Granny's Jack Booted Thugs

It is unfortunately common these days to find churches that have gone disastrously wrong. Often, they only have one or two things going for them. This usually means that they will only attract one or two kinds of people, whose cosmology most favors those things. Once that starts to happen, the cycle is begun, and it is nearly impossible to break.

That is why balkanization is the Enemy’s favorite weapon these days. Individual Christian Cosmologies do not do well on their own. No single one makes up a good, healthy spiritual community. That is why I always stick with the large denominations, and even more so why I always gravitate towards Methodists. Granted, the leadership of these groups seem to have lost their minds in many areas of the country, but the communities are still largely unbalkanized. That is an advantage that is hard to overlook in comparison to non-denominationals and charismatic sects.

What I have gone the long way about saying with this article is that if you look around yourself next time you are in church, and only see one or two distinct types of people, then you are in trouble. If you are very much like either of those groups, give serious consideration to the possibility that it might be your solemn duty to leave the congregation, and replace yourself with someone entirely different (that poor soul).

Now, let us turn an eye to each of our groups, and their particular aspect that they bring to a church community, whether it is needed or not.

If you had to attend a church that was fundamentally flawed in every way, except one, what would the one right thing be?

Liberal Mainline: “It would be accepting to everyone.” This is a major requirement of our liberal friends. It is also the reason why liberal mainlines must be the seasoning gently used to flavor the congregation, rather than its main ingredient. Here are the problems with this stance. First, is that the statement is almost always accompanied by the unspoken phrase “(Except those who don’t accept everyone.)” Barring the obvious logical negation that this addendum brings, there are a number of real-world problems that happen in churches that are liberally unbalanced.

First, if you are “accepting to everyone,” you are really only accepting to a very small group. You bring in misfits, and “projects” to present to the community. These are people that for a myriad of reasons have no other spiritual home. These are people truly in need of a strong spiritual community to call their own. Where the problems begin is when the other cosmologically inclined members start to leave in order to escape the influx of these misfits. Conservative Mainlines are particularly easy to drive off in this manner. Projects are people that have some number of spiritual, emotional, or physical needs that the congregation must support. It seems to be the case that each need counts as its own project. I once saw a very robust church absolutely shattered by only one new member, who just happened to have a tremendous number of needs of all kinds. The original community was small, and as such just couldn’t handle the number of demands placed on them by a single, very disturbed person.

Conservative Mainline: “It would have a strong community.” This is a minor to moderate requirement from conservative cosmologies. It seems that given the options at face value, they will not pick this option all the time. They will, however, over time gravitate towards strong communities over any other aspect of a church. Being conservative in nature, they usually require an immense impetus to change churches though, so they rarely willingly migrate away from largely conservative communities. This too, causes them to balkanize, simply at a much slower rate than the other groups. They almost always balkanize by leaving to join another community, and very rarely by bringing in new membership as their liberal cousins do.

Once a conservative community has fully balkanized, it tends to settle down and isolate itself. Over time, this leads to a myriad of heresies and just strange stuff. It is incredibly spiritually dangerous, but the change is so slow, it is often unrecognized until it is too late. The few mainlines that still move preachers around every several years have a built in buffer to this problem. Sadly, many groups like the Methodists are throwing away this buffer in favor of long standing pastorates. Time will truly tell if this is a wise move. My money says that it will be disastrous.

Megachurch: “The pastor is a man of God, and a role model to the congregation.” This is a major requirement of megachurchers. For a couple of fairly specific reasons, they gravitate towards these larger-than-life leaders. Often, their churches are rife with spiritual defects, but that all goes by the wayside, because the congregation is focused on the pastor to the point where even if he started out as what the congregation thinks that he is, the pastor too soon focuses on himself. Then, his inevitable vice comes to the surface, and the following scandal leaves a mass of spiritual casualties in its wake.

Megachurchers are actually a healthy part of a good community. They are the drive that brings new people in. Their focus on the pastor, if properly balanced by other competing cosmologies, is healthy. They do tend to fly away from a healthy community in favor of a strong, charismatic leader though. Healthy communities put some of the focus of the megachurcher back on himself, which for whatever reason, he finds very difficult to bear.

What I am really getting at is that megachurchers tend to be flawed in some way that means they cannot submit themselves to self examination. The reasons for this, run a wide range. Sometimes they are just vapid. Sometimes they have fundamental flaws that are just hard to deal with. Whatever the reason, in the proper community, these issues are eventually dealt with, and the megachurcher becomes something else. In the improper community, they are destined to be the casualty of one man’s fall from grace.

