Tony on going to church

I’ve been to a few churches around town and they just annoy the **** out of me because they’re so fake, and the people look so lost, and the people on the stage just look so plastic and so charming and so seductive, and I just think ‘I don’t believe in these people’. These people are not an expression of faith. So, I’d much rather just slip into a church and sit there for 10 minutes and have a bit of quiet time, or pray at home. I don’t feel that you necessarily have to turn up at a certain place at a certain time dressed in a certain way to express your faith and live out your faith. I think there’s other ways of doing it.
                                                                                                        (Tony, The Monastery Revisited, BBC2, 7 June)

I thought Tony's words we both illuminating and disheartening. It certainly made me ask what kind of people Tony would encounter in the church I belong to. I find it brilliant that this guy Tony keeps returning to Worth Abbey because he's found a place for his christian faith to grow and be nourished. He's a man just turned 30, who through the experience of living at a monastery and being accountable to the monks and people he went with is now looking for his vocation, which is about giving of his self to others. It's just sad that so far the wider church has not been able to help him.

Comments

[Tom]

Interesting quote Andy, I think we've had some similar glimpses into the murkier fringes of Christendom in the past. An ecumenical survey of 14,000 people (http://www.churchsurvey.co.uk/) indicated that apologetics was the number one need, followed by better instruction on holiness and more lively worship.

I have to say that in reaction to Tony we have to have some bottom lines. For example, it would be easy to capitulate entirely to individualism and say, 'That's fine Tony..You relate to God in whatever way floats your boat.' Or to be so soft towards his disillusionment so as to entirely miss the arrogance that he carries in with, 'I don't like the look and sound of you, so I have nothing to learn from you. You are not a valid expression of faith.'

The biggest bottom line for me, is that God loves the church. God loves Christians. And so if you know God and you know Christ and you really are a Christian, you're going to love Christians. Warts and all. It's too easy to just say, 'I want to be serious about God. I think I need to stay away from Church.' That's just a lie. If someone is really serious about God, and godly stuff, then they'll be passionate about the bride of Christ, because God is passionate about his bride.

Now, I probably sound pretty uncompassionate towards Tony. I hope I wouldn't be like that in person. I'm discussing ideas here, not explaining or laying out a strategy for how I might go about interacting with him or giving someone like him advice.

Tom

[Tom]

A rather different point now. I've been thinking quite a lot about what makes a person convincing. About what makes a person genuine and authentic.

At the root of it all. I would point to the new birth in Christ. We must all go through this new birth and recognise our need for it, as a result of our sin and moral wrongness before a holy and just God. That's the start of the authentic human being - A human being that Tony would sit up and really listen to - I hope.

Then I think we would want to look at the Christian life, lived, in an authentic and real way. This is actually a different use of the word authentic, since if you have been born again, you are given authentic life. But this second sense of authentic living is about getting the organisms in your soul (mind, feelings, thoughts, body, social environment) to line up properly with the authentic person that you have been re-born in Christ to be.

Two things that I find unconvincing about Christians sometimes (I'm a Christian myself and have been for nearly 5 years) is that they often don't know how to really talk in a real way with other people. Talking well means really giving time and listening like understanding where someone else is coming from is the most important thing to you. And talk in a way that is as honest as you can possibly manage. The other thing is that I meet a lot of Christians who have never read an intellectual book. They don't think about the films they watch. They don't have a very deep thinking life - often pretending that they are not capable or that it is in someway theologically dirty to really engage with ideas, and particularly secular thought. The Christians that I have met who have been determined to grow their mind - like a muscle - have been by far and away the most effective at sharing and living out their faith. The slogan goes, 'Leaders are Readers.'

Anyway, some reaction to get a discussion going perhaps...

Tom

[Mark]

Interesting quote from Tony and some interesting responses from Tom ...

As a pastor of a church, I frequently experience disillusionment about the church (including my own and myself!) and in dealing with some Christians I have to remind myself that these are my sisters and brothers and that Christ does love them and their churches even when I want to disown them.

In my experience of church and my own life, I expect disillusionment when I compare what I see Jesus lived out, and then look at the state of the church and the life we live out and its relevance (or lack of) to the needs and hurts of the people living next door.

However, I have also learnt to look beyond the shortcomings and see the way in which many Christians genuninely desire to help people and see people experience faith in God - this gives me hope to keep going! On the other hand, I see this genuine desire being expressed in ways which are often unhelpful and/or irrelevant. This is not the fault of the people, this is the fault of the church culture we have created. This is a culture in which people can be genuine in their faith, and yet the way they have been taught to express it results in the sort of stuff that Tony describes which seems 'plastic, chraming and seductive'.

