Repairing the Church’s Reputation-Or Not

So I was reading a blog post this morning on a blog I just discovered thanks to a friend. I had some mixed feelings about where the guy was going with his thoughts, but in particular I found his opening remarks very insightful. Here’s a snippet:

“Have you noticed all the Christians apologizing for the church? I have.  It’s kind of the thing to do.  We assume everyone out there has been hurt, wronged, isolated, burned or ostracized by the church.  It’s almost the battle cry of my generation. ‘We’ve been emotionally wounded by the church!’ Ever since Donald Miller made it popular, some Christians just can’t resist telling everyone what jerks we’ve all been.”

I’ve been guilty of falling into this snare, especially when talking with non-believers about the church and my history with it.  Not that I particularly enjoy bashing the church, but because I want to make clear to these folks that as a Christian I am aware of how many things we do in the name of “church” that are highly un-Christlike. The term “Christian” has become such a loaded term that I don’t want to be shut down and labeled before I ever get the chance to show the love of Christ to someone.  (Kind of ironic that we sometimes feel we have to fight the stereotypes of Christianity in order to do the work Christ commissioned us to do.)

So yeah, I’ve told on the church. Frequently, in fact.  I haven’t gone around to every non-believer I know and said, “I’m really sorry for all the crap my people have done,” but I sort of carry that idea around with me.  Understandable, I suppose.

And yet, as my new blogger friend sort of points out, there’s something just slightly askew about this mentality. I think this is true for a couple of reasons:

1. The list of things we could apologize for is so friggin’ long, we could get completely bogged down with it. Even the people who have been hurt would get tired of hearing about it…

…and even more significantly…

2. Having a constant apology mentality about the church puts us in a perpetual defensive stance.

What I mean is this: While there are definitely significant things to apologize for, and while there’s an appropriate time and place to do it, there is a difference between offering a heartfelt apology and being constantly apologetic for the church. I think we fall into this perhaps because we feel a bit guilty by association, and that somehow we feel responsible to repair the church’s reputation over the wrongs that have been done over the years. (I know I’ve carried this burden.) And so we compensate by either apologizing constantly for the church, or trying to distance ourselves from it. (That’s one huge reason why a lot of believers don’t like to call themselves Christians anymore.)

But like anything else, I think we have to look to Jesus for our example. One thing I notice about God is that even though He is perfect and needs to apologize for nothing, He never seems in a hurry to repair His own tarnished reputation with people. He gets blamed for, and accused of, a whole lot of things that happen on this planet. He gets blamed all the time for how we Christians act. He gets such a bad reputation sometimes that I even feel like somehow I have to defend Him.

But He doesn’t defend Himself against the naysayers.  He just lets them say whatever they want, and think whatever they think about Him. (Drives me nuts sometimes, actually.) He might prove them wrong eventually, but He is not ever put on the defensive. Never.

Now, granted, God has done nothing wrong, and the church has done plenty.  He has no reason to apologize, and we do–and in many cases, we should. We don’t deserve ALL the negative publicity, but we certainly deserve some of it. That being said, there is also a danger that if all we focus on is damage control, we’ll spend all our time and energy in issuing apologies and trying to repair the church’s reputation, and never actually get around to the mission of Christ.

What I’m saying is that getting back on track is about more than just trying to repair the church’s reputation; it’s about ceasing to do wrong, and starting to do right. It’s about living out the difference where people can see it. The best damage control we can practice is to live our faith a better way.

It’s a slightly different scenario, but I see the same dynamic at work in the so-called “culture war.” There are still quite a lot of Christians (especially here in America) who have a dated approach to our role in the world, who see the church as the moral guardian for our culture, and who are fighting, rallying and campaigning (often quite angrily, and mainly on the political front) to put a stop to the deterioration of the moral fiber of our nation. The way I see it, this is counterproductive, because it is purely defensive. It’s a focus that is entirely bent on halting evil, rather than overcoming evil with good. If you want to talk about the culture war, I figure the church has pretty much already lost said war. At some point you have to regroup and try another tactic. (I think a good start would be to put down the picket signs and take up the cross. Just saying.)

Okay, maybe that’s a bit soap-boxy. Sorry about that. (Oops.) But you get the idea. It’s the same over-defensive stance.

My point (and perhaps I’ve already made the point several times) is that if we are always defending, we are never advancing. The Kingdom of God really needs no defending; our job is to advance it by letting it be demonstrated through us on this earth. We’ll actually make more of an impact by doing good to someone, showing love to someone in Christ’s name, than we will by just saying sorry for what we haven’t done. Does that make sense?

Here’s another thing to consider: if the church were doing everything right, the world would hate us. Yep; Jesus Himself said that the world would hate us, because it hated Him. Now, granted, in our current culture, the church has in many ways earned it’s bad rep. But if we turn around and do what is right, apparently we just get to be hated for the right reasons instead of the wrong ones.

Umm….so much for saving our reputation.

So perhaps this whole “damage control” thing is a bit ludicrous in and of itself. Seems like we could be expending our energy on more productive things.

So when an apology is in order–give it. But I think we need to move past the mentality that is always saying, “We’re sorry, world–please give us another chance.” We don’t need the world to “give” us another chance; every day we remain on this earth is another chance. It’s time to stop trying to defend the truth, and start living it.