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The nones have it Americans losing their religion

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Andre
This entry is part 1 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

USA Today is reporting a growing among people of faith in America. They are losing their religion. More and more  people of all faiths and in particular the Christian faith are stepping away from institutional religious practices. Members of this group lists their religious affiliation as none.

• So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, “the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion,” the report concludes.

via Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds – USATODAY.com.

Studies still suggest however that these people or still very spiritual.They are just not plugged into traditional channels of expressing faith. This tracks with my observation of why the church seems to be losing ground despite years of frantic church planting and evangelism. Less people are buying what we are selling. Religions and religious people as Greg Kinneman points out in his book UnChristian are considered hypocrites and bigots and intolerant.

So where will it end? What can we people of faith do about it? I don’t know where it ends. But I when I think about what to do I am reminded of the words of  Paul Dietterich from the Center for Parish Development said to a group of concerned pastors beginning to anticipate this sift over 20 years ago “dis establish yourself before you are disestablished” We need to go again where the people are instead of trying to get them to come join our religious institutions we need to go to them as humble journeyers on the faith path.

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faith in a post religious world

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Andre Daley
This entry is part 2 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

So in response to the recent USA today article about people turning away from religion I have had several conversations mostly in cyberspace with Christians who give me way to understand why our culture is moving into being post-religious.

First, there is the knee jerk reaction and immediate assumption by some of us Christians that if people are not religious they are anti-Christian. (Oh and by the way if you are anti-Christian you are also anti-American). In fact the article suggested that all religions and religious tribes are losing ground.  Instead of looking at the context and seeing that though these folks are not interested in religious institutions (and remembering that Jesus was not either)  they are spiritual ; there is the immediate defensive posture that they are hostile to religion and so hostile to us and so hostile to God. There is no consideration of the idea behind Dan Kimball’s book that they might like Jesus but not the church (i.e institutional religion) .

Secondly there is what seems to me to be a weak confidence in God’s word and Jesus message that feeds the fixation on personal salvation as all that matters. I need to get heaven and the rest be damned. Religion is the ticket to heaven. Not faith mind you religion. So if we are losing our religion then we are shaking the very foundations of the faith. Never mind that Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the the church. I believe that God in control and will ways be in control and though the church or religion may be shaken, the faith of Abraham, Jesus and Paul will not no matter what craziness we mixed up messed up human beings get into.

So I don’t blame the average pew sitter in this. it is some of our religious leaders that truly worry and scare. Watch the video that was sent to me to rebut my thoughts about living faithfully in a post-religious world.

[youtube OH1yOmij7Q4 nolink]

john mcarthur’s religious views on the emergent church

First problem is this is doesn’t square with scripture. We can’t just cherry pick scripture to suit our views. Jesus did say he came for those who are poor Luke 4:18,19Luke 4:18,19
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18 .

WP-Bible plugin. Jesus did say he came so we could have a abundant life.  John 10:10John 10:10
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10 A thief comes only to rob, kill, and destroy. I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest.

WP-Bible plugin. So can we just dismiss those parts of scripture in favor of one that suit our point of view. If we do we  are setting up a false choice that doesn’t show the whole picture. It is not either Jesus came to bring salvation or Jesus came to bring us life and good news to the poor. It is Jesus came to bring salvation and life; both, and also good news to the poor.  Jesus came to initiate the reordering all of creation (the kingdom or reign of God) and not just grant personal salvation so the blessed few can get to heaven. I think scripture bears that out.

Then we must deal with the fact that ripping other followers of Jesus and setting ourselves up as an individual arbiter of genuine faith is something that diminishes the witness of the church. Saying eeither you are with me or your are wrong and bad is so not the way Jesus dealt with people, with the exception of the religious leaders. Some of us religious leaders are doing the same thing that the religious leaders of Jesus day did. The same things that Jesus criticized them for. They are setting themselves up as the be all and end of the Christian faith. There is no humility, no recognizing that there is only one authority when it comes to this Christian faith and that is Jesus.
We can’t pick and chose only the parts of Jesus teaching we like to prove our points. We need to always look at the patterns of faith and life that Jesus gave us instead of just making up dogma to fit our social and political sensibilities, whatever they may be. This has the effect of people seeing them as bigoted and hypocrites as David Kinneman points out in the book Unchristian (which every follower of Jesus who want to share the Christian faith in post-religious world should read).

I don’t question speaker’s faith or belief. But this is a good example of how religion (which sets up the eeither or) can turn people away from the Christian faith which is so much more powerful, holistic and transforming that just eeither or propositions.

