Happy Church

Commentary. This is not a sermon.

Nancy visited our church a couple of times before she came to our house for Sabbath lunch. Over lunch, she explained why she would not attend our church again. First, there were drums. The mere sight of them up in the front gave deep offense to her. And the sound! – it was a devilish seduction. (Not surprising, given the extraordinary finesse and musicality of our drummer. Thanks, Kent.) Second, she told us, she could tell ours was a liberal church just from the way people interacted with each other and with visitors. It reminded her of a church she used to attend in a small town back east. One of the most noticeable characteristics of liberal churches was the way people were all friendly and happy.

Conservative churches are not like that, she said. People in conservative churches were not so cheerful and outgoing. Conservative churches were not so welcoming and nice. Liberal churches were friendly and the people had fun. Conservative churches had the truth. They had the Three Angels. And since, in our area, there was more than one Adventist church to choose from, she was letting me know she would not be back to our church. She enjoyed friendly people as much as the next person, but her commitment to truth required her to go where there were no drums and where the preaching gave a straight testimony.

I wished her bon voyage!

I understood her concern. If “finishing the work” were up to us and if creating a “perfect final generation” were our obligation, then perpetual gloom would be understandable. The notions of "finishing the work" and "a perfect, final generation" are counsels of despair. Numerically speaking, the first assignment is steadily receding from us. The second assignment requires us to do something which 100 generations of Christians have been unable to accomplish. If these were truly our assignments, then the critical, watchful spirit Nancy observed in conservative churches made perfect sense. Wouldn't you just hate it to see other people delaying the Second Coming by their laziness in witnessing? Wouldn't it make you angry, the way Adventists were careless in diet, dress and speech and by their carelessness interfered with God's ability to see his image perfectly reflected. And since God could not see his image perfectly reflected the Second Coming could not happen. No wonder conservative churches are gloomy and critical.

Liberal churches, on the other hand, believe that God makes himself responsible for finishing his work. To be sure, he calls us to participate in the work with him, but he does not turn over responsibility for finishing the work to humans. Liberal churches believe that humans were created in God's image and still bear that image. Human love and faithfulness are still beautiful mirrors of God. We do not believe Adventists can keep Jesus from coming back by their predictable failure to live flawless lives. We do believe that God is working with Adventists as they are to accomplish his purposes. We believe it is enough to devote ourselves here and now to the work outlined in Micah 6:8 and Matthew 28. There is no need to distract ourselves from present faithfulness by speculations about some fictional cadre of “Super Saints” who will finally accomplish what 100 generations of Christians before us have failed to do – in spite of God's best efforts.

What makes liberal churches happy is their confidence in God. Our confidence in God gives us confidence in one another. So we are happy. We believe that above and beyond human failures, natural disasters, and even grievous evil, God is active. God will win. He assures we will triumph with him.

So we clang our are cymbals. We lift our hands. We shout hallelujah. We sing. We play our drums (well, other people do. I lack the rhythm necessary for the noise I make to be joyful in the ears of others). We are happy. And if you're tired of a spirituality characterized by hand-wringing and fearfulness, we invite you to join us in the happy church. Come find encouragement to continue in faithfulness. Come celebrate with us the goodness and competence of God.

Really, there is no law against happy.