The Church and Its Pentecost Effects

For the last several weeks, I’ve been reflecting on the recent studies showing that many folks in the US do not consider themselves a part of any particular faith community. Some have left because they find the church to be too judgmental, too hypocritical, too liberal, too conservative, too boring, or too much of an imposition on their busy week, etc. What I suggested last week is the possibility that some folks feel as if they have “graduated” from church. That is to say, they may primarily see the church as a place where one goes to “become a better person.” And, since they more or less agree with the church’s ethical teaching, they are happy to go about living the kind of life without all of the trappings of religion. 

 

I think there is something to be said for that way of thinking. For example, if someone eschews a lucrative law career in order to be a public defender because they are convinced that everyone deserves equal representation in matters of justice, is that commitment not what the prophet calls us to do when he says, “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly”? Do they need to believe in God to do “what God commands”? I have met persons who began attending progressive churches like St. Mark because they were part of the LGBTQIA community and needed to find a safe refuge from the church in which they grew up. Once they learned to accept themselves as beloved children of God, they left church because they felt like they had what they needed to move on. In truth, I think a non-religious person committed to justice is more christian (as an adjective) than someone whose religion is all about living their best life now and going to heaven when they die. Nonetheless, at the expense of sounding like a “company shill,” I want to push back against the idea that living a good or justice-oriented life makes the church irrelevant.

I believe the church is greater than the sum of its part. Being the church is more than learning the Bible, believing doctrines, formation as a “better person,” worshiping with others, doing one’s part, and participating in a community. Much like a body is fingers, toes, eyeballs, brains, organs, blood, etc., but the experience of living as an embodied person is far more than what those parts do, being the church involves all kinds of things, but is more than all of them put together. Here’s my favorite example, but I’m sure you can think of more. 

 

A three-year-old often categorizes adults in a church as either parenty or grandparenty and not much more besides. That child does not know the joy or pain of anyone’s life story and often not even their names. They just know that when they offer an answer to a question during Young Church or sing a song on Christmas Eve, everyone loves it. What they may not know is that those “old” people know their names, remember their birth, and hold them up in prayer often. Speaking as a former three-year-old, that experience of being welcomed, of people having real joy over the mere fact that one exists, shapes us far more deeply than we can ever know. This experience of being welcomed and loved by the church is how we first experience being welcomed and loved by God. The life-shaping of being loved – in a way that is eternal and not just contingent on our latest action – is as close to a miracle as anything we can name. This life-giving miracle is not the Bible Study, the programs, or any of the disparate parts of church life – it is the power that animates all of those parts of the church life. In this time of Pentecost, we call this power the Holy Spirit. If we only see the church as an institution, we might reach a place where we’re ready to “graduate” from it. But, if we see the church as a body that is empowered by the Holy Spirit, being the church is far than “what we get out of it” or even “what we contribute to it.”  

 

I invite you to join us in worship this weekend and let the Holy Spirit of Pentecost fill you with new life, new breath, new fire, and new ways of expressing the good news of the gospel. 

 

Mark of St. Mark 

 

The Effects of the Church, Again

Last week I wrote about a radio commercial for Mother’s Day flowers, honoring a variety of ways that we are mothered or nurtured by others. I noted that the language of the commercial was similar to the kind of expansive language that many of us in the church have been trying to cultivate over the years with the language and direction of our liturgy. At the end of last week’s “Extra,” I mentioned that the commercial raises the question of the relationship between the church and the culture in which we are embedded. Does the flower commercial show that the church has been quite effective in all of our laborious cultivation of capacious language? I’m not suggesting that the church is the only institution that has been engaged in this cultivation, but it has indeed been a real goal of the church to expand the sense of what Mother’s Day means. Let me offer another example of how the church’s efforts have made a difference. 

 

In Thursday’s L.A. Times this week there is a marvelous article about “microfarms” that are being cultivated in the city. It is part of a trend among African American communities to combat the maldistribution of grocery stores among less affluent neighborhoods by replacing decorative grass yards with small community gardens. You can read the article itself here. At the center of the article is Jamiah Hargins, a winsome and inspiring proponent of microfarming, described at one point as having “the easygoing but determined disposition of a youth minister.” When asked about his commitment to setting aside 10% of his produce for needy families, Hargins said, “It’s a community tithe. That’s what I’ve been calling it. I guess it comes from my church days.” 

