Why are There More “Nones” and “Unaffiliateds”?

Sarah McCammon recently published “The Exvangelicals.” McCammon uncovers a lot of elements of the Exvangelical experience. Mostly it is a memoir surrounded by others’ stories. While she cites the many reasons people have left organized Christian religion, it is not an analysis that any one or two reasons are driving the biggest portion of the exodus. She does an admirable job showing how “evangelical” transformed from a way of living Christ’s gospel into a political movement from the 1970s on. The author notes many American cultural movements originating in the early 1990s that may have created the inflection point of a significant increase in the “none” or “unaffiliated” categories of religious survey respondents.

If you had to describe the themes, it would be that the reasons for the decline of people practicing Christian principles and participating in church-led discipleship might be: evangelicals hypocrisy-=decrying President Clinton’s character flaws while overlooking President Trump’s by Dobson, Falwell Jr and other prominent spokespersons—in a naked ploy to affect influence and gain political power; a lack of empathy for people’s experiences in sexual identity and racism; a focus on the militant side of spirituality—a life and death struggle against fleshly vices and supernatural evil manifestations; and a total distrust of academic, scientific and media authorities while establishing an alternative, parallel set of academia and media—tele-evangelists, radio/tv networks and exhortation to “do your own research.” 

Maybe this last was inevitable as we learn more about scriptural interpretations and hermeneutics that have called into question traditional understandings of scripture. But a staunch defense by evangelical leaders of tradition, not scripture, perhaps is a perverse reaction to such purely academic explorations like the Jesus Seminar of the 1980s and 1990s—who would vote on the authenticity of certain verses. A distaste for sexuality has been a carryover from some Greek philosophy that espouses the goodness of the spirit and the badness of the flesh. Similarly, a reliance on our own reason may be un-Christian, while a reliance on God’s guidance is more pure. Thus, trust in earlier forefathers’ understanding of scripture and cultural practices is good while new insights into historical context and linguistics is bad.

As to the first theme of hypocrisy, it doesn’t take much to note that most sermons excoriate sexual immorality but overlook the leaders’ and congregant’s wallowing in greed, envy, divisiveness, quarrelsome and so on. These are, according to the writer of the New Testament epistle Galatians, disqualifications for inheriting the kingdom of God.

For those who want to understand the inside of the living in what might be called a paranoid-schizophrenic body of believers, this book is helpful along with Jon Ward’s memoir and analysis that was recently published.

I appreciate the opportunity to preview this book by the publisher and NetGalley.

Our God is Different—and We are Different

A new book was released this month. “Reading Genesis” by Marilynne Robinson. [I reviewed the book months ago on Goodreads.com ] Robinson clearly provides the thesis that, while some of the Genesis stories parallel other ancient texts, the motifs in the stories show a clear difference, particularly with the Babylonian narratives. Genesis, and the rest of the Hebrew and Greek Judeo-Christian scriptures, describe a God who loves, protects and serves his people, his creations. They were not “born” out of a divine contest or war with other gods but of his free will and therefore an object of his affection. His disappointment is expressed when they don’t treat each other well, when they don’t live up to his standards. The other main difference is how people are viewed between the other mythologies and the Hebrew text. They are viewed as servants and objects of the gods’ capriciousness. Moses’ text reveals that people are created and deemed ‘good’ and therefore worthy. But this is not a humanistic reading of the scripture; the author points out that our understanding and confusion of the dynamics of these stories is because we forget the foundation laid in the Creation story(ies) that allows for God to show mercy and love, even to Cain who killed his own brother. [The author shares that a non-Western student who exclaimed, “What god would not punish a person who killed his brother?”]

Since these texts were written post-exodus from Egypt, it’s interesting that most of the comparison was not to Egyptian creation myths or divine stories. Certainly Abram/Abraham’s experience with YHWH was different from his Babylonian counterparts, but Moses (and any other post-Exodus scribes) would have been more familiar with the Egyptian mythologies, unless we think Moses became indoctrinated in the Canaanite lore while living in Midian. So I believe this question is unanswered by this volume, yet this book will certainly provide fodder for many, many discussions about what the Genesis stories mean to a person’s faith and their understanding of who YHWH’s character and our nature in relationship to him.

I am thankful for the publisher and NetGalley for providing a pre-publication copy.

Biblical Business Radical: Witness Through Public Show or Not?

 In certain Christian business circles, there’s strong encouragement to publicly announce your faith. Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby are two examples. ServiceMaster used to be one too. I know several other small businesses that are quite vocal about their faith to their customers—Christians and non-Christians alike. Some of them might be questioned how genuine their faith is based on some of their values, policies and practices. Some have even been hauled into court over cultures of harassment and prejudicial promotion and hiring practices: definitely not in the “love your neighbor” vein of a Christian walk.

Recently I was in Europe at a religious site known for miracles and supernatural visitations. A whole religious and commercial community has built up around the phenomena—not unlike how businesses crop up around popular tourist sites to support the attraction’s business and patrons—to accommodate all the “tourists.” I declined an invitation to enter the local church to see the shrines. I replied that my faith was pretty simple in terms of religious trappings and I’m not impressed by ostentatious displays. 

I was reminded of words from Christ’s most famous sermon, paraphrased: your righteousness needs to be greater than the Pharisees who love to show off their religious zeal by praying in the streets and publicly demonstrating how miserable they are while they’re fasting. (Matt. 5.20; 6.1-8, 16-18).

When we pronounce our faith to our customers, are we looking for the applause of people? How much is God impressed by this faith expression if we don’t have the “love your neighbor” actions to back the pronouncement?