Has the Church Gone Cockoo?

The Cockoo

cockoo bird

Just like the cuckoo laying its eggs in the tepid warmth of an unguarded nest, so Satan planted the seeds of a self-exalting religious hierarchy among the growing apathy of the early church. The passive laity gladly welcomed this special ruling class who would fill up the awkward silences in their assemblies.
The Church has gone cuckoo,” a friend of mine said recently. Probably a lot of Christians would agree with that statement. Some Christians would mention famous preachers who have turned out to be adulterers, like Jimmy Swaggart, or embezzlers like Jim Bakker, or bamboozlers like countless others. Some would start talking about the Episcopalians who chose a homosexual as their bishop. But then someone else would bring up recent surveys that showed 60% of Christians approved of cohabitation, 40% had engaged in premarital sex, and 14% had committed adultery. And then everybody would get very quiet, and the question of why homosexuals aren’t expelled wouldn’t come up again.
Of course, when my friend said the Church had “gone cuckoo” he wasn’t talking about the modern moral corruption that saturates Christianity. He wasn’t referring to the more than 37,000 denominations worldwide. He wasn’t even thinking of the nineteen centuries of doctrinal squabbles, inquisitions, persecutions, crusades, and religious wars, or even all the national wars with Christians fighting on both sides. He was thinking about birds…
The cuckoo is one of the most detestable birds on earth. Those who study nature know why. It sneaks into the nest of a smaller bird, such as a sparrow, when the mother is absent and lays one of its own eggs among the others. When the egg hatches, the young cuckoo pushes all the other eggs out of the nest, plus any chicks already hatched, and starts gobbling up all the food brought by its doting foster parents.
And what, you may ask, do these horrible birds have to do with the Church?
In the beginning, the Church was a devoted band of disciples. They had left everything to follow the Messiah, and He made it quite clear that anyone who did not forsake all (including house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, wives, children, farms, and even his own life) could not be His disciple. They were dedicated to His commandments, especially the command that they would love each other just as He had loved them. This new commandment produced a visible expression of love and unity which made it clear that they were actually followers of the Son of God Himself. It even persuaded the people of the world that God loved them so much that He had sent His very own Son to save them.
The result was a life of sharing in which there were no rich or poor. They assembled frequently for teachings, ate all their meals together, and turned their gatherings into vibrant celebrations. The apostle Paul described a typical gathering this way: each member contributed a song, a teaching, a revelation, etc., and everything was done with a view toward building each other up.
Not long after the apostles began spreading this new life of the Spirit throughout the world, Satan himself mounted an offensive against the Church. His tactic was not the mere outward persecution you’ve probably heard about — throwing the Christians to the lions, and all that. Instead, like the cuckoo bird, it was a plan of covert infiltration. The New Testament contains many references to this tactic: men who crept in unnoticed, false brethren, even servants of Satan disguised as servants of righteousness.
Our Master warned about this infiltration. He said that such men would claim to be under His authority, agreeing that He is the Messiah, looking for all the world like sheep, but being in reality savage wolves. The apostle Paul added that they would rise up, even from among the elders of the Church.
Then in 2 Corinthians 11 Paul said they had arrived, servants of Satan bringing a different gospel, a different Jesus, and a different spirit.
Oh, right, we know all about that,” someone might say. “Those false apostles in 2 Corinthians were the Judaizers. They tried to make the Gentiles get circumcised and keep the law.” But nothing in either letter to the Corinthians warns against receiving circumcision or being put under the law. Instead, Paul simply speaks of these men as “super-apostles,” full of fleshly boasting and self-exaltation while wearing a mask of righteousness.
Paul instantly recognized the impostors. Why? Because they were so far away from the servant leadership that our Master established among his true apostles. They were like the great men of the world, lording it over those they ruled, and completely unlike the carpenter from Nazareth who put a towel around his waist and washed his disciples’ feet. “Let him who is greatest among you become as the youngest,” He had said, “and the leader as the servant.” But instead of obeying the Master’s command and walking like He walked, these men eagerly received the glory of men. They even urged it and insisted upon it.
They were a “new breed” of leader “arising” from among the true shepherds of the flock, and drawing a following to themselves. The warnings to the Churches in the Book of Revelation called them Nicolaitans, a term which literally means “dominating the people (the laity).” Satan’s servants put on a mask of righteousness that was so good that it even hid Satan’s sin of self-exaltation. They prophesied falsely and ruled on their own authority, and the people loved it so. It wasn’t long before these Nicolaitans were doing all the hypocritical, self-exalting things that Messiah had condemned in the scribes and Pharisees: taking elevated seats in the front of the assembly, dressing in long robes, even being called by special titles like “Father” or “Doctor” (which means Teacher).
This infiltration was taking place toward the end of the first century, at the very time the Holy Spirit was warning the Churches that they had lost their first love, had become lukewarm, and were going to be plunged into darkness if they didn’t repent and do the deeds they had done in the beginning. Just like the cuckoo laying its eggs in the tepid warmth of an unguarded nest, so Satan planted the seeds of a self-exalting religious hierarchy among the growing apathy of the early church. The passive laity gladly welcomed this special ruling class who would fill up the awkward silences in their assemblies. A few alert disciples (those who had not stained the garment of their conscience with indifference) tried to be loyal to the apostolic brothers, but were quickly excommunicated, as John wrote in his third epistle:
I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say…. neither does he himself receive the brethren, and he forbids those who desire to do so, and puts them out of the church.
By the beginning of the second century, the original servant leadership of elders and overseers that Messiah established had been replaced by the exalted offices of the clergy. Ignatius of Antioch wrote several epistles typical of the era, urging loyalty to this prestigious ecclesiastical system:
Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles…
The replacement had become complete. The Church had gone cuckoo. What once had been the pure dwelling place for the Spirit of love and humility was on its way to becoming instead a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird.
What began as the Nicolaitan uprising of the second century has now become established Christian tradition and practice. This cuckoo-bird system of clergy and laity has adapted itself to every culture and insinuated itself into every nation. Indeed, it is one of the few things that every faction of Christianity embraces. It is a testimony to its power that none of the religious squabbles and denominational splits of the last two thousand years have resulted in a single church that is free from the clergy-laity system.