But there is blame to go around on all sides there are some folks with new perspectives on the faith that seem intent on disconnecting from the historical biblical Christian faith.  It gives dogmatic people fodder for their views and lets them paint anyone not agreeing their dogmatic views with the same brush and leads to responses like the one below to my above thoughts.

Either or propositions? What? Are we all Hindus now too? Truth is ALWAYS an “either or proposition.” You yourself cannot follow your own line when you refer to truth as being Scripture. (No relativist ever can live his own propositions.) I do agree that salvation is “holistic” (I really hate all these goopy trendy words) – spirit, soul, body. But the great, overwhelming emphasis in Scripture was on the spiritual, the eternal, the Kingdom that flesh and blood cannot inherit.

Years ago church consultant Bill Easum suggested to a group of church leaders that one of the biggest challenges for Jesus followers moving into the future was going to be the question how can I follow Jesus without being a bigot. I think he was asking us to consider how can we stand for Jesus without blowing off the very people Jesus calls us to reach.

So I wonder what will faith look like in post-religious world? Will there be a church for the post-religious or will we all be heading to hell in an hand basket?

I wonder if defenders of the truth will descend on this blog to prove their point and share their view, we will see.

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quotes for living faithfully the post-religious world

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Andre Daley
This entry is part 3 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

Two quotes for the post-religious world from  Making Disciples in an Emerging Church good stuff there.

Howard Thurman

Give me the courage to live!
Really live– not merely exist.
Live dangerously,
Scorniging risk!
Live honestly,
Daring the truth–
Particularly the truth of myself!
Live resiliently–
Ever changing, ever growing, ever adapting.
Enduring the pain of change
As though ’twere the travail of birth.
Give me the courage to live,
Give me the strength to be free
And endure the burden of freedom
And the loneliness of those without chains;
Let me not be trapped by success,
Nor by failure, not pleasure, nor grief,
Nor malice, nor praise, nor remorse! 

Give me the courage to go on!
Facing all that waits on the trail–
Going eagerly, joyously on,
And paying my way as I go,
Without anger or fear or regret
Taking what life gives,
Spending myself to the full,
Dead high, spirit winged, like a god–
On… on… till hte shadows draw close.
Ten even when darkness shuts down,
ANd I go out alone as I came,
Naked and blind as I camm–
Even then, gracous God, hear my prayer:
Give me the courage to live! 

GREAT QUOTE from Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan… from his latest book, The Prodigal God:

“Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.”

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discussing the trinity in a post-religious world

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Andre Daley
This entry is part 4 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

Our faith community is going to be having an online discussion group of the novel The Shack. As I was doing a search for some video on it I came across this rant (sermon) on YouTube.

[youtube pK65Jfny70Y nolink]

Mark Driscoll on the Shack

I think he misses the point of metaphor. The characters in the Shack related to the Trinity are metaphors. They are not meant to actually suggest that  God the creator is a  black woman, Jesus the redeemer is an Palestinian (though he probably was) and the Spirit the sustainer (is an Asian).

The definition of metaphor from dictionary.com

a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.

Metaphors help us to wrap our brains around deep concepts by connecting them to symbols or icons that are more readily accessible. It is why use image metaphors in our worship each week.

Jesus used metaphors. Listen to Jesus as we weeps over the people of Jerusalem

34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Luke 13:34Luke 13:34
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Jesus Loves Jerusalem 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Your people have killed the prophets and have stoned the messengers who were sent to you. I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn't let me.

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Jesus isn’t saying he is a hen. he isn’t making a graven image of God he is using a metaphor that is accessible to those listening. People whose farming background would have made the idea of a hen caring for her chicks quite familiar. Jesus used  metaphors by speaking in parables, a common rabbinic way of teaching. They didn’t just tell adn give answers they told stories that raised questions. The parables generated questions and conversations with the genuinely spiritually curious instead of just telling people what to think. Mark 4:34Mark 4:34
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34 He did not tell them anything without using stories. But when he was alone with his disciples, he explained everything to them.

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The book is a novel, a story, not a doctrinal statement or dogmatic text. He is using metaphors iconic imagery that is familiar that is accessible to his reader.  If nothing else this gets people (Jesus followers and those who aren’t) in this post-religious world talking about the Trinity one of the most challenging parts of Christian teaching. It is a subject that many avoid and some in recent years have tried to dismiss altogether.

