What’s Wrong with ‘Church Renewal’?

In the past few years “church renewal” has become a common expression. It has now by and large filtered down from national and state offices and seminaries to the local churches themselves. Although at least three highly commendable emphases have characterized this movement, the most crucial issue in church renewal still has not been squarely faced by those involved in this burgeoning development.

Let us begin on a positive note, looking briefly at these three valuable emphases. First is the enlivening theological renaissance. For some of us who are older this has been the most satisfying of the three. Reared in homes committed to biblical literalism, some years ago we were catapulted into the arms of “liberal” Christianity by the “enlightenment” of our college studies. Here the emphasis was on rationalism, ethics, and social action, while the sometimes embarrassing themes of sin, grace, reconciliation, redemption, and the Holy Spirit were often modulated to a mere whisper.

But the dire poverty of this Christianity appeared in due time. Its shallowness in the face of enormous corporate and private evils, its inability to renew and inspire men, its idolatrous man-centeredness, its failure to provide assurance of God’s ultimate victory—all these combined to bring its basic positions into serious question and cause many to reject its claims.

A few years ago a kind of “back to the Bible” movement began, even among sophisticated, intellectual Christians. The tendency to dilute the transcendence of God and the transforming power of the Gospel gave way in the fullness of appreciation over what God had done for man through Jesus Christ.

An example of the difference between the “liberal” and the new view may be seen in the approaches made by each to the Protestant campus ministry. (Because I serve in this field, I draw my illustrative material from it. Pastors in the parish ministry could, no doubt, provide similar documentation from their field.) Several years ago one denomination stated the objectives of its “student work” in terms of the adult worker’s task. Here are the first three, and the most important, points:

1. To help in guiding the student in the development of an intelligent, socially constructive, ever-expanding philosophy of life and to help him make ethical decisions consistent with such a philosophy.

2. To guide the student in the development of an integrated Christian personality.

a. Worthful health attitudes, knowledge and habits, both physical and mental.

b. Satisfactory adjustments in normal social relations.

3. To lead to an intelligent appreciation of Jesus and the implications of the principles of his teaching for our personal and social living.

In contrast, here are a few lines from a paper, “New Patterns for the Campus Ministry,” prepared recently for the campus ministers of several denominations:

1. We begin with the affirmation that God has acted in Jesus Christ, reconciling his world to himself and setting men free to live in joyous, self-affirming relationship with him and with other men.

2. The act of God has occurred, and the Christian life is one of thanksgiving and praise. We now accept ourselves and our world as given to us, to be enjoyed responsibly in ways that glorify the Creator-Donor.

3. It is this act of God that is the Gospel: the good news that God is God, that he presides over history, and that the Kingdom is coming. God has defeated all the other powers in all creation, be they geographic or economic or national or racial or familial or political or social. The Kingdom of man has fallen and we are free.

The first statement urges that students be challenged to develop a pleasant, constructive philosophy of life, but the second has the goal of exposing students to the radical content of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The disparity between the two is striking: the first is man-centered, the second God-centered. We may well sigh with relief when we see biblical truth claiming its rightful position.

Rediscovering The Laity

The second development is what has been called the rediscovery of the role of the laity in the Church, or the recognition that the laity is the total witnessing, worshiping, and serving community—not just non-professional Christians as distinguished from the trained clergy. The laity comprises all committed members of the body of Christ, or the Church, including the clergy.

It is often pointed out that the enormous spread of Christianity over the Roman Empire in its first three hundred years of history can be accounted for only on the basis that the whole laity took seriously the call to witness to their faith. First Peter 2:9 was apparently a kind of commissioning of Christians to go forth into the world with their transforming message of hope and salvation: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (RSV).

One cannot read current Christian publications without meeting frequently this new and biblically authentic interpretation of the laity. In 1961 the Department on the Laity of the World Council of Churches published an ecumenical bibliography on the role of the laity in the Church, called Laici in Ecclesia, which included some 1,412 titles. These publications are in French, German, and English, and most of them have been published in the last fifteen years.

The third development is the recognition that Christians must be the Church at work in the world. Relentlessly the point is made that the Church must not hide in the comfort of buildings—that indeed the Church is not a building on the corner but rather the people of God in action wherever they are responding as the people of God. A minister known to the writer is so strongly opposed to applying the term “church” to a building that one suspects members of his congregation may face a semantic problem when they try to say where they are going on Sunday morning.

Certainly we should rejoice over this movement aimed to jolt Christians out of their tendency to stay in their safe, ghetto-like church buildings when they engage in their “Christian work.” That the world—the whole of it—is God’s, that he loves it, and that he rules in it (whether this is recognized or not) are strong propositions for Christians who have long supposed that the world, as if inherently evil, should be avoided as much as possible. An ecumenical document puts the matter this way: “Every testimony to Christ without reference to the world will lack reality; every statement about the world unrelated to Christ will fall short of the truth.”

