Theologian and Pastor who thinks out loud.
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)
This statement is the primary reason that Roman Catholic Christians give such high regard to Mary, the mother of Jesus. The situation was obviously a terrifying one. Engaged to be married and met by an angel who gives word of her pending motherhood. Surely no one would believe the story of an angel’s message of her conception of a child. Would they? [Read more…]
This is a little bit different post than I usually do on my blog, but these are things worth thinking about. I hope you think so too.
Christianity Today recently selected Christian Smith’s book, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, as a book of the year. Smith has done a follow project on the study previously released as Soul Searching. The first book was a survey of American teens, this book is a follow-up study on those same teens as they enter early young adulthood (18-23).
The part I want to talk about here has to do with how denominations are doing among this age group. Other sections of the book would reveal that emerging adults in every denomination are less likely to attend worship weekly, pray on their own, or read the bible on their own. But the kind of Christianity which they find attractive is also significant. The four categories of Christians discussed in Smith’s book in the section on religious conversion are Conservative Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, and Roman Catholic.
Here are some summaries.
Of those who were Mainline Protestants at age 13-17, by age 18-23 they will be
51% Mainline Protestant
19% Conservative Protestant
1% Black Protestant
1% Roman Catholic
26% Non-religious or indeterminate
Conservative Protestant teens will be
64% CP
10% MP
2% BP
3% RC
20% Non or Ind
Black Protestant teens will be
55% BP
21% CP
2% MP
3% RC
19% Non or Ind
Roman Catholic teens will be
66% RC
6% CP
3% MP
<1% BP
23% Non or Ind
These are all rounding to the nearest percent, so the numbers may not add up to 100%. I also didn’t include the other religions because combined they equal less than 1%. (Except for, interestingly, Mainline Protestants who were 2% likely to be a non-Christian but religious person.) He also includes some denomination specific numbers, but frankly these numbers are insignificant because the representative sample from any given denomination is small. Some relatively large samples that changed are (Methodists decreased by about 23%, Baptist lost 19%, independent/nondenominational increased by 44%).
(All of these numbers come from my calculations based on the weighted numbers from his chart on 109.)
The first observation is that all of these groups have a net loss, which isn’t reflected in these percentages but is in Smith’s chart.
The rest of it is not very surprising. Only about 1/2 of Mainliners will stay there. Roughly the same amount will become a more “conservative” Christian as will leave religion altogether. My conservative friends have long said that the lack of teaching and commitment among Mainline Protestants will leave young people spiritually bankrupt. But they may be surprised to find that these young Mainliners are just as likely to find their way into a different kind of Christianity than to find their way out of it. The inculturation of being a Christian worshiper, in any form, helps prepare them for the evangelical message of more conservative Christians. This may not be of any comfort to Mainline churches who are struggling to survive however. The fact that they are being faithfully Christian somewhere else doesn’t help keep the lights on.
Conservative Protestants have a higher retention, but they are far more likely to move to non-religious than to another kind of Christianity. This is likely due to the premature “crisis” of faith which evangelical Christianity often creates when they pressure young people to make a commitment of faith. It introduces an either-or proposition that will sometimes lead to a negative. Imagine the teenager who experiences a weekly altar call for 18 years, but is not yet sure of their faith. It becomes pretty easy to simply run when they are no longer required to attend church by their parents.
Roman Catholics have similar retention to the Conservative Protestants, but their young people are far more likely to be non-religious young adults, almost to the same extent as Mainline Protestants. While they too have a more clear either-or distinction which creates a certain amount of loyalty, Christian education among Catholics and Mainliners is not emphasized nearly as much as among conservatives. The religious education seems to make a difference in retention.
Frankly, I don’t know enough about Black Protestantism to make significant contribution, except to say that sociological barriers mean that the small number of converts to Roman Catholicism or Mainline Protestantism is not surprising to me.
