What if Jesus went undercover boss at Joel Osteen's Church?

The End of Mega-Christianity

Could Jesus fix what’s wrong with the church?

That’s a question that has been sitting on my mind since receiving a message from someone who asked why American Christianity is in such a mess, despite the legacy of its revolutionary founder who re-defined religion as love and the liberation of the oppressed. Of course we all know that the rise of Christian Nationalism has steered the ship astray.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, the Christian holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This week, I concluded my series of articles with Lent reflections. The series included:

• Part One: Jesus and the Metacrisis

• Part Two: Why I Gave up “God” for Lent

• Part Three: Did Jesus believe in Heaven?

• Part Four: Wanted: Dead and Alive

Attending church on Easter for the church-leaver can be a dicey proposition, which I discuss in the article, Should you go to church on Easter? I also previously published an article that examines the matter of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and offers an alternative understanding. I have published several articles about an unChristian Jesus, which ard easiest to find by consulting the Table of Contents in my Substack book, The Deconstructionology Encyclopedia (Volume One).

That American Christianity is a mess is indisputable. That’s not meant to implicate every Christian or Christian church. There are people and churches of the Christian faith that do in fact embody the spirit of its founder. U.S. politics, de-churching of America, rise of the “nones”, and the generational trend toward disinterest in organized religion, have put American Christianity in a precarious position.

Among other things, the debacle of American Christianity casts a shadow upon Jesus himself. Jesus needs a new Public Relations Director, because the Christian religion has too often slandered his name. I remind repeatedly that despite the religion bearing his name, you can’t blame of pin Christianity on Jesus.

But the question still remains: Could Jesus fix Christianity?

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about Jesus is that he came to save the world and all humankind. Jesus himself said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” In other words, Jesus was compelled to challenge, re-imagine, revolutionize, and breathe new life into his own religious tradition of Judaism. He affirmed what he saw as good and redeeming about his religion, but he also vehemently confronted the ways he felt it had been corrupted.

So the question is, could Jesus pull this off with American Christianity?

I’ve written in the past on topics related to religion - typically, the Christian religion. Though I do not identify as a “Christian”, Christianity was once a significant aspect of my personal and professional life. As evidenced in a few of my most recent articles, Christianity continues to be a prominent religious force in American life and politics. I suppose if I was an Iranian public intellectual living in Tehran, Islam might pop up more in my writing on religion.

I write about religion from the perspective of the philosophy of religion, meaning that I do not write as a devoted follower of a particular religion, but as someone who engages in the philosophical study of the meaning and nature of religion. This includes the analyses of religious concepts, beliefs, terms, arguments, and practices. One advantage of this approach to religion, is that I can either praise or criticize religion with some measure of indifference. I don’t have an axe to grind in making one religion right and another religion wrong.

I recently read an essay by Atheist British mathematician and philosopher, Bertrand Russell, which got me thinking about the cognitive dissonance I often come across with respect to the person-Jesus and the religion established in his name. Cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and its mental toll. It’s not uncommon for people to point out the contradiction between the life and message of Jesus, and the behavior and optics of the organized Christian church. .

What Bertrand Russell Said

On March 6, 1927, Bertrand Russell, gave a talk at The South London Branch of the National Secular Society. His lecture was titled, “Why I am not a Christian”. It was published that year as a pamphlet and has been republished several times in English and in translation. 

The quote from Russell’s lecture/essay that prompted this article is:

“That is the idea - that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”

What I find interesting about this quote and several other Russell writings on religion, is that he tends to take issue with organized or institutional Christianity, but not Jesus particularly. “Jesus” by name doesn’t appear in the above portion of his essay, but he is critical of the “Christian religion” and more particularly, “as organized in churches”.

What is it about wrapping up religious beliefs in a 501(c)(3) that makes it so often go off the rails? For the purpose of this article, I want to ponder how Jesus might try to fix it.

I debated over this article title: “What if Jesus went undercover boss at Joel Osteen’s Church?” My first clue that it was a bad idea was needing to explain it. Unfortunately, I have a stubborn streak. Here are a few important caveats and distinctions:

• What is “undercover boss”?

