Ken Wytsma recently sent me his new book, The Grand Paradox, for review. I really, really wanted to like this book, since it came so highly recommended by numerous authors and scholars that I deeply respect.
Yet I must confess that as I read the book, I had trouble understanding what the book was about. And after having read the book, I am still not sure I know what “the grand paradox” is. I failed to see how one chapter led to another, or how each chapter contributed to an overall big picture theme or idea.
Don’t get me wrong, Ken Wytsma is a good writer with great ideas. Each chapter individually (except for one … more on that in a bit) is a good on a particular topic. I really enjoyed the chapters on justice and doubt. I just didn’t see how the chapters moved the reader toward any sort of cohesive idea, decision, insight, or new understanding.
There were several insights and ideas I found inspiring throughout the book, such as this one on love and justice:
For those who truly care about love and justice, one of the most disappointing experiences in religion is when it becomes a man-made system of conformity and standardization that we use to judge each other. (p. 95)
On the other hand, I disagreed with much of he wrote in chapter 12, titled “Mother Kirk.” Like many Christian leaders today, Wytsma is aware that countless Christians around the world are seeking to follow Jesus outside the four walls of institutional Christianity. That is, they want to follow Jesus without doing the “church thing” on Sunday morning.
Being a pastor of a megachurch himself, Wytsma naturally tries to discredit this way of following Jesus. But in doing so, he reveals that he doesn’t understand the heart or motives of these people, and even resorts to demeaning them with the derogatory label “terminal Christians” (p. 136). He goes on to make this absolutely shocking statement:
When I see someone in the church who is beginning to develop a critical view of church, … I know I am looking at a “terminal Christian.” That individual might not be dead yet, but she is on a trajectory that leads to separation from the people of God, and separation from the people God has identified with will ultimately mean separation from God himself. And separation from God is death (p. 137)
So according to Wytsma, if you decide to stop attending church, or if you are critical of various aspects or elements of the church, you are on your way to becoming separated from God Himself.
As the institutional church continues to suffer a slow and agonizing death, this is the sort of rhetoric we can expect to hear more of from those whose income and notoriety depend upon the institutional church.
I imagine that in Wytsma’s mind, I might be one of those he labels as a “terminal Christian.” But if he were to sit down and talk with me and my wife, or with almost anyone who is on this same journey with God, I think he would discover that we are not falling away from God, but are drawing closer to Him and His people in ways that we never before thought possible–in ways we had only dreamed of when we were part of the institutional church.
Yes, it is true that people who leave the institutional church are often critical of what they left behind. I have contributed to that criticism myself. But this is not criticism of “the church” as much as it is the forms of church which we believe are keeping people from experiencing all that God has for them.
But watch this… if we who no longer sit in a pew on Sunday morning are also part of the family of God through our faith in Jesus, our commitment to follow Him, and our regular fellowship with other travelers on this road, then we too are part of the local and universal church, which means that when Wytsma criticizes us, he is criticizing “the church,” which means that according to his definition, he too is a terminal Christian and headed toward separation from God.
Look, I don’t believe in terminal Christians. I don’t think Wytsma is a terminal Christian. I am just pointing out that when Christians in institutional churches criticize Christians who are not in institutional churches for criticizing the institutional churches, many of their own criticism fall back upon their own heads, just as it does upon us who have left. I am not saying we shouldn’t criticize. We can and we should, for this how we learn. But we must remember what we all learned in kindergarten: “Whenever you point the finger at someone else, three fingers point back at you.”
What am I saying? If you read this book, maybe just skip chapter 12, or if you do read it, just recognize that Wytsma is circling the wagons in an attempt to prop up a dying institution.
If you are part of a fellowship where they say that if you leave their church, or if you question or challenge what the church does or what the pastor says, that you are leaving God or challenging God’s ways, recognize that this is the guilt-based, fear-based, control-based system that forms the foundation of much of the modern “church,” and does not reflect the heart of Jesus for His Bride.
