The Church and the Relentless Darkness

Henderson

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781621895237
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In a period of tumultuous transition for the church as it moves out of the Christendom era and into the unknowns of the post-Christian era, it is strange that so little has been written about the church's calling out of the dominion of darkness (Satan) and into the kingdom of Light (or, God's dear Son). The very word ecclesia speaks of a people called out. In the New Testament the theme of spiritual warfare is ubiquitous, and yet is relegated to the margins in our present cultural whitewater. In The Church and the Relentless Darkness, Robert Henderson approaches the topic of spiritual warfare directly, and focuses on its manifestation in local Christian communities. Using the Letter to the Ephesian Christians as his base, Henderson portrays the relentless darkness that comes with all satanic subtlety on unsuspecting communities, but he brings with this a message of hope and encouraging disciplines.

Part 1

When the Church Inhabits the Darkness, and the Darkness Inhabits the Church . . . What Then?

1

Conversation at the Trackside Tavern

“Okay, Bob, here’s my cut-to-the-chase question: Can Satan, can the gates of hell, actually prevail against the church after all?

“All right, let me finish. I know that Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church . . . but is it just possible that Satan can so hoodwink a particular church community, can so blind its participants, that it can just cruise along doing ‘churchy’ stuff and not even see or understand what the church is all about . . . or even especially care what its God-given mission is?

“Or maybe another question: Do you think that some pernicious, supernatural personality could so take captive the very imagination of the church’s inhabitants, so that those folk wouldn’t have any capacity to even imagine anything other than the pleasant church traditions that they were presently, and quite happily, experiencing?

“Or worse . . . wouldn’t even care?

“I mean, hey! The folks in my North Park Church can go on mission trips to Nicaragua . . . while at the same time being totally oblivious to the sojourners next door, or the Hindu family down the street, or the compelling justice issues on the doorstep—or relate any of that to what goes on in their so-called worship services.

Something doesn’t fit. Is it all some kind of a subtle counterfeit that is so pervasive and profound that it all seems normal . . . like, acceptable church life to most?

“Bottom line: Do you think Satan and the gates of hell are real, and if they are, are they even the least bit intimidated by our North Park Church?

“Is that enough for starts?”

* * *

Alan and I had been in an ongoing conversation about his (and our) struggle with the whole concept of the church since shortly after he had come to faith in Christ some five or six years previous to this conversation. His cynicism about it all was so healthy and provocative. He and I had spent months working on the essence (or the why?) of the church as we explored scriptures on the concept. He initially wanted to know if North Park Church was an authentic Christian scene, and should he take seriously the pastor’s ‘full-court press’ on him to join the congregation. We worked out some signs of authenticity, and I had persuaded Alan that there was probably enough authenticity in North Park for him to take the plunge.

So he did.

* * *

It was a warm October afternoon, and the maples were a blaze of bright yellow around the patio of the Trackside Tavern where Alan and I had landed. The two of us had been on an odyssey together for six years or so. His was a quintessentially probing and mildly cynical but also positively pragmatic mind, so typical of his twenty-something generation (though he was now in his early thirties). When we had first met (almost by accident, in a coffee shop) he was a graduate student in bioengineering, blond, ponytailed, and bespectacled. The two of us had bonded immediately—whatever constitutes that chemistry between persons. I was by then a septuagenarian, formed by a whole other culture. But I had a long career as a pastor-teacher-author in the church, and had been around the block in the church scene, and it was that which provoked his initial questions to me about the place of the church in his newfound faith, and about its authenticity.

I had always loved his relentless, insightful, and probing questions. We had spent many, many hours working on the purpose of the church in the mission of God in all kinds of venues. He had pushed me to get honest about a whole lot of the mindless acceptance of so much of the Christian church scene, things to which I had hardly ever given a thought.

Now, Alan was in his early thirties, looking a bit more mature and professional. By this time he was also one of the founders of a consortium of bioengineers engaged in research that is beyond my capacity to even remotely understand. At the same time he had plunged into North Park Church with a vengeance, and had been recruited to do some teaching and to lead some discussion groups (I’m not sure that the folk at North Park knew what they were getting themselves into!). It was from those experiences that he had texted me, out of the blue, and asked me if we could meet and pick up our conversation, which conversation had been on hold for at least six or eight months.

So here we were. We spent a little time reconnecting and filling each other in on what had been going on in our lives since our last time together. But as soon as our server had delivered us a couple of pints of Guinness, he wanted to get to the above questions.

* * *

I had to chuckle a bit. “Yeah, I think that’s enough. I’m not the least surprised at your questions. I’ve been the victim of your questions often enough. I think I would have been disappointed if you had something bland and simple to ask me.

