Copyright © 2006 Ron Schwartz
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Longitude

Christianity, Complexity, and Copies

April 3, 2006

By Ron Schwartz

Learning From Longitude

It was in 1707 while sailing through thick fog that a British fleet of four powerful warships miscalculated their longitude and wrecked on the rocky coast of the Sicily Islands off England’s southwest tip.  All ships were lost and more than two thousand men died.

The reason for this tragedy lay in the difficulty in determining longitude.  Determining longitude was the single biggest problem of navigation at sea.  It was believed that the first nation to solve this problem would rule the oceans.  So, in 1714, the British government offered a reward equivalent to a king’s ransom (millions of dollars in today’s currency) to the person who could find a practical way to determine longitude at sea.

A man, a carpenter and clockmaker by trade, John Harrison, set out to solve this problem and to win the prize.  He, as well as all of the scientists and astronomers of that day, knew that the way to solve the problem was with a time piece, a clock that could keep accurate time at sea to within seconds.  No timepiece of that day was accurate enough, and the technology did not exist to make a clock accurate at sea.  The pitching motion and drastic changes in temperature on a ship would wreck havoc with the pendulum.

Between 1730 and 1759, Harrison built a number of timepieces.  They were large boxy mechanisms that never proved reliable at sea.  In constructing his first clock, Harrison encountered many obstacles.  With each obstacle, Harrison simply added another layer of complexity: spring, screw, or gear.  Each clock became a complex mechanism of gears working against levers working against gears, and springs pulling against pendulums pulling against springs -- layer and layer of complexity all working against each other.  Rather than admit that he was wrong and start over with a new design, he would simply continue to add layers of complexity to the old one.

In the end, he managed to make a nearly perfect clock.  It had none of the complexities of his first clock.  He completely abandoned his earlier complex designs.  It was a simple design that other clock makers could easily copy.  The answer for the simplicity was found in an idea he had for his original clock some forty years before but had not then been able to make it work.

There is something to be learned from this story.  It has to do with bad designs.  All of today’s churches are patterned entirely after the Catholic Church.  There is no question about this.  All church historians know this to be true.  Luther simply changed the title of priests to pastors and kept the same basic structure.  Nothing has changed to that basic structure (roles and responsibilities) in more than a thousand years.  And so, as the decades pass, just as Harrison did with his clocks, we continue to add layers and layers of complexity to the church thinking that the next thing will make it perfect.

Most churches recognize that there are issues with the present form of church, specifically in the lack of involvement and getting people to answer their calling of reaching out to the lost.  Rather than admit that the design is wrong, they continue to add things like special classes, sermons, and other special functions.  But these are just layers of complexity overlaying a bad design.  Churches have added contemporary praise and worship music, elders and deacons, casual dress, potluck meals, special classes and speakers, concerts, cell group meetings, para-leaders, etc, all in an effort to get the church to become what the scriptures describe.

Some churches have brought back the observance of Jewish holidays and traditions, while others have dogmatically pursued Old Testament Law.  There are layers upon layers of social activities and entertainment, legalistic laws, and structure, like Harrison’s clocks, all with the good intention of making things perfect.   But the church is no closer to fulfilling its calling than it was a thousand years ago.  And as long as church leaders continue to embrace the current design, it never will.  Perhaps it is time to do what Harrison did.  Perhaps it is time to start over.

Why Be Satisfied With A Copy?

Have you ever made copy of a photo?  It is not quite the same as the original.  Have you ever lost the original photo and had to make more copies of your copy?   With each generation of copying, you lose a little bit more quality.  Eventually, you will lose the ability to see what the original photo was.

I have six children, so I buy a lot of generic food.  Generic foods are copies of national brands.  They are generally cheaper.  My children have become so used to generic foods that, in most cases, they do not like the original brands after which they were patterned.  The same happens to Christians.  Most Christians have become so used to the copies that now the original looks like a fake.

Today’s Christian leaders have read about how church was done by the first generation of Christians and have tried to imitate it.  The result is something that resembles it but without substance.

Let’s contrast the contemporary church with the original:

What is required to        Pastor, building an budget                       Saints, and the Holy Spirit

to be a church?

What is its purpose?     Growing membership and                         Preaching the gospel to the

    enhancing the worship                               lost

    experience though nicer

    facilities and professional

                                  staff

Who is its Head?         A hierarchy of power of men who                Christ

                                 compete for preeminence.

