What happens when:
- a church mis-advertises itself in some way (Bible-based, loving, open-minded, inclusive, The New Testament Church, etc.), and
- an authentic person starts going there because he or she thinks that whatever’s in the ad is really important, and
- the person figures out that things are not really as advertised?
Here are some of the possible outcomes:
- The person leaves quietly upon discovering it’s not as advertised, and nothing ever becomes of it.
- The person complains and the church repents.
- The person complains and gets run off.
- The person stays quiet about it and joins anyway, deciding to move the advertised item down on his or her list of spiritual priorities.
- The person is influenced to “stay and help us fight for change”, yet there is no plan for change that’s put into effect, the change never happens—and years later, this person is now among those who stayed anyway, and is now trying to influence other objectors to “stay and help us fight for change”.
So many will defend the institution, and are quick to point out that “No church is perfect!” Well, that’s true, of course, but I frequently get the idea that the part of their philosophy that goes after “No church is perfect!” —-but that they’ll never say out loud is this: “…..and we’re going to see to it that THIS church isn’t perfect, either!”
It’s as if change and improvement and maturation and self-correction were antithetical to the very Gospel, and as if what really counts is simply to keep the “church” machine running.
But why would any honest church want to mis-advertise itself? Obviously, they’re not looking for folks who really want the advertised quality, but for folks who would like to come join in the pretending to have that quality. The authentic ones, they have to run off, or it blows their cover. Yet they keep on with the mis-advertisement, so business must be pretty good, and the number of authentic folks joining up must not be so high as to be too big a bother.
