The Two Headed Dragon of Religious Passivity

Introduction

One of the features of life in Clinton is that there is a lot of talk about city renewal. The conversation is pretty much always buzzing here like living under thick overhead power lines. The coffee shops, the factory floors, the offices all hum with conversations that begin with phrases like, “what this place needs is…”, or “what they really need to do is this…” 

City renewal is a Clintonian hobby horse. Whether we grumble, gossip, or dream while we rock back and forth, most of us have to admit that we love to ride this horse. But if we’re honest, most of our hobby horses are the plastic kind. You know, the kind that has the familiar quality of not being real. Our conversations tend to go around and around like that old carousel in the entryway of Paul’s discount store. 

The most popular way people relate to city renewal is the way we relate to the river. It’s always there. We like to look at it. But very few people actually want to do anything in it. 

I’m not saying there are no Clintonians who participate in the work of city renewal. Just as I would not say there are no people who swim in our river. There are people crazy enough to roll up their sleeves and attempt to do the noble work of city renewal, just as there are people crazy enough to swim in the Mississippi. And both have the smell of the protestant work ethic to prove it. I’m simply pointing out that it’s an observable fact to anyone who has lived any kind of life in this place with their eyes open that most people who talk about city renewal do not do the work of city renewal. 

But this should not be the Christian’s demeanor toward city renewal. We should not be mere talkers, but doers. No man should stand aloof to the rubble of this world. That is not a sign of virtue, but of vice. Instead, to pursue godliness, to act like Christ, is to roll up your sleeves and actively get to the work of repairing what’s broken. 

Active not Passive

Christians are called to be an active bunch. That’s because the way of Jesus is active. It is a going and doing, moving and shaking way of life. Jesus initiates with the invitation to come follow (Mt 4:19) and sends us with the command to go and make (Mt 28:19). 

But we don’t just make vague disciples who only think about God on Sunday morning. We are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation. As Colossians 1 says, Christ is reconciling all of the creation to himself. Therefore we are called to go and be active participants in this work of reconciliation, bringing all of life under the lordship of Christ. All of life means we are not just talking about what goes on on Sundays. We are called to other specific activities like training our children, making our jobs profitable to provide for our families and those in need, and sharing in the many particularities of ordinary life, like eating and drinking, to the glory of God.

So the people of God are called to be alert and productive in all of life, vigorously working for renewal in all places of our community. And this brings me to my chief concern as it relates to all of this. The American church at large, and the Gateway church in particular, is far too comfortable in passivity. We’ve been too content to live in liturgies of lethargy. 

Men Without Tools

For many years the pastors and church leaders in this area have been calling for renewal. And many congregants have answered the call by being emotionally involved and financially bought in. But most struggle with the actual implementation. For example, it’s easier to say we support the discipleship of children than it is to actually disciple them. It’s easier to give to a missions offering than it is to buy old homes in the urban core of Clinton, restore them for occupancy again, and make a profit while doing so. 

One of the reasons many church members fail to actively practice their faith in the particularities of everyday life is that they just don’t know how to do it. There have been many calls to build but very few people possess the tools or the skills necessary to build. Like C.S. Lewis’ illustration in his book The Abolition of Man, where he says that men are without chests, so many of our churches are filled with men without chests. Pastors too often demand the function of muscles in their church’s body that do not exist. Either because they have atrophied through the generations due to institutional complacency or because they were never there to begin with. Many church members desiring to build Christendom here in the Gateway just don’t have the toolkit to do so. They are men without tools.

This should trouble us because the New Testament vision of the church is a body (1 Cor 12:12), a body alive, limber, and vigorous.  And a body equipped with the tools necessary to get the job done (Eph 4:12).

But it’s not just that churchmen are without tools. They are often without active desire. And here I come to my attempt at pointing out the great Leviathan that blocks the way of city renewal. It is the twin headed dragon of religious passivity. This dragon is ultimately a dragon of the heart. It is the sin of sloth. But this sin throws flames and casts spells that poison our Sunday liturgies, which of course plays a big part in shaping our lives.

