Category Archives: christianity

“Blab-casting”

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I recently read an essay by Elizabeth Drescher on the “rd Magazine” website entitled “Turn Off, Slow Down, Drop In: The Digital Generation Reinvents the Sabbath“

I love this paragraph:

At the other end of the spectrum, fantasies that the application of new
technologies to traditional practices will, in themselves, enrich life
in general and spirituality in particular are no less misguided. Take a recent blog post on the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, which shared with italicized surprise the utterly unremarkable finding that “use of visual projection equipment in worship is not
related to church growth.” No kidding? Survey says: a dull video or
lame music is just dull as a preacher blah-blah-blah-ing on in person
with no relational interest in or connection to the people to whom they
are blab-casting. So, too, an engaging, interactive minister who
genuinely connects to people and encourages their connection to one
another is going to be compelling face-to-face and in
technologically-enabled engagements (see, for example, @texasbishop, @MeredithGould, @jaweedkaleem).  [emphasis mine]

For some reason, and this gets to some of the other stuff in the article and in the life of the Church in general (particularly the Mainline denominations and more particularly the Episcopal Church, of which I am a priest), we think we must manage God.  After all, if we don’t manage God everything will just fall apart and we will devolve into nothingness. (Yeah, and how is that going for us?)

The Episcopal Church is in crisis because we are a dying institution (has little to do with the gay-issue or the conservatives leaving the Church – although it has a whole lot to do with it… irony).  So many people are rushing to do triage and to save this venerable national treasure, but the ways and means they are trying to save it are little more than the same old things that have been going on for the last 40 years that have gotten us into the mess to begin with.  They dress up these tired old ways and means in hipster clothing or Emergent garb thinking that things like PowerPoint presentations, bad rock-ish music, hip-cool candles and flashy lights, casting off vestments, or better yet taking out pews, sidelining the Prayer Book, explaining away Scripture, or outlawing Rite I language will magically make the Church all rad (yes, I know) so that streams of young people will suddenly fill the empty spaces. What they end up doing is just another form of blab-casting. 

What we so often forget is that Jesus is the one that builds the Church, and if we so manage affairs of the Church according to trendy culture dictates that Jesus is nicely tucked away out of site, well, we have already failed.

There are streams of young people filling churches. Just not our churches.  Around where I live (Brooklyn, NY), within an 1/2-hour walk I can take you to at least 5 churches that are in the hundreds of members each and are made up almost exclusively with those under, say, 32 years of age.  They beg for people over 40 to come to their churches.  St. Paul’s, where I serve, has a very close relationship with a few of these churches.  You know what they are doing in their services?  Old Hymns song out of hymnals. Traditional liturgies (they are rediscovering the significance of liturgy).  We use Rite I at St. Paul’s for our principle liturgy (Rite II other times – we aren’t protesting anything), but when we talk about changing to Rite II, it is the 20-somethings  who have been coming in greater numbers over the last 5 years who protest the loudest.

This is why my work in the Imago Dei Society/Initiative isn’t focused on being trendy, but on understanding emerging generations and emerging culture to find out not how to become like them, but to discover how to translate the Faith to them in ways they can understand, form them into consequential Christians, and learn how to receive, living into and pass on the enduring Tradition in its Anglican form. This doesn’t play too well when those attempting triage are bent on re-hashing the latest hip-cool thing the culture throws at us (even when all the evidence shows that what younger people are looking for is something substantially different from all that hype and manipulation). 

Dabbling

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From a short article in Newsweek (Feb. 14th edition, pg. 6) dealing with e-books and the future of print books into the future.

“The Future of the Book” – from James Billington, librarian of Congress:

“The new immigrants don’t shoot the old inhabitants when they come in. Our technology tends to supplement rather than supplant.  How you read is not as important as: will you read? And will you read something that’s a book – the sustained train of thought of one person speaking to another? Search techniques are embedded in e-books that invite people to dabble rather than follow a full train of thought. This is part of a general cultural problem.” (emphasis mine)

What impact might this “dabbling” have on the “train of thought” of the Gospel? What impact might this development have on already short attention spans?  How might this impact our engagement with knowledge, that requires sustained and perhaps linear processes? How might this change teaching and learning?

I believe this is an important idea or consequence to investigate.

Church and Sect

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The Scripture lessons for Sunday worship in the Revised Common Lectionary during this time after the Epiphany come from the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew, particularly focused on the Sermon on the Mount.

