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MYTHBUSTERS
1. Jesus and Me Myth
MYTHS
We’re prone to pick up and pass on myths. I know this because I have an email account. I get about 4 emails a week detailing fantastic stories that just a small amount of research will prove totally false. But people just keep picking them up and passing them on.
How many of you have received the email about how Madelyn Murray O’Hare is trying to stop the TV broadcast of Touched by an Angel? She’s dead! Died 12 years ago! I don’t think she cares about Touched by an Angel anymore.
We can all be gullible at times, can’t we? A good friend of mine came back from a family cruise last week and one of the crew members told him about some of the dumbest questions other passengers have asked.
- What do you do with the ice sculptures after they melt?
- Can I go to the singles and solo mixer lunch if I’m married?
- Does the water go all the way around this island?
- In Juneau harbor they were still on the boat and a man points out some mountains and asks the Cruise director, “so what’s our current elevation?”
As is often the case, ignorance is an opportunity for a myth to get started. So this cruise director decided that dumb questions was a chance to start a new myth.
- do the crew members go home at night? (He responded: yes they all ride home in a magic helicopter to their 29 different home countries. After that a woman actually complained to him about being woken up by a helicopter in the middle of the night!)
- Does the ship generate its own power? (He said: No we went to every hardware store in Seattle and bought all the extension cords available. There’s a guy at the back of the ship madly connecting cords. The bonus is, if we get lost we have a tether back to Seattle.)
That’s how they a myth starts, when we turn our critical thinking powers off and just accept what’s fed to us. We do this with Christianity too.
A lot of us believe different myths about God, and the church and Christianity. And why should this concern us? Because myths make us miserable. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Jesus Christ himself said, in John 8:32
the truth will set you free.
JESUS AND ME
So the first myth I want to look at is the JESUS and ME myth. In it’s simplest form, this myth says:
- Christianity is about an intensely private relationship with Jesus.
- Christianity has nothing really to do with clergy or churches – it’s my individual experience with Jesus (as I define him) that matters.
- The church is a bondage building institution.
- I don’t have time for “organized religion”,
- I have my own private beliefs that I determine on my own.
- The church is irrelevant because it’s authoritarian and hierarchical
- I don’t need a paternalistic organization telling me what to think or how to behave.
That’s the JESUS AND ME myth. Ever heard anyone talk like that? Ever talked like that yourself? Well, friends, I hate to break it to you, but this is a myth. Jesus never intended us to understand his message and mission apart from this institution called “the church”.
But I would say MOST Americans don’t believe that. Sociologist Wade Roff found that even 54% church going Americans say:
- to be alone and meditate is more important than to worship with others
- Same % said, “churches have lost the real spiritual part of religion”
So if the churched feel that way, imagine the UNCHURCHED! Like Bill Maher, who hosted Politically Incorrect. He said:
“I’m a big fan of Jesus. I’m not a big fan of those who work for him.”
Now, friends this is not just an issue of Christian hypocrisy.
- The myth isn’t just saying “oh, the church needs to be reformed.” No.
o This is an issue of thinking the church needs to be replaced!
- The myth isn’t just saying, “the church has abused it’s authority” NO.
o The is an issue of saying, “the church should have no authority.”
- It’s isn’t about saying the church doesn’t help us follow Jesus as well as it could,
o It’s an issue of thinking that the church keeps us from following Jesus.
ME GENERATIONS
Now, to help you understand how this myth developed, and why it’s so pervasive in our time, we need to get a bit of a history lesson on AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM (I found this fascinating!). Here’s a definition of Individualism before we begin:
an outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual Self-reliance and Freedom.
We all know enough American history to know that Individualism is a uniquely American way to look at life and we believe it’s a GIFT to the world. It started when colonialists had this radical idea that men could govern themselves. That people are created equal! That an aristocrat isn’t inherently a better man or better ruler just because he’s of noble birth. That in fact, if you leave a man alone and let him be free, he will most likely rise up and be prosperous.
Friends, these are self evident truths to us today, but they were radical, literally earth-shaking ideas. People had thot that humans were incapable of governing themselves. They NEEDED a ruling class to keep order, to parent the underclass. And here were the Americans, first in the history of the world to say, no!
I don’t need a king to tell me how or where to live. If you let me own some land and don’t burden me with unfair taxes and if you give me a voice in my own gov’t, then I will prosper. Leave me alone.
It was so grand an idea, that when the Revolution happened, Thomas Pain said,
“We have a chance to make the world anew.”
I mean this is the heady sense that people that, that America was like Eden, or like Noah after the flood and the whole place had been washed clean of all the darkness of oppression. And what was the defining characteristic of the New World? Freedom! Democracy. Self Determinism. That is, I determine things for myself.
No more Popes, no more Monarchies.
Individualism was born. Now some early commentators took notice of this new attitude. RALPH WALDO EMERSON said in 1835:
(SLIDE) Another sign of our times is the new importance given to the single person. Everything that tends to insulate the individual – to surround him with barriers of natural respect so that each man shall feel the world is his – tends to true greatness.
