If you have time and are a praying person, please do pray for my family this morning today. We could all sure use it. God is doing a lot of interesting things, some of them far far too interesting for my current tastes. Anyway, in the meantime, I am trucking along through The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? So far it is exceedingly eye-opening. But one wee bit jumped out at me this morning.
In chapter 2, “Who Are the Dechurched?” they write:
The part of our study concerning unchurched evangelicals provided possibly the biggest surprise and the most hope. Dechurched evangelicals are still largely orthodox in their faith. When it comes to our primary doctrines, 68 percent of those we surveyed still believe in the Trinity, 64 percent believe in the divinity of Jesus, 65 percent believe Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for the sins of those who believe in him, 67 percent believe in the resurrection, 62 percent believe the Bible is a reliable document for all matters of faith and practice. Collectively, the general orthodoxy scores of dechurched evangelicals in our study are much higher than their mainline or Roman Catholic counterparts. While they may have departed from the church, their responses indicate that they may not have departed from the faith. [emphasis mine]
That is such an interesting way of putting it. Twenty years ago, I think, I would have read that last line and not even noticed it. Or noticed it and nodded and carried on reading. Lately, though, especially as the church is being vigorously shaken out like a garment, I am dubious about the assumption so many, including the writers of the book, have—that it is possible to be something like a “dechurched” “orthodox” Christian. Is it possible to be a true believing Christian who doesn’t attend church? Removing, of course, obvious exceptions where it would be physically impossible to do so, like being abandoned on a desert island, or being in prison, or being in a place where no orthodox church exists, is it possible to be a Christian outside of the church?
I mean, I’m gonna go out on a limb (that’s a darkly bitter “humorous” reference to the fact that no more limbs remain on any of the trees around my house) and say that people who no longer attend church should not be counted among the diminishing number of Christians in the United States or the world. There is no such thing as a Christian, by deliberate choice, without a church. It really doesn’t matter why the person stopped going, though the writers go into all the reasons, which will certainly be fascinating. So far, and I kid you not, they have divided the Leavers into three categories. Some leave because they don’t feel they…belong…others because they don’t…you guessed it, believe…and the third and final category will be no surprise…behave. How do these sorts of categories emerge, imperceptibly, as a mist rising in the brisk morning zeitgeist?
Setting aside for another day the question of what even is the “church” and how might one decide to go or not to go to one, it should be possible to avoid the error of a false choice. Two elements are necessary for being counted as a Christian and neither can be abandoned by the side of the road. The first part is the belief—the wholehearted trust in Jesus coupled with intellectual and emotional assent to the content. You do have to believe. And in so far as you have all the right information, you have to accept it. You can’t be a Oneness Word of Faith Prosperity Charlatan, obviously. You have to believe in the Trinity as best you can, and accept that Jesus is fully God and fully Man. You have to believe that he rose from the dead and is sitting at the right hand of the Father. That’s the first part. The second part is literally going to church.
This isn’t just some sort of random thing. It feels random because Americans haven’t known about it for ever so long—at least the 25 years the authors discuss. Going to church, as so many leaders of churches forgot why they were there and what they were supposed to do, became a nice activity if anybody had time, but somehow lost its theological vibe. The weekly offering of yourself to a thrice holy God as a living sacrifice which is your spiritual act of worship and thereby being ever more tightly bound to other individual believers to be transformed into a Body became a cool thing to do if you were big into “discipleship” but ceased even to be one of the chief marks of being a Christian. Your own personal belief has been the only thing that matters. Indeed, going to church increasingly makes you suspect. Why are you going? Are you a bigot?
But that’s not how the Bible talks about the faith once delivered to the saints. There is no category for ‘Person who has departed from the church but hasn’t departed from the faith.’ All the letters and preaching and narration of the life of Jesus is grounded in the assumption that people, nay, even households would be “saved” and then joined to others into one Body that met on the Lord’s day and then even at other times during the week. St. Paul and St. Peter and St. John never sat down to tell you how to Instagram your curated morning quiet time, though they did give instructions for what to do if a false teacher blew into town and suddenly you yourself were alienated from your local congregation. Maybe the writers of the book will explain this at some point. I’m only in chapter 2 so I have great hopes.
Still, I am discouraged that this important doctrinal verity hasn’t emerged from the outset, and I’m also interested to observe that the authors don’t name sexuality among first order orthodox doctrines. In fact, they refer to l.g.b.t.q.etc issues separately elsewhere, as one of the big reasons so many people are leaving. This very issue, they note, is driving some of the dechurching phenomenon, but then they don’t number it amongst “orthodox” beliefs.
And now, if you will excuse me, I have things to do. Have a nice day, whatever is left of it.
Thank you, Anne. I recently had a huge amount of blowback from a "real life" friend when I posted this on Facebook:
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I am SUPER tired of (and irritated by) people who post this lie:
"Your relationship with Christ is not defined by your attendance at church."
It would be identical to saying: "Your relationship with your spouse is not defined by your participation with that person in the act of sex."
Technically, I suppose it is true, but it is quite telling that folks are always trying to get out of the former but never the latter.
Each is the pinnacle of communion and intimacy with the beloved, which cannot be attained in any other manner. The neglect of either will severely damage the relationship. Period.
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My friend (well, ex-friend; he loudly bowed out of my life after firing off his salvo of condemnation) was very angry with me for writing that. Sadly, part of what offended him was my use of the marriage analogy. He said something like: "How dare you accuse me of having lesser faith than you just because you attend church and I never will. And how dare you attack my relationship with my dearest friend, which will never be sexual. You're saying I don't love them! I have personally stood in the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, exactly where Jesus stood, so don't try to tell me my Christianity is not as good as yours just because I won't attend church! I guess this is where we part ways --- I can't live with a 'friend' whose complete condemnation of me as a person is always looming like a dark cloud over me."
On the bright side, I had been searching for a way to break with this individual. His condemnation of me for not embracing electric cars hung as a condemnatory dark cloud over me. Also, not quite sure if his "beloved" might be either a cat or a dog, in which case the abstention is a good thing.
My purpose in posting this is to give a real-life example of the vitriol we're likely to let ourselves in for, if we push this difficult and horrible idea of church attendance.
Anne, how can a branch broken from the Vine produce fruit? Worship and prayer like breathing are required to live. Receiving the living Lord Jesus in, with, and, under bread and wine and submitting to His Word issued in proclamation and the words of absolution sustain life. The Spirit brings the blessings and benefits of Christ's life and ministry to impart life, to heal, to assure, to embolden, to empower through the means of grace, means found only where the church assembles, except, of course, in the unusual circumstances you mentioned.