A peculiar American Christianity

An article from a few years ago considers the glaring absence of the majority of white Southern Evangelicals from the Civil Rights movement, in contrast to mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews and others.

What is it about southern evangelicalism that prevented those churches historically from seeing the plight of blacks as connected to the Gospel and the command to love God and neighbor? Maybe there is a real deep theological flaw in what is known as “evangelical theology?” Maybe the evangelicalism of the 1940s, 50s and 60s did not really understand the Gospel as clearly as many are lead to believe. I honestly do not have the answers to these questions but if evangelicals were so blinded by these issues during the Civil Rights Movement it makes me wonder what evangelicals might be missing today.

The Rev. Giles Fraser, writing today:   (Emphasis mine)

For his inauguration, Trump has chosen two proponents of what is called the prosperity gospel to say the prayers. Paula White – once investigated by the Senate finance committee for her business dealings – is a TV evangelist, noted for her belief that faith makes you rich. And Detroit bishop Wayne T Jackson, who holds that “Donald Trump is an example of someone who has been blessed by God. Look at his homes, businesses, his wife and his jet. You don’t get those things unless you have the favour of God.” Being “blessed” has become a moral alibi for America’s greed. It is a nauseating smile of faux-gratitude that says: God gave this to me so it’s not about me having too much. 

Even traditional evangelicals are angry about Trump’s prayer picks. But American popular religion has been sailing in these dangerous waters ever since it borrowed from the late 19th century New Thought philosophy, developing ideas about the power of the mind and its importance to success. Bringing together Christianity, capitalism and cod psychology, and transforming preachers into motivational speakers delivering their sales pitches, evangelicals such as Peale re-imagined the life of an itinerant Jew who thought you couldn’t serve God and money, to be that of a poster boy for the super-rich. And at Trump’s inauguration it is this false Jesus, this king of Mammon, that is to be worshiped and showered with gold.

The End of Christianity?

A provocative article from the Guardian.

The most recent British Social Attitudes data shows that “No religion” is now by far the largest single identificationin England and Wales. It is very nearly half the adult population, and more that twice the proportion who self-identify as Anglican....

The author proposes some reasons.

Over the last 50 years “religion” has come to stand for the opposite of freedom and fairness. This is partly an outcome of the sexual revolution and of the long and ultimately futile resistance to it mounted by mainstream denominations. “The religious” now appear to young people as obscurantist bigots whose main purpose is to police sexuality, especially female sexuality, in the service of incomprehensible doctrines. Institutional resistance to the rights of women and of gay people was an exceptionally stupid strategy for institutions that depends on the labour of both. But the Church of England was so much a part of the old imperial state that life in post-imperial Britain was never going to be easy.

It’s hard to see a route back for normative Christianity.....

And what will we lose?

This century will be one in which humanity faces gigantic challenges, brought about by our own success in colonising the planet. Global warming and the still present threat of nuclear destruction both need a sense of global solidarity to overcome, and a vision of humanity that transcends narrow self-interest. If Christianity no longer can supply that, what will?

Well, I would argue that a vision of humanity that transcends self-interest is not de facto Christian.  And in a climate where so-called Christians are supporting Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and their shenanigans, what IS normative Christianity?

Leaving American Christianity

John Pavlovitz writes,

I am not losing my mind.
I’m not losing my faith.
I’m not failing or falling or backsliding.
I have simply outgrown American Christianity. 

I’ve outgrown the furrowed-browed warnings of a sky that is perpetually falling.
I’ve outgrown the snarling brimstone preaching that brokers in damnation.
I’ve outgrown the vile war rhetoric that continually demands an encroaching enemy.
I’ve outgrown the expectation that my faith is the sole property of a political party.
I’ve outgrown violent bigotry and xenophobia disguised as Biblical obedience.
I’ve outgrown God wrapped in a flag and soaked in rabid nationalism.
I’ve outgrown the incessant attacks on the Gay, Muslim, and Atheist communities.
I’ve outgrown theology as a hammer always looking for a nail.
I’ve outgrown the cramped, creaky, rusting box that God never belonged in anyway. 

Most of all though, I’ve outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in..... 

It’s getting harder and harder to love all people and still fit into what has become American Christianity, so rather than becoming less loving and staying—I’m leaving.

Does this mean he will become one of the unaffiliated?  That varied group that includes disaffected practitioners, agnostics, and atheists? We'll be interested to see what he says next.

Pope Francis recently said that fundamentalism is a sickness in all religions.  And, fundamentalist American Christians with their language of war and violence, their endless outrage, their calls for theocracy, are viewed the same way we view Islamic or Hindu theocrats.  They've highjacked the name "Christian" so that it is nearly divorced from its  meaning. Nice job, guys.

Americanized Christianity (updated)

More than one commentator has noted that we have a distinct form of Christianity in the US, an Americanized form that is not truly Christian.  These commentators call for a restoration of True Christian values.

Of course, how that works depends on who's asking.  Rod Dreher thinks that "Americanized Christianity" is an anything goes amoralization that allows for horrors like same sex marriage and transgendered folks transitioning.

Business as usual is over, church people. There will be no “taking our country back”; you will be lucky if our country’s fast-emerging culture doesn’t take our faith away from our kids. Don’t you doubt it. If you have been the sort of Christian who equated Christianity with the American way of life, you had better rethink that, and fast.

