Worldview Fragment: church as society of friends

Worldview fragment: one or more related ideas/viewpoints that can (and often do) serve as a component or flavor in a complete worldview held by some specific individual. The "fragment" term is not intended to be a subtle insult, but to accurately reflect the reality that the fragment is 1) not necessarily an actual, comprehensive worldview, and 2) could likely coexist with a variety of other fragments within some individual's worldview. A puzzle piece isn't worthless because it's a puzzle piece.

I've previously mused about what it means to be an introverted Christian, and perhaps I had more questions than satisfying answers. Nevertheless, I'm still a Christian and still introverted. Recently, I thought about it from a different angle: my impression is that for some, one of the fragments of their overall worldview is the concept of the church as a "society of friends".

Basically, I keep hearing that people in the church should interact beyond a formalized slate of weekly activities. They should meet urgent needs that arise, give confessions and encouragement and admonishment, share joy and sadness, pray and study, etc. Sounds like a society of friends to me.

But how are the friendless and ignored expected to react to this vision of the church? As I explained in detail when I described my experience of being both Christian and introverted, it's abundantly apparent that I don't have the prerequisites for "fitting in". My hobbies and interests aren't like the others in my church. I don't even watch the same TV shows. I'm not charming. I don't put people at ease. As a never-married adult, I'm categorized differently than most of the church. My talents and/or "gifts" aren't suited to up-front exposure, so I'm not well known. In short, it seems that after taking everything into account, nobody wishes to voluntarily spend time with me. (And of course, saying this complaint out loud, to anyone, would merely mark me as self-pitying and therefore less worthy of friendship.)

Now, this situation has never stopped me from contributing financially, volunteering for various tasks behind the scenes, having short awkward conversations on Sundays, communicating my insights in bible studies, voting like all the other full members of the church, singing in groups, and so on. However, if church is meant to be more, if it's meant to resemble a society of friends, if utmost spiritual growth necessitates that model, if church is about giving oneself in relationships, then the state of my social life relegates me to a "lower tier" of Christianity, does it not? In that case my participation is more like the support machine hooked up to the Body than one of its organs, isn't it? Given that true church is a society of friends, my flagrant inability to befriend (or to be befriended) disqualifies me, and others with similar issues?

withstanding

Belatedly, I wondered if the tone of my post about repentance and Hebrews 10:26 may have been too unsympathetic to the plight of Christians who, like myself, 1) are already aware that we sin, 2) are therefore grieved by the knowledge that we fail to be holy in countless ways, and then 3) take steps to avert our sin in the future.

My reply is simple: if you're in that group, then you weren't my intended target. I aimed my message at Christians who don't bother with repentance, presumably out of the mistaken assumption that the purpose of grace is to sin without shame. They might claim that since they're "only human" and surrounded by temptation, they cannot be expected to withstand. For them, transformation (sanctification) is "extra credit" for overachieving saints. No reason to go "overboard" on righteousness and integrity.

However, it's worth reiterating that most of the time, withstanding is physically possible, feasible, beneficial, etc., so the barriers are mental. And Christianity is far from alone in drawing attention to this fact. Much of the "inspirational self-help industry" appears to be centered on reminding people that they can choose their behavior, break awful habits, stop being passive victims. Numerous, straightforward, proven strategies exist for more effective withstanding...

• Practice. The more a person withstands, the easier it feels over time. Fasting, which I've mentioned many times before, can be good practice for withstanding (but if you're new to fasting then by all means be sure to look up sensible guidelines and ease into it). Practice is fundamental: the other strategies grow stronger with practice.
• Pray. Pray for deliverance from evil. Redirect your perspective toward God. Recognize His sovereignty and presence in everyday life. Visualization may help, but be careful not to mistake your images for the true God.
• Think twice. In the middle of the storm, when you're feeling propelled and tumbled, just take some time to let the "rising tide" fade and reconsider your actions as if you were an external observer.
• Enumerate consequences. As much as you can, vividly recall what the long-term effects of this action have been in the past. Also, soberly weigh the impact this action could have on the "ledger" of your life, other people's lives, and your surroundings. Complex plans, predictions, and judgments are part of what separates us from brutes.
• Enlist other believers. Sometimes the mere reassurance that you aren't alone is helpful. And by working with them on common goals, everyone's burden seems lighter. Meanwhile, social reinforcement fuels the motivation to be and do better.
• Consume conducive ideas. For withstanding to be successful, peripheral habits and thought patterns probably should change in accordance with the goal. Again, it's certainly possible to withstand without replacing these unfavorable influences, but it's unnecessarily harder.
• Make failure difficult. Adjust circumstances such that withstanding is the easier choice. Whether the adjustment acts more like a "fence", "guard", or just "inconvenience", it affirmatively biases you toward withstanding.
• Decide beforehand. Select a "path" of withstanding, and when the situation arises, remain in that path. You've made a decision that's no longer "open for discussion". It will be, come what may. There's no need to ponder the temptation; ponder your prior verdict instead. You're a playwright who wrote what would happen, and now as the actor your responsibility is to enact the play.
• Reward success. People who have died to self and become virtuous don't require external motivators. Nevertheless, if the payoff of withstanding is subtle and intangible, it doesn't hurt at first to assign yourself a small reward. Of course, the danger lies in mistaking your tiny representative reward for the true, deeper reward, thereby turning it into its own temptation! Thus, the reward's value should be a symbolic trifle that won't provoke dependency or even significant attachment.   
• Flee. Stop "fighting". Don't place yourself where withstanding is necessary. Avoid and prevent it before it has a chance to "attack". Obviously, this strategy may not apply, yet it's indispensable when it does. 

