Crucible Theology and Ministry

A Requiem for the Church

Stuart Devenish

Australian College of Ministries

Today I'm in mourning. My black suit on and my best shoes polished. I'm going to a funeral − metaphorically speaking. Like Tolkien's characters in the Lord of the Rings, who find themselves sitting under the trees in Galadriel’s elven city singing songs of lament for the fallen Gandalf − today my heart sings a sad requiem for the church. Let me tell you why.

As a frequent walker and observer of nature, I have noticed a huge tree that dominated the entire district where I live, standing as it did on the brow of a hill. With its large waxen leaves folded elegantly, it soared 200 feet into the sky and ruled over everything in its realm.  But alas, after an apparently untroubled life of  − who knows, a hundred years?  − at the end of last summer the tree died. First, the silky sheen of the leaves began to tarnish, and the deep olive green of the leaves began to turn dust-brown. Next, the birds that used to nest in its upper stories no longer visited or gave their birdsong. And last, the outer covering of leaves were discarded to leave a shapely skeleton of a single trunk, flowing into manifold towers, and thereafter into branches -- each with their hundreds of micro-extensions. Finally, the tree was dead, and I was left to wonder why.

Today the workmen came with their chainsaws and cranes and trucks and safety harnesses, and as I write the sound of chainsaws shrouds the district.  BBBBbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….. By this evening the tree will be nothing more than 20 tonnes of mulch, destined to bless some unknowing gardener's roses. Majesty turned to mulch.  Nature turned to a business transaction. For the birds, no more Grand Hyatt on the hill, and those with an eye to nature just a sad memory of what once was.  It seems that in our world much that is good is either lost or dying, and there are some of us who are left to grieve, and ponder.

What I have not told you is that the tree had been growing in a churchyard. Towering over the church building and watching over the congregation, it appeared to confirm and bless the church. The tree itself appeared to me to be part of the bastion of the whole church and to bestow a form of legitimacy upon it. The life, and death, of the tree − at least in my mind − is a metaphor for the life, and death, of the church. The actions of the workmen as they mechanically remove first this branch and then the next, systematically working from top to bottom dissecting the cadaver of the tree, represent what has happened to the church.

First, the Bible as an inspired and authoritative document was removed, then Jesus' virgin birth was called into question, along with his miracles and divinity, then his resurrection and ascension. Darwin's nature-based explanation for the origin of species through gradual evolution neutralised the Christian belief in creation. Freud neutralised the Christian doctrine of salvation by suggesting that religious belief was nothing but human need projected onto a non-existent father-figure. And Marx’s explanation of the dynamics of dialectical class struggle as a normative element within society reduced religion to a natural social "power" form. Branch by branch, the life and faith of the church has been stripped away, so that today's church, both confessionally and organically, is a shadow of its former self. It is uncertain of its gospel, many of its children have left, and its stark silhouette casts a ghostly shadow which Christians from earlier eras would be unlikely to recognize. As David Kinnaman so succinctly puts it, "The culture war is over. We lost."

As a result of changing times, many of the great families of Europe were forced to sell their family treasures and heirlooms out of their run-down castles, just so they could live. There are many in the church who have been willing to give up on the faith of the church, a jot here and a tittle there, so as to reconcile Christian teaching with contemporary culture and its changing interests and demands. Without knowing it such fire sale sell-offs were not simply robbing the fringe ornaments from the church's existence, but sapping its very life force.

The old doctrines of the church triumphant, the church militant, and the church glorious are a far-cry from the profile of the Western church today. Apart from a few notable exceptions, churches are smaller, congregations older, and their coffers less well-resourced. Frequently they are less well-taught, and less integrated with their surroundings communities. They are also likely to be less able to find meaningful points of engagement between their Jesus-centred reason-for-being in the world and the life, interests, thoughts and activities of post-Christian, post-secular, and post-modern men and women, youth, boys and girls.  What has the church become?

So today, metaphorically and spiritually − on the place where the dead tree once stood, on the place where the Christian church once existed, I prayerfully kneel in the earth to plant a sapling. Whether that sapling will survive the cultural glacier-shifts currently unfolding in our world; whether it will grow to be used like Napoleon's saplings planted with the intention of repairing his fleet of ships; or whether it will grow to form an entirely new church which is more able to reflect the character and calling of Christ − I do not know. But I do know that the church − despite its frailties and failings – is a central part of Christ's redemptive purposes on the earth. Christ loved the church and gave himself for her (Ephesians 5:25); and his intent was that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God would be made known, according to his eternal purposes in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:10-11). 

I also make my confession that I, like many others who have pledged themselves to Christ to "feed my sheep" and to care for his church, am guilty of either worshipping the church (which is idolatry), or talking-down and destroying the church (1 Corinthians 3:17) (which is dangerous). I repent of my sin and remember that the church is not separate from me, but I am the church in my prayer, service, life, and love for Christ and others. The future of the ekklesia called-out-church is not in the hands of men with chainsaws, or councils of bishops, or the new generation rising; the future of the church is in my hands and your hands. Lord, help!