Crisis of Faith
This is one of those topics that I hesitate to write about. It’s a personal topic that some people have difficultly relating to. This is also not a space where we wallow in our own stuff. So, we walk a fine line between talking about our own issues and looking at issues dispassionately with no personal connection whatsoever. I have to admit that I got inspiration from another spot.
I realize that around these parts the topic of faith and Christianity in general might be taboo, but I drudge on anyway. The phenomenon Pavlovitz noticed has actually been going on longer than that. When I sat on the pastoral council of my old parish we noticed that church attendance and donations were down. This was long before 2016 when Pavlovitz’s writing began to take off and he began addressing this malaise more directly.
As a council, we suggested that we conduct exit interviews (or a survey) to get to the bottom of why church attendance was dropping. Our pastor wouldn’t hear of it. He asserted that people were simply moving away. This was in spite of the fact that they are continually building new neighborhoods and new homes and people are moving into those homes faster than they can build them.
Statistics clearly show that church attendance and faith in general is on the decline. Obviously, for some this is not an issue at all. For some of us it is an issue felt deeply. I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but what I see is a schism between the beliefs that most Christians have and how the faith is practiced in most denominations in the American church. When one can no longer reconcile a benevolent God with all of the hate being spewed by people that call themselves Christian they no longer go.
Complex problems have complex solutions and any number of people to blame. While religious conservatives have played the biggest role in this problem, I don’t think progressives can get off without blame. Jesus was a progressive. When you read the gospels there is no way to come out with any other conclusion. The values of helping the poor and showing compassion to all are clearly progressive planks.
Yet, we have allowed Christianity to be hijacked by conservatives. So, progressives that are also Christian really have three choices. They can stop being progressive and give into the conservative message. They can stop being Christian so they can adhere to a progressive message. The final possibility to continue to be both. However, that requires that they bang their head against both walls. I often feel like that is where I’m at.
The problem with allowing the numbers to get smaller is that those remaining have abandoned progressive ideals. It’s similar to what is going on in the Republican party. Think of it as the Liz Cheney problem. If Cheney gets primaried then gets primaried by a guy that impregnated a 14 year old when he was 18. It seems nice to just assume a Democrat would win, but that’s not likely in Wyoming. So, you replace an ultra conservative with someone more conservative and less reasonable. Multiply that a few dozen times and that’s what’s happened to Congress.
If the same things happens to the American church things will just get worse. I’d rather have a good portion of the church stand up and say in one voice that Jesus was a progressive. Jesus loved his neighbors and condemned no one. Jesus fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and healed the sick. Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, transgender, or any other wedge issue. He spent more time on social justice issues than railing against sin. Maybe if we say these things we can save more Christians from leaving the flock. Maybe if we say these things we can attract more people to the progressive side because we can convince them that voting progressive is a full expression of their faith and not something they do in spite of it.
This is exactly on point. I have been told too many times that I can’t be a Christian and a Democrat both. Bullshit. That is why I am working hard to recruit a retired female Episcopal priest to run for State Rep. She is considering it. She will be the face of the progressive Christian in this district — whatever it looks like after redistricting. While I would generally be opposed to clergy running for office, I think we have to take this battle to them and show that Christian values are progressive values.
1My mom’s formerly-big Iowa Presbyterian congregation has dwindled over the years until now they can just barely afford the pastor and the building.
They lost quite a few when they welcomed a wonderful couple of gay activists; that was a step too far for maybe a fifth of the flock.
But they soldier on. All through the Trump unpleasantness and the awful shit the Republicans have been doing in Iowa, they’ve kept up an organized phone and letter writing campaign, badgering Grassley and Ernst and Gov. Reynolds and the rest of their political representatives to act with compassion and empathy and love for mankind instead of the hatred that has come to characterize the GOP.
2The problem, as I see it, is that you are equating Faith with Power If you look back at the early Church, it didn’t take long for money and power to enter the picture–culminating in the Reformation and the rise of Protestantism.
The rubes are out there to be plucked, as they have been since time immemorial, and there are lots of people wearing clerical collars who happy to do the plucking for their own benefit.
There is a very good reason that Europe has become mostly secular and that is they have seen enough of wars over religion. Even the majority of Israelis are secular; although they seem to have ceded their government to the Orthodox.
Mainstream Christianity is suffering from the same progression, leaving mostly the mega-churches to pander to those who care most about guns and abortion for political ends.
3Yes, it’s half past time to take back Christianity and patriotism from conservatives. Conservatives worship the AntiChrist. For all their flag waving, they hate truth, despise justice, and seek to destroy everything the US once stood for.
4In Consumerland, lousy products tend to be non-starters.
