Why can church fights turn so vicious?

Why can church fights turn so vicious?  I have been in extended meetings over what color the paint should be for the stairwell, whether or not the beloved dessert social should happen, and when a minor line item in the budget becomes all-consuming.  Time is consumed on trivialities and the sides drawn up on the issue can come close to excommunicating each other.

These are not moments from the Session at our church, but moments I have witnessed.  Thankfully, our Session meetings, although at time contentious, have never been at the level of people hoping for the personal destruction of their opponents.

How can people get so excited about what happens at church?  What is it about religion that ranks it with politics and sex as topics that are taboo for polite conversation?

These debates are not marks of the present church.  In Galatians, Paul talks about going head to head with Peter himself when Peter backpedaled on participating in worship with the Gentiles.  He did it to appease members of the Jewish side of the church-when Peter was the disciple to initially break ranks with the Jewish side of the church to receive Gentile believers.

I believe we can get so worked up about religious stuff because it is God-dependent.  It’s not like a lively debate over just how bad the Giants are doing this year.  A church debate, no matter how ‘trivial’, has a piece of the eternal built into it.  It’s about God, who controls the doors to heaven and hell.  When we are deciding for Him, at whatever level, there has to be a ‘correct’ side to the decision, right?  And the incorrect are quickly viewed as somehow subverting the divine.

These kinds of disagreements can also mark a church that is more competitive than cooperative.  What makes a church competitive?  Maybe the cycle of change.  A pastor brings in new ideas, new ways of doing things, maybe attracts new members.  The ‘old guard’ may get defensive, seeing their way changing.  There’s an old saying that the only place for change in the church is in the collection plate. 

If a contingent in the church feels like other people in the church ‘have it in’ for them, it can breed anxiety, which can in turn breed anger.  And it takes a while for the anger to come center stage.  It usually starts on the periphery, arguments about trivial things, small battles that the embattled feel they might win when the bigger battles seem lost.

There could be any number of motivations for a church getting competitive within itself.  But what it does to the church is suck up the energy that could be channeled into new and bold accomplishments for the Lord. 

This is not to say that there aren’t good and legitimate arguments to be had, things that need to be heavily and hotly debated.  But these arguments need to respect the rule of God and Neighbor.  Your love for God has to be the fuel of your passion in standing up for your beliefs.  And your love of neighbor must always control, contain, and configure how you act towards your fellow Christians.

Because they will know we are Christians by our love, not by how many debates we’ve won.