Much
has been made of the fulfilment of prophecy that bears witness to
the massive exodus from that Church that is taking place before our
very eyes. I'm not going to go into the reasons for why people leave,
nor the fact (as atheists so desperately wish was true) that these
people are not necessarily also leaving Jesus.
My
point is that those who think they'll grow closer to Jesus by leaving
a hypocritical, dysfunctional congregation are profoundly naive and
spiritually blind.
G.K.
Chesterton responded, “I am,” to the question, “What's wrong
with the world?” Each of us (including those who are leaving the
Church) should give the same answer to, “What's wrong with the Christian Church?”
“The
heart is desperately wicked. Who can understand it?”
To
think that verse applies to everyone else but me is tragic nonsense.
To believe that any effort to grow closer to Jesus, including leaving
the Church, without that attempt being corrupted and saprogenic
is, as I said, profoundly naive.
Paul
tells us to “Don't quit meeting together as some have begun to
do.”
He
says this because learning to love others, our enemies no less, is
critical to our spiritual growth. The main thing that we have in
common with those sitting in the Church Pews with us is that we've
been called to salvation by Jesus. The differences in our
personalities and interests, and loving those who possess those
differences is a refining process. This process can't be ignored if
we are serious about being transformed into character of Jesus.
Loving
those who are different than us gives us a glimpse into God's love
for us; fallen creatures as dissimilar to God in holiness as any
difference can be.
Leaving
a difficult environment to seek out those like us, those with similar
interests, those who will not irritate and annoy us, and then
believing that we are somehow made new because we no longer display
anger is simply lying to ourselves.
