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How Christian Are Christians?
Last Wednesday, I caught a bit of Glenn Beck’s show while driving across town. The subject kept me from turning the dial, even though I don’t usually listen to him. The subject? How Christianity is losing the culture.
In an interview with Jonathan Bock, they went over some Pew Research and Gallup poll numbers that show alarming statistics for church attendance, Bible reading habits, and tithing.
Just know as I go on that I am quite bad at all three. We do not tithe 10 percent, though I do try to give what I promise. We have been irregular attendees and my Bible reading is sporadic (though improving). Basically, I’m the 70-80 percent of Christians who don’t go to church.
In my attempt last year to attend more regularly, we found a new church. It leaves much to be desired, but I am getting over those details just to be in community with other Christians.
The last four weeks have reminded me why I have a difficult time going to church. And it does not appear Bock tackled those issues. There is an assumption in Bock’s analysis that the Word of God is what is being preached from the Sunday pulpit. Three out of four of the last sermons (every sermon given by one priest) had allusions to the “right” response to the Broward County shooting. Hint: it isn’t more security or increasing the age from 18 to 21. “Guns are the problem!”
Ahem.
Policy and politics should not be preached from the pulpit unless there is a theologically sound reason to side on one side over the other. There is no such case for guns unless your theology is pacifism, but even many pacifists (for theological reasons) don’t view pacifism as something to force on others.
But to preach politics puts those who disagree with your politics outside the church. Why would you do that but not teach about sexual morality?
Bock never goes into one of the possibilities for lower attendance: the proliferation of politics in the church. Instead, he notes that out of those who remain, their tithing and Bible reading are abysmal.
But he never offers up numbers on Bible reading and prayer among those who no longer attend.
It may be that a good many devout Christians have abandoned a church that doesn’t teach the word of God, but instead preaches the words of politicians and activists.
I will still attend, but I don’t know how much longer I can stomach the politics.
Published in Politics, Religion & Philosophy
Then you should be a Catholic! :)
That’s when you know it’s going to be all about politics! Ugh
I knew a pastor who like to say that people came to church in search of “meaningful connections and meaningful responsibilities” and they leave when they don’t find one or the other. By meaningful connections, he meant with other people. I think there is some truth to that. But it’s not the whole truth.
My thinking is that folks long for an encounter with the living God. Church often feels like you are going through the motions, and feels especially like that if you never encounter God in that experience. When they fail to encounter God but instead encounter “church politics”, division, cliques, and all the other stuff that you get when two or more are gathered (in His name, or not), but they don’t encounter God, they don’t find meaningful connections, they don’t experience meaningful responsibilities, then they fall away. Because nobody wants to be a part of something that is dead.
Your pastor should be teaching theology, not politics. It is up to you to decide how to apply that theology to the world around you.
Seems to me, especially for you as a Catholic, it’s not the church that’s important, nor the words of the priest. The leader is a human and is fallible. If you’re going to believe in a magical god, then you need to keep your worship at a level above the words of the priest and concentrate on how you live and what you believe.
If the priest is an idiot, and I’ve met a few of them (did I tell you about the drunken priest that cussed me out when I cheerfully called out good morning to him?) but if you’re going to believe in your god, then you should do it whole heartedly and regardless of what the priest says.
To me, this is the strength of Catholicism. Except for a few things the Pope does, it is much more independent of the vagaries of individuals in the church. I know that seems contrary to what many might think, but protestants seem to have no anchor. They will switch churches at the drop of a hat and they seem not to recognize the theological inconsistencies between these different churches. With Catholics, what the priest says isn’t binding, it’s just supposed to be persuasive. It’s the beliefs themselves, developed over two millenia that are established and sometimes binding.
But then, it’s all academic because there is no god. But if you believe there is a god, you should be Catholic. Or Jewish. And don’t worry so much about the particular parish you’re in, because though the priest might be irritating, you’re there for something higher, not his dumb politics.
Stina,
I feel for you and I love your honest approach to this.
As for me, I belong to the liberal Lutheran denomination, and I can honestly say I hate everything about my church except for our Pastor, his sermons, and members of our congregation, these things I love. You take the good with the bad, but if my comfort level was low and I found myself squirming at sermons on a regular basis, I think I’d start searching too. Good luck :)
I chuckled at this one, as my Episcopal church has gone off-lectionary for a four-week sermon series on Titus. Feathers are ruffled at this dangerous heterodoxy.
Well, no. At least not in my case.
Still, I think it’s easier for women to adopt male role models than for men to adopt female role models, so limiting women to supporting roles seems like good psychology if you want to keep men interested in the church.
I’m greatly enjoying the comments, thank you all of you!
Yes. This has also been crucial to me. You must know the word of God so you can test all teachings against it. I believe God speaks in many ways and through others, but I don’t believe he contradicts himself.
Yes. I agree with you. This is one reason I am still Episcopal. As long as faithful still seek God and uphold his word, it is not lost.
I do try to balance the need for sound teaching with the importance of maintaining a “remnant” if you will.
I went orthodox for lent, at least in eating. It’s not going well, but I have seen benefit.
Basics are good.
The church should preach how the gospel applies to every facet of life, including politics. Our actions in the political sphere are no different than our actions in the family sphere- or any other- in that they need to line up with the teachings of Christ. A good pastor isn’t afraid to tackle how issue X should be biblically addressed by a Christ follower.
Also, I believe Glenn Beck is a Mormon, so a different set of priorities may apply.
This is nearly a CoC violation as far as I’m concerned, what an idiotic and unnecessarily snarky thing to say…
I can’t believe in uncaused causes. I don’t think man can whip up his own morality system by observation and thinking. I was raised Protestant, but Judaism and Taoism have the most appeal to me.
