The Church; some of its sundry issues; footnotes of snark

Like its Maker, the Church is something nigh impossible to describe. Scripture calls it a bride, a body, an organism both unified and formed of component parts. It is composed of body and spirit, containing immeasurable purpose and power, both transcendent and temporal. This is the Church, the catholic church, the united body of believers.*


Face it, though, this is a Church few of us actually see. Some of us who have spent every Sunday and Wednesday of our lives in a church building have never seen this Church. We've seen a version no stronger than the diluted grape juice passed around a Baptist celebration of communion.** The church that many both in and out of the faith know is often petty, confusing, constraining, and boring.*** It often divides itself not in a helpful amoebic way, but in a quarreling, divisive way. It attempts, on occasion, to be cool for the sake of being cool, often with more failure than success.****


The earthly church has never been perfect. While the particular problems varied from age to age, every strain of the church and every denomination has had and will have flaws, simply because every person in the church has had and will have flaws. Plato's Republic serves as a useful example here. The city of which Socrates speaks in exhausting detail is, in its simplest form, a collection of men. Not only is it simply a name for a governed collection of men, it is, to Plato, man writ large. One can better see something if it is magnified. In this case, the city reflects on the state of a man. 


As the condition of a city says something about the condition of its inhabitants, so does the condition of the church. The church is, at times, petty, confusing, constraining, and boring, because its members are petty, confusing, constraining, and boring. It is little wonder that many outside the church (and increasing numbers within) feel a sense of offense and outrage toward the church and feel it has little to nothing to offer.


This is where one must make a most crucial distinction. Members of the church, due to sin's presence in the world, have faults.***** This does not mean the creator and sustainer of the church does. The temporal church may be divided; God is not. The temporal church may confuse and constrain; God does not. The church's poor representation of God does not mean God himself is lacking, much as a child's well-meant drawing of his family does not mean his parents actually gander about as technicolored stick figures.


I grew up in the church and, thankfully enough, every now and then, caught glimpses of the Church. These glimpses came through people, through deeds, through authors like Lewis and Sayers and L'Engle. There are so many things the church has done right, and so much it has done wrong. I do not claim to have solutions, even though I realize possessing an undergraduate degree in Good Books******  absolutely qualifies me to offer solutions about anything and everything.*******


I offer observations, questions, thoughts, and some quotes and ideas I only wish were originally mine. During this endeavor to examine, question, and affirm the church, I'll probably come across some hornets' nests, but that seems to be the way of things, particularly if one has strong opinions and ideals. Some of these quotes and ideas from classical and contemporary literature will be accompanied by references to things in which I am intensely interested, namely art, music, and superhero movies. Just as "Christian" culture does not signify qualitatively good or value-filled culture, "secular" culture does not mean qualitatively bad or value-void culture********. The temporal church may be in a period of intense difficulty (much of its own making), particularly in the West, but it has so much to offer. It has infinity and beyond.*********


______________


These asterisks are driving me crazier than you, I promise. Turabian-style numbered end-notes would be more concise and generally tidy, but the idea gives me flashbacks to finishing term papers in  library cubicles at two in the morning, shaking from exhaustion, caffeine-fueled mania, and the increasingly paranoid sense the walls were sentient and closing in.


All that to say, I'll figure out some better way of canning and preserving these side-notes of varying importance.


*Not Roman Catholic. Just catholic.


**I am aware this could spark all sorts of interesting conversations regarding sacraments, denominations, and alcohol. I'll get there later, I promise.


***"But church isn't supposed to be entertainment!" Yes. And no. A joyful heart is good medicine, and Jesus told stories to get at the deepest truths. Also, Jesus was funny, a fact that many seem unwilling to admit or believe. To quote Dorothy Sayers, Jesus "displayed a paradoxical humor that affronted serious-minded people", and "was emphatically not a dull man in his human lifetime, and if he was God, there can be nothing dull about God either." (Both quotes are from Letters to a Diminished Church. I emphatically recommend it.)


****This desire led to some humiliating moments of '80s and '90s Christianity, times during which many tried to create godly culture by Christianizing secular culture. There were noble goals involved, to be sure, but some of the resultant "Christian" art, specifically, was positively cringe-worthy, sort of like awkward teenage years that lasted over a decade. Yes, "Christian" art is definitely something I'll discuss later, and by "discuss", I mean probably spend most of my life trying to understand better.


*****Another one of those topics to which I'll get someday. I will note now, if you're reading this and don't believe there is sin or evil present in the world, we will almost immediately arrive at cross-purposes. While I respect your right to believe that, I also respect my right to believe you must live in a very different world than I. Or, to quote Hawkeye from the recent Avengers movie, "You and I remember Budapest very differently."


******The name of the major is Great Texts, technically, but let's get serious here, they let me major in books and still gave me a diploma. I halfway keep expecting someone to show up at my house to take it back, so I keep it under my bed next to my gun.


*******Just in case this sentence is unclear, I am being sarcastic. The further I got into my undergraduate education, the more I realized I didn't know squat. On a note about my being sarcastic, that will happen a lot. If you do not hold with sarcasm, or are very easily offended, know that I am (usually) not trying to be offensive. I also have far too much snark coded into my DNA to hide it save for delicate situations. In short, there will be sarcasm. If you don't like it, you are (probably) under absolutely no obligation to read anything I write. If you are under some sort of obligation, please drop me an email and let me know what obligation.


******** Also, because superheroes are cool. 


*********Yeah, I quoted a Pixar movie. What are you going to do about it?




Post-script, because I couldn't find a good place to work this in, but want to inform you anyway:


I will have at least one post with a heavy dose of Avengers, both for some theologically delightful lines and examples of excellent storytelling. I'm sure once the third Batman movie comes up, that'll make an appearance. Firefly will, Lord of the Rings definitely will, and BBC's Doctor Who and Sherlock will come up. Theoretically the BBC shows will show up because of storytelling elements and commentary on current culture, but mostly because I love Eccleston, Tennant, Smith, Cumberbatch, and Freeman.


Okay. I'm done for now. Go with God.