Parable of the Sea

Here is an interesting little story called the Parable of the Sea.

It was posted on the blog of a popular emerging/emergent church expert to bolster his argument against "personal preferences, denomination, and tradition" and to drive a wedge between evangelism and tradition.

Ironically, this story actually says the opposite of what he thinks it says.

The lifesaving post in the parable is the traditional Church. For 2,000 years, the one holy catholic and apostolic Church has been saving souls using the primitive means of the Word of God, of Holy Baptism, Absolution, Communion, and proclamation - by sending out ordained preachers armed with water and the Word. Through her liturgy and confession of absolute truth, the Church has indeed been a lifesaving operation for the lost who are in search of something secure and sure, a place to encounter the immutable God of the universe who took flesh for their sake in the midst of the storms of life that toss us about in the fallen world. Billions have been saved with little fanfare.

For twenty millennia, the Church has been sending out such missionaries armed with the unchanging Word of God and the traditional liturgy that carries that Word of God into the lives of the rescued.

But something has happened in recent years.

The Church morphed into something else: a club for young people, a place of entertainment, a coffee-shop catering to the hip, a stage where rock music is performed. It became the private venue of politically leftist twentysomethings where an Orwellian "inclusiveness" trumps the truth, where mission isn't about actually saving anyone from damnation, but rather talking about mission, talking about hairstyles, talking about tattoos, talking about music, talking about coffee, and most of all, talking about themselves and their "superior" methodologies.

Where the little outpost of the Church had its own culture that transcended national barriers and crossed the generation gap, now the newly-remodeled youth-driven coddled urban/suburban version in which baristas have replaced pastors, dialogue has taken the place of authoritative teaching, and where being cool has overturned the need for the forgiveness of sins and communion with the One True God - those who do not fit this homogeneity are pushed out.

In this changed institution, "mission" is now nothing more than marketing to the youth culture. Mission is no longer a means to the end (rescuing people), but the end in itself: which is to entertain young people and keep them coming back.

Thus the elderly, the politically conservative, families, those who seek the reverence that marked a real belief in the presence of Christ in the Mass, those who believe the Scriptures mean what they say even in matters that are unpopular in the secular culture (e.g. the sinfulness of homosexuality and the prohibition of women clergy) are told they aren't welcome any more. "This isn't your grandfather's church" they are told. And furthermore, the lifeboats (if they are even sent out at all) won't stop for the kinds of people who don't fit the target demographic.

Instead of life under the cross, people now expect the Christian life to be an MTV-style reality show. Instead of candles, people expect lasers. Instead of hymnals, people want Disney-like special effects. Instead of the "still small voice of God," people expect fast-moving amplified soundbytes. Ironically, entertainment has replaced salvation - which was the original intent of the lifeboats in the first place.

And anyone who disagrees is now paradoxically "against mission."

One of the greatest lifeboat captains in the Church's history also used a maritime analogy that is as relevant and authentic today as it was when he first said it in the ancient days before the iPod: Ephesians 4:14-15.