Defund The Church

With the recent racial unrest sparked by the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, there have been calls to defund the police.

Additionally, Black Lives Matter has taken center stage as a vehicle for which people can show their support for racial reform.

While there is some merit and data for the idea of defunding the police, it still remains an imperfect solution.

Likewise, Black Lives Matter – as an organization, not the phrase – leaves something to be desired.

So you ask, ‘What is the answer’?

Truthfully, I don’t know for certain. However, I’d like to submit an idea that I feel has been revealed to me recently.

Defund the Church.

I believe the church has necessitated the imperfect responses of defunding the police and the formation of Black Lives Matter.

If the church truly embraced the role that it was given, many of today’s organizations (and ideas that are given as solutions to the world’s problems) would need not exist.

A great example of the church’s disconnect from modern society is akin to the notion of being a Christian versus being in the Kingdom of God.

This gets into a misunderstanding of the mission of Jesus. Many Christians believe in Jesus Christ, but lack the understanding of what His true purpose was. Followers of the Christian Faith will tell you Jesus died for their sins so they could have eternal life in heaven.

That is 100% correct.

The problem is that’s not all He did, nor was it His most important act. Before Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden there was no need for death. Man’s role was to transform (or colonize) Earth, the visible world, to have the same attributes as Heaven (the invisible world).

In essence, man had no need to go to Heaven. Before sin, man’s relationship with God was perfect and adjustment was unnecessary . Eden was the perfect place for man to exist.

Unfortunately, sin corrupts the body in such a way that makes it unable to house the Holy Spirit (which allows man to carry out the will of God on earth). Fast forward to Jesus and His dual role of salvation and restoration.

The role to provide salvation to save our spirit from eternal damnation is particularly well known. The role of restoration (lesser known and understood) is to restore our physical form – enabling it to house the Holy Spirit and do all works that God ordained before man fell into sin.

Now back to defunding the church.

Most churches in the country today (black, white, etc.) suffer from the same problem full time politicians do. No matter how genuine a politician is as a person (or sincere a message they have), the elephant in the room is getting re-elected. Politicians who lose elections aren’t politicians.

Churches face a similar problem. These buildings of worship have rent that is due and bills to be paid.  The modern church is designed with the idea of creating a comfortable performance venue so people will join and contribute financially. That is not to say God’s word is tainted in churches that take tithes and offerings.  However, with rent looming there is external (and internal) pressure to present a product that keeps people in attendance and the collection plate full.

Now that we’ve laid out the problem let’s explore how the church could be integrated into the community to provide a more positive impact.

For many individuals of faith the church building is considered holy. There is an ideology the four walls of the church can withstand the evil that lives in the outside world. While these ideas are not inherently wrong, I submit to you a different perspective.

The church has become so ‘sacred’ that those who need it most don’t feel worthy of entering. That is a problem that we must solve by integrating ourselves into the community.

Instead of people having to go to a church for Godly counsel they should be able to find it anywhere in their every day life. We should be the church in community centers, social services, law offices, and even abortion clinics.

If your heart just skipped a beat when I mentioned abortion, that’s ok.

I believe abortion as a means of birth control is a sin, but so is committing adultery and watching pornography. No one sin is greater before Christ.

One question to ask yourself: When a woman gets pregnant unexpectedly, why is her first instinct not to go to the church? Wouldn’t it be wonderful for someone in an abortion clinic to not only provide Godly counsel to a young woman keeping her baby from being potentially aborted, but also instruction on how to be a mother and raise the child she is carrying?

What about someone struggling with their sexual identity? We have to be in better position to offer Godly counsel that amounts to more than ‘praying the gay away’.

Godly counsel has to be available outside of the church even for those who may not be seeking it. How else will the whole world be transformed?

We don’t need bigger buildings, we need a larger platform.

We can’t blame the organizations and ideas that were born out of the void left by the Kingdom of God. We’ve kept the perfect solutions to ourselves and ridiculed those who were willing to meet a need but produced less than desirable results.

Our current president has understandably been criticized for building a wall to prevent immigrants from coming into the country. This action is far from inclusionary and is regarded by many as downright hostile.

How is the aura we’ve built around the church any different?

We need to Defund the Church and integrate with our communities.

Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. On earth as it is in Heaven.