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Bonsai Christianity - 7/26/2008 2:00:57 PM
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jayvance
Posts: 58
Joined: 3/23/2007
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Did you know that the cute little miniature trees known as bonsai are not genetically different than full-size trees? The difference is that the roots and branches are constantly trimmed, pruned and confined to prevent the tree from reaching it’s full potential. It’s my firm belief that institutional Christianity is by and large in the business of producing bonsai Christians. We want them attractive and malleable so they can be good, obedient representatives of whatever brand of Christianity we happen to be selling. The fact that their spiritual growth is stunted isn’t really important; what’s important is that they portray a certain image that is conducive to our marketing strategy.
The institutional church and its leaders have many justifications as to why it’s necessary to exercise this kind of control over people: to guard against heresy, to provide a unified vision, to accomplish the great things God has revealed to the leaders, etc. The one thing they don’t have, however, is a Biblical mandate to treat the body of Christ in this way. The artificial clergy/laity class distinction is an invention of purely human origin which cannot be found in New Testament writings. The Church was always intended to have only one head, Jesus Christ, and it was never designed to become an institution in and of itself. Just as God always wanted Israel to be a special people, a nation with whom He could have a unique relationship, even so the Christian church was to be the antithesis of all the other religions of the world—including Judaism—in that there would be no priest, no sacrifice, and no temple. But like the Israelites of old, the institutional Christian church has rejected God from being our leader and we have demanded a king “like the other nations of the world.” So we got what we asked for: a clergy class to serve as priests and tell us what to do, rigid forms of worship and traditions to serve as our sacrifices and make us acceptable to God, and beautiful buildings designed to focus attention on a human leader as our temples. As a result, the body of Christ is weak and complacent. We’ve abdicated our rightful position as a royal priesthood and hired someone else to do the heavy lifting for us.
It’s easy to blame the institutional church for keeping the body of Christ in bondage, and so it has. But the truth is that the body of Christ has willingly gone along with this perversion of God’s plan for the church.
"A horrible and shocking thing has happened in this land—the prophets give false prophecies, and the priests rule with an iron hand. Worse yet, my people like it that way! But what will you do when the end comes?” Jer. 5:30,31
Jay
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RE: Bonsai Christianity - 7/26/2008 2:14:56 PM
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x_SoliDeoGloria_x
Posts: 162
Joined: 9/3/2005
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So I guess we should do away with churches altogether. No need for clergy or elders or bishops. No need for seminaries or other formal training. No need for checks and balances against heresy. We can all read the Bible by ourselves and take whatever meaning from it we find to be personally relevant. We can baptize ourselves, serve communion to ourselves, marry and bury ourselves. I guess that would save a lot of money that gets spent on supporting institutional churches.
_____________________________
"Not by work going before grace shall I deserve grace, nor by my work following grace shall I deserve eternal life; but to him that believes, sin is pardoned and righteousness imputed." -- Martin Luther
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RE: Bonsai Christianity - 7/26/2008 2:24:29 PM
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RJR_fan
Posts: 676
Joined: 4/12/2005
From: RTP, in sunny NC USA
Status: online
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quote:
We’ve abdicated our rightful position as a royal priesthood and hired someone else to do the heavy lifting for us.
The cure, of course, is a more Biblical understanding of creation, and of God's plan for us as stewards of the world, which "God so loved."
If God's Kingdom includes all of creation, then there is something valuable, meaningful, and exciting for each of us to do. We do not need to resent and envy those called to serve the church in specialized vocations, since we have our own piece of the action.
In the Ukrainian wedding ceremony, the bride and groom wear crowns,[1] indicating God's good pleasure in their serving as His delegated king and queen of a new kingdom, their new family. God's universal Kingdom moves ahead as it federates new jurisdictions, such as new families, churches, and nations, while defending the old Christian units.
I was brought up as a young Christian on the notion that real spiritual maturity was demonstrated by the recognition one received as a "minister." When the necessary gifts and graces stubbornly refused to manifest in my life, despite my most desperate supplications and prayers, I tried to shoe-horn my way in by denigrating those with such specialized callings. For me, the way out of envious resentment and into joyous fruitfulness was a more Biblical eschatology, which shed divine grace and purpose upon every honest calling. Had Vincent Van Gogh seen things my way, he would probably have enjoyed a longer and happier life. God's Kingdom needed him far more as a great painter than as a lousy preacher.
[1] During my parents' wedding, my dad had to use the only Ukrainian word he knew, "Da," when nudged. And a kind woman whispered to Mom, in Ukrainian -- "Be careful. The old hens will cackle if you let that crown fall off!"
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The future has never been shaped by majorities but rather by dedicated minorities. And free men do not wait for the future; they create it. RJR
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RE: Bonsai Christianity - 7/26/2008 6:09:59 PM
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jayvance
Posts: 58
Joined: 3/23/2007
Status: offline
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quote:
So I guess we should do away with churches altogether.
Depends on how we define "churches." The New Testament word we translate "church" is "ekklesia" which means a gathering. Nowhere in the NT is the "church" referred to as a place or institution.
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No need for clergy or elders or bishops.
Again, depends on how we define those terms. Those words had a specific meaning in the first century, meanings which are radically different from the way we define them today. We read our own religious traditions back into those words. The word "pastor" only occurs once in the NT (actually the word is "pastors" plural), yet there is no evidence that a NT pastor was anything like what we have today. Certainly there is no NT support whatsoever for a paid pastor who leads a local church.
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No need for seminaries or other formal training.
If by "no need" we mean no NT support, the anwer would be yes. Ask most any seminary-trained minister how well their training actually prepared them for the "real world" of ministering to people.
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No need for checks and balances against heresy.
How well would you say having seminaries and formal training has protected the church from heresy? Every denomination and sect claims to have some theological distinctive that is "more true" (i.e., less heretical) than all the others. So as Dr. Phil would say, "How's that workin' out for ya?"
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We can all read the Bible by ourselves and take whatever meaning from it we find to be personally relevant.
As opposed to requiring someone else to interpret it for us? Again, there is no NT foundation for a clergy class whose responsibility it is to discover God's will or figure out what the Bible really means and then share that information with the rest of us? The function of those with ministerial ability, according to the Scripture, is to help the WHOLE BODY grow up into maturity. Our present institutional church system, on the other hand, explicitly fosters passivity and dependence on the part of the "laity."
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We can baptize ourselves, serve communion to ourselves, marry and bury ourselves.
There's no NT evidence whatsoever that any of these things should or must be done by a "clergyman."
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I guess that would save a lot of money that gets spent on supporting institutional churches.
Yes, imagine what an impact on the world Christianity could have if we took the money we spend maintaining our infrastructure and actually put it to use in the world like the early church did.
Not sure in what spirit your comments were offered, but on my part I have only a sincere desire to encourage a reassessment of why we as Christians "do church" the way we do. I was raised in a hardcore Pentecostal environment, then as an adult have worshipped and ministered in both nondenominational and evangelical denominational settings. Lately I've been staggered to learn how many things I've taken for granted about "going to church" have no Biblical foundation whatsoever.
Jay
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