Critiquing the Church is Biblical (Apology for Church #7)

Analysts of societal trends say that there is a big wave of "de-churching" happening right now. Rates of church attendance are steadily decreasing. Within this de-churching wave are movements like "exvangelicals" and those that are "deconstructing" the Christian faith they were raised in.

While everyone's story is different, my bet is that most (if not all) of the people questioning and/or leaving Christianity have a bone to pick with the Church. Maybe it is things they hear about in the news, such as the way the Church has treated indigenous peoples or the steady stream of pastors falling in sexual scandals. Or maybe their problem is more personal: the specific church they attended mistreated them or people they cared about, or used the bible to preach judgement and shame. This in part has contributed to a pervasive criticalness or bitterness towards the Church in our culture.

As I've reflected on this phenomenon it's struck me as ironic that what these people are doing—critiquing the Church—is a profoundly biblical thing to do. As many preachers have pointed out, the bible is full of imperfect people. Besides Jesus himself, there's hardly a main character in the bible that didn't mess up in some way. And beyond individual characters, the "people of God" (Israel in the Old Testament, or the Church in the New Testament) are constantly failing. I don't even feel the need to list examples because you can pretty much open the bible to a random page and that page will probably describe some way that either Israel or the Church is failing. And these aren't just "little mess-ups" either: we are talking about taking advantage of or ignoring the poor, excluding the outcasts, hoarding wealth, prejudice towards other races, murdering enemies, etc.

If the bible is full of the failures of God's people it means it is also full of critiques of God's people. Although in popular culture the word "prophetic" connotes telling the future, in theological or biblical studies circles "prophetic" commonly refers to speaking a challenging or critical word on behalf of God to His people. And that's because that's what vast portions of the "prophetic" books are about: pointing out the way that Israel is rebelling against God's design for them and warning that judgement is coming. The same sort of thing could be said for the New Testament books as well. In his letters to the various churches he was overseeing, Paul is frequently speaking to issues of racism between Jews and Gentiles, sexual scandals, cliques and bitterness, and more.

And it's important to stress that these critiques are directed towards "insiders": people who believe in and follow God. Although Christians nowadays have the unfortunate stereotype of being judgemental to others (e.g. non-Christians, people with other lifestyles and beliefs), that is rarely the focus of biblical critiques. When the bible is pointing out a fault, it is almost always the fault of a person or community that claims to follow God but doesn't back it up with their actions. It's a fascinating feature of the bible: the "sacred text" created to describe the history and teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition is remarkably blunt about Judeo-Christian failures.

All throughout church history for the past two thousand years the same pattern has occurred. Many of the biggest, most influential, and most popular leaders and movements throughout church history began and became well-known because they were reacting to a fault within the Church, some way they perceived the Church to be off-track. Perhaps the easiest example of this is Martin Luther and John Calvin and the Protestant Reformation. The only reason Protestantism (and, within that, Evangelicalism) exists at all is because the Reformers felt like the Church as it was in the 1500s was so corrupted that it had to be radically altered. But again, that is just one example. Every major figure in church history has, ironically, been critical of church in some respect.

So when an atheist, exvangelical, deconstructionist, or anyone else in our society points out (often justifiably) a fault in the Church, I think half-jokingly but half-seriously to myself that on one level that is a very biblical and even Christian thing to do. That being said, the crucial difference is that when someone in Old Testament times, New Testament times, or through church history verbalized a critique about the Church it was from the inside. They said it out of their care and concern for the Church, which they believed to be the Body and Bride of Christ. I say that literally with zero judgement towards anyone who chooses to leave church and/or the Christian faith. When people choose to leave I know they do it with often understandable and very personal reasons. My point is not to shame people who have chosen to critique the Church "from the outside", but simply to point out that critiquing it from the inside is not only possible but has been baked into the Christian faith from the beginning. It is the Church noticing the plank in its own eye.

The last thing I want to point out along these lines is that the deep imperfection of Christians and the Church is not a surprise. Sometimes I feel like when people point out this or that modern-day failure of the Church they talk about it as if it's a bit of a "pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz" moment. In other words, as if the Church has fooled the world for hundreds of years into thinking that it is a shining, angelic institution and only now has it been exposed as a sham and a cancer. And to be clear, whenever a new specific example of a failure comes out (like a pastor engaging in sexual abuse), it is often deeply shocking. But on a bigger, more general level the Church has always been painfully aware of its own sins and has often been the first to initiate its own reform.