Of course, Rishi—the Church must die in order to be spiritually reborn! Re-birth through death applies not only to individuals but also to institutions.

We Christians are lucky enough to have this most poignant metaphor of spiritual re-birth through death as our most important metaphor.

Onward to death!

DEATH KNOCKING AT THE DOOR

Come in, my liberator;

Come close, beloved friend.

I have anticipated you with longing.

Come, take me in your cold arms,

And kiss me with your icy kiss,

And bless me

With your bittersweet communion.

Last Friday night was Poetry Night at wondercafe.live! in our church hall. The above was one of the poems I recited. 

Then how can we move forward toward our holy execution?  How can we meet this highly desirable death eye to eye?

Can anyone suggest prayers? practices? a five year plan? 

Hi rishi and Arminius, what a good topic. I am going to have to ponder it. Our congregation faced a real threat of dissolution recently, and seemed to have a reprieve, at least for now. This whole situation has caused me to ponder all manner of things, and this is a variation on one of my themes.

What do you mean by the death of the church?

Many people see the loss of "how we used to do it" as the death of the church.  Some see the potential closure of their beloved building as the death of the church.  Some people see the total elimination of any church structure as the death of the church.

We need to define what we mean before we can think about what the path to or away from that is.

We need to die to the vision of Christendom- that it is our job to rule the world. That's God's job.

We need to die to the 5 year plan the Council has voted on, and be open to the dreams the Holy Spirit has for us.

We need to die to this building we now live in. My congregation has been housed in 8 different buildings over the past 193 years. How many more buildings will we be housed in before God is finished with us?

We need to die to 'staying true to the traditional way we've always done things in the past' and instead ask ourselves 'what wondrous things is God's Holy Spirit inviting us to do to today?"

We need to die to being content to sit back and count our blessings, and instead go out and be a blessing to the world.

I'm speaking of death not so much in terms of concrete loss experiences that are recognizable by common sense,  but in the spiritual sense, in which a loss on a more superficial level is discovered to be a gain on another, deeper level.  Another biblical example of this kind of profitable death might be the beatitudes, whereas a clinging to temporal successes would exemplify a mind and character that has failed to die in those ways. A classic Jewish example might be the life changing insight that God is One, that devotion to idols is a waste of one's life. A more contemporary example might be the kind of transformation experienced by the alcoholic who discovers that what has mattered most to her does not really matter at all.  By discovering the true barrenness of her current way of life, she 'hits bottom',  she becomes 'unstuck', and a new, more spiritually mature, horizon emerges, in which she begins to understand experientially what really matters in her life in a deeper way.

So, applying this to the modern malaise of the church, the question of 'how did we stop flourishing?'  suggests the need for the deeper inquiry of how we have gotten caught up in, rather than dying to, a life that does not truly nourish our growth as a spiritual community.  The new horizon that we need in order to flourish may only become perceptible through this kind of death.

Don't shirk your responsibilities so quickly:

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
 

A good book:

Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity.  Many of the best things in this world are a direct result of Christianity.  We are the hands and feet of Christ - Rejoice.

Amen, My old digital brother!!

You are Blessed,

IB

So if the kind of death Jesus was advocating is the answer, then the "undead" church is the problem. 

I'm not trying to be graphically rude here, but this is a very interesting theme in pop culture.  Consider, for example, pop culture's critique of undead church leadership,

serving an undead Christ,

with the result that the church ceases to be a place of real spiritual refuge from what ails us in society,

And the cure is envisioned as the need for intoxication on a pre-modern Spirit:

Of course I read my own biases into all of this. So to me, it reads like code for "If the church is to have real value it needs to die to itself by recovering and practicing its ancient spiritual disciplines."

On the other hand, I'm sure that Trappists probably do make very good beer.

Hi rishi,

I am with you on this one - weird art aside.  The church needs to return to the beginning, and drop all the baggage it has picked up along the way.  However I do not see the emerging church heading this way.  They are dropping baggage, but looking furiously to fill their hands with different baggage.  The original church had no stained glass, organs, all those church seasons you guys keep dragging out, lots of other religious stuff that people fill up their time with rather than just getting together with God.  The original church had biblical faith.  Everything starts with faith, and without it you are lost. 

⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

I pray he does.

Yes we have multiplied until the earth has far too many people.  We have subdued the earth to the point of destruction.  Clearly this story of multiplying and subduing is on of the"Sins of the Scriptures".  We have also learned how to murder in the name of God.

RevJames is absolutely correct.

Shalom

Mate

to be softer...

 death of the church can be a time of entrusting our memories & expectations & habits to God, and allowing a resurrection... what will grow out of the dead tradition is that which gives life, brings people inspiration (inspire - breath life into) - it will be the activites and the language that people find they can't live without - compassionate relationship, worthwhile conversation & learning, response to the Spirit's call for justice, relationship & celebration or mourning.  I would bet some will even be inspired to create structure & language & rules because that is a spirit-given talent too, and I would bet that conflict would arise as well. 

Hi Mate,

When you rule over something you care about, you do a good job.  If you want to leave it to God - who left it to you - you are in effect leaving it to Halliburton.  God said - it's your turn to cut the grass.

Cut the grass.

You've taken the question in an interesting direction.  A key part of our struggles, I think, is that we cannot imagine that what is 'missing' is something so very basic as faith. We're sure that we have faith (whatever that is).... we've always had it...  we just need to find a way to put a different spin on it so that it will be more attractive to outsiders and young people...  But do we really have "it"? Have we really always had "it"?  If we're not sure what "it" is, how can we really be sure that we've got "it"?

For sure, we have an ethos, a culture -- one that contains the very best values that white middle class society has to offer.  But is that the real essence of "our faith"?  Is that what we really believe in and would like other people to share?   What if our civil religious ethos, as beautiful as it is for many, turns out to be precisely what we need to transcend, to die to, in order to uncover a more viable center?

If we're not asking the most basic of basic questions (like 'what is faith?'), we run the risk of making only superficial changes, rather than changes that will really bring new life.    Marketing level changes are important, I know. If there are a lot of vegetarians in the neighborhood, then we should be sure that we have soy alternatives to pork sausage at our pancake suppers. But changes at this level can't be our central focus.  If they are, then we lose, even if we gain all the vegetarians in the neighborhood.

sorry, I couldn't resist...

SnP- I agree we have a job to do.  What I am commenting on is the tendency for Christians to want to rule the world as if it was their job alone, and not to be open to God's leading. I don't recall a bible verse which calls for us all to vote for one political party because they are the 'Christian vote'.

Saul

First of all the creation story is a myth.  In spite of that we have done an abismal job at tending our garden.  We are destroying the earth in our attempt to subdue.  Now with God's help perhaps we can alleviate the problems somewhat.

Shalom

Mate

Thanks Rishi,

Still rolling on the floor because the PC metaphor is broad.

Now no remarks about the other end!!

Be Blessed,

IB

Hi rishi,

The job of the church is to put out the message, not in some slick or new fangled way.  Just straight up.  It’s not to get some particular demographic, other than those who have ears to hear.  It is sad that the church has built in all these added religious distractions, but if you get back to the word – they will lose their importance.

Biblical faith is totally different than what the world identifies as faith.  All you need to do is go to biblegateway.com and search the word "faith", and the word "believe" and quickly read through all the New Testament occurrences and a light will come on.

One of my favorite books is called "biblical faith" by Kenneth Hagen.  He may have eventually gone strange, as I think he was a catalyst to the word faith movement.  But at the time of writing this he was totally inspired, and I read it very slowly to ensure I was not duped.

But if the leader of a church has no faith – he cannot but pass on that same lack of faith.

It may be a myth to you but it's what I'm all about.

Be Blessed,

IB

Hi  RevJamesMurray,

The very faint hope I see for the mess I see at the UCC rests on you and only a few others.  If you want to change the world, it typically needs be done kind of in spite of the government.  It means missions and evangelism.  It means equiping evangelists.

Mate,

What IBelieve said.

Thanks, I'll check it out. 

