Back in the 7th grade, we had to read portions of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Published at the tail end of the Gilded Age, The Jungle exposed the extreme lack of regulation in the sausage industry, going into excruciating detail about the rats, chemicals, and other products finding their way into Americans’ breakfast meats amid squalid working conditions. While Sinclair aimed to critique unbridled capitalism and 20th Century America’s harsh treatment of immigrant workers, I kind of missed that part; I focused on the food itself, and I didn’t touch a sausage patty for about fifteen years. As the old expression goes, “You don’t want to know how the sausage is made.” Of course, the expression applies far beyond the sausage industry. There are many areas in life where a look behind the curtain can prove jarring, and religion is a prime example.
In my first seven years in ministry, I worked in churches where we regularly made difficult compromises, a few of which I regret to this day. What might seem to an outsider like “simple decisions” had to pass through committees and teams of people who would weigh the consequences for every member of the church. We would have to take into account budgets, precedent, community impact, and a wealth of other variables. This work was delicate and often frustrating, but for love of the people and the church, we stuck to the process even when it wasn’t pretty.
Of course, there’s a long history of this kind of sausage-making in church. A look back through ecumenical councils and schisms and holy wars reveals a messy history leading us to the current day. There are plenty of places where the church weighed our options and came down on the wrong side of history or chose neutrality over love. Scientific revolutions, the Holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement, and modern debates over LGBT inclusion all spring to mind. A look at the inner politics driving ecclesial stances on these issues can be frustrating and saddening (if not infuriating).
Even with the Bible, Christianity’s most revered text, a deep dive into the book’s history reveals layers upon layers of redaction and compilation and politics surrounding which books made it in and which books didn’t make the cut. It’s amazing how one of history’s most influential books hinged on the choices of editors and church leaders.
But here’s the deal:
“You don’t want to know how the sausage gets made” has always been a somewhat facetious expression. If you’re eating the sausage, for your own health, you must explore how it’s made, and this is true of faith as well. Sure, looking behind the curtain to see the inner workings of church and theology and history can be jarring at first, but it is so necessary. And you can even spot God in the process.
God isn’t just there in the pristine Sunday School version of history we so often tell;
God is there in the messy human drama,
in the stalemates of doctrine,
in the interpersonal clashes,
in the denominational schisms.
And yes, even when we make the wrong calls,
God beckons us back and grants us the chance to try again with love.
Much of human history (especially church history) involves a continual reevaluating of the decisions we’ve made along the way and striving to act in accordance with higher principles of love and grace. We must always question,
“Is this an act of love, or are we just trying to appease the big donors?”
“Is this an act of love, or is it just politically expedient in the current moment?”
“Is this an act of love, or will future generations speak of it with regret?”
This process of questioning and reevaluating and acknowledging our mistakes—
this is how the sausage gets made,
and we ignore it to our peril.