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The Church Bubble - Annual Report/Sermon

This is my sermon from last Sunday.  It's a combination sermon and Annual Report that talks about the "Church Bubble" that has burst, and the realities of dealing with a new social environment for the church.

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"If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! " In his 1959 Book, "The Status Seekers," Social Critic Vance Packard describes the religious culture of the time: "America, we keep reading, is undergoing a remendous religious renaissance. Membership is growing by a million a year, and is now up to more than 104,000,000. Per member contributions are up. Nearly a billion dollars' worth of new structures are going up in the United States each year."  Vance writes that Sunday Morning was not only divided by race, but also by class.  You could tell someone's social class by which church they attended.  In 1959, there was really no question where the Episcopal Church was in terms of social status.

Vance's chapter on religion and class is tellingly titled, "The Long Road from Pentecostal to Episcopal."  Vance wrote: "The upper class in most United States communities is drawn more powerfully to the Episcopal church than to any other. Consider the evidence: A sociological analysis made of the leading wedding announcements involving socially prominent families in The New York Times revealed that three quarters of the weddings taking place in known Protestant churches occurred in Episcopal churches.  E. Digby Baltzell found, in his study of Philadelphia society, that two thirds of the Philadelphians who were in both the Social Register and Who's Who were Episcopalian.  Corporate executives are ten times as likely to list 'Episcopal' as their religious preference as are Americans at large.  Episcopalian, in fact, is by far the preferred denomination of executives."

This was still detectable as late as the 90s.  In my home town, the mayor, the county executive, and many of the doctors and lawyers in the county attended our Episcopal Church. It was daunting for us to pull our little rusty 1980 Honda Civic into the church parking lot every Sunday to wedge it in-between the Lexuses and Jaguars.

But things changed for the Episcopal Church.  The first crack was when we took a denominational stand in favor of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, guaranteeing African-Americans the right to vote.  Several schisms happened during that time, quite often predicated on the idea that the church should never speak on political matters.  Prayer book revision and women's ordination created further schisms, as has the acceptance of divorce and remarriage as well as the debate over the place of people of same sex affection.  On the other hand, many people have been attracted to the Episcopal Church due to the culture that has been created by those decisions.  Today's Episcopal Church is much more diverse, both in terms of race and class than it was in 1959.

There are those that note the decline in money and attendance in the Episcopal church over the last several decades, and claim that the decline is due to some sort of loss of faithfulness to the Gospel. But that idea completely ignores what's going on in society around us.  Almost all religious organizations are in decline.  That 1959 excerpt describes a society in the middle of a huge "Church Bubble," starting with the GI's returning home after WWII and augmented by the new mobility possible in widespread ownership of automobiles.  For several decades, church membership became socially expected, and people belonged to churches at a rate that was higher than at any other point in American history.  But that bubble has burst - the social advantages of attending a church have disappeared.  From the most conservative to the most liberal, denominations are showing flat growth at best, and steep decline at the worst.

Before we start to wonder if God has abandoned the Church, we must look even wider in society. Almost all social organizations, from bowling leagues to fraternal organizations peaked in the late 1950s and are in decline.  The Masons had 4 Million members in 1963.  They had 1.5 Million in 2011. If you ask a teenager what the Knights of Phythias are, they would probably guess they are some sort of band.  That's because they and many other organizations like the Elks, the Oddfellows and even the VFWs and American Legion are facing possible extinction. So what conclusions can we draw from this?  First, All organizations that have a mission to create social bonds are in decline.  People are finding new, less formal ways to form those bonds.  Second, Religious organizations are not exempt from this effect, especially if they act primarily as a group that seeks to reinforce society and status.  This is where our challenge is.

St. Matthias was part of the religious bubble, riding the success of all groups that reinforced the status seeking society of the late 50s and early 60s.  We, like the entire Episcopal Church, remade ourselves on a corporate model that imitated the society at large.  Members Joined, Committees multiplied, social opportunities blossomed, complex programs were created and executed.  But now we are placed in a society that no longer wants those things.  People are working more hours than people have since before WWII, quite often on Sunday mornings.  Kids are involved in a multiplicity of organized activities on all days and at all times.  Parents do not look to the church to find a way to take up slack time.  We are connected constantly, 24/7 by the Internet which we no longer have to even be sitting down at a computer to access.  The church is no longer the communications hub it was decades ago.  We are in a completely different world than we were in 1959, but we are slow to adjust. What adjustments are necessary?  Let's work with three. 

First, St. matthias must give up the idea that we are a large church temporarily small, and come to grips with the fact that we are a small church growing larger.  There is still a lot of grief over the loss of the past, and some still hope for a future that looks like that past.  But that past is gone - it no longer exists anywhere.  However, there are advantages to being a smaller church, filled with dedicated and talented people with a passion for the place.  Due to the rapidly changing nature of the world, ministry is now more like venture capital than traditional investment.  We have the ability to experiment, and if we can accept that many programs will fail in order to find others that succeed, it is possible we may thrive in this new world.

Second, We must give up ideas of program that are based in the church as the singular social hub of the 50s, and find ways to tell the story of Jesus that resonate with today's social reality. Already, we have a presence on the Internet that is eye-popping to many traditional churches.  We have a dynamic web site, an e-mail list, and twitter and facebook feeds that are updated frequently. On our visitor cards, our guests indicate nearly nine times out of ten that our internet presence was how they found out about us and/or decided to give us a try.