The author that really inspires me on faith is Bernard Lonergan.  He uses the example of the kind of personal knowledge of another person that is shared between two people when they love one another. It is not so much a knowledge of "facts" about the person, although it includes that. It's that more mysterious kind of knowledge of who the person really is and what matters most to them -- the kind of knowledge that only comes through loving.  Then he makes his case that biblical faith is actually this kind of personal knowledge, but the difference is that this  knowledge is only born out of a love relationship that is initiated by God. Then he explains the growth of faith in terms of the deepening of this love relationship.

Do you mean putting everyone and everything ahead of yourself?? What kind of love is that???

Heaven forbid that the devil would want us to think that way. He want's us to love ourselves first. Sounds very attractive until you have experienced the other.

All the TV commercials say: "You deserve this!!"

Be Blessed,

IB

That's the catch....  when people lack good nourishment, it's not hard to convince them to eat junk food.  And after a while on that sort of diet we  get so out of touch with our real needs that we don't even realize the harm that's happening. 

Another good read -- "Saving and Secular Faith" by Brian Gerrish.  It traces the understanding of faith from New Testament times, through the church fathers, the Reformation, and into the modern invention of what he calls "secular faith."  It's not very inspiring, but it helps you think through a lot of important questions about faith.

Great litany, James!  It really opens up the heart to the deeper meaning of the "d" word.

Another great text on death as a portal into new life:

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life."  (Romans 6:3-4)

How can our emerging be better grounded in this kind of spiritual experience and theology ?

Hi Rishi:

I just came back from Kelowna and drove by the UBC Campus where the General Council will take place in August. I sure hope that what we are discusssing here will be on their agenda or at least on their minds!

_____________________________________________

To answer your above questions. Individually, it is the death of the ego self. But it also is the death of our entire world of concepts that we have built around the ego self.

The foundational concept upon which our entire world of concepts is built is the concept of ourselves as separate, disconnected individuals. Once this foundational concept is pulled out from under our world of concepts, then our entire world of concepts will collapse like a house of cards.

Ordinarily, we do not experience reality as it really is, but as we think or conceptualize it is. Once our world of concepts has died, then we'll expereince reality as it really is: infinite, unitive, divine! Then we are overcome by unitive love and divine ecstasy, and this is the re-birth of our new and divine self.

How can we get there? Through meditation, meditative or centering prayer, any contemplative or meditative practice, sensory depravation, fasting, chanting, drumming, dancing, singing, making music, listening to music—anything that tears us out of our ordinary world of concepts and lets us experience reality as it really is: divine!

Quick now, here, now, always,

A condition of complete simplicity,

(Costing no less that everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of things shall be well.

-T.S. Eliot

"(Costing no less that everything)," T.S. Eliot puts it in brackets and whispers it, and thereby shouts it out loud for all of the world to hear:

COSTING NO LESS THAN EVERYTHING: E V E R Y T H I N G !

Individually, the holy  execution is the death of the ego self and of our entire world of concepts, followed by the re-birth of our ultimate, real, and divine reality and self.

Collectively it means that, once a certain critical number of individuals within the collective accomplishes this death and rebirth, they inspire the entire collective to do likewise.

This criticical mass to move the collective may be one in ten, or one in one hundred. Who knows? But, once we get there, we feel compelled to inspire others to get there.

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

-T.S. Eliot

I think this is very insightful, Birthstone, because it's sensitive to the context of the UCC, our ethos and our people. It reminds me of the different leadership styles of John the Baptist and Jesus.  Jesus pretty much went wherever the people were, whereas, with John, the people had to come to where he was. The difference I think must reflect different personalities, but also different levels of spiritual maturity.  Relationships are automatically "softer" when we meet people where they are, recognizing that this is the only possible starting point if the movement is to be authentically theirs.

