By David Ryser
I was at a conference in Toronto. The speaker closed his sermon by saying, “Christians
spend too much time in church, and not enough time at the movie theater.”
I was dumbfounded to hear these
words spoken from a pulpit. The speaker had
been making the argument that moviemakers, musicians, and other artists are
gifted by God to express His truth. Even
if they do not know God. He had been
talking specifically about how he receives revelation from God while watching
movies. I was pondering his closing statement
when God spoke two words into my spirit.
“Jurassic Park.”
And then God began to speak to me
about the state of the institutional Church by using the themes found in Jurassic Park
(both the movie and the book).
The premise of Jurassic Park
is that scientists have been able to recover the DNA of dinosaurs by finding
their blood in mosquitoes that had bitten them.
The mosquitoes then had been encased in tree sap, thus preserving both
the mosquito and the dinosaur blood.
Using this DNA, it was possible to recreate dinosaurs. An entrepreneur had funded this research in
the hopes that he could use the dinosaurs as the centerpiece for a theme park
featuring these creatures as living exhibits in a jungle setting.
Dinosaurs as zoo animals. Sounds dangerous.
Prior to opening the theme park,
the investor/owner invites three experts to inspect the park. This group consists of two paleontologists
and a mathematician (specifically a chaos mathematician). The paleontologists are excited by the
opportunity to see and study living dinosaurs.
They are blind to the fact that these dinosaurs, while in a climate that
is suitable to them, are being used in such a way (as living exhibits) that is
foreign to their original design.
Malcolm, the mathematician, takes
one look at the park and declares that it is a disaster waiting to happen.
There are too many variables. The dinosaurs are a fundamental unknown. No one really knows what they were like in
the past, but it is certain they were not designed to be captive zoo animals. No matter what safeguards are in place,
something will go terribly wrong.
The owner and his staff set about
to calm Malcolm’s fears. They point out
the security features of the park which include electrified fences and
impassable moats. In addition, the
dinosaurs have been created female to prevent them from breeding. The park is located on an island to prevent
their escape. Even if they do escape,
there is a final failsafe: The dinosaurs
have been genetically engineered to be lysine deficient. If they do not receive lysine (an amino acid)
in their diet, they will die. The park
staff provides lysine in the diet of the dinosaurs in the form of plant food (for
the herbivores) or animal product (for the carnivores). Without it, the animals cannot live for more
than a few days.
It sounds like a good plan. Too bad the plan doesn’t work.
As the old saying goes, dinosaurs
will be dinosaurs. Before long, they
begin to act like the wild animals they are and prove to be
uncontrollable. Not only do they make a
mess of the park, but some of them actually manage to escape the island. The park has to be shut down, and the damage
contained by a strict quarantine of the island.
The dinosaurs that have escaped are not thought to be a threat because
of their lysine deficiency.
Wrong!
The book ends with reports of
sightings of strange animals in the jungle.
People and animals have odd bite marks on their bodies. There are unidentified footprints on the
jungle floor. Along the path of the
footprints, there are opened bean pods.
The beans have been eaten by whatever animal left the footprints.
The beans are rich in lysine.
So what does this have to do with
the Church? Everything.
Christians are designed to be
passionate lovers of God who are aggressive co-laborers with Him, through the
power of the Holy Spirit, to establish the Kingdom of God
on the earth. We are called to be soldiers
in God’s army. The job of an earthly army
is to kill people and break things…and then to occupy the territory won in the
war. In God’s army, we take the light
& life of God and assail the gates of the kingdom of darkness. And we prevail against them (Matthew 16:18).
There is a violence, a wildness, an
unpredictability, and an uncontrollability inherent in all of this. This is a picture of a spiritual battlefield,
not a spiritual zoo. The local church is
the training ground for God’s army. Its
job is to prepare the believer for battle.
So why does the local church more
resemble a theme park where the Christians are on display for everyone to look
at?
And do not think for a moment that
this state of affairs is unintentional.
Every Bible
College student preparing
for vocational ministry takes classes such as Pastoral Theology and Church
Administration to learn how to keep God’s people on the reservation. To keep them under control in order to make
them useful for nothing more than to serve as workers in the Church machine. And we make sure that they do not learn how
to hear from God and operate in His power for themselves. Because if they did, they might do something
crazy like minister God’s love and power outside of the church building and programs.
God’s people are lysine deficient,
spiritually speaking. And they are intentionally
made to be that way.
Our churches typically are not
about training and equipping God’s army for battle. My friend Tim has correctly pointed out that
the threefold purpose of most churches is to:
1) Propagate a message (typically not the gospel; more like an organizational
sales pitch), 2) Pool resources (ostensibly for ministry, but usually for the
upkeep of the physical plant and the staff), and 3) Control a congregation
through a common, unifying vision (Can you say “Jurassic Park”?).
I don’t see establishing God’s
kingdom anywhere on the list. Do you?
As I saw all of this, God spoke
again into my spirit: “My people will
become what I made them to be. And they
will do what I have made them to do. They
will find a way to escape the religious system that is holding them back. And if they lack anything because it was
withheld from them, I will make sure they get it.”
I can’t decide if that sounds more
like a promise or a threat. I suppose it
depends upon where you fall in the battle between the religious system and the Kingdom of God.
…got lysine?
Responses to this article are
welcomed. You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com
