Seeking In or Sneaking In?

“Everybody’s looking for something …”

So sang Annie Lennox of The Eurythmics.

And she’s right: everybody’s looking — for something.

Back in the ’80s, there was a huge push in evangelical churches to become what they called “seeker sensitive”. Essentially, it meant building churches that were larger and accommodated more people — less like liturgical spaces, and more like shopping malls or movie theatres. Soft seats, big screens, stages, lights and sound systems … slicker programs, incorporating drama, visual displays and various other marketing tools, a more polished and professional administrative staff, special programs for counseling, grief care, visitation … and more elaborate programs for children and youth, too.

Behind all this activity was a kind of anthropology, a belief about the basic nature of the people in the surrounding culture: that, essentially, they were “seekers” of God, who only needed an attractive enough invitation by warm enough people, and they would naturally recognize that the solution to their long “search” was to be found in Christ. They’d get saved, not by way of things like conviction, but rather if we only moved the annoying impediments out of the way, and gave them circumstances that were congenial enough — entertaining, low-demand, well-organized and readily-available. Churches would no longer be places of estranging or alienating “religion”, but rather community centers that would point “seekers” to that which they were “seeking”. And that would end up being the right thing.

A Difference That Makes a Difference

Unfortunately for the seeker-sensitive movement, one thing they forgot is that people seek different things. As Childers and Barnett have written, “Everyone is a seeker.” They cite Romans 2:6-8 here, but add, “Notice Paul puts people in two groups: self-seekers and truth-seekers. So the question isn’t ‘Are you seeking?’ The question is, ‘What are you seeking?’ ”

That’s well-put. It may be true to characterize everybody as a “seeker”, but that doesn’t mean that what they’re seeking is going to be good. Some seek God, perhaps; but others seek their own freedom from God. Some seek truth, but some seek only further demonstrations of warrant for falsehoods. Some seek moral correction, but more seek justification for personal sin. Some seek community or fellowship, but some only seek to draw away followers after themselves. There are lots of kinds of seeking; and whether or not the church should want to participate in what they seek depends wholly on what that thing is.

I’m afraid that the seeker-sensitive movement was, ultimately, yet another modern church failure of discernment, accepting an easy solution in response to a very complicated and subtle problem. Human beings are prone to this, because discernment is hard. It requires us to remain vigilant, watchful, careful, hesitant and circumspect. It makes us have hard conversations and think things through before we do them; and this is very wearying to the human soul, and especially to those who are in leadership roles, because they have to do more of it than most. How much easier it is simply to throw over the obligation to discern, and declare a singular resolution that will require no more tiring thought! It’s almost irresistible, because discernment is so taxing, and the duty to do it never stops.

A Gated Community

Do you remember Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem? In the final phases of the wall, they installed gates. What are gates for? Well, two things: they’re to keep some things out, and let some things in. To make that effective, Nehemiah appointed two faithful men to oversee the watching of the gates, and commissioned every homeowner, as well, to watch over the security of his own house. He gave a burden of constant discernment to every man: some things are to be let in, and some are to be kept out. Pay attention to your duty to discern.

We might say, “Nehemiah, why put in gates at all? The wall will be much more secure if we just shut everything out. Then, we won’t have this tiring business of discerning.” Or we might equally say, “Nehemiah, why don’t we just leave the gates off? Then what comes in can come in, and what goes out can go out, all without any more anxiousness after that.” Of course, you can instantly see the problem: a city with only open gates cannot protect itself against enemies, invaders, exploiters, robbers, the wicked, and so on. Equally, a city walled-up without gates has cut itself off, not just from the resources and goods of the outside world, but from anybody genuinely sincerely wanting to join the cause and swell the ranks of the faithful.

Yet churches of various kinds have adopted both bad strategies — some, exclusive to the point where no new thing and no new person can get into their midst without procedures so rigorous that they choke out all new life. Others are open to the point that any vile thing, any base contribution of outside culture, or any bad person can simply wander in and out at will. How can either alternative be to the glory of God, and how can either meet the challenge of our duty to discern?

Home Truths

So much for churches. But equally, and far more frequently, many fathers, leaders of their homes, have abandoned the duty to discern, and have left their own wives and children wide open to exploitation, corruption and debasement. It may not be that they’ve been undiscerning about their personal habits, nor that they’ve actively encouraged their children to dabble in wickedness; but they’ve found it too tiring, perhaps, to monitor all that flows through their homes on the internet. Or they’ve decided it’s too hard to remain particular about the values that Netflix or HBO pumps into their homes, and have given up trying to manage the flow of foul language, corrupt beliefs and bad modeling that inevitably accompany today’s entertainments. Or they aren’t vigilant about the things being taught to their children in the public school or through the university. They may suspect it’s not all good, but they just find it easier to adopt the policy of “I’ll react whenever a crisis appears, if it ever does; it’s too much work to try to stay ahead of all that.”

To be fair, there are homes that are too closed as well. Having guarded against all possibility of exploitation or dirt from the world, not by discerning but by shutting down anything that even smells questionable, some parents have ended up suffocating their families, becoming controlling, domineering and overbearing. Paradoxically, by overprotecting, they actually diminish the resilience and increase the vulnerability of their own children. The day will come when they surely have to step out into the world for themselves. When they do, the preparation of their senses for personal discernment will prove their greatest need. How is it good, then, that they should face no challenges or tests of discernment at all, until they meet them all in a sudden flood? No wonder that so many children raised in those homes go “off the rails” as soon as they experience the outside world for the first time.

The Duty to Discern

Neither strategy — total openness or total closure — is motivated by love. Neither is motivated by righteousness, either. Both are simply expressions of weariness, of refusal to bear the constant burden of discerning between good and evil.

The duty to discern cannot be avoided. To be Christian is neither to be foolishly open nor foolishly closed about anything: it’s to bear the burden of making the hard choices, thinking through the hard issues, and remaining on guard for the purposes of the kingdom of God.

Be it our church, or be it your own home, who’s watching the gates?