We Need Another Reformation
And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. (Mk 15:38)
You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 2:5)
When Jesus Christ died, the veil separating man from God was torn. The priesthood as it had been known was abolished and we are all now kings and priests. Theoretically. But you certainly can’t tell it when you walk into any church of any brand where there is always one person that is the “called” one with the anointing and a distinct separation between them and us. It’s called the clergy/laity divide, and it was supposed to have been abolished. We give mental assent to the concept of the priesthood of believers, but we certainly don’t practice it.
As I have navigated my way through deconstruction, I have found myself more and more convinced that the basic traditional church model is entirely man-made. With the institutional church model as the basis for practicing Christianity, the whole concept gets warped and becomes a breeding ground for abuse or burnout. One commenter in a Facebook group I watch believes that the traditional church model is a doctrine of devils. They may have a point.
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Mt. 8:20
After reading Frank Viola’s book Pagan Christianity (link below), I started seeing how what we call “church” just isn’t what it should be. Viola goes through various aspects of the institutional church setup and points out the origins of each, starting with the buildings. The Greek word ekklesia translated “church” is never used to refer to a building. Instead, it always refers to the body of believers.
Buildings were erected as a means of making Christianity more palatable to pagans and Jews who had their temples. The sermon came from Greek oratory. Choirs and candles? The Romans. Steeples? I don’t even want to go there.
And from there, over the centuries, the building became the “house of God” (like you have to go into one of those places to find God), the rituals carried on inside those walls became “services”, a term never used in that sense in the Bible, and hierarchies developed. Christianity became just another religion.
But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. (Mt. 20:25-26) ...hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” (Rev. 5:10)
People want their leaders. The Jews insisted on a leader, a king, so God gave them Saul (1 Sam. 8). It would appear we have not heeded that lesson.
Hierarchies. The clergy/laity divide. I first think of the Catholic caste system with the Pope on down to the peons. But in spite of the 16th century Reformation, hierarchies have persisted, though in Protestant circles in modern times they are more like corporations with CEO’s.
Jesus said, “It shall not be so among you.” But it is, in every “church” building you care to walk into. There is a distinct division between the “called” and the not-so-called. The ones with titles and the ones without. The ones that hear from God and the ones that don’t, and so are dependent on the ones that do. We are all kings and priests, unless you step foot inside a “house of God”.
This, right here, is an absolute breeding ground for abuse. If you want to figure out why there’s so much abuse of all sorts being exposed in churches, look no further. We exalt one leader, give him the authority to speak for God, and we’re off and running. Abusers absolutely target churches because they can exalt themselves as God’s mouthpiece, convince their victims that submitting to abuse is what God wants, then demand that we all walk in forgiveness. What a tidy little package. We’ve created an utter playground for them.
We have been conditioned and raised to believe we need a leader, someone who hears from God to guide us. But we so readily forget what John said-
And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him remains in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. (1 John 2:27) But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. (John 16:13)
But the system passed down for generations insists that we do need someone to teach us, making us dependent on someone else’s opinions and interpretations, and undermining our confidence in our own ability to hear from God. The need for a pastor is a deception, plain and simple, and I am coming to believe more and more that this insistence on a pastor as a leader is what has kept the body of Christ in infancy, incapable of fulfilling the Gospel.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28-29)
The insistence on a leader runs hand-in-hand with the patriarchal mindset, the dogged determination to keep women in their places throughout the centuries. Patriarchy gives the green light to narcissistic preachers and husbands to run over the women in their lives. “There is neither male nor female”, but we’ve all seen what goes on anyway.
Beth Allison Barr’s book The Making of Biblical Womanhood traces the “biblical womanhood” mindset throughout history and dissects many of the verses that have been used to keep women in their place. It’s a great read I highly recommend, link below.
