Beheading Christ

Back in 2005 Keith Drury wrote a column entitled Beheading Christ. It makes a good bookend to the current postmodern mantra, "Friendly to Jesus, hostile to the church."

Keith Drury, professor of Religion at Indiana Wesleyan University is an engaging but thoughtful writer. I love his line, "I was unable to behead Christ and leave His body behind." And this section bears quoting:

"The theoretical construct of “the invisible church” is of little use to me.

Now I know many will try to “correct” my (theologically accurate) view of the church to tell me that the “invisible church” is the real beauty and the real church—and the organized actual-peopled-building down the street has nothing to do with the real invisible church. I understand that construct assigning all the “real Christians” to some theoretical worldwide invisible church. But the notion has little practical use any more than saying I have an invisible marriage. Where is this invisible church of “real” Christians? Can I worship with them? Study the Bible with them? Go on a ski trip with their youth? Organize relief for hurricane victims with them? See? It may be a clever mental gymnastic for categorizing thought but all I’ve got in the real world is a real assembly of real people who worship, pray, serve, study, grow, and reach out together—in the building down the street. Sure, there are some folk in this visible church who are not in the theoretical invisible one. So what? When next Sunday rolls around I can’t attend the invisible church so I’m left with the one Christ established and Paul extended 2000 years ago—the visible assembly of God’s people in a real place down the street from me."