The upshot is that the person who states that they're absolutely "powerless" to withstand sin is in all likelihood mistaken, lying, or lazy. Their real meaning might be that they either don't want to pay the cost of the above strategies for withstanding, or they don't want to withstand at all. In order to repent, you must want to repent, regardless of the cost. In order to want to repent regardless of the cost, you must hate your sin. In order to hate your sin, you must appreciate that your Lord hates it sufficiently to be willing to die to cover it. In order to appreciate your Lord's death, you must acknowledge His great love despite your sin. A Christian who doesn't wish to repent is still in error about what salvation really is.

church that's "real"

Christians can be as critical of church as anyone else, and the criticisms can be perplexing. What does it mean when they're searching for a church that's "real"? And how can a church accommodate this demand?

• My first guess is that a qualification for "real" is that the church doesn't suffer from Christian "masks" of action or attitude. As I wrote before, the masks prevent Christians from working together to achieve comprehensive change in themselves, but overreactions against the masks are also dangerous. My basic point is that while "gritty" confession most definitely is part of the duties of a church, it shouldn't become an overwhelming focus nor should it necessarily be a component of the large-scale public service (i.e. the service intended for people of any level of commitment).
• Another possibility is that "real" simply corresponds to a particular style of worship that happens to appeal to that person. Other styles, especially ones that are perceived as opposites, must be " 'fake' worship that puts on an ostentatious show." Clearly, in this case one worshiper's real is another's fake.
• On a more solid basis, "real" could refer to the complaint that a church discusses Christianity but never accomplishes anything. It's eminently reasonable to expect people who have been reanimated through Christ to participate in the further reanimation of the spiritually-dead world and society. Love and truth are for sharing. Hoarded love and truth probably are counterfeit.
• In a bizarre twist, for some critics "real" doesn't have any relation to a specific church at all. Instead, they appear to reject all churches of Christianity at once. These are the ones who might refuse to call themselves "Christian" for some reason, despite their belief in the same doctrines. They say that the name is itself too misleading to be a real reflection of their precious identity, reputation, and ego. "Christianity's not real, God is real. People in the 'modern' church are deluded and not encountering God. How can I tell? Because they attend church and call themselves Christian." (Of course, there's not much individual churches can do about them until they actually open themselves up to other believers.)
• The ultimate accusation of a lack of "real"-ness is the dreaded state of being unauthentic, which is roughly defined as changing anything in order to reach and attract newcomers. Naturally, once a judgment of unauthentic is handed down, it's flatly impossible to escape it. A desperate attempt to stop being unauthentic merely earns a judgment of being unauthenticly authentic. Like the famous person who didn't want to be part of any club that would accept the likes of him, a search for a "real" church may consist of finding one that's highly unwelcoming (or considered welcoming purely by Christians with "refined holy taste"). Therefore "real" implies unpleasant, badly-presented, esoteric, exotic, etc., and any church too successful at evangelism could never pass as real!
  

Hebrews 10:26

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 

A few times online, I've read accusations either that someone is "too soft on sin" or "too stingy with grace". But as I've previously written, both complaints are too simplistic. Without a proper understanding of what sin is, pleas for grace and love are hollow and devolve into therapeutic self-esteem sessions. But without a proper understanding of grace and love (and supernatural empowerment), a clear view of sinfulness produces hopelessness and contempt for self and others.

Perhaps Christians should proclaim "today is the day of repentance" whenever they also proclaim "today is the day of salvation". The purpose of forgiveness is so that you can come back to God and stop separating yourself from Him by sinning.

To recap:

If you have no intent of living a holy life by faith, grace is "stingy" and not for you.

On the other hand, if you honestly and sincerely stop being "soft" on your sin, you have all the grace you require and more.

simplicity and macroeconomics

Some Christians encourage greater distinction from the surrounding culture along the dimension of simplicity. As children of God who 1) rely on Him to meet our needs, 2) emphasize the importance of intangible things, 3) recognize just how relatively much we have compared to many of our brethren in other times and locations: it's fitting to live a simpler lifestyle with fewer material encumbrances.

Yet simplicity has another "side" on a macroeconomic level. For each transaction, there is a buyer and a seller, and the seller perhaps bought originally from other sellers and producers. The buyer who forgoes a transaction for the sake of simplicity denies that transaction to the would-be seller. That in turn implies that the seller cannot participate in the additional transactions with the other sellers and producers. And so forth, as the withdrawal of the economic transaction continues to "ripple". If sufficient numbers of buyers commit to simplicity simultaneously, the sellers and producers may end up unable to pay their basic expenses, which puts them out of work. So significant application of simplicity on a large scale entails shrinking the economy as a whole and raising unemployment; less participation by buyers results in less potential for participation by workers.

I don't think this means that we should completely stop the practice of simplicity. The point is that while we grow in simplicity, we should continue to expend the freed resources but in good causes. The better ones have transformational qualities that aim to help the disadvantaged "stand on their own feet" (whenever that's a possibility). This too has a macroeconomic justification. By enabling people to both consume and produce, even if at first "produce" is nothing more than a part-time service job, they can enhance the economy instead of being a drain on it, with an accompanying sense of self-worth. Actually, transferring mere consumption to such "human resource investment" might in the end be more effective at stimulating long-term economic growth (a better "multiplier").

Gradually, the shift in the habits of the Christian rich from frivolous to charitable would change the economy's very macroeconomic "structure". There'd be no market for certain items, and those people would be displaced into different industries. The financial world of brokers and investment bankers would likely shrink. Greater economic activity at the lower levels would change (narrow?) the range of products offered. The middle class would enlarge. Higher standards of living, that would continue to spring from the ongoing improvements in productivity, would manifest not in more pronounced gaps between rich and poor but in a "rising tide" benefiting all. 

To everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. It's right there in the Book.