Third, we must rediscover the fact that St. Matthias is part of a greater whole.  We are Episcopalians, which literally means "people with a bishop."  We are not congregationaly oriented, but ordered by our membership in a diocese.  Bishop Miller and his staff have been working diligently for greater transparency and accountability in a diocese where such thing have not been the norm for decades.  As resources become tighter, we need to be unafraid to collaborate with Episcopalians around us.  We are not competing for people - as the scripture says, the harvest is great and the laborers are few. We should be concentrating on those outside the church rather than a continuous process of trading Episcoplians.

In addition, we need to be able to work ecumenically with other churches in Waukesha.  With our Epiphany and Taize services, we have made strides in resurrecting worship links in the downtown.  The newly-restored downtown ministers association pulled off nothing short of a small miracle by spearheading funding for the operation of the overflow homeless shelter this year.  The downtown churches are flexing their atrophied muscles, and finding that we still have strength.  Future success lies not in turning inward, but sharing with our fellow Episcopalians and other Christians in the proclamation of the Good News of Christ.

So if we make those adjustments, what then?  What is it that God is calling us to be in this age and culture and society?  The simple answer is, the same thing that God has always called the Church to do - to tell the Good News of Jesus Christ.  People are thirsty to find meaning to their increasingly chaotic, scattered and segmented lives.  Jesus offers the way, as he always has, to find the true meaning of our lives as beloved creations of a loving God.  How do we do this?  What do we do to make Christ known?  I'll suggest three areas for the coming year.

The first is worship.  Worship is the central act by which a church is a church.  Worship reminds us that we are not ultimately about a function of "what," but about a relationship with "whom."  We do worship well.  We provide varied Episcopal worship that is solemn, but not fussy, beautiful, but not precious, familiar, but not sloppy.  Our worship reflects both the transcendence and immanence of God.  I thank God daily for all the people that make this all possible, and are so flexible with the realities of a small church.  The challenge is, how do we get more people to experience it and give them a chance to fall in love with it? People will not simply walk into our doors in large numbers like they did in the 40s and 50s.

The second area is service.  Several times in my four years here, we have had twenty-somethings come into our church and remark on the beauty of the service.  They then ask what we do for the community and how they can get directly involved.  When we have been unable to provide a tie-in for direct service, they eventually go somewhere else.  Younger people believe, and rightly so from reading the Bible, that direct service is what the church should be doing.

This last year, the vestry has been challenged by deacon Kevin Stewart on how to restart this part of our Christian vocation.  Unsuprisingly, homelessness was a natural focus for us, as it has been since the establishment of Hebron House.  Over the next few months, our focus will be one of hospitality - getting our physical plant ready for Hebron House to move their corporate offices to our church.  This will require a lot of work and some sacrifice on our part as we fit a lot of people into the space.  But I believe their presence among us will be a daily reminder that Christ calls us to serve those who need us.
Beyond that, the Vestry has identified education for the homeless as an area we can help in.  Some ideas include a parents night off for residents at Hebron House as well as a tutoring program, but those ideas are still a while away and will probably wait until Hebron House is settled down.  In order to serve Christ, we must orient ourselves towards service of those he particularly is concerned about - the poor and oppressed.

The third area is education. Education is the key to so many things in life.  It is the key to growth in Christian Faith and life.  Already, we have a truly excellent Children's Education program for a church our size.  Our Education For Ministry program has eleven adults doing some very intense work around scripture, history and theology.  This year, we hope to re-tool much of our more "casual" adult education, starting with a new program called "Living Compass" that we will be rolling out in Lent that looks at our lives from a holistic perspective.  It is my belief that if we pay attention to these three areas, we will find ourselves a church very much more alive, very much more faithful, and very much more attractive to those who are seeking something deeper in their lives.

This parish was established in 1844 under some very trying circumstances.  It has survived multiple ups and downs, some much more severe than anything we have experienced in the last decade.  If we put Christ at the center and order our church accordingly, I believe God will continue to bless us, and we will see our ministry to downtown Waukesha thrive and prosper. Being people of faith, we cannot put our fundamental trust in any sociological theory, or any organization model, but only in the person we follow - our Lord Jesus Christ.  May Christ continue to bless us in our ministry.

"Being an Anglican"

Crusty Old Dean comments on the resolution from the Church of England's (CofE) Synod to reaffirm their relationsip with the Episcopal Church while, "the Synod motion has given Church of England affirmation to the desire of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) to remain in some sense within the  Anglican family." Tom puts it this way:

This report is good news. Translated from Church of England speak, it basically means, "Nothing's gonna happen with ACNA for a long, long time. This is what "open ended" engagement means.

via crustyoldean.blogspot.com

"Affirming" a "desire" does nothing other than acknoledge that ACNA wants to be in the communion. "Anglican Family" is as undefined a term in Anglican Ecclesiology as "Enemy Combatant" is in the Geneva Convention.  This is a pretty vague pat on the back from Lambeth.

Tom spends some time in the article comparing the Anglican Communion to the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and points out that all members of the Federation recognize the orders of the other, even if their jurisdictions overlap.  The problem with the case of the ACNA is that many of them would refuse to recognize our orders, many of them being held by women.

