Things are made very easy for us in these times! All we need to know is that all the mainstream options; all life-possibilities that are most advocated and supported, are most-obvious and easy - are evil by-intent and overall.
Otherwise they would not be mainstream.
This is solid knowledge - but it does not tell us what to do instead.
The recurring question: "If not, then what?" applies.
Knowing what-not-to-do is, of itself, of little value.
After all, the mainstream is by-now so narrowly-restricted, that the non-mainstream is unmanageably, unknowably vast. And most of the non-mainstream is itself evil.
So, if we were left to random search tactics, it would be vanishingly unlikely that we would stumble-across that which is true, beautiful and virtuous among the vast swamps of the opposite. Nor would we be likely to recognize it if found.
Fortunately, this is God's creation and we are God's children - so our situation is not random, but on the contrary governed by divine providence!
So we will find what we need among the morass of that which would harm us; if our will and wishes are aligned with God's.
And we have the ability of discernment both implanted in our-selves and available from the Holy Ghost - so that we can know what is Good when we find it.
Therefore, this life is an adventure. We know easily what Not to do; but the adventure lies in discovering what we ought.
I don't view church primarily as an option though. I think it's more useful to view it as family: you're a part of it regardless of how broken and dysfunctional. If I did see the churches primarily as "ideological options" then I'd agree: no mainstream church is worth choosing. They're all compromised in that sense. However, I view this as largely a function of the leadership of these churches, the elders/seniors, being brought up with the utopian hopes of the 60s; and they simply cannot shake that mindset, the mindset that makes them easy to manage by the powers that be. The mainstream churches though, even the Anglican Church, still has seedbeds of hope. When the current generation of post-Christian EU/UN utopians is replaced by a generation of fighters, revivalists, and restorationists - anything is possible. I don't think we should abandon the churches except where they've been totally compromised by secular ideologies (like LGBT). I believe God still wants us there, even if it means sowing only that a later generation might reap. Christian community has a way of bringing the blessings of the Holy Spirit even in the least favourable circumstances.
ReplyDelete@Jack - I agree Church *should* ideally be a family; but I don't see how a family can be scaled-up a million-fold and function as a rules-driven bureaucracy in conformity with other bureaucracies on a global scale.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy for an organization to claim to be a family - by using forms of language; or claim to 'function' as a family on the basis of love - but the reality of being a family is a different matter from claiming it.
I would suppose that real Christian churches will indeed be very much like families - but that pretty much rules out the mainstream.
This is why I agree with your post on clan churches.
ReplyDeleteHow did Christiaanity first arrive in England? It was monks, unstructured noninstitutional monks, or Joseph of Arimathea if you believe that story. It was there in England long before the campaign of Augustine to Christianize England, which was really a campaign in the military sense, aimed at subjugating the non-institutional Christianity to the Roman institution. This transfer of Christianity from ragtag monastic outposts to settled lay-subjugating institutions that began there has forever changed the way Christianity works in England and English-derived societies.
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