The "Nones"

There has been a great deal of attention paid recently to the exodus from traditional churches by young adults. We are told that we are losing our future to a generation uninterested in the churches and denominations of their parents. Nones they’re called. Probably Christian but certainly not religious.

There are going to be books, conferences, consultants consulting, all in an effort to stem the erosion and lure those leaving back to the sanctuary, some of which might actually be effective. Those that believe the traditional church is no longer relevant are simply wrong. Traditional church as we know it isn’t going to die, but will probably continue to be a shrinking part of the spiritual life of our country for the foreseeable future.

Which still leaves us with the problem. Young people are fleeing organized religion and we don’t know what to do, worse yet, nothing we are trying is working. So do we just give up and join ranks around a shrinking institution, do we redouble our efforts, devise new tactics? Or maybe we can redefine the “problem”?

What are these “Nones” really saying? For many of them their disillusion is with the church, not Jesus. So really we have an enormous common ground with them. We all think Jesus is cool, so why argue with them about their feelings about religion when what we should be doing is to encourage them to form their own faith communities, better yet we should be reaching them where they’re at.

We all need to be among a community of believers, but worship is not a one size fits all deal, and that segment of the population that believes that church IS irrelevant needs to be addressed in ways that traditional churches can’t. It will be in ways that discard the hierarchical structure of churches, that gives real responsibility to laypeople and new believers, that regards Christian service to the community as more important than sermons and songs.

Who, after all, decided that the only acceptable worship is that worship that takes place inside the walls of a sanctuary?

A Jesus Without Hoops

One of my favorite verses in scripture is John 21:25. In it John writes that there simply isn’t enough room in the world for all the books that we’d need if he had been able to record everything Jesus did. You see I tend to think of the Gospels as the definitive description of the life of Jesus when really what they are is an incomplete representation of His life, miracles, parables, and instructions. Now that is a truly mind boggling thought. Which for a guy like me leads me to wonder if what made it into the Gospels is there for a reason? 

Maybe the miracles that were recorded are there because in addition to being really cool, they illustrate a point about the nature of Jesus.

Let’s suppose you’ve got something I want or need, and you’re willing to let me have it but first there are certain conditions I must meet in order to get it. Conditions by themselves are morally neutral, they can be reasonable, or they may amount to hoops you’re jumping me through simply because you can. But they are a fact of life. Husbands impose them on wives, parents on children, employers on employees. The list goes on and on. Without them it’s unlikely civil society could survive.

But Jesus apparently didn’t impose conditions or jump people through hoops in order to receive His mercy. Take the adulteress about to be stoned to death by a self-righteous mob. Jesus didn’t lay down any conditions for stopping the mob. He didn’t say accept Me as your savior, He didn’t demand that she renounce her sinful behaviors. He simply saved her life.  Even more remarkable is the healing of the lame man by the pool, Jesus not only healed him without condition, He didn’t even tell the lame man who He was. Who does that? I’m always looking for a little credit for my good deeds.

So maybe one of the lessons I’m supposed to take away from the miracles of Jesus is all about conditions. Jesus didn’t just command us to help the poor and downtrodden, He showed us by example how He wanted it done. No conditions, no artificial hoops for them to jump through in order to receive help. And occasionally they just might ask “Why do you help me this way?” 

“Why? Because Jesus loves you.”

So Your Excuse Is “Mikey Does It Too?”

I think the next time someone defends inexcusable behavior from a member of their tribe, clan, sect, denomination, gender, race political party, or any other demographic group with the rationalization that others do it too, they should have their noses rubbed in their own excrement much as you would a puppy you are trying to housetrain.

Take Rush Limbaugh. Please. Take him far, far away. But before you do, what’s with the line from the Rushheads that liberals do it too? Leaving aside for a moment that , no, liberals don’t call a young woman slut and prostitute for appearing before congress, why would that make a difference? Pre-schoolers do that. Caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the first words out of their mouth is, “Mikey does it too!”

Let’s see if I can make this simple. It doesn’t matter who else calls her slut and prostitute, you shouldn’t. There is simply no way to put lipstick on that pig. And any words in an apology that follow the word “but” are dung, and you should probably have your nose rubbed in it.

So Give ‘Em What They Want

I’m going to write a post that is political in nature, not ideological, although I suspect it won’t be taken that way. As a lifelong progressive who has found myself admiring and even voting for Republicans over the years, I find myself appalled at its current state. How did it become a party where the word moderate is a pejorative?

Since I have no real answer to that let me make an observation. It now seems that everyone has been missing the point of the Republican primaries. A little over a year ago Republicans with real gravitas began making the decision to sit out this presidential campaign which on the face of it made no sense. Obama was by any measure a seriously weakened president, ripe for defeat. Why then did those potential candidates decide not to run, leaving the field to candidates with little to no chance to win? What did they know that the rest of us completely missed?