5check out this guest column in the Austin paper:
6https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/05/20/opinion-gop-has-become-party-rhett-butler/5141245001/
The Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’s ministry show him very clearly calling us to action on behalf of those most in need: feed the hungry, care for the sick, comfort the afflicted, visit prisoners, and more. My grandfather was a Baptist minister who lived in relative poverty and practiced each of these every day even into his 90s. He’d be kicked out of his church now, I expect.
As for me, I was raised generic Protestant, but was led as an adult to the Quakers (officially the Religious Society of Friends.) Rather than requiring adherence to a formal creed, the Friends ask that we let our lives reflect Jesus’s teachings of peace, integrity, social justice, simplicity, and commitment to community. Since 1650, Friends have generally been well ahead of those around them in speaking out for progressive goals: opposing slavery, humane treatment of the mentally ill, equality of women, anti-war movements.
Still, like other churches, we are small in numbers if larger in impact than our numbers might suggest. I think this is partly a function of the takeover of mainstream Christianity by the far right, as well as the corruption of the mega-preachers, as you suggest. But actual physical attendance at worship has to compete now with shopping, sports, the internet, and all the other distractions that operate 24/7 including Sunday mornings.
7Or maybe people are realizing that God is not real.
8tRump destroyed the Grand Old Party and has contributed bigly to the decline of the Christian church. I am a retired clergy who raised three daughters who now proclaim: “Our faith has made us progressives.”
9Why are you bothering with religion anyway? It provides nothing you don’t have already. If you have empathy for others and subscribe to the same things actual Christians espouse, then that’s all you need to be a productive, compassionate human being.
Your continued support of your church and its purveyors only prolongs the days in which religion is a major force in today’s political arena. The faster your church goes out of business the better off you and the rest of us will be.
10I certainly won’t deny that some of the exodus can be explained by people coming to that understanding Ted. I just don’t think that it’s the majority. I think the majority of church goers recognize the presence of God and yet struggle to reconcile their own conception of God with the God that is currently being pushed by the mainstream church.
Of course, from here it is easy to get into a highly methodical theological discussion that I really don’t want to get into. My purpose here is not to push God on anyone but to find a way to reach out to those that already believe that is is okay to believe and be a progressive at the same time. It shouldn’t inspire a crisis of faith. The crisis should come for those that believe discriminating against people and harming people (or at least not helping) is hunky dory by their God. Their God is not the God in the gospels.
11My question would be why hasn’t Allah or someone sunk this guy’s boat?
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eKgoak7LuRU/YKqxRaNqKwI/AAAAAAACMYk/TqXo4-ymfVUECQZC5sxTiqr0kd32B2aSwCLcBGAsYHQ/s750/9%2Bdave%2Bgranlund.png
12Your post says everything I’ve been thinking and talking about (to some) for years. I have my own story about religious disenchantment, as it appears a lot of others do. I know the declining church rolls are a nationwide thing, but I have to say that living in the South has made it very hard to want anything to do with Christianity.
13MY thought is what did Jesus do not what would Jesus do.
14The answer is the same as it’s always been since Ogg got tired of praying to the Fire Terror in the cave because the smoke stung his eyes – start up your own religion.
15I left the Christian church [but not its fundamentals] about 55 years ago.
It may have had something to do with the fact that, when I was about 5 or 6, my Sunday school teacher told the class that Catholics don’t go to heaven.
Or it could have been when, several years later, I began learning the history of the Southern Baptist church [in which I was raised.] I don’t cotton with using religion to justify slavery.
Actually, I’m sure, it was a combination of a lot of things until some tipping point was reached at about 18 years of age.
As time has gone on, I’ve become less and less comfortable with the title of “Christian” the more and more I hear of what the people who embrace it have to say for themselves.
In any case, I study a number of spiritualist teachings now — including those of Yeshua. And Siddhartha Gautama. And a couple of Causal entities.
And btw — Raymond Moody and others who have interviewed NDE’s have been told. by people who have reached the ‘other side,’ that they profess no religion per se though they add that love is the foundation of the universe. That tells me a great deal.
16Around here, we make a distinction between mainstream Christianity and Fundamentalists (of all stripes). Or should I say, mainstream religion, because the mainstream protestants, the local synagogue, the UU and the B’hai’s all got together about 3 years ago and – in addition to the work we all do with the food banks and the homeless shelter, and the battered spouse shelter and what-not, we got a bunch of yard signs printed. Most of them are still up in the what you’d assume were the most unlikely yards.
They say: Say no to hate. Say yes to love. Love God. Love your neighbor.
There was, of course, one letter to the local newspaper about ‘why was a political sign on a church lawn’ from someone who doesn’t live here; and an answering letter gently explaining to her that it wasn’t political, it was a consortium of churches just trying to get the word out about where we really stand.
