These days, there are more articles than ever by Millennials and Gen Xers pointing out problems with church. They’re a dime a dozen. They’re everywhere. And they clog up my Facebook and Twitter feeds the way selfies and pictures of food clog up my Instagram. Recently though, I’ve noticed another pattern among my more traditionalist friends— rebuttal articles that put these young upstarts in their place, and these articles usually follow this line of reasoning:
The church is the Bride of Christ.
You wouldn’t insult your friend’s wife, would you?
Then why are you insulting Jesus’s wife?
While it certainly stems from a charitable place, there are three major flaws in this argument. The first two may be a little nit-picky, but stay tuned because #3 is a doozy.
1. The church is not the Bride of Christ; The Church is the Bride of Christ. Individual churches are small imperfect bodies of loving but sinful people. Typically they invest more in their buildings than their people, and there’s a lot of selfishness and politicking because that’s just what happens when you put people under one roof. The Church, on the other hand, is the universal Body of Believers of which any who profess faith in Christ are members. Criticizing church is not the same as criticizing Church. But even then, there’s merit to criticizing the Church; more on that in the much anticipated point #3.
2. Okay, this may be super technical, but bear with me. While “bride” and “wife” are certainly related terms, they’re not quite the same thing. A bride is someone in that liminal space of becoming a wife; she’s not really a wife until the preacher, notary, or cruise ship captain says “I now pronounce you…” In the case of the Church, this particular wedding isn’t going to take place for a very long time (or maybe next Tuesday if you believe the End Times predictors). “Bride” can’t be equated to “wife” in this case, so from this point on, I’m going to substitute the word “fiancee.” I look forward to the day when we’ll all be united with Jesus forever, but we’re not technically there yet.
3. And this is the big one. These young authors aren’t insulting Jesus’s wife. They’re pointing out that his fiancee has been cheating on him. Would I insult my friend’s wife? Probably not, but then again, I can be kind of a jerk sometimes, so maybe I’m not the best case study. Would I tell my friend that his fiancee is cheating on him? Hell yes, I would. I’d go to him immediately and say exactly what I heard, saw, or walked in on. We’d talk through his options, and if he wanted me to be there when he confronted her, I absolutely would. I’d walk with him through the whole thing because that’s what a good friend does. Would I want him to leave her? Yeah, probably, but my Friend is far more merciful and has taken her back time and again already, so knowing that Jesus will always call the Church back to him, I’m choosing instead to focus my attention on the Church herself. Jesus is perfection; there’s no work to be done there. But when it comes to the Church, who repeatedly prostitutes herself for every politician and continues to focus on her own needs rather than being the balm to the world we were called to be, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
So would it be wrong to insult Jesus’s wife?
I guess so. Maybe. I don’t know.
Would it be wrong to tell him that his fiancee is cheating on him?
No. Absolutely not. Go tell him right now. RIGHT NOW.
And what kind of terrible friend even has to ask that?
But here’s where things get really dicey.
In this analogy, I’m not only the friend.
I’m also the fiancee.
I’m the cheating, wayward future spouse.
And yet, Jesus calls me back again and again.
The problem facing the Bride of Christ is this:
On this side of eternity, we will always go astray,
but he will always call us back to him.
Do we deserve it?
Of course not.
Should we work on becoming better?
Absolutely.
Will we actually achieve that?
I’m not completely ruling it out,
but looking at the big arc of history,
the answer is almost certainly no,
and that’s okay.
The good news is that we’re not dependent on our own merit;
Jesus carries us over the threshold that we can’t cross on our own.
In the meantime,
on this side of eternity,
taking a good honest look at ourselves
and the ways we’ve been unfaithful
is a crucial step toward Christ.
The Church doesn’t need you to defend her.
She needs your honesty
because she— no,
because we need to change.
This topic hits very close to home for me, and I’ll be writing more on The Church and the culture of criticism throughout the month of November.