 It is becoming painfully obvious that for the Republican party this is the year of the ideologue. Republicans like Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan and Haley Barbour, while conservative, were certainly not pure ideologues and they knew they’d get involved in a slugfest they weren’t prepared to wage. So we’re left with one simple fact. The Republican base wants an ideologue this year and no amount of money or appeals to electability seems to be dissuading them from their demand.

And the only way for the adult wing of the Republican party, the wing interested in governing rather than a far right ideological purity that is doomed to irrelevance, to regain control of their once grand party might be to give those in the base demanding purity what they want. A purely ideological, extreme right wing candidate for president of the United States.

In my lifetime there have been just two pure ideologues gain the nomination of their parties, McGovern for the Democrats and Goldwater for the Republicans, and the results were disastrous. Yet because of their landslide losses in those elections, the parties were able to wrest control of their nominating processes back from their ideological fringe elements, and returned in later cycles to great success. So I say give ‘em what they want, nominate Santorum, take your inevitable pounding, regain control of your party from the wingnuts, and return to your roots.

Now that’s a winning strategy.

Perks of being over 60 and heading towards 70!

 1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you. 
 2.. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first. 
 3. No one expects you to run–anywhere. 
 4. People call at 9 PM and ask,”did I wake you?” 
 5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac. 
 6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way. 
 7. Things you buy now won’t wear out. 
 8. You can eat supper at 5 PM. 
 9. You can live without sex but not your glasses. 
 10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans. 
 11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge. 
 12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room. 
 13. You sing along with elevator music. 
 14. Your eyes won’t get much worse. 
 15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off. 
 16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
 17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
 18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size.
 19. You can’t remember who sent you this list.

Want A More Christian Nation?

Here’s a novel idea, make more Christians. 

Is it a coincidence that in the last thirty years, as the church has increasingly turned to political action to achieve spiritual aims, that we’ve seen the largest decline in church membership in our history? So today we’ve been reduced to bogus claims of a war on religion and religious liberty to explain the sad fact that we are a church in decline. Our so called leaders much prefer that excuse than a long look in the mirror.

You want war, go to Somalia, ask them what Christian persecution means. We live in the freest country in the world in terms of the right to practice our faith and we can’t fill a sanctuary an hour a week, while the church is thriving in the most inhospitable places on earth. Places where to self-identify as Christian can cost you your life. 

So why does the faith prosper there and falter here? Why are our leaders whining about legislation instead of focusing on salvation? You want a nation with respect for family values? Make more Christians. You want the institution of marriage strengthened? Make more Christians. Interested in sexual purity? Make more Christians.  Peace, charity, a nation where widows and orphans are cared for, and our elderly and the poor are honored rather than considered a burden? A church alive with purpose? Yep, make more Christians.

Maybe if our leaders spent less time running around like rock stars filling stadiums at $25 a pop, and instead followed the lead of our brethren in Somalia, China, or Pakistan we’d have a church as vibrant as theirs.

War on religion? You don’t need to make war on the church in America, they’re too busy advocating legislation, sub-contracting our faith to politicians who every four years ring our Pavlovian bells, only to take our votes and money till the next election cycle comes round. If a New Testament believer were suddenly transported to present day America they’d be appalled. Would they recognize us or turn away in disgust?

You Say Potato, I Say Pohtahtoh

"The issue between Trinitarianism and modalism at its essence is one God manifesting Himself successively in three ways, or one God, three persons, simultaneously existing eternally. Your best understanding now ... would you say it's 'one God manifesting Himself in three ways' or 'one God in three persons?'" ~Mark Driscoll.

Apparently if you answer that question wrong some folks label you a heretic. It reminds me of an incident about 16 or 17 years ago. As a child I was raised a Christian but I don't think I paid much attention. As a teenager I went all Prodigal Son on folks and didn't return to my faith until I was in my early forties, so I ended up with a renewed faith in Christ, but with few theological or denominational biases. My attitude was if you preached Christ crucified, Risen, and Coming again I could worship with you, an attitude that I still pretty much hold today, almost twenty years later.

What happened was I changed churches within what I thought was the same denomination. During the new member class the pastor was quite adamant about the communion service. He believed that the minute you ate the bread and drank the wine it was transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ, and the members of the church I had left who belonged to another branch of the same denomination, a branch that believed the communion bread and wine were symbolic of the body and blood, were heretics.

I was amused, much in the way I think Driscoll's question is funny. Seriously, you spend time agonizing about stuff like that? Well, if it makes you happy and keeps you out of the hair of folks trying to enlarge the kingdom, then have at it. But that's how we end up with thousands of denominations bickering about minutia, thoroughly confusing non-believers who can hardly be faulted for perhaps thinking "These folks can't make up their own minds, why would I let them change mine?"

Some things, of course, are critical to what constitutes a Christian, things which can and should be non-negotiable. The rest of it? Not so much.