A Loving Critique - Holy Rebellion

Prophetic religion warns against the ritualization of the relationship between God and his people. Prophets seek to remind the people of intensely personal nature of the covenant between God and his people. Martin Buber gives warning of the dangers the religious institutionalism when he notes that ”…centralization and codification, undertaken in the interests of religion, are a danger to the core of religion.” This is inevitably the case he says, unless there is a very vigorous life of faith embodied in the whole community, one that exerts an unrelenting pressure for renewal on the institution.’ It was C.S.Lewis who observed that “there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it.”

A prophetically consistent Christianity means that we must remain committed to a constant critique of the structures and rituals we set up and maintain. Perhaps rather than calling this anti-institutionalism, a rather negative frame of mind, we should rather understand it as a form of ‘holy rebellion’ based on the loving critique of religious institution modeled by the original apostles and prophets—‘holy rebels’ who constantly attempted to throw off encumbering ideologies, structures, codes, and traditions that limited the freedom of God’s people and restricted the gospel message that they are mandated to pass on. This is prophetic religion in practice, and it remains one of the essential elements of a true experience of Christianity. It is rebellion because it refuses to submit to the status quo. But because it is a holy rebellion, it directs us towards a greater experience of God than what we currently have.

What I feel is needed at St Andrew's at the moment is just this expression of passion for witnessing to the Gospel on the part of the congregation and at the same time a loving willingness to critique who we've been and what we've done and are doing as the people of God in Glenelg. A deep love for God and our congregation AND challenging our congregational life in the light of Christ's gospel.