Extreme Postmodern Church "Makeovers" Part Two - The Mental and Spiritual Makeover

We Need More Gargoyles On Our Buildings

Going back to the idea of the "physical makeover" from the previous BLOG, you can see how we have exchanged the glory and majesty of God inherent in our modern church architecture for the sake of evangelism and being culturally relative. One of my seminary professors once lamented the removal of gargoyles from modern architecture and the subsequent removal of gargoyles from modern churches. His lament was based on the fact that one of the purposes of gargoyles was to ward off "evil" and as such they were constant reminders to parishioners of the presence of evil in the world. The primary reason gargoyles were removed was because they were ornate and served no "functional" purpose (sound familiar?). And we are still talking about the "steepled" church here from which they are being removed. The new multi-functional facilities we now see simply continue this removal process by removing other elements (such as the stain glass among other things).

The removal of gargoyles is just one of the many things that has allowed our society to quietly undergo a "mental/spiritual" makeover. We are more than 50 years removed from World War II and the rise and fall of Adolph Hitler. Hitler was considered evil by most if not by all. He was ruthless and was responsible for the deaths of (among others) six million plus Jews. But the memory of this evil seems to have faded as we witness similar acts of evil today. We have the ruthless killings carried out by Saddam Hussein. We have the planning and scheming of the World Trade Center bombings by Osama bin Laden. But a large portion of our society seems to view these men as crazy and not evil. There are even some who would put forth the notion that men as these should be reasoned with as if it was simply “improper thinking” that led them to do what they have done. But our post modern society cannot talk in terms of people being evil otherwise they would by default admit the existence of evil which in turn would imply the existence of good, and hence, the existence of God.

Even talk of the recent mass murderer involved in the Virginia Tech shootings gravitated toward questions of his mental state and how this could have been prevented had he had proper psychological help. Whether or not he was actually evil, I cannot say, but I believe he was. The acts he performed were certainly evil. But regardless, there was no allowance in media discussion for the possibility of him simply being evil. I keep waiting for the media to interview a counselor on TV asking them what they think about Satan. When and if they ever do this, I fully expect the response to be, “You know, I don’t know that you can say that Satan is really evil. I think he is most probably misunderstood. If we tried to get to know him better, and help him understand where his anger and discontent come from, then we could appeal to his reason and mental processing to reprogram his thought patterns. Maybe he needs reconciling to his past? You know, it’s not all his fault since he lost access to both of his parents after being cast out of heaven. So there is something there to explore further. If someone could have only reached him earlier, then we would still be in Paradise.”

Halloween – A Holiday Spawned in Hell (-acious amounts of candy)

I think it is interesting that the modern church has tended to take a stance against Halloween in a time when no one believes in evil and in a time when Halloween is so far removed from its original roots that it is now less about “devils and goblins” than "devil's food and goobers". I grew up in a church that was very conservative – no drinking, no smoking, and no swearing in a time when everyone did believe in evil. But I also remember no one batting an eye at children dressing up for Halloween. I mean, heck (I hope my childhood church didn’t hear me say “heck”), I dressed up in a devil’s costume for St. Pete’s sake. Now, as an alternative to Halloween, we have Autumn festivals because we do not want to be associated with a perceived evil and Satanic holiday in a time when no one in the outside world believes in Satan and evil anymore. That’s pretty ironic! Halloween is one of the last “gargoyles” out there that let’s us know that evil indeed exists. Our new modern, good intended rejection of Halloween with the intent of not having the appearance of worshiping Satan has had the added negative effect of helping our post modern culture roll right along with their ignorance of the existence of evil.

What Has This Done To The Church?

The idea here is that the “physical” post modern makeovers that we see that do away with elements that give us both the sense of a transcendent God AND the existence of evil, subconsciously bleed over into our belief systems and Christian world views giving us a “mental” post modern makeover that ultimately affects our relationship with God as we undergo a “spiritual” postmodern makeover as well. If we do not have images and elements of a transcendent and holy God present in our churches offset against elements that remind us of the insidious nature of evil, are we simply left with whatever mental image and world view of God that we can conjure up? And in the current culture of the postmodern church, does this image tend to be based on how we feel about God more than what we know about God thus creating only an image of God as our friend and the bestower of grace? Does the current content of worship add to this type of narrow view of God if it is based solely on emotion rather that objective truths about God? Does the current content of preaching add to this type of view of God as the tendency now is to reject all aspects of the hellfire and brimstone preaching from decades ago which possessed no elements of grace and replace it with primarily preaching about God’s love and grace with no sense of God's holiness and wrathfulness? Is our view of sin now merely one of having personal imperfections or merely a series of sicknesses that can be managed by us or helped to be cured through Christian counseling - is this really our current view of sin? Or is our view one where sin is the result of evil within us that can only be eradicated by a holy God? I think we need to re-ask these questions of ourselves.

I am not completely condemning the postmodern church worship, nor the postmodern church message. But we need to have an understanding of where this has led us and what elements we now might be lacking in our churches due to current trends. We need to have a holistic view of God – God’s love and God’s wrath, God’s grace and God’s holiness, God’s immanence and God’s transcendence. They are all equally important. In an effort to be “culturally relative”, we cannot water down the Gospel by only putting forth the elements of God that will be most appealing to the outside world. It is critical that we present a holistic view of God. Otherwise, we are being less than truthful in our evangelism for the sake of merely gaining converts.