Is Your Church a Status Symbol?

2/23    Eddie

A common theme punctuated an interesting conversation with Eddie, whom I spoke with at a coffee shop. He explained how as a rebellious teen he had been turned off to Christianity at the small-town church his mother attended because it had a rather formal dress code. He refused to dress up for fear that the skateboarding crew he hung out with might see him and laugh, which led him to avoid going to church altogether.

I told Eddie that I could relate, because other than the Bible one of the most influential books in my life is one I read as a young Christian by a sociologist named Thorsten Veblan, called "The Theory of the Leisure Class".

This book was required reading in my college philosophy class, and, as a young man looking to gain social status even as a follower of Jesus, it rocked my world. Veblen coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption", which refers to material wealth and frivolous spending as ways in which we establish our social status in society. Chapter by chapter he describes all the vain forms this takes, even in the use of fashion and free time - "conspicuous leisure" - in which the wealthy demonstrate that they can afford to waste time and money and thus indicate their status.

Many of the ways this plays out in society are actually counterintuitive or use a sort of reverse psychology - such as the practice of rich people showing that they can afford to dress down, or beauty trends favoring thinness rather than at one time a man showing that he can keep his wife well-fed and plump, or a swarthy complexion which was at one time looked down upon as an indication of hard work in the fields, but then began to be favored as an indication of time spent in leisure on a cruise ship or in a tanning salon.

Eddie and I talked about how Jesus' message was compromised when Christianity was no longer persecuted and instead became an official religion in Rome, with public gatherings in fancy buildings. Like Eddie's small-town church, many people went to church to be seen by others and increase their social status, and what people wore to church became more like a fashion show.

As a young Christian I became very critical of churches that spent huge sums of money on what I could then only see as conspicuous displays of wealth, and this is part of what led me to a career serving the poor in the inner-city as a result. But over the years I am developing a better understanding of the fact of mixed motives in almost everything we do.

Were the great cathedrals of Europe in the Middle Ages built just as a "keep up with the Jones's" effort to outdo the next town, or were they truly built to provide a beautiful sacred space to help people glorify God? Do our leaders attend elaborate conferences to hobnob with the successful and well-known in Christian circles, or are they truly interested in learning and growing as effective servants in the church? Do we spend large sums of dollars and man-hours developing our worship music only to worship God, or do we enjoy the approval and praise from one another? A little of both I believe.

For a long time it was hard for me to see beyond my criticism, until I began to understand that there will always be a tension between our mixed motives in everything we do. Even the many who reject the church for its hypocrisy can’t avoid mixed motives. Think of Eddie’s initial rejection of the church dress code. He worried about what his friends would think. What would happen to his status as a rebellious skateboard dude?

But what did Eddie miss out on because his preoccupation with status kept him away from church? What do we all miss out on when we fear losing the status society gives us rather than fearing God? Do we substitute a fancy church building and church programs and the relatively safe status we think they give us for the status we risk losing in just reaching out with the simple gospel?

This is an important issue we can’t afford to ignore. Jesus said “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Let’s admit our mixed motives, and learn to focus on our status with God, rather than our status with men.

Thanks Eddie, for allowing me to record our conversation! It can be seen at https://youtu.be/s0p5BWXd4lw on my YouTube channel.