The root is in the myth of an "Anglican Church" that many people hold.  The Anglican Church is the CofE.  The Anglican Communion is a family of autonomous churches bound by "bonds of affection."  We really are a federation, whether we want to admit it or not, as the LWF is also a "Communion of Churches."  To claim we were more than this, (i.e., a church) juridical power would have to be exercised in between provinces, which is something not even contenanced in the proposed covenant. Those in ACNA that claim we are an "Anglican Church" don't want to be added to the Anglican Communion, they want to replace us.  

There is a lot of romaticism out there about being an "Anglican."  But in the strictest sense, only members of the CofE are truly Anglican. In my experience, when an American starts waxing abouty being "Anglican,"  It usually boils down to some sort of vague appreciation for tea, evensong and the 1637 Scottish eucharisitc canon.  They seem to do this quite often without understading that they are not using the 1662 English canon, and what a thumbing of the nose at the CofE adopting that canon was.  Anglophilia does not make one Anglican.

This is why people can join the new Anglican Ordinariate, play act as Anglicans, and not recognize that they have left something essential behind.  If Anglicanism is nothing but a minor derivation of the Western Rite, then they are correct.  But if Anglicanism is the actual religion espoused by Hooker and Donne and Taylor and Ferrar as a Via Media, then leaving the Anglican Communion for whatever wtipe of purity they seek is not a reaffirmation, but a repudiation (perhaps a refudiation?)

In America, if you are a member of the Episcopal Church, you are an Episcopalian.  Because of our participation in the Communion's "Instruments of Unity," we can lay some claim to being "Anglican." Beyond that, all of those who follow the trappings of Anglicanism might certainly be called part of the "Anglican Family,"  which really does not contain any recognition with it.  After all, everyone you are related to is part of your family, whether they are healthy and sane or not.

Children's Christmas Sermon - Ralph the Christmas Rat

(And yes, I will do the described dance steps...)

So, these last few years I've told you stories about some of the various animals that were around the manger in Bethlehem.  We had Astrid the camel formerly known as angry, Bennie the loud-braying donkey, the little-known story of Edward the Christmas Elephant, Ralph the dancing Christmas rat... (Pause)   I haven't told you about Ralph?  How could I have let that one go - that's an important story.  Are you sure?  Well, OK, you need to hear that one.

You all know that the action in Bethlehem takes place around an Inn, a kind of hotel of the time where people would stay when they were traveling from out of town.   Like so many houses of the time, it was really common to have rats around the house.  No matter how hard you tried to get rid of them, they'd always come back.  This particular inn was named the Inn-Manuel, after it's first owner, Manuel.  It had a very unusual family of rats that lived inside one of the walls near the fireplace.  They were unusual because they were a very learned family of rats, having previously lived in the house of a rabbi.  When they had lived with the rabbi, Papa Rat would sit all day and listen to the Rabbi as he read from the scriptures.  That had been years ago.  When Mama Rat had given birth to a son, they had moved to the Inn where the food  was better.  Their son Ralph had grown up in a privileged environment for a rat.  His father taught him and his mother fed him from the Inn's bounty.  But what Ralph liked best was the entertainment.

The Inn had a lounge - that's a place where people can relax, get refreshment, and listen to entertainment.  A procession of entertainers came to the Inn-Manuel.  There were singers with back up bands.  There were comedians.  There were stand-up philosophers.  But what Ralph really loved were the occasional dancers.  They came from all over the world, wearing the garb from their countries, and performed some of the most interesting, energetic and unusual dances you can imagine.  Whirling Dervishes from Persia, Belly-Dancers from Babylonia, Stately court dancers from Egypt, and all other sorts came through the Inn, and at night after everyone had gone to sleep, Ralph would sneak out onto the stage and imitate what he had seen.  He even worked out his own routine that went something like this:Paws on Hips, Kick Kick, Jazz Square, Jazz Hands!

Ralph thought he was pretty good, and he practiced over and over until he had it perfect.  But he didn't have an audience.  As most of you know, the first time you do something for your parents they think it's pretty cute, but when it's the 50th time, they tend to ignore you. 

So it came to pass that it was in the middle of the winter and the Emperor had called for a census to be taken.  Everyone had to travel back to the town of their birth to be enrolled.  Every single room in every house in Bethlehem was full of guests.  The Inn was full to overflowing.  Word came that the place was so full that the Innkeeper had  sent a family to the stable out back.  It wasn't such a bad thing - it was a warm and dry place.  "But," thought Ralph, "Whoever it is in the manger is missing out on the full Inn experience."  There wasn't room for them to come in for the entertainment.

Ralph told this to his mother, who said, "I think the mother is entertained enough."  "What do you mean?" asked Ralph.  "She's just given birth.  I don't think she needs any more entertainment.  Papa went to check on them. Plus, son, remember that humans hate rats.  They will never accept you."  At that moment, Papa came back inside the hole.  He was really excited.  "What is it, papa?" asked Ralph.  Papa had an unusual gleam in his eye. "People are saying that the baby born in the manger is the messiah!"  "What's that, Papa?"  "The Rabbi used to talk about it a lot - he's the child that is meant to bring humans closer to God.  Lord knows they need it, with all their brooms and poisons and traps and such."  "How are they doing?" asked mama rat.  "Mother and child are resting quietly.  A very unusual child.  Hard to describe - looks like he's newborn and incredibly old at the same time."  Ralph hatched a plan.  If this child really was whom Papa rat said he might be, then he surely deserved some entertainment.  If he couldn't come to the inn, perhaps the inn could come to him.

