COMMENTARY: Upon this stubborn rock

(RNS) I don't think any enterprise has done more huffing, more blocking, bickering and begging for time than Christianity. We are the case study for trying to stand still in a rapidly moving stream, getting swept away, and still claiming the moral high ground while we drown. By Tom Ehrich.

Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project.

(RNS) Disruptive innovations cascade into our lives. No one gets a free pass.

Apple recently unveiled e-publishing technology that promises to upend the world of textbook publishing. Amazon has already disrupted book buying, dooming Borders and Barnes & Noble, just as they once disrupted small corner booksellers.


DVRs have revolutionized television and enabled people to skate past TV commercials. Ad blockers filter out banner ads on Web pages. Caller ID flummoxed telemarketing. Intrusion marketing is reeling.

Remote online education, commuter colleges, community colleges and state schools are turning four-year private residential colleges and their $50,000 annual fees into indulgences for the wealthy.

The disrupted push back, of course. The old way bristles, feels unfairly treated and appeals to nostalgia and history. Claims are made to the moral high ground, and more time and legal protection are demanded. We throw up roadblocks and spend down resources in a last-ditch effort to avoid change.

Here's the thing: It's all for naught.

Disruptive forces, you see, aren't just trial balloons to be wafted away. They are new ideas and new tools. New inventions like the telephone, new technology like the personal computers, or a new marketing focus bring an existing product to previously unreached markets, as Henry Ford once famously did.

Disruptive change happens fast. One day you're buying a faucet from Fred at the corner hardware store, the next day you're browsing the aisles of Home Depot, and then you're ordering a faucet online.

Some of the disruptions are minor, some are life changing. It's hard to tell which will survive. When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, the smart guys said it was just a gadget. Try telling that to the physician who carries an iPad into the examination room so that he has access to all of your medical records.

I don't think any enterprise has done more huffing, more blocking, bickering and begging for time than Christianity. We are the case study for trying to stand still in a rapidly moving stream, getting swept away, and still claiming the moral high ground while we drown.


It was our Christian ancestors who fought the disruptive force of science. It was our ancestors who resisted the spread of knowledge through the printed word in the common tongue. Even today, church members huff and puff over the slightest change. 

That resistance to change has paralyzed our congregations. It has turned away two generations of young adults and turned off capable leaders who simply didn't want to bicker about paint colors and furniture.

Jesus himself was the ultimate disruptive innovation. At the center of our faith is a disrupter. Not a nice guy, not a genial friend, but a disruptive force, a disruptive innovation.

Jesus came into a settled world and did unsettling things. “Who is this?” the powers that be asked in bewilderment. “How can he do these things? What is his authority? Has he come to destroy us?”

Jesus hadn't come to destroy. But it felt that way to the established order trying to perpetuate itself. Nevertheless, that is our heritage. Our DNA is disruption. We are descended from rebels, not custodians of yesterday. We are descended from people who caused trouble for the established order, not soothed it in exchange for tax benefits.

Many churches are struggling because they lost touch with this disruptive heritage. Now's our chance to get it back.


(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @tomehrich.)

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