“The tragedy of the [church advertising] billboards lies less in what they say than in their revelation of a suppressed premise concerning the central nature of Christ's cause. Many betray the same unargued assumption when they describe themselves by announcing which church they go to. The trouble with this response is that a church, in its very nature, is not really something to which men and women can go. Rather, it is something which they may be in. The difference is fundamental and far-reaching. We can go to a railroad station or to a motion picture theater or to a ball game; but a church is something which demands a wholly different human relationship, the relationship of belonging. If a man is really in — really belongs to — a church, he is just as much a member of it when he sits at his desk in his business or house as when he sits in a pew at his meetinghouse. The point is that the relationship, if real, is continuous, regardless of time and place and performance.”—Company of the Committed, page 19
<idle musing>
I have to continually remind myself that this book was written almost 50 years ago! Not a whole lot has changed, unfortunately.
</idle musing>
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2 comments:
Hey, James.
What I wonder is if such words were ever spoken 150 years ago, or could have been. You know my home church sympathies, but recently I've found myself wondering if western christians before the rise of modern urbanism had any real reasons to lament the absence of community.
In a day when you already knew all your neighbors, it might have been innocuous enough to say "go to church". Against my own point, the Amish say "go to meeting". Still, I'm wondering...
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