Last month, I began Lent by sharing that a recent set of talks had opened my eyes to the cultural trends impacting the state of the church. This week, I complete this series by discussing the third of three shifts from a conventional institution to experiential faith: a change from what we believe to how we believe.
When we discuss what we believe, we’re talking about dogma: ideas and opinions about God. Over the centuries, the church has developed a lot of dogma. Those dogmatic statements have also led to a lot of dissention, division, and splits in the church over the course of Christian history. I would say they’ve also led us far away from Jesus, who never told us what to believe, but rather how to live.
Many dogmatic statements sound both unbelievable and immaterial to many modern Americans. (For example, “Why does it matter that Jesus’ mother was a virgin?”) The emphasis on dogma also leads us to focus on asking questions like, “How can an all-powerful and loving God allow so many children to die in Ukraine and Gaza?” rather than asking, “What would Jesus do, and what is mine to do, in addressing the violence taking place around me?”
As a result, many young people avoid churches because they don’t want to be told what to believe (see my post from two weeks ago about that), and/or they don’t see how dogma helps with the issues they face and the way they seek to live their lives.
That doesn’t mean they don’t take faith seriously. Modern Americans have a lot of questions, and many struggle to frame the questions or have substantive conversations about what really matters. Since social media is where so many conversations are happening these days, we discover that people are asking their spiritual questions there (rather than in church), in what Diana Butler Bass calls “messy but authentic” conversations.
What does this mean for the church? It means we need to practice (see my post from last week) welcoming and talking about the hard how questions (“How do we live authentic and loving lives?”) rather than just spouting dogma that tells us what to believe. We need be willing to learn together, in community, how to understand God through encountering God through others in the midst of our life experiences.
Last week, I noted that I concur with those who think the church is in the midst of a five-hundred-year revolution. I think that’s happening because of these three shifts in believing, behaving, and belonging. I think the future of the Christian church can be found in openly sharing both questions and leadership and in supporting the development of a web of authentic relationships.
All those are things that Jesus welcomed and encouraged too, by the way.
What do you think?
I love your paragraph about how we could be asking what Jesus would do and what can we do in response to the many acts of violence happening around the world right now. This totally takes the focus off of “How could a loving God permit these things to happen?” Placing the blame on God relieves us of any responsibility to actually do something to improve the conditions around the world. I think this is where the admonition to think globally and act locally comes in. We can do some of both; donate to a group that helps to get food to starving people across the world, and volunteer to do something locally such as work at the food bank or Casa Alitas or Casa Maria or the Primavera Men’s Shelter. There are countless ways to practice our Christianity in concrete ways.
Thank you, Aston. Thinking (and praying) globally while acting locally makes very good sense, and aligns with Jesus’ wisdom and his own practices. I appreciate the reminder that blaming God allows us to avoid responsibility for caring for those around us…may we all find the right concrete ways to show our faith in love!
Peace,
Shirin