circumcision and church attendance

I would like to compare church membership with circumcision.

I was ordained Presbyterian. I was, and still am to some extent, a fan of Reformed Theology. There was always lots of talk about infant baptism and how, like circumcision, it was a badge or sign of one’s membership in the holy community, the people of God. The same applies to adult baptism. Circumcision, in the Old Testament, was a declaration of one’s belonging to Israel.

But Paul makes it clear that Abraham was a member by faith before he was circumcised. This is a key to Paul’s theology. We are loved and received… we belong… before the attending signs or applied badges.

I claim that church membership is the new badge, the new sign, that one is truly a member of the people of God. Arguments about baptism might ramble on in seminaries and ivory towers. But not among us regular folk. Church membership and attendance… now there’s a heated debate! Whether you go to a high-church liturgical expression or attend some kind of house church or a coffee shop Sunday morning bible study or Wednesday night prayer group or an occasional pub discussion… as long as you gather together with other members of the invisible church, then you are okay. This is the new sign that you belong, that you are a member. If you don’t belong to some kind of group, highly organized or highly organic, then your spirituality is seriously in question.

But I contest this, and vehemently. Most of the people I communicate with on a daily basis steer far away from any intentional religious or spiritual or Christian gathering. They are so burned by their experience with it that they will not get within a mile of that trap. Therefore they don’t belong. They don’t show the sign. They don’t wear the badge. Where’s the proof that they belong? Where’s the evidence that they are members of the people of God?

I claim that, as with every other person on this planet, we are all members, we all belong, before the sign and the badge. The sign is secondary. In fact, as Paul insists, the sign is obsolete. It is no longer valid. He would say if you have it, don’t try to reverse it. But if you don’t have it, don’t try to get it. It’s not necessary. In fact, he says it can actually nullify grace.

In the New Testament era, if you aren’t circumcised, you are still a member. I would go further. If you aren’t a member of a church or attending one or any kind of alternative expression of one, you are still a member. You still belong. Period. That is grace. None excluded. All included. No religious expression necessary to prove it.

I hope this is as clear to you as it is to me.

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