speaking to/participating in/earning a hearing
One of the reasons i decided to start keeping this blog is that i have been reading a lot of other people’s blogs. It started with K. reading and then writing her own blog. I would read her posts and then slowly start to read selected blogs that she had linked. As i read more and more of these i was struck by how much i would think about the points being made and emotions expressed in the posts. And i felt the need to get involved with the conversations.
So, let me do just that. In a recent post on a blog for a local church i came across a post that i found troubling. I also took some exception to the tone of some of the responses to original post. The post itself can be found here: http://www.cdomaha.com/blog/2008/04/pew-forum-on-religion-public-life.html I link it not to bash it or make the poster look bad, rather i want to engage with it in a dialogue that is respectful but pointed.
The central point of the post, as i understand it, is that while Christians are told that they should modernize the beliefs and embrace a more tolerant expression of religion, the numbers that follow the trend of Church growth show that denominations that have followed this advice are actually dropping. And churches that resist this movement are actually growing in number. I have a few problems with this line of reasoning.
First, i have an admittedly knee jerk reaction against using numbers as the litmus to determine the health of the Lord’s church. While i am convinced that numbers are helpful for some things, i am suspicious of trying to quantify something that my very well need to be understood be qualifying it. What do i mean by this? Well, it may be true that numbers in mainline churches are reducing, but what about the individuals who remain? Is it not possible that as the size of their communities diminishes that the corporate experience of faith is growing. Or in other words, that the drop in membership is coupled by a refinement of the faith of those that remain as well as a seeking out of a smaller group of newly converted, committed and serious believers who’s numbers do not offset the larger drop of those who are leaving. While admittedly this theory does not get to why people are leaving it, the drop in numbers tells us nothing about the faith of those that don’t leave mainline churches so using it as a measurement as the health of a body is limited at best.
Second, the so called growth in non-mainline churches is not examined in the post. What percentage of new growth is merely attrition from mainline churches? In the the parlance of business world, this is would not be seen as net new growth. Any growth in the attendance of an individual denomination that was come from a movement from a mainline congregation would not be seen as net new growth as we are all still one body, one faith, one baptism and therefore one Church. I would accept the point that those who left mainline churches are rejecting the ”liberalization” of the mainline churches but numbers alone don’t tell us that. The numbers themselves can just as easily be used to argue that the exodus from mainline churches is caused by parishoners who decide they want to go non-mainline churches that tend to have more modern presentation and music, looser dress codes, and a larger emphasis on multimedia presentations. Or not. My point is that it is nebulous to try to establish a clear link between mainline vs non-mainline growth/decline and an acceptance of a more ”liberalized” theology by mainline using the numbers alone.
And third, i hinted at this point above but i think it needs to be looked at seperatly, is the growth in ”conservative’ non mainline churches driven by an influx of “new” Christians? Or more to the point, are those outside the Church experiencing her in such a way that they are coming to her and joining her ranks. As i have stated, if non-mainline “conservative” congregations are growing primarily through attrition from mainline churches then the American church is not growing, she is just shuffling her deck. And i am fairly certain that the poster of the orginal blog would agree with me. I imagine that we would both agree that the Church fails at keeping the Great Commission if she is not working at making new converts and at welcoming new faces and hearts into the family of of Christ. This then is the real question that the numbers provided don’t speak to. How is the Church be it mainline or non, liberal or conservative speaking to and embracing our culture for the Kingdom?
Perhaps, i would respond better to the poster’s thesis if it was posted this way: If we are called to call those outside the loving embrace of Christ into it, are we sure that we are calling them into a healthy, balance and right relationship or are we creating hinderances that add to an already difficult but vital decision? Are we watering down the Gospel with a turn away from the revealed truth of God; truth that is affirmed by the Spirit through Scripture, creed and the testimony of the saints? Or are we presenting the Good News of God with such self righteousness and vitriol that we are losing sympathetic ears not due to the stumbling block that Scripture itself can be but through our own sin? If we are doing either we are setting ourselves, and those we wish to reach, up for a much harder time in coming to understand the Church and her Christ. Whether non Christians fail to come to Christ by way of false teaching or because they are so repulsed by Christians is academic. They remain outside of the healing embrace of the Son.
It is this final note, the question if whether we as Christian are by our own behavior making Christ unpalatable that i want to close with. Sometimes i get the feeling that my fellow Christians (and honestly myself included) speak of the culture as if it owed us something. Our language becomes combatative, our metaphors martial, and we speak of warfare cultural, spiritual or other. May i posit that when we speak like this, we are heard by those outside of the Church as aggressors and not as bringers of peace. I mentioned a tone in the replies to the original post and it was here primarily that i sensed this aggression, this entitlement coming forward. I am beginning to believe that we may be better servants of the Gospel if we begin acting as if we deserve nothing, no hearing, no say in the culture unless the culture can be convinced to give us a hearing. I firmly believe that we must earn the right to speak to our friends and families about the Lord if for no other reason than that they are likely not to even listen unless they first feel loved by us. If our lives are so caustic, so hostile to the culture of our friends and neighbors, how can they ever open up to us or be expected to share their lives with ours. St Francis of Assisi would say “Preach the Gospel always. And when necessary use words.” and Micah 6:8 says “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Perhaps, as we learn to love mercy, the mercy extended to us and the mercy we can, no must show others, we will find our way through to really be a voice of hope for our culture to the glory of God the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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