That evening, Ralph snuck out and headed back to the stable.  He approached it from the back and was astounded to see an elephant wearing a phylactery holding up the beam of the building.  As the elephant saw him, the pachyderm startled for a minute, but then calmed himself down.  "Phew," he said, "You're a rat, not a mouse."  A small bird on the Elephant's back cawed in laughter, and Ralph squeezed into the stable between a couple of boards.

Inside, it was light and warm and dry.  Mother and Father were gathered around the manger where the baby lay.  Around were assorted animals, shepherds, townspeople and other humans.  Ralph stayed hidden, watching all that was going on.  Finally, at one point the innkeeper's wife  brought out some food and all the humans gathered around, leaving the manger unattended.  Ralph thought, "This is my chance!  I can be their dinner entertainment."  He quickly scurried  to the manger, up the side, and placed himself on the edge facing the baby.  The baby smiled up at him.  His eyes seemed to be full of compassion, and he looked at Ralph with interest.

Ralph readied himself.  This was his big moment.  As the adult humans turned around he leapt into his routine:Paws on hips, Kick Kick, Jazz Square, Jazz Hands!

It was very, very quiet in the stable for a couple of moments.  The humans stood there with their mouths open.  The mother of the child seemed to be studying him with interest.  The baby was beaming at him.  This was going well.  Then a dish dropped and shattered and everything went wrong.  "A RAT!" screamed several of the humans at the same time and a shepherd came running at Ralph, swinging his staff.  Ralph leapt off of the manger and borrowed quickly into a pile of hay.  The shepherd poked at the hay for a couple of minutes, but Ralph had burrowed deep into the pile.
Ralph was devastated.  He had hoped for a better reception at his debut performance.  After a few minutes, he burrowed to the top of the pile and peeked his head out.  "Nice hoofing!" said a donkey eating from the pile of hay, "But you're still a rat, and humans hate you. You'd better stay quiet until they go to sleep."

Ralph pulled his head in and curled up.  This wasn't how he'd hoped it would go, and he was very, very sad.  He woke in a couple of hours.  All the humans had gone to sleep, so he carefully crawled out of the pile and started to make his way to the back of the stable.  He stopped when he heard a small noise from the manger.  The baby was making a noise and holding his hand above the edge of the crib.  Ralph started to move again, but the baby made the noise.  Was the baby making the noise for him?  Ralph carefully climbed up the side of the manger and the baby smiled at him and held up his hands like this <Jazz Hands>.  Ralph caught his breath.  Humans hated rats.  That had been demonstrated again just a couple of hours ago.  But this baby seemed to be different, and he kept holding up his hands like that.  Did he want a repeat performance?  Surely not, but as Ralph put his paws on his hips, the baby let out a quiet squeal.  "Really?"  thought Ralph.  "Well, might as well."Paws on hips, Kick Kick, Jazz Square, Jazz Hands!The baby squealed quietly again and tried to clap his hands.Paws on hips, Kick Kick, Jazz Square, Jazz Hands!

Over and over again Ralph danced, and over and over again the baby squealed as the rest of the stable slept.  Far into the night, Ralph entertained the baby in the manger and far into the night, the mistrust between rat and human disappeared.  When Ralph returned to the Inn late that night, he was exhausted and happy.  As he crawled into the family nest, he knew that he would never be the same.  To most humans, he would always be just a rat.  But to one human, who seemed more than human, he would always be Ralph the dancing Christmas rat.

It is said that when the holy family returned to Nazareth after the Epiphany, there was, concealed in the luggage, a family of three rats who took up residence in a carpenter's home.  They were very quiet and stayed below notice most of the time, but at least one neighbor of the family swears that one Christmas night several years later they saw in the window a silhouette of a rat doing a jazz square while the child Jesus smiled and clapped.

Hands. A Sermon for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

Sermon091111

This sermon quotes a small portion of the poem “Jesus Poem” by Susan Birkeland and at length from “Leap” by Brian Doyle.

Hands.

Clenched Hands.  Clasped Hands.

White knuckles on a control stick as he flies a  jetliner, weaponized simply by its contents into the packed tower.  

Other hands at the mouth of the inferno reach for each other as they step out into the air.  Unforgettable.  Inconciveable.  Burned into the retinas of those who witnessed.  “They reached for each other and their hands met and they jumped.” 

Hands clenched in hate.  Hands clasped in community. 

Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive, figuring his estimate is more than generous.  Jesus responds that forgiveness is infinite, and tells yet another one of his stories.  One about a man who was forgiven much but refused to forgive less when it was owed to him.

Hands clenched on a jetliner’s control stick.  Clenched with righteous anger and hate.  Forgiven much, but forgiving little,  the cycle of violence is perpetuated.  The one hand becomes many, on the pistol grip of an assault rifle, on the cell phone detonator of a roadside bomb, above the firing button of a hellfire missile on a predator drone.  The ripples of that white-knuckled clenching of the hand propagate throughout the world.

But, Brian Doyle writes, in the burning building, “he reached for her hand and she reached for his hand and they leaped out the window holding hands.”  As they fall, i imagine they are forgiven much and forgive much, as Susan Birkeland writes, “In the last moments there’s nothing to fix.  No protest against the speed of the fall.”

