Christmas traditions and going to church

A new poll looks at Christmas traditions, and finds that Americans enjoy the "cultural" aspect (trees, gifts, Santas), and their practice really depends on what THEY experienced as a child.  But an ever-shrinking number sees the holiday as religious.  From Al Jazeera: 

Whereas 90 percent of Americans of all creeds will celebrate Christmas in 2013 — including 80 percent of non-Christians — Pew found that only about half view Christmas mostly as a religious holiday, and a full third of the population considers it to be primarily a cultural event. 

The gradual erosion of religion’s role from American celebrations of Christmas .... is especially pronounced among 18- to 29-year-olds, who are less likely than older Americans to attend Christmas religious services or to believe in the biblical miracle Christmas is said to celebrate: that Jesus was born of a virgin. 

Even so, churches will burst this Christmas with the once-a-year attendees.  I know our church, which has a robust ASA as it is, will be close to standing room only for the Christmas Eve family service and for midnight mass.   Many will be there for the cultural connection, rather than an overt belief. And many will be young.

Writing in the National Catholic Reporter, a young columnist reflects on the role of church in this context:

One of the worst-kept secrets, particularly among members of my generation, is that secular people go to church. They may not go weekly, and they may not participate in the life of a parish, but they do find certain expressions of their spirituality in the back few pews. 

Often, these times and places are well-known and shared: a weekly vespers service here, a Taize service there. The promise of beautiful music, of a place of quiet, of a safe space for one's thoughts, is enough to bring many people through the door. A tremendous sense of both peace and reverence can be taken away from hours like these. Like the Magi, there's a sense that something powerful and meaningful goes on here and that such power and meaning must be taken in. 

I've certainly written enough about this, about connecting with the space and place, even if not a "believer".  I know I am not the only nonbeliever in the church we attend.  (I'm just the most open about it.)  And if the slogan is, "whoever you are, wherever you are on the journey of faith", then welcoming people without belief, and being content just to have them there if that's what they want, is part of it.  That's radical inclusion.

And another part of it is to let them come and go.

Older parish members often express great interest in this seemingly elusive population of young people. On their minds: How do we convince young people to stay here, to join us every week? How do we bring them into the regular work of this community? What are we doing wrong that they don't find us attractive or meaningful? 

Though extraordinarily well-intentioned, I've come to believe these questions are the wrong ones. They express a desire to serve the spiritual needs of young adults on terms other than their own. They conflate offering hospitality, which is essential to any church, with someone taking us up on that offer. They represent a kind of focus on results, on numbers, which isn't an appropriate measure of the richness of a spiritual life. 

You know the thing, because you've seen it:  middle-aged folks trying to be more "hip" for the youth (and too often, turning off their older members).   Sure, we'd all like them to come back.  But the author suggests that maybe this is what church is for.

No one truly knows today which churches will sustain social prominence for the next 50 or 100 years. As times get tough, we may need to let go of schools, offices and buildings that are part of our cherished history. But the primary spiritual obligation of the Christian -- an open door to our neighbor -- costs relatively little. The church that loses formal members and tithing but provides a service to its community, provides the mystical body of Christ in its neighborliness, may not be a failure. It may instead be returning to the church's roots.

This is the "if you build it they will come".  Because, they are coming.  They are coming for the deeply spiritual experience, the music, the quiet space, the ancient liturgical rhythms.  They are coming for the traditions even if they only come once a year.

So, when your church burgeons to overflowing at Christmas, don't get annoyed at the people who don't know when to stand or who are sitting in your favorite pew.  Direct a welcoming smile at the new faces. Make them want to come back,even it it won't be till next Christmas.

Welcoming the man in the seat by the aisle

Last Sunday, I was sitting in the side section on the right side of the church (as the congregation sees it).  I normally don't sit on the side pews, but I am a sometime church photographer and there was an Event I was asked to capture during the announcements.  But before that, I just watched, with my observer's eye.

In our church, as in many, the Gospel reading is from the center aisle.  There are two torches and a thurifer, and a verger, as well as the Gospeller.  Over 350 people turned to face the Book.