Undercover Boss is an American reality television series. Each episode depicts high-level corporate execs who leave the comfort of their offices and secretly take low-level jobs within their companies to find out how things really work and discover the faults in the company. For the purpose of this article, think of Jesus as the CEO of Christianity. That’s reasonable, right? After all, Christians themselves say that Jesus is the head of the church. The idea here is, what would happen if Jesus made an undercover visit to Lakewood Church or some other highly-successful organized church.

• Why Joel Osteen?

Joel Osteen is the pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest American Christian megachurch, located in Houston, Texas. The church averages 50,000 visitors each week, and receives over $90 million in annual church donations. Lakewood Church is housed in a 600,000-square-foot former sports stadium that has a 17,000-person seating capacity.

Though in my former life I was a megachurch pastor, I do not personally know Joel Osteen and never attended Lakewood Church. I know people who have read Joel Osteen’s books, listened to him speak and attended Lakewood, and speak favorably of Osteen and his church. I’m not intending this to be a Joel Osteen/Lakewood-hate article. I’m using Lakewood Church as the quintessential “successful” church, based upon the magnitude of its reach and popularity.

• Non-Religious America

Sub-title … I have previously written about the rise of the “nones”, the de-churching of America, and the death of Christian Theism in the West. I realize that every few years or so the alarm bells of the secularization of America sound off, typically sparked by Pew Research results about religion in the U.S. In sociological terms, secularization, involves the historical process in which religion declines in social and cultural significance. At risk of sounding like the secular-doomsday-prophet, one cannot deny that the generational trend away from organized religion is well-documented. Gen Z is the nation’s least religious generation. It’s not only a lack of religious affiliation that distinguishes Generation Z. They are far more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic. The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the general U.S. population. One of the themes I will explore in this article is how organized church could make a comeback in American life.

My sub-title - “Can church be relevant in today’s non-religious America?” - probably sounds like I’m implying that all churches are a hot mess. I realize that American Christianity is not monolithic. There is a broad range of Christian denominations and churches, ranging from fundamentalist Christian churches to progressive Christian churches. I have friends who are pastors of churches that are, for example, vigorously engaged and committed to issues of social justice, and the liberation of the oppressed.

My Public Confession

As a reminder, in my former life I was a devout Christian, have a background in theological scholarship and was a megachurch pastor. I share about this in detail in my article, Confessions of an Ex-Megapastor. After a personal faith crisis, I walked away from my ministerial career and Christian religion. Fast forward to today. Though I find meaning in the figure or legend of Jesus, I do not identify as a “Christian”. I am the founder of the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality, work and teach the philosophy of religion, counsel those who have been wounded by their involvement in religion, and promote non-religious spirituality and existential health.

As I have pondered the mistakes I made in my 501(c)(3) Churchianity, I made a long list as a sort of public confession. Here are a few of my mistakes I made as a Christian leader:

• Putting church over community

• Putting orthodoxy over love.

• Putting Christianity over Jesus.

• Putting certainty over curiosity.

• Putting teaching over conversation.

• Putting polished over real.

• Putting explanations over empathy.

• Putting answers over questions.

• Putting membership over friendship.

• Putting prayer over action.

• Putting dogma over inner truth.

• Putting services over self-care.

• Putting style over substance.

• Putting appearance over authenticity.

• Putting theology over psychology.

• Putting religiosity over spirituality.

• Putting numbers over faces.

• Putting holiness over humanity.

• Putting accountability over acceptance.

• Putting evangelism over solidarity.

• Putting discipleship over therapy.

• Putting heaven over earth.

• Putting meetings over relationships.

• Putting reputation over risk.

• Putting patriarchy over equality.

• Putting faith over critical thinking.

• Putting charisma over integrity.

• Putting superiority over humility.

• Putting charisma over compassion.

• Putting the afterlife over the herelife.

In the corner of Christendom I operated in, church “success” was equated with numerical growth. This growth was fueled by novelty and charismatic leadership. If your livelihood depended upon the success of your church as an organization, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that you would be prone to define and reward Christianity as participation in church structures and programs. Deference was given to people with theological degrees and paid church positions. I made God about having correct theology. Yet, there were a lot of unhappy, broken, hurting, suffering, depressed, lonely people in church with perfect theology.

