I had a conversation with our grandson last night. He’s a church nerd,
like his grandfather and his father (our middle son, who is an elder and the
choir director in his church, and who also is an effective lay preacher.) Our
grandson is a responsible young adult with a blossoming career in Intelligence
Technology. His faith runs deep, and he’s brilliant, like you’d expect one of
my grandsons to be.
Last night, he expressed concern about the lack of direction and focus in
his church. Understand: he’s a millennial, and millennials don’t have much time
or interest for meaningless head religion or emotionalism. Millennials want to
know how to follow Jesus and become more like him; and that quest usually leads
to a spirituality expressed through relationships and tangible actions of love
and compassion. They're not seeing that in the church.
Since the 1990s, surveys have been consistent: 95%, plus or minus two or
three percent, of North Americans believe in God. Since the 1980s, Millennials
have been asking, “OK; I believe. Now what?” “What’s next?” And the church has
been caught off guard—distracted—busy with infighting and denominational self-justification.
During the 1950s the American church began a decline that has not been
reversed. Sadly, the decline has been related more to politics than to theology
or biblical doctrine.
Post-WWII fear of the bomb and of the rise of Communism sparked a growing
us-versus-them mentality which was fanned into a flaming paranoia called
McCarthyism. The negative effects of McCarthyism are still present; indeed,
they have worsened until, today, America is a house so severely divided that
many are questioning whether our nation can survive.
Historically, the church always has been vulnerable to schism, and so it
was sucked quickly into the political vortex of growing partisan belligerence.
The denomination I serve was the fastest growing church in America; but, the
issue that eventually divided us was purely political. A prime stimulus behind
McCarthyism was Mao Zedong’s movement in China. In 1949, Mao’s People’s Republic of China forced Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China into exiled in
Taiwan (Formosa).
Our United Christian Missionary Society had stations in China, and faced a
dilemma: should our missionaries cooperate as guests of Mao’s government, should
they remain neutral, or should they actively resist the Chinese government
because it was Communist? The UCMS chose neutrality; nevertheless, some missionaries
were forced to leave, and there were incidents of persecution.
Back home, our denomination was divided on the question, and it eventually
became the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. In 1955, 800 delegates,
who opposed neutrality and advocated resistance, walked out of our national convention
in Cincinnati and formed what is now known as the Christian Churches and
Churches of Christ.
The Restoration Movement[1]
emerged as a venue for the reconciliation of the diverse denominations of
Christendom. Ironically, it now is three distinct and often quarrelsome denominations—adding
to the divisions of Christ’s Body, rather than reconciling them. The original
split in 1905[2] was almost totally over
doctrinal issues and biblical interpretations; however, while the same kinds of
theological issues were present, it was political partisanism that provided the
critical mass behind the 1955 split.
Other denominations have experienced similar divisions (more political
than theological), and the differences between evangelical and mainline
churches are more political than theological or biblical—conservatives and
evangelicals generally siding with Republican ideology and mainline bodies more
likely to align with Democrats.
And Millennials are calling bullshit. That’s not what church is called to
be. Although we are blessed with some wonderful exceptions in the congregation
I serve, Millennials typically are no-shows when it comes to organized religion.
They call themselves “spiritual but not religious,” and in the process
caricature all organized religion as rigid, judgmental, and generally unlike
Jesus. It’s difficult to fault their conclusion.
Meanwhile, the declining church struggles to remember or to re-envision
just what it is that Jesus called it to be and do. We fight over whether
evangelism is more important than ministries of compassion. We debate when and
how—or whether—Christ will return to rule a physical, geographical kingdom on
earth. We fight and divide over who should be included and who should be
excluded—and how we should treat the excluded. We argue whether to feed the
hungry unless they deserve it. Highly visible church leaders square off in defense
of political figures whose ethics and morality are indefensible.
And Millennials are calling bullshit. Just stop!
“The whole creation is on tiptoe to
see the wonderful sight of the (children) of God coming into their own!” (Romans
8:19 ~ J. B. Phillips)
The whole creation is standing on tiptoe, watching! (And at this point I’m
going to adapt a part of my favorite blogger’s post from July 26):
“(It sees) us pointing fingers and
declaring who is right and who is wrong.
“(It sees) us
choosing party over country.
“(It sees) us
judging one another for the color of our skin.
“(It sees) us
shooting one another.
“(It sees) us
not doing a damn thing, really, to stop the influx of opioids into every
community in this country.
“(It sees) us
calling each other names and throwing jeers and crafting insults and using
whatever supposed hot take we’ve come up with for the day to exact our rage on
the world.
“(It sees) us
refusing to work together.
“(It sees) us choosing power over love
and profit over people.
“(It sees) us
hiding behind our social media accounts so that we can be snarky without any
accountability for it.
“(The whole
creation sees us.)
That’s the way it
looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.
Together in the Walk,
Jim
[1] Led by Thomas and Alexander
Campbell, Barton Stone, Walter Scott, and others in the early 19th
century.
[2] The 1905 split gave rise to
today’s non-instrumental Church of Christ.
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