The Gospel was Luke 3:7-18:  John the Baptist and the vipers."Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

Where I was, on the side,  I noticed a man who was on the opposite side of the side aisle, a row or two behind me.  He was a bit shabby, but not ragged, and I didn't recognize him. He was  intensely moved by the line "I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals".  He sank to his seat and put his face in his hands and his shoulders heaved for a moment, but in a moment he was back on his feet.  The people around him didn't notice, as they were facing the Gospel party in the center aisle, and had their backs to the man.

As I told BP, if I were a real photographer, I'd have shot that image of the seated, sobbing man against the background of standing folk, turned away.  But I couldn't intrude on him that way.

At the  Peace, as is typical, folks shake hands nearby, and then go search for people they know.  The person standing next to the man I'd seen weeping shook his hand, and then looked elsewhere.  I saw others on my side of the aisle look for friends.  I made a point of walking to the man, touching his shoulder, and shaking his hand.

"Peace be with you," I said. 

But I feel bad. I should have asked him to be sure to stay, that he was welcome.  Because later  I realized that he had left the church before Communion. I'm not sure he heard the sub-Dean's words of welcome at the announcements.... "There is no such thing as a visitor to St Paul's;  if you are here, you are a member of this holy family at this holy time."

 I suspect that many people are relieved that "difficult" people don't stay:  the poor, the emotional, those in pain, the demanding, the disturbed, the ill.  It's easy to write a check, to be remote.  It's harder to shake hands, and to listen, and take that risk of being sucked in, that responsibility, when all you want is something safely anonymous that assuages your guilt so you can go do the weekend chores, unencumbered.

My challenge, then, is for each of us to step out of our comfort zone with the strangers who will come to church this season, especially folks who "scare" us. 

Peace be with you.  You are welcome here.

Living with Church (3): politics

If you visit progressive political blogs like Pam's House Blend, or Daily Kos, you will find any thread that discusses LGBT equality to include a substantial fraction of posts decrying religion, invoking the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Invisible Pink Unicorns, and ultimately devolving into an attack on anyone who lifts their head above the parapet and defines themselves as Christian.

It gets so bad at times that I'm often derided as a Christian apologist. And need I remind you that I'm an atheist scientist.

A case in point is over on Counterlight's blog, where a man named Tristan is tarring all Christians with the common brush, in his outrage and anger at being denied his civil rights by so-called Christians, who use their faith as a justification to oppress him. In one post he mentions he studied for the ministry, so further I think he's one of those angry atheists I mentioned earlier, who has literally been driven away by the heterosexism of much of Christianity and he is deeply, deeply hurting as a result.

I have lived some of Tristan's conflict, as I think any gay person has. In my case, I'm a non-believer, yet married to one who is quite devout, and trying to reconcile my anger at organized religion that so relentlessly attacks us.

Case in point: the shady National Organization for Marriage (NOM) which acts as a money-laundering organization for the Roman Catholic church and the Mormons to attack equality around the country-- not just marriage equality, but civil union legislation and other equality efforts too.

NOM is run by conservative Catholics, fronted by Maggie Gallagher, whose testimony in Maryland was so demonizing that it flipped one state senator into the pro-marriage column. NOM is an active donor to the campaigns for anti-marriage amendment now heating up in MN and NC. Its arguments are vicious, based in lies, and justified by their view of religion.

Heck, just read any online comments following a newspaper article about LGBT equality and see how it devolves: any statement in favor will be followed by critics citing the Bible to oppose marriage and calling LGBT people perverts, which will generally be followed by someone deriding Chrisitanity and demanding civil rights. And round and round we go.

Is it any wonder the LGBT community is so anti-religion?

We talked a few weeks ago about Dan Savage's challenge to the NALTS, whom he calls one of the two barriers to marriage equality.

[A]ll those quiet, timid, and cowardly NALT Christians out there who support marriage equality but have allowed their conservative coreligionists to hijack Christianity. ("NALT" stands for "not all like that," the phrase you hear from liberal Christians whenever you bitch about conservative Christians, i.e., "We're not all like that!" Yes, yes, NALTs—we know. You're not all like that. Don't tell us. Tell Tony Perkins, tell the pope, tell Maggie Gallagher.)