Of course, I wasn't self-aware enough at the time to realize any of the above. I was just a man on a mission for God. I learned the hard and painful way, so much from that season of my life twenty-five years ago.

The Jesus as Undercover Boss Thought-Experiment

Writing an article with “Jesus” in the title can be dicey. There is obviously a wide spectrum of differing views about Jesus, ranging from the denial of his existence, to being the Son of God who came to save the world. What follows are my own views about Jesus, based upon the study and research I have done. It’s not my intent for the reader to adopt my views. You are free to have whatever views you have, or you may feel indifferent to the whole matter. It’s all good.

The question of the historicity of Jesus is a challenge because you have those who desperately want Jesus to have existed at all costs (Christians), and those who question if Jesus existed at all (Atheists).

Regardless of one’s religious faith there is little doubt among contemporary historians that a Jesus-figure was a real person who lived in Palestine in the First Century. Historians agree that Jesus was an itinerant teacher who traveled and taught throughout Palestine gathering followers around him through the force of his personality and the compelling and practical nature of his message.

There is general agreement that Jesus was perceived by the Roman occupiers of Palestine as a dangerous religious radical and a disturber of the peace. It didn’t help that Jesus infuriated the religious establishment for refusing to legitimize it. Consequently, he was arrested by the local authorities and summarily executed by the Romans in a public crucifixion, the standard method used by the Romans to deal with political troublemakers.

There is near unanimity among scholars that a Jesus-figure existed historically, although biblical scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the Gospels.

There are countless resources that delve into the matter of the historicity of Jesus. Here are a few I’ve read:

• The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian by Robin Lane Fox

• Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth by Bart D. Ehrman

• Jesus and the Politics of his Day by E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule

• The Historical Jesus in Context edited by Amy-Jill Levine

• Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels

• Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant

• Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

• The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Crossan

Over the years, many non-Christian writers have vouched for the historicity of Jesus. A couple interesting perspectives on the topic are:

• An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus (Part 1 of 2)

• An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus (Part 2 of 2)

The story we have of Jesus presents quite a compelling figure - liberator, revolutionary, guru, a person of extraordinary courage, compassion, love, and wisdom. Jesus was a man of the people.

Jesus was no saint. The story we have about him is Jesus defying the legitimacy and authority of the dominant religious system and its ecclesiastical hierarchy. His noncompliance and anarchist spirit was a threat to the Roman government. Jesus was not a figure of religion. Jesus was an iconoclast. To the Romans, he was a radical – a religious fanatic who would no doubt try to overturn their social order if allowed to gain too many followers.

People often envision Jesus as someone tiptoeing around in a flowing robe, speaking softly, patting children on the head and carrying a baby lamb in his arms. But the real Jesus of history was a lightning rod. He got angry. He was the greatest desacralizer of religious hierarchies and traditions this world has ever seen. The religious establishment hurriedly condemned him to death for blasphemy, while the secular powers executed him for sedition.

Jesus did not start Christianity. Right? What became “Christianity” was a much later development. It was never the intent of Jesus to start a new religion. On the contrary, his life and message was essentially the announcement that the time for religion had ended, and that what people had hoped to find through religion they could find inside themselves.

Within three hundred years after the death of Jesus, he went from being a Jewish revolutionary and prophet to being God himself. Christianity left the historical Jesus in the dust of Nazareth and devised a Christology that would have left even Jesus scratching his head.

The idea of Jesus as the “undercover boss” may seem to imply that Jesus is still alive in some other dimension and could come back. The Christian religion holds a belief in the “Second Coming of Christ” - the future return of Jesus to the earth. Others believe that Jesus is “alive” only to the extent that his message and truth is alive in people’s hearts and life. Either way, my thought-experiment of Jesus going undercover at Joel Osteen’s church is my way of contrasting how I think Jesus would do church, compared to what would likely be considered a “successful” church in American culture.

WWJD?

Lakewood Church has roughly 400 employed staff members. Let’s say Jesus went incognito, began attending Lakewood Church, became a member, and managed to work himself onto their Board of Directors.