Bringing this back to the theme of our need for spiritually constructive death in our lives.... The more Christ-like approach of meeting people where they are is only possible, I think, when we have died to only hearing our own voice, seeing our own perspective, defending our own rights.  So, where a John the Baptist type approach might be more along the lines of "Get it through your heads people -- you've gotta die! So do it!",  Jesus would probably be focusing on doing good palliative care -- being with people where they are, making sure that they have everything they need to die well. It's softer.   I'm sure this must be a key dimension of the leadership challenge in our struggles to emerge.  How could it not be?  No one wants to die with someone who isn't really sure that dying is a good thing, or with someone he or she doesn't feel safe with.

I also see a potential risk in what you say, though, of softening things in a way that enables us to slip away from the reality of our need to die to that which is harming us. This is the great white middle class way, so well captured by Ward and June Cleaver, and still very much a part of our ethos.  So it will probably be a big part of our challenge... making sure that Ward and June actually do die a good death and not just slip out and get a makeover, with a few colorful tatoos and body piercings.  (Just to be clear -- I'm not using the Cleaver analogy to highlight older members of the church; there are plenty of younger Wards and Junes out there, and many profoundly progressive older folks as well.)

Hi rishi,

If we are dealing with death (in a biblical sense) do we not need to determine what (in a biblical sense) we are to die to?

Is it our building that needs to die?

Is it our selfishness that needs to die?

Is it our pretentiousness that needs to die?

What is it that needs to die?

Bearing in mind the whole while that the seed does not, as a matter of fact, die.  It is transformed and that which is hidden inside is released.  If the seed does, as a matter of fact, die then that is the end of that promise.

The text appealed to has some very powerful lessons for us and ones I think we would do well to heed.

The seed is sown, which is easily done.  The sower holds it and then the sower releases it.  If the sower is smart enough the sower also covers the seed with earth which may be where the death metaphor enters in.  The seed is buried and gone and nobody looks upon it, nobody touches it and nobody disturbs it.

Life is allowed to run its course without intervention or attempts to improve.

The sower then trusts that God will sustain the seed.  The sower also trusts that the seed will do what it has been given to do.  It will bear fruit.

We, for the most part, have lost touch with our agrarian roots and live with the industrialized mindset of immediacy.  Who has time for plowing and planting and tending and spraying and reaping?  I just walk into the store and what I want is waiting for me.  We have a patience which is slightly greater than the life expectancy of a fruit fly but only on our better days.

What if the real problem is not that the Church doesn't grow but rather we get in the way and hold it back?  We insist that the Church be what we want it to be right here and right now instead of letting the living organism it is grow into what it is intended to be.

It is like planting a watermelon seed and then screaming at it that you want it to be an apple tree and when it start to send out runners instead of sending up shoots we start pruning like mad telling it "Apples, I want apples!"  We eventually do so much violence to the plant that it dies back and we say that it is because the church failed to be relevant as if nobody in their right mind enjoys watermelons.

What really needed to die above was the stupidity that demanded an apple tree from the watermelon seed.

I wonder if we modern/post-moderns have the patience to allow the church to be what it is meant to be rather than trying to force it to be what it isn't.

I further wonder if we modern/post-moderns have the patience to be what it is that we are meant to be rather than trying to force one another to be what we aren't.

Something needs to die certainly.

I hope it is more our expectations than the actual seed or we are all toast.

Living things live.  Sometimes all that is needed is for people without clues to get out of the way.

Grace and peace to you.

John

yes Rishi- that was my soft side.  I heartily agree that Sacred Cows make good barbecues too.  Luckily, I have a soft side!

RevJohn - very well said.  I kinda like watermelon better than apples anyway... (for those who know where I work, I LOVE 'Apples'!! lol - geesh!)

It is easy to say these things about other people...

I agree that often it is our agenda that we need to offer up to God, and entrust to the community.  It isn't easy, because we can feel so right & so inspired & so ignored!  It is the idea that I may be the one thing that other people might want to change that keeps me softer & humble, and open to different ideas.  But better I'm frustrated than the church doesn't follow its honest path.

hmmmm..... might be a good name for a liturgical reform conference:

"How To Softly Invite The Cleavers To A Barbecue"

I love this!!! lol

That's basically the story of my life in a nutshell....  learning how to get out of my own way...  and (as all who know me will testify) the story's not over yet...

