Christendom Killed Community

I’ve been writing about problematic aspects of Christendom. The third significant facet I want to address is how the church under Constantinianism destroyed the idea of the church as a community. But what do I mean when I say community, at least as a crucial aspect of a church? Another term I’ll use, which gets at this idea, is extended family. 

In an extended family, there are people you can rely on and confide in. People you enjoy hanging out with and working together. You may not be close with every person in a community, but you know who most people are, and most people are at least familiar with you. 

While no exact number defines a community or an extended family, we would hardly call three people a community. Especially within a church context, for a church to reach and serve its neighbourhood, it needs to be larger than that.

On the other extreme, a video of a well known mega-church pastor scolding church members of his congregation for showing up late and leaving early went viral earlier this month. In one of his quotes, he said, 

“It’s not that I’m mad that you’re missing part of the service. It’s that you treat church like it’s a religious show instead of a welcoming family that you’re a part of”.

There are 10,000 people in this church, spread over 12 different campus locations. While there may be opportunities to be part of a community within that congregation, in no way should what happens in a congregation of that size, on a Sunday, in any way be considered a community or an extended family.

People treat a service like that as a religious show because that is precisely what it is.

Two passages in the Book of Acts help illustrate what I mean when I use the word community. 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42- 47

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Acts 4:32-35

Now, we live at a different time and in a different culture. In no way do I advocate simply doing what the early church did. We always need to do the work of contextualising what it means to be Jesus followers where we live.

At the same time, I think it would be wrong to write off how the early church functioned as just a remnant of a simpler time.  

What community looks like will vary from place to place. But it is stating the obvious to say this brief overview of community in Acts does not resemble what most of us experience within our churches.

One of the most destructive impacts of Christendom is that it changed the church from a grassroots community into a hierarchical organisation featuring a central weekly religious show where professionals perform, while the vast majority of people became passive. They are told when to stand, sit, give, sing, show up and leave, but most are never formed into any type of community. Most Christians don’t even have the imagination to consider what it would mean to be part of an extended family like the one referenced in Acts, let alone have any experience of it.

Starting with a campus ministry I was part of in Fredonia, NY, back in the 80s, there have been those times when I’ve experienced a degree of community that changed me forever. A taste of something that made it so I could never be content with just “going to church”, whether I was a pastor or not.

Over the next few posts, I’ll share a bit more about my experience of community, and we’ll dig into how the church got to the place it is and, finally, some ways forward.

Photo by Nainoa Shizuru on Unsplash