Here are a few ways I believe that Jesus would push for re-imagining church that could make the Christian religion more compelling in American life. Of course, this only applies to people who would want to take up the cause of reforming the American church. You may be someone who left church and never plans to step inside a church again. It’s all good. I get it. You do you.

Redefining Success

In American Christianity, “success” is often equated with numerical growth - people and dollars. As a pastor in my previous life, the question among peers was always, “How big is your church?” No one ever asked about the transformation of people’s lives. Pastors with big churches were idolized. I wrote in my fifth book, Inner Anarchy:

“There are 8 billion people on the planet, and about 2.5 billion of them are Christians. Christians claim to have the only-true-God connection and view themselves as the only qualified ones called to minister the truth to save humankind. They believe that privilege is theirs because they are the Bible experts. There are 41,000 different Christian denominations around the world, and close to 450,000 international missionaries mobilized abroad.

The Roman Catholic Church is considered to be the largest financial power on earth. Evangelical Christianity isn’t doing too shabby either. A top Christian televangelist lives in a $10 million house with a private jet, another one drives a $350,000 Bentley, and a recent Megachurch teacher was hired for $22 million a year. Another megachurch pastor has a net worth of $760 million. No, that's not a typo - an annual salary of $22 mill and net worth of $760 milk. One megachurch meets in a sports stadium, draws close to 50,000 people for a worship service, and has an annual budget that exceeds $90 million.

Speaking of budgets, 82 percent of the average church budget is used to cover the expense of buildings and salaries. Considering the number of people, buildings, and dollars, Christendom is quite an impressive empire on planet Earth.

But for what? What has this shiny, lucrative Christian empire actually accomplished? What do we have to show for it? We haven’t made even a dent in the suffering that plagues humankind and our planet. But I’ll give us one thing—you sure have to admire the sheer size of this discordant monstrosity. However, Jesus, as a homeless man with a handful of confused followers and no budget, had more of a revolutionary impact in three years than the entire Christian church has in three centuries.

Jesus was a revolutionary. Christendom is a business. Following Jesus once meant speaking truth to power. Modern Christianity is budgets, buildings and bank accounts.”

Talking about church success raises the question: how do churches measure success? Most church leaders would respond by saying they can measure success based on the congregation’s size, attendance at a Sunday service, number of baptisms, volunteers, and the churches tithes and offerings. When Jesus becomes a 501(c)(3), this is the sort of thing you focus on - you need people and money to keep the operation going.

Having been on the other side of this as a pastor, you cannot avoid that there are some aspects of managing a church that are more “corporate” oriented, such as organizational infrastructure, fiscal management, and business administration. In my view, the church should not be criticized for this. You wouldn’t want your children going to a school without this kind of organization or even your local grocery store. And obviously, the larger the church, the greater the need for this kind of corporate focus.

However, the church cannot be viewed only as a “corporation”. This is typically when it starts going off the rails. You can’t equate attendance and tithing numbers as the measurement of “success”. For example, would you measure the success of a family medical practice by the number of patients or the monthly revenue? Let’s say that there was a medical practice that had the highest number of patients and the most monthly revenue. This would obviously be success, right? They must be doing something right. But what if most of the patients seen in this practice never recovered from their illness or even worsened, as a result of a misdiagnosis and failed treatment plan from these doctors. Would you still say it was a success?

Let’s take a church that has 50,000 weekly attenders and a budget of 90 million, like Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church. That would be a success, right? They must be doing something right. But what if most of these people didn’t show any tangible significant growth in becoming a more whole, peaceful, liberated, loving, compassionate, wise, courageous, ethical human being? That would be problematic, right? Imagine what would happen if the people themselves started thinking this way - they considered their church attendance as proof positive of their personal transformation, character, well-being and being upstanding members of their community.

Rethinking Structure

You’ve likely heard the phrase “the medium is the message.” The phrase means that the medium through which we choose to communicate, holds as much, if not more, value than the message itself. Another way of saying it would be that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.

For the purpose of this article, I am using the phrase as follows: Regardless of what the church says about its purpose in the world, how it operates sends an entirely different message that is internalized by all involved.

