The Church is Not Dead
I was recently visiting the beautiful city of Venice, and I had the opportunity to tour St. Mark's Basilica. This church is believed to be the resting place of the remains of Mark, the Gospel writer, and I was overwhelmed at the beauty of this magnificent place. Perhaps the most beautiful church I've ever seen, it had gold shimmering mosaics covering the ceiling, beautiful stone pillars in all manner of colors and patterns flanked the walls, and then remarkably detailed mosaics covered the floors.
It was an astonishingly beautiful place. We had to purchase tickets ahead of time because it's such a popular place for tourists, and I was intrigued as we walked through and saw so many people--wandering through, admiring, taking pictures, listening to tour guides--and I wondered how many of these people are Christ followers and are in this place because they believe it to be a House of God and that God exists? And how many of these people are walking through this building like a museum, to enjoy the art, to experience the beauty, but seeing it as something that is dead? How many were observing it all as a still life, representative of time gone by, merely historical? Still important, but not alive. I was struck by the fact that all over Europe, and I’m sure in other parts of the world as well, there are big, beautiful, ornately designed churches, cathedrals, basilicas, and they are treated as museums. They are treated as works of art but not as places of worship.
I think this is an important distinction for us to make--that the church is not dead. That the church is not a museum. It is a place that is living and breathing. Apologetics is important for so many reasons, but one of them is to remind or introduce people to the idea that the church is alive! That God is living and active and moving and interacting with us today. Every day. Following Easter and the Resurrection is a perfect time to reflect on that because we have just been reminded that Jesus is alive. He was crucified, but he rose again, just like he said he would. Just like the prophecies said he would. It is on that miracle that we stand.
We're told several times in the New Testament that this is the test. This is how we'll know that Jesus is who he says he is, because he will come back to life. He did, and we have good reasons to believe that he did. The tomb was empty, and so we can walk through these beautiful churches appreciating the artistic magnificence but also receiving the life-giving truth that those mosaics and statues and paintings represent. They are telling us a story, a true story about the world, about God, and about ourselves.
In the preface to GK Chesterton's play, The Surprise, Dorothy Sayers wrote that Chesterton “blew out of the church a quantity of stained glass of a very poor period and let in the gusts of fresh air in which the dead leaves of doctrine danced with all the energy and indecorum of Our Ladies Tumbler.” This is what I believe needs to happen in our understanding of Christianity. We need to dust off, so to speak, the relics of our idea of churches as museums and instead bring in gusts of fresh air; reigniting the wonder and excitement and belief that our faith is real, that Christianity is true, that Jesus is alive. We need to experience anew the reality that God is moving, working, active and most importantly, loves us.
That should light a spark in us, illuminate from within us the light of Truth shining out to the people around us. But also, a passion to share that Truth with others. The gift of apologetics is that it gives us the tools to make our case. It helps us respond to the questions, arguments, and challenges that people bring.
As much as people love to tour these beautiful old churches, how much more exciting is it to walk through and realize that they do not represent something that is dead and over but something that is alive, and still to come! They are pointing us to a Truth that is even more beautiful than we can imagine. That's what I hope we can do and that's what Apologetics on Mission is doing all around the world, equipping people, giving people the tools they need to represent our faith well. Pointing people to Truth and showing how exciting that is.
Ashley Hemphill
Ashley is a married mother of 6 children and has served with her family on the mission field for 10 years, first in Kenya and now in Germany. She has a master’s in cultural apologetics from Houston Christian University and recently completed an apologetics course with the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. Ashley feels passionate about equipping young Christians with the tools they need to feel confident in their faith. She especially loves teaching anything involving C.S. Lewis.