Your wonderings remind me of the Law, which never actually died, just reached a greater fulfillment of itself.  And yet, we must die to the Law.  The seed doesn't die; it transcends yet includes itself in the plant that it becomes, just as a four year old becomes a five year old.  Yet something does indeed have to die. There's a lot of wisdom there. 

I also think it's wise to leave this needful death kind of open-ended, because as soon as we figure out that it's our arrogance that needs to die, our hatred of that arrogance will step up in executioner's clothing, and so on...  ...and on and on it goes with the ego, like peeling an onion, until eventually we become exhausted and start groaning with Paul, "Wretched sneak that I've become...who will rescue me from this ego of death?" (Rom 7:24). Then the big words, like faith and grace, take on a new meaning....  until the next round of peeling the onion begins.

But the real challenge I think is that, when we haven't been keeping up with this ongoing work of grace, we can end up just sitting there, staring at this massive onion and feeling hopeless.  Then, when some well-meaning committee comes along and suggests that if we just dress up our onions a little, things won't look so dismal....  it starts to make sense.  And then we start growing more layers instead of shedding them.

I'd better stop there before I try to bring the fertilizer metaphor in...

Church is a building or a way of thinking brought about by men. Father tells us whenever two or more of you gather in My name. So I would have to say Yes profoundly the "Church" must die for you to see your own way into the Light.

Perhaps we need to dump the last 1,000 years, during which the message was subverted and all the dogma and doctrine was established.

Get back to root values.

IT

Russ

Like an intentional community, maybe...  or meeting in one another's homes... getting back to root practices.... trusting the heart...  A lot of people are doing that. Maybe new leaders will emerge naturally out of that kind of living.

Good to 'hear' your voice, Russ. You've been on my mind and in my prayer.

Amen

But who is going to decide what is accrued dogma and what is "root values"? We see in many discussions here that many people who call themselves Christian have different ideas about what defines Christianity. Is it the literal divinity of Jesus Christ or Christ as a mythological figure? Is it belief in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth or belief in Christ's redeeming sacrifice? In UU'ism, we can operate under a fairly broad set of principles that, to some extent, function as our "root values". Can a Christian church pare down to similarly short, succinct, meaningful set of principles (not the same principles as the UU seven, obviously, but something similar that accomodates Christian belief)? I'm following the 20 articles threads in General Council and they are way too long and detailed to function as "principles" or "root values". If I'd realized that they existed and said what they said back in my UCC days, I might have jumped ship sooner than I actually did :). Not trying to poo-poo what you're saying, Russ, because it's on the money. Just wondering how it would actually happen.

Mendalla

This is a great post.  For some reason I had never considered this thought before, that of the Church dying, even though it fits in perfectly with my theology.  When I first became a Chrisitan I hung out with some "radical Christians", their own description.  They were a group that was really involved in reaching out to other people and building lifelong relationships.  When I got to Bible College I met the young people who had grown up in churches and discovered how unwilling to reach out they were.  All they wanted was to grow with themselves and God and maybe include some friends they liked.  Their was no fire to reach out in love.  Their were some of course who wanted to "evangelize" the world, but most of this was guilt placed on them from religious fervor, not love.  Of course there were people with real love for the world, but they were few.

I grew inward and bitter until I realized that just as I and everyone else is in a process of transformation and sanctification, so is the Church and each church.

This idea of death of the Church reminds me of the verse to take up your cross and follow Him.  I think the type of death the Church must have is that of sacrificial love.  To be willing to die to itself, in order to love.

I will leave it open ended like that for now.

Hmmm.....  Reminds me of John's description of what Jesus considered his "joy" (Jn 15:9-13), giving himself to others so that they could have new life.  That rhythm of death and resurrection. Very eucharistic...  what is it that we're supposed to do "in remembrance" of him, if not move by grace into that very desirable kind of death that opens up our horizon to the reality of divine love?

