My Muslim friend nails it!
He said today, I love God and I think I am a pretty good follower of God. I told Him about our gathering as a church in the park and our interaction with a Muslim group. I told him what the leader of the group told me. I told my friend this, "The Muslim leader told us he cannot believe that God would be born as a Jew and not as an Arab! Why did He go to the Jews? God would never go to one people group. If Jesus is God -why was He so selective?"
I told my Muslim friend that I was in a quandry over that statement. My friend quickly replied, Jesus came to the Jews because they were worshipping God!
My Muslim friend told me that Christianity was not growing until after Constantine made Christianity the State Church and Christianity became largely westernized. I was happy to reveal to him that we don't know how many Christ followers there were because there was great persecution and it was mostly an underground multiplying rapidly "organism." I told Him that the church started to get 'messed up' when it became institutionalized with Popes, Bishops and Leaders being legitimized as those over the people.
My friend and I discussed the rapid movement of Islam in the world and we concluded that the reason Islam is more missional is because Islam lacks the institutional and hierarchical structures we have in Christianity. He said, "I don't have a pope to go to but I have my God to go to."
Is that powerful or what? I can hardly believe it.
posted by Bob Carder @ 5:38 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I was just introduced to this blog a couple of days ago. I find it interesting that you think the institutional or hierarchical structures has prevented the rapid movement of Christianity. I would have to disagree though. You made it sound that Christianity grew rapider before Constantine. It is true that Christianity grew before Constantine, but it greatly increased after Constantine. The Church State relationship aided the Church’s mission in spreading Christianity especially in the 15th and 16th century by bringing Christianity to India and the Americas. I have never seen any evidence in Christian history that hierarchy or institution prevented the Church’s growth. This brings me to my conclusion of why Muslims are increasing and Christianity is not. I think Christianity is decreasing because they have fallen into materialism. Christians today have focused too much on material thing. In 1930, the Christian began to accept the use of contraception. Many Christians no long find joy in bringing many children into the world but on having the most money to buy their few kids a lot of toys. You can see this in Europe. Many of the Christians in Europe have used contraception so much that the birth rate is actually lower than the death rate. The European Christian are contracepting themselves to death. The Muslims have increased their birth rate and have moved into Europe. I believe if Christianity would stop contracepting themselves and focusing on the bringing as many of their children to God’s kingdom, Christianity would become more missional.
Eric
Eric, Let's remove the argument of Constantine and let's focus on today's church in America. We are losing ground and I would like to know what you suggest we do about it. Keep doing what we are doing? Find another style of ministry in the context of the structure or institution? Have babies like rabbits do? What else do you suggest?
The institution or structure of the church hierarchy is not sacred, the missional purposes of the Great Commission are. We are held hostage by forms of religion while denying the power of the gospel thereof.
I'd love to know who your friend is who recommended the blog site.
It depends on what you consider the "church".
If by "church" you mean a militant group who conquered lands and forced people to convert by forced baptism or die. Then yes - in those periods you mention "church" growth was aided by the church/state relationship.
I think your post here hits one point on the head. Many want to give the structure of the church the credit for everything it touches. If you study the life of Francis Xavier, and I assume you include him in this expansion period, He did his work missionally and not institutionally. He took with him what he saw as sacred but left behind what he felt tied him down. His disputes over ceremonial garb in the new areas is testimony to this fact.
To give the institution the credit for what Francis Xavier did is to totally miss the point of everything discussed on this blog. In fact Francis Xavier's work is a condemnation of the institution which he served in such that the institution was not needed for his success.
Example - by leaving the institution, to work in fertile new soils, he may have had more impact than the rest of the instituion combined during his lifetime. We do not know for sure. The Roman Catholic Church considers him to have converted more people to Christianity than anyone else since St. Paul.
Imagine if the instituion would have acknowledged Francis Xavier's methods earlier in his ministry and set him up as an example of how to do ministry. They may have closed their church buildings and sent every available man to serve in those fertile soils.
If you really want to see how the institution was not needed for Francis Xavier to work you need only look at the Japanese reaction to the progress of Christianity and what happened in Japan after the institution was run out of the country. I know there is someone who reads this BLOG who has studied this extensively so I will ask for him to comment here.
Neo-Luther where are you? Your expertise is needed.
Everything has been foreseen. Prepare your hearts and read your Bible. We are in a holy war and it is coming to America.
I'm not sure where this fits into the conversation, but in my ministry in Cyprus I'm working with people who are facilitating disciple-making movements in cell churches, traditional churches, and the Anglican church (high church). Church structure or hierarchy, in my experience, has little to do with the ability or inability to facilitate disciple-making. As the movement grows, the more hierarchical structures become more cumbersome and difficult to reproduce, so the movement has to 'shake free' and this is often accompanied by genuine frustration with the system. But I've seen the same dynamic in cell churches and house churches as well. Any system - including the best attempts at having no system (which is impossible) - ultimately become prisons if the system or lack thereof remains the focus.
Simply deconstructing church doesn't guarentee that the replacement will be missional or disciple-focused. While I don't agree with anonymous that post-Constantine Christianity was authentic church growth, I'm not sure that we can assume that deconstructing the church is the answer either. I agree that materialism and nondiscipleship in the western body of Christ are far more damaging than hierarchy.
It's early and I'm not entirely coherent yet, so please forgive me if this is a bit muddled ...
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