So what can I say about this book? Well, many of the chapters are insightful and helpful. I LOVED his chapter on justice. And if you want to read some thought-provoking s on various Christian topics from a leading church communicator, this might be a good book to try. Just be careful with chapter 12…
I often think of what the eary church was like in acts. They met in synogogues only because that’s the only place they could fit everyone. Most groups met in homes. Today’s ‘church’ has become much too institutionalised. That being said, there are still good reasons to attend church.
God can use all sorts of gatherings to accomplish his will and purpose for people’s lives.
Not having read the book and not having the time to in the future, it’s not fair for me to comment on the book itself. Based on your review and quote from the book, however, statements he makes about “terminal Christians” speak of desperation. Is that what the institutional church is beginning to feel?
Although it is not well-reported, I continue to read and hear of churches that have closed or that are in serious trouble financially. People and money have departed, and are not returning. Huge financial commitments for mortgages and staffs, commitments made in better days, are about to sink some/many churches. That fact alone is proof those institutions were unwise to have made such commitments to property and staff in the first place.
Yes, the “church” has evolved, and who am I to suggest that the model of properties and paid staff was not the model the early church followed, so why would we want to do that today? Maybe, just maybe, the problem with that model has something to do with the idea that the model breaks down when an increasingly large segment of the culture decides it is done with church.
However, calling those who choose to follow Jesus outside that model “dead” seriously smacks of desperation, the desperation of an institution that made unwise decisions in the past and is now left with a model that isn’t working well. If you think you need a big house and paid staff, have at it. But don’t call me names and threaten me with eternal damnation if I don’t want to help you pay for it.
Yes, it seemed somewhat desperate to me as well. As if he was trying to keep his people from leaving the church.
Its just the product of the end times prophecy
2 Thessalonians 2:3 – Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition
The reasons I hear of most church closures from pastors they say its has either to many chiefs and not enough little Indians or there is to much flesh and not enough spirit driven people in that particular churches. In the Southern Baptist denomination which I am a part of they reported 75 % of the ages 18 to 21 that attend college never return to church attendance. Secularism movement in these colleges is a powerful force to young Christians these days. Whatever you want t call it “terminal Christians” or other names the Bible describes it a falling away. In other words no matter what label or criticism you put on it Christ started the organization and we need to be loyal to it not because of fear or under controlling terms but because of loyalty to Christ with our hearts loving the body of Christ as He wanted us too and not forsaking the assembly of ourselves as some has Heb. 10:25
>Whatever you want t call it “terminal Christians” or other names the Bible describes it a falling away.
The vocabulary that Wytsma uses can include both the Easter Christians, and the non-Christians, but that is either accidental, or simple camoflauge for what he is attacking. Given some of the passages used elsewhere, I’d suggest his real target is those who question the discongruence between Christianity, and Churchianity.
Those who thought that they were signing up for the former, only to discover they are in the midsts of the latter.
Which is not to say that those who question that discongruence always end up in a home-church, or related setting.
Ricky,
I wouldn’t say that Jesus started the organization called church. Church is more of an organism. And the thing we call “church” today looks nothing like the relationship of believers that was launched in response to Jesus’ ministry.
If you are in love you really want to be close to your lover/until Christ replaces the church with something else, I would suggest that we maybe should stay with His program. If you really have a problem with the church maybe fixing it is better than leaving it. That’s probably what a good marriage counselor would say. Also satan just can’t wait to cut some of you out of the pack so he can cut you down.
Jim,
I know that those “inside” the traditional way of doing church think that those who do church outside the traditional way believe that those others have “left church.” But nobody on the outside thinks this. They think they have actually found church the way they always hoped and dreamed it could be. By living this way, they ARE staying so they can help fix what is dying.
Well what ever those reasons are…and I am not sure there are too many, we do not need thousands of buildings or building programs that drain multi-millions of dollars from the Gospel of the Kingdom!
That’s true. I recently wrote about the billions the church spent on buildings last year.