“So, what’s behind these? Sounds like you’ve got some kind of a bone stuck in your teeth. Fill me in.”

“No, you’re not going to get off that easy. Can the gates of hell (whatever they are) prevail against the church? Or maybe, do you really believe that there is a Satan who is relentless in his attempts to emasculate the church and render it impotent in the mission of God?

“Or, maybe: Can the church itself really be a mission field?”

I responded, “My immediate abbreviated answer is: yes, no, sometimes, or maybe . . . but ultimately, no! The gates of hell will not—cannot—ultimately prevail, yet at the same time, some expressions of that church will in fact go dormant, or forsake the battle, or drift away, or forget the message, or revert to conformity to the world, or redefine themselves into merely human religious institutions . . . but the gates of hell are not going to ultimately prevail.

“And, yes, some church communities are most definitely mission fields themselves . . . but carry on and tell me what’s provoking all of this.”

“Bob, where does the drag come from inside the church—the unconscious drift away from kingdom authenticity? What’s behind the scenes that, somehow, seems to be a neutering influence, some negating presence, some sophisticated something that reduces and redefines it all into some kind of comfortable religion, or spirituality. It is so pervasive and profound that it all seems quite normal.

“I mean, just stop and look at it: with North Park Church we get all the traditional church stuff, like liturgical seasons. We get what are called ‘worship services’—great performances, admittedly . . . but with no real passion for Christ, or the gospel, and certainly no transformational encounter with a holy God—just music and nice, listenable sermons, with no particular expectation. You know, all the expected traditions of most typical church institutions. And we all sit there as passive recipients.

“Then, we have a continual array of ever-changing church activities being promoted to keep the folk engaged in the institution . . . and, activities that, in themselves, are quite commendable. But nothing connects. It’s all sort of a grab bag of in-house churchy programs. And . . . we’re supposed to accept all this uncritically, even mindlessly, what with all of these things that come down from on high (wherever that is) as though they were important to our Christian welfare. I mean, come on Bob, this kind of safe, predictable religious stuff can’t be what we are called to be witnesses to . . . can’t be the content and essence of the mission of God, can it?

“Deliver me!

“Sound familiar?

“To me, any clear sense of gospel, of purpose, of transformational discipleship, of mission is so obfuscated that my kingdom calling all becomes fuzzy, what with all of these expected church pieces that, to me, have no discernable importance, or relatedness to my 24/7 focus on the people I live and work with—not to mention the complex political and social culture I live in.

“The image I get of the church at our North Park is some kind of (what I call) ‘Thomas Kinkaid ecclesiology’ . . . you know? Bucolic, soft light, sort of a romanticized view of life without conflict, and hardly related to my life. And certainly with no reference to any calling to a spiritual warfare! So, what’s going on? Am I expecting too much? Or is it just my perfectionist personality getting pissed by my frustration with the pervasive indifference to all these things that seem like such a contradiction to me?

“Or is something darker at work?

“Make sense? Got the question? Is the question out of bounds?”

I took a couple of sips on my drink to give me time to digest what he was asking.

“Alan, it’s a fascinating set of questions and well worth exploring if you want to go there. But first, let me ask you a question: When you speak of North Park Church, whom are you talking about? I mean: we’re talking about real people who are our friends. Who are these church folk? What’s their story? How do you think they imagine the church? What do you think this collection of persons thought they were ‘joining’ when they joined North Park?

“What did you think you were joining? Even after you and I spent many months processing the essence of the authentic church, you were still entering into a whole composite of unknowns. Do you think it occurred to all these familiar friends of ours in North Park that God’s design for the church was that it is to be a supernatural community?

“I probably need to remind you (as I have to frequently remind myself) that most of these folk have never known anything else—their whole experience of church has been in some form such as they experience with North Park. This may even be true of the pastoral staff. They have no other image. That’s going to be a critical factor in answering the questions you are raising.

“My point is just this: I don’t want us to get too far out into a critique of churches such as North Park, and forget that we’re dealing with real people who are the objects of God’s love. Oh, as far back as the first-generation Christian communities there were, evidently, those who had no ‘ears to hear’ what the Spirit was saying to the churches (Rev 2:17ff.). Yet these are the sincere, real, and without-a-clue folk who find refuge in Christian communities for whatever reason. Okay?

“But, back to your question: I guess I don’t need to remind you that there could be some uncomfortable consequences of probing into the source of whatever darkness may be an influential and clandestine force in creating the ‘drag’ you ask about. If the church were only designed to be a ...