Looking at these numbers from another perspective can also be illuminating.
of the Mainline Protestants at age 18-23, when they were age 13-17 they were from
53% Mainline Protestant
29% Conservative Protestant
2% Black Protestant
9% Roman Catholic
1% Non-religious or indeterminate
Conservative Protestant emerging adults were
71% CP
8% MP
8% BP
6% RC
7% Non or Ind
Black Protestant emerging adults were
79% BP
10% CP
2% MP
2% RC
6% Non or Ind
Roman Catholic emerging adults were
90% RC
4% CP
1% MP
1% BP
4% Non or Ind
The most surprising thing here was that almost no one converts to Roman Catholicism during this age group. Experience tells me that the 4% of Conservative Protestants who convert to Roman Catholicism do so on very heady and theological grounds. Roman Catholicism long history of theological discourse is appealing to some evangelicals who have experienced relatively shallow theological discourse.
Almost no non-religious persons find their way into Mainline Protestantism. Some Conservative Protestants will land there after being disillusioned with their own tradition (which is my reading of the significant number that come to Mainline Protestantism from Conservative Protestantism). But nearly no young people who are non-religious find enough appealing in Mainline Protestantism to be converted. This is not a good sign for MP leadership. If MP leaders are going to take “church growth” seriously among these young people, it seems that “catching” falling Conservative Protestants is a legitimate call. I know that many become disillusioned with their bible churches or charismatic churches and they need somewhere to go if they are not to give up the faith altogether. I think Mainline Protestants just need to embrace that calling at this time in their history and make what they can of it. The plus side for them is that many of these people have been patterned into high levels of commitment and involvement, both of which are needed among young adults in Mainline churches right now.
Of course, the non-religious people didn’t convert to ANY of these traditions in significant numbers. The higher numbers among more evangelical churches (BP and CP) is not a surprise. But even they saw relatively small numbers (6% and 7%, respectively). At the same time, the nonreligious and indeterminate categories together more than doubled (324 as teens to 690 as emerging adults).
Its hard to say much about Conservative Protestants in this regard, except to say that they are equally likely to see their potential converts come from Mainline Protestantism or Catholicism as they are non-religious.
OK….this data seemed more interesting when I started it. Now that I have done some analyzing, it seems that the only significant thing that I learned is that Mainline Protestantism has a significant ministry among the 36% of Conservative Protestants that leave that category. This may be the most important growth opportunity among young Mainliners as well. They actually need these CP folks who come into MP churches. How will Mainline churches reach out to them? How will they cast their nets in that direction. The other thing that I learned: Roman Catholicism either needs to take their “new evangelization” more seriously or change their tactics. Again, I don’t know enough about RC to say for sure. My hunch is that Roman Catholics are doing very little to evangelize non-Catholics. Its time.
What other observations do you have that I have left out? Do you think any of my analysis is off base?
I was reading Hebrews today and I was struck by the imagery which is central to that book. Jesus is not only the High Priest which represents the people of God to God. He is also that sacrifice which he himself gave over to God to make atonement for the sins of the whole world.
Some of my more left-leaning friends have a real problem with this imagery. Is God just a blood thirsty warlord desiring violence and vengeance upon God’s people? Doesn’t God have another, less bloody, way?
I suppose that God has any way open that God desires. While I really like Anselm’s “Why God became man,” I’m not convinced that this is the only way that God could bring freedom and love to the whole world. God could have done it another way. God is a creative and powerful God. I suppose that God’s choice to do it this way and not some other is even more profound than Anselm’s proposal. (Anselm, for a little refresher, said that God had to become incarnate because humanity owed honor to God that only humanity could pay [i.e. the wages of sin are death], but only God could afford. Only God was righteous enough to be the holy debt payer. Thus, the incarnation.)
If God could have brought hope, healing, and restoration in some other way, why this one?
I think it is because God had indeed chosen to bless all of creation through this one people, the Jews (Genesis 12). God blesses Abraham to be a blessing. So when God’s patience with human sin and disobedience grew to the fullness of time, God acts decisively in Jesus of Nazareth. God becomes incarnate to take on the consequences of the truly righteous life. While the previous sacrifices bore the weight of sin in a kind of ad hoc way, death at an altar, this sacrifice bore the actual weight of actual sin. People could not bear the conviction which comes from perceiving the truly righteous One. So when sinful people enter the very presence of the Holy, they kill Him. The Jewish people needed to see God’s love poured out in a language which they could understand. The language of sacrifice made sense to them. They could understand the unblemished being given for the sake of the blemished. It was a picture of grace. And so God moved in that way and not some other.
