Church, Inc.: The Lust for More

I finally got around to watching Food, Inc., a movie describing how the "bigger-faster-more profitable" mindset of food mega-corporations has compromised and poisoned the food we eat, from the farm to the factory to the drive-up window.

I found it interesting that although this is really a scandalous and destructive story of our world right now, I didn’t find it shocking, sensationalist or unrealistic. This is indeed the sad state of how most of us eat, day after day, from cradle to the grave. Most of us don’t give this a thought, many are aware but don’t care, some of us recognize it and are angry but feel powerless to do anything about it, and fewer still are working against the system to bring about something better.

I say this, not with an speck of judgementalism against any of us, whether producer or consumer, because I have been just as much a participant as anyone else. But I do see it for what it is--a large-scale sickness that has taken over an entire culture.

The good news of the movie is that there is growing awareness of this phenomenon, along with a growing movement of people that are doing something about it--people that know a better way, where natural processes are allowed to flourish and where people can live happier and healthier lives.

I’m not sure I can think of a better analogy for the condition of the church today.

Now that I think of it, it may not even be an analogy; it may actually be the same problem.

For as long as I have been a believer, I have known, felt, believed from my core and taught that the church is an organism, not a human institution. I take very seriously those verses about the “body” of Christ being made up of individual believers as “members”, who, in all their human diversity, find Christ as their center and as such become capable of creating communities around the world who function in love, grace, and generosity both toward one another and toward the world. I think much of my whole journey as a believer has been a quest to see and experience the body of Christ functioning in this way, and seeing in many cases that the body of Christ has been co-opted by dead corporate mechanisms.

Despite church marketing's claim to be living “the body of Christ”, what we find instead is a corporation that consumes resources to keep itself alive; that craves economic “efficiency” at the expense of individuals; that uses multimedia, imagery, and public relations to attract and keep their followers--imagery that is proven to be false advertising once a person is “on the inside”; and that instead of helping people heal and get stronger, makes them more dependent and sick.

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. (Mattew 23:27)

As with the food industry, many people are not aware of this, others don’t care, or they feel powerless to change anything about it, but a small but growing number of people are very inspired and intentional to do something about this.

The similarities between the food industry and the church institution are so strong it begs me to ask, what makes this happen? How does the original bring life, and the counterfeit bring death? How did we get to the dark side of religion, perhaps even with good intentions?

The best answer I have for now is, the lust for more.

"The leech has two daughters. 'Give! Give!' they cry. "There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, 'Enough!': the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, 'Enough!' (Proverbs 30:15-16)

Farmers that are sold out to the mega-corporation didn’t always start that way. Many started for the love of farming, but financial pressure and the desire to succeed pulled them into the system. In the same way, pastors that are sold out to the church institution didn’t always start that way. Many started for the love of people, but financial pressure and the need to keep their job, along with the bar of “success” being set by larger, more attractive churches pulled them into the system.

Apparently there is a point at which a God-given desire for growth and fruitfulness (a good thing) mutates into a compulsion over finances and popularity (not a good thing). It seems there comes a point when you WILL sacrifice individuals for the sake of your success as a corporate entity.

The world of “church” is experiencing a seismic and systematic shift; many have checked out of the church system completely, while others are working to rebuild their local assemblies on a better foundation of Christ alone, minus the Churchianity. Questioning the church institution has been typically dismissed as “heresy” and “fringe”, but that’s changing and even affecting the mainstream commentators. A recent article in Christianity Today, discussing the condition of today’s church leaders, said that:

“...the state of the modern American pastorate has been shaped so that these sins—especially pride and hypocrisy—are impossible to escape.” (emphasis mine)

The question raised by this statement is, if a church is functioning in a healthy way, how can it possibly make pride and hypocrisy inescapable? Doesn't this mean we should revisit the system instead of simply giving the platitude answer that "we just need to pray more for the pastors"? For more discussion on this matter, I recommend a recent podcast conversation with Wayne Jacobson.

How does a sick institution try to solve its problems? With institutionalized solutions that always create new sets of problems. For example, health problems created by slaughterhouses coated in manure are “fixed” by injecting antibiotics into the food, rather than revisiting a process that covers animals, people, and machinery in manure. An example in the church world is that emotional and spiritual problems created by judgementalism and shame are “fixed” by counseling methods that pick apart the psyche and apply “scripture” to unearth every evil motive, rather than revisiting a system that reinforces judgementalism and shame every Sunday. Or as Darin Hufford once said to me in a personal conversation, "the church is busy trying to solve problems they have themselves created."

So what do we do about this? Can we do anything about this?

I have been accused of focusing on problems, not solutions. In general, that’s true (actually, it's a "duh"; you noticed the name of the blog, right?). However, that does not mean I don’t have ideas about the solutions; it’s just not what I talk about here. Other people are doing a great job with that.

That being said, I think there is a real solution for this, as there is in the food industry. I've experienced this in person, and so have many others: The hope is in believers recognizing and renouncing their institutional ways and embracing the simple, yet highly inefficient life in the body of Christ.

As it is, the machinery of Church Inc. will continue its path of spiritual wreckage, getting only worse, if people like you and I don’t do something different. So, at the risk of getting “preachy”, I offer this closing challenge:

If you participate in a local church, especially if you are a leader, ask yourself: When you consider your church, what do you crave for it? Are you constantly pining away for fuller church services, more money to work with, more success for the organization (and by extension, success for you)? If we’d be honest, many of us do. This is, I believe, the lust for more, and the primary pull toward the dark side of Church, Inc. If you really care about the work of Christ in this world, look again at your strikingly un-corporate Jesus, look your people in the eyes, and do what you need to do to live out "the body of Christ" and reject the lust for more.

If you are among those who have checked out to detoxify from Church, Inc. (a very necessary process in many cases), ask yourself: Are you re-connecting with believers and re-participating in the face-to-face, hands-on life in the body of Christ? Have you perhaps exchanged in-person fellowship for online discussions about the evils of institutional church? If you really want to experience Jesus in the “pure” sense, it will involve connection, not isolation.

We can do something about this.