Quantum Theology

I have been raised in the theology of Christianity as taught in the conservative churches. One such concept is that of the bride of Christ, aka the church. The mental image I have had of the bride of Christ is that of purity, white dress etc. In reality, it seems to me that the bride of Christ has more in common with the woman Hosea was commanded to marry in the Old Testament.

Every Christian knows about sin. We are always missing the mark, no one is righteous, we are washed clean of sin by the blood of Jesus, etc. Today a new thought struck my brain, a thought about sin in the corporate sense. Can the Church ( the bride of Christ ) be as sinful as indiviuals? I believe it can and it is.

For the last year there has been a problem that I have been struggling to resolve. During conversations with other Christians, it is a common occurance to point to finger either at other Chrisitans, and even more common to point the finger at ‘The Church.’ The problem I am having is that the Church has numerous problems, but when I look around me all I see is righteous people with good intentions.

The Church is no-one and everyone all at the same time. It is very similar to large organizations like Corporations and the government. There is a singular behavior that can be associated with these entities, and yet they are nothing more than the sum of their individual parts. Church, corporations, and the government are similar in the respect that their behavior can often be identified with human traits. The problem lies when you try to assign credit or blame to an actual human. Its easier for a corporation, and harder for the Church. Trying to assign blame for a collective behavior is like trying to grasp at a mirage. You can see it, but it dissappears just as you lay hold of it.

The Church has a heavy burden of sin, and it needs to be confessed. The bride of Christ is drenched in blood - and not the blood of Christ. It is drenched in the blood of the christian soldiers and their enemies who fell in the crusades, the blood of Christians and Protestants during the reformation, the blood of the native inhabitants of the New World killed when they refused to be converted, the blood of men killed because of their color and because some choose not to walk to the back of the bus.

The conduct of the Church during the civil rights movement is a recent and horifying example. Dr. Martin Luther King said that Sunday was the most segregated time in America. This was a Church that was supposed to stand up for the weak and oppressed attempted to keep the black man under the heel of the white mans boot. Philip Yancey calls Dr. King a prophet and I agree. Perhaps this is why Revelations 2 and 3 are devoted to the seven churches. It is the sins of the group that results from the inability of the Christians to apply the truths of scripture to the events that surround them. As for me, I do not wish to be identified with the Church in the United States. I cannot point to a particular individual and assign blame, and yet the sin of the group is obvious. This is one problem that I don’t even begin to know how to fix. Let’s see how Philip Yancey has attempted to resolve the issue in his own life.

It seems to me that American culture has sapped us of moral strength. We go see movies like ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Braveheart,’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’ in order to fill the moral void that surrounds us. I am guilty of the same and it sickens me.

If you were paying attention to the news lately, you would have caught a story about a team of US Special Forces soldiers that were shot up in a firefight in Afganistan. What you might not have heard was that one of the soldiers survived. This soldier was found by a local shepherd and was taken into the village for protection. The villagers took to protection of the American soldier as a matter of honor. That night, the Taliban forces sent a message to the village asking for ‘the infidel.’ The village chief refused to hand over the man as long as a man or woman stood in the village.

Thanks to the moral courage of this village, the soldier was safely returned to his unit. The shepherd who found the soldier now risks the wrath of the Taliban who roam the countryside.

It warms my heart to know that courage such as this exists outside of Hollywood. It chills by blood to know that this courage is largely extinct in America today.