Reading through a commentary yesterday, I came across this description of the difference between a “Church” and a “Sect.”  Here are a couple paragraphs:

“In spite of the need for many corrections in his details, my [Ulrich Luz, the author of this commentary] most helpful conversation partner has been Ernst Troeltsch.  He makes a sociological distinction between church and sect.  They are characterized by certain types of piety and theology.  While the ‘church’ as an institution of salvation and grace is characterized by s piety of redemption and a religion of grace, the ‘sect’ is a ‘voluntary society, composed of strict and definite Christian believers,’ who emphasize ‘the law instead of grace, and in varying degrees within their own circle set up the Christian order based on love.’  In the sect Christ is ‘the Lord, the example and lawgiver of Divine authority and dignity,’ rather than primarily the redeemer.  Realizing holiness is central for the sect; ‘the real work of redemption’ takes place only in the future through  judgement, ‘when He will establish the kingdom of God.’ Very often the piety of the sect is Jesus piety, while Paul is decisive for the church type.”

– Ulrick Luz; Matthew 1-7, Hermeneia Series; Editor, Helmut Koester, James E. Crouch, Translator; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p. 178.

I suspect that using these definitions by Troeltsch, one might make the argument that the new “Anglican Church in North America,”  the break-away group from the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada made up primarily of American style Evangelicals (as opposed to Anglican-Evangelicals) and Charismatics (with lessening numbers of more strict Anglo-Catholic types), is a “sect” and no longer a “church.”  Their reason for being is to become more “pure,” according to their own definitions, and a piety that is far more strict.   Sociologically speaking, this Troeltsch fits, I think.

New or New Again

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Part of the mandate of the Imago Dei Initiative is to understand emerging culture and emerging generations so that the Church can meet people where they are – outside the prevailing, some call “normal,” walls of the Church and ways of thinking about life and faith.

This isn’t easy, often times, because pouring new wine into old wine skins more-often-than-not results in the rupturing of the old wine skin.  This makes people nervous!  This makes institutions nervous, even while the people that are the institutions know that change will occur regardless of thought, comfort, or even permission.

Currently, the Imago Dei Initiative is experimenting with a few different things under a tag-line that goes something like this: “Finding new ways of living a profound Faith in simple ways.”  Again, more-often-than-not, these “new” ways are really the discovery again of the ways that have resonated with the human heart and soul from generation-to-generation.  All things are made new again.

If we pay attention to the demographic data, emerging generations are seeking out those kinds of faith expressions that demonstrate something that is tried, is proven, is not trendy, that actually proclaims a belief in something specific, and is lasting.  There is an expectation for questioning and wrestling with the issues, but there is an appreciation for honesty and being up-front about what is believed and proclaim to be true.

For example, churches all over the place that are full of young folks are picking up the Book of Common Prayer and are finding in its ancient forms and liturgies something intriguing, life-giving, and that has been missing in most of their faith experiences.  The Anglican Tradition of the Christian faith is well situated for this generation – an openness to difference, debate, and questions; simple belief assertions that get at the core of the Faith; and the slow, formative elements of ancient liturgies.  Although, the preoccupation of political and theological warfare going on in the Episcopal Church (and the break-way new “Anglican” denominations) right now does little to draw younger folks to the institution that is supposed to be the  holders of the Anglican Tradition in the U.S. – the Episcopal Church.  We’ve got to experience again is not politics or social-agendas, but the experience of God in relationship.

Younger folks also think very differently about pet issues that the Church has been wrestling with for the last 40 years (since the rise of the 1960’s/Baby Boomer mentality).  Younger folks don’t look with disdain and mistrust upon institutions.  There is a draw to that which is ancient in the Tradition.  Younger folks do not think the same way about issues of race, sexism, homophobia, political and social liberalism or conservatism.  These are not the issues most younger folks dwell on (with exceptions, of course) – and not that these issues are unimportant.  

For example, most younger women I’ve encountered and talked with don’t have the same issues with gender-inclusive language as do Baby Boomers.  Younger women realize that the Scriptures and the Tradition were developed in a different time under different circumstances, so if male pronouns are used today (in accordance with the actual Greek or Hebrew word in Scripture that is male) there isn’t the same feeling of disenfranchisement or diminishment or exclusion or an expectation of subservience to males.  Their womanhood is not threatened by male language or imagery in their original forms.

So, considering all this, how does the Church do things differently without a preoccupation with trendiness?  We focus on Christian formation within our relationships with God and one another.  Another way is to rediscover or relearn the ancient forms of the Tradition – that which has survived through persecution and trial among a multitude of cultures throughout the past 2,000 years.  This is what we are trying to do. 

