Sometimes it’s downright painful to see a Christian skate right up to the edge of understanding and then skitter and windmill away from it again. Richard Krejcir has managed that stunt in a post he wrote for an evangelical church leadership site, reminding me yet again that culture-war-loving Christians really don’t have a good solution for their current membership crisis.
Do more of that, and harder. It’s a mantra by now. It hasn’t actually worked yet, but it’s literally all the religion’s leaders have in their toolbox for coping with a crisis that nobody–most especially themselves–ever saw coming.
One of the most fascinating bits of fallout from the ongoing secularization of America is that we’re starting to ask some questions now that would have been completely unthinkable 20 or 25 years ago. One of the most provocative of those questions centers on whether or not we should start taxing churches and making them responsible for all of their own activities and upkeep. What would have been shocking and quickly rejected out of hand is now getting some serious attention from all kinds of places!
The biggest Protestant denomination in the United States continues to suffer serious churn in its membership, and those of us who are rooting for its failure won’t be disappointed to hear how they’re dealing with it. I recently discovered a quiet little update to one of their most surprising task force meetings.
Kim Burrell is a gospel singer and minister who wants us all to know that she thinks gay people are ickie. But in displaying her homophobia, she’s accidentally illustrated something about where her religion is going, and why.
We’ve been talking about the various ways that Christianity has used coercion to convert and retain members through the centuries. Its legal clout has faded and its political power has waned, its credibility as a world faith is faltering more quickly than anybody could have guessed, its members leave by the thousands per day, and churches close by the hundreds per year. Its leaders and adherents alike know that clearly, something must be done! But when there is nothing in their toolbox but coercion, then that is the tool they shall use–even when coercion only hastens their end.
We’ve been talking lately about the various ways that Christianity rose to power as the dominant Western religion in the 2nd to 5th centuries. But the fun couldn’t last, and now that power is declining sharply with every passing year. As Christians began losing the power to force people to comply with their demands, they also became increasingly desperate to regain that power.
We’ve been talking lately about the various ways that Christianity rose to power as the dominant Western religion in the 2nd to 5th centuries. But the fun couldn’t last, and now that power is declining sharply with every passing year. As Christians began losing the power to force people to comply with their demands, they also became increasingly desperate to regain that power.
When I heard about Carrie Fisher’s heart attack, I was shocked–and very hopeful that she would survive despite the desperate circumstances around it. But instead, the news reported shortly afterward that she had in fact passed away. She joins a constellation of amazing, talented people that we have lost this year. For those who are maybe a bit young for her iconic starring turn in Star Wars, it’s hard to put into words just what she means for my generation–and what her role as Princess Leia Organa gave the world.
What would happen if Christians suddenly understood that the entire mythology of their religion is just that–a series of myths and metaphors?