God could have given some other way, but why would God move in some other way when the Way was established by the history of a people to go this way. Ironically, the theology of St. Anselm was also this kind of contextual explanation of faith. Anselm used categories of justice and honor that were particularly persuasive in his medieval feudal context. That doesn’t make them bad theology, it just means they are a new contextualization of God’s saving action.
What would a 21st century contextualization of Jesus’ work look like? What does it mean that Jesus is our High Priest and Highest Sacrifice?
Our contemporary society sees the collective sin of nations and ecclesial bodies and longs for a group which will not primarily look inward. We see the sacrificial action of a generation led by rock stars to do justice in AIDS-ridden Africa and we are inspired. Why? Because so much of our experience tells us that people can simply not be relied upon to choose the other. Darwinism and Nietzsche have, in their own ways, told us that the most healthy thing a person can do is look out for themselves and get the most that they can for themselves and possibly their clan. These pervasive ideologies have turned the Christian doctrine of sin on it head (which is explicit in Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality).
The royal priesthood and holy nation which Jesus gathered around himself were not priests in the sense of killing animals for the sake of the community in the temple. This priestly community, like Jesus himself, gave of themselves for the sake of others. One of the things that is saving about Jesus in the 21st century is the calling he placed on the community who followed him to give themselves in love and service to others. He gave a community a vision of the future which did not bind them to the success of their ability to reproduce or their initiating the “will to power.” This community follows Jesus’ model of self-giving, knowing that the rewards of secular striving will not endure as the new heaven and new earth will. God will have the final word, as the resurrection proves. We are called to be both priests and sacrifices, just as Jesus was.
I dare say that this kind of community will speak to a 21st century Western world what Hebrews spoke to a first century Jewish one or Anselm spoke to an 11th century Medieval one. God’s work as High Priest and Savior is not limited to a paradigm of any particular period. If Jesus truly saves universally, then he will save us from our current sin and trappings as he did first century Jews from theirs.
He is a Good Savior. He is our High Priest. He gave himself as the Highest Sacrifice.
We are called to be Good. We are called to be priests. We are called to give ourselves as sacrifices.
I have heard some pretty positive comments come back from Obama’s speech in Oslo at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. I don’t disagree that it is basically a good speech. But there are two important things that need to be said. First, nothing he said there should surprise anyone. Second, he did not address the most difficult concerns with his own proposal.
Now I think that my Christian identity calls me to a different kind of life that precludes supporting war under nearly any circumstance including threats to me and my own family and country. On the other hand, I don’t know that I could ever truly live up to what God has called me to in the midst of the most striking challenges to this ideology. Pacifism is, by all means, more difficult than responding with war and takes more courage. I’m just never sure that I can do it. Something that goes deep down inside of me, placed there by God when God spoke life into creation, is a desire for justice and the will to fight for it. But this post is not about me.
I don’t think that a nation can ever live by this Christian calling, though I would hope that ours could entertain it at the very least. Nations are formed on the basis of protecting their people. As Obama says in his speech, Ghandi and King may be great thinkers but their peaceful protests would not have stopped the advancing Nazi armies. Darfur. Rwanda. Congo. I don’t think peaceful protest will be effective at stopping these atrocities, even if my Christian faith tells me that peaceful protest is the right thing to do. Nations must protect from these injustices.
The rules for engagement are and always have been the rules of “just war.” Obama’s speech should not surprise us because all he did in the first half of his speech is reinforce the principles of just war: proportional response, just cause, combatant distinction, last resort, legitimate authority (which Obama aludes to by referring to leadership being tempered by not being a lone ranger).
Now those may surprise us now because they are talked about rarely. But they have been implicit in all but the most recent American war. (Danger must be imminent. Bush presumably thought there were WMD’s which would POTENTIALLY constitute imminent danger. I happen to think that even the presence of WMD’s would not have legitimate a preemptive war according to just war criteria, but that is debatable.) Obama is simply calling us back to adherence to these criteria. No politician present at his speech would have missed what he was doing.
