“I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as
one of its members,” so said the comedian Groucho Marks. I would probably say the same thing about a
Church. I don’t want a Church that says
I have no need to grow and develop. Nor
do I need a Church that validates my held beliefs. I want a Church that challenges me, asks me
difficult questions, shakes up my assumptions, makes me think, urges me to
growth, and ardently desires to transform me into a saint.
Many Christian Churches have, for the large part, abandoned
this vision. I was riding with a
gentleman the other day who proudly spoke of his Church and how they do not
even expect him to make an effort to look like Church is anything special on
Sunday. “I can go in ratty shorts and
T-shirt. And the music is rock and roll.” He was in his upper 50s. I said, “Wow.
My parish is kinda headed in the opposite direction. I think it attracts the younger families
more. It is my goal to expect more of them.”
The same could be said of philosophy and theology. Many Churches (non-Catholic) have changed
their beliefs to an extraordinary degree.
Go back to even the year 1900, and if we could do a graph, the rate of
change would start slowly and then skyrocket.
Really, what teaching in most Christian denominations do not simply
mimic popular culture? Abortion,
contraception, same sex marriage . . . gads, why even bother listing them
all? Modern Church is about worshipping
what we already believe and enshrining it in our weekend services.
Cultures cultivate. And our current culture is cultivating our
Churches. It reforms them, informs them,
coaxing God to change His mind on virtually any popular topic on order to match
ours, the enlightened ones. Glad God is
catching up.
It is one of the strengths of the Catholic Church that it is
also so terribly cultural on a world wide (and historical) scale. It is a culture that cannot be voted into
changing, or coaxed into matching the local thought beliefs, or pressured into
accepting outside influence on its theology.
It is designed to influence culture, not be influenced by it. If your faith, parish, or diocese is not
working to change the family, city, or nation for the good, then it is
failing. (If it is more influenced than
influencing, it is dying.)
It doesn’t mean anybody has to listen. But we are not excused from being loyal to
the truths of the faith. For if we are
not leaven, we are salt that has gone flat.
3 comments:
"Modern Church is about worshipping what we already believe and enshrining it in our weekend services.
Cultures cultivate. And our current culture is cultivating our Churches. It reforms them, informs them, coaxing God to change His mind on virtually any popular topic on order to match ours, the enlightened ones. Glad God is catching up."
Clear and profound insights.
"Bravo, Father!" I say, as I stand up and clap to this post.
I'm giving a standing ovation. God forbid we challenge anything. As Tolkien put it " the old that is strong does not wither. " I'm reading an interesting book right now by Richard Rohr and there's a fitting quote for this post. " If your prayer is not enticing you outside your comfort zones, if your Christ is not an occasional 'threat,' you probably need to do some growing up and learning to love."
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