But as for you, do not be called Rabbi; for only One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters. And do not call anyone on earth your father; for only One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called leaders; for only One is your Leader, that is, Christ. (Mt. 23:8-10)
Can you get any plainer than that? There’s a reason for this. Titles, positions, offices are just plain dangerous. They feed pride. Addressing the upper echelon (The Big Cheese) of church hierarchy with a title just feeds the monster, making the division between laity and clergy, leaders and followers, that much more pronounced. The terms “father”, “pastor”, “reverend” (which is my personal fav), “deacon”, or if you’re across the pond, “vicar”, they all exist as a way to separate the favored from the masses, the gifted from the not-gifted, the called from the not-called. The whole system is divisive. And in abusive churches particularly, the leadership LOVES titles, and demands that titles be used when addressing them, further cementing the required submission of their victims. Titles feed their need for control.
Abuse is obviously a major pitfall of this system. But it works the other way as well with burnout. People have huge expectations of the pastor or whatever title the leader has. The one in charge is expected to do whatever ridiculous expectations are put on him/her, while the rest sit in the pews and do relatively little. According to Christianity Today as of Nov. 16, 2021, 38% of pastors were considering leaving the ministry. This kind of burden was never supposed to be.
But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. (Mt. 9:16-17)
The old wineskin of the traditional, institutional, man-made church system that was essentially derived from paganism one way or another, needs to go. The traditional church model breeds dependence on man, not God. We have been programmed to depend on rituals to qualify as Christians- scripted, scheduled services in a building, tithing, etc., and on the callings of others, like there’s no calling on our lives. I drive by churches now, and just grieve at the waste of money on those buildings, and the oppression/dependence they (mostly) unwittingly promote.
There are plenty of books now that explore the possibilities, calling one concept "organic church". Basically, they are describing home groups that are much more fluid, with facilitators that encourage group participation, sharing what God is doing, what He's saying to individuals. These groups aren't set in stone- they move from location to location, and dissolve and redevelop over time. I believe this model is much more apt to allow individuals to develop their own callings. (I've linked a few of those books below.)
I had come across these books as I was researching the concept of spiritual abuse which was practiced in a church I'd attended for 12 years. Pulling out of that has led me to pull out of the whole man-made system, hoping for something better. If you are interested, Red Flag Churches is the free ebook I put together on what I have learned about spiritual abuse.
I understand how hard it is to get your mind around Christianity without all the institutional trappings we have come to accept. We assume that to be a Christian, we must adhere to the accepted rituals, the acknowledging of an anointing on those in charge, and the assumed lack of anointing on the rest of us. And let’s not forget the undercurrents or outright in-your-face patriarchal mindset so many have been raised with.
We are all kings and priests. We all have the Holy Spirit speaking to us. We have no need for any man to teach us. There is neither male nor female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. We need a new wineskin that will allow this kind of expression.
It may well take another great awakening, another reformation to bring us into the fullness of the Body of Christ as we should be. The deconstruction movement may well be the precursor to such a revolution. It can’t come soon enough for me.
Cease ye from man. (Is. 2:22)
I had put together a couple posts quite some time ago along the same lines-
Liquid Church: The Shape of Church to Come
The Dechurched, the Wilderness Experience, and the Next Move of God
Recommended Reading
Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola
Traces the history of all the traditions we call "church".
The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr
Recounts the history of Complementarianism, or biblical womanhood throughout the centuries.
The Church Can Go to Hell by Disember Rose Wattleton
Disember describes her abusive experiences in church and how she's come through it all.
Beth's memoirs, detailing the trials she's gone through, in particular the walls she slammed up against in the name of patriarchy and why she chose to leave the SBC.
Reimagining Church by Frank Viola
Church done from a biblical model, not the institutional version we all know. If you are in deconstruction, I recommend all of Viola's books, Finding Organic Church in particular.
Finding Church: What if There Really Is Something More? by Wayne Jacobsen
This
book has absolutely hit the nail on the head. Wayne clearly shows how
the true Church is expressed by individuals leading their lives by the
promptings of the Holy Spirit and demonstrating the love of God to those
around them. It has little to do with "church" as we've know it.
An Irreligious Faith: How to Starve Religion and Feed Life by Glenn Hager
This is Hager's personal account of his church experience and what led to his leaving institutional church. He has a lot of great ideas for the church of the future.