Part of learning to practice faith in the post-religious world is learning to entertain the ideas of other without having to agree with them. Metaphors are a part the language of the post-religious. I think learning to use metaphors as a means to engage in conversation rather than just dismissing them when they arise in culture, is important to living faithfully in a post-religious world .  Ironically isn’t that what Paul did at Mars Hill. Acts 17:22,23Acts 17:22,23
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
22 So Paul stood up in front of the council and said: People of Athens, I see that you are very religious. 23 Ws . As I was going through your city and looking at the things you worship, I found an altar with the words,

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So is it possible to have a conversation about this stuff without all the hyperbole?

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post- Christian or post religious

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Andre Daley
This entry is part 5 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

The cover story of this week’s edition of Newsweek is the Decline and fall of Christian America. The author John Meachem, a self described flawed Christian (from the Episcopalian tribe) discusses the shift in the American religious landscape.  On MSNBC this morning Meachem and Tim Keller from Redeemer Church in NYC discussed the story, here are a couple of their observations.

Tim Keller:

  • There is a shift in the evangelical population that used to be more blue collar. More are going to college and  have dveloped a different take on the Christian faith.
  • Many people of faith want to take their faith beyond just two issues into the public sphere of the academy, Hollywood, and even wall street.
  • Some peopleof faith see all of life as being a part of faith

Meachem:

  •  The political recent experiment of Christian America in the political sphere has failed.
  • There is a difference between Christianity and Christianized America
  • More people of faith have less allegiance and trust in religious institutions, so the church has to figure out what to with that.
  • Many people of faith have become more seeks that religious adherents

So American is becoming less religious but not necessarily less Christian?  Last September at the religious news writers association I shared during a panel discussion that I thought American culture was decidedly less religious but still very open to the Christian faith.  More prominent authors like Greg Boyd Myth of a Christian Nation has written about this. Julia Duin in her book Quitting Church also speaks to the shifting tide that Meachem addresses.

Other people of faith are convinced this shift means the end of Christianity as we know it in America.They may be right. It may be the end of the practice of the Christian faith as we have known it.  But it does not mean the end of  the Christians faith. We can no longer do business as usual. But changing our approach to practicing the Christian faith does not mean the death of the christian message.

So are we in a post-christian era or a post religious era?

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religious memory loss

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Andre Daley
This entry is part 6 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

One symbol of our post religious time is that the religious folks among us have lost their memories. Culturally we have forgotten what is means to be a person of Christian faith or followers of Jesus. So we say think that are clearly unbiblical wrap them in patriotic words and call it religion. Diana Bass Butler writes about this dilemma recently on the Huffington Post.

At the present juncture of history, Western Christianity is suffering from a bad case of spiritual amnesia. Even those who claim to be devout or conservative often know little about the history of their faith traditions. Our loss of memory began more than two centuries ago, at the high tide of the Enlightenment. As modern society developed, the condition of broken memory — being disconnected from the past — became more widespread. Indeed, in the words of one French Catholic thinker, the primary spiritual dilemma of contemporary religion is the “loss and reconstruction” of memory.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-butler-bass/is-western-christianity-s_b_554231.html

When we get into this memory loss or maybe memory block, then we forget that Jesus didn’t come for the church but those disconnected from God. We forget that Jesus critiqued the religious institutions of the day as not being in touch with God’s mission. We forget that the Christian  faith  did not start with our most recent experience of it. We forgot that Jesus Christ calls us to sacrifice for the other and not preservation of self. We forget what it means to live faithfully beyond religious patterns. This is who we got to a post religious world and why we need a post religious church

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Finding Faith: More college students see themselves as spiritual rather than religious | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Andre Daley
This entry is part 7 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

The future of the church depends on reaching the growing number of spiritual but post-religious people especially today’s students. This recent article fromthe heart of the Bible belt shows the post-religious phenomenon is not restricted to hot spots of “secularism” like Seattle or NYC.

Rachel Robinson knows she is called to the ministry in some way. A 21-year-old Texas Tech student, she’s been on mission trips and she interns at Westminster Presbyterian Church.Yet she says many of her peers aren’t as involved in their churches as she is. Robinson attributes this to the strict traditions that accompany religion, rather than most church teachings, that she believes turn college students away.

via Finding Faith: More college students see themselves as spiritual rather than religious | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL.

The article suggests that more colleges students in the area are leaving behind institutional religious traditions and institutions for other ways of expressing faith and finding relationships of faith. They are seeking “church without religion”. If the “church” can’t wrap its brain around this trend I believe more and more traditional churches will drift away into oblivion and irrlevance. Doesn’t mean the faith of Jesus Christ will go away the mission of God and  purpose of Christ will prevail! But the institutional church will not be a significant part of it.

