Slip sliding away!

If you study sociology or anthropology, you realize that church communities function to a large extent like any local or sub-culture.  Especially a relatively close-knit church community will maintain a (largely informal and unwritten) code of conduct which must be followed by those who care to be accepted and respected by the community.  Some things must be done, while others may not be done.  These rules of conduct are enforced by social pressures ranging from frowning and gossip to shaming and shunning.  In serious cases the church member will be treated as godless unbelievers, so that they may no longer participate at the communion table.  When Jesus spoke with the (Samaritan) woman at the well, he was moving into the “shall not” territory of the Jews.  Jesus, however, seemed to show little respect for local cultures if they functioned as obstacle to his ministry. 

One time I brought a visiting friend to our evening worship service.  He had come in his blue jeans.  We were a bit late, so we ended up in the front pew.  I had hoped our visitor would be welcomed and experience the love of God, and that he would realize that God must also be the centre in his life.  The only thing I remember from the sermon was the fact that the preacher made sure to mention that wearing blue jeans in church is a terrible thing! 

On another occasion, in a different reformed church, I had a friend who loved to go to church with us but argued he could not go, as he could not leave his little dog at home.  I knew it was a quiet dog, so I told him he should come and bring his dog.  So, we sat in the back pew (to avoid unnecessary distractions): the dog on the pew between the two of us.  Nobody objected or made a problem.

If you want to be accepted and respected in a community, you must know and respect its local culture.  The children in the community are taught to adhere to the prescribed behavior pattern to avoid trouble and to please parents and pastor.  However, as children get older, they are likely to spend more time in other, usually more secular communities.  Here they will face different expectations for proper conduct, and so choices must be made.  If they were trained as people-pleasers, they will probably adopt a dual lifestyle of hypocrisy or they may abandon ‘that good old religion’ altogether.

In recent times most reformed churches, unless they exist in traditional, rural communities, can no longer function as closed, tight-knit communities.  Even if the pastor keeps preaching about the evil world ‘out there’ and the fake churches that are all around, he cannot prevent exposure to other cultural communities, which threaten to contaminate their own subculture.  And so, the scene is set for shifting boundaries.  Here are some examples that apply to the churches to which we used to belong in The Netherlands:

a)                  When I was a child most of our churches would publicly preach against the sin of “watching TV on Sundays”.  This was –for them- in the black area.  In the diagram I pictured it as a 6-pointed star.  Ten years later nobody talked like this anymore.  Almost everybody had a TV by then, and hardly anybody argued against its use on Sundays.  “Sunday TV watching” had been moved from the black area (“thou shalt not”) to the gray area (“you may”).

b)                  While we lived in The Netherlands, it was a well-established rule that everyone must attend two services per Sunday.  Twenty years later, however, I found that the second service was poorly attended.  Although the morning service enjoyed a ‘full house’, the afternoon service had most pews either empty or half-full.  More and more members felt that they should sacrifice the second service to have more time for rest and relaxation or family and friends.  “What is wrong with churches that meet only once per Sunday? If it’s ok for them, why do we have to go twice?”  Why was there such a sudden and dramatic shift?  Did so many people become less godly, or is there less hypocrisy now, since the social pressure has been lifted?  Apparently the cultural norms have shifted, as indicated by the 4-pronged star. 

c)                   When we left The Netherlands to go to Canada (some thirty years ago), it was still the established cultural norm that “living common law” was living in sin.  Apparently, this has been the view of the church throughout the ages.  Ten years ago I noticed that (perhaps) most of the church’s young people no longer saw a problem with living common-law.  Apparently the practice has become so common now that few, if any, councils raise objections or pursue church discipline.  “When your own children live that way, and you love them, would you want to see them pushed out of the community through discipline?  Should we not try to understand their needs and appreciate their choice to serve God in a different way?”  In the past the New Testament word ‘porneia’ referred to “sexual relationships outside marriage”, but now people wonder what marriage actually means.  “At least our children don’t sleep around!  They are committed to their friends!”

d)                  The latest development, from my limited perspective, is the growing practice for young people, even after their profession of faith, to live together with an unbelieving friend. 

Balaam was unable to pronounce a curse on the people of God, but later he was able to bring God’s own curse on them.  How?  Through sexual appeal and opportunities offered by godless Midianites.  By introducing personal and intimate relationships (‘of one flesh’) between God’s people and those who worshiped other gods, God was pushed from the centre of people’s lives.  This then threatened the whole community: God’s Kingdom was at stake!  It worked in Midian, and centuries later it worked again in Asia Minor.  Thank God we have a written record of these events and Jesus’ personal warning for the church of Pergamum.  Yet, many seem to be fooled again: Satan still uses his old tricks to destroy the Kingdom of God!

My observations and deliberations bothered me greatly, so I decided to write a letter to the editor of the “Dutch Daily” newspaper, which used to be the national newspaper for our churches.  It was rejected.  Apparently, my short article was poorly written or composed, and it did not deal with any new or interesting issues.  (If I wanted to write, I could share something about the problems of the church in China!)   Apparently, the battle had been fought and lost, and the editorial committee saw no need to bring it up again.  Well, it may be due to my lack of research skills, but I have found little evidence of a real battle on this issue.  The front of the church may show a strong reformed theology with solid historical confessions, but the backdoor was left wide open for the Enemy to come in and destroy the church like a vicious cancer in an otherwise good-looking body.