In the book Radical David Platt gives an analogy of the Church. He tells the story of the SS United States. In the 1940s the military commissioned the construction of ship to carry troops to war. After its completion in 1952, it never really fulfilled this duty. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the SS United States was on standby, but was never deployed.
Eventually it was converted to a presidential luxury cruise ship that carried presidents and other high-profile dignitaries across the Atlantic (Platt doesn’t mention this, but in 2003, it was acquired by Norwegian Cruise Lines).
Platt uses this illustration to ask if the church has become like the SS United States. He writes:
When I think about the history of the SS United States, I wonder if she has something to teach us about the history of the church. The church, Like the SS United States has been designed for battle. The purpose of the church is to mobilize a people to accomplish a mission. Yet we seem to have turned the church as troop carrier into the church as luxury liner. We seem to have organized ourselves, not to engage in battle for the souls of peoples around the world, but to indulge ourselves in the peaceful comforts of the world.
When we see how the church is presenting itself, this can be seen very clearly. Many pastors are preaching a health-and-wealth/best life now type of gospel that people are coming to constantly. Many evangelistic appeals revolve around coming to live a better life, or even with a vague reference to escaping eternal punishment. But rarely do we hear the full gospel of costly grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We often forget that Christ’s final message to his apostles was a commission.
Volumes could be and has been written about the church compromising it’s mission (Platt’s book, for instance, is superb), but one thing sticks out about this concept involves the passengers of the ship and how they relate to each other.
On a ship that carries troops, everyone has a singular purpose: they are going to war. Everyone sees themselves as a part of the whole. Each person has a specific task and their task contributes to the greater purpose. Soldiers are serving something greater than themselves. They are serving their country because their country has sent them to war with her enemies. They are also serving each other, because war is dangerous.
On a cruise liner, however, everyone is there to serve themselves. The passengers are there for a vacation, so each person will each look out for what will help them to that end. If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you may have seen an example of this. If you ever stay up later than dinnertime and wander the ship, you would notice that as the evening progresses people start getting inebriated, and as often happens when a large group of people are together and alcohol is involved, conflict ensues. One person or group is seen as interrupting the fun of another person or group.
Coming back to the analogy of the church, could it be possible that many of the conflicts of the church would be resolved if we all began looking at the church as a warship instead of a cruise ship? If we all understood that we had a single purpose with a common enemy, would we get so hung up on such petty things? Or are we too involved in doing what we want to do that we don’t have room to think of others? How do we react when we don’t get our way, or someone crosses us among our church family?
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