ALL CHURCH SERVICES ARE SYNCRETISTIC WITH PAGANISM: CHANGE MY MIND

I recently posted a meme with the above caption. Its purpose was to stimulate discussion about what we actually do in Church services and whether this is really what the Church is for, what the Lord Jesus called his disciples to do when they assemble together. My view is that it is not. But the Churches and their services have travelled a long way from their beginnings in the Bible, and they have picked up major elements from pagan worship that have transformed the life and witness of the body of Christ on earth and indeed seriously compromised the calling of the body of Christ and compromised the way we are meant to go about fulfilling that calling. As a result of my posting the meme some people asked questions to which I provided answers as best I could. I was subsequently asked if these questions, answers and the discussion around them could be put together in a single article, and so here I have done this, though two of the questions have been condensed into one.

Q.1. Can you please elaborate on why you think all church services are syncretistic with paganism?

A. Because the form of Roman religion, ritual, i.e. magic, was taken on by the Church in its services and Christian content was poured into the rituals. These rituals did not exist in the New Testament. For example the Lords supper was meal, a feast, the agape, but it was replaced by a ritual in which the meal was virtually non-existent and which was presided over by priests, and then by the middle of the first millennium two Church councils had banned the agape feast altogether in Church buildings and it ceased completely shortly after that. As a result of this the nature of the Christian faith as a social order was distorted and rituals, i.e. magic, took its place, and this still goes on today, even in Protestant churches. The life of the body of Christian as a social order, a kingdom, a nation as the Bible calls us, was replaced by a clerical order that performed the faith on behalf of the believers in the form of rituals, and the citizenship of the kingdom was effectively stolen from the faithful and vested in the clergy.

Q. 2. Show us how it’s done. What specifically do you do for the Lord’s Supper? I assume it’s not a tiny cracker and half an ounce of juice.

A. It is a feast, a full meal, the Christian Passover. Tell everyone to bring enough food and drink for themselves and their family and a bit more and put it all on a common table as a bring and share (but don’t get drunk). Eat the meal together and have fellowship. Get to know each other. Talk to each other, pray for each other, help and support each other. Sing a hymn of praise together—but don’t turn the whole thing into a sing-song marathon. The whole thing is worship, not just the singing. As you do this regularly you will start to grow together as a community. If you have someone to teach, make sure that during this part of the get-together he does not bleat on so long that the poor chap sat on the window goes to sleep, falls off and accidentally gets killed from boredom—the apostle Paul learned this lesson the hard way. Most preachers can talk a glass eye to sleep. Make sure they shut up plenty and listen to others. Make sure that others can contribute, and that there is mostly time for questions and discussion—this is important. If the teacher does not accept this tell him to shut up, and if he complains kick him out. Make this teaching and discussion time only a part of what you do together. The central thing is the meal, the fellowship and the growing together as a community, the family of God. Let it all spill out into an intertwining of your lives together.

A few other things to consider : (1) Try to live near to each other if possible. This is not always possible I know. But the more closely you live near to each other the more effective you will be as a community and as a social order as you grow. Community requires geographical proximity. However, do not make this a requirement or turn it into doctrinaire thing. Not everyone can up sticks and move. It’s a good thing to aim for though if possible.

(2) Also, and especially in this context, avoid control freaks that want to take over and control everyone. The Church has real problems with control freaks. You will probably come up against them and you need to be gracious but firm with them. When you get them do not let them take over and impose their agenda. Show them that this is not how things should be and not in line with the teachings of Jesus. If you let them take over they will wreck the whole thing. Those who lead are those who serve, not those who are served.

(3) As the community grows you will need to appoint elders and deacons from those who are qualified in terms of biblical criteria, but it is absolutely essential that control freaks are kept out of the eldership and the diaconate.

(4) Those who have ministries should be able to exercise them but not in an exclusive or controlling way. Ministry should not be restricted to elders and you need to take a broad view of ministry. We all have ministries, but not all ministries are Ephesians Four (E4) type ministries. Don’t let E4 ministers hijack the fellowship. Those who exercise these ministries are there to serve and help not take over. They also must be willing to learn from others, but if they have a genuine calling I think they should be exercising their ministry in a wider capacity than the local assembly. E4 type ministry in the New Testament is primarily itinerate, and was in the sub-apostolic age as well.

(5) The aim is to be a community that is a light on a hill, a community that models to the world what true society and true social order should be. As you grow bigger you can start organising the diaconal function on a wider basis. The aim is to have your own welfare system; your own education system,—probably mostly home education and support and help for it at the moment, though I speak from the UK and other countries may have other options as well (there are not many Christian schools in the UK and they are difficult to set up at the moment); your own arbitration system for settling disputes (this is an area where elders will be necessary); your own healing and eventually medical system. Then there is the whole area of trade and business, the arts, sciences etc. All these are important and all are legitimate callings in our task of building a Christian society and seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness first.

In all these areas we are not become a ghetto, an inward focused and retreatist community, but rather the exact the opposite of this, an outward focussed community that provides light to the world and models and demonstrates to the world what true society should be, and by doing so calls the world to repentance. But this community does need to be based on faith in Christ and we need to build the Christian society that grows out of it in terms if a Christian worldview and on a Christian ethical foundation.

A Christian society is not merely the world with a Christian mystery cult added onto it. It is a whole social order that revolves round and functions in terms of the good news of the salvation of the whole person through faith in Christ. And it must be outward focussed, seeking not to retreat from the world but rather to transform and disciple all nations to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian community needs eventually to become the dominant influence in the wider society across the whole spectrum of life and society. But I am perhaps getting ahead of myself. These things need to grow out of the community and will take time. Nothing less than the discipling of the whole world, all nations, to Christ is the goal. But start small with the micro community and pray for the growth.

Performing rituals will not create this community and the social order that must grow out of it. Ritual will hinder and compromise the whole venture, and divert the body of Christ from the mission that the Lord has given us. If the present dysfunctional and decrepit state of the Church shows us anything it is surely this. Our calling is to the discipling of the nations, not the creation of Christian mystery cults. We are commanded to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, not Church services. The kingdom of God is a counter-revolutionary prophetic social order, a community, the true society, that is meant to grow until it displaces and eventually replaces the idolatrous cultures that surround us. That is the meaning of the parable of the mustard seed.