Kingdom over Church

I have a fancy word for you: ecclesiolatry. What does it mean? The worship of the church. One Christian writer who has had interesting things to say about this topic is John Pavlovitz. Now, his point is more that church is not absolutely necessary. A Christian can worship God without a church. And, when you think of the beliefs and practices of many Christians, that proposition looks quite plausible. If you consider the rituals of the church to be largely symbolic, and you don't look at your pastor as anything more than a facilitator of a church experience, then who needs a church really?

Many who follow in the Restoration tradition would say, "Well, we all need the Church," and not just any church, but one that replicates the primitive church established by Christ and that has divine authority. In LDS meetings the standard testimony is borne, "I know the Church is true." That is quite something to wrestle with, because the church changes, the church is made up of fallible human beings, and, ultimately, the church is a tool for accomplishing certain purposes. As people wrestle with their experiences of a church community, they continue to poke and prod at the claim that the church is true until a sizeable number come to the conclusion that maybe it never was in the first place. I grew up in the LDS Church, and there came a time when I found the affirmation, "I know the Church is true," to be very odd and off-putting. This feeling derived partly from learning about other ways of looking at the relationship between the gospel and the church. For many LDS folk, the two things are functionally the same. You will hear the gospel used as a sort of catch-all term that covers every aspect of life as an LDS person. I found that lack of precision somewhat confusing. Then, during one unforgettable General Conference in 1984, I heard Ronald Poelman deliver, "The Gospel and the Church," which laid out the relationship between the gospel and the church in a way I had never considered. In this talk, Poelman explained that the church is a tool that facilitates our living the gospel. Listening to that original talk was like having a 100-watt light bulb suddenly flip on in my head and heart. Finally, my confusion resolved into understanding, and I could move forward in my spiritual life looking at my church experience as a means toward living the gospel without mistaking it for the gospel itself. The gospel is true, and the church is God's tool for helping me learn and live the gospel. Excellent.

Until, that is, the leadership of the LDS Church edited Poelman's talk to completely flip the meaning of it. Suddenly, I was through the looking glass. What the heck just happened? The official stance of LDS leaders, it seems, was to return me to a state of confusion in which the gospel and the church are functionally the same thing. For me, however, there was no going back, and over the years, as I studied the complicated history of the Restoration, Poelman's central point was reaffirmed to me in countless ways. Christian writers like Pavlovitz only strengthened this position. Jesus never spoke of a church. Jesus did not tell Peter that he would build his church upon the rock of Peter. Jesus spoke of the Kingdom.

A kingdom is a much more expansive concept than a church. The Kingdom of God even more so. When some Restorationists receive their endowments in a temple, they hear many references to the Kingdom, and fewer to the Church. That is because, I would argue, the endowment, representing the esoteric and higher aspect of the Restoration, was focused less on the exoteric or "outer" church. The endowment, a gift from God the King, is the ritual experience that vivifies the body of saints and gives them a foretaste of that time when the Kingdom will be established. At a key point in the current endowment, however, the emphasis is switched back, and the Church is once again placed at the center. In an experience that I found very profound and transformative, that is the one part I could never reconcile myself to. If we belong to the Kingdom of which our Restoration churches are just a part, then no single church can replace or be equated with that Kingdom. As a Pan-Restorationist, I believe that the churches (I like the term "branches" better) of the Restoration are united by a priesthood of the Kingdom that is held and passed on within the churches, and that these churches are subordinate to the Kingdom to which they all belong. As an independent Restorationist, I belong to the Kingdom while not belonging to a particular branch at this time. It is nice to belong to a church, but it is not necessary. Belonging to the Kingdom is more important. We worship God, belong to the Kingdom, and many of us go to a church. I will never allow my worship of God and my membership in the Kingdom to be confused with belonging to a church.