Tweet

EMAIL

PRINT

Comments (45)

 2 of 2

Days before the Enfield court case was decided, the Chicago Tribuneran a piece titled "Graduations at church cause unease." It described how many schools hold their graduation ceremonies in one particular megachurch in the metro area because, as one participant put it, it doesn't feel like a church. The absence of any visible sign of the church's Lord is apparently a point of honor for this congregation. According to the article, one of its staff said the lack of crosses and other Christian iconography "makes the space more welcoming for newcomers and more conducive for secular events."

"We don't want people to get hung up on that kind of thing," he said.

During its weekly services, he said, the church preaches the Word ("We want people to hear the word (of God)"), but all in all, "We try to make it an environment where people would be comfortable to sit and listen."

Making people comfortable is a good thing, part of Christian hospitality. But does it strike anyone else as odd how reticent many churches are to make it plain to visitors that when they enter the church, they are entering a sovereign state where someone besides the State is Lord?

In my younger years, I was an associate pastor of an English speaking church in Mexico City. The church ministers to missionaries, business people, and diplomats and their families. I once made a pastoral call on the economic attaché to the U.S. Embassy in his office. When I stepped into his office, there was no mistaking who was sovereign there. A large American flag hung off to the side of his massive desk, and a picture of the President of the United States hung behind. The embassy official was very cordial to me, and did indeed make me feel comfortable as we sat for coffee in a little receiving area at the front of his office. But there was no mistaking whom my friend served, and who was lord of that office.

There was a time in the church's life when people were killed for stating or symbolizing their allegiance to another lord besides Caesar. One can understand why some would flinch and stick their cross necklace under their toga, or meet secretly in places (like catacombs) bereft of Christian symbols. Caesar had no patience with people whom he suspected served another. And yet most did not flinch, and most continued to affirm in word and symbol the church's earliest creed: Jesus is Lord.

Today, when there is no risk to symbolizing one's allegiance to another Lord besides Capitalism or Democracy or America, why are we so hesitant to do so? Why is it that in the one place where we have the right and opportunity to proclaim the Lord of the kingdom of heaven, so many of us want to make it a place that is "conducive to secular events"? 

And why is it that church staff, called by God to enable the proclamation of Jesus' lordship, cannot grasp what a high school agnostic and federal judge understand—that Christianity is ruled by a Lord who has a habit of making people feel uncomfortable and offended because, yes, he demands their unqualified allegiance?

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. He is author of Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God (Baker).

Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Previous SoulWork columns include:

Judgment in the Gulf | Woes and blessings of the oil spill. (June 1, 2010)

The Whisper of Grace | The whirlwind of the self is not easily tamed, even by religion. (April 29, 2010)

The End of Christianity as We Know It | Now we can move on from merely giving people pleasant worship experiences. (April 15, 2010)

first page |  2 of 2

June (Web-only) 2010, Vol. 54

Displaying 1–5 of 45 comments

See all comments