Can You Love Jesus But Hate the Church?

The church is never going to be up to our own standards.

Photo by v2osk on Unsplash

The following is adapted from a 2017 blog post.

I gave up church because I can no longer make the trade-offs between worship, theology, mission, and community that I have made for years. My congregational options usually seem to consist of historically Black church settings with prophetic preaching and action on issues of racial and social justice, but that reject women’s call to pastoral leadership; predominantly white churches that profess gender and sexual inclusivity, but are experienced as oppressive by people of color; and multiracial churches whose preaching, worship, and leadership are oriented to the comfort of white, middle-class Christians (which is, incidentally, an act of white supremacy). I gave up church because fitting into any of the spaces required me to conceal or contort too much of my womanist self. I gave up church because I cannot seem to find a place where I can worship God with my whole being. And I am not alone.

These are the words from a recent post by Chanequa Walker-Barnes, a professor at McAfee School of Theology. Her post is about her leaving the church because it is not prophetic enough. I want to be sensitive and not be dismissive of her complaints. Churches are not perfect and they are filled with racism and homophobia and misogyny. I know that churches have treated people of color, the LGBT community, women and others poorly. I have been treated as such.

But there is something in this post that bothers me.  It's something that I've seen in other think-pieces over the years.  Usually, someone will say how the church doesn't do X and because of this, they aren't in church anymore.  If the church took part and offered X, then maybe they would return to church. This is what the late former Millenial pastor Steve Austin has said about his generation and why they gave up church:

We’re desperate for honesty. We are hungry for conversation. We want to show up at church with our success, failure, vulnerability, questions, and what’s left of our deconstructed faith. We have shifted away from and sifted through the excesses of man-made religious constructs. We have grown up and read the Bible for ourselves. And we are passionate about the overarching theme of the life and lessons of Jesus: that love comes with no strings attached. Anything else is just a loan.

We are choosing to step away from the in-fighting that happens too often in the name of God. We’re sick of petty fights over the color of the new carpet in the sanctuary, or the volume of the music. Deeper than that, we’ve had our hearts crushed because our friends aren’t welcome in certain sterilized churches. We’re convinced that Jesus was serious when he said, “Love one another.” But much of what my Millennial friends and I have witnessed from institutions that operate in the name of God is pain and abuse. We were once baptized by well-meaning people in fear, shame, and guilt. But we aren’t buying that any more. We are coming up from those muddied waters, looking for new life.

Like Walker-Barnes commentary, Austin's piece brings up some important themes that should be taken seriously. But there is also could be something else taking place at the same time; a sense of seeing the church not as a place where the imperfect people of God gather and work to keep including people at God's table, but as a consumer good that should be made to a person's desires and likes. It's like taking the old slogan of Burger King, "Have It Your Way," and making it how the church should operate.

I know that some will think I don't take seriously the cry of those who feel hurt by the church. I think we should work to make the church more receptive to women, to gays and especially to be more willing to take on the topic of race. People have been incredibly abused by the church because of who they are and some were sexually abused. None that should be taken lightly. But Walker-Barnes is upset that the churches aren't where she is on issues like race and gender. The churches aren't where she is, so she decides to not go to church.

No one should stay at a church where you are being abused or condemned from the pulpit. But what this seems like is a sense of consumerism.  The church isn't made-to-order to her expectations and so she walks.

But the church is never going to be up to our standards and at the end of the day it doesn't matter if it is to our standards.  The church has to be to God's standards.

As for dealing with racism, we have to remember that God used people who at times didn't get it.  In Acts 10, Peter is called by God to preach the good news to  Cornelius, a Roman, which is another way of saying "not a Jew." God schools Peter by telling the disciples that the gospel is for all.  But after Peter's epiphany, there was some backsliding as Paul notes in his letter to the Galatians.

¹¹ When Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³ The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

-Galatians 2:11-13

The thing is, there have been many throughout the history of the church, Christians have arisen hearing the call of justice. Think Martin Luther King. Or the Freedom Riders. And there are times when the church went silent in the face of evil. Church is a mixed bag because it is filled with humans who aren't perfect.

And for that reason, we need Jesus.

But I wonder if the people who say they love Jesus and not the church realize their need for Jesus and that Jesus inaugurated the church. It seems at time that these people want a Jesus that is more like Che Guevara- a revolutionary Jesus. But the Jesus who was read in Scripture is the one that gathered the disciples and prepared them to lead the church.

Jesus does care for the poor and Matthew 25 is a good example of what happens when we ignore those in need. But Jesus is not just a social justice figure. Jesus is also the son of God who comes to die for us, to set us free from the bonds of sin.

