Yes, church affiliation is on the decline. The Gallup Organization released their data and scholar Ryan Burge published his book. I wrote about that two weeks ago.
And yes, everything else is on the decline as well: television, sports, clubs, movies, even having babies. I wrote about this last week.
I even wrote my own story of leaving a congregation. That was last November. I called it “I’m Taking a Walk” (with a tip of the hat to John Prine).
Many people have stories like mine: not necessarily about race, politics, and church, but more often about personalities, power, and privilege. Like the long-time friend who responded to my column with this testimony:
“I have been in church since I was born. When I grew up and we moved from place to place, we always connected with and joined a new church. I have now not been to church in about a year and am not sure I will go back. I am still a believer and a follower of Christ. It’s not Christ I’ve lost faith in. It’s the Church. I have witnessed so many behaviors from those associated with and ensconced in the Church that are definitively not Christlike. I do not want people to think I’m “that kind of Christian.” I’ve joined a weekly Bible study with friends, and my husband and I have taken our weekly church offerings and used it to help others in our community. I’m not certain if I can go back. If lifetime Christians like myself are leaving, I cannot imagine folks wanting to join based on some of the behaviors seen with a large number of “religious” folks.”
This is what I have seen and heard and felt for years.
Church, of course, is not the only place where people misbehave and violate the very tenets of an organization, where personal prerogative or toxic personality becomes the norm, where survival strategies replace missional commitments, where caring for the self replaces caring for the other, where the good news of Jesus is overshadowed by the bad news of “people putting people down” (to quote again the late John Prine).
And then a prominent minister in California is quoted as saying this: “A woman, whether she is married or single, must recognize the fact that in general, as a woman, she must have a spirit of submission to all men.”
Such foolishness helps explain the emotional seething that motivated another friend to confide to me: “I don’t think I can take it any longer. I have been a member of my church for 25 years and many of my friends are here. Where would I go? But it is just crazy what they think and say. They are ignoring reality. Their minds are closed.”
Brian McLaren writes about this in his new book, Faith Beyond Belief: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It. He points out that often it is not toxic congregational life that drives people from the pews but rigid doctrinal positions and a firm grasp on what is perceived as right and what is assumed to be wrong. My review of that book is elsewhere in this newsletter and also on the website (and McLaren himself will be my guest in The Meetinghouse this Thursday, April 29).
McLaren proposes a new paradigm of Christian faith and practice, and the latter portions of his book describe what he calls “harmony” and the kind of local communities that embody that way of being in the world, “a humble, reverent openness to mystery that expresses itself in non-discriminatory love.”
Others, like Rod Dreher, prefer an older model, what he calls in a 2019 book The Benedict Option. Pull away from the world, establish our own communities, live to ourselves as much as possible, and keep the flame of truth, virtue, and righteousness alive in this increasingly dark world. Monasteries emerged out of this ancient strategy and, in more recent times, groups like Shakers and Amish, as well as cults of all kinds.
I am not so dismissive of life in the modern world. Like any age, there is enough good to make up for what is bad. I find myself drawn to the simplest (and oldest) of all strategies: to the original confession “Jesus is Lord;” to the first and second commandments—love God and love neighbor; to the most universal of all documents—the Bible itself, from cover to cover; and to the Prayer of Jesus, the Our Father some call it, as a guide to living, thinking, and praying. It is hard to go wrong with this sane and study collection of signposts along our troubled way.
But what helps as well are good friends, a grateful spirit and a healthy dose of laughter, and as often as possible, a walk in the woods or a stroll on the beach. These things are helping me prepare to preach this Sunday the good news of Jesus, the Risen Lord, for which I am thankful.
(April 2021)