I believe that this is the result of a church culture and leadership which has forgotten that first and foremost Christ did not come to make Christians, but to redeem the world. We have focused so much on ourselves, with the arrogance in thinking 'we are the church - we are right' that we have lost sight of the fact that God has called us into his mission of reconciling the world to himself in Christ. We have lost connection with the hopes, dreams, hurts and fears of the world that God calls us into mission to. We have stood back and said to the world around us 'Believe in Jesus!', without bothering to go and share their lives, and in the midst of the reality of their lives, share the Good News of Jesus life and freedom in ways that are powerful and liberating for people.

So after the ranting - my thoughts on Tony's comments are

He tells the truth about our church culture.
However that doesn't mean that there aren't faithful, genuine people in our churches.
We (the church) need to take more notice of our neighbours than the next 'church growth'or worship conference advertisement that we receive!

Mark

[Tom]

Mark,

I found what you wrote slightly hard to understand..

"first and foremost Christ did not come to make Christians, but to redeem the world. We have focused so much on ourselves, with the arrogance in thinking 'we are the church - we are right' that we have lost sight of the fact that God has called us into his mission of reconciling the world to himself in Christ."

But isn't the testimony of the Bible that God is going to redeem the world through transforming human beings - human hearts, by spiritual re-birth? Isn't that how God is going to do it? Are you rejecting that or seeing redemption as the bible speaks about it as being something that isn't primarily about that?

Tom

[Phil Rankin]

With many many people there is a desire to be like Christ but often this is not happening. The issue for me is about the limiting nature of a culture and society, in this case the culture and society of many Churches. In my U.K. wide research among young people it was clear that they wanted to ask Spiritual Questions but they most certainly didn’t see Church as the place to enable this. This is not about the desire of people to be like Christ or anything else, but about the limitations of a power-orientated society (in this case, Church) that cripples Christians and prevents them from appearing real, genuine and authentic to those outside that society. However at some point the people who form the society have to take responsibility for the Church that they have created by being involved in it.
I don’t think Tony was saying that he has nothing to learn from others who are in Church. From my work and personal experience there are many people who are interested only in ‘encouraging’ others to think, believe and act in the way that they do. In Church there is rarely space to question or reflect upon their expectations in the way that Tony was able to in the monastery. When he (or I) seek this space in Church it is rarely found. Perhaps Tony’s perception of people as plastic etc. comes from the unwillingness of others to give him space or to recognise that they actually could have much to learn from him?
It may be true that God is passionate about his bride, but can it be assumed that Church as Tony experienced it is this bride? God may be passionate about Church, but this does not necessarily mean that he likes/loves it (See Revelation Ch3 for a possible example, or for Jesus reaction to the Pharisees for another). Tony’s views may well be closer to God’s perception than we realise.

[Tom]

Phil,

I liked this bit that you wrote..

"they wanted to ask Spiritual Questions but they most certainly didn’t see Church as the place to enable this. This is not about the desire of people to be like Christ or anything else, but about the limitations of a power-orientated society (in this case, Church) that cripples Christians and prevents them from appearing real, genuine and authentic to those outside that society."

I'm not sure that I would point the finger of blame at the power-orientated society. I do think though, that you expose some of the problem that Tony is trying to get at.

I read a book called, 'Love Your God With All Your Mind' by JP Moreland which is quite interesting. Moreland is probably the brightest Christian mind in Philosophical enquiry at the moment, at least according to Dallas Willard. And Moreland lays out some theology and strategy that makes a lot of sense. One of the things he asks us to do is to have more Q&A at church (after / during the preach) and sometimes to preach an intellectual message that might go over the heads of some in the congregation.

I heard a guy called Josh McDowell speaking over the last weekend and he said that a lot of our teaching (with respect to youth) is all about Christian behaviour. I'm not so sure that it is just youth. So, much of the teaching I hear has the will as its target and modifying behaviour as its goal. Where is the teaching on values and deeper beliefs that affect behaviour a great deal more than a simple choice of the will? Where is a deeper understanding of a human being that means that Christian teaching is applied not just to my ability to make choices, but also to how my deeper feelings and thoughts are affecting my choices - Often swinging them off the course that I have set in my mind to follow.

Part of what I like about the emerging church is the openness to see these environments where people can ask questions, open up. In terms of knowing truth and coming to know truth, they have a lot of work still to do, but I do like the focus on hearing questions in a dialogue with the individual, who they attempt to truly see as an individual.

Tom

[Phil Rankin]

Tom, a question and a comment:
"I'm not sure that I would point the finger of blame at the power-orientated society." So where would you suggest the difficulty does lie?

