Around two or three years after my “escape” from an abusive, fringe church, I checked out a Quaker church near my house. I had been doing a lot of church hopping in the intervening time, but had not been able to find a place that I was comfortable with. What I was looking for was a nice, traditional church (yet attended by with born-again Christians), that was not invasive or trying to be “cutting-edge.” The rather old meeting hall of this Quaker church seemed to me to be a sign that perhaps this place might have what I was looking for.
As I walked in the door, I spotted a rather large elderly man in the vestibule, who greeted me and began approaching me as he saw me walk in. “Does this church have a traditional service?” I asked.
He threw a big fleshy arm around my shoulders and said, “Sure!” He continued talking, but I don't remember anything else he said, because I was frankly more than a bit distracted by his arm around my shoulders. I was thinking to myself, “We've known each other for thirty seconds. Just who on earth are you?” I disentangled myself from his embrace and stepped back. As I stepped back, he began advancing on me. I remember trying to get details about when the traditional service was, backpedaling toward the door all the while as this man continued to advance. Finally I said, “Thanks, you've answered my questions, goodbye,” and made a hasty exit. As I walked away I was inwardly on the verge of exploding, and wanted more than a little to pop this guy in the jaw.
As I calmed down, I began to think about this incident in a more analytical fashion. I had asked this man – a total stranger – a simple, objective question, a simple request for factual information, much as if I had been at Lowe's or Home Depot and asked one of the floor clerks where the galvanized 16-penny nails were. Yet he had treated me as if I were some obviously distressed soul who needed a dramatic display of “affection.” As Jimi Hendrix is mistakenly quoted as saying, “'Scuse me while I kiss this guy!”
The only explanation I could come up with for this incident was that somewhere, while I had been kept out of touch with the larger realm of American evangelicalism, some famous evangelical must have written a book or produced some teaching video series telling churchgoers to hug every stranger that comes through their doors. Someone must have been teaching that strangers don't usually visit a church unless they have a “felt need,” and that the best way to “reach” these people is to start to relate to them immediately on a level of advanced emotional and physical intimacy without having gotten to know them first.
This is really very strange. Truly everyone needs other people, and no man is an island unto himself. But our society has evolved rules, norms and expectations which govern acceptable ways of establishing intimacy between people who begin as strangers. Those who violate those rules and norms are met with disapproval, and find themselves excluded from the intimacy they seek, because by their violations they brand themselves as unsafe people. So it is that at work, for instance, it is acceptable to get to know others first as co-workers. If in the course of working together, two or more people find that they share similar interests or views, they may even become friends. If two co-workers of opposite sex find that they are really fascinated by each other, their intimacy may progress from an initial co-worker relationship, through the friendship stage, and onto romance. But everything proceeds according to societal norms, rules and expectations which are designed to keep one party from harming the other or forcing himself or herself on another person without their permission.
This concept of acceptable and unacceptable approaches to other people was strongly ingrained in me when I used to live in California and worked at two technical offices. Every year we went through harassment training, in order to comply with California employment law and for the purpose of meeting company insurance requirements. One company named its training program, “The No-Zone.” The programs at both companies did a very good job of teaching circumspect behavior, and contributed greatly toward making work a safe place for everyone.
The principle of social rules and norms which govern intimacy extends beyond the work environment. Total strangers properly educated in these norms proceed with caution and courtesy when they first meet. It is not expected that a person must immediately bare his soul or tell his deepest secrets to a perfect stranger, nor is it expected that a person must tolerate a total stranger who tries immediately to jump to the deepest level of intimacy, bypassing all other stages. Rather, when strangers meet, the expectation is that they proceed properly through the opening stages of acquaintanceship and trust-building. Behaving in a trustworthy manner is the price of admission into higher levels of intimacy. And this is the way it should be, since after all, we live in a fallen world, and “not all men have faith.”
It seems that many modern, “cutting-edge” churches have never heard of the No-Zone. These churches are instead teaching the deliberate short-circuiting of long-standing norms of intimacy – from the Sunday morning “greeters” who maul visitors – total strangers – in unwanted bear hugs, to the discipleship “grace groups” which demand that anyone who joins such groups agree to share his deepest secrets with the other members of the group, to the people who quote Acts 2:44 and insist that everyone at their church must unconditionally share all their possessions with everyone else. I remember one house church I visited where a couple was insisting that we should all greet each other with a holy kiss, and they talked about a man they knew who practiced this greeting on everyone he met at his church. 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy!
These churches teach by example and by selective use of Scripture that Christians are to have no boundaries, that we are each to be completely open and accessible on all levels to anyone who calls himself a Christian, even if we have just met. Those members of or visitors to these churches who insist on establishing boundaries which cannot be passed until trust is earned are usually met with disapproval, because they are not being nice. Churches which seek to tear down wise boundaries use proof texts such as “All who believed...had all things in common,” (Acts 2:44), “Give to him who asks you,” (Matthew 5:42), and of course, “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20).
But these churches and teachers fail to recognize a few things. First, while the Lord Jesus does certainly command Christians to fervently love one another and to share our resources with those in need, He also recognized that there would be those who tried unjustly to “work the system.” He did not leave the Church defenseless when faced with such a threat, but told us that if a brother sins against another brother (as in violating the other brother), the church is to follow a method of discipline which will lead to the expulsion of the sinning brother if he does not repent. This process of discipline is to be started by the brother who was violated. (Matthew 18:15-20). This teaching is usually neglected or distorted by obvious fringe, cultic churches, but it seems increasingly to be neglected by some contemporary praise-band styled churches as well.
They fail to recognize also that the apostle Paul, seeing how certain so-called Christians were freeloading off of the charity of churches, wrote thus: “Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks in rebellion, and not after the tradition which they received from us. For you know how you ought to imitate us. For we didn’t behave ourselves rebelliously among you, neither did we eat bread from anyone’s hand without paying for it, but in labor and travail worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you; not because we don’t have the right, but to make ourselves an example to you, that you should imitate us. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: 'If anyone will not work, neither let him eat.' For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don’t work at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are that way, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.” (2 Thessalonians 3:6-12, World English Bible, emphasis added)
Finally, they fail to recognize that Christians are not obligated to instantly believe everyone who says, “I too am a Christian,” without checking that person out first. Revelation 2:2 states how the Lord commended a certain church because they tested the claims of certain men who tried to pass themselves off as apostles.
Now don't get me wrong. I am all for intimacy. Churches should devote themselves to becoming places where strangers can enter into intimacy through the reconciliation which is in Christ. But churches must use wisdom in fostering that intimacy. Boundaries and the building of trust by trustworthy behavior are good things, because they provide protection for believers who have to live in a world of sinners, where not all have faith. Intimacy can't be rushed. Those churches which insist on tearing down personal boundaries are churches where people regularly get hurt, places which are often deliberately set up to turn their “sheep” into lamb chops. What sort of advertisement is a church that is not safe for its members? No stranger in his right mind will visit such a church.
One other thing. If you see me visiting your church, remember that I don't hug dudes, man.
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