It’s not intentional snark – it’s @skyler :-) – and he does have a point…Find a faith community that challenges and supports you along the way, and doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulties. Rather than one that coddles and creates a friction-free zone with the world-at-large.
I always take my spiritual advice from people who claim there is no God. No…wait…I was confused for a moment. Strike that.
I believe Stina’s point was that the preacher wasn’t grounding the political message in any of Christ’s teachings.
Martin Luther himself appealed to church history, and the teachings of the past 1500 years of church life. Many of his followers have continued to do so, as have Protestants of non-Lutheran stripes. Speaking of which, recognizing theological differences is why there are so many Protestant churches from which to choose. Sure, you can always find church splits that came from personal differences, or people that changed churches because the worship team didn’t rock hard enough. But there have also been whole denominations formed around fine points of doctrine. It’s not accurate to claim that Protestantism somehow unmoors people from doctrine, or that Protestants don’t care what is taught. That may describe some Protestants, but it could describes plenty of Catholics, as well.
Couldn’t disagree more. The Gospel is decidedly apolitical. And because it is apolitical, you can twist it up to support whatever position you want, in most cases. Which is why advocating for any specific position, again in most cases, should be avoided from the pulpit.
Yes.
I can understand a theological position to not arm oneself from a pacifist viewpoint based on Jesus’ words in Gethsemane. But Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he discusses circumcision and clean eating seems to support a live and let live attitude where something isn’t explicitly forbidden.
Advocating a ban on guns flies in the face of that.
If he wanted to wade into politics, and there wasn’t an explicit biblical position on the topic, I could live with a more open and biblical exegesis that supports both sides with an emphasis on those verses. He could even say his own personal view! But overall, the focus needs to be on God.
The first sermon I was very careful with. It was evident he was grieving and I got it, even though his message was very hopeless and lacking in Biblical grounding in Christ. The Gospel is a message of Hope, not despair, and he gave into despair.
But I think he is growing more bold in his advocacy because he has no pushback. What do you say? Sure, let’s have this conversation but out of the pulpit where you are speaking on spiritual matters with God’s authority and when you are done grieving. Does one just say that to their priest?
I’ve grown enough that it takes serious issues to keep me from meaningful connection with God in any church, but I think you are right.
Meaningful connections with people help the connection to God, though.
Yes. When all is stripped away, this is the root of what I believe, too.
Once churches go left-wing they hemorrhage members. It makes sense, that people quit coming when politics becomes more important than G-d.
You may be right but then why pick the oldest and most solid western religions? I don’t know, because I can’t get my mind around the notion of a god or a son of God, but then I can’t get my mind around quantum physics either but I’m told it’s likely to be true because the physical universe seems to behave consistently with it. I think the same can be said about Jewish and Christian texts and traditions in relation to human civilization which is infinitely more complex than the physical universe.
So much to unpack yo. My Church preaches the gospel but it baby stuff that makes you feel good. No hard messages that require sacrifice. God forbid you teach a gospel that is not about making you comfortable but changellging you. Two cults are destroying this nation. The the cult comfort which is a major driver that has help led to the cult of basterhood. There is a lot to blame but it us basically making a gospel that we like that we can fit in the world better that require only so much change.
The old testament is highly political. It was failure for the Iserialites. A political system in which God created and wrote we could not live up to. That is why we needed Jesus so we where not bound to the law aka a political system but we where saved from it. The idea we can create a righteous political system and find our rightouness hope and salvation in it has been tried already and failed. Not that there is anything bad with laws and a political system based on Judah Christian beliefs. The cult of politics were of people just belived in our political system and would find purpose and hope there and would get ride of evil is a lie. I hate this finding my religion in politics. It also makes me want to withdraw and have nothing to due with it. However consertives can just be as bad in a few areas.
One might wish. Xi Jinping might not agree, though. Or, were we citizens of Iran we might have some difficulty being apolitical. Even here, there may be circumstances where faith becomes political. Being a baker in Colorado, for example.
And while the gospel itself is apolitical the consequences are decidedly not. “We must obey God rather than men.”
Yeah, I think religion and politics are inseparable, because they’re both about values. However, it’s possible for a sermon to touch on political issues as they relate to faith without offering policy prescriptions. Sounds like this pastor failed at that.
That’s all I’m saying…
We (well, me anyway) are not in China nor Iran. I know some rock-solid Christian men and women who are, politically, liberals. I understand how they come to the conclusion to be liberal. I just don’t agree with it. But I don’t question their Christianity. Where they to preach their liberal ideology in church one day, I would assume that by doing so they were saying “The right way to be Christian is to be a liberal.” Then I’d have a problem.
I have a problem even when they’re not preaching it, because they want to give away our freedom, which is God’s highest value for us. He so wants us to have freedom, He allowed sin to come into the world and then gave his only Son to conquer it. My question to liberal Christians (can’t be leftist Christians — that’s oxymoronic) would always be, “Why do you want to give away our freedom?“
That’s fine, and you certainly can disagree with them. What you cannot do is say “Well, you are a liberal, so you must not be a Christian.” I mean, you can say it, it just won’t be true. Did the Lord promise you political freedom? No. He promised you freedom from the punishment for your sin. That’s not to say you shouldn’t be happy you are free and do all you can to protect your freedom, for sure. But your political opinion is not greater than a liberal’s political opinion, in any theological sense, on most of the issues.
All God’s chillun got warts.
The essentials of the gospel are simple: One of the essentials is growth but we grow at different rates and are in different places on the road of sanctification. When a person is in a place where someone they trust to watch out for them (like the pastor) is misleading them that makes for slow growth. So be patient with them. I got saved, by the mercy of God, in my early thirties and I’m 71 this year but am still getting straightened out. How often have I said, “I never thought of that.” I am still saying it.