What's Good About the Church?

In many ways, today we appear to be headed toward a post-Christian era. One indicator of this turn of affairs is the large number of people who have joined the “Church Alumni Association” (CAA). People who are part of the CAA have either quit the church or their participation in regular formal religious activities has taken a far backseat in their lives. They might claim to be spiritual, but are not formally religious. This is not something new. Even at the dawn of the Christian era there were those who, for one reason or another, abandoned what we know traditionally as the Christian community.¹ Church leaders labeled such people apostates (Heb 6:4-6), but we do not know how they thought of themselves. Were they apostates or heretics?² A few of them are named in early Christian texts. For example, a certain Demas is mentioned positively as a companion of Paul (Col 4:14; Philemon 24), but he is also remembered negatively as having “forsaken” Paul and the Pauline church (2 Tim 4:16).³

The situation of the CAA raises the question: how does one maintain a connection to the Christian tradition when one no longer considers oneself a traditional Christian in terms of the fourth century confessions and creeds of the church, which are still universally used to define post-reformation Christianity? Naturally, there is a prior question: why would one even want to stay connected to the traditional Christian community, when one acknowledges that one is no longer traditionally Christian in terms of the modern church’s confessions and creeds?

Pondering an answer to the “why” question leads me to three personal observations in defense of staying connected to the post-reformation church. In my case the church is my heritage. I grew up regularly attending church, and it has played a major part in my adult life. No one ever completely escapes their own history. I can no more shake the church out of my system, than I can shake off my southern accent and Mississippi upbringing. Church, southern accent, and the Mississippi Delta in part define who I have become. For good or ill I will always be a Baptist “Delta boy,” although I have been exposed to strange and novel ideas, traveled a bit in the Western world, and lived for a spell in some exotic places.⁴ Even “progressive Christians” who, in their more extreme forms have abandoned traditional Christology and theology, have remained traditional in terms of their ecclesiology—that is, they still hold to the idea of the church as a positive social institution for housing their activities; however, they reorient the significance and meaning of the ordinances (baptism and Eucharist). In a sense progressive Christians are still a part of the ecclesiastical scene in society as churches that compete with traditional Christian Christology and theology.

As a responsible citizen of these United States, I have an interest in seeing the traditional church succeed. For all its ills, imperfections, warts, and blemishes, it aims to be a positive force in human society. The Gospel of Matthew (5:13-14) cites Jesus as telling his followers “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world” (Gospel of the Savior 1:4; compare Matt 5:13-14). Salt is a well-known preservative that enhances the flavors of the ingredients of food—it makes food tastier. And light is essentially necessary for life in a world that becomes dark about every 12 hours. This directive of Jesus is frequently interpreted as humanitarian service that is quite apart from their primary functions. Who would not want to be associated in some way with an institution that aims for the betterment of human life, society, and culture, even if it often misses the mark? A major focus of many progressive churches is “justice in the social order”—something progressive Christians learned from the traditional Christianity from which they have emerged.

As a retired educator, what I find best about the church, however, is that as an institution it sets aside one day a week for pondering, among other things, human values, ethics, and life’s eternal verities (if such there be).⁵ At its finest, it encourages church members to reflect on societal issues and on what one might consider life’s “enduring mysteries” (that is to say: things beyond the material aspects of life). There is no other institution in society that makes such focal points a weekly event. To be sure, one can also find a similar focus in university classes in philosophy and religious studies, but classes end every quarter or semester—and not everyone is able to go to the university. The church, however, is open every week. Because of the iconic role of the Bible in Western culture, weekly Bible study provides a focus for reflecting on such issues.

What, in your view, is good about the church that you can express in non-confessional “secular” language?⁶

Charles W. Hedrick
Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹By this I mean to indicate the communities of those authors whose writings have found their way into the New Testament. There were also nontraditional communities in the earliest period who claimed the term “Christian” for themselves as well, although they were very different in thought from those who called themselves the “Orthodox”—like the author of the Gospel of Philip, for example.

²http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=apostates+or+heretics

³Three others are Hymenaus, Alexander, and Philetus (1 Tim 1:20; 2 Tim 4:16).

⁴The term “Delta boy” was coined (so far as I know) by the Rev. Dr. Buddy Shurden, another Mississippi Delta boy.

⁵http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=why+go+to+church

⁶This essay first appeared five years ago, Dec 20, 2019. It appears here edited, updated, and expanded.