For me, it’s not just about faith, but about community, and having an already-organized group that can react quickly to community needs.
17I grew up “un-churched,” as they say, but attended a local Lutheran church here for about seven years after we came to Texas from California. I was on the evangelical board, which was responsible for outreach to the community. Our newer, younger pastor was trying to brainstorm ideas to increase the size of attendance on Sundays. The older pastor (now a bishop) pooh-poohed the idea, saying “They know the doors are open.” Meaning, people should be seeking us out, not the other way around. That kind of says it all for why I don’t go any more. That and flogging abortion and same sex marriage every week.
18I’m quite fond of the ending of the song “Misguided Angel” by the Cowboy Junkies, where Margo Timmins, the singer, raises her arms as the band starts leaving the stage and says
“Take care of yourself, and those around you.”
A pure distillation of human wisdom…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFApH_DGDnw
19On religion?
20If you can’t handle the truth, it may help.
I prefer the best-evidenced truth available.
Religion offers only belief without evidence.
Faith.
I’m sure some Religious are nice guys, but it’s
a weak warranty.
Nick’s group is a social club losing its best members.
Try UU. They admit it.
I don’t know local specifics for Texas, but have spent a fair amount of time studying religious communication (and hence, religious audiences/people) for academic and pragmatic purposes, going back to my MS thesis in 1980.
Declines in church membership, religious group participation, and personal identification are similar, but not identical. One meta-study looked at 400+ surveys — https://religionnews.com/2014/01/27/great-decline-religion-united-states-one-graph/ Gallup summarized their surveys up to 2016 on identification, membership, participation in the past week, sense of “importance in your life,” and impression of whether religion was becoming more or less influential here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/200186/five-key-findings-religion.aspx
There are variations in various denominations of Christianity and their equivalents in other religions … but the variation is mainly in timing, not in overall trend. In Protestantism, “mainline” began the fall in the 1950s, “old-line conservative” followed beginning in the late 70s or 80s, “new-line conservative” appears to be on the downturn sometime around 2000. White congregations led the way, with Black and Hispanic congregations following. Asian congregations have not had a great deal of scholarship, but they appear to have held up in total membership, with a decline in proportion to the population as a whole.
There are both “push” explanations (don’t like theology, politics, change in music, etc. and a general decline in membership organizations of all kinds) and “pull” explanations (more entertainment/recreational options, greater mobility, the rise of the internet & web applications).
My key takeaway from all I’ve learned — it’s complicated.
21I’m a Californian but my mother and her family were from Texas so I was brought up in the Church of Christ were the few POC always sat in the back row. Like twocrows, I was told Catholics go to hell. When I asked, I was also told that people in third world countries that never heard of Jesus also went to hell, but the church doesn’t do missionary work so I took that as a big FU to millions of people. When I was 13 they kicked my cousin out of bible class for asking too many questions so I stood up and walked out too, never to return. That was over five decades ago. The conservative crazy was alive and well then and it has only gotten worse. Young people are not buying the hypocrisy. Around here, independent community churches are getting most of the business. As for me, the Golden Rule works just fine.
22My late found (30’s) love of animals made me progressive. Still am and more so at 69,
23I’ll begin by saying that the tenets of religions are usually pretty good words to live by. Honesty, justice, kindness. Practice these three alone and the world moves towards becoming a better place.
24If my imaginary friend, Norman tells me to practice these virtues, I’ll lead a pretty good life. If I talk about my imaginary friend Norman and try to convince people he is real, at the very least, folks will try to get me to take some medication. If I’m insistent about Norman, I’ll be headed for some quality time in a psych ward. The DSM-5 has one or more names for the psychosis of believing things that are not and can not possibly be true. It’s a long road but we get closer everyday to the realization that religion is a psychosis. When people tell me about their personal relationship with God, I’m thinking they should be having a professional relationship with a psychiatrist well versed in the the most up to date pharmacopeia.
But if your psychosis does drive you to seek a God, could all y’all try and find one without the whole Rube Goldberg mechanism that Adam and Eve set in motion. You know, the one where after millennia of marbles rolling down tracks, brooms knocking over buckets of water, candles burning weighted ropes, etc., Jesus dies for everyone’s sins and we eat his flesh and drink his blood. Yuck.
I am an Episcopalian and we believe that God loves us, no exceptions.
25Nick — “My purpose here is not to push God on anyone…”
Me: — Define your god’s characteristics. Female? Malevolent?
Pro-slavery?
What about the Great Commission?
I don’t think god means what you say, though. Never does.
