We were not made for cubicles.

I was talking with “Big Tuna” at work last week. He’s a mellow guy but his wit is sharp. He’s the only person who has ever truly come up with a great way to make fun of the name Dallas: Phallas , as in a phallic symbol. Anyway, I told him I finally pegged my biggest gripe with the way Industrialism treats people: you must fit into a box. It doesn’t matter if you like the box or not, or if you are good at what that box does, you are simply a box-sized unit and, therefore, must work within that box in order that The Organization may function efficiently.

I must give credit where credit is due: Industrialism is highly efficient. It has rapidly increased the speeds of production and volumes produced. And, that isn’t always a bad thing. However, oftentimes, there is a point where the soul is taken out of something. A point where the object being made is simply a “thing” and the people making it also become “things”. Wonder Bread, for example, has no soul. It is mass produced, quite cheaply and efficiently I might add, and tastes more efficient and cheap than bread-like. Great Harvest bread, while produced quickly, doesn’t taste of efficiency. It is imperfect because it was shaped by actual human hands. It is slightly different every time you have a loaf because different people have made it… it has their specific imprint. When Emily makes a dough, it is different than when I make a dough. When Jude kneads a loaf, it gets different design and different toughness than when I knead one. When I bake, I let the loaves rise and bake at slightly different times than Mac. Some combination of our imprints are on each loaf. I doubt that is the case with Wonder Bread and its mechanically produced food products.

I read online that Wonder Bread closed three factories and laid off 1,300 people recently. The shareholders and CEO of Wonder Bread, Inc. do not know the names of those people. Great Harvest, on the other hand, is small enough that the owners know each other and, on top of that, I know the names of the corporate level employees… and some of them know mine.

Both are corporations. One has run to its logical extreme. The other has been reigned in by humanity.

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For about 100 years, the church has increasingly mimicked corporations (as opposed to the Imperial/Feudal governments it mimicked before that [Roman Catholicism and Mainline Protestant denominations still do]) in its leadership structuring and the way it “funnels” people into “the body”. My concern is that, decades ago, Christendom crossed a line and sacrificed its core to this new way of doing things. I feel that a fundamental question was lacking from the get go: how much do an institution that exists to make a profit and a spiritual being rooted in upside down spirituality have in common?

How much harm is done when a corporate, winner-take-all mindset enters into Christianity? For starters, the Wal-Martization of churches is happening with ever-growing buildings that resemble gated communities and amusement parks more than they resemble Jesus popping up in every major city in America. These Mega-churches feed off of smaller communities the way that Wal-Mart (or Target) have killed mainstreet America. They also foster a consumer class that rates a church service the way someone rates a theater performance (A for the monologue, C for the music, D for the flavor of the communion bread).

How much harm is done when a person cannot be themselves but must funnel into a spiritual machine that has a mold the person is supposed to conform to?

What does is say that churches often call households “giving units” in business meetings?

Christendom has done away with Christianity without quite being aware of it. – Soren Kierkegaard

Some people are angered and/or saddened by my current state of “Church Involvement”, meaning the level to which I commit myself to an organization that revolves around Jesus. I had a conversation earlier this year where someone chided me for not working harder to further the “progress” (numeric growth) of a church. What these people do not understand is that, in case you haven’t picked up on it yet, I have lost faith in Institutional Christianity.

The more research I do, the more I find that there is historical precedent for my conviction. Here’s an excerpt I recently stumbled upon:

Bishops Theodosius and Gratian (380) ordered that there should be only one state-recognized Orthodox church and one set of faith – the orthodox dogma. Each Roman citizen was forced to be a member and should be made to believe in the ”lex fidei,” the law of faith. Other groups and movements – including those meeting in homes – were forbidden. That meant the legal end of the housechurch. The law turned the rules upside down. Once, church buildings were not even allowed by the government until the rule of Severus around AD 222-235, and housechurches were the only way for Christians to meet. But from now on, to start a housechurch meant breaking the law and becoming a criminal. This started a new era: the persecution of the church in the name of the ”church.” – Wolfgang Simson

I occasionally attend a church in order to keep myself from being spiritually isolated but my long-term goal is simply to get together with a handful of people that want to have a life as robust as Jesus’. I want to be around people that tell me stories of their life and their faith that compel my family into deeper spirituality. I want to share meals with them on a weekly basis and let them join me in the pleasure of watching my children grow up.

I don’t need an institution for that. I don’t need a building for that. I don’t need a full-time minister for that.

In order for this miracle of a faith-family to form, I desperately need Jesus to speak it into existence. I desperately need to be around people that want to be his followers. And, just like Jesus-followers 1,800 years ago, I need food that we can share while we talk about the Jesus-Life.

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