BLOG 10/21/13. THE POTENTIAL LIABILITY OF CHURCH BUILDINGS

BLOG 10/21/13. THE POTENTIAL LIABILITY OF CHURCH BUILDINGS

For centuries we have identified church buildings with the church, which consume a vast amount of money in maintenance.  We “go to church” or “I belong to the church on Sycamore Street.” And I am quite certain that there are many Christian communities who have buildings that are a real asset to the mission of God—but only as staging areas where the individual followers of Christ are equipped to engage in the real mission of the church. The mission of the church is not to congregate in a sacralized building, and engage in multiple church activities. It is much more focused on being contagious with the gospel in daily life.

This all came a bit more into focus for me recently when I was in a discussion with a leader from the evangelical church in Cairo, Egypt. He was reporting that it was illegal for Christians to meet anywhere other than church buildings in that predominantly Islamic culture. The state approved of the church buildings as the place where Christians could legally meet. So what happened?

Church buildings have become the target of the radical Islamic groups, and many have been burned and destroyed. So what happens to the church, in such a setting, when the church building is destroyed? Does the church cease to exist? Is the Christian church and its mission dependent upon the approval, or the legalization of an Islamic, or Hindu, or secular civil magistrate?

Or in our own culture, one could ask why it is that church buildings are tax-exempt? Why this accommodation? Churches expect the same public services of protection as other segments of society. Why, then, should the church not pay taxes and help foot the bill? What would happen if the civil magistrate suddenly imposed property taxes on the billions of dollars of church property in our nation?

The roots of this go back to somewhere in the era of Emperor Constantine, (in his ostensible new-found faith in Jesus Christ) who thought to be doing the church a favor by endowing it with temples and professional clergy, choirs, etc. so that it would be a counterpart to the pagan religions that were dominant in Rome at the time. It was sort of a quid pro quo arrangement: You pray for the empire and well take care of you.

This being so, and given the dominance of the Christian church in the successive centuries in Europe, Christian mission refocused itself on an institutional form rather than on communities of missionary obedience (with some notable exceptions) gathering for mutual edification, prayer for the mission, encouragement and that of a mobile, flexible, versatile, communities of gospel obedience, and that were “the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity” . . . to church institutions conducting services under the authority of professional clergy.

In recent generations one looks with wonder on the church in China, which, when its institutional church properties (the pattern given to the Chinese by Western missionaries) were expropriated by the Chinese Communist government, and the church outlawed . . . went underground and into clandestine house churches. Rather than diminish the church or quench its mission, it exploded in growth. Now that church (which is impossible to number because of its clandestine nature) has the vision of taking the gospel back down the Silk Road to Jerusalem, which makes the whole Middle East part of its missionary vision. Such a vision does not require buildings, or government approval. Such a missionary vision does not seek to avoid hostility and persecution. Such a community is intensely focused on gospel obedience, and the community is formed to enhance that vision.

Meanwhile, the North American church, for the most part, spends huge amounts of its resources maintaining church buildings and institutions that have (too often) little vision beyond their own survival. I don’t have neat answers, but it sure makes me stop and wonder about such questions.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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