Christianity Today online<\/a>:<\/p>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There\u2019s no life in the bark. It\u2019s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows and grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it\u2019s prone to disease, dehydration, death\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn\u2019t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it\u2019s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism.<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\nI think the church is an important component of a Christian\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, just like the family is of a human being\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. This gives a bit of insight into why I love the church but feel it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s necessary to critique it. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no life in the bark, nor will there ever be. I critique how we do church, just as we ought to critique how we do family, work and politics in order that individual human liberty is not violated.
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Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another quote from the Eugene Peterson interview with Christianity Today online: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There\u2019s no life in the bark. It\u2019s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows and grows and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thought"],"yoast_head":"\n
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