One of the greatest enemies of the church is fantasy.
Just like fantasy is one of the greatest enemies of a marriage.
Dissatisfied with reality, we create a fantasy of what we desire. The greater the fantasy, the greater the gulf between reality and the fantasy, the greater the dissatisfaction. It eventually ends in fracture, divorce, neurosis, spiritual death, all wrapped in a candy coating of quick recovery and delicious denial.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work on our reality. Last night our church had an Open Round Table where we discussed how we are doing. Lisa and I, at times, need to sit down and ask ourselves if our marriage is healthy. Are we spending enough time together? Are we communicating? Is there anything we are overlooking? Are we being truthful to who we are, with ourselves and with one another? And these are questions we really do ask ourselves. But the worst thing I could do is to say to her something like, “Can you be more sexy, like Rachel McAdams?”
Fantasy is common fare. It is the air we breathe. And I find the church the perfect breeding ground for its propagation. We are aswim in fantasy and don’t even know it.
Prayer, bible study, worship, fellowship. It doesn’t get any better than that.*
But we wish it would.
(*Some might wonder where “mission” is. In my opinion, if we did these four things, our mission is accomplished. Being is doing.)
Cartoonist.
Artist.
Spirituality Coach.
Writer.
Speaker.
Thanks for this , David…… from personal experience, I can attest that fantasy wrecks lives, loves and friendships.
Thanks Alisdair
Those things should and do accomplish it all and its the fantasy that kills a lot of good results. In our Healing Place group, which hovered around 10-20 people, some of the participants were constantly talking about “when we get big” and would discount what was happening then and there. Big isn’t necessarily better. I’d rather impact 20 lives permanently than entertain 2000 for a little while. This is why the mega churches who are effective have cell groups of no more than 20 people. Worship, prayer, bible study, and fellowship are still the nuts and bolts.
David, could you explain a bit more what you mean by fantasy in the church? Do you mean unrealistic expectations?
I used to fantasise a lot and then i stopped and then i started again. Sometimes you just have to or you’d go insane. Reality can be very unpleasant. There are so many different kinds of fantasies that serve different functions. Some are planning fantasies and some are ones that provide useful insights, like imagining a possible conversation. That’s rather like watching a play for me – I learn something from it, have ideas. Some are just exercising the imagination – I have interior design fantasies. Sexual fantasies serve an obvious function and I’m not sure what you would replace them with for the single person.
I’d also be interested to hear how (and if) you would distinguish fantasy from the imagination in general.
Your post reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s concept of the “wish dream” in “Life Together.” If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend it; for folks in Christian community, it’s absolutely terrifying.
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Together-Classic-Exploration-Community/dp/0060608528
For reference, here are a few passages from “Life Together” about the wish dream:
We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for eternity. That dismisses once and for all every clamorous desire for something more. One wants more than what Christ has established does not want Christian brotherhood. He is looking for some extraordinary social experience which he has not found elsewhere; he is bringing muddled and impure desires into Christian brotherhood. Just at this point Christian brotherhood is threatened most often at the very start by the greatest danger of all, the danger of being poisoned at its root, the danger of confusing Christian brotherhood with some wishful idea of religious fellowship, of confounding the natural desire of the devout heart for community with the spiritual reality of Christian brotherhood. In Christian brotherhood, everything depends upon its being clear from the beginning; first, that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Second, that Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.
Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite ideal of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate with ourselves.
By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and loft moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. . . . .
Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dream proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of his brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. . . .
Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realized; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. . . .
(I found these excerpts here: http://mitchlewis.net/blog/observations/bonhoeffer-on-community/)
Matt: Yes, Bonhoeffer comes up frequently here, especially his book Life Together. You can check out some posts and discussions here and here
Thanks!
david
mattfrise…thank you! its obviously a must read.
Hey, I like Rachel McAdams too! hahaha, but alas, it will never be
Amen. If “getting big” means becoming more like some of those assholes on TV, I hope our church never gets big.
Being is doing? Please explain since I have tended to say that if you are being, then the doing will follow.
Where is creativity without fantasy?
I distinguish between fantasy and dreams. My dreams usually come true… but not my fantasies.
Funny, I always thought it was a lack of fantasy/imagination that made marriage, the Bible, etc. intolerable. What is literalism if not an inability to fantasize? If we create our reality, then surely our ability to imagine/fantasize is extremely important?