What Are We Doing Here? Thinking about the church’s mission of religious/spiritual Christian Formation--Part 2

The past week's news in the United States should have moved those of us in the church community to think long and hard about what makes for a healthy environment for raising human beings. The formation of a fully-faceted human being—physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual—includes all dimensions of human life, including the spiritual dimension.  Human formation doesn't occur in a vacuum.  Influences--including depraved ones--from all over can lay claim to the nurture of young people, and the results can include spiritual depravity. 

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the phenomenon of 'spiritual, but not religious.' [See many good bloggers around this theme. like this one, quoted by Patheos. ] The Pew study (referred to in my past few posts) had some investigation of that, but not a lot.  What do people mean when they say that they are spiritual, but not religious?  What I think they mean is that people do recognize that a human being has a spiritual dimension (maybe undefined), but that such a part of a person has no relationship with any particular religious organization or faith tradition.

I want to propose that there is a relationship between the spiritual and the religious, and I want to use a very robust metaphor to describe it, using an organic kind of understanding of 'religion.'

In any particular person, I want to propose that developing a whole spiritual life is like acquiring a language, just as becoming a whole social person is like acquiring a real spoken language.  And more, I want to propose that what we call 'religious' is the institutional manifestation of that language, just as 'culture' is the institutional manifestation of the spoken language.

Let me elaborate.

Human beings are born into communities that speak a language, a particular language.  The language has been living in the community of people who speak it for eons, into the dark and unknowable past. The language migrates and evolves with the community that speaks it.

A religion is a manifestation of a particular spiritual language, spoken by a particular spiritual community.  Spiritual nurture is like teaching that language, and it requires the participation of and in a 'religion.'  Remember, this is a metaphor, so there are aspects of language acquisition that are not like acquiring a religion.  Let’s just see how far this can take us.

First, religion is particular, just like a language.  There are many spoken languages, just like there are many faith traditions and communities, but there is no such thing as a universal, general language that all humans understand, such as something analogous to undifferentiated 'spirituality.'  When a person is born, there exist already particular languages, not HUMANESE in general.  Children must learn a particular language in order to grow into the culture of their community.  The language already exists, with its grammar and vocabulary, with its literature and stories, and also with its own cultural baggage.  None of it is something that a child can change wholesale or arbitrarily to the whims of her own ideas, although each individual speaker can influence the language, even as they contribute to its spoken and written history.  However, to do so, each speaker must participate in learning and speaking it.  

Go back to the above paragraph and replace 'language' with 'religion' to see the parallels I’m drawing. The Church is in the business of teaching the particular language of Jesus.  I don't mean Aramaic, but Christian. We teach the stories, vocabulary, literature, poetry, grammar and concepts that give a person the tools to incorporate and express spirituality in the Christian genre.  That's 'religion.' Christian spirituality is religion with a particular shape. When we call people to Christian discipleship, we're inviting them to learn the language that will form their spiritual lives into lives that look like Jesus.  Next...

Question: Are languages morally neutral? Are religions morally neutral?

What are we doing here? Thinking about the church’s mission of religious/spiritual Christian Formation--Part 1

In my last post about the current Pew Research report on religious life in America, I begged for some more intelligent conversation about what it means to talk about "religion." So I'll have to take my own medicine and offer up some starting comments.

The Pew Research study of our changing religious landscape in America is still generating lots of commentary.  See here for example, or here for the full report.  The results of the study were stunning: the number of people who claim no religious affiliation has grown nearly 7 percentage points in the seven years since the previous Pew report to a whopping 22.8% of the population.  Both mainline and Roman Catholic churches show significant decline in numbers.  Many interpretations are being bandied about.  The only thing that the interpreters appear to say in common is that someone ought to be paying attention to just what the mission of the church is, if it is not “making disciples.” Matthew [28: 19]  Do the numbers and their trend mean we are failing?

The 'little church with a big mission' has a mission statement that's more than 40 years old. It's our reason for being.  It said, in part, “We are committed to Christ…To this end we commit ourselves to call people to discipleship…” A few years ago, our governing board undertook a bit of self-examination to see if the Mission Statement seemed adequate.  After a few months of word-smithing and good discussion, it seemed that the old mission statement would serve just fine.  A little tweaking here or there probably wouldn’t improve it much.  So “calling people to discipleship” it is.

But just what is that?  Getting people to recite a list of beliefs about Jesus?  Making them attend church on Sunday?  Turning people into “good citizens?”  For too long, the church has been hampered by narrow understandings of what “discipleship following Jesus Christ” means, so I think that the discussion about dying religion(s) in the US has been impoverished.  I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that we deserve better.  I want to have better conversations and thinking about this topic, so I’m going to offer some of my own ideas in the next several blog posts.  I really welcome your feedback.  Ready...

A deliberative poll on religion

Pew Research guys have regularly polled people in the US about their religious preferences.  I am often frustrated by the simplified version of “religion” that gets assumed in their questions.  The version of “Christianity” that I recognize and follow is nothing like what the public media calls Christian, and I suspect that other faith traditions are equally mis-represented. What do people think about the Muslim faith if all they hear is about ISIS or ISIL? 
I’m waiting for the Pew Research guys to do something like what Professor James Fishkin (Stanford University) is doing in the African nation of Tanzania.  It’s called a “deliberative” poll.  The approach was developed to help leaders to consult their citizens before making difficult policy decisions. He says you can't just do a poll.
"If you have ordinary polls people usually are not well informed. You don't want to follow public opinion when the public just has a vague impression of sound-bites and headlines."  You gather a representative sample of a population for a one or two-day meeting.  You give them tutorials on the issue and a chance to question experts from all sides.  Then, you send them home and poll them.
I wonder what would be the results if Pew or someone did a deliberative poll about religion?  How would people respond if they actually were informed about what a belief system is, what the huge and complex variety of its content and practices are, and had they the chance to talk and question the people who actually practice it?  Would polling opinions change?  Just an idea…

Looking in the mirror

A funny thing about doing a self-evaluation--you might not like the picture you see.  Churches are places that are naturally self-effacing.  We don't like to look at ourselves because we think we're being self-absorbed and that can't be a good thing.
But every once in a while churches are challenged to see themselves as we are, not as others see us, but as we see us.  This isn't navel gazing; it's honest mirror looking.  Will we like what we see? And if we don't like what we see, what will others like about us?
The Pew Research folks have just released a new survey saying that people in the United States don't self-identify as "Christian" as much as they used to: moving from 78% to 71% in just the last 8 years.  The questions are why?  Could they point to a vision that the Christian life that is not particularly attractive to new generations?
Because of the long faithfulness of God to God's people (everyone!), I'm not existentially disturbed by these trends.  However I am motivated by rise of the unaffiliated as a wake up call to us within the church to see what its purpose might be.