Now, the weird thing that we heard from the media here is that this was some kind of defense of just war. I know PhD students are not supposed to be simple-minded but the only answer I can come up with is “Duh”. Every nation worth it’s salt would make a defense of just war, because that is the best alternative that can include war of any kind (thanks for the inspiration Switzerland). Defending just war is not a shift in government policy. In fact, just war criteria being followed will mean that we are in less wars, not more.
Now the problem is that just war doesn’t work in the postmodern environment. He doesn’t really address this at all except to say that we will need to rearticulate it. Well, to Mr. Obama I say, “Duh”. It is recognized among just war scholars that the criteria are outdated in the contemporary setting.
How do you have legitimate authority when your opponent is a terrorist cell? How do you have combatant distinction when your enemy is primarily civilians or dressed like civilians or using civilians as shields as in most urban warfare? Terrorism is, by definition, founded on ALWAYS placing the notion of imminent attack at the fore. Yet, you can never identify when a real threat is imminent (except in periodic CIA type operations but never in war operations).
One of the key proposals which Obama suggests for a “just peace” falls prey to a similar problem. How does he plan to sanction these types of cell groups? Can you starve out the small number of people with enough ammunition to steal the food they need and no concern for the health of their neighbor? I doubt it.
Obama’s proposal is not a total bust. The just war proposals and the peaceable solutions he advocate may actually work with North Korea and Iran. Let’s hope so. These are the kinds of cases that the rules were made to address.
I do think that just war is a viable dialog in the era of postmodern war. I don’t know what that would look like. I do know that Obama has not gotten to the heart of the concerns. I also know that the church is called to help politicians think through these issues. For generations she would have been looked to for help. Those days are no more. And this is one of the times when I can only be dissatisfied with pacifist friends (am I a pacifist?). That cannot help the government think through just war when government needs them the most. Maybe they will weigh in with a word about how or if they imagine themselves serving the government with guidance. Of course, she is always called to prophetically speak peace and justice. But can she also share wisdom on war? If she is Catholic or Lutheran I suppose she can. If she is Mennonite then I doubt she can.
Do you have a place that just feels like home, but it has never really been “home”?
I make a daily hour long commute each way to work. The last few weeks I have taken that opportunity to listen to sermons from Rob Bell. Rob Bell has made some people mad at times. But for me, he is able to name that part of me that longs for church the way I imagine it could be. I deeply long for a church community that can come around a vision of the Kingdom of God that actually makes a difference in the way they live.
Last week I came to tears as I heard of young girl who was quite sick and one day asked her mother, “Who holds the orphans in Africa when they get sick?” Her mother answered that likely no one did. The young girl couldn’t stand for that, so she had the idea to get teddy bears for the children in African orphanages so they could at least get a hug from their teddy. That is all sweet, but I’m just not sentimental enough to cry at this point.
But when she got done telling her story and Rob got back up to speak, I just lost it. He announced that a member of their congregation in an earlier church service that day had decided to pay the way for this young girl and her mom to deliver the teddy bears to an orphanage themselves.
Wow.
Two observations as both a pastor and a Christian. The only thing that made this possible was a church community that mentors people in two meaningful ways. Little girls don’t ask about children in Africa being held unless you talk about African children with them…a lot. Second, people don’t normally give up large sums of money on a whim during a church service unless they have heard of other people making similar choices or have made similar (but likely smaller) choices themselves. Their church holds up the needs of Africa in an ongoing way. So ongoing that five-year-olds catch the vision, too. And they tell stories whenever someone gives of themselves for another.
Something in me just makes me think that this is home. I’ve only been to their church 3 or 4 times. Its not really home. But it feels that way because these people are tapping into something that we were all design to do. We were designed to give ourselves for others. When we do this we participate in the God way of life…the Kingdom of God. We begin to participate in the image of God to which we were created. When we see this kind of life it strikes a chord deep in our souls. Simply put, its like coming home.
