Ernie : An excellent article, right down my alley. But there is another way to look at the problem. Some autobiography is necessary, so please bear with me on this. There were several life-long lessons I took with me from the time when I was a true-believer Baptist. Whatever else has been true in my life since my early 20s, no longer a member of a Baptist church by then, these lessons have remained central to who I am as a person. In other words, in my Baha'i years you could say that I was a Baptist-Baha'i, in the years when Buddhism has been a preoccupation nonetheless the form that Buddhism took for me was, you might say, Baptist-Buddhism. And so forth for everything else. The lesson most relevant here was the idea, given me by Baptist sermons at North Shore Baptist Church and reinforced many times over at Baptist summer camp at Green Lake , Wisconsin, was simply this : Faith is the most important thing in life, it concerns your eternal salvation, your ultimate destiny, to use different terminology. Of course, I could never become a pastor, as two good friends from my teen years had gone on to become, there were simply too many serious problems with some particular Baptist views such that I left the church, but the point about salvation registered forever, no question about that. Basically these problems centered on my views about other faiths and about sexuality. That is, first, while obviously there are differences between religions, and while Christian faith is special in any number of ways, no way could I dismiss the profound good in a number of "other faiths," especially not after getting to know, personally, a number of non-Christians and especially not , when considering the many Jews I knew in Chicago when still a youngster and then a young man. About sexuality, what we might call "Victorianism" from early on struck me as ill-advised. Were we all supposed to be some equivalent of Protestant monks or nuns, at least prior to marriage ? Yes, Paul said so, or came close to saying so, or not Years later, reading the Epistles with more care than was possible for me early in life, it turned out that he was far more nuanced than I was led to believe and more flexible than most people ( 90 % + ) give him credit for. But life had gone on and Baptists and most other serious Christians interpreted Paul to be pretty much a Victorian. In other words, my personal heresy, a more flexible understanding of sexuality than one usually finds in 'hard line' Christian churches, was Pauline all along. But to find this out , for me, it took leaving the church and exploring all kinds of ideas elsewhere., and getting to know all kinds of people who were anything but Baptists. I also learned that all sorts of views about sexuality taken as true by many of these "others" were genuinely dysfunctional, but out of all of this came a new understanding of the issue. This only took maybe 30 years but, heck, I'm a slow learner. Some lessons were by way of observation, decidedly not experience, "observation" that might feature lots of research rather than anything else, hence my totally uncompromising criticisms of homosexuality, but along the way there were many people to deal with who took pro-homosexual views. Some of them were friends. So it took time to work through that set of problems, also. These basics out of the way, now is a good point to get back to the theme : Religion, religious faith as the most important thing in life. For everyone who takes this view there are different ways to understand the personal imperatives that necessarily follow from it. My imperatives won't be the same as your's, your's won't be the same as someone else's, and so forth for each of us --here and everywhere. But some set of imperatives follow and from them, whatever they are, and from them comes solid commitment that withstands every test. This is not to say that one's specific beliefs may not need to be revised at times in life ; for most people there may be several crisis points in life where there are "private reformations." Or at least 2 or 3 such points. So the question comes down to this, for anyone : Do you believe, deep down inside, that religious faith really is crucial to your life ? That, in a sense, nothing else could possibly be more important ? For if anyone answers "yes," then a foundation exists to move mountains. Maybe an awkward metaphor but hopefully the idea is clear enough. Which is to say that the "gathering storm" in Christian faith, with parallels in just about all other religions, is caused by lack of this view of faith, by another view to the effect that any number of "other" things actually are more important. IF this is true the question simply is this : How is it possible to get the point across that, indeed, nothing else can be as important ? Or : What is the evidence that supports this understanding and how can you educate others to examine this evidence ? This does not say that the understanding you --anyone-- had of faith at age 14 suffices for age 21 or 35, but it does say that whatever new views you arrive at nonetheless are based on the "axiom" that faith --which can be conceived in a number of ways-- has to be central to life. That is, the issue is commitment based on conviction. Lose this and lose everything. Possibly the problem at large is that too many people never really think of faith along these lines. For them opinion --of friends, associates in the world of business, people in politics or the media, etc-- is more important. To the extent that this is true, then one's "house of religion" surely is built upon sand. How, then, do you --anyone-- find justifiable grounds for conviction in the first place ? This really is vital. All I can tell you is my solution : The answer has to be approximately as much a matter of education ( in a very broad sense by no means limited to schools ) as well as spiritual experience. That is, and about this I think my outlook is more Catholic than not, there absolutely needs to be a strong balance of faith as inspired by personal experience and faith as a consequence of serious study and investigation and hard thinking, something like philosophical questioning. This kind of thinking and investigation also needs to be as open-minded as possible without compromising one's principles so that you learn all the lessons you are able to learn from people who are different than you and who may believe different things. All of this has to be taken into account. But do this, and the result, at least so it seems to me, is to build your house on a foundation that is as solid as anything can possibly get. The problem I see is that way too many "houses" are built on sand. And no wonder that a crisis is brewing in religion. Maybe this helps a little. Best I can say for now. Billy ===================================== 4/13/2012 1:23:41 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
This, like David's essay, deserves serious commentary. Will try to get to this later, when time allows. Billy ========================================== 4/13/2012 1:10:06 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: >From one of the blogs I just cited. Don't know much about them, but what I've seen I like so far... _http://www.christandpopculture.com/elsewhere/tim-keller-ross-douthat-and-ch ristianitys-decline-in-the-us/_ (http://www.christandpopculture.com/elsewhere/tim-keller-ross-douthat-and-christianitys-decline-in-the-us/) Tim Keller, Ross Douthat, and Christianity’s Decline in the US Over at Redeemer’s _City to City Blog_ (http://redeemercitytocity.com/blog/view.jsp?Blog_param=420) , Pastor Tim Keller has written a post in which he interacts with some of the ideas in NYT columnist _Ross Douthat’s_ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/rossdouthat/ index.html) upcoming book entitled _Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics_ (http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Religion-Became-Nation-Heretics/dp/1439178305) . Per the publisher’s request, Keller does not quote from, or offer a formal review of, Douthat’s book, but instead pens a post regarding Douthat’s essential premise: Christianity has been and still is in decline in the United States. Keller calls Douthat’s ideas “essential reading for all Christians seeking to understand Christianity’s relationship to culture in the US.” While that may seem to some people an overstatement, I don’t think it an exaggeration. Most people recognize this premise as a reality (whether they view this decline as a problem or a victory is another question). However, far fewer people seem to recognize the essential nature of the problem, much less the sense in which they might be participating in it. While Keller’s post is worth reading in full, one particular section is noteworthy. Referencing Douthat’s second chapter, Keller offers five “major social catalysts” for Christianity’s decline since the 1960′s: 1) First, the political polarization that has occurred between the Left and Right drew many churches into it (mainline Protestants toward the Left, evangelicals toward the Right). This has greatly weakened the church’s credibility in the broader culture, with many viewing churches as mere appendages and pawns of political parties. 2) Second, the sexual revolution means that the Biblical sex ethic now looks unreasonable and perverse to millions of people, making Christianity appear implausible, unhealthy, and regressive. 3) Third, the era of decolonization and Third World empowerment, together with the dawn of globalization, has given the impression that Christianity was imperialistically “western” and supportive of European civilization’s record of racism, colonialism, and anti-Semitism. 4) The fourth factor has been the enormous growth in the kind of material prosperity and consumerism that always works against faith and undermines Christian community. 