organicchurch.com

I'm so stoked. I just got the Dictionary.com word of the day in my inbox- guess what it is:

crapulous

\KRAP-yuh-lus\, adjective:

1. Suffering the effects of, or derived from, or suggestive of gross intemperance, especially in drinking; as, a crapulous stomach.

2. Marked by gross intemperance, especially in drinking; as, a crapulous old [1]reprobate.

It's about time that "crap" got it's day in the sun. And what a perfect day it is. I've hated that I've had to try to defend the word from religious or legalistic people... but now that I can say it comes from "Late Latin crapulosus, from Latin crapula, and from the Greek kraipale;"  I get to taunt the legalistic people with an unnecessary pedantic exoneration of the word. Heh, I already started.

I think it's time for a theological look at the word "crap" with a little help from our friend, Mr. Biblical Text.

Read more for the action...

(Some people may find this article offensive)

Gotta love the definition of the word, too... "suffering the effects of, or derived from, or suggestive of gross intemperance." That's exactly our point here at Organic Church... The church culture is often quite guilty of intemperance, the self-indulgence of their own religiosity and supposed moral elitism. Too much of the church today is just like those pharisee guys. So wound up in their little religious details that they've lost sight of the real deal.

In Matthew 23:23, Jesus rebukes the pharisees for the silly details of giving a tenth of their spices but neglecting justice and mercy. Read that whole chapter. The things Jesus lays into the pharisees about are all pretty common in the church bubble today- making spiritual mountains out of molehills, promoting legalism instead of grace, focusing on the Institution instead of the message and lifestyle... Most of us are guilty. Even when OC started I was guilty of just committing the same sins I was railing against but using a different scorecard (check out the second podcast for details.)

Last warning, legalists! Adult language starts here!

Spiritual Masturbation- the Ultimate Self-Indulgence

It's come down to the church being guilty of Spiritual Masturbation- the ultimate self-indulgence. We fantasize about some amazing religious experience, but we manufacture the feelings in the flesh. We fantasize about righteousness, but we fondle our own morality. We dream about grace, but we grope our own merit. We imagine mercy, but stroke our worthiness.  We're taking spiritual truth and substituting  a cheap imitation in the flesh... and soon we're less and less satisfied by the actions, but we want the instant gratification. We become spiritually impotent- unable to really enjoy the spiritual truth that we have dreamt about but never really experienced. We can't experience truth because we're done before truth even starts. Like the bible says:

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:25)

Our self-indulgence in church culture, morality, and spiritual elitism brings us to a place where we can't even appreciate the real thing any more. Grace and mercy become simply frustrating because it doesn't satisfy in time. It's more real than what we give ourselves, but it's so different we're just not able to really grasp it. We dream about it, but we're so used to having it our way on our terms, that when the real deal finally decides to bed with us we can't get our own hands out of the way. Our spiritual love life is crapulous, suffering from the effects of gross self-indulgence.

I'm honestly not trying to be shocking or go overboard here. I've re-written that last paragraph a few times now because the illustration is so provocative. I don't want to make a point out of the shock value of the term "spiritual masturbation," but to point out that we should be made that uncomfortable when we think of how shamefully self-indulgent our own spirituality has become. We should be as embarassed about that as we would be getting caught by our parents/spouse with our hands in our pants. It's just as shameful if not more so for the purity of the thing we're actually defiling. If sex is God-given, beautiful and pure, and only twisted with self-indulgence, how much more is grace, mercy, and truth twisted with our intemperance?

I've also heard this same metaphor twice in the last week from other guys who are the senior pastors at their churches in talks or sermons they've given. Frankly, I didn't like the term, I thought they were being controversial for controversy's sake,  and the illustration never made sense to me until I started to really ponder what it means to be "grossly intemperate." I wasn't really repulsed by the term until the metaphor popped in my head- and at that point I knew it was the perfect metaphor. You give me a more accurate metaphor and I'll consider using it. For now, spiritual masturbation is the poster metaphor for being spiritually crapulous- and we SHOULD be ashamed and scandalized by it.


Organic Church- Anticrap Awareness

It's amazing how an e-mail from dictionary.com can be such a powerful agent of clarification for the spiritual direction of Organic Church. I am truly repulsed by the spiritual crapulence in my own life and in the church at large. It's helped me really clarify the specific things about the Institutional Church that make me so upset. I knew that "church without the artificial crap" was a great tagline for Organic, but it was honestly a little more tongue in cheek at the time... Now it's pretty much a mission statement.

I sincerely apologize for anyone who's offended at the metaphor- it's not my intention to offend you with the term. I want you to be offended however, but  at your own spiritual crapulence. Be offended that you're so easily offended. Be offended that you piss on the gospel of grace every time you try to make a point about righteous living having anything to do with God's love for us. Be offended that you've become the pharisee you mock in your bible studies and have always said you would never become.

Be offended at your enormous pile of spiritual crap. Everyone else is...