Alick de Tocqueville was a French scholar who came to American in the 1800s’. From the perspective of an outsider he too noticed the same American trait:
(SLIDE) He isolates himself from the mass of his fellows…, he owes no man anything and hardly expects anything from anybody. They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine that their whole destiny is in their hands.
So far so good right? What’s bad about this? There was a dark side to self sovereignty, to radical individualism and you could see the dark side creeping in. Listen to Ralph Waldo Emerson again:
(SLIDE) Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee thou foolish philanthropist that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong.
This reminded me of the account of the first murder, when the Lord comes to Cain and asks:
(BULLET) Where is your brother? Where is Abel? “I don’t know,” Cain retorted. “Am I supposed to keep track of him wherever he goes?” Am I my brothers keeper?
See friends, individual liberty is good, and treating all individuals equally is good, but then you take it to the extreme and it’s becomes a decent into the depths of SELF. Individualism says, I am an island. I do not recognize any claim on my life from any group, be it a country, a church or even my family.
Now even back then observers of America like Tocqueville saw things like Christianity as a mitigating factor, reminding Americans that they are not self-sufficient, that they had an obligation to their neighbors, which pulled them out of self concern and into concern for the whole world.
However, as Individualism and Christianity wrestled, back and forth, who do you think won? Eventually Christianity got infected with it and it lead to the myth we’re talking about today.
INDIVIDUALISM HITS THE CHURCH
Now, as within the political social realm, when Individualism hit American Christianity, it is both good and bad.
What was good about Spiritual Individualism, was that empowered INDIVIDUALS could question stale church traditions. Nancy Pearcy writes:
(SLIDE) Just as Americans felt they were establishing a new order politically, many also hoped that they could start a new church. There was a heady sense in the 1800’s that just as the American Revolution had started the world over again, so Christians could start the church over again – rebuilding it, plank by plank on the New Testament alone.
So the good was that Spiritual Individualism put the emphasis on the individual believer:
- You can no longer just accept what you were spoon fed by your priest or pastor.
- You have to conduct your OWN independent study of the Bible, to know Jesus’ real design for your life and for the church.
But here was the bad thing: it began this disturbing trend among American church goers to leave behind all church history and all church authorities as irrelevant.
Now, most of you have heard of the Reformation. That was when church leaders Protested against the Catholic church and it’s abuse of authority to invent many doctrines and practices that were not found in the ministry of Jesus or in the Scriptures he endorsed.
- In the Reformation, Christians did not really attack church structure or the need for church per se.
- Christians only attacked the abuses that had turned the clergy into a privileged class.
o However, AFTER the American Revolution, American Christians began to attack church authority itself.
Preachers in the 1800’s would thunder from the pulpit, as one did:
- “I oppose the galling yoke of Tyranny and Priest-Craft!”
- All theological formulations are but man-made devices to keep people under the thumb of clerical tyrants!
Another preacher Elias Smith told people to:
(SLIDE) “venture to be as independent in things of religion, as those which respect the government in which you live.”
And so they did. More and more as people rejected church tradition, they rejected learning and teaching and history and knowledge and the community that fostered all this. Instead more and more of Americans were only concerned with religious experience. All that mattered was that you were “saved”*(Next week’s myth, Crusade Christianity).
150 years later, here we are… anti-Church. Just Jesus and me. I am a rock, I am a spiritual island unto myself. I am a sovereign self. The church is no longer an organic community into which I am received and it certainly is not a spiritual authority to which I submit myself.
And now today we see the fruit of this myth all grow up (BULLET):
- 70% of Americans claim some sort of Christian affiliation. (all that means is that they like Jesus, however they choose to define him!)
- But Only 40% claim to actually attend church, AND
- in Washington state, less than 10% actually do.
But friends, JESUS AND ME, is a myth.
Ironically, if all us “Jesus and Me” people actually go back to Jesus, and ask what he wants, we hear this in Matt 16:18 (SLIDE) :
- On this Rock, [Peter and his confession of faith in Christ’s Messiahship], I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
- He did not say, "I will build my individual, isolated spiritual islands of loyalty to me however they wish to define that loyalty."
- No! He said, I will build my “CHURCH” on a specific confession, through one specific Master, and through a specific authority given to a specific apostolic team who will be entrusted to lead it and carry it into the future.
THE INDIVIDUAL IN COMMUNITY
Oh, yes, friends, it’s true that loyalty to Christ begins with the individual. In fact every good part of American Individualism CAME FROM Christianity. Christianity taught that individuals matter to God. That each person is a unique Creation, with a unique dignity to be respected. The whole world used to think that my value meant nothing apart from my family, my clan or my country.
But the offer of salvation through Christ was offered, not to countries, not to families, not to groups, but to individuals. ON the first day that the message was Preached to thousands and thousands in Jerusalem, over 3000 were baptized that day. But was just EVERYONE baptized? Did some Pope or King make the decision to dunk the whole crowd?
(SLIDE) No! The bible says:
Ac 2:41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church — about three thousand in all. NLT
So the church begins with individuals who accept the message and authority of Christ in their lives. BUT, BUT! It doesn’t end there. It doesn’t end with you accepting Jesus at a Billy Graham crusade and marching off into a typical individual, materialistic, isolated American life. NO!
