Jon & Kate + 159,000,000

So, here's my obligatory blog post about Jon and Kate Gosselin (of Jon & Kate + 8)'s recent divorce announcement. Over the last few days, I've read the blogs and the articles and the tweets about the couple. Some folks point out what the couple should have done. Others are focused on the marriage problems that parents of multiples often have. And some insist that the major problem was the cameras, so they discussed the responsibility Jon and Kate have to their children, as well as the responsibility TLC has not to exploit the situation further.

If I'm honest, the thing that bothers me most is that Jon and Kate confess to be believers. Anyone who watches the show has seen Bible verse T-shirts and wall decorations. Kate's latest book was published by Zondervan, a large Christian publishing house. Watching Jon & Kate + 8 even made the list over at Stuff Christians Like. The couple has freely discussed their faith on and off camera. So, while divorce is always sad, there's something in me that just says this shouldn't be when it happens to committed Christians. (And of course, I am giving Jon and Kate the benefit of the doubt; I have no personal knowledge of their relationships with God.)

So, rather than writing one more piece on what they should have done or what they should do now, I want to ask another question: What should the Church's response be? The title of this post is "Jon & Kate + 159,000,000" because that's how many people call themselves Christians in the U.S. And I wonder how the church should respond to people like the Gosselins and others struggling with marriage problems. It seems like we've got the easy part down - that divorce is a bad thing - but what are we doing to support and help the marriages of people in our congregations?

My guess is that most people would say that the church is limited in what it can do. Marriage is between one man and one woman after all. Certainly, pastors should make themselves available for marriage counseling, and many churches have small groups for married couples that can be a source of encouragement, but I'm thinking much bigger.

I believe that the local church should be revolutionary and counter-cultural, that it should be a place characterized by real community, and where life is done together. I believe churches should be the most honest and safe places in the world, where people are free to share their struggles, their challenges, their fears, and their doubts - and where people judge their own sin, not the sins of their neighbors.

I know - what I'm describing sounds like a fantasy - and if I ever found a church like that, I would ruin it by becoming a member. True, but that doesn't change the fact that the New Testament is chock full of "one another" statements. I just did a quick search on Biblegateway.com and found 36 references in Paul's letters to New Testament churches, exhorting believers to love one another, to bear one another's burdens, to encourage one another, to submit to one another, to forgive one another, and to make peace with one another (setting aside the first Pauline occurrence of "one another" in Romans 1:27 of course). That's just in Paul's writing; and that's just when the actual words "one another" are used in the ESV. There are many more similar sentiments throughout the New Testament. The point is that the church was never meant to be a one-hour-a-week commitment where we purchase religious goods and services, and it was never intended to be a place to show off just how "Christian" you really are. Instead, it was to be a place where people live life alongside one another, where people live the teachings of Jesus in direct contradiction of the world system that would tell us personal pleasure and security are the most important things. The church is supposed to be a place that causes the world to do a double-take.

Again, I don't what Jon and Kate's church situation is like, but I imagine things might be different if they had a place to go where they could be real, where people would support them if they made the difficult choice to turn off the cameras (even if that meant foregoing the big paychecks), and where people would lend a hand so that their eight children could be cared for while they worked on their relationship problems.

But this kind of support can never happen when many local churches simply mirror the larger American culture. So, my simple plea is this: Can we get real... Please?