That's because right now, the Christian Right has succeeded in defining "Christianity" and the terms of the debate. They have established the Them vs Us definitions that the media uses. Telling the LGBT community, that is hurting so much, that there really ARE Christians supporting them, is of limited help, if you don't fight the lies. Recent polls from HRC and PRR show "Christians", particularly (yes) Roman Catholic laity and mainline Protestants, are really quite positive about LGBT rights including marriage. Those people need to speak out. It's why the HRC Clergy Call is important-- boots on the ground, so to speak, as diverse clergy including our own Susan Russell speak out on Capitol Hill.

I too was subsumed by a lot of anger against religion, particularly against the patriarchal, misogynistic, homophobic Roman Catholic Church in which I grew up. But yet I found myself with a woman of passionate Catholic faith, whose intelligence I deeply respect, and who was not going to give up her faith even as the church abused her. In a classic example of NALT, the majority of her RC friends were very supportive of us personally, and of our marriage. But even so, they saw no problem in asking BP to live a don't-ask-don't-tell life to remain there.

So I set myself the task of finding out how that conflict could be resolved, and thanks to Gene Robinson's consecration, that led me to the Episocopal blogosphere, and the rest, as they say, is history. My wife 's Catholicism is now joyfully expressed in an Anglican flavor. And as part of her journey, I've learned the nuance-- and tamed a lot of my own anger in the process. But we're not done yet.

So here I stand, trying to bridge the communities and bring us together for a common cause. I have a series my blog Gay Married Californian, called Voices of Faith Speak out, where I hope to show the LGBT community that they have allies. And here, I needle you about equality so you can do your share too. The Episcopal Church has done a great job in many places of binding the wounds of hurting people. As Gene Robinson says, though, you can't just pull the people out of the river. You have to go upstream and stop the person who is throwing them in.

Living with Church, part 2: science

Our friend Counterlight recently had an excellent essay on atheism and in the comments we discussed the idea that losing faith, or feeling driven from it, is very different from never really having it. I think that accounts for one form of "angry atheist": those who rail against the loss. Another form, the Dawkins style of anti-theism, is a reaction to the interference of some forms of religion in science, where they really do not belong. The problem with Dawkins and the so called "new atheists" is that they really set science up as an alternative religion, fundamentalist at that. But perhaps that reflects our need to believe in something.

Neuroscientists think that our brains are wired to have a sense of belief, and this sense crosses cultures and continents to be something deeply human. I have no problem with that. As creatures of intellect, everything is perceived through our brain. Consider for example that the emotion of love is a pattern of neuronal impulses in my brain. But that I can explain it this way, doesn't in any way change the transcendent feeling I have, in loving and being loved, The biological explanation really doesn't matter to me, compared to my own experience. Thus, whether you believe God is literally all in our heads, or whether you believe God put your awareness of Him there, doesn't really matter: your brain is parsing your experience and interpreting it as belief. And I have no business telling YOU what you perceive; no more than you have any business telling ME how I experience love.

So if we are actually evolved towards belief, if it's another complex behavioral trait, perhaps it isn't surprising that some people are missing that sense-- just as some people are left handed when most are not, or some are gay where most are straight.

Therefore I suggest that the non-angry atheist, the subtype that includes accommodating non-believers like me, are simply missing The God Gene. So to speak. (Aside: THis is only a term of speech; complex behaviors are far too complicated to ascribe to A Single Gene, as I have discussed at length elsewhere.)

But back to this conflict in making science religion, and religion, science. The philosopher John Gray said in an interview,

"I'm very opposed to investing science with the needs and requirements of religion. I'm equally opposed to the tendency within religion, which exists in things like creationism and intelligent design, to turn religion into a kind of pseudo-science. If you go back to St. Augustine or before, to the Jewish scholars who talk about these issues, they never regard the Genesis story as a theory. Augustine says explicitly that it should not be interpreted explicitly, that it's a way of accessing truths which can't really be formulated by the human mind in any rational way. It's a way of accessing mysterious features which will remain mysterious. So it was always seen right up to the rise of modern science—as a myth, not a theory. What these creationists are doing is retreating, they're accepting the view of religion promoted by scientific enemies of religion, and saying, no, we have got science and it's better than your science. Complete error."

