Does What We Believe Matter?

Google Image
Many people are turned off by dogma, or doctrine, according to surveys, and some churches have accommodated this trend.

Many megachurches, for instance, try to provide something for everyone, no matter their beliefs. If you like “traditional’ services, they’ve got them. If you like less formal services, including Christian rock bands and ministers in torn jeans, they’ve got you covered.

Music is often an attraction. Sanctuaries become stages, making it hard to distinguish entertainment from worship. The web site of one of these churches says, “We strive to use relevant, meaningful, music to worship in a language that people understand.”

That, of course, is laudable, but the word “sanctuary” is from the Latin, “sanctus,” meaning “holy.” With the demise of sanctuaries, do these services maintain a sense of the holy?

A Dilemma
All churches should strive to be relevant, and it makes sense to use music to help. But a dilemma remains. If the aim of communal worship is to be relevant – with trendy music, emotional homilies and stage performances – are the churches offering anything that contemporary culture isn’t already offering? On the other hand, if you’re perceived to be irrelevant, how many people will be interested?

In one of my earliest blogs, I wrote about Rachel Held Evans, a young evangelical Christian who wrote a popular blog on faith. Tragically, she died earlier this year from complications of an infection. When she was well, she gave presentations to faith groups, and in a blog for CNN, “Why Millennials are Leaving the Church,” she wrote:

“Invariably, after I’ve finished my presentation and opened the floor to questions, a pastor raises his hand and says, “So what you’re saying is we need hipper worship bands. …”

“Time and again, the assumption among Christian leaders, and evangelical leaders in particular, is that the key to drawing twenty-somethings back to church is simply to make a few style updates – edgier music, more casual services, a coffee shop in the fellowship hall, a pastor who wears skinny jeans, an updated web site that includes online giving.

Rachel Held Evans
Google Image
“…We want to be challenged to live lives of holiness,” she says, “not only when it comes to sex, but also when it comes to living simply, caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing reconciliation, engaging in creation care and becoming peacemakers. You can’t hand us a latte and then go about business as usual and expect us to stick around.

“We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there.”

 Sweeping aside centuries of doctrinal development, one mega-church web site proclaims, “It’s that simple. Love God and neighbor.”

That’s hard to argue against, given the advice, attributed to St. Augustine, to “love God and do what you want.” No doubt that in the Christian scheme of things, love trumps all. But it doesn't mean we should stop trying to figure out how to apply Jesus' teachings to our lives and adopt a sort of religious laissez- faire.

I think what Rachel Held Evans is saying is that you don’t become relevant by trying to be relevant. Something is relevant when it is significant or important in your life. And in the realm of faith, you expect relevancy to facilitate consideration of important questions, such as “Who is God and, and in the case of Christians, who is Jesus?” And, “What difference does it make in my life?”

Faith in What or Whom?
Doctrine, or dogma, answers these kinds of questions and comprises part of what it means to be a believer. Without doctrine, or beliefs, how can you talk about faith? “Faith in what or whom?’ In the case of Christianity – which is a way to follow Christ – how can you teach what Jesus taught without doctrine?

This blog isn’t meant to knock anyone’s faith nor the churches that are desperately trying to reach contemporary people with something meaningful. It’s only to say that relevancy is inadequate. Doctrine - finding the wisdom in religious tradition - is part of what makes faith meaningful.

What we believe matters.




































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gospel of The Little Prince

Image
  Attention all those concerned only with “matters of great consequence:” Is it possible that you’ve become someone you didn’t want to be, having strayed far from the innocence and simplicity of childhood? That’s the main question asked in The Little Prince, which Netflix, the streaming video service, has added to its repertoire of movies and TV shows. Though not a big fan of animated flicks, I was a big fan of the book, The Little Prince, back in the 1970s when it became extremely popular in the U.S. It was first published in French and English in New York in 1943 as a novella by French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery , who disappeared while piloting a Free French Army plane the following year over the Mediterranean Sea. Nearly Two Million Copies “The novella is the fourth most-translated book in the world and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France,” says Wikipedia. “Translated into more than 250 language...
Read more

‘Spiritual but Not Religious,’ Revisited

Image
Google Image I’ve expressed several times in these blogs my skepticism about declarations by some of our contemporaries that they are “spiritual but not religious.” Much of the skepticism results from the false dichotomy this entails, as if the spiritual and religious are mutually exclusive. Spirituality, after all, is the whole point of being religious. With the exception of some forms of Buddhism, all the major religions aim to bring people closer to God, who is “spiritual.” St. Paul, among the earliest leaders of Christianity, wrote that he is imparting a teaching “not taught by human wisdom but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.” But Daniel Horan, Franciscan priest, theologian and author, wrote in a recent edition of the National Catholic Reporter: “What if our starting point in thinking about what it means to be a person in communion with God, oneself and the world was not reduced to external expressions of institutional belo...
Read more

Clinging to Archie Bunker's God

Image
Google Image Archie Bunker, the character masterfully played by the late Carroll O’Conner in the 1970s TV comedy “All in the Family,” had his own take on the traditional Christian doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. “God don’t make no mistakes,” declared Archie. “That’s how he got to be God.” For those too young to remember Archie, who in 2005 was listed as number 1 on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters, Wikipedia says Bunker was characterized by his bigotry towards “… blacks, Hispanics, "Commies," gays, hippies, Jews, Asians, Catholics, "women's libbers," and Polish-Americans….” Bunker was presented as a Christian, however, and “… often misquotes the Bible. He takes pride in being religious, although he rarely attends church services ….” An Anonymous Contributor Sister Mary Matilda, my eighth grade teacher, would accuse me of being uncharitable but I imagine that an anonymous contributor to a recent newspaper column is an “Archie Bunke...
Read more