In Bethlehem, an enormous and ancient church stands over the purported spot where Jesus was born. The Church of the Nativity looms over a small grotto which is supposed to be the blessed place. Is it the exact spot? No one really knows. 

As we waited, a small crowd of worshippers gathered in a shrine just above the little cave. Some manner of high orthodox ritual placed an elaborately-robed, long-bearded priest on what looked like a throne. It turns out he is the Patriarch of Jerusalem (“Just like James!” said the guide). 

Worshippers bowed and scraped before him, kissing his right and doing him every showing of obeisance. My inner Protestant felt revulsion, for here was not the image not of Christ, but the High Priest Caiaphas who condemns Christ.  Similarly, in Jerusalem at the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre, one feels the spot of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial has been overlaid with two millennia’s-worth of patina, gold foil, and pilgrim’s tears. Several variations of ancient orthodox conservators continue to bicker over worship schedules.     

They have spent centuries marking their respective territories. It’s not exactly graffiti, but it serves the same purpose: “This space is ours, not yours!” Their gang wear: gold lamé gowns, ZZTop beards, and stylish pointy hats—all of it appalling to my Protestant heart. 

Why? Simple: it is so full of itself. It reeks of pride, and not even “Christian Pride,” but an extremely specific Fourth Coptic Armenian Orthodox Pride. They’re almost as bad as Baptists (I kid with love).

The sociology of religion (if you let me nutshell it) claims that all religion is nothing more than a community in worship of itself. When I think of human-made “religion,” I think they are right. God is less important to them than their own cultural preservation. Honoring The Lord may be secondary to serving their own denominational self-esteem. 

Wherever I see this, I hate it. I think God hates it, too. My wife always tells me to be careful of using the word hate. I use it very carefully here. 

The Bible calls it idolatry—this worth-shipping of the works of our own hands, the service to our own self-formed identities, and putting “things we like” forward and saying they are “of God.” It doesn’t matter if it’s an austere tradition, a holy relic, a bunch of old pews, or a hymnal with one’s family name engraved on the cover; if it’s human-made, it’s expendable, it’s ultimately trash. 

High liturgical worship tends to look like “Ancient Christianity Cultural Preservation Hour.” So much of it includes the implicit exaltation of relics and artifacts. Its practitioners tend to be more persnickety over the details than Star Wars fanatics fighting over director’s cuts; more rigid and inflexible than an IRS auditor on a bad day; and about as relatable as a Hopi Snake Dance demonstration. 

In short, if it’s “about us”—meaning our family, our culture, our tribe, nation, denomination, or any other expression of collective preference—then it isn’t about God. 

When we take anything “about us” and make it sacred, we are guilty of idolatry. When we value what is merely sentimental to us—warm, fuzzy, churchy feelings—we are vulnerable to idolatry. Whenever we exalt our preferred forms of worship as superior, we put “what is us” and “what is ours” onto the throne of Heaven.

Worship must be God-ward, and we must be vigilant and diligent in scraping off the barnacles which constantly accrue through time. We need to be self-examining and self-critical rather than self-affirming. Humility, not pride, is our guide. 

If we do not painstakingly (for yes, it is painful) remove the barnacles, the next generation is likely to gild them in gold foil and turn them into the idolatrous relics of their time. Perhaps the hardest ones to remove are those that are already gold-gilded. We think they are inherently part of the ship—our great-great-great-grandparents may have even said so—but that is how we make it about us rather than about God. 

We are ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (the church reformed, always reforming). Purity in worship is not about “doing it right” as in “according to our people,” but removing all the things that are too much about us so that God alone be worshipped, adored, praised, served, and obeyed. †