THE MOST WONDERFUL THING OF ALL?

August 28, 2006 by djackson.

This blog takes its title from the final line of Henrik Ibsen’s play, “A Doll’s House.”  Torvald Helmer, a banker and classic Victorian pater familias, asks the question.  The final, solar-plexus-punch reality of the play is that he has no clue as to the actual answer…or, if he does, has realized it far too late.

I felt a little like that recently as I perused a magazine on church growth.  It isn’t a bad magazine, and is associated with a writer and thinker for whom I have considerable respect.  The particular article consisted of a barbershop quartet of “emergent church” wallahs pooling their vast perspicacity on the subject of how to reach the unsaved.  One participant, whose book I have read with some admiration, made the following statement:

“THE MAIN THING WE NEED TO CONSIDER IS - HOW EFFECTIVE IS CHURCH IN OUR EMERGING CULTURE.”

Really?  Is that “the main thing”?  Is relevance to the culture “the most wonderful thing of all”?  Because if you extend that line of logic, you end up with something like this:  if effectiveness relative to culture is “the main thing,” then in fact culture is the main thing, which means we are worshiping the culture.

Now, the question probably has to be asked at some point, and is probably even important.  Saul altered his driver’s license to read Paul, probably because the Gentiles to whom he preached found it easier to pronounce.  But I would contend that “the main thing” we have to consider is how effective church is in God’s kingdom.  Michal thought David’s dance of the seven skivvies was inappropriate; his worship was not effective in the emerging culture of his own marriage.  His majesty appealed to a higher standard:  “It was before the Lord,” 2 Samuel 6.21.  He then followed that up with a highly seeker-unsensitive slogan which translates idiomatically from the Hebrew, “You aint’ seen nothing yet!”

I understand (What do I know?  I’m a lifelong Baptist.) that the Episcopalians once went through great searchings of heart over whether the priest should face the congregation instead of the host as he stood at the altar.  I’m not a sacramentalist, but once buy transubstantiation and the theology makes sense:  why look at the people when you’re dealing with God?  Maybe, if there’s time for it amidst all that emerging, our churches would do well to wonder which way they’re facing. 

So is “effectiveness” the “main thing we need to consider”?  Is is “the most wonderful thing of all”?  I remember an essay by Riverside Church pastor Ernest Campbell.  It was entitled “What a Friend We Have in Yahweh,” and the gist of his argument was that we should downplay the name “Jesus” because “The term ‘God’ can be unifying.  The name ‘Jesus’ has proved to be divisive.”  Hmmm.  “Has proved to be”?  Well, it always was, wasn’t it?  In fact, he told us as much with a lot of loose rhetoric about slashing swords that made hash of family reunions.  When he preached in the synagogue at Capernaum to a crowd still digesting the pervious day’s potluck of loaves and fishes, “effectiveness” was hardly the main thing he considered:  his sermon cut the congregation from 5K to a pitiful dozen, and one of them would eventually pimp him out to the bad guys. 

The curtain line in “Doll’s House” comes after Torvald’s wife, Nora, has finally had enough of him and walked out.  She tells him she has ceased to believe her husband capable of changing so profoundly “that our life together would be a real wedlock.”  Two stage directions frame his final statement:  “A hope flashes across his mind,” and “The sound of a door shutting is heard from below.”  I think seeker-sensitivity often becomes the last-ditch seduction of the bride of Christ when she ceases to believe in wonderful things happening but does not insist on a real wedlock.  If we keep that up, any hope that flashes across our minds will be met with the sound of two doors shutting:  the doors of our churches below, and the gates of Heaven above.  In between those sounds, in the precious time we have, we need to think seriously about what truly is the most wonderful thing of all.

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