The Church and a Crisis of Relational Righteousness

Recently, in a blog post at Internet Monk that dealt with church growth and church decline, I added a comment that told part of my story. What I noted was a widespread lack of loving one's neighbor as one's self, in the context of the church. Here's my comment in its entirety:

Relationships are very important to my family, as they are to many. But one factor that has big impact is how one is treated. We left the last three churches we attended basically due to 1) neglect, 2) abuse, and 3) indifference. We haven’t been to a church in a while. In each of these cases, there was a significant lack of caring from the body while we were in our greatest crises in life. This included people we knew personally (and knew very well, at least we thought so) for over ten years.

I believe there is a crisis in the church of what I might call “relational righteousness.” If you make a promise to somebody, keep it. If somebody is in need, help. If you can’t help, pray with them. Invite people over for a meal. If somebody else invites you over, go. If you place somebody in charge of a ministry, let them be in charge of the ministry, and don’t meddle. Associate with the lowly. Show the most honor to the least in your midst. Actually practice the one-anothers. Stuff your choir/worship band for a while and let the addict you saved out of the gutter play “Amazing Grace” on his harmonica. It won’t hurt. Suffer not little children to be part of the church family. Really. And here is a big one…if somebody offers you help, let them help, even if you don’t need it. It may make their day. Practice and teach these things.

For my family, it is going to take a church that practices this relational righteousness for us to attend.

In light of my last post on The Dones, it is easy to see why so many people are deciding to leave a church they have attended, even for years.

Solomon and Luther: Don't Be Too Righteous

"Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?" -Ecclesiastes 7:16

Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, writes a post around a quote of Martin Luther on the remedy for nagging legalisms that plague us. Luther's quote:

“Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.” -Martin Luther

Adding CS Lewis into the mix, iMonk continues:

"But Lewis (and Luther) were especially aware of the spiritual dangers of trying to not sin. Yes…trying to not sin. Since encouraging people to try and not sin is a major occupation of confused evangelicalism, Luther sounds strange."

Indeed.