When do you have times when it feels like you have come home, even if you have never been there before?
A friend asked me recently what it would mean to do music for the emerging church. I thought a trite answer in passing would simply not do, and I have yet to write anything on the matter. Here it goes.
There is no simple “Look at what these artists” are doing for the emerging church. I don’t think there could be such a simple guide. But I think I can name a few trends that I have seen as relevant.
First, emerging church people like things that are old, but they don’t want them to seem old. There is a desire to connect with the historic church, especially the very early church. Of course, very little of the Second and Third centuries’ music is readily available. In absence of this, songs more than 100 years old will do. Remade hymns are very popular. They need to be “remade” because many emerging congregations are led in music by guitar-driven bands and the formerly organ-driven music doesn’t translate well. This is not only because the harmonization is hard to reproduce, but more importantly that the rhythms are wrong. I’m not a trained musician, but years of leading worship has told me that I can play the wrong chords in a modern worship song but I can’t mess up the syncopation. Rhythm drives modern music even more than melody or harmonization. The best of these remade hymns have been done by Passion Hymns: Ancient and Modern and The Odes Project. The first project consists of hymns which have been modified to work with guitar rhythms and often add a very singable and simple chorus/refrain between verses. A multitude of other projects are available with a little internet searching. (NOTE: DO NOT try to introduce these remade hymns into a church which loves to sing hymns and think that you will make your “traditional” church into a “contemporary” one. The differences will make the “hymns people” go crazy. This only works one direction because the guitar and rock rhythms are the uniting factor, not the lyrics or melodies. Contemporary churches can use these, traditional ones cannot. I have tried it in two different churches and it failed MISERABLY both times.) The Odes Project takes some first century worship songs and puts them to music. I haven’t used them, but I imagine they have great potential with emerging church types….just give them the history of what they are singing and they will love it.
Second, and this is related to the first, “emerging church” types are tired of shallow theology. “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High” and “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” just will not cut it with these folks. This is part of the reason they like the hymns projects, they have some theological depth. They don’t want to lose the singability of these earlier songs though. On a practical note, I have found that the best songs for this group are the ones with great theological depth in the verses and a very simple and singable chorus and, hopefully, a simple bridge also. While “emerging church” types do not want an overly simple sermon with trite answers to all of life’s questions, they similarly don’t want their music to express such a world either. The world is complex and mysterious, music and sermons should be too. I think much of the music by the Passion music label is going to take you in the right direction (especially David Crowder Band, Chris Tomlin, and Matt Redman).
Third, passion is more important than polish. Jeremy Camp and Rita Springer are cool, Hillsongs are not. The former artists sing their heart out in every moment. They are experiencing their own music, even in the studio. Hillsongs seems (though I don’t believe that this is their ministry hearts) to be more about strong harmony than connection with God. Four part harmony is cool once in a while, but don’t lose the total abandonment for the Good News of Christ. Worship leaders should be selected on the depth of their worship. Does their singing and playing come out of a deep desire to bring glory to God? This should come out in their worship in church too. Don’t choose the better vocalist, choose the more sold out worshiper. Don’t choose the song that sounds the prettiest, use the songs which make your worship leaders and your congregation want to sing their heart out.
I would suggest that the quintessential “emerging church” worship song is “Joyous Light” by Chris Tomlin. This song is a revision of the oldest hymn in continuous use in the church today. Some would suggest that “Phos Hilaron,” often translated in English as “Hail Gladdening Light,” was written in the late third century. The Orthodox churches of the East still sing the song daily at evening prayer. In Tomlin’s revisions, the song is infinitely singable, retains the basic lyric and structure of the original, and has a chorus that is best sung as if it is an anthem.
Here is his lyric:
Hail Gladdening Light, sun so bright
Jesus Christ, end of night, alleluia
Hail Gladdening Light, Eternal Bright
In evening time, ’round us shine, alleluia, alleluia
Hail Gladdening Light, such joyous Light
O Brilliant Star, forever shine, alleluia, alleluia
Chorus:
We hymn the Father, we hymn the Son
We hymn the Spirit, wholly Divine
No one more worthy of songs to be sung
To the Giver of Life, all glory is Thine
When I have shared the story of this song with young adults, I have rarely heard an ambivalent response. Young adults are desperate to be a part of something bigger than themselves, even when they sing. Singing an ancient song with passion gets to the heart of that.
