Kingdom over Christendom: Choosing the Genuine Over the Simulation

Gone are the remnants of the supposed cave that once entombed Christ for three days. One cannot imagine that there once stood a slope over the place where now a shrine stands, encircled during the visiting hours by pilgrims who stand for hours for a peek inside the alleged site of Christ’s tomb. Around it are a dizzying number of ornaments, elaborate works of craft, and historical attractions that demand attention. There, the golden image cries, “Look here!” Yonder, Golgotha’s rock, encased in thick glass, whispers, “No, here.” And farther, the Stone of Anointing mutters, “Here as well.” Its call fades away, smothered by men and women touching their holy souvenirs to the worn stone in hopes of creating a tertiary relic. Yes, here lies the historical church’s earnest desire to display and to capture the grandeurs of the Christian faith—it’s admirable. Yet, one walks out the massive wooden doors of walnut breathing, with the medieval monk, Luther, “Who knows if it is really true?”

Who knows if it is really true? To what extent do these glittering relics capture the Christian message? Is it real? Perhaps, to our generation, it doesn’t matter. To a generation that ritualizes a trip to Disneyland as a life-changing Hajj and canonizes celebrities to the status of idols, it’s not reality, but the presentation of alleged reality that entertains and captures the heart. When the host is lifted above the priest, when incomprehensible words are uttered, when the incense fills the nostrils and the resounding echoes from cathedral walls overwhelm the ears, when the red, green, and blue scatter the vision into a kaleidoscope, it seems rather similar to the 60 frames per second, scintillating image that we fix our eyes to day and night. Even better, this time, the sensual stimulation is real—or at least “hyperreal.”

It is frightening to see how quickly the younger generations, particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha, have taken to the allure of an exuberant church. The arguments are generally the same: “It has the visuals, the sounds, the smells—I can feel things there.” One of my friends, leaving the Presbyterian church in which he came to faith, claims, “I just felt this rushing feeling when the priest raised up the host—it felt so real.” Another says, “It seems to have all the good art and architecture—surely that must point to something real.” Still others are attracted by the grandeur of worldly influence that the ancient city once allegedly held. Among young men, great are the calls to take back the secular institutions and “Christianize” them. Usually, this reductively means implementing arts and policies that were popular at the time of medieval Christendom.

The physical world of a ritual religion certainly seems more real than the digitized reality the younger generation (yes, my generation) imbibes. Yet, it only seems so. The physical is certainly superior to the digital, no? The physical must necessarily be closer to reality than the digital, no? Not necessarily. Is a historical play more real than a documentary because it is experienced physically? A play, as much as a movie, points to a reality behind it. The play is, strictly speaking, not the reality itself. If the reality behind the play is forgotten, what remains is but an experience. Worse, when the experience is blurred with the reality (perhaps as with a play wherein the attendee becomes a participant), the watcher can no longer distinguish reality from simulation. This is what is meant by “hyperreality.” The simulated overtakes reality. I am a proponent of immersion into the arts and literature. However, when it comes to the worship of God, we are to look through and beyond the created reality to the origin of all reality, to God, to Christ. When those who swim the Tiber explain to me their conversion, they often mention not Christ, but experience. The simulation of grace attracts, not Grace himself—theater, not reality.

For some, it seems less important that the finished work of Christ reigns supreme when the host is raised, as Christ was raised on the cross. What matters is that the reality it signifies feels “real,” “hyperreal” in the presence of the parish. The host is adored and ogled as though it were Christ himself. There is a confusion of the heavenly Lord of Hosts with the host on earth. I don’t deny a real presence of the Lord, yet to think he is the bread is to deny his humanness as well—even his salvation. In the guise of “grace,” nature is destroyed. Babylon, in claiming that grace overcomes nature, builds a Ziggurat in place of the Mountain, though we are to build a garden-temple upon the Mountain. Although the true temple has come and gone, she continues building Ziggurats where she sacrifices her victims anew. In replacing nature with “grace,” she has achieved neither nature nor grace, but simulacra.

