Reggie McNeal clearly articulated the state of American Christianity. “The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order.” Church decline is certainly not limited to recent history. American church attendance has lingered around forty percent since the late 1970’s. Even that number could be lower because it is believed that many Americans lie about their church participation. The fact that most towns do not have enough churches to accommodate forty percent of the population cannot be ignored. McNeal recalled a friend who contacted every church in his town following Easter Sunday 2001, and reported a mere twenty five percent attendance. The most disturbing information in McNeal’s work is the fact that five percent or 112 million Christians worldwide have left the institutional church to preserve their faith. These believers no longer consider the church relevant to their spiritual development. Erwin McManus warned that just speaking of the decline or death of the church does not fully frame the grave nature of the problem. “This may seem strange, but the real tragedy is not that churches are dying but that churches have lost their reason to live!” ( Download Decline of North American Christianity )
So...what's the problem? Are believers opting for hell, instead of heaven?
There has certainly been much said around Anne Rice's exodus from christianity. One of the better interviews was with Mike Morrell sitting down with Anne Rice on a Home Brewed Christianity Podcast. Rather than have her decision be misconstrued by the media, she came out on her Face book page and said the following...
For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
(via Anne’s Facebook Page, July 28)
I think she likely echoes the voices of many that have spilled out the back doors of many churches. But for me, you can likely look around and find a church that would resolve and address the issues she had...
As I said below, I quit being Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
So has Anne Rice opted out...giving up her " get out of jail free card ", a trip to an eternal resort with other believers after we've used and abused planet earth until there is no longer any living in it. There are some that think so...
Now, I share my experience...I'm part of the five percent that has left the institutional church to preserve my faith. My biggest reason is the message is irrelevant. Like crazed mathematicians reducing the gospel to the lowest common denominator...it comes down to heaven or hell. If that is the best we have to offer a broken world in crisis . It's nothing more than a cruel scam. It has nothing to do with Jesus, and nothing to do with the gospel. I show the graphic below from last Thursday's Washington Post which reveals the glaring fact that almost 44 million people in the US are living poverty.
Do you think these people care whether they're saved? Do you think these people care about heaven or hell? I suspect many of these people feel they are living on the threshold of hell.
We've created an image of Jesus that was consumed with heaven. Of a savior, in a life boat drifting in the sea of humanity plucking drowning victims that believe, while others are left to sink into the depths of hell. One group with reservations for a heavenly feast; the other fire, the gnashing of teeth and eternal torment.
Jesus was consumed with the kingdom of God...not heaven. For the life of me, I don't understand how we've missed that. Worse yet, we continue to sell a lie.
If we are to believe Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets, maybe we need to revisit their words. What was God's message to them. What was God's passion? What was the passion that burned like a fierce fire in the hearts of these radical scandalous men of faith?
It was a passion for justice, peace, mercy, compassion...all part of God's Kingdom. They all pointed towards Jesus, God's servant who would establish the Kingdom. In the gospel of John, he says Jesus pitched his tent in our neighborhood...into the midst of humanity.
What did the neighborhood look like? It was a world which was ruled by an empire of dominance and oppression. The Roman Empire shaped the reality of the world, it tried to shape the collective imagination with it's story, it's version of the truth...today's version of the " american dream." The Roman Empire exploited the people and the land they occupied. They took land, forced the peasants to work it for the empire. Religion and politics were tangled in a dysfunctional relationship in which they enabled one another. Both systems were corrupt. It was world filled with hopelessness. With a world corrupted by politics and religion...there seemed to be know alternative dream to capture the imagination of a broken world.
Jesus, into which God incarnated his truth, his life, his truth, his wisdom, his Spirit...did not come announcing an exit strategy. There was no offer of heaven for some, and to hell with the rest of you. Jesus offered the Kingdom.
20-21Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, "The kingdom of God doesn't come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, 'Look here!' or, 'There it is!' And why? Because God's kingdom is already among you." ( Eugene Peterson's, The Message, Luke 17 )
What the...the Kingdom of God is already here among us. Could it be true? Well, open your front door and step out, look a round and breathe it in. If we have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, it will be sensory over load.
We do well to meditate on the words of the Lords Prayer; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. The Kingdom is about earth as much as it is about heaven. I can only imagine that The Kingdom in terms of heaven, will only come about by us establishing God's Kingdom on earth now.
Jesus life was filled with the divine redemptive imagination of the Kingdom. This was what captured the imagination of those who heard and saw Jesus. Through his radical scandalous parables about the Kingdom, they re-shaped the collective soul of humanity with an alternative story to that of the empire that dominated and oppressed. The Kingdom was the world upside down, or really " right side up."
3"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
6"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
7"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
8"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
10"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.
11-12"Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble. ( Eugene Peterson's, The Message, Matthew 5 )
This was not the philosophy that the Roman Empire espoused to shape the imagination of the new world order...nor is the the propaganda and myth of the north american dream. The kingdom hits the reset button in the collective mind, soul and heart of humanity to re-imagine what abundant life really is.
Following Jesus, is not about the options of heaven and hell...it is about submitting to the reality of his Kingship. It is about the Kingdom, Now! It is about establishing the Kingdom on Earth as in heaven. It is about the flame that burned in the heart of the Old Testament prophet. It is about God's passion for justice, mercy, compassion and peace.
To capture the imagination of the world today, we need more options than heaven or hell. Whether there will be any kind of eternity, or the abundant life the Jesus spoke and lived...will only be a reality when we are consumed with redemptive imagination of the Kingdom of God.
These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, And they are all ignoring and acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, actually asserting that there is another king, and Kingdom, one Jesus!...my observations from Acts 17.
