Returning To The Source
I’ve been meeting weekly with a guy that is having trouble believing in Jesus. This past week we went to lunch and while talking he started to cry and the heart issues started to surface. He opened up about how his dad was a pastor, his parents got divorced, and after the divorce he moved back and forth between parents, always forced to go to church. He saw the deep hypocrisy in his family, and the absentness of the church, and his comment to me was, “why would I ever want to be a part of that?” My heart broke. It’s hard to blame him right? He has been the victim of bad religion and I hate to think of how many others there have been.
After all the different readings this semester my mind has been reeling. It’s clear there’s some bad religion being passed around. It’s clear there’s something wrong. We’ve been reading so much about the problem that is painfully right in front us that when I opened Ross Douthat’s book Bad Religion, and skimmed the table of contents, I immediately skipped to the conclusion regarding “The Recovery of Christianity.” I just want answers.
Douthat starts his concluding chapter with this humorous line of hope. “The history of Christianity has always featured unexpected resurrections.[1]” And then Douthat goes on to share what GK Chesterton describes as the “five deaths of the faith,” those times when Christianity seemed all but doomed. However, Douthat points out that times of crises have been followed by times of renewal and G.K. Chesterton has noted that while many times “the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs but each time it was the dog that died.[2]” To hope for revival is every believers obligation and reading Douthat’s concluding words gave me the drive to read through the rest of his book.
Douthat did an excellent job using humor and history while pointing out all the flaws of bad religion. Whether it’s the prosperity gospel of Joel Osteen, the “mystical pantheism” of the “God Within cult,” or Oprah, or Glenn Beck, I feel like I did too much nodding of my head through this book.
At the end of this book I was left asking myself if am I a part of the problem or am I part of the renewal? I’m wondering if we are living in a time where Christianity appears doomed or are there signs out there that we a part of the revival?
I really just want answers and I want to fix our cultures bad religion problem, yet I know it’s not that easy. I left my lunch friend the other day saying something very similar to Douthat’s concluding thought. Douthat articulates it much better then me so I’ll just share his words. He says, “there is something to be said for returning to the source, for looking again at your half-forgotten patrimony, for considering anew the possibility that Christianity might be an inheritance rather than a burden.[3]” I most definitely agree that there’s something to be said for returning to the source….
[1] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, (New York, NY: Free Press, 2012), 277.
[2] Ibid., 278.
[3] Ibid., 293.
About the Author
Nick Martineau
Nick is a pastor at Hope Community Church in Andover, KS, founder of ILoveOrphans.com, and part of the LGP5 cohort.10 responses to “Returning To The Source”
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Nick, great reflections.
I think a revival is in the making but it won’t be a revival like we have read of in history books and heard about from our parents and grandparents. It is a revival that won’t find altars in cathedrals filled with the penitent sinner falling to his knees, begging for forgiveness and regeneration. It is a revival carried forward in the conversations around dinner tables and coffee tables and high top bar tables, a revival of people actually turning to a saving faith in Christ found through relationships with real people who are following Jesus in and through their daily lives. The question is, will the institutional church recognize it and herald it and study it? Or will the institutional church demonize it, as if the revival is part of the problem?
J
Jon, I think I agree. Maybe it will happen in your coffee shop? (-:
Your question about the institutional church is a good one. I really believe even many institutional churches and moving to home group/small group movements. Maybe it’s just me being optimistic…maybe I’m just too attached to the institutional church but I really hope the institutional church ends up catching up.
Nick,
I too found my head nodding up and down in agreement as I read through Bad Religion. Strange how such a hard hitting book becomes a favorite. People usually don’t like prophets. Your post and Brian’s both get me thinking about the simple reality of idolatry. That’s my part in the Bad Religion. Whenever I’ve, like the rest of the church, have wanted something more then Jesus – and that includes even the good things he offers – then I’ve committed idolatry. Isn’t that why the church has drifted, and isn’t the cure for idolatry (aka repentance, return to the real Jesus) the cure for the church too. I think that’s where you landed too with “returning to the source.” Thanks for the great post
Dave, I think one of the big voids we’ve been making in the church is the call to repentance. We call people to follow Jesus but rarely mention repenting. You make a good point…repentance must be the starting point for revival.
Dave and Nick – I was really struck by “I was wanting something more than Jesus.” Thanks for the reminder of what it means to be a seeker of Christ, not what I think I will get from the transaction. I’m trying to not be a transactional Christian, but rather one who wants to be a transforming Christian.
Nick, What a powerful line! “He has been the victim of bad religion and I hate to think of how many others there have been.” One of the main points of my Essay this semester is how important it is for the Church to be the Church. Our message is and should be so entangled in the life we lead that if we get it wrong in our life . . . we get it wrong . . . and the world suffers. It is so hard to come to grips with the reality that a day by day journey to live more like Christ could revolutionize our world but it is our true hope. I am encouraged by our cohort because if that is the formula, I definitely see some world changers!
You said it twice – I just want to fix it (or to that effect). How we all just want to fix it, make it better, work out the problem. Yet, especially thinking of the days after the resurrection, it would seem the problem was fixed. Yet Jesus still experiences his disciples with little faith. Am I not the same? I can’t seem to fix it or fix myself. But Jesus still wants to hang out with me. Just like you continued to hang out with your lunch friend. Something to be said about simply being together in the mess.
So true Mary…thank you. I’m doing some sermon prep on Eph 2:19-22 and just read a great quote from William Barclay, “The Church will realize her unity only when she realizes we are not here to propagate our own agenda but that we are to provide a home where the Spirit of Christ can dwell and where all people who love Christ can meet in that Spirit.” As we simply sit together in our mess Christ is present because he dwells in us.
Nick,
As I read the letters to the churches in the New Testament and read history, it seems clear that there has always been bad religion in the Church, but there has also been those who will give their lives to be real with God and know his son. I am reminded that I cannot answer for those who practice bad religion (although I can still seek to influence them), but I know that I must answer for my response to God.
Nick:
Returning to the source is the key. With all of the blessings of education we have received I find when i sent and read my bible i feel like i am returning to the source of it all. I love the readings in the program more than any readings i have undertaken. It got me thinking every week where am i as a Chrisitan leader? I think that we are closer to the source for answers than we think. I feel for your friend. Sometimes i dont have answers for people and I am not afraid to say it. But letting them know that God is in charge anyway and the way things look all the time is not always what they are!