THE BATTERED BRIDE and ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

 

I am referring to the Church, the Body of Christ, His beloved bride. It is one thing to be battered by the skeptics; it is another to be denigrated by those who profess the Christ of the Scriptures. I meet many believers who make dismissive remarks about the Church on social media. Had they been merely referring to the apostate Church, rather than the Bible-Believing Church, I would have had little argument with them. However, many are referring to the Church in general.

What is the basis of their grievances? They complain that the Church is:

•    Irrelevant to their lives and doesn’t align with their values,
•    Money hungry,
•    Organized religion, and it is impersonal or corrupt, among other things.

I will not directly address these complaints but instead try identify the beauty and needfulness of the Church. For one thing, the Church is God’s invention for good. If Christ loves the Church and gave His life of it, we have no choice but to also love the Church sacrificially as we would our wives:
•    Ephesians 5:25–32 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself or no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

As we are one body with our wives, we are also one Body with the Lord. As we are to nourish our wives as one body with her, we must also love and nourish the Church. To reject the Church is to reject the indestructible work of our Savior:
•    Matthew 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The Church is God’s nursery for our growth in transformative truth and His designated place for our growth in love:
•    Ephesians 4:11–16 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Contempt for the Church is not only contempt for the source of our own growth in Christ but also contempt for the Body of Christ:
•    Ephesians 2:19–22 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

The Church is our God-given duty:
•    Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Why do we disdain the Body of Christ? Perhaps because we have an inflated self-estimation, and we believe that the Church is beneath us? In this case, we have received the forgiveness of our Lord without forgiving the Church for whatever disappointments we might have experienced? Sound familiar? It does with me!

Without the Church, even if only two or three, Jesus had suggested that we lack the resources to stand against evil. We become like a log removed from the fire, which can then only simmer and smoke:
•    Matthew 18:15–20 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

To reject the Church is to reject our Lord’s channel of wisdom:
•    Ephesians 3:10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Colossians 1:18)

To reject the Church is to blind oneself to the lessons of history. Alexis de Tocqueville, French statesman, historian, and social philosopher wrote “Democracy in America” (1835). It has been described as "the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written." According to Tocqueville, freedom and morality both found their American incarnation in Christianity:

•    Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it.

Tocqueville had been well acquainted with the demands for freedom and equality that had arisen from his own French revolution, albeit grounded in the hatred and murder of the clergy. This revolution had confidently sought to push aside anything that stood in its way.  However, with the advantage of decades of hindsight, this had become something that the French wanted to avoid at all costs. Tocqueville, therefore, wrote:

•    The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest pledge of freedom.

He therefore appreciated the moral constraints that he found so ubiquitously associated with democracy in the USA:

•    I do not question that the great austerity of manners that is observable in the United States arises, in the first instance, from religious faith...its influence over the mind of woman is supreme, and women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated...

Continually, he found that the fruitful expression of democracy was inseparable from its underlying Christian roots:

•    In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people.... Christianity, therefore, reigns without obstacle, by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate.

•    I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

The Church is God’s glorious workmanship. If we fail to see it as such, perhaps the fault is with us. Nevertheless, there is a place for criticism, but it must be constructive and not destructive as most of it is.