Authority Issues

There is an awful lot of talk these days about why so many people are leaving the church. One of the things we are not discussing as much is why some people are staying. I would like to explore one aspect of that Christian retention.

My friend Derek is a lifelong churchgoer. He is smart, articulate, and has an inquisitive mind. He was raised in a conservative church and spent his college years as an active member of a famous parachurch organization. He even spent a few years in seminary, though he never completed his degree. Derek spent all the way up into his 30s in the loving arms of evangelicalism. Their relationship was not always one of romantic bliss but his conviction in the gospel of Jesus Christ always managed to overshadow his existential angst.

Where did his angst come from? Well, truth be told, that is a complicated topic, but one of his most poignant issues was his loss of assurance. When I say assurance, I am not primarily talking about the popular evangelical phrase "assurance of salvation," though I am sure that also comes into play. What I am talking about is assurance in a more ultimate sense. Derek couldn't figure out what was ultimately true. The resulting chaotic assurance-void left was more than Derek could bear.

Desperate for answers

For smart guys like Derek, the evangelical church (at least the particular subculture in which he was raised) had left him with an untenable paradigm for authority. This paradigm had been delivered to him through multiple channels.

At first, the tension was mostly anecdotal. He became exhausted by the intellectually insulting positions that so many people in religious circles take. Derek wanted to slap people who passionately espoused that there are no intellectual quagmires in the Bible. (He wasn't saying that the Bible was false or flawed, he just wanted authorities to stop treating the Bible like a Pollyanna script.) He was annoyed by absolutist beliefs in a 6,000-year-old earth or that Jesus never drank wine, only grape juice. There were also more fundamental quibbles. How could the meaning of the cross be limited to humanity's heavenly destination, when the Bible contains literally thousands of passages about injustice and the poor?

Part of Derek's epistemological crisis was caused by the epistemology of his religious authorities. Citing the reformation-based belief in Sola Scriptura, his leaders taught that he didn't need any external authority to know ultimate truth. Truth was found in the Bible alone with no need for tradition or history. This, coupled a theological individualism, left the center of authority ultimately in, well, Derek. Derek knew "I think therefore I am" and his church told him that all answers could be discovered by any person, if only they obtained the tools to study. (Let's just set aside the fact that these beliefs make God's truth more accessible to the educated elite.)

Ultimately Derek was left to trust himself to logically discern God's truth. Derek is smart, but he knew he wasn't that smart.

Derek wanted to seek help, but where could he go? There are approximately 30,000 Protestant denominations in the world. Which was right? Which held the truth?

Well, Derek did what a growing slice of disillusioned evangelicals do: Derek turned to the ancient.

Ancient appeal

I have watched a dozen of my friends take this journey. They felt overwhelmed by the authority placed on the individual's ability to discern God or to place that authority in a particular Protestant sect (note: the act of choosing the right sect also resides with the individual.) This led my friends to put their spiritual trust in the ancient church, either Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

These young women and men became so tortured by the question, "What is right?" that they threw themselves under the authority of 2,000-year-old traditions that carried the audacious claim that they were literally God's voice in the world. This was no flippant action; the pain became so great, that these friends risked being ostracized from family and friends to attain some sense of assurance. For once in their lives, they just wanted to feel sure. They swallowed beliefs that they would never have considered before (infant baptism and praying to saints, among others) just to feel certain. In order to complete the transformation, many of these busy young people went on an academic pilgrimage to fully justify this absolute submission.

Just tell me what to believe and I will believe it.

Have you come across folks like Derek? Have you watched smart friends or family members make the transition to one of the church's ancient traditions? Have you noticed how passionately they defend their conversion? Have you noticed how much of that argument revolves around authority under the guise of: "It is the original or purest church" or "unbroken apostolic succession" or "seat of absolute ecclesiological authority"?

I believe that so much of this is happening because young evangelicals are exhausted. They are wearied by a church that claims intellectual supremacy and yet delivers lazy logic, sectarian divisions, and a paradigmatic shelf-life of about 50 years (the approximate time it takes a denomination or emotionally charged religious movement to die).

