Proclaimer Blog
The Christians
Mrs R and I were taken to an extraordinarily moving play in the West End last week, The Christians by Lucas Hnath (you can read a review with him from the New York Times here). It is an essentially simple play – a large church US evangelical pastor announces to his congregation that they (the church) and he, in particular, no longer believe in hell. The Associate Pastor disagrees and is forced out. One by one congregation members seep away until his liberalism empties his church. Finally, in the most moving part, his wife tells him that she is not with him and cannot stay because she has felt betrayed (he has never told her of his doubts or thinking).
I thought it was well acted and well written – not, it seems, by an evangelical, but by someone who gets evangelicals and –shock horror! – portrays them accurately and well.
The challenges work at a number of levels. First, of course, it is a sad assessment of liberalism and how it empties churches. Perhaps we don’t need such a philosophical assessment, but I found it useful nonetheless, especially as just 5 minutes before writing these words, I listened to Radio 4 Thought for the Day with a Bishop (Tom Butler) who announced to the listening world that he didn’t believe in hell. Rather uncomfortable parallel – but we need to be sure where such liberalism will lead us.
Second, there’s something very profound to say about pastoral integrity. This man clearly had not believed what he had preached for some time, but until the church building debt had been paid off, he chose to remain silent. I’m not suggesting that you, Mr Preacher, struggle with the same lack of integrity, but it is always a challenge. Some soul searching required.
Third, the whole question of the pastor’s relationship with his wife intrigues me. I wonder what some of the wives of those outspoken liberals really believe, for example. But more importantly, for those of us who are married, we need to make sure we treasure and value our wives aright. That doesn’t mean making them co-pastor, even if they wanted that. But the fact is we are given a helpmeet who knows us better than probably anyone else in this world. Every pastor who is married should testify to the strength, comfort, help and challenge that his wife is. Without compromising complementary understanding he should often, like Abraham, listen to his wife.