Once church leaders focus on the “corporate” side of church, troubling things start happening, such as:

• The Mission becomes “Church Growth”

  A corporate-focused church will pitch its mission to the congregation in terms of church growth - bringing more people to Church services and events. As the church grows numerically - let’s say an additional service is added on the weekend because of growing attendance - the congregation is told they are succeeding. More people = mission accomplished. Bigger is better.

  In my previous life as a megachurch pastor, church leaders from around the U.S. and world would pilgrimage to our campus in hopes of learning the secrets to growing a large church. The #1 topic of interest among church leaders is “church growth”. No matter what is said, the shadow mission in most churches is to increase attendance.

• Church becomes location and programs

  A common question in the Bible Belt is: Where do you go to church? A typical response might be something like, “We go to the First Presbyterian Church on 12th and Broadway.” Think of the implication of this question and answer. It equates church with a location and building. “Church” is something you “go to” and can be located on a map “12th and Broadway”.

  This mindset tends to define being a “good Christian” in terms of engaging the corporate or organizational structure of the church. Right? Being a devoted Christian means: regularly attending church services, groups and programs; tithing 10% of your income for the operation of the church; and volunteering your time to serve within the organizational structure, let’s say a childcare worker, Sunday School teacher, service greeter, parking volunteer, etc.

• The “Us” and “Them” Mentality

  Perhaps there is no organization on earth more territorial than the church. If you are understanding church from a corporate mindset, other churches are competition. Just as Verizon and T-Mobile are competing for customers, Spring Valley Church and New Life Church are competing for attenders and members. The most common form of church growth is “transfer growth”, which means a member of Spring Valley leaves, and starts attending New Life. The problem here is that churches seeing each other as competition breeds division. It also fuels the misguided sentiment of asserting that your church is better than others.

  This kind of “us” and “them” mentality fosters an isolationist way of being in the world in which church members only relate with those who are part of their church in-group. Sally from Spring Valley Church and Nancy from New Life Church are not going for coffee together. Why would they? Church territorialism has many troubling and destructive implications.

  The separatist mentality of religious subculture can cut people off from connection and relationship with others outside that subculture, which significantly limits the people who could be contributing to our journey of personal growth and development.

  In the “us” and “them” mindset, too often the goal is how to build “my/our church,” never mind that Jesus pioneered a revolutionary reversal of religious division, tribalism, and exceptionalism.

• Resource Allocation

  If a church views itself mostly as a corporation, guess where the money is going? Personnel, buildings, administration and marketing. On average, 85-90% of an a church budget is spent in these categories, while 3% is allocated to “benevolence”, the line item in a church budget designated for assistance to those in need. It’s often the case when a church feels the strain of a lack of growth, it turns to cosmetic changes, a church growth campaign, better programming or the need for novelty, to bolster its efforts. The mentality becomes consumeristic - the necessity of making a church more appealing as a product or service with more features or perks to be consumed by customers. Serving free Starbucks coffee before the Sunday service, and a hipper band, might just give you a leg up on the church down the street. There is a hefty price tag to all these efforts.

• Let us do it for you

  When the church behaves or functions with a high corporate mode, it sends the message to the congregation, “let us do it for you.” A few examples would be. Don’t worry about studying the Bible yourself, our trained pastors will teach it to you. Don’t worry about tending to the spiritual formation of your church, our children ministers will do it for you. Don’t worry about helping your neighbor in need, give us your money and we will do charity for you. Don’t worry about saying too much about Jesus to people, invite them church and we will give them the best Jesus-show on earth. What can happen in this arrangement is that it fosters dependency on the system, and sets up the dangerous classification of “clergy” (the God/religion experts and professionals) and “laity” (the God/religion amateurs). In this scenario, people literally have to go to church to be Christian.