If you want a picture of this Jesus and Me idea, you won’t find it in the original church which followed Jesus most clearly. Instead here’s a description of that early church, uncorrupted by 2000 years of church history:
(SLIDE) Ac 2:42 They joined with the other believers and devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, sharing in the Lord’s Supper and in prayer.
What did they do? Did they go off and say, Jesus and ME? No, they joined with other believers! And they submitted themselves to authority. Which authority? The authority of the apostles teaching… on the ROCK: the confession of Christ as Lord and Messiah and all those commissioned by Jesus himself to carry his Message forward.
Now that church is long gone. So if want to reject the Jesus and Me idea, how can we devote ourselves to the apostles teaching today? Like this: In submitting our lives to the New Testament, which is the historical record of those Apostle’s early teachings. It tells us to gather with other Christ followers. And by the way, in that New Testament, we also have instructions for how to order local churches.
Here’s the basic guidelines which are pretty broad. When a group of followers of Jesus gets together, they are all equal in Christ. But each have different gifts. Some have gifts of spiritual leadership. Those who do, are to be first tested for proof of their Christian character and loyalty to Christ and the apostles teaching and then appointed over local fellowships. (BULLET – Titus quote)
Does that make them religious tyrants? Does that simple model of church gov’t sound like a wicked template for spiritual deadness and control? No! Watch a group without a leader. They go nowhere. Does that somehow seem like ugly ‘ORGANIZED RELIGION’ TO YOU? Well at AC3 it kind of works out as DISORGANIZED religion… but I hope you see that
- the true Church of Christ has NEVER been just Jesus and Me.
- It’s COMMUNAL.
ONE BODY
We care for each other. We commit to each other. We work out our junk together because we’re a family. WE don’t run when we don’t get along, we fight for our unity! I don’t think Paul would have said, "make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit" if it wasn’t going to take some... effort!
We follow our leaders AND we hold our leaders accountable, because we ALL have a common master, Jesus Christ, who will judge all men. And we belong to each other! As the Bible says:
(SLIDE) Ro 12:5 And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others. NLT
Does that seem like “JESUS AND ME” to you? About 25 people came to AC3 Mission this week, and when they signed up and said, I want to be a member here, they said, I need others and others need me. A Christian life lived in isolation and independence IS NOT a Christian life!
Some of you if you’re honest, will agree you’ve struggled with a Christian commitment that never stuck. It’s had no fruit. You made a decision to follow Jesus a long time ago and the fact is, you faded in and out of the church and oh, imagine this, you faded in and out of true devotion to Jesus along the way.
I know what you’re thinking: But Rick…the
- Church doesn’t help
- Church is dead
- Church is too institutional
- Church is boring
- Church is full of hypocrites.
o And so how can church be the answer?
You know, I get it, the church has let you down. The church has done horrible things. But in what age of the church do you think the church didn’t let people down? In what age did you think that church people are perfect?
Peter, lets talk about him. You know the Rock, the lead disciple? One time he ignored a bunch of new Christians just because they were a different ethnic group. Rejected them, was a bigot toward them even though in Christ God had accepted them.
Now Peter learned a great lesson, but I want you to ask, “what if I was one of those Gentile believers in Antioch and Peter has DISSED ME?” Would you have left the church for good? Would you have said, “stupid organized religion”? Would you have said, "tyrannical power hungry church leaders!" Would you have said, “I’m going to go off by myself to contemplate all I know about Jesus, just Jesus and Me”?
- Well that would be a pretty short time of reflection since everything you knew about Jesus came through Peter!!!
St Augustine, a great church leader of the 4th century once is quoted as saying,
“the church is a whore, but she is my mother.”
Friends, guess what? The church has hurt me! …Because she is filled with people LIKE me! So call her reputation into question if you want. You can easily call my reputation tainted – BUT, when you disrespect her, you disrespect that group of human beings…
- who have carried and stewarded for 2000 years the message of Jesus Christ that I believed and which has saved my soul,
- who have nurtured my faith in him and will continue until I die.
When you reject the church out of disappointment in her reputation, just know this, you abandon your mother. That which would nurture your faith.
But the church is full of hypocrites! I know. But there’s always room for one more, so why don’t you sign up? You say, Rick you can’t call me a hypocrite, you don’t know me! I may not, but I know me, and I don’t follow Jesus fully in all areas – just like you. But I want to. So I need to link with like-minded followers, to become less of a hypocrite.
YOU need to link too or else you will lose your faith, as surely as my atheist friend might lose his unbelief if he hung around my church all the time.
You say, I like Jesus but I hate the church! Really? But what if the church is his Body! Then how can you still say that?
(BULLET) Ro 12:5 “We are all parts of his one body…” NLT
So step out of Individualism friends, and embrace Community.
- Join a group.
- Get known.
- Take responsibility for AC3 and others.
- Love and be Loved.
- Submit to authority,
- Hold that authority accountable,
- Come out of the rain of culture under the shelter of the house of God.
That house is not a building and it is most definitely not perfect, but it IS the shared life of God’s People, knit together by grace. And there is room and need in here for you.
