God And the churches

I’ve spent most of my life within the Church, or perhaps I should say; yes, I must say it differently,  I’ve spent most of my life within the churches.  The churches, like myself, and everybody else,  are on a pilgrimage—a pilgrimage to become what they are meant to be (the Church).  I am on a pilgrimage to become what I am meant to be—a fully functional human being.  The churches haven’t arrived yet, and neither have I or anyone else that I know of. 

The churches are frail things these days and I suppose have always been so. Jacques Ellul said   some fifty years ago, that the churches in France were so “debilitated and apostate that a Christian can hardly bear to remain in a church.”  I think a similar thing has occurred within American churches.  Throughout my life and ministry in the churches I have been an outspoken critic. I have never been shy in my protests and complaints against the churches.  I’ve had little tolerance for the superstitions and heresies of the churches and have attempted to exorcise them.  At the same time, I’ve tried always to be conscious of my own responsibility (as a member of the churches) for the shape the churches are in.  

Looking back now with hindsight (which isn’t always 20/20 vision) at my feeble attempts within the churches, I realize I assumed something about the churches that probably most people assume.  I assumed that God needed the churches!  Without the churches, how in the world would people find God?  Even in the midst of all my vehement protests and complaints, I thought the churches were needed to give witness to the existence of God.  And that is true, the churches are to give witness—but God doesn’t need that witness.  God makes His own witness in the world and does so even in the very weakness of the churches which are quite often an affront to His name.

Nor is God especially or exclusively present in the churches.  God's presence is in the world.  As William Stringfellow wrote, “The Church (churches) exists only as that community in the world which cares about, observes, and testifies about God's presence in the world in all things, at every time and place. But it is not first of all the Church (churches) which has introduced God to the world.”  God needs no introduction.  God knows the world; it is His own—without the churches.