so this post is inspired by a story that making rounds on blog and Christian circles. you can find the 8 part series here and i would definitely recommend reading it. i should warn you though, it’s not a light, easy, or particularly uplifting read. it’s actually quite difficult at times to read and, as many have described it, is very “heart-wrenching”.

unlike many, i didn’t really come away from this with my whole life changed. i don’t know that there’s many things that can actually do that to a person. give them an “ultimate makeover” in the span of 10 minutes, that is. i actually think that conversion (and not even all conversions!) is one of the only things that can actually do that to a person. but while i may not have come away from it a changed person, i did come away from it with a lot to think about and a lot to pray about. this actually might turn into a two-part series because the two main things i came away really dwelling on were so vastly different that i don’t think it would be right to throw them both into one post. so maybe this will be part one.

people are always looking for a revolution. political, musical, sociological, religious, whatever. people always want to be revitalized and sometimes think that the only way that this can happen is for the status-quo to be so completely reversed or overthrown that they actually think things will be better now that the “revolution” has come. only they’ll soon find that post-revolution, things will be the same, or often times worse, than they were before in a matter of time and will thus be waiting for the next revolution because the next time will be better. it’s kind of the same mentality that Chicago Cubs fans have year and year out. “wait til next year” they cry emphatically, always knowing in their hearts that the next year will likely produce the same result (i can say all this being a rabid Cubs fan myself).

it’s this mentality that i see in postmodern Christianity. “pomo’s” want a revolution. they want church to be done “their way” or they’re just going to say “to hell with it” (now before i go any farther, i should note that this is not what all postmoderns want, nor may it even be tenets of the majority of postmodern churches. this comes from those who, even if erroneously, call themselves “postmodern Christians” that i have interacted with). they’re tired of the church. the people in it, the people that oversee it, sometimes even with the God that established it. they think that all they need is Jesus and if the community isn’t acting in the way that they’ve neatly boxed Jesus up in, they bolt. i know a lot of self-proclaimed “pomo’s” that aren’t going to church anymore because church is too institutionalized, full of hypocrites, or just isn’t the place that they think Jesus would want them in. most postmoderns would prefer a church that just lets the person be themselves and worship the way they want to worship, whether it’s by singing psalms or singing Marilyn Manson songs, just as long as it brings you “closer to Jesus”, whatever that may happen to mean to them at that particular nanosecond in time. they think that this freedom will revolutionize the church and allow Christians to “love people” better by engaging them through the culture and showing them that “we’re all alike”. true as that may be…..good intentions, bad strategy. at least in my point of view. but that might be a separate post.

i see a lot of the kind of disillusionment with the church that “pomo’s” have in the writings of Natala, the girl who wrote the 8 part series that inspired this post. i’ve never met natala and i have no idea if she would call herself a “postmodern” or not, but all the same. she’s been disillusioned by people that told her she could love “marie” but not have “marie” involved in her life. disillusioned by “pastors and crusaders” that “marie” had been involved with in one way or another. disillusioned with a Christian culture that drove her farther and farther away from a point in which she actually could help “marie” and truly share the Gospel with her, not only in words and Scripture recitation, but in true love by doing whatever it took to get “marie” away from the things that would eventually destroy her. and i have to say that i deeply empathize with all of this. i don’t know that there’s many Christians who can go through their life and never be disillusioned by the church.

but let’s face it. the church is made up of humans. we’re all messed up. deeply. beyond repair apart from the grace, love, and mercy of our great Savior. i don’t know that a revolution in the church is what the church needs. after all, as has happened many times throughout history, any revolution will still recess back to the way things were before the so-called revolution happened. i don’t even think the church needs revolution’s younger sister, revival. i think that what the church needs is to actually take the one thing in it that truly does change lives and begin to live out and practice the things that that one thing prescribes for us.

the church needs to remember (or learn for the first time!) how to truly love. not by throwing tracts at people. not by having music festivals or famous travelling “pastors” that are nothing more than motivational speakers. not even by building wells or houses for impoverished people, although that is a wonderful and God-honoring practice. the church needs to learn to truly love by becoming so saturated with Scripture and the examples of Christ, Paul, John, Peter, David, Abraham, etc. that things like building wells and houses just flow out of her. but not because doing missions or things like it is a “good” thing to do, but because it is through those missions that souls can be won and built up and ministered to through the overflowing grace of the Holy Spirit. we need to learn how to minister in order to truly love. we need to learn to meet and care for the spiritual needs of the sheep AND the goats before we can learn to meet the physical needs of people.

building wells will not ultimately save lives. it may prolong earthly lives, but it will do nothing for eternity. the church needs to get down and dirty with those who it deems “of the world” and truly love them by sharing them the revolutionizing power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. this can never happen as long as we have a community that says “you can love a porn star, but you can’t have her in your life”. “lost” people will never even be given the opportunity to be revolutionized by Christ until we put down our stones and tell the lost “go…and sin no more”.

we don’t need a revolution. we need to get back to basics.