How?  Well, here are a couple things:

1. The Imago Dei Sunday Evening Service at St. Paul’s Church – we are a new and still small gathering of people who wish to experience the presence of God in contemplative and meditative ways.  We use the tried and true form of Evening Prayer (perhaps Evensong at some point) with lots of time for silent/quiet contemplation.  We hear the Word of God, we pray for our needs – most importantly we desire to grow closer to God.  We end our time together with the celebration of Holy Communion in a very simply form.  We meet Sunday evenings at 5:00 PM and the service lasts almost an hour.  We attempt to form a spiritually conducive atmosphere with candles, bells, incense, quiet, and a beautifully rich physical space.

2. The Imago Dei Red Hook Gathering – we are organizing a small group of folks in the Red Hook neighborhood that come together to support and challenge one another to live more fully into our Christian Faith in simple ways.  The main purposes of this kind of gathering is to build relationships, to hear how we are growing in our Faith, and to support one another in all the challenges we face in our chaotic world.  We are meeting in a more public space twice a month for about an hour and a half.

3. The Imago Dei Home Group in Carroll Gardens – this is similiar to the “Gathering” mentioned above, but we meet in a member’s home.  This affords us the ability for a little more privacy and intimacy.  We spend time catching up on each others’ lives as we gather together, we transition into a time of quiet, of prayer, and then we discuss how Scripture interacts with our lives.

4. 2nd Saturdays for Good Works Initiative – every second Saturday of the month (well, almost every one – see the Events page for updates) we come together to do some sort of good work as we give of our time and talents to serve others.  Fundamentally, the purpose is to help us grow in our own faith by better understanding God’s will for our lives, but other people receive the benefit of our work.  This past year, we adopted Coffey Park in Red Hook as our project.  We helped the permanent gardener (John Clarke) and community folks who volunteer to help keep the park in good shape.  It is great exercise, a good time to meet new people and grow closer to people we know, and it is good for the soul.

5. The “Faith meets Art meets Space” project – this is a formation project for artists of all kinds that focuses on how our Christian Faith influences our creative impulse. How does our faith and the physical space influence our art?  The goal is for the artist to create something new while investigating how faith and space inspire them.  There will be during May 13-15, 2011 exhibits and performances at St. Paul’s Church that presents our new art.

6. “The Church and ‘Post-Constantinian’ Society?” The Imago Dei Society in cooperation with other groups is planning a conference during the late-fall of 2011 to discuss how we live as individuals and the Church within a culture and society that is becoming “Post-Constantian” – a culture that no longer supports a common Christian understanding of life and our place in the world.  More info coming…

These are just a few things that we are doing and would like to do.  The goal of an intentional-community where residents live for a time to help develop the habits of the Christian Spiritual Disciplines is in the works.  Anyone is welcome to help in this project of discovering new ways of living the profound Faith in simply ways.

A different religion?

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“We have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that it is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition… It is not so much that U.S. Christianity is being secularized.  Rather, more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by quite a different religious faith.”

-Christian Smith with Melinda Denten; quote from: Almost Christian: what the faith of our teenagers is telling the American Church, by Kendra Creasy Dean (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010; p.3)

Cover of

Cover via Amazon

I’m very interested in reading this book.  The quote above fits very well with what I have been observing and experiencing over the last decade, at least.  Much of the “Christianity” I witness from both the supposed “Left” and “Right” are combining into something that is only vaguely recognizable as Christianity when couched within the historic tradition of the Faith.

I believe this is one of many reasons, albeit a more prominent reason, for the distrust and poor image the U.S. Church in general has among younger people.  I believe this is one reason for the decline in the success of the Church in the U.S. to truthfully engage the emerging culture and emerging generations in ways that resonate with them – ways that actually smack of Jesus’ example and his teachings.

Here are excerpts from the opening page from Kendra Dean, the author:

“Let me save you some trouble.  Here is the gist of what you are about to read: American young people are, theoretically, fine with religious faith – but it does not concern them very much, and it is not durable enough to survive long after they graduate from high school.

“One more thing: we’re responsible.

“…the religiosity of American teenagers must be read as a reflection of their parents’ religious devotion (or lack thereof) and, by extension, that of their congregations. Teenagers themselves consistently demonstrate an openness to religion, but few of them are deeply committed to one.”

What in the world are we doing with this ancient faith in these days that makes this faith that has endured 2,000 years of trial, persecution, within a multitude of cultures and languages, so “not durable” among our young? 

