Book Review: Why We Love The Church

I have been eagerly looking forward to reading and reviewing Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, authors of Why We're Not Emergent (I got WWNE at T4G but haven't read it yet). Many of the books I have been reading recently look at the institutional church with the stink eye, so I was hoping this would provide a nice counterbalance to the sometimes over-the-top criticism of the traditional, institutional church. Much of the critique of the institutional church is essentially the same sort of practice defending rhetoric that comes out of the institutional church so I was expecting a vigorous, Scriptural defense of the church as we know it and do it.

Kevin and Ted have an interesting task and a difficult one. They are defending the status quo and that makes it hard because there are so many things that have gone wrong in the 1700 or so year history of organized religion in Christianity. Poking holes in organized religion is a simple task. Trying to defend the flawed system under assault in books and blogs is a much harder task.

This book assumes that the institutional church is the norm and therefore is correct unless proven otherwise. Granted the institutional church has hundreds of years of history on it's side and lots of famous and well-respected giants of the faith who support it. I would have liked to have seen them develop a theology of the institutional church from the New Testament forward but it seems that the approach is to look at the last few centuries since the Reformation and defend the visible manifestation of the church that has risen against any and all comers. I found that the book, to echo Tim Challies, seemed reactive. In other words, it was more being defensive on behalf of the institutional church than it was positively affirming that the institutional church is Biblical.

Kevin and Ted are clearly gifted writers that care a lot about the church, theology, practice, people and especially Christ. I understand what they are setting out to do. As I said, the "Everything about the institutional church is wrong!" movement misses the mark in so many ways. The organized religion we call "church" is full of great people, great pastors, great acts of charity and kindness, great teaching and great praying.

There are a lot of areas in this book that I found unfortunate. The authors create a number of false dichotomies: Either the Bible or community. Either theology or fellowship. Either the hierarchical, institutional church or "Lone Wolf", churchless Christians. They tend to cherry pick the worst sounding quotes from authors, especially George Barna, and then mock them. They refer a lot to church fathers like Cyprian and the Reformers as well as contemporaries like John Stott, but there is precious little Scripture. That isn't to say that there is no Scripture referenced, because there are lots of parenthetical references. However, by and large when Scripture is referenced it consists of proof-texted notes that reinforce dogmatic statements defending preexisting traditions.

Much of the reasons given for staying in the institutional church have a glaring flaw. Virtually none of the benefits require the institutional church and some are hampered by that very organization. One example is the last chapter by Ted, a moving chapter dedicated to his young son called Dear Tristan. As I read it, I would agree and echo a lot of what Ted said. I also would ask why the institutional church is necessary for his son to experience these wonderful benefits. Another example comes on pages 101-102 where Ted compares the church to a gym where we train for spiritual combat. Ted says: "Church, to us, should be as relevant as the gym is to the boxer, or as basic training is to the solder. We wouldn't go into a fight without training or thinking about our strategy." As I read that, I wondered if anyone else saw the inherent flaw in that argument. Church is not like a gym where we work out and get spiritually fit. It is more analogous to all of us going to the gym and watching one or a few men work out. In a boxing gym or basic training, men don't sit around watching all the time. Sooner or later you need to learn to shoot a rifle yourself or bob and weave and throw a jab. Sure you might learn something from their technique or instructions by watching, but at some point you need to get in the ring. In war the drill sergeant doesn't walk along the line of soldiers, loading their rifles and putting them up to the soldiers shoulders.

Ultimately I think the grand flaw of this book is that Kevin and Ted are answering the wrong question and perhaps unknowingly jumping over a step. I know of few people that are advocating a truly "churchless" Christianity. I do know a lot of people who are asking hard questions about the traditional institutional church and those questions are the ones that I had hoped would be answered here. Defending the institutional church against lone wolf Christians is pretty easy. Somewhere between disgruntled former church goers mumbling into their Starbucks on Sundays and institutionalized churches with paid staff, liturgy and programs are a wide array of Christians who have abandoned organized religion without abandoning orthodoxy. You not only can be orthodox outside of the institutional church, you really might just be more orthodox outside of organized religion. The big question is not whether George Barna and company are wrong but why is institutional Christianity right?

I found this book to be a disappointment because I expected more. People who are comfortable in the institutionalized church will find confirmation here. I would expect that this book will be very favorably received by people in vocational ministry. On the other hand, those who are questioning or leaving the institutional church will find little that is compelling to make them desire to stay. Rejecting the institutional church doesn't mean that you don't "love the church" or that you are "leaving the church" and that distinction seems to be missing in this book. This book started with an interesting premise and could have been a great book but in the end fell far short.