I have this cartoon strip coming together in my mind. It has three frames:
Frame 1: A well-dressed man – your stereotypical church leader – is taking in a worship service. His wife is sitting next to him. The congregation is standing, hands raised, praising with all their might. A guitarist is on the platform leading the singing. The only people sitting are the man and his spouse. As she looks on, he leans over and says, “I hear you can induce a trance if you sing repetitive phrases over and over?” She ignores him.
Frame 2: The sermon. With a Bible in one hand, the pastor proclaims, “?and we know this is true because God said it to us in his Word!” Again, the churchgoing man whispers to his wife, “You know, we can’t even be sure that exact line was in Paul’s original letter.” Her face shows the beginnings of a frown.
Frame 3: The churchgoing man now is in heaven. He is touring the New Jerusalem Museum of Original Manuscripts. A placard on the wall tells us he is reading the original text of Romans. His finger traces the words of chapter 1, verse 29 – “They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, cynicism, skepticism, and malice.”
“Cynicism? skepticism,” he thinks with a guilty look on his face, “I’m sure glad those got lost in translation!”
Off to the side, his (former) wife is talking to Paul. “Why did that not make it into our Bibles?” she asks.
“Something about not testing us beyond what we could bear,” the apostle replies.
*************
I’ll admit that all blog posts are slightly autobiographical if you’ll admit that this is one of the constant struggles of serving in the church. We spend so much time around the work of God that we risk losing the wonder and a sense of the holiness of it all.
There are myriad ways to combat cynicism. I think we need to recover the ability to laugh about it (note: I did not say we should laugh at each other). Cynicism is pitiful – a bad attitude masquerading as thoughtful elitism. But it’s a poisonous defense mechanism. It gives Satan a huge foothold at the highest levels of church leadership.
If laughing at it will help us to admit the truth – that we’re tempted to deny the holiness of the things we deal in, and even though we continue to struggle, we know that cynicism is ridiculous – then may our churches be filled with laughter.
How do you combat cynicism and skepticism?