However, can you blame our generation for loving this equation? Here is a generation pumped full of commercial entertainment by our own fathers and mothers in Hollywood. Of course, now, we don’t even need Hollywood, as social media changes reality every seven seconds. When this church or another introduces a simulated Christ, it’s no surprise that this generation flocks to its altar on hands and knees. For those who have desired the authentic self, when the simulation stimulates, it feels real. More than what is true, what feels true is right for our generation. That feeling of mixture between fantasy and reality simulates what they are used to when that notification of a like or follow comes through the phone, confirming the fantasy of their self-grandeur. For a generation that believes in gender as a performance, the performativity of religious ritual feels right at home. Cheap performance gives us the strip-mall church—this will not satisfy a generation raised on performance since infancy. An elaborate performance informed by ages of practice is preferred—a religious Disneyland where the “fantasy” of an ancient deity comes to life.

What should we as church leaders do for this generation? Should we put up a better performance? No. Religion, of all things, must not be a performance—it must be in spirit and in truth. Hence, one thing remains: sincere reality. Reality set forth in all the faculties of a person—reaching to his or her affections. Herein lies the core of the attraction of Hollywood and Babylon alike—a performance of emotion. We can give them the real thing—true affection. Some may say, “Affection does not belong in or around the truth—it is passion, the emotions, that lead our congregants to Babylon!” Is that true? Does affection not belong to the things of religion? Surely, Jesus felt, and he felt well. Jesus wept. It is not emotion itself that is at fault, but emotion without its content. Affectation claims the high office of emotion without substance; whereas affection deigns to activate the inner faculties of man in which man is elevated to a full-orbed experience of truth. The opposite of affectation is not dryness, but true affection.

C. S. Lewis put it well in the beginning chapter of The Abolition of Man, where he critiques a grammar book for diminishing the validity of subjective judgments. Precisely, his complaint is with one phrase from the grammar book, The Green Book, by “Gaius and Titius,” namely this statement: “We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings.” Lewis inveighs that they have demoted “feelings” to something not “very important about something,” and in doing so “have cut out of his [the child’s] soul, long before he is old enough to choose, the possibility of having certain experiences which thinkers of more authority than they have held to be generous, fruitful, and humane.” If I, a rash, unwise youth, may evaluate—I am afraid this has largely been my experience of the educational industry. I was disappointed, having been raised with poetry and stories since infancy, to experience an education system contemptuous of it. What brought in the money—engineering, medicine, law, and finances—were considered the task of the elite, and liberal arts were scoffed at (I speak as a man with a degree in Computer Science!).

Yet, as human beings, we long for something beyond the construct of numbers and variables. I have not heard of a mathematician or physics theoretician during my time at Princeton who claimed that he was moved by the numbers in themselves. Yet, all of them with luminescent eyes broke their introverted silence to gush with unbound affection about the beauty that filled the space around those numbers. If mathematicians are so affectionate about numbers, must we not be about the Creator of said numbers? About Christ? Must we not educate the youth to understand true beauty? To have affections for the right things in life? We must show emotions affected by Christ—this is the best defense against a “Christ” affectated by emotions.

Have we failed to instruct the younger generations about beauty and about the proper responses of affections, such that they turn to the gaudiness of affectated performances when such desires inevitably arise? The man robbed of sight for a time, if given sight to see again, will turn to the shiniest of objects, the most colorful of things, adornment added upon adornment, the gaudiest of forms. Those who have not been inculcated in the beauty of God will likely prefer a simulated God over God himself. The simulated form of God made of relics and rituals is more visually stimulating than the God who took on the form of a servant. For those who do not know the subtlety of beauty, the simulation of God replicated in the vaulted ceilings and stained-glass of the cathedrals of over-stuffed decor may be preferred over reflections of God in filled pews. The stimulation of the exalted host catches our blue-light saturated eyes more than the Lord of Hosts beyond the blue skies. To those who know not beauty, that which glitters and asks for attention is superior to silent reflections in the mundane. A gold leaf seems more beautiful than a petal of a daisy.

But what can we do practically? Let us be real. Be what the church is without trying to come up with the things that will attract people to the church. The thought that a more traditional church building will attract young people is akin to the thought that a fog-machine will attract them. One simply has the label of “traditional” on it; the other, “contemporary.” As all fads, it will pass, and if erected without the content, the rush will fade away as quickly as it came. Rather, we must be the church—an affectionate church. As a generation seeking authenticity, we can tell when you believe what you say you believe. The mass looks authentic because it is unapologetically performative—unafraid of its medieval practices. It seems bold and new to the contemporary age. Like a Stanislavskian method actor who has embodied what she believes her character must be, she deludes herself into believing what she performs.

