If you love the Church of Jesus Christ as so many
significant people who have mentored and shaped me over the years, you cannot
help but feel the sadness that is heavy on their hearts these days. If you love the
Church of Jesus Christ as I have for many years, it is hard to witness and
observe the disdain and rejection of the Church and its ministry by so many. Amid allegations that the church has somehow
lost its focus and its purpose, I find myself wrestling with the changing
meaning of Church today. I cannot help but to take seriously the large number
of Americans in our culture that claim to be “Spiritual and not religious.”
Among the ‘spiritual but not religious’ (SBNR) is a rising tide of those
who claim to have no religious affiliation or spiritual persuasion. Among
scholars, sociologists, theologians, and church leaders this group, claiming no religious affiliation are known as the “Nones”. For one
who has loved the Church and all things religious, I am particularly troubled
by both the allegations of having lost our Christian focus and the rising tide
of “Nones”
and the “spiritual, but not religious.” Why are there so many people more persuaded by
‘spiritual,
but not religious’ and dismiss the Church as a place to experience the
spiritual? My second question recognizes the allegation that the Church has
somehow lost its focus and purpose and for many remains a stumbling block for
anything spiritual. Have we in the church lost our way?
The following will be my own attempt to understand the
changes occurring in our society, our culture and our churches today. In my
attempt to understand the growing number of SBNR’s and the ‘Nones’, I
hope it will be an invitation to you to join me on a journey to re-imagine new
ways to communicate the spiritual things of the Church. Let me begin by saying that I, like many, am a
seeker – but one who loves the “Church” and all its greatness and all of its
foibles, inconsistencies and imperfections. Like a seeker, I too am looking for
better ways of nurturing and growing a spiritual presence in my own life and in
the lives of those with whom I share holy space. Where I may differ with the “Nones”,
the Seekers, and the SBNR, is that I do believe that God intended
our growth to occur in the context of a beloved community and the quest for
truth and meaning is not intended to be
solitary expedition. The Great Spirit, Creator God, the Higher Power or any
title we would like to give to the One who gives us life, created a world where
all things were created together and are working as one organic community to bring
wholeness and completeness to our Universe, our world, ourselves, and to the One who created life. In my own
sacred stories, I am convicted by Paul’s statement to the Church in Corinth
when he explained to these early followers that “…When one person suffers, we
all suffer and when one person rejoices, we all rejoice together…” When I read
this phrase in the context of worship, I am convinced that spiritual things
happen in the context of a beloved community.
Like the Seekers, the Nones and the SBNRs, I do believe that
the Church and religious leaders have fixated on dogma and doctrine, orthodoxy
or right beliefs. We have put more stock in our historical Creeds than the
message of our sacred stories. As a Christian, I do believe that we have shaped
the Jesus figure to reflect our own politics and motivations. We have used our
sacred stories to condemn those who look and act differently than we do. We
have used scripture to beat people into submission and maintain an element of ‘job
security’ for professional clergy. Our faith traditions, both in the Church
Universal and in our local congregations have become idolatries and have been
designed to give the false impression that the Christian faith is superior to
all other faiths. I am also mindful that the Christian faith, let alone all
other religious expressions, have a huge economic impact on our world economy
and like the merchants in the Temple, we have created a multi-billion dollar
enterprise with all our religious paraphernalia that must be quite an affront
to God or other religious gods and goddesses of various cultures and religions.
All of these issues and many more have
been well documented in the plethora of scholarship that is available to us.
These and others may in some small way explain the rising tide of the Nones
and the folks who continue to define themselves as ‘spiritual by not religious.’
So, what do I believe about Church in the 21st
Century that would be invitational to the Nones and the SBNRs population? I could
write a Systematic Theology Paper on my changing views and perhaps one day I
will. In the meantime, I’ll continue to write and blog about the way the Holy
Spirit continues to shape and form my understanding of Church today. I believe
that the Christian faith and all religions seek to define our uniqueness and
our humanity in the context of a world filled with questions about life and
death, about our humanity and the mysteries of the universe. I believe that the
Holy Books from every known religion partially answers such questions. I believe, also, that the meaning and purpose will
change for us as we grow and mature in our spiritual walk. I also believe that it
is the beloved community that will guide us and enable us to know more fully, our sacred
and spiritual relationship with all creation, one another and Spirit God that
is truth and wisdom.
I know that there are many pastors; religious personalities, church denominations,
passionate believers, and slick pulpit orators who would have us believe that
Church is the safeguard of our morality and that eternal life, reincarnation, or any
other higher form or place, is dependent upon how well we behave in this world.
I reject this outright. Church is not the safeguard of morality. I believe it
is our conscious that guides our actions and our behavior. Jesus did not build
his ministry upon moral teachings. Jesus showed us kin-dom behavior by his action
toward others. Likewise this is true of us too. How we treat one another, and
how we take care of the poor, the rejected, the lonely, the ugly, the
disenfranchised and the broken is the moral standard of kin-dom behavior. Jesus
believed that in treating all people with love, respect, and honor, we would
know God and others would know God too. Just as we know God in Jesus, so can
others know God in us. This I believe and I believe that this must be done in
the context of a beloved community because serious seekers and spiritual beings
must be held accountable to the standards of our own spiritual quest. It is in
the context of a beloved community that we are able to discern the truth and
wisdom that is being revealed to us. I believe that the community helps us to
hear the voice of the Divine Being or the Higher Power that speaks through holy
words, some of which are bound in such Holy Books as the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
the Torah, the Quran, and countless other Holy Books that have revealed a
spiritual path and calls us to fully embrace the truth we seek.
There are still many themes that prick at my own
understanding of the changing church today in light of the perception of a growing
percentage of people who are finding the institutional church less than satisfying,
but ponderings must come to an end. Before I end my preliminary thoughts on
this topic, I want to share another conviction that I believe strengthens our
quest for spiritual things and that is to understand that members of any
religious organization are sacred storytellers who have been entrusted with
important truths. Each religious tradition and/or discipline has only a partial
answer to truth, but if we don’t have a place to practice the stories – a part
of the truth is lost and all of us suffer. As sacred storytellers, as I see it,
we have two important tasks entrusted to
us. We have an obligation to share the stories, and we also, have an obligation
to receive the stories that are being passed onto us as a sacred trust. It is also
our obligation that we allow the spiritual stories to claim us and live these stories
with passion and conviction. The quest
for spiritual things is about a commitment to a way of life and not a little of
this and little of that. No, it is a spiritual walk that grows into a viable
and meaningful faith, and can also respect and honor the gifts and truths that
the other religions, other faiths, and other experience can offer the seeker, the
Nones, and the spiritual but not religious.
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