Still, so many challenges arise...  I can already hear people responding to the kind of traditional language that I just used above, saying "That's exactly what I've been doing for the past X number of years, working my fingers to the damn bone... serving, serving, serving... and all the church wants is more..... like all I've been doing all these years is not good enough..." etc., etc., .  We use the same words, but the deep structures, the meanings beneath them can be like night and day. Jesus says these incredibly strong things, like 'take up your cross', but they only make sense post-mortem.  If we take them up and try to do them without those spiritual resources, we end up frustrated, bitter, and burned out.  So, how do you have a conversation about the church's need to "die" with someone who's been 'taking up their cross' and 'dying' in that harmful way for so many years?  It's a challenge...   And how do you talk about it with the people who have been watching their elders do that for so many years?  This is even a bigger challenge, because at this point, they just want to breath in pink, exhale blue, and de-stress from their busy lives.  Dying or cross-bearing is the last thing they imagine the church needing.

Actually, I think what Stevie is describing makes good sense.  Talk about the deep spiritual issues, but without using as much traditional language, since it's become so contaminated.  Talk about honesty, for example, but in a way that covers the critical spiritual bases.

Rishi you seem to be getting at motives to me.  What do you say to someone who has slaved for the church for years and is frustrated?  You were not called to be slaves to the church, but slaves to Christ.  We are not called to serve the church, but serve God.

I really believe that many of our inner hurts cause us to react to life the way that we do.  Many people who slave away for the church believe they are doing it out of love, but wehn you sit down with them and talk about their lives, you can usually see a pattern of such behaviour.  Rooted somewhere, usually in childhood (Even psychiatrists say the majority of our personality is formed in the first 5 years of life).  Looking at our early roots is the key I believe.  Those with this sort of servant mentality, not servant heart, are still trying to earn their parents love and acceptance.  This is not to say their parents never loved or accepted them, but that when they were children they believed their parents did not and it impacted the way they reacted to their world.  Now as adults they are still living out those same hurts.

Not sure how good at explaining that I came.  The thing I am talking about is worldview and root issues.  Their are cultural worldviews, but their are also personal ones.  These roots grow fruit in our life, they are also so where we drink our nourishment from.  To me death in Christianity is having these roots removed and dying to the patterns we have followed all our lives and allowing God to grow new roots in their place.  People who have served the church become people who serve Christ.  On the outside it may even look much the same, but their inner self has been healed and does not find bitterness and resentment in the serving, but nourishment and life.

Not sure if I done my thought, but the kids are getting into stuff. . . .

Yes, Russ, the message was subverted and perverted. We need to get back to the roots of the message and re-state it in modern day terms.

Arminius

My wife and I saw Marcus Borg in London this last weekend.  You would have enjoyed him.

Referring to the "isness".

IT

Russ

rishi

Thanks for the thoughts. It's tough but you have to go on.

IT

Russ

Cross-posting this here from "class issues in the emerging church" because it's occurring to me that this kind of dying we're talking about is distinctly religious. It's not something an ideology has any guidelines for.

Another thought trying to clarify the nature of this needful death...  I would say it's a death by faith,  in the above sense. It's the sort of death that's ushered in by this transcendental kind of knowledge, rooted in love, which opens up a radically new horizon.  Not the same as a "paradigm shift," although that might be a great analogy.

Interesting in this light is that this "faith," in Greek and Latin, carries the distinct sense of an absolute trust that enables a total surrender.  Perhaps it's that religious sense of total surrender that is at the heart of this needful death.

All the world's great religions deal with the need for this kind of transforming death. Liberal democratic ideology, however, does not.  Nor should it I guess.

I think the spiritual death we speak of is the death of ideological faith, to be replaced by experiential faith. This does not put an end to the words we use to define our faith. Quite the opposite: it makes them come alive!

The word which, according to John, was in the beginning, is the mystical union as well as the words inspired by the mystical union. We moderns may use different words than the ancient mystics, but the underlying experience is for us what it was for them: the union with God! This union, ultimately, is "the word."

"And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us."—We are the word become flesh!

I haven't read all the other posts (and I'm sure they are full of insight) but my first reaction to this headline is ...

"If the church dies who will care if it changes?"