Home Churching

From a progressive political perspective, it seems to be an excellent idea. There's no charismatic Mega-Ministers bringin' in the Fearfu.. er, Faithful to raise money for more fear mongerer Pols.

Also, the bottom line on belief is that it's personal. So this actually makes even more sense than community churching.

BTW, I really hate when I forget to read your stuff for a while, Coturnix! Gonna try and get here more frequently again. Thanks.

Whether it is a good or bad thing depends on one's religion and perspective. In some ways it could lead to liberalization, but could just as easily lead to more groups like the Westboro Baptist Church.

In a way, it is the next logical step for low-church Protestant Christianity, since Protestant Christianity tends towards division (gross generalization, of course). American Protestantism has long had a tension between ecumenism and individuality. This is especially true for evangelicals and other denominations that have little centralized identity. For high-church Protestant denominations like Lutherans and Anglicans, home-church movements would probably have less effect. And of course it should have almost no effect on Catholics and Orthodox, which put a much greater emphasis on liturgy.

I love the idea. I've always felt that religion, like sex and other bodily functions, is a private matter (in this case, between believer and deity/ies) best practiced behind closed doors.

The chief problem with home churching is that it's often a move to limit diversity. In a neighborhood church you have to learn how to put up with the fact that you end up in the pew next to Joe Doe whose mannerisms you find infuriating, or with Mr. X who (they say) is having an affair with Mrs. Y; and with the fact that your priorities aren't the same as everyone else's. In a home church situation, you don't; you're not pushed into even the minimum sort of accountability required to deal with the society around you. A common argument put forward in favor of home churching is that it allows you to evade the sorts of rules neighborhood churches tend to have -- about requirements that have to be met before you can claim to teach others about doctrine, about procedures that have to be followed before anyone can be expelled, etc. And, despite the fact that homechurchers are often great people, that sort of attitude is worrisome. The religion most conveniently practiced behind closed doors is fundamentalist.

Can it be both ways? Sorta liek homeschooling - there are two extremes there. Some homeschoolers are fundies who don't want their kids to hear about the concept of evolution. Oter homeschoolers are the best educated people in the country - teahcing their kids at a much higher level than the local schools can do.

Is it the same with home-churching? Some do it so they can be as fundamentalist as they want and not need to listen to anyone else' authority, while others do it because no church in town is liberal enough?

There is a church here in Columbus called Xenos Christian Fellowship, and home church is apparently how their mega church got it's start. They call it "underground church." Here is their explanation of it. I met a woman who attends this church, and she said that the big problem that she sees is that sometimes the groups become like cliques and that over time, the beliefs of the different groups begin to vary just a bit. This was her opinion, but I can see her point...

I wouldn't be surprised if it could go both ways (and that would fit my limited experience with them); but on both ends of the spectrum there's a withdrawal not only from the neighborhood church but also from the sort of accountability -- minimal tho' it sometimes is -- that makes it stable. This needn't always have bad effects, of course; for instance, it would be entirely possible for homechurchers to build in greater accountability toward each other and the community at large. I don't get the impression that this is the general tone of the movement, but it's certainly possible. (It seems to me that people wanting a more liberal form of religion tend simply to unchurch rather than to homechurch; but I don't know of any hard figures that confirm this impression.)

That's definitely one thing about homechurching, though: you can do it however you please.