The (Institutional) Church Is Like The Bark On A Tree
It’s amazing how often I come back to this quote by Eugene Peterson in Christianity Today; I talked about it at Metro Church in NJ last Sunday, and citing it again as I write a paper on pietism of the ECC. It’s not the first time I’ve cited it. It’s an important analogy (especially when you consider it was first made by Catholic theologian Frederich von Hugel which makes you go “hmm…” even more). Here it is with emphasis added:
CT: But many Christians would look at this church and say it’s dead, merely an institutional expression of the faith.
EP: What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naïve criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it.
Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows and grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death.
So, yes, the church is dead (!) but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism.
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I love the metaphor. I wonder if it would help us church angst type people to look at tree picture without a scientific perspective. I mean, for most of history a tree is a tree. It consists of tree stuff: leaves, wood, bark, etc. And without all the tree stuff it would be something else ie wood boards, pile of sticks. You can’t separate a tree from itself. Bark is the tree. Tree is the bark. the bark can’t say to the branches, “I don’t need you”. It’s more than a functional trade off of different tree duties, but the pieces share one identity.
i’m rambling but I just find myself often looking for ways to bifurcate myself from the bad parts of the church. And while I’m all for questioning and challenging and improving things, I need to try to remember that “A bad brother— is still a brother”.
that’s the thing; is it fair to say the bark / church is dead?
Considering it’s coming from a Catholic theologian blows me away…
I don’t like the “dead” thing. There is fair criticism that church/bark can look and act dead. But anyone who can take a step back and see the tree/global, historical, and moving church and see that there are just some portions that look like death.
He has a good point: Institutions can protect and house creations.
the metaphor, for me, would be more served to say the church appears dead. Someone with less church issues might not need that crutch.
agreed; I might even go so far as to say that the bark itself is symbiotically alive together with the tree.