Some time back I happened across a human-interest story in the “religion” section of an out-of-town newspaper. It was the headline, “For some youths, one church isn't enough,” that caught my eye. The story focused on a teenager, Emily, who dutifully attended the “traditional” church of her family and also attended another, much more lively, church with her peers. It seems a “win-win” situation.
I'm not so sure.
According to Emily's mother, this bifurcated devotion is not a surrender to consumerism but a revelation of the “the strength of her faith and the profoundly individual spiritual course each believer follows.” This is only to be expected “because Jesus Christ is your own personal Lord and Savior.”
Perhaps we should be glad that Emily is attending any church when she might be staying in bed. But I'm concerned about what sort of formation is taking place when devout and sincere Christians of two generations can speak of personal choices and a personal savior.
Having a personal savior, as one wit has put it, sounds suspiciously like having a personal tailor — someone to cater to our likes and needs. Jesus as Lord surely means, at least, this much: he gets to make the decisions.
The poverty of the language of the “profoundly individual” is apparent once we contrast it with the biblical images of the church as a building with Christ as the cornerstone, as a body with Christ as its head, or, significantly, of the church as the bride of Christ. How often have we thought of ourselves bound as permanently to a specific congregation as we are bound to a spouse? (By the way, given the divorce rate among Christians, we evidently don't think that closely at all.)
Such claims raise immediate concerns. The church is sinful and fallible. Dare we equate the church with communion with God? Who is the church to claim for itself such status? I do not wish to deny that the church is always a church of sinners. Peter himself, the rock of the church, denied and abandoned Jesus.
And yet, it is through the church that we learn to use the language of “sinner” faithfully. To call ourselves sinners, as Martin Luther emphasized, is to know the freedom that comes from living dependent upon God's forgiveness and grace. Christian freedom is not the freedom to choose from a variety of options, but the freedom that comes from bondage to Christ and to the body of Christ.
In our context, of course, “bondage” is a terrifying term. It brings up images of suffocation, enslavement or addiction. If we are bound to Christ and the church, then our individuality and freedom to think for ourselves might easily get snuffed out. And yet the gospel calls such bondage freedom. What are we to make of this?
To be bound to others in Christ means we are given the grace to be part of something much larger than our fleeting likes and dislikes. At the same time, this bondage frees us to speak truthfully to one another, human vessels that we are. We are freed to speak and receive the truth in love because we know that the final outcome is not in our hand. Faithful dissent is carried out not apart from but within tradition in order to keep the story going, to keep the gospel alive.
God gives us all the time we need to practice loving one another, being faithful, speaking truthfully, extending and receiving forgiveness and so forth. The Christian life is not simply an inward feeling or a matter of personal preferences. In and through the church, God invites us to join a body whose practices are to redound to the glory of God.
Perhaps we should be happy that our teenager, Emily, is at least attending church. But in a culture that bombards us with the idea that we are our own creators, the church offers an alternative. The church is God's new creation “by water and the word.” May our lives bear this out.
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– Beth Newman is professor of theology and ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. [email protected]