An Anglican Perspective
Get ready to be made slightly uncomfortable, and more than a little concerned. A recent study (Barna research as reported by Christianity Today) has shown that something like 1/3 of all Churchgoers have stopped attending church, even online, since Covid started. Part of that number is composed of half of all millennials. Think about that...one THIRD of all churchgoers do not plan on returning to church, and half of an entire generation of Christians have, on a practical and symbolic level, walked away from The Faith. These are frightening and scary numbers!!! Some of you may be thinking, “Good, let the tares leave on their own! The Church may be smaller but it will be stronger and livelier!” And, there’s some truth to that. The other group of you may be thinking, “No!!! We must find a way to stop this from happening!” And you are also right. Like all things Anglican, we should hold to the via media between these two extremes. If the tares and the anti-Christs are leaving the Church then that is, indeed, good. But, if they are leaving then we must fight to make sure they bring no Christians who are weaker in the Faith with them; and, we must convince as many of them of the Gospel to prevent them from leaving. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
However, this article is not about how we are to prevent them from leaving. That is a task far too large for one young man to figure out. Instead, this article is going to address an underlying concern associated with their leaving; to name the root causes of why. They may best be summed up in two words: Gnosticism and Modernism. These are the two greatest heresies of all time, one ancient and the other new. The reason for so many leaving worship, leaving the Church, is because our culture, especially in the Church, has fallen prey to the joint forces of these heresies; if not in belief then in practical action. First, let me define what I mean by Modernism and Gnosticism. Modernism is a heresy which teaches, at its core, that there is no Divine Mediation into Creation. It does not necessarily deny that God exists but, rather, it denies that God interacts in any meaningful way with Creation. It is called Modernism because it rejects Tradition, as Tradition is the translation of the Eternal Mind and Pleasures of God into the here and now. Gnosticism is an ancient heresy which is the equal-opposite of Modernism. It teaches that there is, or at least should be, only mediation and that the physical world is evil and unnecessary to human spiritual enlightenment. Christianity rejects both of these and holds in tension both mediation and physicality; and we call that The Incarnation.
In The Incarnation of God in Jesus we see Divine Mediation not just in Creation but through Creation. As such, we serve an Incarnational God and therefore must be an Incarnational People. If God wanted, He could have just boomed a voice from Heaven saying, “You are all forgiven now if only you repent and believe!” But He didn’t; that would have been Gnostic. If God wanted, He could have left us to our own devices, to try to struggle to attain some broken, human form of “eternal life” through perverse technology. But He didn’t; that would have been Modernism. Instead, He chose to come down and personally mediate, through His Own Flesh, Our Salvation. For He Is, “...a God near at hand and not afar off.” (Jer. 23:23 paraphrased). Why does this matter? How does this all connect?
During the time of Covid, many people are leaving The Church for at least one of two reasons (and in some cases paradoxically both!): 1) They think online worship is sufficient and able to connect them to God and have a adopted a self-centered, “me and Jesus,” approach to worship (this is Gnosticism) or 2) They do not see how Church, and more importantly God, has affected and does affect their daily lives significantly (Modernism aka practical atheism). The root core for both of these is this: They do not believe that an Incarnational, Sacramental form of worship is necessary to their lives. Covid has convinced some that all they need is personal devotion at the least, and at the most a screen. It has made others question why they ever needed Church at all. And ultimately, we as the Church are at fault. We have failed to encourage people to return (and, perhaps in our Covid slothfulness, have had no zeal to encourage them or ourselves to do so!), and we have failed to show them the necessity of returning. We have failed to show them how necessary and impactful the Incarnation of the Body of Christ is in the gathering and fellowship of the Church, in the communion we share of life together, and most importantly in The Communion we share in The Incarnation experienced and received at the Holy Eucharist. Perhaps we have failed because we ourselves do not truly believe, recognize, nor appreciate what happens at the Liturgy: Heavenly Participation. Perhaps, without knowing, some of us are practical heretics. I encourage you, dear reader, to stop right now what you are doing and go watch a YouTube short film called “The Veil Removed.” It is made by Roman Catholics but generally aligns with our worship to remind yourself of what REALLY happens at the Mass, and why it is so necessary.
#Covid #Covid19 #Covidvirus #Corona #Coronavirus #heresy #heretics #haeresis #christian #christianity #church #jesus #jesuschrist #christ
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