Where is the Hypocrisy?

For several decades, I have stood as a conscious observer of the decline of what used to called the Mainline Church. I read all the books. I listened to all the complaints. I watched the conservative backlash to the culture's evolution, as some tried, in vain, to pull the culture back into the church's past. I have seen the fear of middle judicatory and denominational leaders, as they have wrestled with the real impact of fewer people and greatly diminishing financial support. I have talked with those who have been dissatisfied with churches, those who have become part of the ever-expanding church alumni association. I have listened to the Gen-Xers and their generational successors, and I have agreed with them, by and large, about the Church's hypocrisy.

For years, I had been told that the reason for the decline in churches in America - we lost more than 50% of our membership between the years of 1968 and 2010 - was that the culture had become painfully aware of a disconnect in the Church between what the Church was intended to be and what it had become.

The Church, I was repeatedly told, was intended to be a place that reflected the ministry and mission of its founder, Jesus Christ. It was to be a source of hope for the poor and disengaged, the rejected and the forlorn. It was to be succor for the suffering and aid for the struggling. Its ministry was to be directed to "the least of these." The Church was to be a place of sacrificial service, where ministers, evangelists and apostles are trained to go out, in humility, to reach out to those in need. It was to associate with the lepers of its age, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the disheartened, the hopeless and the helpless.

I agreed with this assessment. The Church of Jesus Christ is called to engage with Christ in his work with all people, starting with the most needful.

The culture has called it hypocrisy that the Church had become a place of arrogant orthodoxy and rejection, limiting its services to those who are "right and good." The culture has called the Church an outmoded and irrelevant institution of religious selective blindness, one that refuses to see advances in science and cultural diversity. The Church was seen as an institution that stands over and against practical and social advances, against equality, justice and peace.

Again, I agreed with those who were quick to point out the Church's hypocrisy. It was not as intended. Through the ages, it had become a self-serving means to eternal salvation, a religious totem through which adherents had much to gain if they would just follow the rules and regulations. The Church of Jesus Christ had diminished, and was diminishing, because it had fled far from its intended purpose and value.

I used to agree with the mass of practical agnostics, who called the Church to accountability for the disconnect between its intended purpose and its reality.

I no longer agree with the charge of hypocrisy. Here is why. I serve a congregation, and know of others, whose entire ministry and mission is focused on meeting the needs of those who struggle and suffer. Many of our congregations are faithful to the intended purpose to which the church alumni association has called us and from which the functional agnostics have fled. I can claim with absolute certainty that there are congregations, like Shiloh Church, which are doing precisely that to which God has called them and for which God has empowered and equipped them.

The hypocrisy of the Church of Jesus Christ has diminished as we have narrowed the gap between intended purpose and practical reality. We are doing that to which we are called!

The hypocrisy now rests with those who have called the Church to make the changes necessary to narrowing the gap, but refuse to be a part of the service that makes the difference. The church alumni association and the practical agnostics can now take a fresh look at the congregations of which I am aware. They will see a new Church of Jesus Christ. The problem is that they refuse to look. They continue to stand apart and criticize. The hypocrisy is now theirs.