On the other hand, Benjamin Corey on Patheos thinks "Americanized Christianity" is an overwhelming identification of Christian faith with Republican talking points, which real Christian will reject.  for example

If your primary identity is legitimately that of a Christian, you’ll be open to learning about Christianity as it was taught and lived by the earliest Christians. However, from an American mindset, original Christianity and the first Christians appear nuts: they were universally nonviolent (against capital punishment, abortion, military service and killing in self-defense), rejected individual ownership of property in order to redistribute their wealth (Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:35), and rejected any involvement with the government. When reading about them they seem rather un-American, and this will cause frustration or disbelief among those in Americanized Christianity.

and

An American value is small government and low tax rates, but a Christian value is the elimination of poverty– which is precisely why the early Christians shared their wealth instead of hoarding it. However, while many American Christians fight for lower taxes, the average American Christian doesn’t give money to charity. Where the early church shared everything, statistics show that Americanized Christians share almost nothing- less than 5% even tithe to their church. When we reject the Americanization of Christianity, we become focused on how to give more, not on how to give less.

and of course,

Somewhere along the line, the Americanized version of Christianity taught us that defeating gay marriage was perhaps the most pressing issue of our time. Sadly, as Americans we’re taught to be self-centered and this is an incredibly self-centered view that completely ignores the global issues of our time. It is the mistaken identity that our issues are the issues. The most pressing issues of our time? Let’s start with the fact that 750 million people around the world don’t even have access to clean water or that 805 million people are chronically malnourished.

Funny.  They both agree that "Americanized Christianity" is a problem but there is no agreement on what that is!

This completely corresponds to another article I read this week on how liberals can change conservatives' minds and vice versa by considering "moral foundations theory":

Summing up a great deal of research, Feinberg and Willer write that "liberals tend to endorse foundations based on caring and protection from harm (harm) and maintenance of fairness and reciprocity (fairness) more strongly than conservatives. However, conservatives tend to endorse moral concerns related to ingroup-loyalty (loyalty), respect for authority (authority), and protection of purity and sanctity (purity) more than liberals [emphasis theirs]." ....

Feinberg and Willer had two main hypotheses for their study: first, that liberals tasked with convincing conservatives on some issue would do so with liberal-"flavored" moral language, and vice versa, rather than try to seek out an argument more likely to resonate with someone on the other side; and second, that liberals would be more swayed by liberal-flavored arguments, and vice versa.

So, Dreher isn't going to be swayed by arguments about fairness and harm to gay people, and Corey isn't going to go for the purity argument.  But maybe Dreher would be more concerned about the poor and disadvantaged if one points to Biblical authority.  But I'm not sure how you could use arguments re. harm or fairness to persuade Corey otherwise.

The clerk goes to court and Christianity loses (updated)

The Rowan KY county clerk, Kim Davis, believes that her religiously-founded disdain for same sex marriage entitles her to refuse to do her job.  Her office is refusing to provide marriage licenses to any couple, straight or gay.  Religious freedom, you know.

Think about that.  She is saying that her religious beliefs entitle her, a public servant, to deny her fellow citizens legal civil rights.

Susan Russell writes, 

What if I'm a Muslim and my understanding of my religion is that women shouldn't drive? Can I refuse to issue drivers' licenses to women? Or if I'm a Hindu and a vegetarian -- can I refuse to issue fishing licenses because killing/eating fish is against my religion? Of course not. Likewise, your personal opinions and beliefs about who should or should not be getting married has absolutely no bearing on who you issue marriage licenses to as a county clerk. Period.

Exactly.  And just to make it sweeter, Ms Davis has been divorced three times.  But wait, there's more!

She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second.

She has since found JAYSUS and has been absolved of sin.  Wiped clean.  Like it never happened.  Of course it doesn't work that way for the Roman Catholics, who consider a couple married following divorce to be living in adultery.  Good thing she's not Catholic, then.

But regardless of her past, even if she were pure as snow, that would not justify her actions.

She has lost in federal court.  While her appeal is pending, she asked for an extended stay of the decision so that she didn't have to sign the licenses.  The 6th circuit said, no, no stay.  The Supreme Court said no, no stay.  You have to start giving out the licenses while your appeal is pending.

GOD! cries Davis and won't do it.  Clerk Davis is facing contempt charges, fines, maybe jail.

Even anti-gay Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation thinks she's nuts.  Quoted in Think Progress, 

“The citizens of Rowan County have a right to receive in a timely and efficient manner the various government provisions—including licenses—to which they are entitled,” Anderson writes for one of Heritage’s websites. 

He adds.... that “[s]aying your religion requires your entire office to stop issuing marriage licenses to everyone . . . cannot be reasonably accommodated without placing undue hardships on the citizens unable to receive their licenses in their county and forced to drive to another.” 

.... the fact that as prominent an anti-gay luminary as Anderson believes that Davis has gone too far is a sign of just how thin a limb the Kentucky clerk now finds herself upon.

Joe Childers makes the constitutional point:

Religiously neutral civil mechanisms are the only possible way for true religious freedom to exist for multiple religions simultaneously. Civil servants who are religious ought therefore to be even more scrupulous about preserving religious neutrality in their duties than non-religious servants, for they are more directly enjoying religious freedom in their own lives and have more to lose from threats to that freedom.

 So what's up?  Everyone agrees that this is wrong at many levels.

Is she merely a puppet of the lawyers who are fundraising wildly? Mark Stern in Slate:

I’m growing a bit concerned about Davis’ lawyers. Davis is being represented by the Liberty Counsel, a far-right fringe group that specializes in anti-gay litigation. (Naturally, it is also a Christian ministry and a tax-exempt nonprofit.) Founder and Chairman Mathew D. Staver has used Davis’ case to raise money and boost publicity for his group, going so far as to hold a rally for Davis..... 

When a federal judge ordered Davis to issue licenses or be held in contempt of court, the Liberty Counsel advised her to disobey the ruling. Good lawyers don’t usually tell their clients to defy lawful court orders, especially when jail time is a real possibility. Yet the Liberty Counsel didn’t mind putting their client at risk—perhaps because the idea of a middle-aged woman being hauled off to jail for purportedly following her conscience would send thousands of anti-gay Americans reaching for their pitchforks (and checkbooks).

