Why?

Proverbs 11:2

When pride comes, then comes disgrace,

but with the humble is wisdom.

Proverbs 22:4

The result of humility is fear of the Lord,

along with wealth, honor, and life.

Understandably, church leaders like to make much of those they consider to have been "heroes of the faith", those who have suffered persecution and martyrdom because of what they believed.

Also understandably, church leaders do not like to consider that the church itself has far too often been the persecutor, that the church has been the one who kill the martyrs or who committed other gross sins.

Church leaders like to portray the church as the victim, but there is another and much more unpleasant truth; the church has often been the victimizer, the persecutor, the one with blood on its hand, the one wading deep into the vilest of sins.

The Fault

Many people have their own ideas about what is wrong with the church. I have been one of those people. No doubt, many of us have been to some degree correct, that we've seen important things that are wrong and we've tried to draw attention to them in the hope that they will be corrected.

My thought now is that the church's main problem is one that is common to all men, even all men who are leaders in the church: the problem is pride.

The church has been proud, and that pride has made the church a stench. The church has been proud, and so we have been disgraced, shamed, humiliated.

And if the problem is pride, the solution is repentance and humility.

Choice or Consequence

Humility is a choice.

If any people on earth should show humility, it is the church. We are a people who have had to face our own sinfulness, we are a people who should know that if God has given us salvation, if God has forgiven us and made us His children, then it is only because of God's own grace and love and mercy. We in the church should know that "By grace we are saved...not by our own works, so that none of us can boast".

That is who we should be; sadly, who we really are is all too often something else.

Humiliation is a consequence. If we are proud, we will be humiliated. It is very common for the church to be the subject of public humiliations for its behaviors: clergy sexual abuse scandals, abuses of children, financial scandals, false gospels, cult-like controlling behaviors, and no doubt other sins with their roots in pride have brought shame and humiliation on the church, and the name of God is blasphemed among the lost because of our pride and the resulting humiliations.

The Reason

My hope in doing the unpleasant work of creating this weblog is that the church will turn from pride and learn humility.