Church as Fetish
2 March 2009
Church as Fetish
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The Beyond Evandalism Conference began last night in Hollywood with 70-80 people in attendance. It was exciting to see so many of my dear friends from all across the country turn up for this roughly day and a half event.
After an extended clip from the incredible film The Big Kahuna (more on that later, perhaps), Peter Rollins began with this opening talk entitled, "Lessons in Evandalism." It was a fast paced, often disjointed jaunt through philophopy, psychoanalytic theory and theology to essentially make the argument that we have given God away; that in the actual experience of most people in our world, Nietzsche was right, "God is dead." Bonhoeffer, argued Rollins, said essentially the same thing. In his time, Bonhoeffer make the observation that God was always on the retreat, with less and less power, reduced to an idea - simply an explanation for what we cannot explain. We need God to help us face the likelihood that life is meaningless, everyone we love is going to die, that we have come from nothing and will return to nothing. So, God is pushed to the margins, not only of our lives, but also of society, to the point where God has now power at all anymore.
As a result (and this was one of Rollins' main points last night) we become purveyors of irony, not believing in our grounded being but only intellectually. Irony, he suggested, is sitting in Starbucks with your friends critiquing the dominance of corporations in our public life. In a deeper sense, he suggested that the church, therefore, becomes necessary as an "air vent" in our society, allowing the people to let off steam, thereby guaranteeing that nothing changes and the world carries on much as it always has. This happens because, in our practical experience, God is dead and we have killed him. His blood is on our hands.
When we tell people that if they come to our church and believe in God they will find the answers to all the great mysteries of the universe, or even just the troubling questions in their life, we are engaging in an ironic gesture, and the church becomes a fetish which, ironically, prevents us from experiencing the full reality of our situation. People carry on living as they always have, nothing changes except now people have a fetish, called church, that merely masks the reality of people's individual and more importantly, their shared experience.
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- Donna Haerich on Fascinating Adventist Mathematics
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So then, I have to ask, what is the answer? I don't want to be a salesman for Jesus, but I do want people to experience His love. How do we communicate that love without it being trite? I want to be friends with those who don't know Jesus, but I don't want my motivation for friendship to be "saving" them. These are some of the things I am thinking about recently, but have no sure answers.
I'll tell you tonight. I'm joking, of course. Those are some great questions, Darlene, and we did not even begin to consider them last night. We're going to be looking at some of that today. Stay tuned!
So the question is: why the church? What is its purpose? If it doesn't have a stated goal for being in operation, what is its business?
Sometimes we all have wondered: why church? Is it a place to get refreshed, restored each week? Is it like a cheap "shrink" to motivate us, but how effective is that, really?
Or, as suspected, is it a place to gather, meet and greet your friends? In that venue it serves as a social club and as a necessary part of most human society fills a definite need.
Will someone give some concrete points of why a church, and what is its mission, onl then can it be measured against the stated goals and purpose.
We all know churches that have not grown a single new member in 40-50 years, but have barely held the status quo. What does that say, other than that is is a dwindling social club, operating only to soothe its members before their demise?
Pope Benedict has emphasized that evangelism's goal is to foster an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. All else follows from this encounter with the God who is Love.
Fr. Jim
"that evangelism's goal is to foster an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. All else follows from this encounter with the God who is Love."
How could anyone argue with that simple goal? It is in the method that is used by so many Christian groups that destroy the idea of a God of love. Had Christians always promulgated this from the beginning, there would not be the aversion often seen today. God has been presented as an avenger, sending people to Hell and listing an ever-increasing number of sins that could possibly be committed. Oh, to return to that simple "God is Love."
So will there be audio avaible for those of us who would have loved to come, but couldn't? This is an excellent summary of what church is and what it means to most of us in modern society. I am curious as to what we do from here. Where are we going? Will the God that we have killed, be resurrected as an important force in the world? Or will he remain dead and will religion, in general, fade away in significance?
I believe the legal model for approaching God will have to be replaced with the relationship model. And with this there needs to be a re-looking at the church as community gathered around the table of the Lord as worship.
When a healed and restored community becomes the world’s servant, people will ask “what kind of a God do you worship.” And the response will be, “come join us in fellowship”
Great summary of what Rollins talked about last night Ryan, it was great. I'm really sorry to miss it today.
Church is a meme, a viral-idea, a self-perpetuating organization.
Its purpose, to the extent that it has one, is to perpetuate itself.
/Bevin
Devin
That is why corporations were invented. Those that have something to offer survive, those that don't, don't!
The main-line churches are dying. The pentacostal/dispensational churches are thriving.
As an evolutionist please tell us why. Certainly those surviving are at the cutting edge of ID and any number of right wing ideas. Tom
2009 is the 25th anniversary of my coming to the "true " church. sanctuary is what I cried out to find. I have a rather unusual story of coming to the SDA church. But after finding this church I have been crying out for true community & love & unity for these past 25 years. I have been through many circumstances homelessness & directed to homeless shelters,instead of invited home and the warmth of Christian fellowship, domestic violence and shunned and worse. I have been hungry and sick and asked for help & ignored. On Sabbaths I see people sit in pews with their pretty clothes and masks on & once in a while someone may say how are you? but if you tell them what is going on they don't want to know...life is messy and dirty and we need to love each other...Christ prayed that we would be one as he and the father are one...the early disciples certainly were showing that oneness..and Jesus lived in community when he was here...and when someone was in need he did not ignore that person. Of course he knew all their stories but when do people take time to be with some one to know their story of their heart?
Renee Hernandez you are a prophetess this is so true yes those that want to help need help themselves and can't help and those that can are too much into church politics to care or notice
Dear friends, I want to clarify my comment I was crying out to God to find God's people the "true church" which He lead me to in a totally miraculous way I was a hippie New Age woman caught in the devil's snare lead to a person studying her bible on a Sabbath morning in a restaurant but it wasn't that simple there is "the rest of the story". Much more the week before being pushed across my room by unseen forces,the incredible amount of times I have escaped death directly by people trying deliberately to kill me and just being in circumstances in my life...God is magnificent yes!! but the most important truth I know about God is that he is all about love and we are to be about our Father's business loving others as ourselves... do we love our brothers and sisters in the church are we willing to give them our last piece of bread let alone lay our life down?
Renee,
If you happen to come on Sabbath to the Purple church in Hollywood, you're welcome to worship and stay after church to fellowship with our Thai brothers and sisters. See you there!
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