Are You Serious?

Are you serious?

That is the question (rhetorical, of course) familiar to all of us who follow college basketball. It is the question exclaimed in every game for 40 years by the incomparable color commentator Dick Vitale. He is in the hospital now, being treated for cancer. We send to him our best wishes, and we send to God our prayers on his behalf.

But his question is just the phrase I need today to deal with unbelievable news coming out of the world of American religion.

First, we know that affiliation and participation in American religion is at an all time low and falling fast. Now, fewer than half of Americans are active in a religious group of any kind. And many who do register as “active” are so in only the most cursory of ways—barely hanging onto their religious identity (Christian and otherwise) and rarely showing up for any kind of worship or service. They pray, they say, but I wonder.

Second, we know that parallel to this overarching trend is a movement known as Christian Nationalism. It is a gathering of forces intending to take charge of all sorts of organizations and networks in order to “return our country to its Christian roots.” It is, I have asserted, the most powerful religious movement in the country today.

These Christian Nationalists played a major role in the election of Donald J. Trump, in cultivating the fantasy that his 2020 reelection was stolen by evil people, and in mobilizing their cohorts for the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Even now they are engaging in the quasi-military preparation for a much more powerful protest if Trump (or his surrogate) is defeated in the 2024 presidential election.

All of which brings me to my question: is this brand of Christianity responsible in part for the groundswell of repudiation that is pushing people away from Christian community and Christian convictions? How many of the people leaving the church are doing so with some version of this statement, “If that—Christian Nationalism—is what it means to be a Christian, count me out!”?

I don’t know the answer to this question. Scholars like Ryan Burge, Paul Djupe, John Fea, and Robert P Jones—all of whom have been my guests in The Meetinghouse—will be able to tell us before very much longer. But I will not be surprised if the evidence supports my thesis.

But I will tell you this: there are other reasons why people want to throw up their hands in disgust and walk away from it all. This week two stories have come across my feed that make me want to crawl in a cave with Elijah and give up on all that God has called me to do.

First, out in Arizona a priest who has been faithfully baptizing people into both the Christian faith and the Catholic church for decades suddenly finds himself on the outside looking in. Rev. Andres Arango of Phoenix has used the baptismal formula: “We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” But according to Catholic doctrine, that “we” is wrong—it should be “I baptize you ….” All of his baptisms are now suspect, perhaps even invalid. Which could have a domino effect on all other rituals he performed, such as confirmation, confession, marriage, and such.

Are you serious?

Never mind that the Pope authorized a change in the ritual greeting. “The Lord be with you,” the priest says to the people, and beginning in 2008, the people respond, “And also with your spirit” which was a change from “and also with you.”

Never mind that Vatican Council II changed all the wording of the worship service, from Latin to the various vernacular languages around the world. And do I recall that even the language of the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, has been tweaked by somebody somewhere? Yes: four years ago, it was suddenly decreed that “do not let us fall into temptation” will replace “lead us not into temptation.”

But the change from “I baptize” to “we baptize” is suddenly, seriously, and sanctimoniously unacceptable!!

Are you serious?

Then this: the infamous fundamentalist preacher of metro Nashville, Greg Locke, has moved from election conspiracy theories to demonic tattle-telling. He announced to a tent-packed congregation at the Global Vision Bible Church:  “We got first and last names of six witches that are in our church. And you know what’s strange, three of you are in this room right now.”

He then continued: “You so much as cough wrong and I’ll expose in front of everybody under this tent, you stinking, spell-casting, pharmakeia devil worshipping and mongrel,” he said, using a Greek word that sometimes describes those who practice witchcraft or sorcery. “You were sent to destroy this church.”

Are you serious?

I don’t know about his ability to cast demons out of people, but it is shit like this that proves remarkably effective in pushing people out of church.

I don’t know which of these is worse: Christian Nationalism, Ritual Repudiation, or Identifying Demons; but I know that all of it stands in sharp contrast to the real-life gospel testimony 18 of us heard in our little church last Sunday morning, when Gennedy and Mina Podgaiskye bore eloquent and compelling testimony to the faith and practice of Christians of Ukraine, living even now in the shadow of war and persecution. That is the real stuff, and that is what keeps me confessing in faith, singing for joy, and living with hope.

Thanks be to God.  And I am serious about that!