I’ve done a decent job of being in “break mode,” I think, but this recent post by Richard Beck unexpectedly took me back a few weeks to a meeting I was in. The article, for which I am grateful, is about how you can find both enchantment and disenchantment in any given congregation. That’s not something I disagree with at all. It’s true of any Christian institution or organization. But it’s interesting to see where people “draw the line.”
This paragraph from the post captures the tension well:
Like a lot of churches, our church had to make some budgetary adjustments after COVID. During these conversations the enchanted/disenchanted divide emerged among our leaders. On the one side where the leaders who approached our fiscal issues in a wholly disenchanted way. The Excel spreadsheet was front and center and the tools we used to address the issue were the tools of corporate finance and accounting. But on the other side were the more enchanted leaders. Fiscal issues were to be addressed with spiritual and miraculous means. The issue wasn’t money, the issue was faith. We handle financial shortfalls by getting on our knees in prayer, asking the Lord to act.
This could easily be a false dichotomy, an example of the either-or fallacy. And Beck admits that his church handled it accordingly:
Of course, we can do both. And we did both. But imaginations tend to gravitate toward one solution or the other. What is going to save us? Prudent budgetary cuts or the Lord God Almighty?
Yes, imaginations might tend to gravitate towards one more than another, but not without some nudging, some prompting from experience. And it might also happen because of a lack of honest conversation (which is why his medical example might prove the point a little better). Prudence is a classical virtue and wisdom is writ large across the Scriptures, as is trusting in God to do what is beyond our means. Enchantment that is only institutional, primarily life-or-death, is tricky at best and dangerous at worst, especially if it is not experienced in the little, mundane things. God can be (and is) at work on all levels. But if there isn’t bleed over from one level to the other, people easily labeled as “disenchanted” probably have multiple reasons for any learned skepticism, especially if “enchantment” is used as a way to belittle fellow believers and to stop conversation like a “mic drop.”
Advent, as I understand it, helps us consider two truths: the birth of Jesus (His first coming) and the return of Jesus (His second coming). That’s a lot to hold together, I think, especially with the strong pull of Christmas Day and all that comes with it. But that second truth still stands, which is why I often think of “The World’s Last Night” by C. S. Lewis.
Space Enough, and Time 