Great Post-Sunday Reading

I highly recommend this reading to anyone who has some pressing concerns about the direction of the church. Gayraud Wilmore is a religious icon and in this excerpt from his book, The Secular Relevance of the Church, he sheds light on the true purpose of the church, identifies barriers that prohibit the true expression of the church in the world, and provides insight on how a committed band of Believers could influence the path and mind set of their local assembly. Enjoy this excerpt:

The great bulk of the people in the pews do not really believe in “the church.” They believe in religion. They believe in the voluntary, inchoate fellowship of worshippers whose lives should, all other things being equal, set an example of the best that America offers. But they do not believe in the church as the bearer of a radically new orientation toward the world, as a revolutionary power that penetrates the world in order to help it become attentive to its own purposes. They do not see themselves as the special people of God who have a secular task to perform for his whole people.

These people are the “friendly enemies” of the mission of the church. They are dangerous in the sense that their ignorance of the meaning of the church weakens everything it does in the world. And even when this ignorance is dispelled by “Christian education”, they will not tolerate a church that gives up spiritual things to mix itself up in the business of the world. They will not break through the walls of their socioeconomic ghettos and chummy coteries to contact and enter into dialogue with the unconventional or alienated people of the community. Their role in the American churches today is extremely ambiguous. For that reason it is not inappropriate to call them the “friendly enemies” of the church in its secular posture.

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