Liberty Counsel, which gallingly is funded by tax-deductable donations and grants, stands to gain.  The  Lexington KY Herald-Leader agrees:

So, why is Liberty Counsel marching alongside Davis in this losing cause? It takes a lot to keep that marketing machine humming and those executives paid, and the only way to keep those donations coming is to stay in the news. For that purpose a losing cause is just as good as, perhaps better than, a winning one.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/08/13/3987637_time-for-davis-to-do-her-job-or.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

It's always about money.  Dan Savage sees a method to Kim's madness: t he greed of martyrdom:

....this isn't about Kim Davis standing up for her supposed principles—proof of that in a moment—it's about Kim Davis cashing in. There's a big pile of sweet, sweet bigot money out there waiting for her. If the owners of a pizza parlor could rake in a million dollars just by threatening not to cater the gay wedding no one asked them to cater... just imagine how much of that sweet, sweet bigot money Kim Davis is going to rake in. I'm sure Kim Davis is already imagining it.

Regardless of who is using whom, money and martyrdom go hand in hand.  But Dan goes on,

.... This pathetic bullshit is what passes for Christianity in America today. Thanks to the efforts of hate groups like the American Family Association, the Family Research Council ....,, the 700 Club, the Moral Majority, the National Organization for Marriage, the National Association of Evangelicals, etc., and the mousy, near-complicit silence of left-wing and progressive Christians, "Christian" is now synonymous with "anti-gay bigot."

"Mousy, near complicit silence of left-wing and progressive Christians".  Yup.  Because if you don't defend the brand, the brand becomes Kim Davis.  Dan continues,

To be a good American Christian like Kim Davis—or a good Alaskan Christian like Bristol Palin—you don't have to stay in your first marriage, ....you don't have to deny marriage licenses to straight people who are remarrying or marrying outside the faith or obtaining marriage licenses for Godless secular marriages. Nope. You just have to hate the homos. ....You don't have to feed the sick, clothe the naked, house the homeless—you don't have to do any of that shit Jesus actually talked about—you just have to hate the homos hard enough to go to jail for for your beliefs cash in on your bigotry.

That, my friends, is Christianity in America today.  And all the gay friendly mainlines, the ELCA, UCC, PCUSA, TEC, you all are being so NICE about it, while your brand is going down the drain.   You quietly wring your hands or comment on Facebook, so politely, "you know, we're Not All Like That (NALT)."  Oh, but remember, you pretty much don't have any friends on Facebook who don't already agree with you.

Why isn't anyone saying assertively and publicly, "this woman DOESN'T SPEAK for Christianity"?  Why isn't anyone speaking out?  Why are you letting this once more be cast as the mediatainment narrative likes it, as a battle between Teh Gayz  and the Christians?

Can anyone wonder why the Nones are the fastest growing religious group in the country?

Update:  Found in contempt of court, Ms Davis was taken into custody.  She apparently intends to stay there, and refuses to allow her clerks to administer licenses.  The fundraising no doubt will pick up, until it doesn't,  and no one will marry in Rowan County.

The Christian Right v the Christian Left

From the Daily Beast, describing The Religious Right’s Slow-Motion Suicide

I it’s not just same-sex marriage. The country has liberalized culturally in a range of ways in the past six or eight years, and it’s not only not going back, it’s charging relentlessly forward. .... 

[The Christian Right is] a group that is losing power, and I think the leaders and even the rank-and-filers know it. Their vehicle, the Republican Party, is going libertarian on them. Rand Paul, whether he wins the 2016 nomination or not, is clearly enough of a force within the party that he is pushing it away from the culture wars. He is joined in this pursuit by the conservative intellectual class, which knows the culture wars are a dead-bang loser for the GOP and which finds the culture warriors more than a little embarrassing, and by the establishment figures, the Karl Rove types, who stroked them back in 2004 but who now see them as a liability, at least at the presidential level. There are still, of course, many states where these voters come in quite handy in that they elect many Republican representatives and senators.

Of course, they aren't going easily.  And they have a new bogeyman, the Christian Left.

A resurgence of the Christian left may seem a distant hope, but the idea of it has certainly spooked the Christian right. Such is the impetus for Distortion: How the New Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel & Damaging the Faith. It's a curious book from accomplished evangelical author Chelsen Vicari, who aims in it to address a "crisis" in evangelicalism — namely the rise of a Christian left. 

Vicari's book is neither a principled critique of Christian leftism writ large nor a principled defense of a Christian right-wing; on the contrary, it's very narrowly focused on American Christians who align with the Democratic Party versus American Christians who align with the Republican Party. It's in favor of the latter, of course, but in so doing it visits a number of tired arguments that are only tenuously linked to Christianity, and are more thoroughly associated with secular partisan politics.

Mark Sandlin is happy to be a bogeyman.

Are we on the Christian left really the Bogeyman? Do we really have that kind of influence? 

Not yet — but we are working on it. 

And it’s working. 

And that’s what makes us so scary to Vicari and her readership. 

When we were a voice that was constantly drowned out by the megaphone that is the Christian right and their maniacal stronghold on traditional forms of communication, Vicari probably thought of us as that annoying little dust bunny under the bed that just would not go away. 

With the continued rise of new forms of communication and the way social media has given progressive Christians the ability to connect and be heard, we’ve become a threat. We’re no longer the annoying little dust bunny under the bed. We are the big bad monster that is ruining everything.
....
What conservative Christianity has become looks far too little like what the teachings of Jesus would encourage us to be. 

Causing a crisis of faith in that kind of belief system? I’m all for it.
 

What's wrong with being called "progressive Christians"?

It cedes the norm (the unmodified description) to those who are not progressive, that's what. 

Stop calling broad-minded, non-exclusivist movements “progressive” or “moderate” religion. Stop asking individuals who are deeply devoted to their religious traditions to qualify their religious identity in political terms that over-simplify who they are, what they believe and what they do as a result. 