I agree with Dean, but we have to face squarely that we (those who are currently leading or moving into leadership) are failing the One-Who-Came-to-Gives-Us-Life-to-the-Full among the young.  I don’t blame them; the fault is ours – “by our fault, by our own fault, by our most grievous fault.”

Is it really the case that we would rather justify our own selves (all of our pet and “insightful” theories) while our actions speak volumes of faithlessness, neglect, polarization, hubris, greed, hypocrisy?  I think so.  Read the results of Barna’s research in their book, “unChristian.”

We’ve got to end this. Lord, make speed to help us!

Motivations of the Day (of the Christianist kind)

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Regrettably, Newsweek (which I’ve subscribed to since high school – I’m a news geek) isn’t posting online its most recent edition (which I received by mail on Tuesday). If it did, I would link the most recent “Scope” article by Lisa Miller. She writes about what is motivating the Religious Right leading up to the 2012 elections (already?).

Miller suggests that what is motivating Evangelical Christians in the USA of the Religious Right stripe is not the culture-war issues as in the last general election, like abortion or gay-marriage, but what is motivating them for the upcoming election “is a vision of America as God’s own special country and a belief that free-market capitalism is crucial to its flourishing,” according to Tony Campolo.

A quote by Tony Compolo from the article:

“The marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong… that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old laissez-faire capitalist system – by, say, supporting bailouts – is unpatriotic, un-American, and, by association, non-Christian.” This is a shame for the cause of Christ in the USA!”

This is a sad day for Christianity and the Cause of Christ in the United States.  We reduce the enduring and life-giving Gospel of to political and/or economic ideologies that are nothing more than the creations of Man, not God!  The Church and the Gospel are defamed and trivialized to the point of being nothing more than a reflection of the latest cultural trend. 

With respect to the Gospel and an eternal perspective there is no such thing as “American Exceptionalism.”  There may well be exceptional things that have come out of the United States during its history, but that does not mean there is such a thing as a divinely established “American Exceptionalism.”  A word for those who believe such a thing may be hubris or perhaps vainglory. 

We wouldn’t be what we are today if it were not for the exceptional nature of the English contribution to world history.  Yet, I don’t hear of an English Exceptionalism (of course, the colonized peoples of the world would certainly make exception to such a claim).

A little humility, please, and the acknowledgment that this culture is anything but Christian – as least as Scripture and the authors of it describe this thing called the life in Christ.  (All of this coming from a person, me, who truly believes that many very positive and creative things coming out of the United States have been valuable contributions to the world’s well being, reflected in such things as American ingenuity and out of the Protestant Work Ethic, and from one who tends to be more philosophically conservative – which is different than the present neo-Conservative idiocy.)

So, there you go.

What “fundies’ do…

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The funny thing is, this list of supposed contradictions in the Bible support the notion that there is little difference between fundie Christians and fundie atheists.  Both are so desperate to prove or disprove God that they distort and manipulate for their own ends Scripture that was never intended to be used or understood in such ways.  The graphic is fantastic, but the “scholarship” is more than questionable – certainly not reasonable.

See “Contradictions in the Bible” from “Project Reason.”  See here for an example list.  I don’t think this chart and the examples given are very reasonable – not that there are not issues in the consistency of Scripture, but most of these imagined contradictions simply do not hold up when one spends a bit of time actually investigating what is going on in the text and context.  Yet, fundamentalist atheists are as blinded by their determination to disprove as are fundamentalist religious people of whatever religion to prove.  Both come to no good end, I’m afraid.

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To be the imago Dei

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Thomas Merton

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“Men have not become Trappists merely out of a hope for peace in the next world: something has told them, with unshakable conviction, that the next world begins in this world and that heaven can be theirs now, very truly, even though imperfectly, if they give their lives to the one activity which is the beatitude of heaven.

“That activity is love: the clean, unselfish love that does not live on what it gets but on what it gives; a love that increases by pouring itself out for others, that grows by self-sacrifice and becomes mighty by throwing itself away.

“But there is something very special about the love which is the beatitude of heaven: it makes us resemble God, because God Himself is love. Deus caritas est. The more we love Him as He loves us, the more we resemble Him; and the more we resemble Him, the more we come to know Him.”

— Thomas Merton, The Waters of Siloe

Religious Knowledge in the U.S – Oxymoronic?

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There is a new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reports on new survey results, “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey.”  It doesn’t look very pretty, frankly.

How much do you know about religion?  Click and take the 15-question survey.  I got 14 out of 15, scoring quite high.  I should have – there might be a little problem if I didn’t!