I agree.

Interestingly, it's largely (though not exclusively) the conservative fundamentalists who attack science and see it as a threat, not the more intellectually grounded mainline. And it's these fundamentalists against whom the Dawkins school is reacting, by themselves going fundamentalist.

Believe it or not, most non-believers really don't care if you believe. We aren't making a religion out of our faithlessness, because we just don't get it. When people ask me if I "worship" Darwin, I am really puzzled. They are projecting their need to believe in Something, and assuming that someone who doesn't believe in God has replaced Him. But this concept is completely alien to me. Darwin was just a scientist, who like all of us got some things right, and some things wrong. I don't "worship" him or anyone else. I really don't have that wiring.

Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist, made news this week by saying he doesn't believe in an afterlife and called such a belief a "fairy tale." While this was rude, what got lost in the fallout was what else he said:

In the interview, Hawking rejected the notion of life beyond death and emphasised the need to fulfill our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives. In answer to a question on how we should live, he said, simply: "We should seek the greatest value of our action."

Gray went in the same direction:

"Without spurning any of the advances of science, we could be friendlier to our mortality. The transience of our lives is one of the things that makes it valuable."

We pass this way but once. Those of faith may see it as a step on a journey, those without may see it as all there is. But surely what we have in common is that we are all here. Life is transient. We need to be conscious in giving it value.

Living with church, part 1: accommodating

I go to church every Sunday with my wife. Some Sundays we go twice, to Evensong as well. My wife is now a thurifer and an acolyte, so I often am left in the pew doing Episcopal calisthenics while she's up on the chancel doing other things. (As an aside, she is so joyful and happy up there--and in church generally--that the long journey she took to TEC was really worth it. Give yourselves a pat on the back.)

I listen to the familiar rhythm of the liturgy, so similar to the Roman Catholic words with which I grew up. I listen to the full throat of the organ and the voices of the choir weaving the tapestry of classical polyphony. And generally I'm lucky enough to get a really good and thought-provoking sermon, too, as the quality of preaching is quite high. But I don't sing, I don't say anything, and I don't take Communion, because I'm a church-going non-believer.

Around and about this week, people have been discussing faith, atheism, and science. Just as there is a tendency of non-believers (and the media) to color all Christians with Jerry Falwell paint, there is a tendency of believers to pigeonhole all atheists as faith bashers.

Yet I'm not alone in being an…. accommodator. Recently, the Templeton Prize was given to astrophysicist Martin Rees, who has been described as a "Churchgoer who doesn't believe in God." He commented in an interview,

What I've said is I'm happy to attend my college chapel and things like that, because I see this as part of my culture, just like many Jews light candles on Friday night even though they don't believe anything, and my culture is the Church of England, as it were.

Similarly, my culture is clearly high church trinitarian sacramental Catholicity of one form or another. Hence the comfortable familiarity of the liturgy makes it a pleasant experience. I would have a much harder time with a more…. er, "contemporary Christian" kind of thing. There would be no cultural connection.

As the philosopher John Gray said in a recent interview,

"I'm not a believer, but I'm friendly to religion, partly because it goes with being human—it's an odd kind of humanism which is hostile to something which is so quintessentially human as religion."

Exactly. It would be foolishness to deny the impact of faith on western thought or on the people around me. To me, the issue is not whether you have faith, or not. It's whether you can accommodate me, as I can accommodate you.

So, I remain a non-believer in the pew. I don't make a point of it, because after all I'm choosing to be there. I'm sure most of the folks in church don't know or notice. Those that do, may think I'm simply "earlier on the journey" than others. (I think some people think I'm Jewish, based on the occasional question. This is a frequent assumption because I'm dark and strong-featured.)

Instead, I tend to think that I've gone much further. I've gone past being religious, through my religion-bashing phase and to some extent am post-religious. Now I can find the common ground with my socially progressive instincts and faith groups who articulate it on the ground.

Besides the music is great.

More tomorrow.

Photo: font, St Paul's Cathedral San Diego (c) author