A Sepulcher of Worship

There’s a building that used to house a church just down the street from my church building.  It was – for the first four years or so I worked here – a Church of God in Christ.  But a couple of years ago, it closed its doors.  Apparently they’d brought in a new pastor to try to spice things up, but he’d not been able to do enough and so they had to close their doors.

The building’s been vacant for the past couple of years, and several different organizations have considered purchasing it – from our church (to use as a youth building) to another church in town to various businesses.

Today when I drove by, I noticed that it’s been turned into a funeral chapel.  And I was immediately saddened.  Because  what should have been a source of life to a broken community (this building is even closer to the ‘hood than my church building) is now instead a place of death.

I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s parable of the Idiot.  In it, an insane man is running around the German countryside, entering into various worship gatherings.  He proclaims upon entering, “God is dead!  God is dead, and it is you who have killed him!”  He goes on to criticize the believers gathered there for having the trappings of faith but none of the reality.  For having made Christ superfluous for Christianity.  He concludes, “What are churches today but tombs and sepulchers for a dead God?”

And seeing that building become a place of death in a place of death – rather than a lifebring to the dead world – illustrated for me the truth of Nietzsche’s words and the end of that sort of empty worship.