• False sense of community

  The corporate approach to church is typically not conducive for cultivating relationships of depth, honesty, authenticity and vulnerability, which are the kinds of relationships needed to support growth and transformation. What often happens at church is what I call “meeting-based relationships”. People go to church, attend a structured group or class, at the conclusion of the meeting, everyone goes home, and comes back next week to do it all over again. An alternative scenario is for the group to meet at a coffee shop or someone’s home and essentially do the same thing: go to meeting → follow group meeting agenda → go home → repeat. A church group meeting, whether at the church itself or another location, often runs the risk of being slightly artificial. As a “church meeting” people may feel some pressure of wearing the happy face and be less inclined to share struggles that don’t line up with being a “good Christian”. Whether it’s sitting in a sports stadium to spectate the Sunday morning church performance, or sitting in a row of folding metal chairs in the Sunday School class, the church has several disadvantages in facilitating authentic community.

• Homogenous church culture

  Back in the day, one of the “church growth” principles we learned was the “homogenous unit principle”, which states that it’s easier to grow a church with people who are similar, particularly similar to the pastor. This principle states that it is easier for people to become Christians and function effectively together in a church, when they must cross few or no racial, linguistic, or class barriers. Growing a church based upon attracting people of the same culture, class, and skin color is concerning. You see the problem, right? In many ways, Sunday mornings are still the most segregated time in America.

• The pastor trap

  Church as corporation becomes a trap for church leaders. What if I told you that your livelihood and the livelihood of your family, your career success, and your sense of personal identity were based upon how many homes you sold as a realtor. I’m guessing you would pour yourself into selling homes. But what if your livelihood and the livelihood of your family, your career success, and your sense of personal identity were wrapped up in being the pastor of a large growing church? See the problem? Pastors of large churches or pastors driven by church growth, are rarely corrupt and evil people. What did you think was going to happen? Of course, we have plenty of examples of corrupt, greedy, power-hungry church leaders, but many of them are more like frog in the kettle.

Richard Le Gallienne wrote, “Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals that were its founder’s than any other agency in the world.” A useful historical analysis of how the organized church went off the rails is, The Torch of the Testimony by John W. Kennedy. Specifically, I believe that the Christian religion has muddled the legacy of Jesus in the following ways:

• That the vision of Jesus for a transformed society, got twisted into an afterlife fantasy about heaven.

• That a religion was formed to worship his name, instead of a movement to advance his message.

• That the gospel says Jesus’ death solved humankind’s estrangement from God, instead of accepting his truth that there is no such estrangement

• That the religion bearing his name was conceived by the theories and doctrines of Paul, instead of the truth Jesus lived and demonstrated.

• That Jesus was said to be exclusively and unattainably God, dismissing that we all share in the same spirit that empowered his character and life.

• That the religion that claims his name, teaches that the wisdom and teachings of Jesus are the only legitimate way to know truth and God.

• That Christianity claims that ultimate truth is found in a book (the Bible), rather than embrace Jesus’ teaching that truth is found within ourselves.

• Despite Jesus never teaching this, that the doctrine of Hell or eternal conscious torment is used to scare people into religious devotion.

• That people are waiting on Jesus to return to save the world, rather than taking responsibility for the condition of the world ourselves.

• The teaching there is magic in uttering the name of Jesus, rather than the use of our own natural powers and capabilities to effect change.

• Accepting the doctrine we are born sinners and naturally bad, rather than seeing how Jesus found goodness in those who religion most condemned.

• That people have come to associate Jesus with church, theology, politics and power, rather than courage, justice, humanity, beauty and love.

What if “Church” was a verb?

What if the message of Jesus to the Lakewood Church Board of Directors was: “What if we stopped doing church, and started being church?”

Consider the possibility that American Christianity could be saved if “church” became a verb. In other words, “church” is not thought of as a location or 501(c)(3), but as a way of being in the world. In this sense, “church” is taking place in some way everywhere, all the time, with everybody. And what would be the defining characteristic of this way of being? I have an idea. How about being Jesus. Being Jesus everywhere, all the time, with everybody. What if Christianity wasn’t considered a religion, but a lifestyle, which doesn’t happen at a location but at every moment of the lived human experience. What if Christianity stopped worshipping Jesus and started being Jesus?

The modern Christian church has always had a useful guiding question: “What would Jesus do?” I’m not sure how we came up with an answer that includes: incorporating 501(c)(3)’s, talking Sally into leaving Spring Valley for New Life, and serving Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte in the church lobby.