Now, for Derek, his experiment with the ancient church amounted to little more than ecclesiological affair. They flirted for a little while. He attended sign-and-symbol churches off and on for a couple of years. He even tried to get his family involved. But in the end, his kids didn't really like it and his wife was "just going along." The delight of early infatuation eventually wore off. Instead, Derek and his family found another home. It was an incredible gift, because it held the unique quality of holding the "best of both worlds." Derek found a church that offered almost no cultural conversion from his religious experiences growing up. The church was driven by impressive music and dynamic preaching. It was a place where his kids all had a department to go to. It had the benefit of being both satisfying and entertaining.

But here was the real appeal, something that allowed it to replace the role of the ancient in Derek's heart. It was a church with an unapologetically absolutist theological agenda. It had structured its beliefs so tightly there was no need for questions or confusion. This ironclad theology was delivered by a charismatic leader, who demanded submission and obedience. In this church, there was no question about who was in charge and every person had a place in the hierarchy of power. All of this was very comforting to Derek. Sometimes you just want to know.

Derek and his family found a home. His lifelong anxiety over assurance of truth had been numbed. And to be perfectly honest, Derek has never been more content. I am happy for my friend, I guess.

Just tell me what to believe and I will believe it.

What will the future hold?

Many people smarter than me have hypothesized about the future of the church, specifically as we move increasingly into a post-Christian North America. The trend is already afoot. Cities like my beloved Portland, Oregon, have already leapt into the post-Christian reality. Most Portlanders would never even consider visiting a church.

Some people claim that the exodus into ancient churches will only increase with time. Others believe people like Derek will continue gravitating to absolutist and authoritative Protestant churches.

Either way, we must continue to process our epistemological and authoritative confidence as the people of Jesus. I don't know if "that's the way it has always been" (the Ancient church argument) will hold people's imagination. I am, however, very confident that the twentieth century addiction to the individual as the seat of enlightenment will not last.

I imagine that one part of the answer for the future of the church can be found in the birth of the church: Pentecost, found in Acts 2.

When the Spirit of God gave birth to the church, we were not endowed with super-intellect, a university system, or with a divine walkie-talkie. We were left with each other and more importantly, a radically multi-cultural community:

Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs … (Acts 2:9-11).

In our modern globalized world, the multi-cultural "other" is closer and more accessible than ever before. Why wouldn't we take full advantage of our global church?

I know that my blindness is most insidious when I surround myself with people who are just like me: spend like me, read like me, vote like me, worship like me, etc. If I surround myself with people just like me we will probably all have the same blind spots. We will tend to adopt self-serving beliefs. That is one danger of a ghettoized faith built on affinity structures. However, in the company of the other, my theological prejudices and arrogances come to light.

When people from the most diverse backgrounds—Global South and Global North, rich and poor, urban and rural, marginalized and mainstream—agree, as followers of Jesus, on the way of Jesus, what could be a more resounding affirmation of God's will and the Spirit's leading? Is it possible that such a radical culture of listening could bring that much-sought assurance? We could fulfill the hope of the great church councils of old. After all Paul said all believers in Jesus are "a royal priesthood." Do you think he meant that we should listen to only a narrow frequency on the bandwidth of God's priests?

The Spirit's wisdom chose from an infinite palate of options when birthing the church of Jesus Christ. The Spirit's choice: a multi-cultural beginning.

It is important to note that the Spirit also showed us the end of this glorious church story:

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb … (Revelation 7:9)

There must be some hope in these multi-cultural bookends of the church's story. On that day, when we stand before the throne of Christ, there will finally be assurance … for Derek, for me, for all of us. Ultimate assurance. For in that day our faith will literally become sight.

Maybe while we wait for that day to come, we could start practicing that heavenly existence now.

Tony Kriz is a writer and church leader from Portland, Oregon, and Author in Residence at Warner Pacific College.