This third emphasis is of greatest importance because it catches up the first two and points to their logical conclusion: The great reservoir of Christian workers (the laity) who have understood the real meaning of the Gospel and who thus have an authentic theology should leave their church buildings and undertake a Christian ministry to the world. Over and over again in the past few years, in magazines, official documents, conferences, and sermons, the theme has been repeated—the People of God (the Church) must go to the world.

Since all these emphases have been intensively pressed for some time, we have a right to suppose that the big new movement to win the world to Christ has begun to show some important visible results. But where shall we find evidence of this, except in unique and isolated instances? Do we see significant stirrings in New York, California, Minnesota? We may look and listen as hard as we wish, but only disappointment follows. There is no general upsurge of renewal.

Why not? Is there simply a lack of support for the ideas themselves, or are there other problems that have been overlooked? I believe that the second question points to the main difficulty, and I suggest two prior problems that must be met before the Church is ready to go to the world.

In the first place, when Christians try to speak the Gospel in words to non-Christians, they encounter immense difficulties. Although they may be poised for action in the world, they often suffer paralysis when the basic task confronts them. They are like some parakeets that make tentative flights into the world when the lid of their cage is removed but that really prefer the safety of the cage.

For an example of the kind of trap in which we are caught at this point, consider this statement from the paper, “New Patterns for the Campus Ministry,” mentioned earlier in this article. Observe how the statement, which proclaims such a bold, valid theology, suggests that campus ministers and students witness to their faith:

But all of the foregoing [ways by which individual Christians work in the world and demonstrate God’s lordship over all of life] must not avoid or replace the absolutely crucial witness of the individual Christian in his daily tasks. Here the opportunities come thick and fast, they are upon us suddenly, they are subtle and various: an administrator in the Dean’s office persistently raises the question of racial segregation; a faculty member asks about the over-emphasis on intercollegiate sports … an administrator supports academic freedom for persons of whatever persuasion; a teaching assistant uses his precious time and excellent opportunity to be a friend to a shy and homesick freshman.…

All of these and more, much more, may witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, because they judge the pretensions of men and call men to recognize that which stands over against them; they also show mercy, love, and forgiveness when these are needed.

Is this the way Christians witness to their faith to their fellow men in the world? Yes, undeniably. But—and the “but” is important—this is far from a complete witness to the Christian faith. After all, these admirable actions are also performed by good humanists and idealists who are avowedly non-religious. In fact, we may as well admit that the deeds of sensitive nonreligious persons often outshine those of Christians—as in the field of integration, for example.

Why does this paper on campus ministry not explain how Christians may tell non-Christians what it has so ably stated in its beginning paragraph—that “God has acted in Jesus Christ, reconciling his world to himself and setting men free to live in joyous, self-affirming relationship with him and with other men”? Surely it is not just by deed but also by word that Christians are to witness. Is this grand affirmation about Jesus Christ, which is the heart of the paper, to be kept a private secret of Christians over which they will rejoice when they meet for their own little study and worship programs? If it is not, then somehow the Gospel must be expressed in words, since no number of good deeds will convey the actual content of the Gospel—the good news that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; that God presides over history; and that the Kingdom is coming.

But here we are stumped. Who can deny the enormousness of the questions that now confront us? Sometimes it seems as though the Gospel has no real point of contact with our so-called post-Christian era; that indeed the Gospel produces such monumental dissonances when it would talk to the world that there is little chance of its producing meaning.

The Gospel Vs. Our Culture

In previous times a John Wesley, a Charles Finney, or a Henry Drummond could assume that his hearers had some basic presuppositions and an openness of mind that would pave the way for the reception of the Gospel. But what happens when there has been a crucial loss of the conception of God as the One upon whom all things depend? What happens when man’s primal longings for God are covered by a surfeit of exciting things to do and glittering objects to possess? What shall we say when the basic presuppositions of our culture are the opposite of those assumed by the Gospel: when the culture affirms the self-sufficiency of man, while the Gospel says that man can find sufficiency only in God; when the culture says man is essentially good, while the Gospel says he is a sinner before God and in need of salvation; when the culture generally behaves as if this life were the only one, while the Gospel asserts that there is life beyond this one and that there will be a time of final consummation when the entire universe will find its judgment or redemption in God?

Small wonder that indirect, non-verbal methods of witnessing the Gospel have become the order of the day for many Christians. It is so much easier to be a friend to a shy, homesick freshman on the limited issue of his homesickness than to reveal one’s deep spiritual concern for him.

