Lose the Bathwater, Keep the Baby

Two things you should know about me:

1. I’m a student of human nature.
2. I have a tendency to see patterns.

These two things combined can get me in a lot of trouble sometimes, because sometimes they lead me to do the math when it would be better to let things ride and not draw conclusions. But at other times they help me have some insight, to make sense of things going on around me, and to know what, if anything, I can do about them.

And these two things also have a lot of influence on all the ruminating, philosophizing, and otherwise big-word-using I do on this blog…because thinking about stuff and then writing about it is one way I process things.

Anyhow…the past few years, and especially in beginning this blog last year, I have found myself within a loose-knit community/camaraderie of disenfranchised souls–people who either love God or are looking for Him, but are disillusioned with institutional forms of church, and the religion man has made out of Christianity. Admittedly for me, most of this community is online, simply because I don’t find too many people in my neck of the woods who feel this way. But there are lots of folks out there on a similar journey away from religion and toward a deeper, more real relationship with Jesus.

But the process is haphazard and messy. And as a natural part of that process, we tend to look back upon the things that we see wrong with institutional forms of church, shine the light on those things, and denounce them. Lots of times that kind of thing just gets interpreted as negativity, or being disgruntled; but the way I see it, before we can embrace a better way, we have to deal with what is wrong with the status quo. So while this shouldn’t be the last stop on the journey, it’s also one that shouldn’t necessarily be skipped. The critique needs to happen. We need to talk about the methods that don’t work, the abuses and corruption that goes on, etc.

At the same time…it’s pretty common for us humans that when we experience something bad or notice something wrong–especially when we get hurt–we tend to react by rejecting the entire situation or environment out of hand. We call this “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” because it’s basically overkill. In our desperation to distance ourselves from something that is truly toxic, we may also be tossing something of great value, something essential.

This isn’t a comprehensive list or anything, but I have compiled a few current examples where I’m seeing babies thrown out with the bathwater. In sharing these, I’m withholding specific opinions for the time being; but I bring them up to say that these are areas we need to keep thinking about and grappling with. Before we rashly toss the bathwater, we need to be willing to put our hands in there first and make sure there isn’t a baby somewhere in there that needs rescuing…

Ready? Here we go.

• Human leadership. So many of us have seen and heard so many examples of abusive, controlling leadership–or have been abused ourselves by such leaders–that we often come to the conclusion that humans simply cannot be trusted with authority. We look at the fact that Jesus is the Head of the church, and we decide that He is the only covering authority we have as the church. And there are many who even teach this, and give Scripture to back it up, and it sounds all true and right. And yes–Jesus is our Head, and we should never allow man to supplant that or come between us and our Head. I get that. However…what do we do with the multitude of other examples in the New Testament that suggest that there is such a thing as human leadership in the church? How do we deal with the fact that in Romans 12, Paul lists “he who rules” among the “differing gifts” we all have been given? How do we deal with the Biblical history that truly indicates that the church looked to people like Peter and Paul and the other apostles for guidance, or that these apostles sometimes harshly rebuked the churches as fathers rebuke children? I’m not saying the way we’ve done it is right…just saying I think there’s a baby in here somewhere. We’d have to ignore too many Scriptures to conclude that there is no such thing as human leadership at all within the Body of Christ.
• Tithing and giving. Admittedly, there have been so many abuses and excesses in this area, and so much manipulation, legalism and guilt invoked by church leaders in the area of tithes and offerings, it is completely understandable why so many are now sour to the very idea. With these wounds fresh on us, it comes to our attention (either by Bible teachers or by personal study) that tithing is barely mentioned in the New Testament, and we come to the conclusion that this is not a concept for today–that churches have been misusing this idea to coerce people into giving. However–regardless of your theological interpretation about the tithe (which I’m not tackling today)–what do we do with the fact that tithing as a concept was never officially done away with between Old and New Testaments, that none of the N.T. writers ever really addressed the topic directly? Or the fact that even though Paul made tents as a side job, he still said that “those who preach the gospel should gain their living from the gospel”–indicating that at some level, at least, there were still ministers whom the church was expected to support financially, and that it was a dishonor not to do so? Or that Jesus Himself affirmed the larger principle of sowing and reaping when He said, “Give, and it shall be given to you again?” Or that the New Testament consistently challenges us that generosity is a Christlike virtue, and to give accordingly? I’m not saying we’ve done this right. I’m just saying there may be a baby in here somewhere. Wherever we land on this issue, we need to practice generosity in accordance with Biblical conviction, not in reaction to what has been wrong in the church. And we must not–especially in these times–give ourselves permission not to be generous of heart.
• Spiritual gifts, manifestations, and miracles. I’ll be reviewing a book shortly here about this issue specifically, but the whole “post-charismatic” culture (of which I consider myself a part) has correctly critiqued the excesses and circus-like displays of the charismatic movement–the overemphasis and abuses of “personal prophecy”, being enamored with people over their gifts rather than inspecting their fruit–and all the accompanying “hoopla” of human emotion that has become part of the charismatic subculture. It’s very easy to want to distance ourselves from the whole scene, to categorize it all as fake, stage-show sensationalism–especially when its leaders fall. However…what do we do with the fact that signs, wonders, and miracles were considered a normal part of church life in the New Testament, or that Paul devoted a whole section of one of his epistles to bringing order to spiritual gifts (not shutting them down)? The church didn’t draw identity from these things, but rather simply lived with them as a natural outflow of worshiping a supernatural God…and the spiritual gifts and supernatural manifestations did play a huge part in the growth of the church. I’m not saying we’ve been doing this right; I’m just saying there’s probably a baby in here somewhere. We need to keep grappling with this issue to let God show us the right implementation of gifts, not simply whether or not they exist.

There are others, but I think you get the idea.

The point is, it just isn’t as easy as doing away with all the stuff where we see abuses. Most of the abuses and inconsistencies we’ve found in institutional Christianity began as an implementation of sound Biblical principles. So even though it takes more work, we need to be willing to sort through the stinky, toxic mess to recapture those sound principles, to extract the baby from the bathwater before throwing it out.

Paul put it very well, in one simple, profound sentence:
“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” (1 Thess. 5:21)