Generic Church:
The New Formalism
(Part 1)
By Rick Shrader
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Note: I
have been intending to write the following article for a few months.
It will probably take two issues to finish. It describes my
disagreement with the contemporary church movement and what I believe to be
unbiblical trends among our conservative churches. I have no antipathy
toward individual people or churches. I do have a great love for the
local church and a deep desire for its purity and its priorities. |
Solomon said, Meddle not with them that are given to change: For their
calamity shall rise suddenly (Proverbs 24:21-22). It is my opinion that we
are seeing a blind allegiance to change for change’s sake, not because the
Scriptures ask that of us, but because the world does. That kind of change is
the most rigid formalism of all and in the end becomes the most useless.
Chesterton said the same when he wrote, “The modern young man will never change
his environment; for he will always change his mind.”1 When the
church is constantly asking the world what it wants, the world will never ask
the church what it needs. This is true whether it involves the incidentals or
the fundamentals. Constant change, even in the incidentals, sends the message
to a postmodern culture that nothing is important enough to be believed
absolutely and permanently.
Our fundamental and
evangelical churches have played with this fire long enough to think they cannot
be burned. We have sold our soul to a pragmatic approach to church growth for
the past fifty years. Now, when someone appeals to what our “fathers” in the
ministry used to do, they have their own “historical” examples of the same
pragmatism.
Today, however, the
methodology isn’t even unique (at least our “forefathers” were more original
thinkers). Everyone is different together! Every church is on the cutting
edge, every church has a part of the vision, every church does the same
innovative things! But when all have changed, who is different? When everyone
is on the cutting edge, who is not? The fact is, for all their
“innovativeness,” all the “contemporary” churches are alike! And they are the
same regardless of creed or doctrine. The instruments, the stage, the volume,
the screens, the dramas, et al. It is all generic. You will find the same
thing in almost any contemporary service you choose. In my city, you will find
it in the Unity church as well as the Evangelical church, and even in the
contemporary Catholic church.
Now if the change were
for the better, we might be glad for them all. But if the change is inferior,
then all will be inferior. If God cannot bless opposite doctrine, why are all
of these contemporary-style churches experiencing the same results? It is
because the results have little to do with God’s blessing but everything to do
with a common methodology—a methodology demanded by the world if we are to be
blessed by their presence in our services. But then once we have acquiesced to
the demands for their presence, we must continue to acquiesce if we are to be
blessed with such success.
It is my contention that
the new formalism is not better in form or methodology, but is inferior in
almost every way to what our independent Baptist churches knew and practiced for
many years before the current pragmatism. The very reason why lost people are
more comfortable in the new formalism is an obvious reason why it is inferior.
They love the confession before the conversion; the worship before the wonder;
the participation before the partaking. We have forgotten that we are there to
worship the immutable God, not to please His whimsical creatures.
Our normal Baptist
churches are not without their problems. Many in our congregations have lost
their zeal and warmth. Many have fallen prey to the thinking that we come
together to worship, rather than being worshipers who come together. Hence,
they bring nothing in their heart or head to offer to God. They are bored with
the whole arrangement. They have lost their love for the brethren (the church!)
and begin to fall away in spirit as well as body. But this is an individual
heart problem, not a problem with the church. And it cannot be solved by the
world’s alternative, nor by the contemporary alternative.
In the new generic
churches you will find modern characteristics that are assumed to be better than
the normal church service. With a little reflection one will realize they are
not.
It is juvenile, not mature
Whereas
the normal church service has been led by elder believers, the new formalism is
led by novices. Sadly, their parents and elders seem to be held hostage by
the threat of desertion if they do not get their way, which usually means
control. Why should we be surprised? Our homes, our schools, and our
nation are being held hostage by the same threat. And all of those
institutions are dutifully handing over the reins.
It is often retorted,
“The youth are the future of the church!” But that is an obvious misnomer as
well as a formula for disaster—not to mention just plain unbiblical! Rather, it
is the belief, maturity and direction of the elders that is the future of the
church. And it is the biblical duty of young people to respect and obey this
direction. Paul plainly gave instruction for leadership: Let the elders
that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in
word and doctrine (1 Timothy 5:17). Not a novice, lest being lifted up
with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil (1 Timothy 3:6).
I have received letters
and emails from all across the country of older saints who feel their church has
gone through a hostile takeover! Many older saints have shown amazing
resiliency in putting up with this immaturity (even to the point of walking away
and leaving their life’s investment to these who are now occupying the
facilities). The younger saints are not hesitant to seize that for which they
did not pay.