5) The fifth factor is—that all the other four factors had their greatest initial impact on the more educated and affluent classes, the gatekeepers of the main culture-shaping institutions such as the media, the academy, the arts, the main foundations, and much of the government and business world. What’s striking to me is how self-evident these points seem even here at Christ and Pop Culture. All you need to do is read Alan Noble’s column “ _Citizenship Confusion_ (http://www.christandpopculture.com/tag/citizenship-confusion/) ” each week to see how confused a good many Christians are about points 1 (political power posturing) and 3 (the perpetuation of racism and imperialistic kingdom-building is more than an impression, is it not?). Or take, for example, some of the comments in Faith Newport’s most recent “ _The Female Gaze_ (http://www.christandpopculture.com/asides/the-female-gaze-great-expectations/) ” column to see almost word-for-word evidence of point 2 (Christianity’s “old fashioned” sexual ethic). One commenter suggested the following regarding sexual ethics from a Christian perspective: Having a discussion based on intellect, exploring ideas other than the ones we have shoved down our throats every Sunday, admitting that the things we ’ve been told might not be entirely accurate or relevant anymore[.] . . . Christians today are so against questioning the Bible, the church teachings, and “the way it’s always been” and I cannot be a part of something so disconnected from logic. While point 4 (materialistic consumerism) is in many ways connected with the 1st point (political power posturing), the 5th factor seems especially important: those in charge of the major culture-shaping institutions have been most significantly affected by the first four factors. For a thorough examination of this top-down institutional phenomenon, UVA sociologist _James Davison Hunter’s_ (http://www.amazon.com/To-Change-World-Possibility-Christianity/dp/0199730806/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334017491&sr=1-1) book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, is an absolute must-read. Or, at the very least, Carissa Turner Smith’s excellent _essay_ (http://www.christandpopculture.com/featured/to-change-the-world-there-are-better-reasons-for-engaging-culture/ ) on Hunter’s book is well worth the time. What seems especially evident is that Christians recognize the above issues but often misunderstand the nature of them. How many see Christianity’s decline as a culture war that needs to be won by electing the right political officials? Or, how many see Christianity’s decline as attributable to risque television programs and increasing rights for homosexuals, and yet overlook our in-house troubles with sexual promiscuity and essentially-dead marriages? Or, how many see Christianity’s decline as a battle to be won with the Middle East? Or, how many see Christianity’s decline as the slow uprising of “socialism,” and thus the repression of financial and material prosperity? Or finally, to speak to the 5th point, how many Christians see Christianity’s decline as the triumph of “leftist” institutions, and yet fail to equip and support people to enter into these institutions instead of perpetuating the _scandal of the evangelical mind_ (http://www.amazon.com/Scandal-Evangelical-Mind-Mark-Noll/dp/0802841805) ? In my opinion, Keller pointedly adds to the discussion when he invokes Lesslie Newbigin: Lesslie Newbigin blames the marginalization of Christianity in the West on the outworking of the 18th century Enlightenment—which promoted the sufficiency of individual human reason without faith in God—for a great deal of the shift. In this he understands historical patterns as being caused by ideas and intellectual trends working their way out through a society’s institutions. I see no reason why Newbigin’s history-of-thought approach and Douthat’s sociology-of-knowledge approach cannot both be right. The story of autonomy’s enthronement and steady decay centers on the imperative to qualify freedom with self-restraint. If nothing else, the 20th C. taught us that Reason itself isn’t a sufficient cultural authority. Indeed, you might say that the decline of Christianity comes down to this issue of cultural authority, from who it derives, and how it ought to be achieved. Perhaps, in our attempts to maintain a dominant cultural position and fend off any decline, we have in many ways become a religious mirror of what it is we are fighting against by adopting a stance more concerned with the kind of freedom that forces the Other to submit to one’s purposes. It’s that false freedom that is essentially self-absorption cloaked in nobility. It’s no secret nor coincidence that Christianity flourishes when people are willing to put their lives on the line to love their enemies. It’s urgent that we American Christians reevaluate our purposes and cross-check them with He whose name we claim to bear witness. Christian love is costly, but not more costly than selling our souls to achieve America’s driver seat. Particularly when not only do the ends not justify the means, but the means aren’t even producing the ends. We need to take seriously the outlined factors above, and learn how “love the Lord your God” and “love your neighbor as yourself” might be judiciously applied to them. Christianity’s resuscitation to authenticity in this part of the world depends on it. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