Surprisingly enough, the institutionalized church may have little help for the non-professional laity at this point. This comes to light when we turn our attention to some of the new patterns of ministry to the world which the organized church is undertaking. Consider three examples. There is an unusual coffeehouse in Washington, D.C., that is operated by members of a unique ecumenical church in the city. In San Francisco a “night minister,” a clergyman with fifteen years of pastoral experience, wanders the streets of the Tenderloin district nightly from ten o’clock to early morning, making himself available to any persons who need help. In a Baltimore shopping center anyone interested may step beyond a reception desk into a chapel to pray. Descriptions of all three of these new patterns of church work specifically disclaim any efforts to convert the people involved; the object rather is to be helpful, to listen, and to serve.

So when the institutionalized church makes a gargantuan effort to break out of the confines of its conventional ministry, it too is in the embarrassing situation of not knowing how to be completely true to itself. It too takes the easy route and settles for humanitarianism. But can we even imagine the Apostle Paul trying to “help people” while remaining silent about the Gospel? Indeed, the Gospel was the help he could offer, the key to renewal and the transformed life. “How shall they hear without a preacher?” was his cry, and it applies to men today just as in Paul’s time.

By definition the Church is really the Church only when it is proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word as well as deed. Kindly deeds, attitudes of acceptance, and corporate social action are incomplete ways of witnessing the Christian faith; they say little to many persons except that we are responsible, concerned human beings.

The problem of using religious language effectively in our secularly saturated culture is an agonizing one, posing seemingly insuperable difficulties. But we shall have made a giant step forward when we at least recognize the problem, when we no longer ignore it and remain silent about it. Who knows what might be done if, God helping, we were to attack the problem with one mind?

Scandal In The Churches

The second thing the Church must do before it is ready to go into the world is to go into the Church. Our greatest problem by far is an internal one; solve that and the other problems will, by and large, be untangled. It is reasonably certain that vast numbers of church members could not witness to their faith if they wanted to because they have no genuine faith. The scandal of the methods employed by Protestants in receiving new members into their churches is well known. Requiring a minimum of knowledge and commitment, the Church slips its candidates comfortably, smoothly into membership and often for years manages to hide from them the exciting content of the Christian Gospel. The Church is seen by many as a nice ethical society that regularly practices a few interesting rituals and stands by to offer special resources for weddings, illnesses, and death.

The mystifying thing is that although religious leaders are generally aware of this basic problem, they still talk, apparently seriously, about the need to send the laity out into the world to serve the Church. What laity are they talking about, anyway? Certainly the bulk of the laity in our churches today is by no means ready to undertake such a revolutionary role. The laity must be converted before it can be the People of God in the world.

Nor could any theological renaissance in itself guarantee such a result, even if it were to surge across the entire land and invade every church, although it certainly could give essential aid. There is an absolute difference between knowing about God and knowing God. For the latter is conversion when it occurs in a total fashion, involving the feelings, mind, and will.

Let us think for a moment what could happen if all—or most—church members were converted to Christianity, a kind of Christianity similar in commitment to that reported in the New Testament. In the first place, there are now such hordes of Americans holding membership in Christian churches that just on the basis of numbers Christians could in this changed situation make the culture, rather than be made by it! In 1850, the first year an official religious membership survey was taken in our country, only 17 per cent of the population held church or synagogue membership; in 1900 the figure had grown to 36 per cent; and in 1963 (the last year reported) the figure was the highest on record—64 per cent.

With this figure in mind, we must concede that the anti-Christian, secularist presuppositions that possess our present culture could never maintain the undisputed control they hold if they did not have the support of vast numbers of church members. On the other hand, the potential power for good held by the Church today is staggering to consider.

Concepts In Common

In the second place, the problem of religious language would be largely conquered in this theoretical situation of Christianized Christians, because concepts such as sin, grace, sovereignty, and redemption would be discussed freely and understood by the majority of the nation’s citizens. Possibly some new terms would replace a few of the old ones; but since the nature of man and God remain constant, the new terms would have to carry similar meanings.

Doctors, lawyers, sociologists, physicists, and many other groups have their specialized vocabularies; religion must have its also. This has always been true and will continue to be so. Religious language is currently in dire difficulty, both because Christians have at times misused their terms and thus covered them with negative connotations and because the vast majority of Christians have simply defaulted on learning and using in a natural, normal fashion their own specialized vocabulary. All of this could be changed with revitalized Christianity.

Third, if most Christians became Christians then the problem of going into the world would be greatly simplified. Christians are, and always have been, in the world most of their waking hours. They are at work or at play; they are shopping or going to school; they are engaged in all kinds of activities in the world. They have been accused of hiding in their safe churches, but this is not actually true. Unfortunately most churches stand empty most of the time. Christians at last deeply committed to their faith would, hopefully, not have to be coaxed into sharing their faith with the world about them, although they might well need help in learning how to witness most effectively to non-Christians.

Admittedly these last few paragraphs have moved so far away from the present situation that they have an aura of fantasy. Yet this kind of talk is scarcely less fantastic than that which urges non-Christian Christians to go into the world as the People of God. The central problem of church renewal is converting Christians.

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