And yet, people still go to church because they think that’s what it means to be a Christian. In an institutional sense, in a purely religious sense, they are right – this is how “being a Christian” is defined today. That is not a Scriptural definition, but it is a religious definition.
Perhaps Keith was on to something. It turns out there are many similarities between going to McDonald’s and going to church. It so happens that we stopped going to McDonald’s at about the same time that we stopped going to church because we learned that fast food and religion are both hazardous to your health. Fast food is bad for your physical health, but the religious system is bad for your spiritual and emotional health.
It might help us grasp reality better if we use this fast food analogy to make sense of what is happening in the Institutional Church and why. Why doesn’t going to church make you a Christian? How can you be a Christian if you don’t go to church?
Institutionalizing the Church
When a milkshake machine salesman by the name of Ray Kroc visited the McDonald brothers hamburger stand in 1954, he was amazed at what he saw. People were coming from miles around to consume delicious 15-cent hamburgers, crispy French fries, and thick milkshakes. Mr. Kroc recognized an opportunity and persuaded the McDonald brothers to sell him the franchise rights. From a single hamburger stand Ray Kroc created the fast food industry using a franchise concept to mass produce hamburgers at scale, the way Henry Ford had produced cars on the factory line. You might say that Ray Kroc institutionalized fast food.
One thing is for sure – operating in the simplicity of single hamburger stand, the original McDonald brothers could use healthier, fresher, non-processed ingredients that were locally sourced. It was only later, after Ray Kroc created the McDonald’s franchise and fast food became institutionalized, that food needed to be chemically treated, frozen, shipped, and cooked in a particular way for effective mass distribution. Meaning, the McDonald’s you see today and the food it sells now bears no resemblance to the original McDonald brothers hamburger stand.
Similarly, the church you see today is not carrying on in the simplicity of a Christ-Centered Faith as it was in the Book of Acts. The church you see today is not your grandfather’s church. The church you see today is an institutional invention, a franchise, a mass-produced money-making organization in the business of selling Religion.
If Church is Bad, Why Do People Keep Going?
Like most kids in the 1970s, I grew up during a time when a trip to McDonald’s was a special treat. But as I grew older and wiser and put away childish things I began to see that there is no nutritional value in fast food. It is worse than “not healthy,” it is actually hazardous to your health.
And yet, fast food is an $800 billion a year global industry. It is expected to grow to more than $1 trillion in the next few years. If fast food is so unhealthy, why do people continue to eat it? Well, it is fast. It is convenient. Fast food restaurants are everywhere, and when you’re in a rush and you don’t feel like cooking, it’s super easy to grab something on the go. They do make some tasty things. But this food is chemically treated and ultra-processed to make it addictive and habit-forming. Eating fast food is like killing yourself in slow motion. (Both McDonald brothers, Richard and “Mac,” died of heart failure.)
So when someone says, “Churches can’t be all bad or no one would attend,” they are right. People don’t usually go to church unless it is satisfying some need or craving. And if all churches were bad then all churches would be empty on Sunday. But that is like saying fast food restaurants can’t be all bad or no one would eat there. When it comes to church we must not judge according to appearance or discern according to social proof. We also have to be honest and admit when we have a religious addiction to church and are looking to church to meet needs that only God can meet.
In the end it is not really a question of “good or bad” – rather, it is a question of “life or death.” Regardless of whatever “good” may be found, are we really growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus? Is church helping us to become Christ-centered and spiritually mature – or spiritually obese and morally lazy?
A Corrupt Religious System Produces Corrupt Churches
I’m not beating up on McDonald’s. It’s not a question of rejecting McDonald’s and switching over to Burger King, Wendy’s, or Taco Bell. “I’ll stop eating at McDonald’s because I don’t like their menu anymore. I’m going to Burger King because they say you can ‘have it your way!’” How clever! But moving from one fast food place to the next does no good – it’s all part of the same corrupt system of fast food. You can’t just change where you eat and what you eat; you have to look at why you eat and change your entire relationship with food. My body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. I cannot knowingly put something poisonous and harmful into my body. Nor can I pray over it and ask God to remove the unhealthy ingredients, no more than I would drink poison because I was thirsty and ask God to make it pure. I have to stop eating that junk and make healthy choices.
Similarly, it is not a question of leaving one church and finding another, or leaving one denomination and joining another. It is not a matter of choosing one church over another because you like the music or the preaching or the fellowship or the doctrinal position. That is like changing from a blue deck chair to a red deck chair on the Titanic – it won’t save you from going down with the ship. All of that is just leaves, and those leaves are all growing on branches from the same corrupt tree. Jesus said a good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. He also said a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Leaving one bad church in search of a good or better church is like looking for good fruit on a bad tree. The system is corrupt, and so whatever the system produces is corrupt. We end up going from “bad” to “less bad” to “not as bad as the last one” but that’s the closest to “good” we’re going to find on a bad tree. We don’t need a different church as much as we need a different standard for what we are no longer willing to tolerate. A Church-Centered Faith hinders from a Christ-Centered Faith, no matter what church or denomination or religious flavor of the month you may settle upon.