"In terms of knowing truth and coming to know truth, they have a lot of work still to do." Without getting into a whole discussion about the nature of truth, for me personally this is something that happens in the space with Tony. As I learn new things with him, I change and the truth grows. It is never static and absolutely requires the space to question. Although I'm not totally against formal teaching/preaching (although ask me on the wrong day and I will be!!), I think it is almost totally valueless without the Q&A. In my view this goes for ever piece of worship, liturgy, etc. etc. In my research among Christian young people (and a small number of adults)it was clear that they rarely 'owned' the 'truth' as it had been presented to them and this greatly troubled me. People, young and old, need to create safe space together where they can engage and reflect on any input with openness and honesty - including the possibility of perhaps rejecting the 'truth' presented to them altogether.

[Tom]

Phil,

I would say that the difficulty lies not in social structure but in the deepest part of the human self. When you dig right down into the human being, you'll find the problem there. That was Jesus' analysis too. The human heart needs to be transformed. He said that this happens through something that the theologians call 'regenerative rebirth' the rest of us call it being born again. My finger of blame, therefore would point squarely at my own heart.

I don't think I agree with your second paragraph. I think I agree with your sentiment, essentially, you're saying that we need to learn, keep painting the picture, keep discovering the truth, never stop asking questions and learning - fine. I'm with you 100% there.

I do think that the way that you make that last point is a bit confused. You seem to be saying that truth changes and grows - when what you mean is that you discover and know it better. Since there couldn't be growth without something solid (absolute truth. E.G. the absolute truthfulness of God) to grow towards, in the same way that learning can't be learning without something to learn . If you are wanting to push past the modernistic conception of truth - as a correspondence or accurate description of reality - then I think you still need to respect that Jesus as truth (greek 'alethia' - meaning uncovering) doesn't change or grow in truthfulness. Your understanding does, but not Jesus himself.

I do also agree that in our presentation of truth, either as the community of God or as the heralds of the gospel message (which is in almost every description of it in the NT - a verbalised message), we need to reflect the character of Jesus, and he allowed people to walk away. Many of them did. Jesus explains after the famous verse in John 3:16 why they walk away, and it isn't because they are restricted by the power-orientated society.

Tom

[Phil Rankin]

Tom

Tony’s initial issue was with being genuine i.e. not ‘fake’. “I’ve been to a few churches around town and they just annoy the **** out of me because they’re so fake, and the people look so lost, and the people on the stage just look so plastic and so charming and so seductive, and I just think ‘I don’t believe in these people.’”

You seem to be suggesting that the problem is one of human nature because hearts are not transformed; yet there are people who each of us will know who we will no doubt consider genuine. I am certain that Tony also has people in his life that he will consider genuine – the other men from the Monastery are likely to fit into this category. The fact that there are ‘genuine’ people suggests to me that this is not some ‘separation from God’ theological issue. Being genuine is something that is wholly possible for each person to achieve, and is a totally separate issue from knowledge or experience of God. I am also fairly certain that being ‘not fake’ is something that most people in Church would like to be perceived as.

If being ‘not fake’ is something that people aspire to and if it can be achieved, then why has Tony not experienced this? I suggest that it is not (only) because of the human heart’s lack of transformation but because the situation around individuals in Church inhibits their ability to achieve their desire to be real, genuine, not fake.

I accept your point regarding the way that I expressed the second paragraph. I was pointing towards an openness that recognises our lack of knowledge of truth. Having said that, I don’t entirely agree with your expression of absolute truth. In my view “Something solid” is not always necessary for growth to occur, nor do I accept that people are necessarily growing “towards” something. The very thing that is being learned about may itself be changing and growing. As I said, I didn’t really want to go into the nature of truth but….“to respect that Jesus as truth (greek 'alethia' - meaning uncovering) doesn't change or grow in truthfulness,” means that I have to first accept Jesus as truth. If I do not, will this make any desire for truth meaningless? Alongside that, which Jesus am I being asked to accept “as truth”? This can of course lead into questions of whether Jesus even exists outside of an individual person. Is it my understanding of Jesus that changes or ‘Jesus’ that changes? Every worldview does not necessarily require an objective absolute truth, god or whatever. It can even be argued that the moment you talk of absolute truth as something objective, it has been made subjective.

Finally, I think that to use John 3 to explain every person who ‘walks away’ is to place a theological framework on something that is not always a theological issue. Is Tony ‘walking away’ because he lives in darkness, as John 3 would suggest? Or is it maybe because the Church has placed so many unnecessary elements and structures in the way that he struggles to find the light he desires? Tony did not reject the light. He only rejected the people that are supposed to be the light….as many other people do.