Doyle continues,

“I try to whisper prayers for the sudden dead and the harrowed families of the dead and the screaming souls of the murderers but I keep coming back to his hand and her hand nestled in each other with such extraordinary ordinary succinct ancient naked stunning perfect simple ferocious love.

Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here.

No one knows who they were: husband and wife, lovers, dear friends, colleagues, strangers thrown together at the window there at the lip of hell. Maybe they didn't even reach for each other consciously, maybe it was instinctive, a reflex, as they both decided at the same time to take two running steps and jump out the shattered window, but they did reach for each other, and they held on tight, and leaped.”

Paul preached to the Romans, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

We generally do not choose how we die.  Then what is left to us is how we live.  We are forgiven much.  Do we have the courage to fall into forgiveness? It is easier to hold onto anger, luxuriating in its deep, boundless depths like dark, succulent chocolate, basking in blind certitude as we forgive little.  Or do we grasp each others’ hands and leap into the uncertainty of difficult, costly forgiveness, not knowing where we are going but certain that the inferno of hate behind us will consume us if we embrace it?

Hands.

Clenched Hands.  Clasped hands.

the choice belongs to us.

Our Father, Howard be thy name...

As Episcopalians, we don’t often refer to ourselves as “evangelists.”  It brings up connotations of people knocking on doors with that “are you saved?” question we dread in the South.  We think of people handing out tracts in airports, waiting to pounce with well-rehearsed points of doctrine.  What we often don’t think of is a pleasant man in a black suit and clerical collar sitting in a small office in a downtown church.  But that’s exactly what an evangelist looks like to me.  His name was The Rev. Howard Surface.

I was in my mid-teens, and my stepfather had just become the organist at Christ Episcopal Church in Bowling Green.  I had grown up believing in God and reading stories from the Bible, but I had also been very interested in science and reason.  We didn’t go to church as kids, so I had developed into a kind of Jeffersonian Deist, thankful to God for the creation, but thinking that our prayer had very little to do with our daily life.  It’s really wasn’t all that different from Conan’s god Crom, which fit in well with my life in the science-fiction/gaming subculture.  

Growing up under the buckle of the Bible Belt means that you are exposed to a lot of different flavors of evangelical Christianity.  It’s a default in the culture - you can’t escape being influenced by it in one way or the other.  Several times in Scouts and other groups, I was encouraged to “Give my life to Jesus.”  I wanted God to be a personal force in my life, but I couldn’t overcome my skepticism enough to connect.  I tried multiple times to pray for Jesus to enter my life, but it never seemed to “take.”

After my parents’ divorce, church became a regular part of my life with both my mother and father.  Before the Episcopal church, my stepfather had been the organist at a Methodist church, and I dutifully went there, but never really felt it to be a part of me.  Initially, I didn’t see a huge difference between Methodist and Episcopal, except that the sermons were shorter and you knew how much longer the service was going to be by simply following in the Book of Common Prayer.  I liked that.

Soon after we started attending, my mother asked me if I wanted to be baptized.  I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to talk to Howard about it.  We sat down and talked about baptism and the Apostles’ Creed.  I had a lot of trouble with the section on the virgin birth.  My skeptical mind could not fathom how you could create a male human without an x and y chromosome.  I explained this to Howard.  I told him I was interested in Baptism, but that I couldn’t give up my skepticism and be honest.  He told me he’d be glad to baptize me, and that I should just keep saying the creed and the answer might come to me. 

I was in this predicament because the culture had taught me to believe that everything that had to do with faith was about me.  It was about a personal affirmation of intellectual belief in a series of formulated and agreed-upon doctrines.  If I agreed with the doctrines of any given faith group, I could enter into a social contract and become a part of that church.  If not, I would be defined as part of the group that did not agree to the truth, and therefore damned.

Howard showed me another way.  Despite my doubts, I said the Nicene Creed in the “We” form every week.  I became an active participant in the Holy Eucharist.  I became interested in theology and Biblical studies.  I found, over time, that God did not want me to give up my skepticism.  He wanted me to be in relationship with Him and his church.  It wasn’t about making a set of intellectual affirmations, it was about being part of God’s family.  I came to believe that God has no human ego and therefore does not mind being doubted. I saw the love that God has for me and for all of creation.  Once it was no longer a contest between my mind and abstract doctrine, my resistance slowly receded and I was able to claim the beauty and philosophical poetry of the creeds as being part of me.  I am now a Christian and a priest because I was offered this other way.

Howard didn’t quote scripture at me.  He didn’t lecture me on points of doctrine.  He didn’t bring up hell, or even heaven for that matter.  He simply modeled God’s love through community, and provided good soil and spiritual food for my young faith to grow.  He embodied the admonition often attributed to St. Francis to “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”  He was an evangelist of grace, creating a space where skeptics and agnostics could come to find Jesus’ love.  

Howard passed on to his glory this week, and he will be sorely missed.  Many still remember his standard Easter sermon, or his somewhat authoritarian way of instructing the faithful what posture they were to assume in prayer.  But I will always remember that afternoon in his office, when like Paul at the Areopagus, he offered me the Gospel for the first time in a language I could understand and accept.  Were  it not for him, my life would have turned out very different.  For that, I am literally eternally grateful.  