The only way to stop destroying your health is to repudiate fast food altogether. When it comes to the fast food system we cannot revive it or reform it because we didn’t build it and we don’t own it. The only thing we can do is repudiate it. Stop visiting the restaurants. Stop buying the food. Stop eating the food. Now there are some who say, “But look, they have a ‘healthy choice’ menu!” Or, “I only eat this low-carb option, so I’m OK!” Whether or not you can really find healthy food items at a fast food restaurant is questionable. Is it truly healthy, or is it a clever marketing gimmick to make money by helping people rationalize their unhealthy desire for “healthy” fast food? In any event, when you step into the restaurant and give them money you are supporting a corrupt system. And it’s not all about you and your choices. It’s about an entire corrupt industry that you are supporting and enabling with your purchase, even if you say you are making “healthy choices” (which is still highly debatable).
Now the same is true when we look within a corrupt religious system and try to find a diamond in the rough, the one church that is the exception to the rule of Scripture, spiritual discernment, and common sense; the one place where we will find some good fruit growing out of a bad tree. This is wishful thinking at best and represents a strong delusion. All churches, by definition, promote a Church-Centered Faith; otherwise they would not exist. True, some churches may be more or less healthy compared to others, but underneath the marketing and the presentation and the packaging we still find the same toxic ingredients.
Church is a Business, Not a Charity
You might say you are taking this approach: “I agree with you, brother! And I recognize everything wrong with church… But I’m going to stay and pray for God to revive or reform the church. You can’t change it from the outside in. God wants me to stay here so I can be a light.” I understand that way of thinking. That was my approach when God first opened my eyes to the corruption of the Institutional Church. My first inclination was to take this wonderful revelation back to the church and share it with as many people as possible. But that is as naive as thinking you can approach McDonald’s, convince them of the error of their ways, and get them to stop selling fast food. Fast food restaurants occasionally make changes to the menu to accommodate people’s tastes, to test new products, and to give the appearance of offering healthier items – but make no mistake, this is a fast food restaurant, not a health food store. You will never change the nature of a fast food restaurant to offer something other than fast food, for then it would cease to be what it is. The same is true of church.
Bear in mind also that the fast food industry is first and foremost a business, not a charity. Of course, they do charitable work and donate a percentage of their proceeds to good works, as many businesses do. But it is a business, and their business is Fast Food. Church is a business, and their business is Religion. Church also does some charitable things and helps people, just like McDonald’s; but church mostly exists to support itself and its leadership. It is unrealistic to expect a business like McDonald’s or the church to change their products or services, even if you think they should. Rather, it is incumbent upon those of us who have had our eyes opened to set an example, to vote with our feet, and to stop supporting things that no longer align with who we are or where we want to be.
Others will say, “But no church is perfect, and no pastor or teacher is perfect. That’s why we have to eat the meat and spit out the bones.” Well, we already know that nothing on earth is perfect, but that doesn’t mean we eat roadkill when someone hands it to us. This saying assumes you have enough wisdom and discernment to know the difference between meat and bones, and the “strong delusion” of those who do not love the truth is that they end up swallowing everything the church gives them with no questions asked. Even if you do ask questions, suddenly you become the problem. “Eat the meat and spit out the bones” also assumes you are being fed meat to begin with, where in most places, meat isn’t even on the menu – more like bowls of thin, watery gruel mixed with heaping spoonfuls of sugar to help you swallow it with a smile. And if you do happen to get a bone it’s not always so easy to “spit it out” once it lodges in your windpipe and chokes you to death.
Another bit of folksy wisdom I have heard over the years is: “You can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” But we aren’t talking about giving babies a bath. We’re talking about a multi-headed Beast out to steal, kill, destroy, deceive, and lead God’s people astray from the simplicity of Christ. You can’t give the Beast a bath because it doesn’t want to be clean and there isn’t a bathtub big enough even if it did. You can’t throw the Beast out because it’s too big and too strong. Nor should you try to scrub the Beast clean with revival or reformation because God didn’t create the Beast – we did that. So God has no obligation to revive or reform something He never approved of to begin with. Jesus is about Relationship, not Religion. You must repudiate the Beast. You must not support the Beast. You must not defend the Beast. You must come out of the Beast. Get out now and go far away from it! Those still trying to tame the Beast are those who are “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Tim. 3:5).
Did the Religious Spirit Follow You Home?
Perhaps you have decided to “come out” of the fast food system. No more Big Macs, Whoppers, or Big Beef Burritos for you anymore. Good for you! Does this mean you can now stay home and eat the same junk food? By no means. You soon discover that ultra-processed, chemically enhanced food is freely available at the grocery store, right there mixed in amongst a few healthy choices. You realize that the issue is not where you eat but what you eat. This is “next level” thinking. It’s not about eating out or eating in, it’s about eating healthy. Is food helping you or hindering you?