The Dragon in the Liturgies

Let me describe the first head. The first head of this monster is what I would call High Church Pageantry. I did not coin that phrase. You can find that phrase used by old dead puritans. What I mean by High Church Pageantry is this: it is a form of church where church members are complacent to have a priest or ‘man of the cloth’ mediate their entire relationship with God for them. People gripped by this dragon are content to simply sit in the pews as spectators to the liturgical drama being performed in front of them on Sunday mornings, and then live the rest of their lives as if they play no part in the story. A church community under this dragon’s spell will build nothing of lasting generational value specifically aimed at the Kingdom of God because they have been trained to think that only men in vestments can build the kingdom, and that Kingdom activity is limited to what happens at the church building.

The other head of this dragon is what we could call the Personality Driven Low Church. This kind of church tries very hard to distance itself from the High Church and all its forms. The traditional liturgies of the High Church are abandoned by the Low Church in an effort to be more “authentic” by being less formal. But by abandoning the ancient liturgies and traditions of the High Church the Low Church places the burden of leadership on charismatic personalities. And without realizing it the Low Church finds itself in the same position as the High Church, dependent on a few leaders to service the religious goods and services of passive religious consumers. 

Let me offer some examples of churchmen under the spell of this dragon. The High Church spell is seen when a congregant is led to believe they do not need to actively read their Bibles because the priest or pastor does it for them on Sundays. Or another example is a man who cannot answer why he has the hope of heaven other than by grunting out that he goes to church and is a good person. Because he is passive he has no understanding of an active life of faith, full of repentance, obedience, and blessing.

You can also observe a churchman under the spell of the Low Church dragon when they say things like, I can’t worship God if the music isn’t [fill in the blank style], or I’m not going to church unless pastor so and so is preaching. And because a congregant under this dragon's spell is not active in their faith in Jesus, they lazily place their faith in the pastor or the novel forms of worship they are surrounded by. And because their idols cannot fulfill their souls' deep need they become bitter critics. WHen the dragons poison takes full effect they become like sticky fingered arm chair movie critics with their church, pointing out all everyones faults and incessantly airing their grievances. 

Slay the Dragon

The dragon of religious passivity must be killed. Lopping off the heads of this monster is the only way to free up true spiritual energy that leads to bodily action, which leads to city renewal. And the only way to slay the dragon of religious passivity is to be devoted to the Word of God. 

Hebrews 4:12

[12] For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

John Calvin, somewhere in his Institutes, wrote that a sin sick laziness causes a person to become “fat around the heart.” Like a body that has accumulated fat deposits and becomes slow and useless, our hearts can accumulate fat and become dull and apathetic. The way to correct that is to allow God’s word to carve out the fat. God’s word does this because it won’t let you hide. God’s word will search your thoughts, convict you of sin, and call you to repentance and obedience to Christ, which will lead to action. 

God’s word is active and vigorous. And a man devoted to the Word will become active and vigorous. This is because by the power of the Holy Spirit the Word actually accomplishes what God says it accomplishes. The Word produces in a man what it requires. 

Isaiah 55:10–11

[10] “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

and do not return there but water the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

[11] so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 

The Word of God is active. The Word is alive. God’s word actually produces something. What does it do? The word actively builds men and women who become active members of the Kingdom of God who actively engage in building a total culture to the glory of God.  

This is why Christian worship must be shaped and centered by the Word. Because it is the word that equips the churchmen to actively do the work of renewal. 

2 Timothy 3:16–17

[16] All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [17] that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (ESV)

Ancient liturgies, sermons, and music styles are like equipment. They are tools in the minister's toolbox in his effort to equip the saints. They are like training wheels. They are not the thing itself. Freeling riding the bike is the thing. Hearing, Knowing, and doing God’s Word is riding the bike.

Lazily trusting in the equipment of our Sunday mornings is like leaning on a pair of training wheels on a motorized bike. If that's the only way you travel you are going to get chubby around the heart. A person must look past the liturgies and into the Word of God that those liturgies point to, and hear from God himself, and commune with this God personally. When that happens, a person begins to truly ride the bike. 

The singular devotion to the word of God is the defining feature of a healthy body. A body that is devoted to the Word is a body actively engaged. Because that’s what the word produces. The word actively makes active people, who actively work for renewal.