What the Church Can Learn from the March Against Monsanto

Yesterday millions of people marched against Monsanto in an orchestrated effort to ban genetically modified organisms that are known to cause cancer in humans. I was one of them.

What impressed me from the moment I stepped into the Holladay park in Portland, Oregon, was the cohesiveness of the group, but where was the leader? There was none. There were organizers, but they were hard to find, even if you knew what they looked like.

Everywhere I looked, people carried signs, handed out information; some danced, others sat on the grass in groups. What united people was a sense of purpose; everyone had come to protest the use of GMOs.

Having attended church for years, I was surprised by the simultaneous cohesiveness of the groups and the individuality of the participants, for although some had fought in the battle before others, no one said, "Have you had your sign approved by the organizers?" or "Do you meditate before breakfast?" Nor did anyone say, "Organic is for white only," or, "Only men can represent organic." Because banning GMOs is about individual health, everybody who eats has the right to be heard, and that includes everyone.

As a stark contrast, in the church, if you have a great idea, you are told to present the idea to a committee. If the committee doesn't approve, you're done. Depending where you are, you might hear about God being white and male, wherefore only white males can represent God, although women and people from all nations fill the churches everywhere.

We may remember faintly how the church used to be the original protest against an unjust world. People would flock to the church because the church had an answer to the question how people could become just. But when the mighty and powerful decided to join the church, the idea of justice was tossed out and authority and obedience were brought in. So the protest died, and an era of injustice was ushered in with the sanction of the ecclesiastical leadership.

While the church shouldn't become a spontaneous protest movement, it has much to learn from it. If the church wants to fulfill its mission of making disciples in every nation of the world, it has to stop preaching and practicing partiality and hypocrisy. The Bible is clear that no one can love God and hate humans (the original hypocrisy, Jas 3:9-12), or love some humans more than others (for partiality voids all love, Jas 2:8-11). Nor can the church continue to stifle the ingenuity and creativity of its members, or the church will find its pews emptied. People go where they are heard. Does the church have ears?