Elitism: The Holes in the Search Party

There is a story of a toddler that wandered into a corn field. Small searching parties took shifts wandering through the large field for days in hopes of finding the little girl. On the third day, a neighbor approached the family with an idea: The entire searching community would stand side by side on one end of the field and walk through - that way no inch of the cropland would go unreached. This time, the search revealed the child - only she had died of exposure hours earlier. As he held the lifeless body of his daughter, the father repeatedly asked the same question: Why hadn't anyone thought of searching like this early enough to save her?

David B. Barrett, the head contributor to the World Christian Encyclopedia, spent the mass of his life to what he has termed "missiometrics", doggedly studying and counting all of the faiths and believers of those faiths throughout the world. 1 He has personally visited most of the countries of the entire globe collecting this information. According to his findings, within the Christian population there are 33,820 protestant denominations - 6,161 of those being in the United States. 2

Some of these splits and denominations are able to be charted back to the New Testament Church; many are somewhat lost within the tumble of the last century or so. But what can be even more eye opening is the fact that individual churches may operate under a certain denomination without adhering or agreeing with that denomination's set agenda or doctrines. With this in mind, the number of individual church denominations skyrocket. Even more so, within the walls of most churches lie the individuals - each holding his or her own trusted doctrine. 3 & 4

The danger does not lie within the idea of people grouping together with what they trust in worshiping Christ. The danger lies in the mostly useless and quietly impeding processes of elitism and superiority. After all, there's nothing wrong with all the cheerleaders and football players in a high school forming tight friendships. The problem comes with an endemic of popularity and personal hierarchies that seem to consume the student population of the school community.

While most people agree that this viewpoint is destructive, it is still deceptively enticing. Few even realize that they are even dabbling in it until someone gets hurt. This prideful view is also the main issue when one is faced with finding that a doctrine or understanding is in need of shifting. Once elitism sets in, the heart becomes involved more intimately with the faith itself, not the Author of our faith.

When speaking of his studies on Calvinism and Competitive Christianity, Ryan Murphy states:

"Way before Calvin pinned The Institutes, Luther banged a nail into a door, or Piper made mongerism popular, Jesus Christ was moving in the hearts of men to live authentically for HIM. They didn't need anything, BUT HIM!" 5

The crazy thing is: once people get over the fear and doggedness of doctrines and having every theocratic ideal down straight... once a person - or a group of people - lay aside having to have all the knowledge of the Bible, they quickly become empowered with the knowledge of having Jesus Christ as their Savior. For once more, the fervor for the doctrines becomes a fervor for the things of God. Suddenly the focus turns from being right into being righteous - a difference in terms that far too few Christians seem to understand.

The truth of the matter is that no people are going to be able to completely agree on everything about God this side of eternity - simply because we aren't able to be completely immersed in His glory. Ignorance and Understanding will always be a line of separation. What must be acknowledged, however, is that there is much to be done, and as a follower of Christ, we are indeed called into His work. Though we may not agree on the doctrines of speaking in tongues or the ever-so-deceptively-dividing subject of "once saved, always saved", we can all agree that 6

• 286 million people have no access to the Bible.
• 7,000 languages have no translation of the Bible.
• 1,540 million Christians are considered 'inactive' in Christ's world mission (while only 690 million Christians today are active)
• And that less than 10% of Christian outreach and evangelism targets non-Christians.

As one looks at the worldview of Christianity and the sour point of elitism one must ask: "At what point will we, in essence, stand side by side in order to find the lost of the fields?"



Links:
1. Salt Lake Tribune's article on David B. Barrett.
2. Article of Barrett's Statistical findings and the World Christian Encyclopedia.
3. Wikipedia chart on the branching of Major Christianity from Early Christianity.
4. Wikipedia chart on the branching of the Protestant church.
5. Ryan Murphy's article "Competitive Christianity and Elitism".
6. Steve Addison's article containing facts from Missiometrics 2008.

Who are you?

Scot McKnight once wrote that reputation is how the world sees you, and that identity was how God sees you.  At times I am able to see things (including myself) as God does.  Certainly I'm more likely to view myself in the world's eyes.

The most frustrating part of the world's eyes is that the view is incomplete.  If someone were to ask me the question "Who are you?"  I would have a rather half-witted answer.  I could state some hobbies, some physical attributes, some personal history.  But the reality is that, chances are, I have very little information on the subject.

I had always said that faith wasn't about religion.  That it wasn't about church or having friends or being a good person or feeling good about yourself - that it was about a relationship with God.  But then I began praying a dangerous prayer.  I prayed for a real relationship with God.  A relationship like those I had always read about in the Bible.  A relationship like what is offered from the pulpits across the world every Sunday.  The one that seemed so great between the disciples and Jesus.  It was then that God had sent me away from home.

A lot has occurred since I left home in June of 2005.  Many little things, some big things.  The easiest way to sum it up, is that all the things like church and friends and being a good person and feeling good about myself is all but gone.  At this point, I know that where I am are a part of the answer to my prayer.  If I were to have known the physical implications of my prayer, I probably would have still asked - but I'm not certain that I would have had I known how hard and confusing things would be.  Perhaps ignorance is, at times, a blessing ;) .

With everything being stripped away, my faith has become more dependent on the relationship, rather than the religious environment.  And with that relationship, what is my identity has slowly begun to be more apparent.  

The hard thing is that I now have a mind that doesn't always agree.  A voice that isn't always heard.  I get frustrated with things in American Christian Culture.  I get venomously cynical at times.  I'm apt to say things that people may not like.  I'm inexcusably imperfect.

But I'm more real now than I ever have been - more real than some people will ever be.

That is why I decided to start this blog.  Chances are, no one will ever read it.  Maybe some day a lot of people will.  I would love it if people became interested in what I have to say (even if it is to laugh at me).  Perhaps if some people would, they would learn to look at things differently.  Maybe a light will go on somewhere.  But really, that isn't the point.

The point is this:

Whether anyone knows it or not, I exist.