The issues are not new they are the ones that challenge every missionary. Learning to speak the language and credibility (earn the right to speak). It the church up to this? Are up for this?

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Are there dangers in being ‘spiritual but not religious’? – CNN.com

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Andre
This entry is part 8 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

It’s official the institutional word is in. It may dangerous for people to be spiritual but not religious. I find it amazing how easily the religious in the Christian community can disparage or call dangerous something that Jesus and Paul alike called good thing. Jesus challenged the religious institutions of his day and put those folks on notice as being dangerous which they proved all to well.

Still there are modern day religious types who

“I’m spiritual but not religious.”

It’s a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don’t need organized religion to live a life of faith.

But for Jesuit priest James Martin, the phrase also hints at something else: egotism.

“Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness,” says Martin, an editor at America, a national Catholic magazine based in New York City. “If it’s just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?”

via Are there dangers in being ‘spiritual but not religious’? – CNN.com.

As I read the article and have to say the writers are missing the point. People who are spiritual but religious are very connected in community,  just is not the religious community. They do not trust religious institutions because they a know what we do not want to admit we have not proven ourselves to be trust worthy.  I just picked up a book today from a mainline publisher call I’m fine with God it Christians I don’t like.  The book Unbinding the gospel written by mainline authors shows statistics that we are looking the statistic and credibility gap in terms of reaching out to those who are unchurched. Greg Kinneman and George Barna showed the same thing in the book unChristian.

It has become a common practice in the church to use a few anecdotal situation to point out the flaws in a situation that it feels threatens its maintenance.  20 years ago my denominational challenged ts churches to move from maintenance to mission. Most churches are still struggling to do just that, which is why we are in dramatic decline.

The facts are irrefutable people are spiritual but not religious and much of the church and certainly most Christians does not know what to do with that, or  how to reach these people effectively. So we tend instead denigrate and diminish their perspective and call in self serving or individualistic. We can do that because we are just talking to ourselves and to them. We find ourselves in an echo chamber of our own creation, for our purpose and we end up with these kind of numbers :

55000 churches will close and 60000 will open between 2005 and 2020. We need 103500 just to keep pace with pop growth!

We Christians (I prefer followers of Jesus to eschew any religious connotation) have a choice. We can try to explain this fact by denigrating those who don’t buy into our religiosity, which is absent a passion for the mission of God. Or we can look at ourselves honestly and ask if it is something we have done or not done.

The truth is we don’t have to be religious to be faithful Christians That is what Jesus taught over and over again. Religion as it is practiced in most of the western world and certainly the US is a human construct to make sense out of what Paul calls the foolishness  of God.

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Post religious trend continues – Anne Rice Leaves Christianity but Remains Faithful to Christ

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Andre
This entry is part 9 of 9 in the series post-religious faith

A couple weeks ago famous author Anne Rice added to the continuing post religious trend when she posted on her facebook page

““I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or being a part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

via Anne Rice Leaves Christianity but Remains Faithful to Christ – Associated Content – associatedcontent.com.

As the question about whether one can be spiritual without being religious rages on more and more faithful people are stepping away from religious institutions that are to quote U2 stuck in a moment they can’t get out of. Some in the Christian community have begun to attack these people as self centered and self interested ironically one of the greatest flaws of the modern western church.

There are however some folks who have begun to take this trend seriously as I have and are raising interesting question for the dialogue.

Rev. Bill Shuler is pastor of Capital Life Church in Arlington, Virginia. CapitalLife.org
 offers 10 thoughts pertaining to Jesus and the Church, (over at the Fox News opinion page no less) and asks is quitting the church the answer?

At its core, Anne Rice’s statement is a challenge to the modern church to look and act more like Jesus.

Shuler appropriately calls for dialogue and a biblical response by others who feel as Rice does and a more Jesus like response from the “church”. Problem as I see it much of the “church” in North America and particular the US is more the church of institutional maintenance than the “church” of Jesus. The traditional church has become less and less a place for us to grow up together in faith and have discerning conversation about spiritual matters under the leading of the Holy Spirit ; and more an more a place of exclusive involvement where adherence to dogma and not Jesus teachings reigns supreme.

This has meant the “church” has become less hospitable to those who most want to connect with God. So spiritual people seek “church” outside the “church”. As Shuler suggests the big question will be how the church will respond to this growing trend

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