Cheating on your church

Sometime ago I began developing an idea for a UM Reporter column on church membership. I moved that idea off the backburner after reading this blog post by Amy Forbus on the Methoblog. Frankly, the understanding of United Methodist church membership is about as shallow as our ecclesiology in general. But it is also an issue with which many people can relate, and because of that, engaging it might be a helpful in getting Methodist folks to think more broadly about the doctrine of the church.

The central problem with the idea of church membership in a society of 10,000 denominations is that it inevitably takes on the characteristics of what social scientists call a 'voluntary association.' Like a civic club in many respects, people join churches today with few requirements and little expectation. You get out of it what you put into it, so to speak, and no one is going to bother you too much if you just get your name put on the rolls for social reasons. When the 'voluntary association' mentality is combined with a market economy where all like 'products' compete for 'customers,' it means that churches will tend toward treating their evangelism as a form of marketing veiled in religious language. And that only waters down the understanding of what commitment to the church through membership means even further.

This is true of American church membership in general, but of course United Methodist church membership is a leading example of this norm. Our anemic understanding of membership is ironic in many ways, particularly with respect to the language of current membership vows in the United Methodist Hymnal. In our Hymnal, the pledges of membership we take to both universal church and local congregation are true vows spoken in a public setting. The fact that people then feel free to disregard them in such a cavalier fashion is remarkable.

There are some legitimate reasons to leave a church once you join as a member, as I argue in my current Reporter column. But they are few in number. And most reasons people leave amount to nothing more than ecclesial adultery. When you promise fidelity to both Jesus and a congregation of his disciples and then break that promise over matters as simple as boredom with worship or frustration with a committee, you are running out on the bride of Christ. It's cheating on your church, folks.

I can tell you that my comments on Amy's blog post and my Reporter column have generated quite a few frustrated comments and e-mails. The response is always, "Yes, but..." As in, "Yes, but you don't understand that in my case, it was justified." And like I said, there are a few justifiable cases. But not many.

There is, of course, an underlying reason why people instinctively think that seeking out a church that meets all their felt needs is a God-given right. And it has to do with consumerism and the aforementioned market economy. Most Americans simply cannot conceive of the idea of not being able to choose their church the way they do their cell phone plan or where they'll get tonight's take-out. But think about what that mindset does to the Bride of Christ: it turns her into a cheap prostitute, who peddles her wares on street corners in the hopes that you'll condescend to choose her over all her similarly cheap competitors.

If you want to do something truly radical for Jesus (and 'radical' is a relative term in our historically weak era), commit to his bride the way you did to your own bride or groom on your wedding day. Stay with her through thick and thin. Help your fellow brothers and sisters there to grow in discipleship. And whenever you get mad at some perceived slight in your church, realize that you are committed to that community in such a way that you are called to reconciliation rather than self-chosen alienation.