Church, Inc., continued


So, why am I mad at this church, my friend asks?

I think this is a good question, and he is probably at least partially correct that my frustrations come out of rather complex psychological issues with my family, other churches, my study of history, and my political liberalism. As a historian, I believe that most evangelical churches have little or no understanding of their past. They have been heavily influenced by their historical and cultural contexts (as have all churches) while they usually believe they are somehow transcending time and culture. I certainly criticize the church from my political liberalism and want them to do more about the environment, poverty, gender and other social justice issues. (We have a strong disagreement about environment--my friend claims that more evangelicals are active environmentally, while I think that most conservative evangelicals are rather dismissive of environmental problems).

But he has a good point. In many ways, moderate churches like his are good public citizens, and usually do more for their community than they do in damage. I won't necessarily deny that, but would suggest some possibilities for my reaction and cynicism regarding churches. First, I think that most of the problems I am concerned about (especially poverty and the environment) are directly connected to our consumption based economy and culture. I certainly won't dismiss market capitalism (though I have issues with it) and will agree that it is the most dynamic and vibrant economic system known to man. But it also has many unintended consequences and problems with it. If, for example, environmental costs are not factored into the market, capitalism has no way of addressing those costs. Likewise, one of the negative sides of capitalism is the reliance on a steady supply of poor labor. Both problems require citizens to make good choices in the public policy level. They have to have active churches, and, in my opinion, the humility to recognize that an active and compassionate government will be necessary to ensure environmental and social justice.

And here is my rub. While I recognize that many churches like my friend's are active feeding the poor, I believe a large part of their financial outlay goes to conversion efforts--and that may be a good thing (may not) but it may not address the social ills. But say that the churches do address poverty (like I said, I see little effort from the church to address environmental concerns: more on this later) with soup kitchens etc? In my mind, that doesn't address the economic policies that often (while not causing) allow people to fall to the level of needing a soup kitchen. What are those churches doing about the working poor who may not be going to charitable organizations?

But the bigger question for me, is what does the church have to say about the underlying issues of consumption and materialism? On the surface, churches say they are not about consumption. They decry the crass wealth (or used to) of the rock stars and professional athletes. I heard growing up that our goals should not be the accumulation of wealth, but to have a close relationship with Jesus. To be fair, I don't really understand that concept either, but will leave that for another discussion. But the point was that Christians were supposed to be far more interested in the Kingdom of God than they were in the material wealth of this existence.