May the souls of the faithful departed, especially that of Howard, my father in Christ, rest in peace.  Amen.

Counting Christians

My June Newsletter article:

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Dear Beloved People of God,

It’s not unusual to hear someone ask questions about new members, usually in the context of “Why don’t we have them?”  While some of the answer to that lies in the systems of our parish, a lot of it has to do with big changes in the way society works.  In the early 19th Century, Alexis de Toqueville called us a “Nation of Joiners,” who saw the inherent value in creating and joining a variety of civic organizations, including churches, which functioned as organizations very much like others.

In an article for Christian Century, Amy Frykholm notes that church membership has always been strong in America, but that it has never been stable. It increased dramatically at two points in our history: during the Second Great Awakening in the mid-19th century, and following World War Two.

“Many kinds of voluntary organizations flourished in this period, from parent-teacher associations to social clubs to service organizations. Historians argue that belonging to a church was a primary means of social belonging; church membership marked one's place in the community.

For mainline Protestants, the postwar religious boom led to a peak in church membership in the mid-1960s. With an increase in members came building programs, large staffs and the expansion of national denominations. For many, this model of church life is still the norm even though membership has been declining for almost 50 years.

The 1960s should not be taken as the historical norm, notes historian Mark Noll. He contrasts the mid-20th-century model of membership with churches in the 19th century, whose primary income came from renting pews. Finney created a stir when he created a "free church" in New York City—a church no one had to pay to sit down in. Noll notes that denominations in the 19th century survived for years with just three or four staff members at the national level—not the hundreds that came to be employed by denominations in the 20th century. The rise of what Episcopal bishop Greg Rickel calls the "religious-industrial complex" is a phenomenon of the 20th century.”

There are two points that I would like to note from this change in society that may be a move back towards the American norm rather than a “National Apostasy” that some make it out to be.  The first is that the measures of church health that have worked for the last sixty or so years may not be relevant anymore.  A few decades ago, church membership was a part of the “social fabric” of a community.  For many people, church had less to do with religion, and more to do with your place in society.  Today, the social advantages of church membership have been largely supplanted, and people who attend church do so because it feeds them spiritually.  Because of that, people attend on a more sporadic basis.  A new “member” of a church may come twice a month, or once a month, or may be a “Longtime visitor” for years.  Membership numbers and average attendance are measurements designed during the “Boom time” since World War Two and assume solid membership with weekly attendance.  The only common measure that may actually reflect the health of a congregation is the pledging information, which indicates the value that people who attend put in the mission of the congregation.  Interestingly, that puts us in a similar situation as churches up through the 19th century that measured congregational vitality by pew rents.

The second point is about bringing people in the doors.  For the last sixty years, church membership has largely been a “shell game.”  In this game, almost everyone in a community is a member of some congregation.  Evangelism had largely to do with being ready to hold onto the people who came into the church because they have either moved in from out of town or were disenchanted with their current church.  This is largely no longer the case.  While younger people (and an increasing number of middle-aged people) are interested in religion, they often lack any familiarity with the stories of the Bible, denominational history, or anything else of historical Christianity.  They lack the social compunction of needing to be part of a church that their parents had.  Therefore, looking for a church is at best a low priority, and maybe something best put off in order to keep their decreasing free time with their families free on Sunday morning.  

Late twentieth-century evangelism had to do with opening the doors, putting out a placard, and creating bigger and better program to “compete” with the other churches in the community.  Twenty-first century evangelism has to be centered around telling our stories and explaining WHY someone should come to church.  Our primary task is not to convince people that our church is their best option, but to persuade them that belonging to ANY community of faith matters, is beneficial to them, and is worth part of their free time in a culture where 60-80 hour work weeks are the norm.  

While for many, these changes in society are difficult to accept, they also present an exciting challenge.  We are challenged as Christians as we have not been for several generations to do what the Gospels say: to tell the Good News of Jesus to those around us who have not heard it.  The future of the church and our congregation lies in how passionately we can bring the Gospel of Christ to the world. We are called to trust in Christ, and to proclaim all that He has done for us.  

David+

Bin Laden, Death, and the Cycle of Violence

My May newsletter article:

As this issue of the Newsletter goes to press, the big news is the death of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.  I was up on Sunday night, so I watched the CNN reports and then the President’s address.  My first reaction was one of excitement.  After all, the terrorist organization Bin Laden was the spokesperson for had hurt us dearly in 2001.  It was good to see something definitive finally come out of all the war and intelligence operations in the intervening ten years.  My second reaction was admiration for the forces involved.  The SEALs really did their job well and appear to have minimalized any outside casualties.  My third and abiding reaction has to do with watching the celebrations outside the White House. 

It was interesting that the crowd seemed to be made up largely of late-teen/twentysomethings.  This points out two things.  First - that since time immemorial, college students really are just looking for an excuse to party.  Second - that these young adults had grown up with war as constant background, both terrible and largely remote.  It must have been incredibly cathartic for them to know something of a victory.  But as I watched them, a voice inside me questioned if this was fundamentally different than any other crowd chanting for blood. Having just come out of Holy Week, I am still haunted by the chants of the crowd, “Crucify Him!” Now, let me be very clear.  I am not equating Osama bin Laden with Jesus.   Bin Laden was an evil man, and the point of the passion is that Jesus is innocent of what his accusers charge him with.  I’m not talking about the object, but the reaction of the crowd itself.  

