To what extent do churches accommodate the values of their worshippers and merely give them a sense of comfort, and to what extent do churches set high standards and encourage Christian growth and social commitment? To examine these questions, I want to draw from a memorable service I attended commemorating the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, at one of America’s most affluent churches. The sermon from that service helps to show how a minister can tailor and dilute the Christian message to suit the congregation. It also hints at what, perhaps, could be said to money-makers and power brokers who go to church. Through this you might better assess whether your church is a thermostat or a thermometer.

In his letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. talked briefly about the early Christian Church and how transformative it was. He said the early Church was, in fact, a “thermostat”: the early Christians initiated ethical and social change; they turned up the heat through their commitment to higher values and positive personal change. The early Christians lived austere lives of intense self-scrutiny and made good things happen. The Nobel Prize-winning novel Quo Vadis? is one of the best resources to see what a church community as thermostat is like, and it shows how the early Christians jolted an evil empire. The Church later, however, became a thermometer that merely reflected the values of its society. We largely worship in thermometers these days.

Why did the Church go thermometer? Rome accepted the Church but also watered down its influence. Once Christianity became the state religion, anyone who wanted to rise in the state bureaucracy had to become at least a nominal Christian. Soon you could not tell who was the real Christian and who was the person nominally accepting the creed to get ahead. It’s kind of like what happened in the 60s when everyone became a hippy and nobody was suddenly a hippy or in the 90s when everyone became a hipster and nobody was suddenly a hipster.  

Organized Christianity became a creedal religion, not a religion of transformation. The Church began to ask less and less of its followers beyond the recitation of statements of belief. The promise of an afterlife became the main selling point instead of an enriched life on Earth. Most Christian churches began to reflect the values of their congregations instead of holding up universally high standards, and this is one reason why we have right-wing, homophobic, Bible-thumping gun nuts calling themselves Christians these days.

The Christian religion started to resemble the old Roman state religion, which took people as they were and did not demand much change in them. In regard to sin, you could confess this easily for absolution and sin again. If you were a real reprobate, you could join a Crusade, kill people of a different faith, and get to heaven that way. Or you could pay to touch a saint’s toe bone…lots of ways.

When Women Were Priests by Karen Jo Torjesen shows that in the early Church women were even priests and bishops. The development of Christianity was due largely to the work of women. But when the Church and State merged, it became unacceptable for women to hold power. Rome demanded that women take a back seat in their society and so they also took a back seat in the Church they helped to establish.

So, let’s jump ahead to a service at one of America’s most affluent Protestant churches. No need for names, these places are legion. The congregation was made up of attorneys, professors, businessmen, architects, civic leaders, engineers, educators, politicians, doctors, cultural leaders, a couple TV stars, journalists et al. If there are terrible and unresolved problems in our society, these are the people with the means and intelligence to change matters. If there are lingering and unresolved problems in our society, it is because these are the people who do not acknowledge the existence of those problems or do not bother exerting much real effort in tackling them. If they are OK, the world is OK.

They were either a huge potential for transformational power or a huge stagnant class-based inertia. I learned from this church that just because you are a journalist does not mean you will write about injustice or corruption, just because you are a politician does not mean you will try to racially integrate your city, just because you are a lawyer does not mean you will try to change the root causes of crime, and so on. It’s much easier to do what you need to in order to maintain your lifestyle and nobody really blames you for doing so. You earned this right.  

The minister began by assuring everyone that taking action in the world and changing things was the type of life our God designed for us. As an example of this, the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer was to be examined. Bonhoeffer had been executed by the Nazis before he was able to establish a thorough theological system, but his life was a modern model of Christian faith and witness. Bonhoeffer’s refusal to stay safely in New York and his choice to return to Nazi Germany to be with his people during their ordeal was tantamount to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

He referenced Bonhoeffer’s distinction between cheap and expensive grace pointing out that being a Christian is not easy and might require suffering. The Christian religion was one of “this-worldliness” which carried obligations. To Bonhoeffer organized religion offered easy, cheap grace. Finally, the minister began making recommendations.   