Moreover, stop ceding the rhetorical high ground to groups that have no claim to it, whether they are the most conservative of evangelicals or the most radical of violent extremists. The idea that to be American is to be religious, and that to be religious is to be conservative, has been embedded in our culture for too long. Progressives must realize that this warped playing field will be leveled only when the idea that religion is inherently “conservative” ceased to go uncontested in our public discourse. Fight for the middle, not the edges of the religious landscape. 

....If religious folks start staking a claim to the centrality of moral traditions that transcend the red vs. blue, us vs. them divide, we may start to see a cultural shift in which being a Christian means that you speak out for the oppressed, or that being a Muslim signifies that you are someone who cares for the orphan and the widow.  

Republican Christianity: a counterfeit?

With the defeat of Eric Cantor (who is Jewish), all the Republicans in Congress identify as Christian of one sort or another.  All of them.

Now think about that.  Think about the >16% of Americans who are not affiliated. And another 5-6% who are of other faiths e.g., Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu...  (Data here)  Just another way that the ruling Republicans do not reflect America, ethnically, economically, or religiously.

From Religion Dispatches

The Republican Christians who now inhabit Congress have in most cases assertively presented their Christian faith as the glue that binds together their public service, their connection to their constituencies, and their policy thinking. It also frames the way they understand both collegiality and political compromise or the lack thereof. Like it or not, the Republicans in Congress are now a kind of congregation, a reality of church, a particular church, but still a church. Inescapably, now they present a Christianity in total power.

This is a perfect storm for Christianity. We now have a political party that deeply dislikes the first African American president (who is also a Christian), clearly opposes significant cooperation with him or his party, is reactionary on most issues from taxes to the environment to women’s health to full equality for LGBTQ folks, is wedded to a neo-conservative economic fideism, and is unapologetically Christian. It will be difficult to convince anyone that this Republican Christianity is not authentic Christianity because a religion reveals itself when it has political and economic power. 

Quote for the day

The churches have forgotten that, until the 17th century, the dominant understanding of sex and gender was of a single humanity, ‘man’, within which women were imperfect, malformed men. Later, a two-sex view of humanity, supposedly established by modern science, became preferred. The idea of the complementarity (not equality) of the sexes arose directly from this view. The Christian Gospel offers neither an ancient one-sex theory, nor a modern two-sex theory, but a single inclusive humanity, made by God and redeemed by Christ, in which differences of all kinds are a means towards communion instead of conflict.  

From a paper called Redeeming Gender, by Prof Adrian Thatcher. 

A Christian CLoset?

Following up on yesterday's post cautiously expecting liberal Christian views to become more prominent. From Slate, a closet Christian comes out.  ANd you know what?  If more liberal Chrsitians came out that would be a great way to counter the monolith of rightwing Evangelicals.

Why am I so paranoid? I’m not cheating on my husband, committing crimes or doing drugs. But those are battles my cosmopolitan, progressive friends would understand. Many of them had to come out — as gay, as alcoholics, as artists in places where art was not valued. To them, my situation is far more sinister: I am the bane of their youth, the boogeyman of their politics, the very thing they left their small towns to escape. I am a Christian..... 

Not long ago, I told a priest at my church that my friends equated religion with horrible things. I expected her to tell me I had some obligation to stop hiding my faith, but she said, pulling a scarf around her neck to hide her priest’s collar, “Those preachers on the subways make me cringe.” She said she prefers Saint Francis: “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” 

I could reassure my atheist friends that the Episcopal Church is a force for equality and social justice. It ordained its first gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003. It takes the Bible as a mandate to fight hunger and disease and to rebuild after disasters. I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other politically involved religious groups who take the gospel as an excuse to spread hate and support specific candidates and propositions should have their tax-free status taken away. 

Maybe, though, apolitical Christianity is on the rise. The Obamas are now in office — a good Christian family in the truest sense of the term — and the right wing is more marginalized than it was a year ago. My friend, the young (and kind of ridiculously hot) priest the Rev. Astrid Storm, whom I used to edit at Nerve.com, says she’s sensing more acceptance: 

“When I said I was a priest, it was always a conversation stopper,” she says. “Recently someone asked what I did, and when I told him he said, ‘How interesting. There are a lot of exciting things happening right now in the Episcopal Church, aren’t there?’ The diversity of opinion people are reading about in the news — about gay marriage, female priests, poverty issues — are showing how Christianity isn’t monolithic.”
...
[I]ncreasingly, I wonder: When I’m getting a ride from some friends and they start talking about how stupid religious people are and quoting lines from “Religulous,” do I have an obligation to point out how reductive and bigoted they’re being, the way I would if they were talking about a particular race? Increasingly I wonder if I should pipe up from the back seat and say, “Excuse me, but these fools you’re talking about? I’m one of them.”

The year ahead: A resurgence of liberal Christianity?

Ed Kilgore:

This year there are indeed tidings of great joy — or at least intimations of change — that call into question the usual identification of American Christianity with monolithic and triumphant Christian right.

The first and most obvious is the sudden and surprising change of tone and emphasis introduced by Pope Francis. .... 

Suffice it to say that Francis has made it vastly more difficult to identify religious orthodoxy with political conservatism. And even more surprisingly, there are similar stirrings among conservative evangelical Protestants. ...

There is even good news for liberal Christians on the demographic front, which must come as a shock to those who have for years assumed the only vibrant and growing elements of Christendom are conservative in doctrine and politics. The growth of agnosticism and atheism among American “millennials” has received enormous recent attention. But the latest survey of American religious attitudes by the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute also found that among the majority of millennials who do have a religious identity, 38 percent self-identify as religious moderates, 23 percent as religious progressives, and only 17 percent as religious conservatives. The median age of religious progressives is 44, and for religious conservatives is 53. The idea that non-conservative Christianity is outmoded is itself outmoded. 

.... 

