A Sweet Reduction and Moonlight Graham

In cooking, reduction is the process of thickening and intensifying the flavors in a liquid by simmering or boiling. You reduce excess moisture and the flavors that remain are more powerful and appealing. This seems an appropriate analogy for what the Church is experiencing in these protracted times of pandemic restriction.

Like turning a knob on the stove, the COVID-19 pandemic has moved the heat under the Church from a simmer to a boil. In the U.S. the Church has been undergoing what I've often called the New Reformation for nearly thirty years now. Perhaps, even longer. One could argue that this New Reformation started in the 1960's, another time of historic unrest in our country. So, for about fifty years now the Western church has been in a constant state of flux. Christian denominations have been splitting and merging and splitting again. The rise of non-denominational churches either wary of or outright opposed to denominational superstructures, have siphoned off people from "mainline" churches. Still, one measure of the church, weekly participation, has continued to steadily decline until today when just seventeen percent of the U.S. population attends church on any given Sunday.

This post isn't about denominational dissolution or the decline in church attendance. It's always my hope through this blog to admit where the Church has missed the point and highlight where opportunities lie for a better future. I believe we are standing at another historically meaningful inflection point. As a variety of state leaders dictate whether churches can gather and what they must do if allowed to gather, the favored status of the Christian Church in America hangs precariously in the balance. The entirely hypothetical questions we used to kick around thirty years ago, like, "Would you still be a Christian if it was outlawed in America?" are feeling less and less hypothetical. I don't think I'm the only one who can see a path, a very short path, to a day when genuinely oppressive government restrictions are levied on Christian churches. This is such an exciting time to be a Christian in the United States.

Yes! Exciting! Finally, after years of frustration over the banality of worship that was more infotainment than Biblical exploration and meaningful apologetics, the Christian Church is being boiled down to its essence. What do we believe? Why do we believe what we believe? What is the solid foundation of Biblical understanding upon which our beliefs are based? Those who are ill-prepared to answer these questions will, as the temperature rises, evaporate like extraneous liquid. This is not an indictment of those individuals who are unable to articulate their faith. It is not a condemnation of those who are Biblically illiterate. Responsibility for he evaporation of the Christian Church from American life and culture rests squarely on the shoulders of a church that has been too long complacent with its place in the culture. Even as most favored status was evaporating over the last three decades, the alarm was not sufficiently raised to reclaim Biblical teaching and broad general knowledge of the foundational truths of the faith amongst all who called themselves Christians. Replaced by feel good messages of hope and goodwill, bullet-pointed lists of how to succeed as a leader like Jesus did, six steps to a happy marriage, or twelve steps to lasting sobriety, to name some of countless examples of shallow, misguided teaching, the deep connection to the faithful of millennia past was lost. Our understanding of the eternal nature of God and the infinitesimal brevity of our own existence became skewed. In an attempt to be culturally relevant to a culture that's been around a fraction of the time the people of Israel spent in Egyptian captivity, churches gleefully tossed out thousands of years worth of Biblical interpretation.

So comes this time of reduction. Though smaller in size...a remnant, you might say...the essence of the Church will remain even as the Western church collapses in on itself like a dying star. God's Word will never pass away even as those who don't read, study, or grasp His Word, do. The body of believers may decrease here even as it increases in places all over the world. We who follow Jesus must fix our eyes forward, not looking back to "better days" but recognizing there is no going back. It seems more clear to me than ever before that in 2020 the Church has crossed a line and can't ever go back. It is only forward from here.

I'm reminded of a scene from the movie "Field of Dreams" where Burt Lancaster, in his final film role, played Moonlight Graham. He gets the chance to magically go back in time and play professional baseball with his heroes on a mysterious baseball field in Iowa. When a little girl is choking on a hot dog Moonlight, who spent most of his true professional career as a doctor, must decide to cross the field's foul line knowing that he'll never go back to baseball again. With little hesitation young Moonlight steps over the line and transforms into the aged "Doc" Graham and saves the little girl's life. 

Church can't be church like we've always done it. It's time to leave the games we've been playing behind and take on the more serious work of tending to those whose lives hang in the balance. Perhaps, once sufficiently reduced, the true power of the Church will make an impact like it hasn't made in a very long time. So, turn up the heat and let's get to the sweet reduction!