them. But that is precisely the commitment that Christ asks of each of us.[9] Yet there is one area where Christianity has a complete monopoly: only Jesus offers eternal life.[10] And with it comes the added bonus of all the fulfillment and joy that all the clubs in the world can’t provide.

Are your children being equipped as disciples of Christ, or just temporarily entertained while they grow to be “ex-Christians”? Is your worship about what feelings you get out of the experience or what you can offer to God? If people can attend your church, and all they come away with is that you have really good coffee and donuts (but little spiritual nourishment [11]), and the kids had fun (but weren’t getting “the wisdom that leads to salvation” [12]), and the preacher was pretty funny (but conveniently would never convict anyone of the danger they’re in living apart from God [13]), then I would suggest that your church has left the only “market niche” God ever intended for it to occupy.[14]

[1] 1 Corinthians 12, NASB.
[2] James 1:27, NASB.
[3] Most of 1st & 2nd Timothy…
[4] Colossians 3:16, NASB.
[5] Acts 2:42, NASB.
[6] 1 Corinthians 11:23-34, NASB.
[7] 1 Corinthians 12:5, NASB.
[8] John 6:68, NET.
[9] Visit Open Doors or Voice of the Martyrs if you have any doubts.
[10] John 14:6, Acts 4:12, NASB.
[11] Matthew 4:4, NASB.
[12] 2 Timothy 3:14-15, NASB.
[13] 2 Timothy 2:23-26, NASB.
[14] Matthew 28:19-20, NASB.

Church PDH?

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The Cathedral of the Madeleine - Photo by Jason McCool, 2014PDH – Professional Development Hours – both a blessing and a bane for engineers. Some states don’t require any at all, while others have a variety of acceptance rules that differ from state to state. As I filled out the continuing education logs for the last of my license renewals coming due at the end of the year, I found I had accumulated over 60 hours of PDH over the last 2 year renewal cycle, more than twice what any one state required. Despite the inconvenience PDH can be sometimes, I’ve learned a lot of good stuff through various seminars, conferences, webinars, and self-study courses. But as good as some of the more convenient webinars and self-study courses have been, the seminars and conferences I’ve participated in have been especially beneficial. We don’t have the time or resources (or desire, oftentimes) to be experts in every aspect of our profession, so it’s great to hear subject matter experts and be able to actually interact with them and ask that one question you’ve always wondered about. While I can learn about a new design method or innovative product from reading a trade journal or hearing one of those experts lecture about it in theory, talking to other engineers at a conference who have actually used that method or specified that product on a completed project is priceless. We better ourselves and the profession by our participation and interaction with fellow engineers. In fact, that interaction is key to the success of conferences. At one conference you may be the attendee learning something new, while at another one you may be one of the presenters teaching something new to others. Either way, interaction helps stretch us and take us out of our comfort zone enough to grow. Did going to conferences or seminars sometimes interfere with both my business and personal schedules? Yes, but I am a better engineer in the end because of making that investment.

Church is a similar investment. While there’s no commandment in the Bible that “Thou shalt go to church”, there are verses like Hebrews 10:25 that warns against “forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some….” Acts 2:42-47 provides an example of early Christians regularly meeting to learn doctrine, pray, praise God, fellowship together, and share with each other. They met both in the synagogues and in fellow Christians’ homes. In fact, it’s a little misleading to even talk about “going to church”, for the Bible says that we are the church, whether we meet in a fancy building, a rented gym, our own houses, or in a cave under cover of night like Christians in some parts of the world are forced to do. So besides it being encouraged in the Bible, why should we attend “church”? Like my engineering conferences,  we get the chance to learn from subject matter experts (preachers) that have invested the time in seminary learning Greek, Hebrew, Systematic Theology, Epistemology, and so on. We also can learn from other Christians in the body that may not a have a Master of Divinity degree, but still have a lifetime of powerful lessons God’s taught them that they can share.

For myself, I know that hearing different perspectives stretches my mind and challenges my preconceptions and attitude I might bring with me.  Talking in small groups and classes can expose us to a variety of different readings of scriptures we think we’re familiar with, and force us to prayerfully reason through the different possible interpretations. Just like teaching a session at an engineering conference, leading a Bible study, teaching a Sunday school class, or teaching youth will definitely stretch us and push us to the next level.  Our active attendance provides us a chance to meet with role models to see faith lived out in the flesh. We know we are to be holy even as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). We have the pattern of great men like Paul who tell us to follow their example in pursuing God (Philippians 3:17). But we need to “see it lived out”, as John MacArthur says. One place we see that is at church, and so we don’t forsake gathering. Will we find hypocrites there? Certainly, but seek out those who model Christ faithfully, and do likewise. Will church be an inconvenience sometimes? Yes, but that’s the nature of investments of any kind. Just like a good conference gets me to look up from my little problems I’m working through, corporate (i.e. group) worship also takes the focus off of ourselves and lifts our eyes up to God. It makes us look at our priorities, and contributes to our sanctification.

Can we get a lot of these benefits from TV sermons and books and magazines, private prayer time, or Bible studies with friends? Sure, to varying degrees. But Paul tells us that we are each different parts of one body, each with a different role to fill. We can’t all be the eyes, or the hands, etc. When we do “forsake the gathering together”, we are effectively cutting ourselves off from the local body of believers, and in so doing, amputating the Body of Christ. So attend, but don’t just attend – participate, study, grow, mature, train (yourself and others), and never stop learning, for you will never exhaust the limitless library of God’s PDH program.