Confession Hinderance?

While I'm sure cliquishness can occur in most any kind of church, it's probably more likely to become a thing in larger churches than smaller churches. This has also been a general experience of mine (though anecdotal experience is still only anecdotal).

This might be interesting, concerning some things I read a while ago: anthropologists have noticed that primate society tends to grow in accordance with overall intelligence. For example gorilla troops on average have about 9 individuals, when the troop starts to get too big it usually breaks apart. Chimpanzee troops range between 30 and 80 individuals.

Human beings generally can only handle social groups of about 150 individuals. That's about the upper limit of our ability to feel "part of the whole". If one looks at more tribal, pre-modern societies that's also about the upper limit of the social group.

Which is why in our modern society where we have towns and cities that are hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people we "clique", or band together in our own smaller "tribal" groups of friends and family. We don't really have the mental capacity to think in terms of being a a grand whole with that many people, and large social organization is usually divided into smaller units of social organization. That also includes military organization, consider ancient Rome that divided its legionaries into centuries--units of 100 men--under the leadership of a centurion. Likewise larger towns and cities typically divide their municipalities into smaller sub-units, neighborhoods, etc.

It's basically more comfortable for ordinary human social behavior.

As such it shouldn't be terribly surprising that once you start having a church that has 200+ members that some sort of sub-grouping is going to take place either intentionally or unintentionally. And clique-forming is going to be a natural process of banding together within a larger, harder-to-manage social organization.

That doesn't necessarily make cliques "okay". But there is a biological-behavioral basis for why it happens, and understanding that does perhaps make it more easily addressed. I think it is also a fundamental flaw of the modern mega-church as a whole, you start having churches of hundreds or thousands of parishioners and acting as a unified community becomes less feasible.

-CryptoLutheran

Radical Monk. Before making any comments, I'd like to hear the other side of this story.

Radicalmonk said:

ViaCrucis, I have also started another thread on cliques at this time, also. Did you mean to insert this reply about cliques on that thread? It would seem much more relevant there. Thank you for your input. I do appreciate a response.

Click to expand...

I recall the opening post being much longer and dealing with a specific case of cliqueishness.

It's entirely possible that I made a mistake. Though I note that your other thread about cliqueishness is in the Congregation-specific Ethics sub-forum--which I don't recall visiting anytime recently.

-CryptoLutheran

Radicalmonk said:

Have you ever shared a problem which occurred in the church where someone was hurting someone by sinning (gossip, lying, favoritism, deceit, and etc) and the response was "No church is perfect" or "when you find a perfect church don't become members cause it will no longer be perfect" or "a church is just a group of sinners saved by grace"? With such phrases in flamboyant circulation today to seemingly thwart off church discipline and personal accountability for exercised sin within the church:

• 1) Where is the limit of what sin we accept to be practiced in church? Doesn't God see all sin the same without levels or degrees? For a man to transgress a single sin has he not transgressed them all? If so, then if we accept one sin exercised/practiced in the church, say gossip or lying or deceit, are we not agreeing through our submission to God's perception of sin to accept any other sin, say homosexuality, murder, and rape to be practiced within the church?
• 2) Where does church discipline fit in with all of this or is this a ploy of satan himself to undermine and erode the credibility and integrity of the Body of Christ
• To ANSWER: Please go to: christianforums.com/t7845956/#post66447878
  

Click to expand...

1a) I don't believe the Church should "tolerate" any sin.

1b) I would also disagree that God sees no difference between one sin and the next. Murder is clearly a worse sin than coveting my friend's new Xbox; and God isn't oblivious to that.

1c) Rather all sin is condemned, all sin--and thus all sinners--stand under God's righteous condemnation, according to His righteous and holy Law we are judged, rightly, as sinners. And thus our hope is found solely in God's mercy which is ours in Christ alone.

1d) No, that there are people with faults in the Church, and thus sometimes things like gossip happens does not mean that it is just as though the Church were accepting of rape or murder. Not because gossip isn't sinful, but because valuating murder and gossip as the same is ridiculous. Of course gossip is a problem and should be addressed, but it's very obviously a very different problem than if someone in one of our churches were on a killing spree.

2) Church discipline is a tightrope. Overarching authoritarianism must be avoided, as that's how cults operate. On the other hand destructive behavior should be addressed. How a church should handle something--such as gossip or lying--should come down to a case-by-case basis. It should not seek to humiliate, ostracize, or punish the offending member, but draw them through the preaching of the Law to repentance, and with the life-giving words of the Gospel reach out to them in love, that there might be forgiveness and healing.

This is why there must be a preaching of both Law and Gospel, the Law condemns and convicts, and drives us to despair over our sins; the Gospel pronounces us forgiven freely, that our sins have been forgiven by God in Christ, and this is ours by God's grace, and we trust this in faith, believing it is true, and rejoice in its truth.

We must daily drown the old man in repentance, confessing our sins, and hearing the Gospel, joyously receive the forgiveness of our sins pronounced by that Word.

-CryptoLutheraly