26Interesting conversation. I was raised in the Lutheran church, the particular branch that was affiliated with Scandinavian immigrants to the US, the current iteration of which is the ELCA. The ELCA is the most progressive of Lutheranism. (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is conservative, and the small Wisconsin Synod even more so.) I was taught as a child that “God is Love”. Currently the ELCA has a woman as the denomination bishop (& women have been pastors for decades), churches welcome LGBTQ persons (and some pastors will marry them), and most ELCA congregations espouse that “all are welcome”. Some ELCA congregations may not be as open depending on their members & pastors. Some that have been more accepting have lost members who do not agree with this inclusion. OTOH many have gained members from community members, other denominations & faiths. I associate myself with the comments made by Opinionated Hussy #17 about progressive churches of all stripes uniting as a community to assist those in need, as well as each church having their own programs. A church I belonged to a couple of moves ago started a homeless shelter (now relocated to a former motel), hosts a food bank, helps another church (more centrally located) in their “soup kitchen” with money & volunteers, provides garden space for the community to grow their own food, provides firewood at very low cost for those in need, houses Head Start at low cost, and hosts AA & PFLAG meetings at no cost. There is no “litmus” test for these services except being in need of them. The pastor and staff are not extravagantly paid (actually could be paid more in private business), costs are kept low, members volunteer for building & yard maintenance, and more. That’s the way it should be. I currently do not belong to nor attend a church since our last move, and even left our last church before we moved for various reasons. I may return at some point. ::shrug:: If I’d been brought up in a church where I was taught fear and to harshly judge others I would have left long ago. I don’t know how one would get over that.
You don’t have to believe in a higher being to follow the Golden Rule or be a good neighbor & citizen. I guess that’s all I wanted to say…
27Richard hit on the absolute truth! Our Faith made us Progressive!
That is exactly what Jesus Teachings are! If Christians simply followed his words they would know that.
After a bad experience I found a great old Fashioned Church of The Brethren whose Pastors teach the New Covenant, the New Testament. The Sermon’s give you guidance among all the blather!
28I will pass on the bait that Ormins Otvos laid out nicely for me to further along this story from my days on the pastoral council at my last parish.
Like I said in the piece, we noticed that fewer and fewer people were coming. Finally, someone suggested that we could help the problem by being more welcoming. At that point, someone suggested we form a committee to determine how we could be more welcoming. I calmly suggested that maybe we should just be more welcoming and bypass all the committee nonsense.
This is a parish where the priests handed out pamphlets on Sunday in late October to tell us who to vote for. Obviously, their single focus was anti-abortion. Ignoring the obtrusiveness of a church getting involved in politics, the problem has always been that abortion is a singular issue and even if you want to follow the church to the letter you are bypassing 20 or so important issues to focus on the one.
If one simply reads the Catechism, they would check more marks on the progressive side than they would the conservative side. So, without getting involved in a pissing match over the personal perception of a God or lack of God I’d simply say that I think a majority have difficulty reconciling their perception of God with what they see preached from the pulpit. Add to that what they see acted upon by many in the congregation and you have a recipe in cognitive dissonance.
29Yes, I know what you mean. When I once expressed my open support for feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, etc. etc. I got whanged for being a Soclialist. I responded with, “No, that is Christianity.” They couldn’t figure it out. 99% of church goers have no idea of the history of the early “church” as it did all the feeding, clothing, caring for the sick even as it was persecuted. I am going to throw one extra thing into the pot. This country has now more people OVER a certain age, such as 50, or 60 or even 65 than are being born. The majority of them have only a sketchy notion of world history let alone American history and still don’t understand that the word “science” actually translates form the Latin as “knowledge.” We are all the poorer for this as individuals and, yes, church goers. Thats why so many “church goers” can be seen crowding into the Joel Osteen meme. He is wooing them, playing on what they don’t know, just like the lecher plays on the ignorance of the maiden.
30Intellectual discussion is now “a pissing match?”, Nick?
Glad you’re here to straighten me out, dude.
Not used to defending your beliefs? OK.
31Fair enough. I just find debating the existence of God to be a futile gesture. You either believe or don’t believe and I offer no judgements either way. I tend to focus most of my attention on the Jesus portion of the trinity. Therefore, I believe God to be an inclusive God that works for peace and to help those in need. While the other parts of the trinity have unique characteristics they are part of the same whole. I therefore choose to believe the same of the father.
Many of the Christians that are espousing otherwise follow an Old Testament God because they work from a perfect Bible framework. The Bible is more a faith history than a divine inspiration. It reflects how they understood God and not the total nature of God. So, their God was a nationalistic God that was quick to anger. The nature of God changes in the New Testament which reveals that our collective understanding changed and not God himself/herself.
That’s it for now. I won’t try to convince you of the existence of God. That was the pissing match to which I was referring. It was more about me than you. I don’t want to be that guy.
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