Before you Leave Organized Religion
It’s no secret the church has been riding a roller coaster. Last year the pandemic swept through its doors, blurring the lines for many congregants between physical community and virtual. Yet the difficulties of a worldwide pandemic only added to deep-seated political divisions and scandals of abuse within the most prominent of evangelical speakers.
These revelations sobered many people’s views of Christianity, and we see the effects around us. Our newsfeeds hit us with story after story of men and women “deconstructing.” Some scrapped Christianity altogether, yet a large portion claims to ditch only the institutions of the faith. They embrace a god they find on their own terms in order to flee the structures of man-made religion.
Progressive Christians have been preaching this note for years now. Are we better off without the organized church? In a recent interview on Jen Hatmaker’s podcast, progressive author Diana Butler Bass appealed to this idea when reflecting on the state of evangelicalism.
Diana commented, “I think the institutions are pretty well corrupted. I think what remains is memory. . . . The power, really, of the Jesus community was standing around a table and remembering. And so that had nothing to do with institutions. It had nothing to do with any of those things that we usually associate with organized religion” (Jen Hatmaker, “The Shifting Role of Religion vs. Faith with Diana Butler Bass,” For the Love Podcast, Series 35: Episode 2).
Weary Christians might be tempted to grab hold of this statement’s simplicity. Does God call us to mere remembrance on our own? Will a walk in the woods or a night at home with communion mold us more than a church service? These questions surround us, and Christians in a postmodern world would do well to answer them with Scripture.
Institutions in the Old Testament
From the very beginning, God instituted routines for his people to follow. Long before the first disciples met in their homes, followers of Yahweh remembered God in specific ways. They had to do this because they were, to put it simply, forgetful people. Adam and Eve forgot their good Creator and chose to elevate themselves over their sovereign King (Gen. 3). Their progeny fared no better, as an entire Israelite nation rescued from slavery quickly began to complain over waiting for food, water, and their leader who took too long on a mountain meeting with God.
These same people stood at the cusp of inheriting the Promised Land, only to go on and forget the Lord who provided it for them. And king after king throughout Israel’s history whored after idols, forgetting they were merely trinkets crafted by their own hand. Because of man’s forgetfulness, the Lord ordained multiple means for his people to turn their eyes toward him.
“The Old Testament abounds with laws written by God in order to enable his people to remember.”
The Old Testament abounds with laws written by God in order to enable his people to remember. We might skip over these foreign customs as we slug through the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy in our reading plans, yet these verses display God’s rich kindness for his people. Something as small as tassels sown in the four corners of a garment were established in order to see and remember all the commandments of the Lord (Num. 15:37–41). It’s a specific, tangible command that the Lord instituted to draw his people’s eyes to him.
Joined to this small example are a host of others, from the seven feasts situated throughout the year and the entire temple cultic system that continually ordered the lives of the Israelites around Yahweh and his redemption. God called a people, then created rituals to organize his people around the same purpose. The presence of so many of these institutions in the Old Testament cements the reality that we are forgetful and prone to leave the God we love. Yet God in his graciousness condescended to order our lives so we would flourish as his people and abide in his life-giving presence.
Institutions in the New Testament
If we think institutions and religious order remain merely an Old Testament phenomenon, we are mistaken. The New Covenant no longer demands temple sacrifices or ceremonial laws that foreshadowed Christ, but God once again cared for his people by building structures that would guide us into worship. He demonstrated some in his own life, as when he was publicly baptized and when he instituted the Lord’s Table before his disciples, telling them to drink and eat of it together (Mark 1:9–11; 14:22–25).
These important sacraments join with others like the teaching of God’s Word, which the Spirit uses to build our faith (Rom. 10:17). We hear this word not as individuals but as members of a body (1 Cor. 12:27). We are commanded not to neglect to gather together, but to teach, admonish, and even sing together in this community of believers (Heb. 10:25; Col. 3:16). Even the earliest second century Christians committed their time to meet together in order to engage in these rituals intended for our flourishing: teaching, baptism, fellowship, and the Lord’s Table (see Michael Kruger, Christianity at the Crossroads). Though the aesthetics differ from a twenty-first-century church, they gathered with the same core practices instituted by the Lord.
American Evangelicalism didn’t create this blueprint—God did. In his kindness, God accommodated our lack and provided tools and structures that enable us to remember him.
Seek Change Where Change Is Needed
So what then of the scandals? What of the sin of leaders and institutions? We can’t ignore them either. We should call these groups and individuals to account for their sin. We also must release whatever cultural ideas we have of church that aren’t instituted by the Lord. We don’t actually need huge stages; we don’t need Christian celebrities who hide their immorality in the shadows. We shouldn’t fear pushing back against what does not align with Scripture or even the man-made commandments that are falsely added. As Charlotte Bronte wrote, “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last” (Jane Eyre, Second edition, “Preface”).
“We don’t actually need huge stages; we don’t need Christian celebrities who hide their immorality in the shadows.”
Many churches and institutions led by immoral leaders have fallen in sin, and more may come. The fabric of churches across the globe will continue to shift, for they always have. Yet, at the same time, we must be careful not to call evil what God has called good. The bride of Christ is still Christ’s bride after all.
As idealistic as it might sound to shirk the church building for a walk through the forest, don’t forsake the means by which God enables our faith. This neither requires a mega-church building nor demands a stage. But it must include what God has instituted—a people of God, gathered together, practicing baptisms, partaking of the Lord’s Table, hearing the Word preached, and encouraging one another.
When you see those deconstruction stories and pleas to leave institutionalized religion behind, don’t buy into the deception. God himself instituted these gifts. Yes, Christians will fail us, but sink your hope in the Savior, and don’t throw away the means he gave you to remember him. They matter, and they are evidence of the way God has continually cared for his people since the beginning.
Brianna Lambert is a wife and mom to three, making their home in the cornfields of Indiana. She loves using writing to work out the truths God is teaching her each day. She is a staff writer with GCD and has contributed to various online publications, such as Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition. You can find more of her writing paired with her husband’s photography at lookingtotheharvest.com.