that when we speak of the church we should be ana lyzing cell groups and cottage prayer meetings here and there. Probably we are nearest the truth when we say that it is not one of these causes but many. At any rate, we are on the right track when we say that the greatest threat to the world cannot be the world broken before itself, but the church broken before the world. Ironically enough, our western culture has been most influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Phari sees raised perfection to a cult, and Jesus stated that true righteousness had to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees. Our distorted culture makes a fetish of such idols as perfection of beauty and talent, and it worships status, superiority of pres tige and the’ lofty heights of money-power. When the church adapts to a righteous-coated paganism, the line between church and world becomes increasingly hazy. In the church now, superiority of moral perfection, beauty, talent, brains and an urbane personality are raised to a sanctified position of reverence where the neurotic personality is emulated, not treated; he is given praise instead of therapy. Out of this grows fur ther disease, so that while numerous members mimic the world at its own game, some find the unhealthy cli mate conducive to the expression of their full-blown neurotic peronality structure. Several such persons succeed in toiling endlessly to gain control of the pro gram, methods and policies of the church. Whole churches can be as' ill as any one individual. Any de nominational executive can recount the number of churches that are near splitting, or are almost immo bile, or have cliques strongly desirous of pushing the minister out. Whatever he professes, the neurotic personality has no creed except the self-imposed, defensive and im possible standards of his own unconscious mind. Par tially, these are introjections of the beliefs and stand ards of his church. Partially, they are distortions of them into the fabric of his own glorified image of him self. Partially, he may react against basic tenets of his church while outwardly adhering to them for self-ac ceptance. In some cases the strict fundamentalism of his church may act as a disguise for his personal re nunciation of the competing world which was too much for him to cope with behind the facade, of his own intol erable demands. Each case must be considered sep arately. The neurotic may have sufficient knowledge of himself to be in vital healing touch with the Holy Spirit. Or he may not. The task of psychotherapy is to work with the Holy Spirit in reconciling the person with his true and spontaneous being so that he may with full and healthy awareness open his heart and mind to the creative will of God. Once a church can be ascertained as a sick body, it lives on borrowed time. While it is becoming sick, congregational affairs may appear to run smoothly. Today the priesthood of believers has come to be understood as a theological term for religious democ racy. Since the sixteenth century one of the Protes tantism’s major pitfalls—and it may prove to be its greatest—has been the determination of the middle class that their religious life, supported by their purse, will be self-reflecting and self-controlled. Left to its own tendencies, the local church—without the control ling authority of the Holy Spirit through the Word honored by deeply consecrated lay and clerical leader ship—tends to become ingrown, provincial, and imita tive of the economic and cultural prestige-strata of the prevailing community. When this occurs, far from en gaging in conflict with the spirit o f the world, the
church struggles to outdo it in mimicking its neu rotic patterns of security. The result is that the task of the clergy changes radically.' 'No longer is the pas tor the channel for the Word in preaching, teaching, guidance, challenge and comfort. Is the minister to stand by as glorified church man ager while the children of God work out their own sal vation through a wild flurry of noisy organizational activism? Is he to direct the many affairs of the con gregation through committees in such a way that he gets in a good word for God now and then? Is he to be a coach with a fatherly hand for the players? Is he to leave the direction of the clubs and societies to the laymen while he concentrates on counseling and study ing for his sermons? Is he to abandon any hope of redeeming the noise and confusion while he prayer fully cultivates small groups and early morning meet ings? A good deal of thought is going into the analysis of the nature of the ministry according to the de mands of the Bible and the requirements of our mod ern tempo. There are, to be sure, countless Protestant pastors— though it is our belief their number is decreasing— who are submissive to the full impact of God’s Holy Word, and are trenchantly equipping the saints for the work of the ministry while slowly abandoning the grinding gears of organization which glorify the tal ents, education and secular initiative of the middle class. Every shepherd knows that his may be a calling that leads to tears and persecution, and the cross he bears for God’s people is the cross of His Master. But there is something dreadfully and radically wrong with Prot estantism when the pastor is chained to a sick church. All the while he seeks to appease the forces of neu- roticism through the attitude of submissiveness and the ministrations of love, he somehow senses that he is only sinking deeper into the mire. The modern pastor leaps at signs of personal vic tory here and there among his people, and lives as best he can with his conscience while he evaluates the flur ries of aimless energy in the congregation as a whole. He is sure that only the power and love of the Holy Spirit enable hiip, to rise above the futility of unceas ing activism that goes under the name of religion, while he seeks to lead precious souls into new fields of excit ing endeavor for Christ. His enemy before the world is conformity. In the Church it is also defeatism. It is neither sincere nor realistic to ignore the spir itual condition of Protestantism, and the many sick churches it has fathered, by giving pious-sounding and irrelevant advice to burdened ministers. Such an atti tude is no service to our Lord. Of course pastors are required to rely patiently, not on their own efforts, but on the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. When was that not true for any lasting accomplishment in the name of God? Now and then ministers write to religious psychiatrists or counseling experts, and deep understanding and spiritual counsel are provided. At other times, a nebulous mixture of psychology and re ligion is offered up in labored sentences, sufficiently expert-sounding to cause guilt in the reader, but not clear or practical enough to be useful. Our need is clear. It is to come to grips with the spiritual condition. Then we must be realistic about the dynamics of the neurotic church. A clear diagnosis must precede therapy by the Holy Spirit at a time when the church must minister with full efficiency and power to a world desperately in need of God. From “Neurotics in the Church,” published by Flem ing H. Revell Co.
MAY, 1964
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