In the Design of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), we are given an understanding of what the Big C church is as well as the Little C church. This is what it has to say about the church:

Within the whole family of God on earth, the church appears wherever believers in Jesus the Christ are gathered in His name. Transcending all barriers within the human family, the one church manifests itself in ordered communities bound together for worship, fellowship, and service; in varied structures for mission, witness, and mutual accountability; and for the nurture and renewal of its members. The nature of the church, given by Christ, remains constant through the generations, yet in faithfulness to its nature, it continues to discern God’s vision and to adapt its mission and structures to the needs of a changing world. All dominion in the church belongs to Jesus, its Lord and head, and any exercise of authority in the church on earth stands under His judgment.

The Design continues:

Within the universal Body of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is identifiable by its testimony, tradition, name, institutions, and relationships. Across national boundaries, this church expresses itself in covenantal relationships in congregations, regions, and general ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), bound by God’s covenant of love. Each expression is characterized by its integrity, self-governance, authority, rights, and responsibilities, yet they relate to each other in a covenantal manner, to the end that all expressions will seek God’s will and be faithful to God’s mission. We are committed to mutual accountability. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and constantly seeks in all of its actions to be obedient to his authority.

The emphasis is on the word "covenant." Church means that we are connected. It means we are responsible to each other. It means loving that person that you think is stupid for supporting tax cuts or that "hippie" who supports a $15 minimum wage that you think is madness. It means being in covenant with the guy that thinks women can't be ministers even when you want to walk away. None of this is about allowing or enabling abuse, but it is about being willing to reach beyond what is comfortable to see that the person on the other side is your sister or brother in Christ.

I want to share one more quote from Chanequa Walker-Barnes as she explains why she's given up church:

We are people who take seriously what Jesus said in Matthew 25 when he stated that the test of true discipleship was solidarity and service with the “least of these.” But rarely can we find a church that makes solidarity and service its central focus. Instead, we encounter churches that endorse such hate-filled and theologically vacuous declarations such as the Nashville Statement opposing homosexuality and same-sex marriage; that refuse to engage in anti-Black police violence, mass deportations of immigrant families, and unjust prison systems; that shun, silence, and demonize leaders that it deems too outspoken on matters of justice.

I don't know what churches she's gone to, but I know a lot of churches that do take justice seriously. But I wanted to contrast this with something written by pastor and writer Lillian Daniel six years ago. It got her in trouble, but it helped distill what church is all about. In some way, she responds to Walker-Barnes about the church and what it is made of:

But—here's a news flash—human beings do a lot of embarrassing, inhumane, cruel and ignorant things, and I don't want to be associated with them either.
And here we come to the crux of the problem that the
spiritual-but-not-religious people have with church. If we could just
kick out all the human beings, we might be able to meet their high
standards. If we could just kick out all the sinners, we might have a
shot at following Jesus. If we could just get rid of the Republicans,
the Democrats could bring about the second coming and NPR would never
need to run another pledge drive. Or if we could just expel all the
Democrats, the fiscally responsible will turn water into wine, and the
church will never need another pledge drive.

But in the church, we are stuck with one another, therefore we don't get the space to come up with our own God. Because when you are stuck with one another, the last thing you would do is invent a God based on humanity. In the church, humanity is way too close at hand to look good. It's as close as
the guy singing out of tune next to you in your pew, as close as the
woman who doesn't have access to a shower and didn't bathe before
worship, as close as the baby screaming and as close as the mother who
doesn't seem to realize that the baby is driving everyone crazy. It's as
close as that same mother who crawled out an inch from her postpartum
depression to get herself to church today and wonders if there is a
place for her there. It's as close as the woman sitting next to her, who
grieves that she will never give birth to a child and eyes that baby
with envy. It's as close as the preacher who didn't prepare enough and
as close as the listener who is so thirsty for a word that she leans
forward for absolutely anything.

Now there is much in the church I do not want to be stuck with, including Qur'an-burning, pistol-packing pastors. It's no wonder that many good people are like the pop singer Prince: they want to be a person formerly known as a Christian.

I served at a church that had two interesting members. One of them was developmentally disabled and he would use his outside voice and blurt something in the middle of worship. The other was schizophrenic and was always struggling to deal with the voices in his head. But he could draw some of the most wonderful drawings of futuristic worlds.

What does this have to do with church? Everything. These two men came to church regularly because they needed the church. They need the community that will pray for them when the voices are too loud. They need that community because they need a place where they can speak up in the middle of worship and know that they still belong.

I need church because  I don't need to learn about his life lessons or teachings but because I want to meet him in the Word that is preached and in the sacraments that are shared.

The church is not perfect.  It’s made up of human beings, so doesn't always do the right thing.  But there is no perfect church. All there is are churches filled with people who are imperfect, but who are capable of giving and receiving love.

It’s okay to say that churches be better on these issues. It’s okay to call churches to account. Justice is necessary, but at the end of the day, grace is needed as well sometimes the people who are most critical of the church are the least graceful.

I need church, as messed up as it is. And I think Chanequa Walker-Barnes needs it as it is as well. We all do.

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