 

I can’t say for sure, but the reference, “from my church days,” seems to imply that Hargins no longer attends church. For the sake of this essay, let’s just assume that Hargins does not currently attend church. If that’s the case, Mr. Hargins would be numbered among those who are often called the “nones,” or “Spiritual, but not religious,” or the “dones” – all of which are ways of naming folks who have “left” the church. It means that he, and folks like him, are the ones to whom people point when they say that the church is “losing its relevance” or that the country is “no longer religious.” It’s what makes church proponents purse their lips and church critics nod their heads. But, let me ask this: Could it mean that Mr. Hargins has “graduated?” 

 

It’s not unheard of. The Apostle Paul referred to “the law” – the primary religious structure in his own religious upbringing – as a “tutor,” or a “disciplinarian,” which served a purpose for a time, but was never intended to be the permanent structure of faith. Is it possible that the church’s whole purpose is to “Christianize the social order” (a phrase from the Social Gospel prophet, Walter Rauschenbusch), and to make its own institutional structure irrelevant?  To be sure, the naïve optimism of the late 19^th century about the extent to which the social order in the west had been “Christianized” was devasted by two world wars, a depression, and the technological threat of atomic weaponry. But, on a much smaller scale, would Mr. Hargins present us with someone whose religious training in church was quite successful and whose work in the world is, in fact, one way of seeing “the church,” even if he no longer “belongs to” or attends a church? 

 

I see the inherent danger in raising this question, especially as a pastor whose own “success” is often measured in how adroitly I am able to draw people to the church that I serve. But, ever since Jeremiah described the “new covenant” as one in which it would no longer be necessary for people like me to say, “Know the Lord!” because everyone would know the Lord, we pastors have always seen our best “success” lies in working our way out of a job. And perhaps that is true of the church also. 

 

On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons to suggest that, even if the church’s role is to produce disciples like Mr. Hargins and send them out of the church doors into the community garden, the church itself would remain necessary. That’s the thread where I’ll pick up this topic next week. I think there is a better way than the either/or of church. 

   

 

Mark of St. Mark

Mother's Day and the Effects of the Church

I heard a radio commercial the other day for flowers – as one often does when Mother’s Day approaches. Since Mother’s Day always falls on a Sunday, it presents a challenge for churches that meet to worship on Sunday. (Father’s Day falls on Sundays also, but for some reason, there doesn’t seem to be the same kind of meaning ascribed to it. I blame all those years of dads receiving “soap-on-a-rope.”) The challenge for churches has two parts. Liturgically, Mother’s Day is not really a significant day on the church calendar – no more than May Day, Star Wars Day, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day, or any of the other celebrations that happen in May. But, “Liturgy, schmiturgy,” say some people. It seems almost a blow to family values – to Eve, the mother of all living! – not to say something mother-wise during worship on Mother’s Day. So, the first challenge churches face is the gap between the cultural calendar and the liturgical calendar. 

The second challenge is that, in the Christian church, we feel compelled to think and speak expansively. We know that some women are not mothers, either by choice or circumstance. Some mothers struggle to mother well, leaving both the experience of mothering and the experience of being mothered as painful legacies, not something to celebrate with flowers. We know that some families have the adjectives “step,” “foster,” or “adopted” in them, which points to the complexities of the family system. We know that some mothers have lost children in some way, and some children have lost mothers. We know that some of our families have two dads or two moms, not the family structure of old sitcoms. The approach and language of worship has the task of naming the breadth of human experience, not just a two-dimensional version of it. And, more recently, matters of gender identity have even challenged our use of words like “brother, sister, father, mother” in worship, because there are folks who are gender neutral or transgender and the language we use might suggest a distinction between the ‘norm’ and the ‘exception.’ 

So, the groups with which I have planned worship over the years have sought to acknowledge the meaning that Mother’s Day does have for many people, without ‘normalizing’ the mothering experience in a way that excludes those for whom this can be a painful day of remembrance. To that end, we have spoken of “mothering” and “people who have provided nurture.” We have pointed to images of God’s hesed, the feminine Hebrew word often translated as “steadfast love.” Hesed could be translated “motherly love.” In other words, we have tried to expand “Mother’s Day” to something like “a celebration of family,” or “celebrating the nurturing people in our lives.” It doesn’t quite satisfy everybody, but there is a difference between aiming for liturgy and language that is appropriate and trying to make everyone happy.

So, I heard a radio commercial the other day for flowers – as one often does when Mother’s Day approaches. But, lo and behold, the language of the commercial sounded like it was lifted straight out of bulletins that I’ve worked on over the years for the Sundays of Mother’s Day. It mentioned “Mom,” but it also mentioned adoption, foster care, and “anyone who has nurtured us along the way.” It didn’t mention some of the more difficult aspects of mothering and childhood, but, after all, they had wares to sell not prayers to offer. Still, I was impressed that the language and focus of the commercial was far more inclusive than what one might have been expecting from a national chain capitalizing on one of its most profitable holidays.