There is something universal and terrible about a crowd chanting for blood.  Whether inside a Roman Coliseum, or in the streets of Tehran, or at Ground Zero, bloodlust is a way for us to transfer our fear and guilt onto another (guilty or innocent, it really does not matter for the mechanism to work) and abate those fears through the death of the other.  But the catharsis of the death only works temporarily.  As Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote:

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” - Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, pp. 62–63 (1967)

Throughout Lent and Holy Week, I have been preaching on the works of René Girard.  He puts this mechanism at the root of human evil, identifying it with Satan himself.  For Girard, Jesus’ death and resurrection becomes yeast that leavens the dough of humanity so it becomes increasingly difficult to look at violent death with the dispassion we did as a race at the time of Jesus. If we as Christians want to differentiate ourselves from a practitioner of extreme Wahhabi Islam such as Bin Laden, the best place to start is a refutation of celebration of the violent death of others.  Whether or not the death of Osama Bin Laden has any practical effect in the “war on terror,” whether or not the operation can be considered moral under just war doctrine, our calling as Christians is to examine not the evil of others, but our own reaction.

Of course, we are human, and caught up in this cycle whether we want to be or not.  As one colleague pointed out on twitter, “Emotions are what they are. They're not moral or immoral. They come from deep inside us. Morality hangs on what you do with them.”  What shall we do with them?

Alleluia!

For God so Loved the World

A sermon I preached last Sunday which includes material on Rob Bell's New Book, "Love Wins."

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“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  This verse from our Gospel reading today is John 3:16, probably the best marketed verse in the Bible.  You see the citation plastered on bumper stickers, screen-printed on t-shirts, and held up on signs at sporting events.  But I often wonder if anyone is actually paying attention to the verse and what it is claiming.  Listen to the verbs in those sentences: “Love.” “Gave”  “Believe” “Not Perish” “Have.”  God loves, God gives, We believe, We do not perish.  We have eternal live.” And then in the next verse, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the World.”  I actually think these are excellent verses to sum up what we believe as Christians about the role of Jesus.  But that message is not what you often hear from those who claim to follow Christ.  

Outside the situation in Japan, The big story in religious circles this last week has been the release of the book “Love Wins: A book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person” by Evangelical pastor Rob Bell. Amazon is sold out of the hardcover, but luckily I read on Kindle these days.  It has caused quite a stir in Evangelical circles because Bell makes some claims that strike at the very heart of traditional evangelical culture.  His argument is this: The evidence of an eternal hell from both the old testament and new testament is spotty at best.  Jesus is the only one to have returned from the realm of the dead and the post-ressurection Jesus didn’t seem interested in those questions at all.  Therefore, the existence of  an eternal realm outside the control of God where the creatures he purports to love are tormented for all eternity because they made bad choices in life or never heard the Gospel or heard it in the context of an abuse of power is suspect at best, and a twisting of the Gospel at worst.  Bell is really an agnostic on the afterlife.  He points out that Jesus doesn’t seem obsessed with it and asks why his followers are.  For further support, he  points out that the early church fathers Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa all held views similar to his.

Of course, the reaction has been quick and fierce.  Many attacks were penned weeks before the book was released, based on the abstract from the editor.  They are strident and almost hysterical in some cases.  “How” they ask, “can you claim to be a follower of Jesus without a belief in eternal Hell?  How can there be justice without punishment for the wicked?  Without hell there is no sin, and without sin there is no need for God!”

Of course, this is patently ridiculous.  God's existence does not hinge on our sin or even our belief in him.  Sin is separation from God and is something humans innately feel no matter what their views of the afterlife are.  And does justice really demand eternal punishment for temporal transgressions?
One of the most common criticisms I hear from Atheists about religion is one that Karl Marx first coined, that it is the “Opiate of the masses.”  Marx observed that throughout history, religion had been used as a way to control people.  While I think it is unfair to judge religion solely by this criteria, the arguments heard from these opponents of Bell pretty much play into that critique.  For them, following Christ is a way to make sure that they and those like them get rewarded, while the people unlike them get punished.  There is a real selfish dimension to this kind of religion, which really IS about control.  Bell observes, “Have you ever heard people make claims about a select few being the chosen and then claim that they’re not part of that group?”  Is this really anything more than an adult version of primary school playground politics writ large and attributed to God?

But Jesus during his earthly ministry was not part of the so-called “in-crowd.”  To those in power he was considered a rustic teacher from the backwater of Israel - at best a curiosity.  To those in charge of the temple, he was a harsh critic of their pride in their rituals.  To those in charge of the synagogues, he was a fervent judge of their hypocrisy.  To the ruling Romans, he was just another threat to their authority that they intended to squash, just as they had done to thousands before.  The religion Jesus taught and practiced was not one of control, but of scandalous equality.  Unlike the empire, The kingdom Jesus taught of was not one where everyone knew their place in the hierarchy. It was - uppity. It was, as Paul put it, one where human social distinctions slackened.  As he wrote to the Galatians, “ There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

It is for this reason that the Gospel of Jesus was such a threat to the establishment of his day.  Roman society relied on strict social divisions between classes and making sure everyone stayed in their proper place.  Saying that there was no difference between a free man and a slave or a woman struck at the very foundation of that society.  And it’s for that reason that authentic faith in Jesus is a threat to society today, even Christian society, which still relies on it’s careful distinctions between who is in and who is out.