This is a word for my “house church” friends who have come out of the religious system but are still under the influence of the religious spirit. Or, as I say, they have “come out of Babylon” but Babylon has not come out of them. They are still doing church as they have always done it, they just started doing it at home and called it “house church.” Well, you see, it is not the religious system that is the problem here, but the religious spirit that drives that system. If we do not address that religious spirit then we have only succeeded in putting lipstick on a pig.
Yes, it is possible (very common, in fact) to have a Church-Centered Faith even while you are not actively attending a church! Turns out the religious spirit just followed some people home! If you are always hankering for fellowship, for meetings, for gatherings, for people, even for non-traditional community outside of the institutional church, it could be nothing more than the residue of religion, the guilt of thinking you must not “forsake the assembling of yourselves together,” or simply the need for social interaction and social proof to reassure your doubt and insecurity. Might this be something to consider laying upon the altar as you follow Jesus outside the camp? Is it that hard to simply turn aside and be with Jesus alone for a season – or two? Is it unbearable to think that He may want you to walk with Him in solitude for a while? Is it impossible to consider that He may want some time alone with you without all the accouterments of religious ritual and other people’s opinions getting in the way? Is it incredible to suggest that there is a depth of love and fellowship with Him that you simply cannot experience as a group activity?
The same holds true for those who rationalize that while “they” can do without church, it is important for their children to have something to attend and participate in. This is like saying I refuse to eat fast food for health reasons, but I don’t mind if my children eat there (as if their health doesn’t matter). Again, this is an incoherent rationalization. Who, after all, is responsible for the spiritual and moral development of your children – the church, or you? Who has the God-given stewardship for training up your children in the way they should go – the church, or you? There is nothing comfortable or convenient about raising children, but that is part of the price Love pays for having children. Parents cannot simply outsource their children’s spiritual growth to the church, just as they cannot outsource their children’s moral and educational development to the public school system – yet another example of a worldly institution, like the church, that has failed in its mission of education and now seeks to preserve itself and promote its own agenda at the expense of children. No, it is the parents – not the church, not the school, not the government – who are the guardians, protectors, and educators of their children.
“Should I Stay or Should I Go?”
I do have a final word for those who cannot bear the thought of leaving their church, despite everything that has been said. They hear this word, maybe they even agree with it to some extent. Perhaps they feel God has them there for now. Perhaps they freely admit that their social and emotional needs are met there, if not their spiritual needs. Or, perhaps they just love the people (or the preaching or the singing) too much to consider making a change. And yet, despite all these rationalizations, they are miserable! What should they do?
To these I say that I will not pray for you to “find direction.” That is a cop out. I will give you direction, and then you can pray about it yourself and see if it is God’s direction for you or not. You must do what you feel like you must do, which is what we all do anyway. No one comes or goes, leaves or stays, or does anything without a really good explanation (rationalization) and a solid belief (story that we tell ourselves) that God is the One “leading” them (whether He is or not). But I will say this: Don’t keep eating fast food each week and then complain about how bad you feel. It’s your decision to keep going if you feel you must – but you don’t get the right to criticize the preacher or the doctrinal position or the “lack of spiritual maturity” or anything else while you continue to show up each week. Finding things wrong with the Institutional Church is like expecting that the ocean will not be wet and then discovering that it is wet; this is no amazing discovery and demonstrates no great discernment. Your insights are probably valid, but they are irrelevant – so long as you continue to support the machine with your presence and your offerings, you have no right to complain. Either go all the way in or go all the way out, but don’t be double-minded in something so critical to your spiritual growth and maturity. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (Jas. 1:8).
* * * *
The fast food analogy does have its limits, of course. It isn’t exactly like church. Indeed, as bad as McDonald’s is for your physical health, it is better than church is for your spiritual and mental health. At least at McDonald’s they don’t shame you for not attending, require you to give them 10% of your income, demand that you submit to the leadership of the store manager, or engage in systematic spiritual, psychological, or sexual abuse of their customers – and then cover it up. You’re just there to buy a burger, and they are just there to sell it to you. In the end, McDonald’s is just a business, selling a product that people want and are willing to pay for, whether it’s good for them or not. You either buy it or you don’t. No one is putting a gun to your head.
But whereas a hamburger has no effect on your spiritual health or your relationship with God, Institutional Christianity has become the single greatest hindrance to the spiritual growth and maturity of God’s people, the single greatest barrier that prevents the world from being saved. And this corrupt system corrupts the minds of faithful and sincere people who have been deluded into believing that God and Church are the same thing. They are not.
To all who are burdened beneath the impossible weight of Religion, Jesus offers a Relationship. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Mt. 11:28-30).
