At the suggestion of a friend at church - our organist - I read a book he had just finished called Jim and Casper Go To Church. Published by the Barna people, it has been out for some time, but seems to be the latest book to be making a stir in the evangelical world. I say "book," but of course nowadays that includes the accompanying DVD, website(s), blog(s), merchandise, and probably even their own breakfast cereal by now.
Since that was their method I'll follow suit: my reaction began with, "This is an interesting twist..." (an air of reserved curiosity) which faded into, "What the...?" (pique and perplexity), and ended with, "You've got to be kidding me!" (fully annoyed rejection).
Why this reaction? Well, I just didn't buy the basic premise of the book. You see, the novelty of the research is that though the primary author, Jim Henderson, is a professing Christian, his associate, Matt Casper, is an avowed atheist. And it was thought that the impressions of the latter would provide that fresh, unbiased, objectivity by which a true evaluation of a given church could be made.
The applicability of commercial/retail principles to the Church is troublesome in itself. But more to the point, to submit what the Church does in its worship service to the bar of an atheist's tastes and understanding - especially with a view of changing it to suit him - seems patently ridiculous! It's like a capitalist asking a Marxist what he thinks of free markets - anxiously hoping that it meets with his approval or wondering how that system can be changed to suit him. In a nutshell - it won't and it can't - not without loosing its essential character.
This approach is part of another dubious principle which the authors assume all churches adopt - that of the "seeker driven" ministry. According to this view every unbeliever is capable, at any time, under his own impulses to decide to come to God through Jesus Christ. What the Church needs to do in their services then is to establish such a broad swath of common ground with the unbeliever that this person can walk in and immediately feel familiar with everything that is going on.
What this tends to produce however, is a service increasingly devoid of anything distinctively Christian. Worship on Sunday, the Lord's Day, is by definition God's people coming into the presence of the living God to adore His majestic glory in prayer, singing, and confession - to hear His voice speaking through the preaching of the scriptures - to feel the power of the Holy Spirit as the immense, unfathomable weight of God's glory presses upon them.
But, of course, all of this is inscrutable to the unbeliever, and so according to the seeker driven principle, must be gotten rid of. In place of transcendent mystery what is offered is a mildly religious version of the world producing perhaps an insipid, vaguely spiritual feeling much like one gets from reading Guide Posts magazine or watching the Oprah Winfrey Show.
An interesting irony of all this is that Matt Casper, the atheist, found the "seeker driven" churches (Rick Warren and Saddleback; Bill Hybels and Willow Creek) contrived and shallow. Conversely, the one he was most excited about was the very formal Presbyterian church in the wealthy area of Chicago, and that because it most reminded him of the one his mother took him to when he was a young boy. I suppose we should dump the seeker principle and go for the "nostalgia driven" church.
Another aspect of the book which I found troublesome was the "drive by shooting" approach utilized by the authors in their research. They would arrive into town, sometimes with only minutes to spare before a service began, attend one service then pronounce judgment on the church based on what they'd experienced. And I thought - Wow. I wonder if they have any friends? How are their marriages doing? I mean, in what other relationship context do they give someone only one chance to impress them? One would think that common sense, if not charity, would call for several weeks, if not months, in which to attend a sufficient amount of services/ministries at a given church in order to get a true feel for what is going on.
Ultimately, one realizes that the grid through which these churches were being forced was that of Jim Henderson's postmodern, anti-doctrine, anti-establishment, social justice, emergent church sympathies. Any church which did not reflect these attitudes and biases was judged unsuitable - maybe even unworthy to be considered a true church. All this makes me wonder what abysmal scoring my church may have received on their churchrater.com website - or then again, maybe I don't care.