Maybe there is an eternal hell.  Maybe there isn't.  We don't have firsthand accounts.  But what should be clear is that many people live in hells that are sometimes made for themselves and sometimes thrust upon them.  Whether it's the Japanese nuclear worker continuing despite grave risk, or the Libiyan dissident in a torture chamber - the child raised in grinding poverty or the woman trapped in an abusive relationship who doesn't know where to turn.  These are the hells that we as those who follow Jesus are called to help alleviate.

What is also clear is that in many cases the need for some people to believe in an eternal hell has less to do with concerns about God and has more to do with control - control of themselves and others.  It is a use of fear as a method of control.  Not  the holy fear the psalms speak of, which is a recognition of the awesomeness and otherness of God, but the same kind of animal fear that makes rabbits freeze before predators and humans submit to slavery.  The use of the holy name of Jesus to justify this human need for control is a misuse of the Gospel.

So if the religion we seek is not as Marx claimed it is, then what is it?  If we are not to be about defining who is in and who is out and discerning everyone’s place in the heavenly pecking order, what are we to be doing?  We are to be about what John 3:16 states.  God did not send his Son in order to condemn the world - to make it perish.  God did not send his Son in order to convince us we are separated from God - we already knew that.  God sent his only-begotten Son so that the world might be saved through him.  
In the New Testament, the Greek word translated here as “Saved” is also translated as “Healed,” “Made Right” or “Made Well” in other contexts.  Jesus is not talking about saving us from punishment in the afterlife, but the healing of the world we currently live in.  In Jesus’ terms we are not all waiting to be taken to a different, eternal world, leaving this one behind.  We are working  with God, as God’s beloved, empowered agents,  to transform this world into a “New Heaven” and a “New Earth," although the final transformation belongs to God.  When we are “Saved,” we are “Made Well.”  We are restored to right relationship with God, which has eternal consequences.  As far as the afterlife, we are simply to trust that in God, death is not the final word and that we will all be part of the kingdom of God forever.

In the meantime, we are meant to work to build that kingdom.  We are to live in joy, not fear.  We are to examine our lives and bend them to kingdom values, not obsess about the afterlife.  We are to treat every moment as a God-given gift, proclaiming the love of God for the world - not undercutting that message by focussing on some “Other world,” whether divine or infernal that is more “Real” than this one. 

In The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis writes, “We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”  That, in my experience, describes an awful lot of churches.  Perhaps Jesus came to save us from hell after all.  Perhaps, as Julian of Norwich once observed, God became human not to save us from himself, but from ourselves.

David+

My February Newsletter Article

In the US Capitol, each state has a statue of a leading citizen.  The statue for my home state of Kentucky is that of Henry Clay, the 19th Century politician.  One of his most famous quotes is, "“Let him who elevates himself above humanity . . . say, if he pleases, 'I will never compromise'; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise."  While holding some very strong political views of his own, Clay fervently believed that good governance was to be found in the middle, where people of good faith but differing views could find common ground.  Indeed, from the Declaration of Independence to the U.S. Constitution, compromise is an essential element in a representative democracy that protects the rights of the minority against tyranny of the majority. 

This is not only true in politics, but religion as well.  The great church councils hammered out details about the Trinity and the two natures of Christ that are codified in the Nicene Creed, which is itself a compromise between disputing factions within Christianity.  Every time we recite the Creed, we acknowledge the role compromise plays in a religion that holds many diverse views on some of the most fundamental tenets of our faith.

Compromise makes no one really happy - that may be the hallmark of it.  Clay was disliked by people on either side of the aisle in his day who felt he was wishy-washy, and Christians who disagreed with the early church councils splintered from the rest of the church.  They still live in Africa and the Far East.  Compromise is no guarantee to unity, whether in the church or in the world.

So why champion compromise?  Why resist extremes?  Why be reviled by those on either side who hold their values as absolutes that cannot be abridged?  Clay has the essence of it when he speaks of the "frailties of our common nature."  Only one human being was divine, and even he seemed to operate with a emptying of divine knowledge during his lifetime.  None of us can claim perfect insight, and so to hold a position with absolute certitude is to claim divinity for one's self in a way even Jesus declined to do. Compromise is how we admit that we do not see all ends.

This belief in the value of compromise is why I am concerned about the violent political (and sometimes religious) rhetoric being used in public discourse.  While rhetoric always has used military imagery, the language seems to have turned personal in the last few years.  Instead of seeing the opposition as a worthy opponent who probably has valid points and needs to be engaged, we have turned to language that infers the opposition needs to be eliminated.  Sometimes this has been in very personal and graphic terms.  While most of the violent language seems to be coming from the extreme right these days, we only have to think back a few decades to when it was primarily from the extreme left.  The use of violent rhetoric to dehumanize is rooted in  a tendency in humanity, not a particular political leaning, and it must be resisted no matter where it comes from.  When we promise in our baptism to "respect the dignity of every human being," we disavow the use of any action or discourse that dehumanizes the other.

Many commentators have decried the current lack of civility in our public discourse, and as Christians, we need to add our voice to that call.  Only in real conversation and a willingness to seek compromise can we honor our Lord who commands us to do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves.

David+