February 29, 2012            Alternative medicine, life style, church               John W's previous articles

We are familiar with the terms "alternative medicine", "alternative life-style", "alternative music"

Alternatives are other ways of doing things, especially when "ordinary" ways are not working 
or are too expensive, too troublesome, are not practical,
have lost their appeal, are not faithful to their principles

When major political parties lose their appeal, alternative parties do well

People who opt for an alternative way, usually do so with their feet.
Often they are tired of talking.
Often they feel that talking is no use: "no one is listening"

Every "mainstream" group, be it a political party, a company, a branch of medicine,
.....be it a church...needs to be aware of the danger of spawning alternatives
as a result of complacency, inefficiency, "loss of salt", unwillingness to move with the times

Church history is full of examples of "alternative people"
 - from the Essenes, to the Desert monks, to Francis of Assisi, 
to various reform groups of the religious orders,
to Martin Luther, to Martin Luther King

Jesus was history's greatest Alternative Person. 
Christianity is meant to be THE alternative

How sad it is to see the mainstream Christian churches continuing to decline,
continuing to spawn alternatives - e.g  Pentecostalism 

How sad to see the Anglican Communion breaking up.
How sad to see the Catholic Church splitting into factions

In Austria and Germany the factions are becoming more public

Alternativism, factionalism ...the result of dysfunctionalism:

(from Michael Mullins'  Feb 26 article in Eureka Street)

Unless the Church becomes a functional instead of a dysfunctional group,
"alternative" advertisements like this are going to increase:

Jesus, please help your Church stop being a dysfunctioal group.
Please help it become a functional group!