For liberal Christians, that very absence of self-righteousness is what makes it possible not only to keep faith with Americans of different or of no supernatural beliefs, but just as important, to keep communion with our fellow Christians who are convinced this political party or that issue position is The Way. This Christmas it may perhaps be easier to look across the pews and recognize each other as seekers after truth rather than its exclusive possessors.

Post-Christian? Not really.

source

The Barna Group has identified "post-Christian" cities in the US, according to the following criteria:

Post-Christian = meet at least 60% of the following 15 factors (9 or more factors)
Highly Post-Christian = meet at least 80% of the following 15 factors (12 or more factors) 

1. do not believe in God
2. identify as atheist or agnostic
3. disagree that faith is important in their lives
4. have not prayed to God (in the last year)
5. have never made a commitment to Jesus
6. disagree the Bible is accurate
7. have not donated money to a church (in the last year)
8. have not attended a Christian church (in the last year)
9. agree that Jesus committed sins
10. do not feel a responsibility to “share their faith”
11. have not read the Bible (in the last week)
12. have not volunteered at church (in the last week)
13. have not attended Sunday school (in the last week)
14. have not attended religious small group (in the last week)
15. do not participate in a house church (in the last year)

 I don't think you can buy their criteria as all necessarily "Post-Christian".  The Barna group is evangelical, and I think that you can better describe some of these as "Post-Evangelical".   For example, 5. have never made a commitment to Jesus.  Would your average Episcopalian say s/he has made such a commitment?  That's not the language of the mainline, or the Catholics.

Similarly, 6. disagree the Bible is accurate.  Well, I don't know any Episcopalians who buy that the Bible is literally true, do you?

And what about 9. agree that Jesus committed sins.  If Jesus was human, didn't he commit any sins?  He doubted, didn't he?  I bet he got rude and annoyed. Did he ever talk back to Mary when he was a teenager?

And then:  10. do not feel a responsibility to “share their faith” That would be the evangelizing that names the evangelical, don't you think?  God's Frozen Chosen are often very reticent.

11. have not read the Bible (in the last week) Until BP joined EfM, I don't think she read the Bible frequently, I mean outside of the Gospel readings in church.   Occasionally, yes, but not every week.

12. have not volunteered at church (in the last week)  Oh, you mean because you are working two jobs and have the flu?  C'mon Barna, not everyone volunteers.

13. have not attended Sunday school (in the last week)  If you're over 15, you probably aren't attending Sunday school.  But this makes you "post-Christian"?

14. have not attended religious small group (in the last week)
15. do not participate in a house church (in the last year)
Wow, I don't think the big Sunday Eucharist counts.

So, 'piskies:
If you are not clergy: how  many of the Barna's list applies to you?  Are you, by their definition, "post-Christian"?

How American Christians are moving towards equality

It is fascinating to see the steady move of mainstream Christianity towards equality for LGBT people.  Oh, the conservatives of the Southern Baptist Convention and the increasingly hysterical Conference of Catholic Bishops are using their big,bully pulpits to pound out anti-gay rhetoric--but at some level, they've lost the war even as they fight their final battles.

Item:  This article from a feminist Catholic brilliantly illuminates the disconnect between the hierarchy and the folks in the pews (remember, lay Catholics are amongst the most gay-supportive):

It’s an often lonely place here in the quiet land of LGBT-loving, pro-choice, liberal Catholics. Some days I like to imagine it’s a little party just for Stephen Colbert, Joe Biden and me. But it’s not: 60 percent of American Catholics say they don’t strongly adhere to the church’s stance on abortion, and even more don’t subscribe to its position on same-sex marriage. Nearly 80 percent think you can practice birth control and not attend Mass regularly and still be a good Catholic, while only 20 percent believe in the necessity of an all-male, celibate clergy. You can call us Cafeteria Catholics if you like, but it doesn’t change our principles or our hopes for reform. And you can say the church is unchangeable, but it’s revised itself plenty over 2,000 years. This is a body that once decided slavery didn’t contradict natural law, so don’t rule out the possibility of further enlightenment.

What she doesn't explain is how she's working to effect that enlightenment, however.

Item:  Sarah Posner profiles a "renegade" Southern Baptist:

Meet an average—or maybe not so average, but instructive—Southern Baptist, the Rev. Jeff Hood. Four years out of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the denomination’ s preeminent training ground, the 29-year-old Hood supports LGBT rights (he actually prefers to the term “queer”) and favors immigration reform with UAFA. ... .

His denomination, Hood maintains, realizes it needs to change or face irrelevance. “No one’s listening to them now. They realize they are losing ground, losing their voice. They’re trying to figure out a way to gain it back and be relevant....The reason is—it’s hurtful to even say this—because they are concerned with patriarchy and control. By promoting Calvinism and all these theologies of exclusion, they are able to maintain control. To me, Christianty is not an exclusive deal.”

 Item: Joseph Ward in the Huff Po argues that LGBT families are expanding Christian love:

Don't get me wrong; Catholics are one of the most supportive religious communities on this issue. But as the policy discussions expand, the disconnect between the church leadership and the people has become sharper. On one hand many faithful Catholics are constantly interacting with their LGBT neighbors, workmates, children and parents; and on the other, the churches leaders struggle to understand the human stories of inequality...

As a Christian community we have to ask ourselves: how can we live in a country that does not protect and defend LGBT families? How do some call themselves "Christian" and at the same time advocate for this blatant inequality?...

As gay, lesbian and transgender people emerge from the shadows, we see how the very policies created to "defend" marriage deny this sacrament to loving, committed couples.

Christians around the country are tired of watching their friends and families struggle. They're tired of a culture war that demands a separate but equal framework, and pained by bearing witness to the daily consequences it has on the lives of hardworking Americans.

They see how these couples struggle to find stability without the rights and protections granted to their heterosexual counterparts. Christians who were once conflicted are becoming new allies in the fight for equality knowing the radical love in the Gospels cannot allow them, in good conscience, to treat LGBT families as anything less than equal (Matthew 7:12).

