Spiritual Paranoia
Sometimes I’ll make reference to the term spiritual paranoia as something I occasionally experience.
But what do I mean by it?
By spiritual paranoia, I’m referring to a vague and lingering distrust of the institutional church.
Of course, you won’t it on any list of psychological disorders. I’ve never heard it described elsewhere, and I’ve never met anyone else who has it. But as I’m re-exploring church in an institutional setting, I figured this would be a good time to talk through it.
The Church’s Uncanny Valley
In his book Bukimi No Tani (“The Uncanny Valley”), robotics professor Masahiro Mori observes that as the physical appearance of robots approaches those of human beings, humans will generally grow in their affinity toward them. This positive relationship between realism and affinity will continue to increase, that is, until the the robot’s appearance becomes almost indistinguishable from a real human. Here the human emotional response toward these robots suddenly shifts to fear and apprehension.
Mori refers to this region of human-like appearance as the “uncanny valley”. It’s thought that these negative feelings are a psychological response to when the human mind struggles to make the distinction between the impostor and the real deal. Our minds know what a real human is and the robot looks like a human, but something just feels off.
What makes something “uncanny” are the subtle, almost imperceptible discrepancies between what we see and what we know to be authentic. You know what you’re looking at isn’t real, but it’s difficult to put a finger on exactly what bothers you about it.
For me, I find this principle also at work in the institutions of church. Let me explain…
Today, there are so-called churches whose practices and beliefs drastically conflict with Jesus’s character and His design for His Body. One obvious example of this is when a church accepts, affirms, tolerates, or celebrates what is clearly sinful. Most spiritually mature Christ-followers would have no problem seeing this contrast. But many believers will become so aligned and familiar with a church’s traditions, beliefs, and practices that they merely accept them as legitimate. But for me, the slightest differences rouse suspicion. It might look like Jesus, but something feels off.
This sensitivity is heightened by two things.
First is a deeper apprehension of Jesus Christ.
Several years ago, during a season of profound desperation and searching, I discovered an renewed understanding of Jesus, His Body, His Kingdom, and His Eternal Purpose that was radically different than anything I had ever heard or experienced before. Much like that scene in Jurassic Park, when Dr. Grant forced Dr. Sattler’s attention from the extinct plant to a living, breathing dinosaur walking before them, the Lord shifted my attention from the common preoccupations of western Christianity to something much greater.
If you’re curious, much of what I discovered is found in First Things and Pursuing the King—two series of articles I wrote in the early days of this blog.
The second is the pessimistic view I have of church history, especially after 325 AD. It’s not that the church has largely failed to represent Christ. But if the church can’t see that waging war, burning fellow Christians at the stake, and harboring pedophiles is incongruent with Jesus’ character, how can I trust her with deeper matters?
And how did we even get to this point? As I explained in a previous post, shortly after Paul’s passing the Early Church Fathers began to shift toward relying on human expediency to move the church forward. While the Lord’s plan was for the church to continually abide in Him to provide her life, energy, and direction. Instead, the church would become systematized, academically focused, human-centered, ritualistic, and increasingly disconnected with the indwelling Spirit of Christ. It’s man, not the Lord, that created things like human hierarchies, theology, ritual, and a focus on things other than the Lord. We presume these things have always been there and that God has guided their incorporation. But rather than being helpful, they serve as a distraction from the Lord and an artificial preservative for His life. When that happens, the church will slowly become like the world.
When believers neither experience the depth in their Lord nor see beyond the inorganic preservatives in His body, they will be content with the common church experience. (After all, it’s all they know.) But for those of us who know have experienced organic Body Life and know there’s more than the common church experience, the institution represents the church’s uncanny valley.
And for us it can be very unsettling.
Three Types of Contrast
So, it’s the subtle contrast between the institutional church and the Lord’s directives that make me suspicious. Of this contrast there are three types.
The first is what I call misalignments. This is when the institutional church clearly doesn’t line up with the way Jesus set His Kingdom to operate. One common example is authoritarian church rule (which clearly contradicts Jesus teaching in Matthew 20:25-28). Another is the frequent but subtle use of guilt from the pulpit as a way to motivate parishioners (contradicting Romans 8:1). Another example is when a church becomes entangled with partisan politics (contradicting John 18:36).
The second is what I call points of overemphasis. These are things that might be healthy for the church at normal levels, but are elevated to the point of distraction. One example is the emphasis of academic theological study as the means of spiritual growth. Another example is the emphasis on clergy-laity distinction which can lead to the monopolization of ministry. Another good example might be the adherence to a rigid and sacrosanct order of worship during corporate gathering which can limit the Spirit’s function.
The third are points of disconnection. This one is a little more complicated to explain. Points of disconnection are most often “causes” or practices borrowed from the world. Because they smell like something Jesus would advocate, we might adopt them and attempt to Christianize them. But in practice, these activities usually end up retaining their ideological foundations and may even be opposed to Jesus’ methods. This might include the politically progressive notion of social justice and politically conservative notion of Christian nationalism.
A quick tour of the modern church landscape will tell you that it’s full of these kind of contrasts. While I don’t believe such distractions are heretical, the more a church has been preoccupied with them the less I tend to trust that church in weightier matters.
Straddling the Fence
For me, the root of spiritual paranoia is a fear of being lulled into spiritual apathy. So much of what we call church today is hollow. It lacks imagination and creativity–a shadow of the expression that Christ has called us to. The vast majority of church attendees are happy with things the way they are. For them life is good. A few feel it in their spirit that there must be something more to the Kingdom community. But the momentum of immutable tradition eventually pulls such thinking asunder.
So what do I do?
On one hand, it seems the easiest way to find fellowship is at a church. If the purpose of gathering is to build one another up that Christ, this can’t be done in isolation. It requires others to share our gifts and revelation. Solo Christianity is incredibly lonely. (I’ve tried it). It’s also a good way to become spiritually feral and disconnected. Each believer as witnessed a unique aspect of the Lord. There’s much to learn from diverse spiritual backgrounds and experiences.
On the other hand, I need to preserve what I’ve beheld in Christ. What’s been revealed to me is higher than what’s offered in most churches today. Unfortunately, the spiritual maturity of the average Western church is incredibly shallow. Maintaining and growing from what I’ve been given requires a personal pursuit. Remaining in the shallows requires that I spend a lot of time discerning what’s being said in such places to avoid becoming spiritually dull.
Today, I straddle a fence by staying close enough to the institutional church to seek fellowship, but distant enough to avoid becoming merely a consumer of what today’s church offers.
I have a close friend who is an incredibly devout Roman Catholic. He goes to mass every day and recites certain prayers at certain times of the day. He’s not just a go-through-the-motions type catholic. I sincerely believe he pursues the Lord through the Roman tradition. He has told me his faith is not in the Pope, but in Jesus Christ. And I believe him. As a confessional tradition, the mechanics of the Roman Catholic belief system has been thoroughly worked out. Very little is left to opinion. Little remains of orthodoxy for the average Catholic to figure out on their own. They must believe the traditions and dogma of the historical church or they are not “of the faith”.
In many ways, I’m jealous of the rigid spiritual traditions of my friend. There’s a part of me that desperately wants to put my trust in a confessional Christian tradition and implicitly believe everything it teaches without question.
Why would I want to do this?
Because spiritual paranoia is exhausting.
Continuously evaluating the contrast between what I know and what I see is incredibly draining. But it’s something I can’t turn off.
Such tension is a hard place to rest.