Calvinist: “It is doctrinally correct.” This is a major requirement for Calvinists. Given a nontrivial amount of thought, they will pick this option every time. Again, there are many Calvinists among the various other cosmologies. The type that we are discussing here are a very fervent breed. He has forsaken everything else in favor of the five points of Calvinism. He ends up being almost a parody of the more traditional of his kind around him. Limited Atonement combined with Predestination mean that there is no onus on him to be particularly connected to anyone but his close knit community. Even they can be dropped given a moderate impetus. If he has to be in a church that has nothing right about it, save one thing, that one thing may as well be doctrinal correctness. That way he can go on learning and doing his thing while everyone else goes to Hell around him.

A strict interpretation of the doctrine of Predestination makes Calvinists very cliquish. Their communities tend to be average size for the population they are in, but within those communities are dozens of cliques identifiable only by their mutual dislike for each other. The Calvinist is told from birth that he is part of a special, small group. As he grows, that group becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that is usually only as large as he can tolerate. Growing up with the certainty that so many of those around you are Hell bound, you pick up a sense of superiority, and a knack for writing people off.

Charismatic: “Its got a cool secret!” Now you’re not likely to get this answer from anybody, but this is one of the two flames that tend to draw in the charismatic moths. The other, is simply growth. If there is fervor and expansion, you will find more than a handful of charismatics taking it all in. The problem with fervor though, is that no one can sustain it indefinitely.

I have a fond memory of being in a fast food place one night during a particularly bad storm. A group of Pentecostals came in and would shout “Hallelujah” every time the lights came back on, and give a loud “aww” every time they went back out. It was happening so quickly at one point that not everyone could keep up. To the rest of us observing, it was a mixture of comical and disturbing. They did eventually give up, but it was impressive that they stuck with it so long after already having been at a similarly exciting worship service.

What will always keep you going though, is a secret. Even if it’s in plain sight, there is a certain air of superiority that charismatics have. They like knowing something that you don’t know, or believing something that you don’t believe. Unfortunately, there is very little place for this behavior in a well balanced community. That is why these charismatic communities coalesce so easily, and also why they tend to isolate themselves so completely.

Ascetic: “It harms as few people as possible.” This is really a minor requirement for the ascetic. Honestly, to them, the question is almost a nonsense question. Still, ascetics tend to minimize their contact with others. This can be for either selfish or selfless reasons. The selfish ascetic just wants some peace and quiet so that he can study and think. The selfless ascetic may have a slight phobia of his effect on other people. Either way, the result is the same.

Every community should have a small handful of ascetics in its midst. St. Anthony set up the proper relationship so many centuries ago. The ascetic gets to spend his days in deep thought in exchange for giving advice and teaching to anyone who requests is from him. The trick is, for the ascetic not to start walking around giving advice where it isn’t requested of him. That is the trap that I see most modern ascetics fall into.

There you have it. An answer from each of our groups that betrays the necessity of the other groups. This question is a more strict example of how these various factions play against each other. Later examples will show them more as complementary to each other rather than abject necessities.

Cosmology is a thing near and dear to my heart. Actually, Cosmology is two things that are near and dear to my heart. Nowadays, when you say the word, it conjures up thoughts about stars and the universe. Cosmology is the coolest of the various branches of physics. However, long before it was a study in physics, it was a study in metaphysics.

In this series, whenever I say “Cosmology”, I mean simply, the way that someone thinks that the universe works. Another term could be world view. That is the phrase most people use today. I don’t like it though. For one thing, I generally prefer antiquated terms. It’s just in my nature to use them. Secondly, when we say something about a “Christian world view,” it evokes a very homogeneous image. In this series, we will start off with extremely broad cosmologies, but we will never be so coarse as to refer to a single Christian cosmology.

My postulate for this series is that your particular cosmology, or your beliefs about how and why the universe works as it does, at it’s simplest levels has far reaching implications in the most complex thoughts and interactions of your life. This is not terribly ground breaking when you think about it. If you believe that certain invocations will send you to an unimaginable paradise for ever and ever, then you tend to work those invocations into most every part of your life. This also begets a very easy form of charity where you can get as many other people to say these invocations and they’ll be similarly happy. If it’s that simple, why not try it out as often as possible.

Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself. The astute reader will at this point be wondering, “If it takes him this long to define the subject, how convoluted will his arguments be?” The answer is, of course, extremely convoluted. I said before that this first series will take a very coarse resolution of cosmologies. This means, that several religious groups that don’t really like each other will be talked about under the same banner. While they are doctrinally quite different, the people themselves seem to behave the same way, mostly for the same reasons. For instance, if I had included Muslims and Jews as categories, they would easily fit under the banner of Unitarians. However, if I had included Christian Unitarians, then they would stick out sorely when lumped with the other two. Christian Unitarians would have to go into a Deist category.

Thankfully though, I have not included either of those three. Jews and Muslims are generally outside of the thought process of our general readership here at GJBT, and as such are reserved for the Cosmology 210 course. Christian Unitarians are just generally uninteresting. They are a one trick pony if you will.

Without further ado, let us introduce the cast of characters that we will discuss. Pay close attention to the syntax that I use, and my reasoning for it. These categories are very broad, and as such leave much room for error and misinterpretation.

Liberal Mainline: Among the large Protestant denominations, and the Catholics, the divisions are not so much along doctrine, but along tradition and progressivism. Liberal Mainlines include the liberal factions of Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopals. Among the Anglicans, only the Archbishop of Canterbury is known to me to be so inclined. They are defined by being accepting to a fault. Their biblical basis is in “Judge ye not…” which certainly has its merit. For them, the benefit of this view is always being ready to bring someone new into the fold. This is correlated with a strange sort of superstition which we will address later. Whether vocalized, canonized, or not (or indeed expressly argued against), Liberal Mainlines tend to treat the church as a means to an end. It exists to make the world better.

Conservative Mainline: These are the counterparts to their liberal brothers. They are part of the same communions and conferences as their fruity compatriots, but tend to be both politically and religiously more conservative. In most denominations, they are the rural churches. These communities tend to be smaller, by at least half, than the liberal churches in the same denomination, but there are more communities to be had. This brings about its own virtues and vices. In truth, they are the most nuanced of all the categories that we will discuss in this series. They are a middle road that I have often referred to as “Generic Protestant,” though the category we now speak of includes Catholic groups as well. They, being generally of small groups, in small towns, are defined by a sense of community.

Megachurch: These are the huge churches that you can find dotted around our country, and even the world today. They are a new phenomenon, relatively speaking. Oddly enough, these enormous congregations tend to rotate around a central figure. There is a bad habit that you find in these churches of preacher worship. The preacher is raised up on a pedestal, and when he inevitably starts believing the reports of his greatness, he falls. These crashes are spectacular, and they generally cause vast amounts of spiritual damage to those gravitating around him. Think Billy Graham, or Ted Haggard, or any of hundreds of such figures from the past fifty years.

Calvinist: Generally, Calvinist denominations are part of one of the mainlines. When they are not, they are a form of exceptionally hard-core Calvinists. A great many groups of non-denominationals fit handily into this category. They are easily the most intelligent of the literal interpreters of the Bible that you will ever run across. As such, like Calvin, they are heavy-handed with dogma and doctrine. If you disagree with them, you are likely to be dismissed as lacking in education that they will be all too happy to give you. They do tend to suffer from a form of cognitive dissonance. They are anti-authoritarian as far as church bureaucracy goes, yet have an extremely authoritarian view of God. This alone is the most pervasive part of their cosmology into their everyday life.

Charismatic/Cult/Secret Keepers: When I originally put this series together in my head, there were separate categories for Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Pentecostals. While there are a number of differences between these groups, they lump together very easily. For one thing, many of them are the same type of Unitarians as the Jews and Muslims. For another, all have a strict belief that their faith holds some secrets that the rest of Christendom is not privy to. At the very least, they feel special, and separate from the rest of us. That is their defining trait. Since there is no one good word for them, I will call them Charismatics. It is misleading in a number of ways, but it is the least misleading of the many words that might also fit.

Ascetic: Ascetics today are a mere shadow of their former glory. Today, ascetics don’t tend to wander out into the desert to do battle with the devil for twenty years at a time. Instead, they are mere erudite recluses that for one or two of a myriad of reasons, are not a part of an organized religion. They are defined by their self imposed isolation. Interestingly enough, while they do not share many of the choices, or most of the enthusiasm of their ancient counterparts, they do share many of the same motives for their decisions.

Those are the the basic categories of any Christian that you are likely to come into contact with. Next time, we’ll start putting them through their paces to see how they react to varied stimuli.