Standish Inkwell
October 2009
I 'm not sure why it is, but recently it seems that more and more polling organizations are studying the topic of religious belief than ever before. Wherever I look, I see polls regarding the state of religious belief in the U.S., and the polls aren't particularly cheery for us Christians.
Recently, Bruce sent me an article by Cathy Lynn Grossman from USA TODAY, based on a recent poll, that said, “Americans who don't identify with any religion are now 15% of the USA , but trends in a new study shows they could one day surpass the nation's largest denominations — including Catholics, now 24% of the nation.” Also, it said,
Not all Nones are alike. Half (51%) still believe in God or a higher power.
Nones also are the only major U. S. faith group that's majority male. Even when girls grow up with unbelieving parents, they're more likely to find a faith as adults than their brothers.
Women are also less skeptical than men and less drawn to irreligious and anti-religious views. They are more likely to reject a secular upbringing.
There is a lot of 'churning' going on but Nones gain much more from switching (people leaving religion) than from natural growth (children emulating unbelieving parents).
So what are we supposed to make of these statistics? In my sermon a few weeks ago, I mentioned another set of statistics done by the Barna group, an evangelical polling organization, for a book written by one of their researchers, David Kinnaman, titled UnChurch. The statistic polled 16-29 year-old non-Christians, and here's what they found:
91% say we are anti-homosexual
87% say we are judgmental
85% say we are hypocritical
78% say we are old-fashioned
75% say we are too involved in politics
72% say we are out of touch with reality
70% say we are insensitive to others
So what are we to make of these statistics?
I think that all of it says that we may be in a bit of trouble in the Christian world. Increasingly younger people are growing up believing that religion, and specifically Christian faith, are irrelevant to their lives. What happened to us? What happened to our culture? Despite what people think, this is not the kind of issue that putting the Ten Commandments in courtrooms or allowing school prayer will overcome. In fact, the more we argue about these issues, the more the above statistics solidify because our fighting about them makes non-Christians think that all we want to do is to indoctrinate others by force of law. And anytime religion becomes enforced by the state it decreases, at least in a real sense. People may become nominally Christian, but real faith suffers
Think back to the growth of the original church. What was it that allowed Christianity to grow? The original church, for its first three-hundred years, was outlawed and persecuted. For the most part it was illegal to be a Christian. During times when it was legal, it was only legal if individual Christians bowed once a year before a stature of the emperor, thus acknowledging him as a god equal to Christ. During those times of persecution, Christianity thrived. Why?
Christians gained a reputation for love and acceptance of those rejected by the Romans—the poor, the handicapped, slaves, and women. Their reputation was of being better than the culture. They stood for commitment in a culture that lacked commitment—where men and women often married seven, eight, nine, ten times. They stood for honesty in a culture that believed in deception and bribes in business. But above all, they stood for love of others, especially those rejected by the culture.
I think that the attitudes of non-Christians toward Christians has a lot to do with something they perceive very clearly about us Christians. I believe that Christianity as a whole has drifted away from the facets about us that made us attractive to begin with. The fact is that the present Christian culture in general (at least the visible Christian culture represented on television by Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and others) isn't always all that loving, at least toward the marginalized. We've come to stand much more for morality first, love second, rather than the opposite. This was very well articulated to me a number of years ago by a pastor who said, “Yeah, I suppose
love and all that is nice and important, but not as important as purity.” By purity he meant having the right beliefs and being morally pure. I don't want to give the impression that I advocate for heretical beliefs and immorality. What I do advocate for are beliefs and morality that lead to love of others.
When I read scripture, especially the gospels, I hear love as clearly being the main point. It is hard for me to find passages where Jesus reprimands people for not having the right beliefs, but it is easy to find passages where Jesus reprimands people for not having love. And if you look at many of the heroes of the gospel stories, they are the rejected. It's the centurion who has faith. It's the paralyzed man who has faith. It's the Syro-Phoenician woman who has faith. It's the woman with the 12-year hemorrhage who has faith. It's the tax collector who has faith and humility. It's the Samaritan who has love.
The fortunate thing about most of us at Calvin Church is that we tend to be Christians who love. I'm under no false pretenses that we can be hugely influential over the Christian culture, but we can be influential over those we come in contact with. I believe that the answer to our times is for us to emphasize love as much as possible. It is for us to be people who lead with compassion for those hurt and rejected by others, who lead with a passion to help those on the margins, and who lead with a desire to find a way to overcome differences through patience and love.
With God's Blessings,
Dr. N. Graham Standish