What's the Church really for?

Being dead trendy, we have chosen for this Lent to hold a study group, to watch and discuss together the recent Channel 4 series on the ‘History of Christianity’.

[I write the words, conscious that if anyone reads them at all, the chances are these days that they won’t have a clue what I am talking about. Many folk today are familiar - at least in a superficial way - with the occasions of other faiths, like Ramadan and Divali. But by and large they are ignorant about the historic Christian faith of England. So I will include a gloss, an explanation.

You see? I cannot even use the word ‘gloss’ without feeling that it needs to be explained because so few people today are likely to understand their own language and fewer still will have studied Latin or Greek! Still,
‘Channel 4 series’ is obvious enough. They do some good thought-provoking stuff, and the series on Christian history is a good example.
‘being dead trendy’ is ironic; using the kind of expression common in the 1960’s is self-deprecating, implying that the church is keeping up with the times, as usual just fifty years behind everyone else.
‘we have chosen’ is a euphemism; we haven’t chosen anything, I suggested: and the others decided in the absence of any other ideas they might as well go along, since we all feel obliged at least to try and do something for Lent.
‘Lent’ is an almost entirely forgotten season of the Church’s year. In the Christian religious calendar every festival, like Christmas or Easter, is preceded by a season of solemn reflection as preparation for the feast. For example, there is one called Advent which precedes Christmas, now completely ignored because it doesn’t fit in with the schools’ curriculum, much as it would suit many if Christmas itself became a moveable feast to fit in with term-time. Advent prepares the way for Christmas, Lent prepares for Easter. It used to be observed as a time of abstinence; more often today it is regarded as a time of solemn reflection in which Christians do not ‘give up’ something, but in a more positive way, do something worthy they would otherwise not have done....like eat less and give the money they save to Christian Aid.
‘Study group’: traditionally Lent was marked by extra church services, to support one’s reflection and self-examination by the making of an extra effort in worship and prayer. The study group, in which we may pray and reflect upon, and discuss together issues of importance for the church and the world, is our way of at least paying lip-service to this tradition.]

So, now you know a little more, perhaps. I would say forgive me if you knew already, but if you did you will also know why I feel the need to offer a gloss !

Right. Back to our muttons. Since we are to go through and discuss the Television series, I felt obliged to watch each episode twice by way of preparation. and the final one, Cherie Blair’s take on what the Church need to do if it is to survive, quite troubles me. She observes, accurately I think, how the churches (not just the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church) have declined through the 20th century because of societal changes, but searching for a revival recipe she seems quite carried away by the American model of hugely ‘successful’ Mega-churches. Here we rather part company.

I put success in inverted commas because what little I know of the American churches tells me of social success, television and media success, social services success - but it does not tell me of Christian success. It tells me, as Cherie Blair does, that the American mega-churches conform even more successfully than the Church of England ever did to the pattern and wishes of their society: they just do what people want and expect. Discovering where ‘demand’ can be created and developed by advertising and great sale techniques is what America is good at; we should not be surprised that their versions of Christianity turn out to mirror that same process.

I will not demean their good intentions, but I think that in religious terms it means they are the ‘Coronation Streets’ and 'East Enders' of modern religion. I have an idea the church‘s function cannot be to replace Social Services. But more, it is that their evident ‘success’ may obscure for us a real underlying problem - viz., that to a man, they appear to be disturbingly fundamentalist.

This troubles me because I have an idea that its not the work of the church to court popularity. It cannot be the work of the ‘laos tou theou’, (Sorry, that's meant to be in Greek characters, but I can't work out how to use that font here.) Still, it cannot be the work of the people of God to give people what they want, but rather to try and discern what they need - which may often not be ’popular’ at all; indeed, it may often be quite the opposite. And that, I fear, is not a process likely to be supported by fundamentalist interpretations of the Christian scriptures.