Dr. Ben Witherington, blogger and New Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, describes a scene from John Updike’s newest book Terrorist. Witherington calls his post A Moslem observes Christian worship.
The central character is a young Muslim teenager named Ahmad. He attends a Christian worship service for the first time at the invitation of a high school friend, and describes it this way:
“The mosque was a domain of men; here women in their spring shimmer…dominate…. The black man hands Ahmad a folded sheet of tinted paper and leads him forward, up the center aisle to the front pews. The church is nearly full, and none but the front pews, apparently the less desirable, are empty. Accustomed to worshippers squatting and kneeling on a floor [for prayer], emphasizing God’s height above them, Ahmad feels, even seated, dizzily, blasphemously tall. The Christian attitude of lazily sitting erect as at an entertainment suggests that God is an entertainer who, when He ceases to entertain, can be removed from the stage, and another act brought on.” (p. 50).
Witherington observes:
What is striking about this passage is how accurately it depicts the casual demeanor of much of Christian worship, as if one were cozying up to an old pal….
I am reminded of Paul’s call for orderliness in worship and a sense of reverence before God when he scolds his Corinthians who are all too eager to put their spiritual gifts on display in egotistic fashion. He reminds them, showing his sensitivity to how worship appears to the outsider. “If therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers… enter, will they not say you are out of your mind?” (1 Cor. 14.23). Worship as it turns out is not just for insiders, it is also meant to have a prophetic or positive evangelistic impact on outsiders as well.
If worship is for outsiders as well as believers, are there aspects of our modern worship that convey the wrong things to the seekers among us?
In my own church, we’ve developed the habit of applauding after we sing. It’s meant as an act of praise, but I can’t bring myself to do it. It seems flippant, like we’re putting our worship of God on the same level as our enjoyment of a U2 concert.
What about our daily Christian lives? What sort of ideas are we conveying to the people we work with? It helps to look at ourselves, and our practices, through the eyes of outsiders. What do we look like? Are we giving them the wrong impressions about what it means to be a Christian?
