Church Today

The problem with the church today? More a ground for ideological display. More applicable to the imagination, for less to the intellect, precious few through the intellect toward the legs. Church has become a culturally sanctified theater of ideas.

Real spirituality existed during the earliest days of Christianity, when believers choked on persecution and the title of "Christian" carried with it by necessity a fighting spirit. Then Constantine converted, circa 312 A.C.E.; then Christianity was the "official" religion, and out of nationalism and respect for Roman authority it became translated to fashion, and thus became anesthetized and died in its sleep. Today one is no longer a Christian against the majority, martyrs in the exact sense Christ has in mind when he spoke of taking up one's cross, a holistic phrase of which social misunderstanding or ostracism is a part, but with the majority. One is a Christian as a social sitting, a form of defense against the initial coldness of being alone and the eventual ineffable discovery of the warmth of God.

Are you a Christian? Oh, my apologies for such a shocking statement. This is America in the 21st century. Of course you are. You live in a Christian nation, you know. You go to church and read your Bible, and while at church perchance once or twice a week you make semihonest efforts to follow the prayers that Pastor & Co. recite. Most importantly, you have the right contempt -- toward the non-religious, toward homosexuals, toward other religions, toward the culturally different. Right is what has been passed along the hands of tradition. Wrong is the unhanded-down.

Loving your enemies? Self sacrifice? No, no, that's all covered by grace. We're all just miserable sinners, after all: not perfect, just forgiven, waiting for the eventual happy death from this miserable world when things will be taken care of come resurrection. Imagine if instead of all the self-deprecating complaints of undeserved grace and admissions of imperfection everyone used his time in an honest attempt at growing in the love of God. No more "I'm a sinner, I'm going to fail" and all the useless wailing over past mistakes, but rather, "Lord, let me love, let me live, give me life, let me resonate your life and love through my very presence!" It's not terrifyingly hard to see that this popular method of self-deprecation is really just laziness planting clandestine seeds of unwillingness to change.

I doubt there are more than a handful individuals in any church who claim themselves as Christians and actually act consistently and as a matter of principle beyond their feelings. "Feelings" here is a euphemism for the flesh, and salvation is founded in spirit (both Holy and human, working in unison) continually trumping the flesh, for "it is the spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all" (John 6:63, ESV). It's the death of the spirit (that central executive element of human personality), of genuine self-assertion through freedom and going against the grain of the inclination and outbursts of the flesh, among self-titled Christians that is responsible for the notoriety of the church -- and for why unbelief is on an unprecedented surge in recent years. When feelings rule, immediate dislikes rule, and this means hatred, contempt, and indifference, love left hopelessly stillborn. All this because the members within the church are too afraid (or simply ignorant because of the fear of the ecclesiastical superiors who run the show), using grace like a cheap whore rather than a realization leading to repentance, and prefer instead to sit in the tepid waters of orthodoxy rather than work beyond the mind to where life dwells. For heaven's sake, theologians, we have enough orthodoxy. What we need is orthopraxy -- right action -- and a theology that actually emphasizes the indispensable requirement of movement in spiritual life.

What is a Christian? He who continually commits suicide to his lower self, founded in flesh and immediate wants washing him along, in the name of Christ. You cannot float in the river of inclination. You cannot let your hatreds and dislikes rule. You must find ground beneath the waters and stand, turn your back and walk against the current toward the divine destination you were initially floating away from. This is to experience the barbs of temptation. Struggle. The hardness of the way. You can change at any time, and the walk to the shore of divinity is always a finite distance, while the corruption of riding along is an endless journey of silent despair, colder and more inhabitable with each soul murdering mile.