The Disappearing Church
Source: Skye Jethani
A pair of architects in Belgium have created an unusual structure-a see-through church. It’s not a functional building, but rather a piece of public art that stands ten meters high. The design consists of 100 stacked layers and 2000 columns of steel plates. From some angles it looks like a traditional church with a steeple. But change your location and the solid walls become so thin they disappear in the sunlight.
Take a look at more photos here.
The architects said they were motivated by the growing number of abandoned churches in Belgium, and the declining role of religion in the highly secularized country. They have titled their structure “Reading Between the Lines” because it “extends this idea of transparency onto the church and equally onto the observer who must learn to read between the lines even among things that are seemingly transparent. Just because you can see something doesn’t make it real, neither does something not exist because it can’t be seen.”
Images of the structure reminded how dependent we are upon our particular point of view. To some the church can appear to be a solid, reliable, and holy institution empowered by God and fueled by his presence. Others, looking from a very different vantage point see a hollow, even hypocritical institution lacking substance or credibility.
We must also recognize that God’s point of view, the only one that ultimately matters, is often completely different from our own. I’m thinking of Moses in Numbers chapter 20. The story records Moses’ response to the complaints of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. Lacking water the people were ready to revolt against him, but God instructed Moses to speak to a rock and it would yield water for the people.
For reasons beyond the scope of this post, Moses disobeys God and strikes the rock with his shepherd’s staff instead. Still a miracle occurs and water flows from the rock. Moses saves the day, the people survive, and the insurrection avoided. From any human point on view Moses was a successful, effective, God-empowered leader. But from God’s perspective things looked very different. Where the people saw a leader of substance, God saw nothing impressive.
For his disobedience Moses receives a heavy judgment. God forbids him from entering the Promised Land. The story illustrates that at times God performs a miracle in spite of his leaders, not because of them.
There is a real danger that we will asses ourselves, our leaders, our churches only from a severely limited human perspective. From our point of view things can look blessed and God-empowered. We may conclude that we/they are at the center of God’s will and grace. But shift a few degrees and a very different picture comes into focus. Like the see-through church in Belgium, the powerful, effective, and fruitful ministry may vanish into nothing.
Jesus offers a similar warning near the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
So, in the words of Paul, let’s be careful to “regard no one according to the flesh,” or merely look from a single, limited, human point of view. From that vantage point we can be deceived into seeing substance where none exists. Instead let’s seek to have the mind of Christ and discern from his point of view. If we do, we might be surprised by what we discover…and what disappears.