The church has an annual challenge of acknowledging Mother’s Day while addressing its complexities and without practicing exclusion. Now a national flower commercial is acknowledging the same complexities of Mother’s Day that the church has been addressing for several decades. The whole phenomenon raises the issue of the relationship between the church and the culture in which we are embedded. I’ll pick up that topic in next week’s “Extra.” 

Until then, as the church empowered by the Spirit, may the hesed of God be with you, 

Mark of St. Mark

What to Do about the Church’s Demise, Part 2

Today I will conclude an essay that I began last week with an overview of studies that portend the demise of the church.  

When pressed, my response to studies proclaiming the decline of religion in general or Christianity in particular, including the latest one, is “Meh.” I even shock myself at times with that response, so what follows is my attempt to understand how one can be as invested in the Christian church as I am and still not be moved by another declaration that it is on life support. Again, I will confine my remarks to the Christianity that I know and love.

 

One reason for the “Meh” is that much of what is being lost is not Christianity but Christendom. The original Christian community was a minority group willing to risk life, livelihood, and reputation to declare fealty to someone who had been branded a blasphemer and a seditious criminal. There are ongoing arguments of whether the situation of being outside of power and popularity is simply a matter of historical accident or whether that is, in fact, how the church is meant to be. When church and state become comfortable with each other, at times hardly distinguishable, does it come at too great a cost of the church’s theological integrity? If the church had strictly opposed slavery would there still be streets in the south with church buildings on every corner? If the church refused military service would the Senate or military still have chaplains? If the church provided healing and health to anyone in need or lent without expecting repayment, would we still be tax exempt, get housing allowance privileges, or PPP loans? Can there actually be a “Christian nation” if the church put the kinship of the Reign of God above national allegiance? If nothing else the demise of Christendom may offer the church a route toward renewing ourselves in a way more befitting followers of the crucified Christ. 

 

But that path would be unpopular, which means loss of members and revenue, which means failure, according to our capitalistic manner of thinking. It is true that, in the book of Acts, the church’s faithfulness often resulted in the exultant note that many people were added to the church. But, that manner of measuring faithfulness goes away after the first few chapters, when the stories of persecution, martyrdom, diaspora, and internal discord begins to take over. And Paul’s extraordinary mission journeys end with Paul’s journey to Rome, to be imprisoned, tried, and possibly martyred. The myth of “success” – inscribed deeply into the church’s psyche by the Church Growth Movement – comes at a huge cost. Perhaps the question is not whether people are rejecting the church but whether people have actually ever seen the church. 

 

I think a question for hand-wringers is whether they are grieving the loss of a Christianity that is inherently connected to Jesus Christ, or a commodified version of it.  

 

On the other hand, the church has never been perfect, the relationship between followers of Christ and citizenship in the state has always been problematic, and despite it all there is still some very powerful, viable witness taking place in Christian circles. One thing churches are doing – which many external critics fail to recognize – is some powerful soul-searching. I wish my cousin would realize that Bishop Spong has already raised all of his objections about theism and, frankly, more insightfully and pointedly than he does. I wish my neighbor wouldn’t read an Op Ed by Bart Ehrman and imagine that the church has never heard of biblical criticism. And I wish my activist friends knew the economic analyses of Leonardo Boff, the womanist theology of Katie Geneva Cannon, and the eschatology of Barbara Rossing before they assume that all of the church is represented by the mansplaining likes of Franklin Graham and Tim LaHaye. 

 

So, what do I make of the latest reports alleging “the godlessness of America”? I say “Meh,” if the question is whether I am concerned about the institutional predominance of the Christian church in America. I think a church that simply digs in and tries to preach the same thing “more harder” is ignoring real questions. But, a deeper response would go two ways. First, I feel repentant because the church has such a beautiful call to proclaim the joy and justice of the gospel as we live in the spirit of Christ. To a large extent, we have failed to do that very thing. But, second, I feel some hope, because a chastened church, a church that is open to honest questions and genuine criticisms – that’s a community that I’m all in on cultivating. Let’s have predominantly White churches doing serious audits of our history and complicity in White Supremacy – with an eye toward transformation. Let’s have a church interrogate our historic patriarchy, with more than just pointing at more female denominational leaders. Let’s have a church that values integrity over preserving convention. And let’s have a church that continues to reject the easy answers that we’ve often offered to complex questions, particularly if the point of the answer is to shame the one asking the question in the first place. None of these ideas is a prescription for church growth, but with this kind of energy, we would be the kind of community that we’re called to be.  

 

Mark of St. Mark