Know hope.

From Christian to "none"

Several articles are paying attention to the "nones", those who do not identify with any faith tradition.  And not surprisingly, they are finding that many of those "nones" are not naive,b ut have deliberately stepped away from the Christian tradition.  Here are two authors who are demanding that those who identify as "Christian" look within themselves for the cause:

Derek Penwell:

It strikes me that much of what drives this unenthusiastic response to religion, at least in the case of Christianity, centers on the apparent (at least to observers) unwillingness of Christians to live like Jesus. The "Nones" have heard endlessly about Christianity and how everybody would be better off if the world would just believe the stuff Christians believe: 

They've gotten the message, for instance, that being Christian means you believe being gay is a sin -- and not just any sin, but sin in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way. The express-lane-to-Hell kind of sin. Then they read the Gospels about a Jesus who reserves his most stinging indictments not for the folks everybody else has already given up on, but for the stalwarts at the top of the religious and political food chain, the ones who join Rotary, drive Buicks and wear sensible shoes...

Christians claim to believe in a Jesus, who spent a great deal of time reaching out to, speaking out for, advocating on behalf of "the least of these"; but then some segments of Christianity align themselves with a brand of politics that seems interested in advancing only the interests of the wealthiest among us -- at theexpense of the poor, the hungry, the naked, and the outcast -- which is to say, at the expense of the least of these. What are outsiders to think? 

And, Mark Osler:

I know quite a few Nones. Few of them were raised in the absence of any faith tradition. Instead, most were part of a Christian denomination at some point, but consciously made the decision to leave. What interests me about their stories is this common thread: The majority left Christianity because of the attitudes of a person, and that person was not Jesus. It was an overbearing parent, or a judgmental minister, or a congregant who told them they did not belong because they were gay or they were questioning or they had conflicted ideas. In many cases, it was a combination of these types of influences. 

Something is wrong when we drive so many people away. I think a big part of that something is arrogance.
...
I don't embody the ideal I'm about to describe in answer to that question, but I know some people who do. These are the people who made me want to be a Christian. What I see in them are three key attributes: They are authentic, unashamed and honest..... 

It might be that our first job in responding to the rise of the "Nones" is that we should stop creating so many of them through our own arrogance and our attempts to judge others (contrary to Christ's express instruction). People are drawn to those who are strong and humble; is there any more compelling combination of attributes? Perhaps it is now the time to be those things, as Christ was, rather than smug in the conviction that we are always correct, and always the best.

Secular Christians

There's a new book called "Faitheist" that argues for non-believers and people of faith to work together.  The Professional Atheists are up in arms about it because they feel it shields or defends religion, which they view as an enemy.  This is why I don't like the term "atheist" to describe myself.   Because I'm not interested in attacking religion, and I'm not just advocating getting along, like the author of the book.  No,  I'm actually part of it.  

We've talked before about "gratheists" like me (here and here, for starters, and on a more personal level, here.)  

Here's a new entry to the discussion, from an atheist's blog on Patheos, that actively advocates for a secular Christian identity that would mirror that of the secular Jewish community (Judaism is particularly welcoming of its nonbelievers).

Consider what this might be like. A secular Christian—I could be a candidate, for example—might go to church for the beautiful or traditional or inspiring music. The church building might be a draw, whether it were awe-inspiring or quaint. Sermons about finding the right path or avoiding the shallow temptations in life or even Bible stories might be edifying. Services could mark the important events in life such as births, marriages, and deaths. Whether the secular Christian went weekly or only a few times a year, the community of good people, eager to help others, would be welcoming. It might give focus to good works, providing opportunities for volunteering and direction for charitable giving. 

But—and here’s the interesting bit—secular Christians would reject the supernatural origin of Christianity, would be open about their atheism, and would be accepted within the church community. The Christian church has millions of members who are secular Christians except for the last bit. They’ve lost their faith in the supernatural claims, they’ve admitted this to themselves, but they can’t come out to their church community. The concept of a secular Christian would allow these people to keep their community, charitable, and even family connections. 

The Christian church isn’t pleased with these ex-Christians simply leaving the church, and this broadening of the church community, as is done in many Jewish communities, could provide a soft landing for many mainstream churches hurting for members. Conservatives will insist that a no-compromise position be taken, but the church is determined to evolve, and this direction seems to be a win-win. 

I've described this as being "culturally Christian" but "secular Christian" works just as well.

So, it's an interesting question.  What defines a relationship with the Church?  Is it shared faith, or shared community?

Originally, I attended church with my wife as an expression of support during her long swim from Rome to Canterbury.  But now, I go not just for her, but for me too.   I'm a non-believing member of an Episcopal Parish.  Indeed, I'm technically "legal" as a member:  As a child, I was baptised and confirmed Roman Catholic.  I had a good religious education (Catholic school through 8th grade).  Now, as an adult, I  not only attend services but donate time and treasure to the Episcopal Church.

Probably the main difference between me and other people who might fit this description is that I'm not in the closet about my lack of belief  (although I admit I'm hesitant about telling people I don't know well, in case they take it the wrong way or think I'm being disrespectful, which I am at pains to avoid). I don't take Communion, and while I enjoy the service, generally I don't say the words or sing the hymns.

And many of our community know, and accept me for who I am.  I'm not trying to convert them, and they are not trying to convert me.  It's mutual respect.  And, I've learned I'm not the only one in the community who has a.... shall we say, non-traditional relationship with faith.

So, is there an explicit place for the culturally Christian that allows the Church to reclaim them (me) as part of the family?

Update:  A followup to this essay is here.

Practice radical acts of love

Episcopal Priest Pamela Dolan in the ST Louis Times Dispatch:

I wish it didn’t have to be said. I wish we weren’t in a place, as a country, where it actually feels necessary to say: I’m a Christian and I think hate is wrong. 

