It’s not hard to find disillusioned people. All kinds of people are disillusioned for all sorts of reasons. Some folk are disillusioned with the government. Others are disillusioned about their career. It’s even easy to find people disillusioned with the church.
Being disillusioned means that something or someone failed to live up to our expectations. A simple example of disillusionment is when a child discovers one day that the tooth-fairy is a myth and that it’s really Mum who exchanges the tooth for a coin. Being disillusioned means that an illusion we operate under has just been shattered. In this case the illusion that there really is a supernatural being, who magically turns discarded baby-teeth into money. The problem with disillusionment is that we were operating under an illusion in the first place. Governments exist to solve all our problems – when they don’t we are disillusioned about our national leaders. Or perhaps your illusion has to do with your career. Your career-path should be ever onward and upward. When you’re retrenched for the second time you become disillusioned about your career.
One area of disillusionment that has troubled me greatly over the years is disillusionment with the church. The God Squad motor-cyclist, John Smith, often pointed out that many people don’t have problems with God or with Jesus. It’s the church that they have problems with. Okay, it’s true that people stay away from church for all sorts of reasons. One man once said to me, “Stone the crows! John, if I went to church the roof would cave in.” Some stay away from church because they have absolutely no interest in anything religious. They operate with a secular and materialistic mindset. If you can’t put it into a test-tube or put it under a microscope they are not interested. My concern however is with those who once went to church and became disillusioned. I know many disillusioned people who fit into that category. Let me give you three examples.
The first was a young pastor. A couple of years into marriage his wife had an affair. That not only blew his family out of the water, it also ended his career as a pastor. His disillusionment was due not only to a Christian wife betraying her husband in this way but also to the leadership of the church not handling it as well as they should have or could have. Today he’s working as a data-entry clerk for the City Council and he doesn’t darken the doors of the church anymore. He even claims to have sympathy for the atheistic position when it comes to matters religious.
Another disillusioned person I know was an elder in the church who got caught up in a church split that was particularly vicious. People actually came to blows over it. Today he no longer attends church. He’s too disillusioned to set foot inside a church.
A third example is a woman who remembers all too well that the church would not allow her to marry her partner in the church because they believed that the church should not join in marriage a believer with an unbeliever. She particularly has it in for the denomination that declined her request but it also led to her disillusionment with churches in general.
So why are all these people disillusioned with the church? It’s because they were operating under an illusion in the first place. It’s an illusion to believe that the church is perfect. The bumper-sticker put it well: Christians are not perfect, just forgiven! Interestingly too, most of the N.T. epistles were written to churches that had problems. Please… I don’t want to make excuses for those times when the church fails to live up to the standards of godliness that the Bible advocates. The church has a lot of repenting to do. But those who are disillusioned need to ask themselves what illusion they were living with in the first place. Disillusionment can be good if it produces in us a healthier attitude to that fragile community that Jesus gathers together to be His people… and maybe the worst illusion is that we are better than those others with whom we have a problem.
John Westendorp