There is one other thing, music-related but not necessarily worship related. Emerging church types also really like the “protest songs gone Christian” of people like Derek Webb. (My personal favorite is one of his earlier albums “She Must and Shall Go Free.”) They aren’t really meant to be sung congregationally, but they work in other aspects of a worship service.
I hope some of that is helpful. If you have some comments or additional music selections, then please add them and lets start a conversation. What music are you doing for “emergents” that is working? Is there anything here that you just disagree with? Have I named too many main stream musicians to “really” be emerging church music?
If you like what you have read on this blog, please follow via e-mail or Facebook at the bottom of this post or via RSS feed from my home page.
I am reading Hans Urs von Balthasar’s substantive book The Theology of Karl Barth for the first time.
But, I’m not reading the book primarily to learn what he says, though this book is part of one of my exams that I am taking next summer. I’m reading Balthasar devotionally. I know that seems a bit ridiculous. Can anyone really read this kind of stuff as an act of devotion?
Well, I decided that I would try it for this nine months which I have committed to chaplaincy right in the middle of my candidacy preparation. So, my “daily bread” right now consists of Augustine’s Confessions, William Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence, and von Balthasar’s The Theology of Karl Barth. Of course the Bible is in there, too. As I read I am asking that God would speak to me through them. I believe He can.
Here is what I learned today: Balthasar explains that Barth was trying to find a way in between what he saw as failures of liberal Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Liberal Protestantism had taken up the method of dialoguing with all available interlocutors and working diligently to incorporate a variety of sources in a quest for truth. Barth thought that his theological mentors had erred by trying to validate their work before secular sources which were unwilling to be only contributors to the dialogue.
Catholicism, however, basically included the content which Barth thought most important, the centrality of Jesus Christ incarnate, crucified, resurrected, and ascended to the right hand of the Father. But the Catholics largely arrived at their doctrine through an over dependence on natural theology. He had a problem with their method.
I am often amazed by the ways in which I am formed by the people I read, even when I think I may be disagreeing substantially with what they say. Though I think Barth’s dependence upon the analogy of faith is basically good epistemology, I am not so opposed to the natural theology of the Catholicism he is arguing with. One thing about Catholicism does bother me, however. The confidence with which Roman Catholicism speaks because of this dependence on a reliable notion of natural theology and an undue regard for the Magisterium of the church is problematic.
Like Barth, I think the Church as a whole would do well to give Roman Catholic thought its proper due. Catholicism rightly defends the centrality of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Word. But they simply do not have a strong enough notion of the noetic effect of sin to suspect the doctrines of the church for my tastes. I really do want to be always reforming.
So I don’t exactly agree with the problem that Barth had with Roman Catholicism. But I do pattern myself similarly. I like much of the content of Catholic doctrine, if we could simply reevaluate the ecclesiology. I don’t take that as a simple rejection of course. I am still a pentecostal with a strongly congregational ecclesiology. I am grateful for these differences of opinion, which Roman Catholicism has been more and less comfortable with at different times since the schism of the Reformation.
But the reason I write this post is not so I muse endlessly on the relation of Barth to Catholicism. It is because I was able to be formed today. I had a revelation of sorts. I can now name my problems with Catholicism and my appreciation of it. And, when I name it, it doesn’t sound like all that significant of a difference. Of course, my Catholic friends probably disagree. But my ability to name these differences enables me to better engage my ongoing dialogue with Catholic friends and colleagues. That is no small effect. I want to be able to name our differences well, not to dissolve them but as a matter of discipleship. Jesus told the disciples that people would recognize them by how they loved one another. May I be regarded as a disciple.
May God continue to speak to me through these theological texts, they are not only academic considerations but also the mediation of the Rhema word of God.
Peace be with you.
Dr. Jeremiah Gibbs 