Church Voices

The gospel.

Two small words that mean everything. They sum up the why and what of the work of Christ. Paul puts it very succinctly this way:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Any church that allows something other than the gospel itself as the source of its reason for being quickly becomes unable to do what a church is supposed to do.

Paul warns of this in 1 Corinthians 11 when the church has taken on elements of a social club. The Lord’s supper was originally a re-enactment of the Last Supper in which an entire meal was eaten in addition to the broken bread and wine that symbolized the breaking of Christ’s body and spilling of his blood. However, even this early on sin had crept into the church and instead of being gospel-focused it had become social-club focused with those who were in with the in crowd getting a gluttonous belly-full of food and those who were not showing up just in time to miss out.

And this particular sin was being perpetrated in the name of Christ. And today the same sin goes on. Anytime there is a different set of rules for different people, whether its based on social status, or the type of sin, it is the same situation. Today this type of sin is often justified by using churchy words like, “fellowship” or an appeal to a long-standing friendship, or the amount of time someone has spent in services. But in the end its the same sin of thousands of years ago, justified in the same way.

But in the long term, it doesn’t seem that bad does it? Sure, favoritism is a sin, its condemned in multiple places in the scriptures, but it can’t possibly undermine a church driven by the gospel? Its just favoritism after all. Its not something truly awful like homosexuality, or prostitution.

The thing is, you can serve only one master. You a slave to either Christ or sin, and that’s as true of a church as it is a person, and favoritism is the anti-gospel. Favoritism selects one group of people over another based on a human measure, while the gospel brings people into the Kingdom of God on the same basis. We approach the throne of grace, and are a part of the church for one, single reason: the work of Christ. Favoritism adds to the work of Christ and creates the anti-gospel because you become part of the in-crowd based on your own work.

And people are smart enough to figure this out very quickly. Today I posted on Facebook this excerpt from Michael Spencer’s book Mere Churchianity:

We have a culture-war spirituality that produces Christians who might never share their faith but are ready at a moment’s notice to debate politics, abortion and civil union for gay couples. It is a spirituality that calls down fire on its enemies and shapes its followers into intolerant soldiers waging a morality crusade. Its kingdom is the eventual triumph of moral conservatism, and its spirituality is conflict and argument

Can we honestly say that Jesus was a culture warrior? Can we say that the spirituality of Jesus is geared to turning you into a noisy talk-radio pundit? Is our anger at the decline of culture really a dependable guide toward the experience of God?

We have a culture-war spirituality that produces Christians who might never share their faith but are ready at a moment’s notice to debate politics, abortion and civil union for gay couples. It is a spirituality that calls down fire on its enemies and shapes its followers into intolerant soldiers waging a morality crusade. Its kingdom is the eventual triumph of moral conservatism, and its spirituality is conflict and argument.

Can we honestly say that Jesus was a culture warrior? Can we say that the spirituality of Jesus is geared to turning you into a noisy talk-radio pundit? Is our anger at the decline of culture really a dependable guide toward the experience of God?

Immediately, I received two amens from unexpected quarters. Two people who had left the church a long time ago and haven’t returned both noted two separate examples of favoritism, both focused on how churches have dealt very differently with two different type of sins.

The gospel-soul of a church can’t survive along side any competition. Favoritism, to our modern eyes, seems like an innocuous sin (after all, it doesn’t even make the big-10), but it will choke, kill and ultimately destroy the gospel in a church.