Robinson Crusoe Christians

ROBINSON CRUSOE CHRISTIANS

I cannot stand "Robinson Crusoe Christians". You know, the person who speaks with great authority and claims: "You do not have to go to church to be a Christian". In other words, you can be a Christian all by yourself, on your own desert island.

This is certainly not how the New Testament writers view Christians and their relationship to the Christian Church.

For instance, the author of 1 Peter, describes the Church as being like a "spiritual temple" which is made up of Christians who are "living stones". Incidentally, he wrote his epistle at a time when there were no church buildings and Christians were forced to meet together in each other’s homes because of persecution.

St Paul, on the other hand, describes the Church as being like a body which is made up of various limbs and organs; and the author of the Fourth Gospel, describes the church as being like a vine which is made up of branches.

These three authors use various images - the 'temple', the 'body' and the 'vine' - to describe the church. Yet they all have one thing in common, namely that a building, a body or a vine cannot exist in isolation but needs - stones, limbs and organs, and branches to make it into a building, a body or a vine.

"Come as living stones and let yourselves be used in building a spiritual temple" says the author of 1 Peter, "the church is the body of Christ with its many limbs and organs, which, many as they are, together make up one body" says St Paul. "I am the vine, you are the branches," says the author of the Fourth Gospel.

Just as the temple, the body or the vine needs stones, limbs and organs and branches in order to express themselves, so also does a stone, a limb or a branch need other stones, limbs and branches in order to express itself. As long as a stone remains an isolated stone, or a limb remains an isolated limb or a branch remains an isolated branch, it cannot become a building, a body or a vine.

In other words, the Church is made up of people in a relationship with one another and, of course, with God, the focus of their coming together.

Now two things follow from this which leaves the Robinson Crusoe Christian completely shipwrecked on his desert island and outside the Christian Church.

Firstly, in the eyes of the New Testament writers, one cannot be a member of the church by oneself but only in relationship with others. No more than a leg can be part of a body, unless it is related to other limbs and organs, or a branch be a part of a vine, unless it is related to other branches. Left by itself, the leg or the branch withers and dies. As the New Testament scholar CEB Cranfield observes: "The freelance Christian, who would be a Christian but is too superior to belong to the visible Church upon earth in one of its forms, is simply a contradiction in terms".

It is interesting to note how frequently the words "one another" are found in the pages of the New Testament. Christians are told to "accept one another", "serve one another", "wash one another’s feet", "confess your sins to one another", "forbear one another," "forgive one another", "comfort one another and build each other up", "bear one another’s burdens" and "love one another" - which is the cement which binds the "living stones" into a community which we call the Church. In other words, we can only find fulfilment as Christians within a community.

"How many times does the word 'saint' occur in the New Testament?", asks Michael Griffiths. He goes on, "Get hold of a concordance and you will discover that the plural form 'saints' occurs 61 times. Only once (Phil.4.21) is the singular used and that is in the phrase ‘greet every saint’. The concept of a solitary saint is foreign to the New Testament writers".

In his book I Believe in the Church, the late David Watson says: "The Church is emphatically not an agglomeration of pious individuals who happen to believe the same gospel. Yet all too often Christians talk about "my Christian life", "my faith", "my salvation", "my relationship with God". And if I may add a personal observation, much of the current interest in Christian spirituality is also of this same individualistic nature.”

To quote David Watson again: "Protestantism in general has emphasised the individual over the community. Too often the church has been seen more as a collection of saved souls than a community of integrating personalities".

In fact, it was St Benedict, the "Founder of Western Monasticism”, in the 6th century who sought to develop this essential community aspect as being the environment in which we learn to become Christians, as opposed to those in his time who sought to live out the Christian life alone in the solitude of the desert. It is as we learn to rub shoulders and allow our feathers to be ruffled; as we expose ourselves to hurt and allow others to love us; it is as we open up ourselves and acknowledge our vulnerability, that God, through the members of that shared community, is able to offer us healing and transform our lives into his likeness.

In other words, Christians need each other in order to become fully Christian.

The second point I wish to make, and this can be made much more briefly, is that just as the spiritual temple needs living stones in order to express itself, or the body needs limbs and organs with which to express itself, or the vine needs branches, with which to express itself, so the Christian needs the members of the Christian church in order to express him or herself in the world of today.

Christians believe that by virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ, He is present (though physically unseen) in the life of the Church today. It is through our common life, as members of the Church that we make Christ present.

This cannot be better expressed than in that well known prayer of Teresa:

"Christ has no hands but ours to do his work today He has no feet but our feet to seek out those who stray: He has no eyes but our eyes to shine with God's great love, He has no lips but our lips, to lift men’s thoughts above"

Or, as the Revised Catechism puts it:

"The Church is the family of God, and the Body of Christ through which he continues his reconciling work among men”.

So you see, my friends, there can be no such thing as a Robinson Crusoe Christian who thinks he can be a Christian, all alone on a desert island, having nothing to do with the Christian church.

Firstly, we need each other in order to be fully Christian and secondly God needs us in order to express himself in the world of today.

The church building therefore has a vital role to play in enabling the members of the Christian church to be the church in each community by providing a focal point of meeting and of life of the Risen Christ within the community.

In short, Robinson Crusoe needs the Church and the Church needs Robinson Crusoe.