Two thoughts.....
1. Churches are people.... they are families...... All families include nice folks and not-always-nice folks..... All families include sinners (well, nothing but sinners) and yeah, sometimes they make that very evident..... Unless one chooses to reject people, reject groups, and live in total isolation - then we need to "deal" with the realities of groups, of families. When we look around, we see a lot of people remarkably like ourselves - flawed, at times disappointing, at times obviously sinners - with pains and hopes and fears. My father quotes a proverb: "There are two types of people in the world - those looking for greener grass and those working to make the grass greener. I belong to a very small Lutheran parish.... I joined it mostly because of the doctrine it embraces and proclaims. The vast majority of the people (including the pastor) are USUALLY loving, good people. But we have our jerks..... we have good people that sometimes say and do bad things.... there are things not done best. How it goes in life I'm very active in hopes that God will use me to make the grass greener (beginning with me). But if you search for the PERFECT church - I think you'll search and be unhappy and unincorporated until you get to heaven (where the ONLY perfect church exists). And if we insist the church do and believe exactly as we want - then we need to start our own church and realize it will have one member - and thus without the whole reason for churches.
2. IMO, one of the reasons why Chistianity seems to do better in countries like the USA is that we don't have a state religion, a dominate denomination that everyone just automatically (or almost so) belongs to. In many cities, there's a church on nearly every corner.... Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal, Episcopalian (probably 2 or 3 different KINDS of Lutheran or Baptist!). Something similar to capitolistic competition happens because it's EASY to changes churches, it's easy to "church shop." ONE earthly, human consequence to this (not always a good one, I agree) is that churches need to be accountable, need to be good at what they do. And they often are encouraged to be distinctive - if not in teaching, then in ministry. In that town, there will be a wide variety of choices in worship styles, for example. Frankly, this is often a good thing. I see it similar to California (where I live) and the incredible PLETHORA of restaurants we have: Mexican, Greek, Italian, Japanese, French, Korean, Indian - it's ENDLESS. One may see a single shopping center with 4 or 5 DIFFERENT ethnic restaurants in it - all different, all good (well, usually). Is this bad? Should all eat exclusively at McDonalds? Actually, I see all the choices as enriching, complementing. And if a friend of mine likes German food but not Korean - that doesn't make him bad. It just makes it good that we have a good German restaurant in town. Diversity is not always a bad thing. "Different strokes for different folks." IMO, as long as the THEOLOGY is sound..... it's not necessary to everyone to do everything the same way. At lunch, one may eat a Burrito, another a cheeseburger - it's fine.
Pax Christi
- Josiah
PS Old (and bad) joke: A preacher believed that everyone should agree with him and do things as he thought best - all need to be right like he is. One Sunday he was preaching to his entirely empty church..... suddenly he interrputed himself, stopped, looked around at all the empty pews and cobwebs, looked up, and said, "Well God, it looks like it's just you and me - and I'm not too sure about you."
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