{"id":15894,"date":"2021-03-04T18:38:52","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T00:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=15894"},"modified":"2021-03-19T06:57:56","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T12:57:56","slug":"in-defense-of-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/03\/04\/in-defense-of-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"In defense of the church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Written by Cassidy Waldron.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Church is a hot topic of conversation lately. Unfortunately, it seems to mostly be reasons to quit going. Because it doesn\u2019t fit one\u2019s ideal vision of what Jesus intended, some claim the solution is to turn away from the church altogether \u2014 to reject the community as a whole. People want to relegate church, arguing that having a personal relationship with God and loving others is enough to be an active member of the kingdom of God.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scripture is clear that the church is an essential aspect of our faith. The church is described as the body of Christ, Christ\u2019s bride, God\u2019s temple and bought with Christ\u2019s blood. The church is our given, intended community of believers within which we bring glory to God and his kingdom. One common argument is that the church is an imperfect collection of sinners and is therefore inherently imperfect (and can be rejected). But that\u2019s not how the Bible refers to believers. In all of Paul\u2019s letters, he never once begins with, \u201cHello there, sinners.\u201d Rather, he addresses them as \u201choly people,\u201d despite the issues they wrestled with. Members of the church do sin \u2014 but it is not our identity. Calling the church a group of&nbsp; \u201csinners\u201d puts it on the wrong side of the cross.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should always seek to improve our community wherever we see its flaws. However, we should not turn away from the church just because things are difficult. There might be situations in which leaving a particular congregation is necessary, but abandoning church forever is not. Silence and complacency are rarely, if ever, the solution. Instead, let\u2019s pour into our local church what is missing from it. We are not entitled to abandon it when the cracks show; it\u2019s our responsibility to see them, mend them and move forward. We simply can\u2019t say we love Christ and hate his body. You cannot look at your spouse and say you dearly love their head but will not love their body. You cannot claim to accept Christ and reject his bride. You can\u2019t have a healthy relationship with Jesus and refuse to go to church.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not about you. It\u2019s not about me, either (thank goodness for that). That is why the gospel is \u201cgood news.\u201d It\u2019s a relief \u2014 the pressure is off. Jesus makes up for our shortcomings. But we still tend to make things about ourselves. We turn God into our own personal version \u2014 one who is particularly judgmental about the things we hate and curiously merciful toward the things we\u2019re guilty of. We do the same thing with the church. We don\u2019t like the singing, the sermon, the class or the time, so we make it about us. But we are not the ultimate judges of righteousness. What we need is more humility, not self-righteous outrage.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not here to say who\u2019s getting saved and who\u2019s not. All I know is that scripture is clear that attending, participating in and promoting the church are all integral parts of being a faithful Christian. We cannot have one without the other. It\u2019s not that I think I know what\u2019s best \u2014 it\u2019s just what the Bible says. It\u2019s not about you or me. It\u2019s not about what \u201cfeels right.\u201d It\u2019s not about what is socially acceptable. Modernity often compels us to reject tradition, but this is a threat to our faith. It\u2019s the enemy\u2019s clever, shiny veil to obscure his efforts to keep us from salvation \u2014 which is only through Jesus Christ and his bride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Cassidy Waldron. Church is a hot topic of conversation lately. Unfortunately, it seems to mostly be reasons to quit going. Because it doesn\u2019t fit one\u2019s ideal vision of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":15916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15895,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15894\/revisions\/15895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}