Agreed. The glory of Christ’s church should be made apparent in it’s people, not it’s buildings. There are better (more charitable) uses for the money.
I’m sorry, I just can’t get myself to go back to church. It’s been nearly three years since I left and I still pray and seek God. I just see so much of man’s control in the modern church system. And I’ve met many genuine Christians who don’t go to a church building. We are the church anyway. It’s not a building or an institution but an organism.
Right. Church is not a building or an institution. It is not a place we go to. We are the church, and the church goes with us.
So, as a co-pastor of a congregation I try to speak to the senior pastor about home groups (or cell groups). His answer: “I will never allow home groups in MY CHURCH because I cannot CONTROL what they do or teach.” Need I say anything more? They present seminars on marriages made in heaven, but when she’s alone with us, his wife cries her heart out because she feels like like a piece of his furniture.
Then there is less than accurate teaching. Have you ever heard the message of a rope around Aaron’s ankle? Have you ever checked the truth (Lev 16:2, 29)? Just a little example. Have you listened to the televison “prophet” teaching that man was created on the seventh day? Have you ever received an sms stating the ministry urgently needed $400 000 te very next day? Or seen the TV celebrity preacher with a serious face telling the audience they urgently needed $2 000 000 to service the Boeing? I have just had an email from a ministry stating they are $100 000 in arrears on their debt and are looking at closure?
Need I explain why my wife and I left the institutional church in search ofthe truth?
Somewhere along the road the ecclesia Christ came to establish has been lost to corporate religious institutions.
Great points, Gerrie.
Yes, “church” today more closely resembles corporations than it does the body of Christ that Jesus wants us to be.
Gerrie, I always appreciate your comments. You are wise, kind and realistic.
Based on observation, much of institutional church is heavily laced with the issues of power, control and money. How does any of that even remotely look like Jesus? It looks like organized religion. Most people who make no claim of being “Christian” or Jesus followers can spot that almost immediately, but many of those within the system are blind to the obvious.
We were a part of organized, institutional Christianity for most of our lives. We heard references to Jesus, but he always seemed to be strangely absent. Then we more or less accidentally ran into him. Then it kept happening. But not within that organization. Not inside the walls of a building with a sign out front that proclaimed CHURCH. So we, like you, moved outside the walls to those places and situations where we regularly bump into Jesus.
Thank you Sam, for your kind words.
I was watching a Sid Roth program on TV some years ago. His guest was a Jewish lady, Christie Landry, and I quote her: “I was empty inside although I had a husband, finances, and a healthy daughter. I went to all kinds of churches looking for God and not finding Him there.”
With all of this said, I need to accentuate that I know beautiful and sincere people in ministry and congregations that do wonderful work. Yet I cannot help but notice the bondages they have to contend with. Ten years ago I sat in a meeting with one senior pastor I have fond memories of. His ministry grew enormously since the year we were members. He is a very gifted Bible teacher, but when I saw his diary and monthly schedule, it seemed to be an enormous corporate venture and I could not help wondering if he found any time to apply his teaching gifting.
Yes, we also know people such as those of whom you write. I believe there are many good and sincere people in institutional churches. Some are the pastors. Some seem to be content there and others, like us, feel bound by what the church has become.
For some the institution is a good fit. But there are many of us for whom it is not a good fit. Those we know who do not follow Jesus tell us they are sick to death of the “peddlers of religion”. They have no interest in any brand of church. They are often intrigued by Jesus, but they never found him in church. They will probably never find him there. They will only find him if we his people show his love to them where they are.
Well I believe the church started at the day of Pentecost without the Holy Spirit there can be no church not everyone agrees with this I understand but yes Jeremy the church today is not entirely like the one Jesus began but it had problems from the start like the church at Corinth and Laodicea . So what do we do? Make another church or denomination that will be true? As long as sinners make-up a church group there will be wrongs you can count on it so we can keep on correcting and uplifting each other as we go. I believe that’s what Paul and Jesus did