But there is a fine line
between patience and permission. The elders in our churches must not fear their
God-given authority, even if the threat of desertion is followed through by
one’s own children or others. When it comes to eternal things, (baptismal)
water must be thicker than blood. Is this not what our Lord said would be the
case in the latter days? I am come to set a man at variance against his
father, and the daughter against her mother . . . . And a man’s foes shall be
they of his own household (Matthew 10:35-36).
It is profane, not reverent
Profane means to be
unworthy of the sacred place. It describes that which is out of place where the
holy and reverent are called for. Language can be profane as well as action and
deportment. The Bible admonishes us to let our moderation be known unto all
men [for] the Lord is at hand (Philippians 4:5). We are not to be a
profane person, as Esau (Hebrews 12:16) but rather we are to make
straight paths for your feet. . . . Follow peace with all men, and holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fail of
the grace of God (Hebrews 12:13-15).
As the world has become
more profane in their dress, their language, their casualness, their arrogance,
it is not fitting before an unchangeable God to don what is unworthy of our
worship services. G. Campbell Morgan wrote, “There has been much quenching of
the Holy Spirit by service that does not wait but rushes, and by the burning of
false fires upon the altars of God. The attempt to carry on the work of the
kingdom of God by worldly means, the perpetual desecration of holy things by
alliance with things that are unholy, the pressing of Mammon into the service of
God, have meant the quenching of the Spirit; for God will never allow the Fire
of the Holy Spirit to be mingled with strange fires upon His altars.”2
Christians ought to
prefer quietness over loudness, deportment over casualness, an attitude that
asks the head to bow and the hands to fold rather than the proud and unyielding
posture of so many today. “Breeziness and singiness are no compensation for
lack of depth and dignity.”3 Being in a contemporary church’s
“worship” service is like Vance Havner’s description: “They say the words and
sing the songs, but they are like fountains in public squares where water gushes
out of lips that never taste it.”4
Ezekiel mourned the priests of his
day who have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between
the holy and profane, neither have they shown difference between the unclean and
clean (Ezekiel 22:26). But when Ezekiel prophesied of the Lord’s return and
the building of the millennial temple, he recorded, And they shall teach my
people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern
between the unclean and the clean (Ezekiel 44:23). The writer of Hebrews,
anticipating these coming things, admonished, Wherefore we receiving a
kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God
acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire
(Hebrews 12:28-29).
It is worldly, not heavenly
In the
contemporary services in which I have attended, I almost have to chuckle at the
invitation to stand and begin “our worship time.” What follows is more
like a rock concert than a church service. One would have to spend the
entire week before, immersing himself in the world’s noise, music and bodily
actions in order to feel comfortable in such an atmosphere. And I fear
that is why the average lost person feels very comfortable there.
But the church has never
measured herself by applause or approval of the world. Today we have become
acute technicians, measuring up to the world’s standards, winning ourselves to
them, but not winning them to a different life. The apostle wrote, Seek
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth (Colossians
3:1-2). Many believers have prepared themselves to live in the world, but are,
I am afraid, totally unprepared to enter heaven. The glory of God will be a
total surprise to them. Paul’s desire was to attain unto the resurrection from
the dead, not to attain unto the fellowship with the dead. It is a good thing
that one day our sanctification will match our justification, and not the other
way around, or we would be hopeless.
Our churches ought to be
places where we escape the world’s clatter and enjoy the blessed quietness and
fellowship of heaven. We come to church to let our guard down, not have to
defend ourselves from the world. It seems the contemporary church minister
spends more time defending David’s naked dancing than preaching against the
world’s sins. As Havner wrote, “He mistakes the stretching of his conscience
for the broadening of his mind. He renounces what he calls the ‘Pharisaism’ and
‘puritanism’ of earlier days with a good word for dancing, smoking, and even
cocktails now and then. Instead of passing up Vanity Fair, he spends his
vacations there.”5
The generic contemporary
church is busy trying to prove that the world’s culture is neutral. We read it
in almost every publication. It would be a comfort to them to think that lost
man’s actions come from an amoral basis. Then we would be free to use any of it
that we like. But this is like hitting one’s head against the wall, it feels so
good when you quit! Culture, as T.S. Eliot once wrote, is the incarnation of a
man’s religion.6 It is the “world” man has created in his lost
condition. The church must confront it, not cater to it!
To be continued in the next issue.
Notes:
1. G.K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1994) 115.
2. G. Campbell Morgan,
Understanding The Holy Spirit (AMG, 1995) 166.
3. J.S. Baxter,
Christian Holiness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 24.
4. Vance Havner,
Why Not Just Be Christian (Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1964) 38.
5. Vance Havner, Ibid,
21.
6. T.S. Eliot,
Christianity and Culture (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949) 101.
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