Despite being fond of the WWJD question, I sometimes feel the Christian religion is afraid of truly answering it. After leaving Christianity over two decades ago, I deconstructed away virtually all of my Christian theology. I couldn’t get rid of Jesus altogether but didn’t know exactly what to do with him either. Is there an unChristian Jesus? In 2012 I signed a book deal with a major Christian publisher to write a book entitled, Being Jesus in Nashville, which was my story of taking up the one-year challenge of “being Jesus” in the city where I lived. Upon submitting my manuscript and after their reading it, my publisher promptly cancelled my book contract, accused me of heresy, and refused to publish the book.

In my option there are at least these ten ways of being Jesus that would be a good place to start:

1. Jesus both affirmed what was good and confronted what was wrong in his own religious tradition.

2. Jesus taught that love is and should be the ultimate fulfillment of all religious teaching.

3. Jesus pointed out the hypocrisy of claiming a close relationship with God while perpetuating discord and hostility in human relationships.

4. Jesus confronted the mentality of judging others, and instead told people to look in the mirror.

5. Jesus taught a human solidarity where every person sees themselves as a “neighbor” to those in need.

6. Jesus extended love, compassion and friendship to all people without condition.

7. Jesus affirmed the inherent and equal worth of all human beings, regardless of their status or place in the world.

8. Jesus confronted systemic oppression and took on institutional power structures that perpetuated it.

9. Jesus did not seek to convert people to any religion or belief-system but challenged his followers to embrace and follow the spirit of love within themselves.

10. Jesus affirmed that every person has the responsibility and authority to build a world of peace and harmony that works for everyone.

What is “church” if it’s not an organization, building, location and program? What if undercover boss Jesus stood in the spotlight this coming Sunday morning at Lakewood Church before a sea of 20,000 faces. And what if he removed his disguise until it was apparent to everyone in the stadium that it was Jesus. And after he expressed his heartache over what the church has become in this name, what if Jesus made a radical request. What if Jesus challenged Lakewood Church to dissolve their 501(c)(3), and to cease all church services, programs, events, and classes. What if he asked them to consider to be the church without walls.

What if Jesus told the people to cultivate all those biblical one-anothers (“love one another,” “bear one another’s burdens,” “encourage one another”) into relationships with their neighbors. And to have the courage to take up the cause of the marginalized and oppressed in the streets of their city. What if Jesus instructed Lakewood Church to sell of all their assets, and create a financial foundation to care for the displaced, hungry, and hopeless. What if Jesus told the people he wasn’t interested in them worshipping him, but wanted people to discover and live the truth deep inside themselves. What if he requested the church walls be taken down brick-by-brick, and instead we built a stronger human solidarity where there is no “us” and “them”, but only one sacred “we”.

And after concluding his remarks, what if Jesus walked away from the microphone, came down off the stage, walked down the center stadium aisle to the back exit, and to a silenced crowd said, “I am with you always. Don’t you see? This was never about me. It was always you. You be Jesus now.”

Like this article began, I will conclude with the following caveats:

• I’m not advocating for Lakewood Church or any church to dissolve their 501(c)(3) and close their doors.

• I realize that disbanding organized church as a way for American Christianity to move forward is perhaps idealistic, unrealistic and probably Pollyanna.

• There are benefits to organized/501(c)(3) church, which I do not want to dismiss, and many organized churches are committed to community action and social justice work.

• It’s 2024. I’m pretty sure we don’t want to go back to horse and buggy for transportation or life before electricity. I get that buildings and budgets are just the way church is mostly done now. However, this should be tempered by the remembrance that the status quo isn’t necessarily justification for continuing to do the same thing, especially if it’s not working.

In Summary

• I’m sure if Joel Osteen and I had a beer together, we would discover several things in common.

• American Christianity is in a precarious position, and may need to re-think what it’s doing beyond contemporizing its Sunday service and serving Starbucks coffee.

• Jesus was a radical and revolutionary, and not a fan of organized religion. I can see Jesus calling for wholesale change in the church.

• There’s a huge downside to thinking of church as a thing you “go to”.

• I can’t believe I actually found a meme with Jesus as the undercover boss at Joel Osteen’s church.

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” - George Bernard Shaw