The Church Cannot Kill Herself

            G.K. Chesterton ends his masterpiece, The Everlasting Man, by examining the many times that the Church has died and rose again.  This resurrection is a common theme in Church history.  The Church seems to die, most bishops are Arians.  But suddenly, a new generation arises and reinvigorates or revives the Church.  This is an easy analysis to stomach.  Enemy forces sometimes seem to win, but the Church survives the persecution and comes out stronger than ever.  But then Chesterton says that the Church basically kills herself.  He writes, “This is the final fact, and it is the most extraordinary of all. The faith has not only often died but it has died of old age . . . it has survived its own weakness and even its own surrender” (Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, II.6). 

            The point is that when the Church seems to die the cause is often from within the Church.  False secular philosophies and persecution from outside the Church will never go away, but they seem to have little power to hurt the Church as the blood of the martyrs only fuels the Church.  Instead, the worst enemies of the Church come from within.  Heresy is an internal problem.  It arises when Christians themselves embrace false beliefs about Christ and His teachings.  When the Church seems to die, it is only because we, the Body of the Church here on earth, the Church militant, have grown weak or lukewarm. 

            When we dilute the doctrine of Christ or when we get slack in observing His commandments, it is then that the Church dies.  She dies from us.  Yet, as Chesterton points out, and this is his main point, the Church resurrects.  The Church can never truly die.  No matter how bad things may get, and they have gotten very bad indeed, rather often even, the Church surprisingly recovers.  Christ will revive His body.  Even when the illness originates from within the body, Christ will heal it. 

            Grave errors, confusion of doctrine, abandonment of morals from within the Church herself, is of no ultimate worry.  These things are truly terrible and cause much harm and suffering in the interim.  The Church may appear to die and be about to be thrown into the dustbin of history.  But that is a common refrain that every age of history tries to say is about to happen.  They are all false.  The Church resurrects because it is the Body of the resurrected Christ.  As much as the Church (as in us and our sin) may try to accomplish this, and as much as it may seem as if it were happening, the Church cannot kill herself.  Yet, the Church can come closer to killing herself than anyone else can come to killing her.  And this is Chesterton’s key observation.  The internal enemies of the Church do much more damage than the external enemies.  This makes her resurrection even more miraculous and wonderful.