Churchianity

I have an aunt who is a full-blown Catholic Churchian - she can tell you all about the Popes and councils and doctrines and dogma and the rituals and ceremonies and the Latin vs. non-Latin mass and how the eucharist actually turns to flesh (yeah, I know) and she knows all the saints and martyrs and prays to the Virgin Mary day and night.

But, I doubt she could talk much about Christ. At least I have never heard her talk about Jesus or God. People like this seem to be "all church" and Godless at the same time. As Tori Amos put it in her song Crucify, "You're just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird."

Here are some statements worth quoting. I couldn't have put it better myself and it is refreshing to know that I am not the only one who feels the distinction between Christianity and Churchianity.


"For one thing, I suggested the need for a critical reassessment of the role of churches themselves. I told students --and openly stated in sermons when asked to preach to the University Methodist Temple congregation—that churches are like schools and are supposed to provide people with basic religious insights on metaphysical, ethical, and moral questions and principles, and the encouragement to go out and make spiritually aware decisions and exercise spiritually aware leadership in applying what they’ve learned. Churches are intended, I suggested, to possess and share an appreciation for the history of all humanity’s reach toward the Eternal, not just that for their little roped-off portion of the Christian West. This perspective would deliver both people and institutions, I promised, from the parochialism, bigotry, and chauvinism of a thousand varieties that have led to centuries of religious infighting and attack on those of other understandings. Churches, like schools, are not ends in themselves. If the principal of a prestigious high school is so impressed with his school’s reputation and traditions and with how safely it keeps its students off the streets that he won’t permit them to graduate, that principal has forgotten his school’s sole purpose. Either his priorities must be corrected or his school abandoned.”

-- George Fowler, author of Dance of the Fallen Monk

Vast multitudes cling to some Church establishment as a drowning man would cling to a life-boat. They bow obsequiously to her priestly and official mandates, and imagine that the blind servility which they tender to the Church will be accounted acceptable service offered to Christ. The simplicity of the Gospel is lost in the imposing forms and glittering accompaniments of modern churchism. Splendid church edifices attract the eye. Splendid music charms the ear. Splendid prayers are addressed to the CONGREGATION. Splendid sermons please the fancy, and leave deluded sinners to slumber on. Church rivalry has achieved a glorious success, if success thundering organs, ostentatious dressing, theatrical singing, pointless praying, rhetorical preaching, careless hearing, and unscriptural practicing! Much of the current worship is done by proxy. Lazy religionists surrender their sacred rights to others. They take it for granted that the preacher is on the right track, and readily swallow whatever may be doled out from the pulpit, without using their own brains in searching for the hidden treasures of truth. Thus religious ideas are transmitted from generation to generation, until tradition exerts a more powerful influence than the Bible in molding the sentiments of men. There comes to be a fashionable faith, as well as a fashionable dress. To embrace a certain stereotyped circle of doctrinal views entitles a man to the claim of "orthodoxy"; but let him not venture one step out of the beaten track, if he would not be denounced as a deluded heretic! But few have the moral courage to question the decisions of the Church, much less to discard what she has labeled as "orthodox". The verdict of a few leading denominations has thus grown up into a threatening tyranny; and the multitude cannot think of stemming the mighty tide. So they bow down in their narrow enslavement and worship this curiously- fashioned but pious-looking idol - the Church! Since all idolatry is an abomination to God, we have no more right to worship a church than we have to worship a golden calf! We rob the Lord of His rightful honor, and ourselves of the highest bliss of Christianity, by looking to the Church too much, and "looking unto Jesus" too little. What can be done to deal a staggering blow to this cruel church- worship of the day, and at the same time give us more exalted and ravishing views of Jesus Christ? There is a grand failure to carry out the ultimate design, when the appliances of the Gospel result only in the production of Churchianity. Our perception, our prayers, our faith and our adoration must overleap the narrow precincts of the outward Church, and rise up to the eternal throne! "Worship God!"

From ZWT Reprints, page 533, September, 1883, by A. A. Phelps.