Leadership                 Programs and personal agendas                  Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Growth                      More people through the charisma              Personal spiritual growth

  of the pastor                                             through the contributions of

      each member

This creates a few questions:

1)  Where in the New Testament is there any suggestion that pastors and/or elders are required to exist in order to have a church?

Paul instructed Titus to “set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee (Titus 1:5).”  Crete had experienced an explosive growth of Christianity.  There were many young churches that were spiritually immature.  For this reason, bishops and deacons were appointed in these churches because these particular churches were wanting, NOT because it was necessary in order to have a church.  There is no requirement in the scripture for a church to have a pastor in order to be a church.  The only requirement is believers and the Holy Spirit.

There are numerous examples in the New Testament of the apostles using temporary structure to shore up the believers because of their spiritual immaturity.  For instance:

• In Acts 6:1-6, the apostles put in place deacons because the church was not mature enough to see that no group was discriminated against.

• In 1 Corinthians 14, Apostle Paul put in place restrictions on speaking in tongues, prophecy, and women’s conversations in the church at Corinth because of their lack of self-control.  This same book has other structure as well.

• In 1 Corinthians 13, we find that even spiritual gifts are a temporary structure to bring us to perfection.

• In Ephesians 4:13, we find the use of the word “till” to show us that even the diversity of ministry is just “till” the church comes into maturity and unity.

The Holy Spirit and His believers are the only required ingredients for a church.  Nevertheless, pastors maintain that believers cannot spiritually flourish without them.  To them, they are another essential ingredient.

2)     Why do contemporary pastors have such a detrimental effect on the church?

Contemporary pastors see themselves as rulers over the church and act accordingly.  Things must be done their way.  But the church is God’s kingdom, and no kingdom can have two rulers.  When you examine the contemporary church, it becomes clear that men and their kingdom has replaced the kingdom of God:

• Instead of God inhabiting a people, men inhabit a building.

• Instead of the treasures of spiritual gifts, value is placed on church décor, talented musicians and singers, and charismatic preachers.

• Instead of the lost finding God, it’s all about people finding the preachers and filling their kingdoms.

It becomes evident that pastors have replaced the headship of Christ.

Conclusion

Pastors or elders (call them what you will) are helpful when establishing a church – when it is spiritually immature aka “wanting.”  This is the rationale Paul used in his letter to Titus.  If a church is to continue growing spiritually, the role of a pastor must give way (diminish) to a greater freedom of spiritual gifts and the operation of the Holy Spirit in His people.   If pastors fail to give way, they will eventually find themselves in competition with God.  There cannot be two heads on the Body of Christ.

How much of our Christian life is influenced and interwoven with copies of the “original” spiritual creation of God?

1)     If you are wrapped up in legalism, you have embraced a copy of the New Testament covenant.  

2)     If your approval from God is found in the laws you obey and the structure of your worship, if you are involved in legalism and you tend look down on other Christians, then you are involved with a copy of the original church.

3)     If you go to church events where you attend as a spectator; if your church focuses on the worship experience and creating an environment to draw other Christians; if your church engages in growth by stealing Christians from other Churches and is more focused on drawing Christians from other churches than it is on winning the lost in its community, then you are most likely a part of a copy of the original Church.  These are not the characteristics of the Spirit of God and would therefore not be characteristic of His Body.

4)     If your Jesus stands smiling in approval at the contemporary church, then you serve a copy of the original Jesus.

5)     If your focus is on understanding the Bible through research, reference material, and education rather than through your relationship with God, then you have embraced the copy.  The original pattern is Jesus.  We can only come to understand the Bible when we come to know Him, not the other way around.

Most Christians tend to go to the tangible (i.e. Bible, church, pastors, the law) for direction as to what we should do, how we should live, how we should worship (and/or have church), and yet all these tangibles are merely copies of the original.   The only original is the Spirit of Jesus.  The sad state of Christianity is that rather than become spiritual beings, we have come to believe that the tangible is the spiritual.  Consequently, our churches are filled with carnal Christians and carnal church leaders, poor imitations of the original church. We are so used to the copies that we now believe the original is fake.

Matthew 7:26-27 KJV

26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

You cannot build upon a faulty foundation.  If you do, you are wasting your time. The churches we construct today are founded on a Catholic design and can never be the church that Christ intended.

Jesus taught us that the foolish man builds his house upon the sand.  It is not WHAT we build, but what we build UPON that is important.  Perhaps it is time that we do what Harrison finally did: if our work is based upon a bad design, then it is time to start over… using the original, not the copy,

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