In the past few years, a lot has been published, on blogs, in magazines, in books, about the dying of Christianity in the west. Or the death of western Christendom, depending on who you read. Even today, I read two blogs about church death. There seems to be a great deal of anxiety about this,on the one hand. And I am also hearing a fair bit of acceptance of it on the other. To say the least, there is a grief process, a letting go process, at work in the church. Annd there is a fair biit of denial taking place that refuses to accept a "climate change" in western culture toward modern western Christianity. This shift rejects institutional, scriptural hegemony and authoritative universal claims of truth and morality. This shift involves the limits of science and the seeemingly boudless output of new technologies. There are no longer competing sources of knowledge for human unnderstanding. There is a dominant secular world view. And there is a radicalized theological perspective characterized by fundamentalism, religious fanaticism, and theologically justified and religiously practiced intolerance. Even aas western Christians become mroe secular, the heaart of Christianity is movving to the global south, where the poorest and most marginalized peoples live. Those places that wwere colonized by western Christian missionaries in the last couple of centuries have become strong, conservative, growing Christian movements. In some ways, christianity is the face of progress in those parts of the world---providing sexual education and human rights for women and children, as well as health care and increased educational opportunities.
I am a church professional, a pastor, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor. I am almost 40 years old. In that time I have witnessed the mainline decline from the front row. The mentality among many of my elder colleagues is that "we're losing the war". First, the non-denominational megachurch phenomenon of the late 20th century seemed to replace us. All the young people go to ______________church (fill in with your local non-denominational megachurch. Attractional, personaliity-driven, entertaining, and highly consumeristic these churches appeal to American cultural proclivities. But the version of church is so American that it loses its spiritual center. The cross and resurrection of Jesus, his presence in a community gathered around the gospel story, eucharistic fellowship, and prayer have been neglected in favor of Psalms set to pop music and homogeneous groupings of people who agree on moralistic grounds. Church becomes a place of moral judgement and rules that govern who is in and who is out. But even the megachurch expression is losing ground in the U.S., to the nones.
The Nones are the fastest growing religious definition in the U.S. They are people who are not affiated with any religious group or preference. Some of them were never affiliated and some of them are disconnected and some of them have abandoned the religious life of their family of origins. And while mainliners were distracted by church growth and megachurches and the perceived threat to their own congregational systems, we failed to see or hear the hard, necessary truth. The church, in its late modern, western form, is dying and will die. It must die. That is how Jesus Crhist and the church are incarnated over and over again for 2,000 years. Death and resurrection. Faith in God reires hope in the face of certain death. It requires an openness to Spiritual renewal, God at work in a new way to make something new happen that resembles God's ultimate reality, the kingdom or reign of God in, over, with, and for the world.
I have written about this in my blog before. Years ago. I can't even find the post, its been so long. I did not, however, set out today to write about the dying or death of the church as we hhave known it in the west. I have already done that and so has pretty much everyone else. I set out this afternoon to write about life; the Life of the Church. The resurrection of the church. I can only tell you what I have seen and heard. I suspect others can confirm these things. These are the ways I see church changing.
1. Pope Francis. Remember, I am a Lutheran---the first ones to reject the papacy and strike out to reform the church in the 16th century. 500 years later, a shift is taking place again. We are discovering that there is no salvation, no justification by grace through faith, without justice and peace on earth. The marginalized, poor, and oppressed live longing for a better day. It is not necessary to baptize a starving and sick child, as much as it is to feed them. Francis loves the poor with a Christlike love and is calling the church to renew its biblical calling to servve, love, and bless them as Christ hidden in their suffering.
2. Relational diversity and deep acceptance of the other. I have seen churches become people of hospitality and welcome that intentionally include addicts, people stuck in poverty, homeless people, gay people, sick and dying people. I get to be part of a Christian commuity that increasinngly accepts people as they are, beloved children of the same God.
3. Koinonia. The art of community-building. Churches are building community with artists, musicians, Ex-gang members, ex-offenders. Multi-lingual, multi-cultural communities. Churches that are intentionally small, relational, and missional/incarnational expressions of the gospel story, trying to live like the community described in the book of Acts, in the New Testament. I see churches plant gardens and feed neighbors. I see churches build parks and support their public schools. I see churches teach English and reading classes to immigrants. I see churches create housing for low income households, and jobs for unemployable adults.
I bellieve the church is going to be smaller and more vibrant and more contagious and more impactful in the 21st century. Small, immersed in the culture like infiltrators, bearers of light in a dark place. If we could just stop talkiing about death-whose dying and why, what a good death is like, and what life support should be-and start living and breathing as the body of the one who died and somehow lived and lives and will live forever among us, so that the church lives forever on earth as sign and sentinel for the age that is coming, then our light will break forth like the dawn.