...during this long hot airless summer we followers of Jesus get more media coverage for opposing birth control, standing in line to eat greasy chicken sandwiches, and hand-slapping nuns than for any good we might do for our neighbors. I am quite sure that to those outside our traditions, we sound paranoid, small-minded and just plain hateful....

In a showdown between “us” and “them” there is plenty of suffering and persecution to go around. But anyone who thinks that it’s harder to be a Christian in America today than to be a Sikh or a Muslim or a Hindu or a pagan or even a Jew is simply not in touch with reality. Non-believers, agnostics, and atheists also come in for a pretty hard time, although that seems to be changing. But that’s not really the point.
The point is that the whole “us versus them” mentality, the ongoing religious persecution pity party by over-privileged first world Christians utterly misses the point.... 

... I’ve had enough, you’ve had enough, our children and our planet have certainly had enough.....

Fear is the single biggest enemy of love. But the Bible tells us over and over again: Be not afraid. 

So love God. Love your neighbor. Love the ones with a different skin color, love the ones who wear turbans, love the ignorant, the hurtful, and the mean, love the ones who talk funny, love the ones who shave their heads and scare the living daylights out of you. Real freedom comes from within. Nobody can take away your ability to love. Nobody. As the saying goes, just do it. It might be the most radical act of religious freedom anyone has ever practiced: love.

I too wish Christians would behave like Christians.  Wouldn't that be radical, indeed.

How can people who claim to be Christians, go on about taxes and welfare cheats and  freeloaders, with an operating philosophy that "it's mine and I'm keeping it"?  How can they ignore their responsibility for the least amongst us in the accumulation of more?  How can they forget that the "common good" means roads and bridges and education for all? How can they obsess about Islamic religious practices and despise atheists and forget all those admonishments to love strangers?  How can they ignore foundational values of a country founded on religious freedom, and force their beliefs on those who don't share them?

Is Capitalism Christian?

Everyone knows that the unemployment rate is too high.  yet businesses are enjoying record profits.  Why aren't they hiring?  As the Motley Fool tells us,

•Sales are too low.  

•Since sales are low, businesses are keeping profits up by keeping expenses (like employment) down. That's why profit margins are near record highs.

After describing a friend whose moving business slashed employment, wages, and benefits, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B ) Vice Chairman Charlie Munger was asked if his friend would ever revert to the old way of business. He replied: "No, it's never going back. He squeezed the cost out. That's one of the main troubles of the economy, that everybody has done what my friend in the moving business has done. It's perfectly logical."

"That's the way capitalism works," he said.

But if people don't have jobs, they can't buy--and sales stay low. I've argued before that monetary profit shouldn't be the only type.  Employment is a profit too.   Putting money and stock value above everything else breaks a social contract.

And in this recent piece in the New Yorker describing several books on the subject, Nicholas Lehmann writes,

Before the late nineteen-seventies, corporations were not managed for “shareholder value” to the extent that they are today, and many of them offered de-facto lifetime employment and generous health benefits and pensions. The more regulated and localized American economy had all sorts of inefficiencies and trade barriers that created safe harbors for institutions like banks, department stores, insurance companies, fixed-commission stock brokerages, and middlemen in supply chains. Unions were more powerful. In the “new economy,” each line of business tends to have one dominant, global, mainly non-union player, such as Apple, Facebook, or Google. Judt isn’t naïve enough to believe that people will simply come to their senses and reinstate social democracy as it was during its prime, but he does insist, like Rothkopf, that we will have to find ways to shift power from the market and back toward the state….

But now that capitalism is a religion, that's unlikely.

Recently, the NY Times blog discussed partisanship.  And there is a huge divide in moral values (my emphasis)

By two to one, 53-26, Democrats believe that capitalism and Christianity are not compatible. Republicans, in contrast, believe there is no conflict, by a 46-37 margin. Tea Party supporters are even more adamant, believing that capitalism and Christian values are compatible by a 56-35 margin.

Is profit over people (which is what Capitalism has become) a Christian value?  Discuss.

About those liberal Christians: a manifesto

Making the rounds of the blogosphere is the consideration that the definition of "christianity" with the culture wars of gays and abortion is "bad for the brand": 

The exact numbers in this Rachel Held Evans piece, which show that almost all young American non-Christians and even most self-identified young American Christians think that the primary tenet of Christianity is hating on the gays, are a little higher than I've seen from other public opinion surveys. But the general shape is the same. The Millenial Generation has broadly equated Christianity with the political project of conservative Christians at the national level. Which is to say, opposition to abortion and gay marriage, with little room for anything else. ... 

This should really serve as a wake up call to church leaders. The once near-universal brand of American Christianity is being associated with an ever-shrinking size of the American public.. [T]he window of opportunity where people might be willing to consider a more relevant form of modern Christianity is closing.

 It seems that liberal Christians are starting (finally) to speak out against the efforts  of the evangelical right to claim the word "Christian" for themselves.  Ken Locke, a Presbyterian pastor in TN, contemplates why it has taken so long.

Many moderates avoid confronting extremism because it is unseemly. Castigating someone on television would be embarrassing. And yet, it appears that that is the only way to get one’s views across. It seems that only by staking out an extreme position, and vehemently denouncing anyone who even timidly disagrees, is it possible to join the public debate.

Furthermore, thoughtful, nuanced ideas do not lend themselves to brevity. Reduced to sound bites, our positions lose the important context and thought process that gave them birth.

Finally, most moderates are pretty busy. We have parishioners to care for, meetings to chair, weddings and funerals and worship services to lead. Our time is taken up with caring for our flocks, not sharing our views with the world.

But if we do not share our views, how will they be spread? If we don’t say something, how will anyone ever come to appreciate that many people of faith are much more broad and welcoming than our extremists make us appear?

