St Peter would weep at Church today

There is a lovely story in a devotional booklet called Our Daily Bread about a convert to Christianity who was so perplexed by what she saw in Christians that she told a friend she wanted to read a book on Church history.

When the friend asked why, the new Christian responded: “I’m curious. I’ve been wondering when Christians started to become so unlike Christ.”

The story may sound like a joke, but in reality it is a disturbing story.

It is disturbing for at least two reasons. First, the generality of Christians of our time do not even realise that there is a serious malady—that Christians are not what they are supposed to be.

Secondly, because we are not what we should be, we are no longer clear about the mission and purpose of the Church in the world.

Indeed, I can go so far as to suggest that if the apostles Peter and Paul were to come back to compare the kind of Church they helped to build and the Church of our time, they would be so surprised they would shed tears to see what we have become compared to their vision of the Christian community.

Some readers might think I am fussing about nothing when, like the new Christian in the story above, I suggest that Christians have lost it and are not what they should be.

But Paul would certainly be alarmed to see self-confessed practising gay bishops in some churches and to see Christian men who are married to men and women married to women. Peter would open his eyes in disbelief to see the rapid development of churches whose pastors openly proclaim that you become wealthy by becoming a Christian.

An American pastor called Robert Tilton has gone so far as to despise Jerusalem as a dusty place in which to follow Jesus. He would rather find the Lord in a beautiful place like Hawaii. He is quoted as saying: “If I’m going to go to the cross, I’m going to go in a pretty place. Not some dusty place like Jerusalem.” And yet Jesus was born in a stable!

The likely response to the examples I have cited so far is that these are problems of minority groups and do not reflect the teaching of the majority of mainline churches. Let me therefore turn to other aspects of Christianity which we readily accept but would shock faithful members of the early Christian church.

Take, for example, the extent to which Christians have been divided since the great schism of 1054. To Paul our divisions would be tantamount to Christ himself being divided.

And one wonders how Jesus himself views these divisions. If there is anything for which Jesus prayed with passion, it was the unity of his followers. In the prayer (Jn 17) Jesus suggests that without Christian unity the world will not believe that God sent him.

Despite this, many Christians seem to believe that unity is “a nice to have”, but not an essential feature of Christian witness. Thanks to the World Council of Churches and Vatican II, ecumenism is gathering some momentum.

There are many other characteristics of the Christians of today that must be making believers from the apostolic times turn in their graves, but let me end by citing this one: Unlike the early Christians, we have no visible identity as followers of Christ.

Our only significant distinguishing feature is that we go to church on Sunday, but what is that? Muslims go to the mosque on Friday; so how different are we?

We are just as corrupt and worldly as other people. Our values are not distinguishable from the values of the world; those in positions of influence practise the leadership of domination contrary to what Jesus taught about leadership. We even have Christian political parties, but one struggles to see any difference between such parties and those like the African National Congress, Cope or the Democratic Alliance.

Small wonder many people, some young Christians included, now believe that every religion is as good as any other!

The followers of Jesus have little, if anything, to show that they are “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”. So, where did things begin to go wrong? Has Christ failed us or have we failed Christ?