The 95 Theses of Breaking Church

95 Theses of Breaking Church

Slightly more than 500 years ago, a theologian named Martin Luther hammered a list of 95 theses, or things that bugged him about the Catholics, to some church door (or not).

Luther is one of those Church figures who, although Church folk don’t like to admit to idolatry, gets openly worshipped and revered. Turns out he was a very not-nice person, which Church doesn’t admit or dwell on either, but I have to acknowledge his formative influence, even on me: in the faith tradition I grew up in, his theses were talked about in reverent tones and hushed whispers, and we were expected to parrot the approach. They’d never use the word Saint (waaaay too Catholic), but the tone and manner in which he was talked about belies the objection: Luther was and is the patron saint of interfaith grumpiness for a lot of folks.

I’ve been keeping a mental list of the ways in which Church is broken and hurts people for may years, but recently I’ve begun writing them down. The list is, at present, sitting at 91 items, and I know there are many more to come. As I was thinking about how to structure these items, which are the first concrete explorations of the Breaking Church Project, guess who popped into my brain?

You guessed it: one very flawed (which made him oh-so-attractive to the Nazi party) guy and one very flawed list allegedly hammered to one very old church door. And a handy, prefab structure for my own listed items.

So, that’s what I’m going to do, at least at first (I’m hoping the BCP becomes more than just a grumpy-ass list). Starting with my next post, I’m going to journey through my list of festering Churchness, starting with a biggie:

Thesis 1: Church isn’t church at all.

Cheers, all. Looking forward to the discussion.

EB

PS. I recognize the irony and perhaps even some hypocrisy in admitting this structural nod to what’s-his-name, but fuck it: if we at Breaking Church can’t be honest with you and ourselves, what’s the point? There is little new under the sun, as they say, and life is full of unacknowledged plagiarism as we emulate and copy and borrow and steal, even as we tell ourselves that we’re all unique and special. We are, but not as much as we’d like to think.

Keywords: 95 Theses of Breaking Church; Faith; Deconstruction; Religion; Christian; Christianity; Church; Sin; Corruption; Scandal