The Church and Pragmatism

"The church is always more than a school…. But the church cannot be less than a school."

— Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 1.

What does it mean to be "less than a school"? Obviously schools are institutions of learning, is the church an institution of learning? Maybe after we qualify what we mean by that term. However learning does take place because the Christian church is Christ's body, therefore Christ is central to the church's being. Since that is the case, the church is a representation of the truth of Christ and where there is truth learning necessarily follows. This then creates a problematic situation for a church that is less than a school.

The reason I quote from Pelikan is we see examples of this very situation where Churches are less than schools. In other words it is not uncommon to find Churches who's priority is the practical, pragmatic, popular, but not necessarily grounded in Christ, thus not grounded in truth. Honestly, it isn't uncommon to find those who claim to be Bible believing church going Christians who are somewhat cynical over claims of truth (I also acknowledge that there are some Christians who have over stated their claims to truth). All of this is to say there is a crises of truth in church today and if this crises is effecting the church you can imagine how it is effecting the culture through anti-intelectualism and non-intelectualism.

Part of the blame for this must be placed in our pragmatic tendency. As Americans we have experienced great success in being practical and pragmatic. The problem is when we apply pragmatism to our Christianity. As Bible students we are to be thoughtful, investing time and consideration to the truth claims of God's word and respond to them accordingly. Pragmatism looks for immediacy not truth. As the philosophical pragmatist William James put it "the test of a truth claim is its cash value in experiential terms." What we end with is a clash of values, a conflict of perspectives that cannot possible coexist in the church because as we are seeing the outcome is devastating for the church.

Therefore the church should always be more than a school, but if it is less than a school, that is to say neglects the truth that it is founded on, the end result is it will inevitably cease to be the church.