The tomb of God
German philosopher Fredric Nietzsche told a widely-quoted story about an insane man who sprinted into a marketplace and shouted, “Where is God? I seek God!”
Because many people in the crowd did not believe in God, the man caused a great deal of amusement. “Why? Is He lost?” asked one. “Has He strayed away like a child?” taunted another. In a hubbub, the people cried out, “Does He keep Himself hidden? Is He afraid of us? Has He taken a sea voyage? Has He emigrated?”
Instead of answers, Nietzsche’s mad man only found ridicule. So he left the market and went to the church. There also, they responded to his questions with perplexity and contempt.
Finally, the man in the parable answered his own question. “Where is God? I shall tell you. We have killed him, you and I. All of us are murderers… God is dead! Do we not hear the noise of the grave diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? How shall we console ourselves? Is not the magnitude of the deed too great for us?”
The man points to the churches as evidence. “What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?” The Gay Science (1882), section 126
What is the point of the parable? Is Nietzsche arguing that God has died? Not quite. The philosopher is saying that faith has died. We are no longer people of faith. And the death of the church is the evidence.
Sadly, this evidence can appear quite convincing. In much of the world today, the church is dead, and its skeletal structures litter the skylines of the world’s greatest cities. Small country churches are abandoned or orphaned. Many even suffer the indignity of being prostituted for another profit.
If you travel to the cradle of the church, Jerusalem, the number of Jesus-followers is appalling. If you travel to Germany and visit the towns of Luther and Calvin, you will find little but relics. If you travel to Oxford and Cambridge and London—the birthplaces of modern-day missions—the church’s pulse is barely above flatline.
Is Nietzsche right? Have churches become museums? Are seminaries little more than schools of spiritual anthropology describing a God that once was? Is the church dead?
Captivity
A number of years ago, I took my children to the zoo in Chicago. As soon as we walked through the turnstile, my son Gabe took my hand and pulled me toward the center of the zoo. He had one thing on his mind. Like any kindergartner, he could tell you that the elephant is the world’s largest land animal. And Gabe couldn’t wait to see one.
When we arrived, the sight was heartbreaking. The magnificent animals were living in concrete pits. There was no vegetation. Plain gray walls rose on three sides. Dirty hay lay scattered across the ground.
We looked into the pits quietly. One of the bulls caught our attention. As we watched, he stood in one place and rocked back and forth steadily. His eyes were crazed with desperation and derision. Sores covered his body. Even from a distance, he smelled like death.
It was pathetic.
Gabe turned to me and asked, “What is wrong with that elephant?”
I looked at him sadly. “Gabe, that magnificent animal was never created for an environment like this. It was designed to roam wild and free. It has lost its mind, and it will probably die. Its habitat is the forest and the savannah. The only way it can survive here is artificially.”
The Chicago Zoo has improved greatly since that time, and I do not believe zoos are immoral. Most of the animals were raised in and for these environments. But God did not design them to live in pens. God created them for the wild.
Ponce and North
Why are so many churches dying? Why do so many sanctuaries echo with emptiness on Sunday mornings? Why is it more common to pay tourist admission than offer tithe at a cathedral in Europe?
I am currently involved in a church plant in midtown Atlanta. The building is located five blocks from the Georgia Tech campus and three blocks from the city’s largest mosque.
Every Sunday night, we gather to pray, worship, and study the Bible. After the service, a handful of young men drive home through one of the roughest areas of the city. After several weeks, God gave them a desire in to reach the street people there. So they began to stop at the corner of Ponce de Leon and North Avenue to pray with people. Many Sundays, they stay out all night, ministering to the homeless and to the hookers.
Why do churches die? Too often they tell young men like these that their vision is too dangerous. Or too bold. Or too unique. They extinguish the incredible, adventurous passion of God.
And then they say things like, “Why don’t you go to Sunday school instead? Why don’t you put a tie on and memorize a bunch of stuff? If you want to help, we could always use an extra hand to help make coffee for the social.”
“Oh, and don’t chew gum in church.”
Domesticated
The church is dying because we have tried to domesticate her. We have put the noblest of creatures into a concrete pit, and she is beginning to rock back and forth with insanity. We believe that church is a building, a program, a plan. We think that church is a set of hymns or a style of worship. And she is not. The church is the very presence and power of Christ.
We have taken something that God created to feed on the fields of the world, and we have housebroken her. He never designed the church to be contained or controlled. He never intended it to be defined by what happens inside its walls.
At the end of Matthew 9, we learn that when Jesus walked through Israel’s cities and villages, he proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and healed the sick. He also felt a great compassion for the people because they “were distressed and dispirited.” This emotion led to instruction for his disciples: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.” (ESV) Take note. Harvesting is not an indoor activity.
Churches, like elephants, thrive in the wild. And when we release the church on the world, we realize that the church does not need protection. It’s the world that needs protection.
Whose gates?
In Matthew 16, Jesus changed his metaphor from the harvest to the battlefield. In Caesarea Phillipi, Simon recognized and acknowledged Jesus as the Christ. After this pivotal moment, Jesus turned to Simon and gave him a new name, Peter, which means “rock.” Then Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (ESV v. 18). This passage is often the triumphant call of a struggling, dormant church. Surely, Jesus will not allow the attack of the enemy to destroy our gates even though we are shrinking and dry.
But look again. When was the last time “gates” attacked anything? Gates are a defensive structure! Jesus implied that the church would be the one attacking and advancing. Against such an onslaught, He promises, hell cannot stand.
In this book, I hope to outline the biblical philosophy that calls the church out of captivity and onto the harvest field to threaten hell’s gates. At the foundation of this philosophy is a fairly simple truth. God desires the church to make disciples for His glory.