Volume 29, No.44                                      
November 14, 2004

The Girders of Truth

   It’s not a Chinese proverb but Mao Tse-Tung should’ve listened to the old adage, “Look before you Leap.”

   In the mid-1950s, China’s leader was determined to make his backward country modern and progressive, like Britain, the U.S. and the Soviet Union.  But he knew there was one thing China had to start producing if he hoped to catch up with the rest of the world’s superpowers:  steel.

   After consulting his advisors, Mao decided to harness the power of his 700 million people.  He called his new plan The Great Leap Forward and ordered every village to build at least one small blast furnace.  Peasants were then told melt their plows and sickles into steel for use in ships, bridges and factories.  Confident of success, Mao predicted Chinese steel production would rival America’s within 15 years.

   Trouble was, virtually nobody in the rural communities knew anything about science and technology.  So when every village built a tall, cone-shaped furnace, perfectly good tools were routinely turned into useless lumps of black slag.  

   Periodically, Mao would take a train into the countryside to see the progress of his great plan. Nobody wanted to tell the Chairman his dreams of economic domination were buckling so, whenever he was on his way, another train filled with imported steel girders was sent ahead. Those girders were then piled in the village square where proud-looking peasants would pose for pictures with the beaming leader who didn’t have a clue what was really going on.

   But then harvest time arrived.  Since most of the country’s farm tools had already been melted down, peasants could do nothing but pull up plants with their bare hands. Most of the crops rotted in the  fields, setting off a famine that killed 30 million by 1960.  With no food, and still no steel, China languished economically for another 15 years.  The Great Leap Forward landed in disaster.

   Today, many segments of the church are undergoing their own version of the Chinese experiment and the outcome seems just as doomed to failure. To escape a reputation for backwardness and compete with the other things in this culture that vie for the time and commitment of families, many faith groups are becoming all things to all people.  Churches are going where the people are, setting up in shopping malls and other nontraditional places, even community centres!  So far, so good.

   Then, to make the initial connection, they’re offering a wide range of services once provided only in a secular setting, everything from concerts and child care to weight-loss clinics and Christian wrestling.  Nothing wrong with that, either.  At a time where many people have never been to church, it’s important to introduce them to Jesus in comfortable, culturally-relevant ways that go beyond the traditions of yesteryear that no longer work.

   The problem arises when churches let these “building” materials become more important than the vital tools needed to feed hungry hearts.  Tools like deep-seated love;  Light theology, instead of theology lite;  and Spirit-inspired encounters with Christ and the Cross that lead to sacrifice and commitment.  Those are the things that bring growth and maturity. Yet  it’s the social and service aspects that get an ever-bigger share of the church’s time, financing and focus.

   The truth is, when it comes to the secular activities, the world will always do a better job than a church that must balance those things with the spiritual. That’s why so many congregations import business principles and model themselves after corporations. It makes the leaders of the mega-churches look good but the soul work suffers.

   Eventually, the result is spiritual starvation. People hungering for truth and profound, personal experience with God just wither away.  That’s why, however we choose to get the world’s attention, we must keep things in perspective, trusting the Word and the Spirit to give us true, lasting growth.  For the church, the only Great Leap Forward is a leap of faith.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ church family in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To receive these free weekly articles via email, send a note to sgamble@bfree.on.ca