Yet, after spending almost 30 minutes speaking about Bonhoeffer, and the value of taking action in a morally challenged world, and the risks and suffering a Christian might endure, the specific actions urged upon his congregation were anti-climactic; it was tantamount to a composer ending a moving symphony with a piece by a banjo band. To the folks with immense money, power, education and influence, he urged them to commit themselves to a thankless task, take care of a parent with Alzheimers or a friend with a chronic illness, show tough love to their teenagers, tolerate a spouse who disappoints them, show up for work, maybe teach a class or tutor, possibly cook a meal for the poor, or, finally, to hold somebody’s hand when they are troubled.

After speaking about a man who went back to Nazi Germany to oppose evil any way he could, knowing he might be killed, he encouraged his power elite to cook a meal for the poor.   

What should he have said, “Go out and martyr yourselves!”? Of course not, but he said nothing about humane self-development and nothing about tackling the extreme social problems present in that American city. It was as if development toward greater kindness, mercy and tolerance and positive social change were not even an option. As if he were saying, “Look, I can’t ask these important people to suddenly tackle the big problems of society. Shoot, they are probably causing the big problems of society. I will not be socially uncouth or unpleasant here. I learned good manners, refinement and grace at my divinity school. Furthermore, I know who butters my bread. I’m no Savonarola!”

But you said Christianity was difficult. Yet, you don’t challenge people who can solve problems to really try to solve problems. If you don’t challenge your congregation to change and to rise, you are merely accommodating them. You could not challenge these people to action commensurate to their capacity to get things done in the world? Christianity should not accommodate, it should motivate, challenge, inspire. Christianity was not difficult for this congregation, it was impossible.

What should he have said? I think you can come up with ideas too. There are a million directions for each of to evolve to be of service to each other. It’s not necessary to cover everything a person can do in just one sermon. But a church which is more thermostat than thermometer will consistently try to engage and inspire folks to work on themselves and think of ways that life can become better for others.

OK, cook a meal for the poor…but then sit down and eat with those folks. Listen to them, feel pain due to the pain they express to you. Expand your empathy bandwidth by learning about why people are suffering. Develop a righteous anger over this suffering but let it motivate you to non-violent, meaningful action. Have you been using your power and your wealth to avoid those who suffer? You live around people who look and act exactly like you. Why does education separate us from each other instead of bringing us closer? Look for opportunities, perhaps through your church, to meet people who are different from you to learn about what needs to be changed. Then marshal your buddies and fix things!

Go to prisons, go to homeless shelters, go to hospitals, go to a courtroom and watch a Black family rise and stand, tears in their eyes, as a young man is brought before a White judge and White prosecutor to be sentenced to years in prison, which will corrode his soul. Then go to the neighborhood where he grew up and try to wander around for a while to get some sense of what he had to go through. At least acknowledge that your city is horribly segregated. Don’t pretend that housing inequality, educational inequality, healthcare inequality, employment inequality and criminal justice inequality do not exist.

Talk to your political representatives about a path to desegregation and true racial equality of opportunity. Studies have shown that racial integration of American cities means a better life for everyone. It even means a more equitable distribution of wealth as marginalized communities gain better access to meaningful jobs. You belong to professional organizations, they have power, they can help set a political agenda. Stop not seeing anything wrong, make demands from politicians who can change things if pressure is applied. You are surrounded by crisis, do not act as if there is no crisis.

You are a businessman. Do you have a compassionate workplace? How do you treat your staff? Are you patient? Are you kind? Are you supportive? Or, are you aggressive and demanding and instill fear? Do you create situations of personal and professional growth for your staff along with opportunities for positive social engagement? Do you have diversity where you work? Do you reach out to the community to offer assistance? Do you see poverty in your city? Can you think of ways you can help alleviate poverty? Can you make this a personal goal?

You are a mother or father. How do you model behavior for your children? America is a country that cannot control its anger. We often read of mass shootings by people who could not handle their frustration. People become frustrated and strike out instead of learning to diffuse their frustration and to then solve their problems peacefully. Not enough people question the anger and hate and intolerance that pervades our society. Are you an angry person who shows no self-restraint and who hurts and adversely affects your children? Do you try to guide your own humane development as well as the development of your children? Do you put pressure on your children to succeed financially or do you allow them to develop their own motivation to perhaps live lives of meaning and service? What meaning do you derive in life? What purpose drives your life?

This is what religion requires in this church. This is what a minister should say. Almost all churches have failed in their mission to us. If the church does not establish values for us, and encourage us to constantly strive toward those values, who will do this? Is your church a thermometer that measures your comfort or a thermostat that tries to disturb and motivate you?  

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