Losing our trust in the resurrection is the deepest theological reason for the church’s loss of its public character in our time. The loss of trust in God’s resurrection power accompanies the rise of the liberal partition of life into the public and the private and our general surrender of the public sphere to management by the political, economic and social sciences and technologies.The church tends to help people cope with life as it happens to them within the public laws of property, work and legitimate violence but fails to announce the new thing God intends to do in the public sphere of life. Thus whenever trust in the resurrection is absent or weak, our missionary presence in the world is correspondingly weak
Our difficulty in making a public witness is in large part our difficulty in bringing the logic of the resurrection into contention with other reigning logics in our world. The crucifixion of Jesus was public. But what actually happened between Good Friday afternoon and Easter morning is not a public event, knowable and provable historically. Without the resurrection, however, the cross and life of Jesus are not sufficient grounds for Christian faith.
(The Public Character of the Resurrection by M. Douglas Meeks. Liturgy, Winter 1996)
However, when the church falls into the trap of pop-culture driven accomodation-as-ministry and becomes 'all things for all people' (touting wireless worship, Starbucks cafe', headhunter.com, faithful financial funding, JesusFunZone, pulverize pudgy pounds with prayer, and every other current, popculture need fulfilling program), who is at the center? Me! Me! Me! When the Church ceases to be CHRIST-centered and fails to proclaim the resurrection power of Our Lord, then the church ceases to be The Church.