He goes on to enumerate the values of liberal Christianity:

• The Earth is the Lord’s, and when we pollute it, we are destroying God’s property. Issues of global warming aside, we desperately need to radically reduce our pollution.
• Science and Christianity are perfectly compatible. Evolution is real. The world was not created in 144 hours.
• Marriage between consenting adults should be perfectly legal regardless of sexual orientation. Legal protections for both heterosexual and same-sex couples should be equal.
• Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus et al must be treated with respect and consideration. They are God’s children just as much as Christians. Their salvation is in God’s hands, not ours.
• Young people have sex. Young women get pregnant. Abstinence is preferable, but birth control is sensible.
• No one has an abortion on a whim. Legally defining the beginning of life at conception is an act of power against the powerless. The decision to abort should be between the mother, the care-provider and God.
• No single branch of Christianity has a complete and pure understanding of God’s will for humanity.
• Faith has a role in every aspect of life, but often that role is more informative than prescriptive. The Bible says nothing about gun control, capital gains taxes or the U.S. Department of Education per sé. Anyone claiming it does is cherry-picking the text.
• God cares desperately for the poor, the immigrant and the powerless. We neglect them at our peril.
• Life belongs to God, not to the state. Capital punishment is not only failed policy, it is also usurpation of God’s prerogative by the state.
• God does not love any one country more, or less, than any other.

And finally (my emphasis):

I repeat, I am not the only one who believes this. There are lots of us in every denomination. I say to those aching for an alternative to the loudest voices, if you will tune them out and listen to the heartfelt whispers, you will certainly find one that makes your heart sing. 

And I say to my friends and colleagues — now is the time to get over our shyness. We must find time and venues for declaring what it is we believe. Our message is too important to allow it to be drowned out by hysteria and hyperbolae. In season and out of season let us proclaim our message of tolerance and openness until every heart sings with joy.

I think that nails it (to the wall, even).  I hope that all liberal Christians take this year, this election year, to throw open wide the closet doors and come out!

And while I don't think you should claim  that the other side "isn't Christian" (as Rick Santorum famously did of liberal Christians), a robust push back against their rhetoric is essential.  Beginning with a regular,  strong protest every time they claim that their opposition  to liberal values is "because I'm a Christian".  That means, write every paper, email every news channel, speak out in every conversation, and say "They don't speak for Christianity!"  All of you!

Go, do it!

THe hypocrisy of opposition to marriage equality

As we've discussed, lots of writers are dealing with issues facing Christianity in the current era. Andrew Sullivan wrote a provocative piece on Christianity in Crisis, that places much of the blame on rigid conservative views. Contrasting this, the conservative writer and Roman Catholic Ross Douthat has written a book called "Bad Religion" , that apparently calls for a return to more traditionalist discipline. (I haven't read it, I've only seen reviews.)

Douthat is engaged in a conversation with writer Will Saletan, at Slate. Their back-and-forth is worth reading, if only to watch Douthat's contortions to justify certain traditionalist views; as Saletan says, about DOuthat's view of gays,

"I’m watching an intelligent, compassionate writer torture his intellect and his values to fit a dogma that can no longer be justified by anything outside itself.

Your argument requires you to believe that God’s natural order inflicts on hundreds of millions of people a sexual orientation they can never consummate or solemnize in a way that would honor His purposes. ”

Andrew Sullivan also takes on Douthat by pointing out the most glaring hypocrisy in Douthat's argument against gay people. And it's one that we need to point out frequently.

Let me use an obvious analogy which really gets to the heart of the unfairness at the center of this.

Modern America is full of divorced couples. Unlike homosexuality, Jesus spoke unequivocally about divorce. Does Ross insist that our civil laws return to banning divorce on all grounds? No. Does he back a constitutional amendment to ban civil divorce? No. His reason would be to say that it simply cannot be done democratically. But that precisely reveals the church's discriminatory position on gay people...

Notice too how they are not threatening to shut down services for the poor and homeless because one of their civil employees might be re-married or divorced (and thereby violating church doctrine). And yet they apply that standard to gay people - who have not chosen any lifestyle, but are guilty purely of being as God made them. They do it because we are few in number and they can deploy the power of religion to demonize us.

This deliberate tolerance of heterosexuals and deliberate intolerance of homosexuals on the same issue is on its face discriminatory…..What else can this be rooted in but animus? And total panic.

If the "religious freedom" of the Roman Catholic bishops requires that secular employers who are Roman Catholic can interfere in the most personal decision of a woman's health care, and deny benefits to gay couples, then they should also expect those employers to deny coverage of divorced-and-remarried spouses as well. Or is it just the women and the gays who are to be victims of "religious freedom"?

Conservatives don't like Sullivan's call to Jesus

So, the Andrew Sullivan essay (linked in the post below this one) has attracted some pushback.  Here's Bill Donohue, arch-conservative Roman Catholic, standing up for the hierarchy and pay, pray, and obey:

The Jesus that Sullivan has created—“calm, loving, accepting,” and, of course, “homeless”—is what happens when “Occupy Wall Street” becomes mistaken for Catholicism. Worse, Sullivan’s “Etch A Sketch” Jesus accounts for his remarkable conclusion that “the cross was not the point” of Jesus’ life. 

Sullivan’s article reads like a public confession. It is not the Catholic Church that is obsessing about people’s sex lives, as he alleges. No, it is people like him. He wants a Catholic Church without Catholicism. And I want cotton candy without cavities.

Sullivan responds,

As for his argument that I dismiss the cross as central to Christianity, here's what I actually wrote: 

[Jefferson] believed that stripped of the doctrines of the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the various miracles, the message of Jesus was the deepest miracle. And that it was radically simple. It was explained in stories, parables, and metaphors—not theological doctrines of immense complexity. It was proven by his willingness to submit himself to an unjustified execution. The cross itself was not the point; nor was the intense physical suffering he endured. The point was how he conducted himself through it all—calm, loving, accepting, radically surrendering even the basic control of his own body and telling us that this was what it means to truly transcend our world and be with God.

Discuss!