To be more authentic than the method actor is to act not. It’s to have true affections for true beauty. We present Christ. Not merely a Christ of doctrinal formulations, but a Christ of Samuel Rutherford or of Richard Sibbes, of John, Peter, and Paul, who is viscerally felt and experienced. A Christ whose love transforms and shapes to such a degree that we, as images of God, become the better examples of beauty compared to any painting or literature. As moving paintings of Christ, we can then be prime examples of what beauty looks like. It’s not a grandiose, gaudy definition of beauty as presented by the over-realized eschatology of some. Nor is it a purely subjective one as presented by the under-realized eschatology of others. It’s both and between. It reminds us of our pilgrim status, all the while anticipating the coming hope. It moves and breathes. Over against a performative religion, Christianity presents a transformative religion. One that reforms by conforming men first, not buildings, to the image of beauty in Christ.

We must, as a church, endeavor to stoke up the affections through beautiful (ordinary) people engaged in beautiful worship of a beautiful Savior. If you apologize about the ugly building, they will leave because of the ugly building. Yet, if you praise the church for its beautiful Savior who has called beautiful people for a beautiful worship, they will stay to see a glimpse of this beautiful one. Zacchaeus did not climb a sycamore tree to behold a building, but a person. He climbed the tree because people around him talked about the beautiful Savior. He stayed with the Lord because, upon the tree, he saw the one who would render even the cursed tree most beautiful. Nicodemus did not carry off Jesus’s corpse in the day because he was shown ornaments at night. He became bold when he was told the scandalous truth he could not begin to plumb the depths of. This—he is something other than the world knows—someone the world can only simulate but never find. And he shows when we show the same kind of courageous self-giving that the early church showed, the testimony the martyrs carried even to the circus, and the heavenly worship that ushers the New Creation itself into church doors. If our generation is enamored with going back to the medieval church, let’s go back further, to the apostles. The church must be itself. We ought not be afraid of what the world might say about our worship to make it more plain, nor should we be entrenched in a historical retrieval of some medieval ritual.

Our generation’s tendencies are no danger, but an opportunity. They are searching, and we have the real thing. They may think all they need is a Christendom, but we can offer the Kingdom. I’m not saying we should not have nice buildings or beautiful art in them—they should be raised and praised insofar as they help to show Christ better—not to simulate him. They should not attract but reflect. No mighty buildings can replace the stalwart offense of an evangelist making a public defense of the gospel. No Hail Mary will compare to the beckoning cry of a preacher who truly believes the message he preaches. No hocus-pocus will instantiate the body of Christ other than the sacrament shared in the midst of genuine lovers of Christ in faith. More than ever before, young men, especially, want something solid. Unapologetic men who won’t budge in their confessions and distinctives. Men who are unafraid to stand as rocks of the church, even as they are built upon the Rock. Who cares about a solid building if it holds no solid men? We don’t need Christians who are afraid to utter “Jesus” because they might offend their neighbor. We need Christians who will confess “Christ” to awaken the guilt of the unbeliever and do so with firm conviction and affection. We don’t need Christians who are convinced Christ is great because he ushers in “Christendom” with its perks. We need Christians who see Christ’s invisible kingdom even when churches fall at the feet of oppressors. Perhaps only then should we attempt to beat the medieval church at raising beautiful buildings.

Perhaps it is a cliché, a familiar move—“We already do these things.” Perhaps so, and I don’t mean to do much except to caution against the façade of traditionalism. Yet, humbly, I also want to encourage a boldly affectionate, basic Christianity. When was the last time you spoke of Christ, God and man, King and Servant, a withering root without a spot of beauty and yet the epitome of it? When did you last leave the unbeliever baffled and mute with the words of Christ? Are you convincing enough in your life and words that, when you say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” your neighbor believes it? The theory is not new, but the practice must be new day after day. I envy the new Christian in this: the theory is for them coeval with their practice—and it shows. We do not wait for Christian structures to go up before evangelism. There was but one thing that the disciples carried in their bosoms as they went out to the world—not white-washed walls, but blood-washed hearts. To die—to be poured out, they lived as affectionate men in imitation of the Lord, who was affectionate to death itself. In our generation’s craving for mighty cathedrals and the promises of “Christendom,” there lies behind it a sin-stained desire for a reality to live for. We present the Reality, not only to live for, but to die for.