One of the blessings of these years of such rapid change within the culture and church in the Unites States is an endless supply of good, helpful, prodding books, often uncomfortable to wrestle with, yet so important and valuable. One of those is Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters by Bob Smietana. Bob is a Covenanter who is a journalist and religion reporter, currently for the Religious News Service (RNS). Our men’s group, meeting Saturday mornings at 8:30, is beginning to read and reflect together. THIS WOULD BE A GREAT TIME TO COME AND JOIN US!
Thus far I’ve read the first two sections — Where we stand, and why people are leaving. The final section, Where do we go from here, will come before too long. Here’s a statistic to whet your wondering appetite: “Polling from Gallup found that from 1937 to the mid-1980’s about 70 percent of Americans claimed to be a member of a church, synagogue, or mosque. That number has fallen to less than half — 47 percent– in recent years. (18)
We all feel this, and there are so many factors why. Smietana talks about external pressures — changing demographics, a loss of trust in institutions, a global pandemic, increasing political polarization, evolving social norms, and the weight of America’s weight of unsolved history of racial division — and internal pressures — consolidation of people into larger churches, increasing frailty of small “ordinary” congregations, tension over how to deal with issues of sexuality, and unhealthy pastoral leadership models. (66)
If you have a pulse, your experience tells you this all makes sense. We are in a time of great change, “re-formation” some might say, deconstruction and reconstruction (hopefully) for us individually and corporately.
What I love too is that the author remains abundantly hopeful, and faith-filled, offering all kinds of stories about ways the church continues to act out the love of Christ even in a fallow season, echoing the spirit of the prophet Habbakuk, who scribed one day: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will exult the God of my salvation.” (3:17)
Life in the church can often have that fallow feeling about it these days. What I’m learning is that it’s ok to live in and be present to the space and time where we find ourselves — to honestly lament and sorrow about it — without losing faith and hope in the One who has companioned us and strengthened us through good times and bad: “I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the LORD, is my strength.” (v.18-19)
The call for us it seems is to seek understanding about our current circumstance as the church in our culture — and not be defensive even about the ways we have contributed to its decline — while also seeing and sensing all the opportunities we have right now, even though we be a smaller band, to love, and serve, and bless, and hold onto hope, even for the sake of the world.
Smietana quotes the late Dr. Arvid Adell, covenant minister and chair of the Philosophy professor at Millikin University, as saying this: “We are called to practice surrogate faith for a world that has lost it.”
I hope you’ll find the book, and so many others wrestling with all that’s going on. How about working on a blog like this as you try to organize your thought in a moment?
ending hope today and sending love from here!
Peter Hawkinson
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