Re-inventing Christianity for our time in history
Why is a new re-invention of Christianity necessary? The answer is its perceived irrelevance to contemporary life, a disillusionment with what the young think of as traditional religious "myths." And disillusionment with old forms of Christian faith. Why show up in church on Sunday? What good does that do? The way out of this conundrum is not doctrinal; the young are more and more unpersuaded of any and all doctrines. This is so because of prevailing modes of thought, most of which comes under the rubric "anything goes." There is no recognized right and wrong -except insofar as the libertarians reduce all moral issues to question of "freedom" and the Left conceives of the issue in terms of its various political programs that advantage the down-and-out to the expense of everyone else. The Right still promotes "traditional values" but its practitioners are utterly tone deaf to the witness of science, the example of cultural trends, modern day entertainment, and so forth. The Right, in other words, is incompetent to fight in the fray because culture and values can only be conceived in traditional terms by Rightists- which the young (mostly) reject. Rightists are otherwise all (or mostly) fish out of water. People of the Right may be highly successful at business and in the professions, many are very successful. But never having taken culture seriously as part of politics they simply don't know what to do but rehash past platitudes and principles. They may invest billions in ventures in the energy industry, or foreign trade, or retail merchandising, but not one dime in anything cultural -since they view culture as a frill. They have all the culture they need, they believe, in church or in popular entertainment -which they often regard as neutral even when it is tilted 90 degrees to the Left. At the level of young families this conventional approach by the Right is successful enough to persist and even grow in some locations. But to speak of Evangelicals in particular, this is also to speak of a culturally impoverished population. Not for one minute is this some kind of criticism of the many (many) good things that Evangelicals may do in their communities or in society at large. But it is recognition of the fact that in the battle for hearts and minds Evangelicals are not doing very well. After several decades of real growth among Evangelicals while "liberal churches" have all been in decline, even conservative churches are now starting to falter. All across the map various Evangelical churches are closing their doors. Therefore, or so it seems to me, a major objective simply has to be for Evangelicals to break free from their cultural insularity. But how can this be accomplished? I do not see any obvious way out of the problem. Especially considering the kind of education that many Evangelical pastors receive in seminaries and Bible schools. For them the world is Christ-o-centric or it is nothing, nothing really good, even as Evangelicals are absorbed more and more into mainstream popular culture. What cannot be denied is how well, as a rule, Evangelical churches are at nurturing families. This is their great strength. But, damn, to put it in unvarnished vocabulary, if you are at all educated to the arts, to history, to good literature, to quality films, to philosophy, to classical music, to classical Jazz, to highbrow culture in any form, there is no place at all for you in their world. Which is a generalization that goes too far but to create an impression that is all too true in many, many circumstances. In terms of the world of ideas, as far as Evangelical religion is concerned, there's no there, there. This concerns not only modern day celebrities of various kinds. In my life I have attended hundreds if not in excess of a thousand church services. To be sure, I have never expected a sermon where a pastor might offer his views of post-modernism, or the role of the novel in American culture, or new trends in the movies,but this is also to speak of Christian heritage. I simply cannot remember even one sermon where Clement of Alexandria was as much as mentioned, nor one sermon in which questions raised by Kierkegaard were brought up, or one sermon in which Christian alternatives in the visual arts were discussed even in passing. Could be that I am mistaken; maybe there was mention of something along these lines at least a few times in the past, but clearly, if there were, these have been very infrequent. Instead, it is the same story, the same Sunday-school-level story, over and over again. Ad nauseum. Either the pastor has no idea about this other world, a world of culture, or he sees no value in it. Granted, my experience is unique to me in terms of the importance I give to, for example, Shakespeare, Botticelli, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Or Hemingway or the Surrealists. Or to Asian culture generally. Also granted, I have no expectation that most others will have taken my path in education. But ZERO connection??? And exactly what good -beyond the basics of the Christian message- can someone like me derive from a "typical" Evangelical service? The question is not about millions of people who are "just like me" it is about millions of people who share some of my values and preferences in the realm of ideas. And most of these millions are young and are voting with their feet and are leaving the church and, as far as anyone can tell, are not coming back, or only coming back in small numbers. None of which even counts the disconnect between Evangelical faith and other faiths and other cultural traditions. More about that, in the future. But here is the basic problem as I see it. To which should be added one other factor, the increasing political polarization of Right vs Left in which the young (and many not-so-young) see Evangelicals herd themselves into the Republican party while the preferences of the young or youthful are increasingly on the Left. This kind of political polarization is death to authentic Christian faith. Which is anything but a screed on behalf of the Left; that isn't the intention at all. But how can Evangelicals possibly reach the young if they are as utterly divorced from the cultural world of the young as most assuredly now are? And how can they offer a vibrant and fascinating cultural alternative to the unmitigated crap that the young frequently imbibe when Evangelicals are cultural illiterates? Maybe you can see the problem better... Billy -- -- 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 --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
