The Church Our Mother?

Augustine was surely correct when he said that if God is our Father, the church must also be our Mother.  This view was also endorsed by John Calvin (1509-1564).  But when that ‘mother’ turns out to be an abusive one, uncaring, unloving; when she becomes unfaithful to her Husband and flirts with other gods, thus becoming unfaithful, when she becomes drunk with notions of her own self-importance, blinded by power and pounds, when she becomes the end of all things, she then has departed from her high calling – to be the Bride of Christ, and to submit to His will in all things. When that mother turns from and against the very children her Husband gave to her, and treats them in a most abusive manner, the entire scenario has changed drastically. The sad reality is that it is the blood-bought church of Christ that behaves in this despicable way!

Yet when preachers tell their congregations that it is their Christian duty to commit to ‘mother church,' regardless of her track record, then they have gone too far.  And some just that!  They have taken Augustine and Calvin totally out of context, and made what they say a Christian requirement.  That it is is not doubted; but whether Christians are required to submit to an abusive mother is another question altogether. 

 

In society at large, if anyone suggested that children commit to a mother who has proved to be abusive towards her children, they would be roundly turned upon, and let know what reasonable people think about such a suggestion.  Also, if it was even suggested that children have a duty to submit to what has proved to be an abusive mother, the full rigour of the law would be called into action.  But not in the church.  I have heard very senior churchmen say o radio that his church was a family centred church, meaning that looking after the family lay at the centre of its concerns.  But where is the proof, where's the evidence that this is the case?  Are ministers also entitled to be cared fr and looked after well by the church?  When ministers are subjected to indescribable abuse at the hands of the church and her authorities, then she forfeits any right to be regarded as a good mother.   In fact, in society and in the natural realm, her children would be taken from her - and rightly so!