CCblogs Network

All of my evidence is anecdotal

Which is to say:  all I have is stories.

I noticed a young family gone absent from worship.  She is a gifted
musician and actress; they have two young children.  She did a benefit
concert here once full of wonderful musical numbers; all the proceeds
went to cancer research.  I had been somewhat connected with them and
eventually found her on facebook, where I noticed that her religious
affiliation was "atheist."

Oh.

We had several facebook chats, where she was open about she and her
husband's conversations, and that they discovered that "they didn't
really believe in a personal god."  Later on, I noticed she had changed
her religious designation to "humanist"; I asked her if that was a
somewhat "kinder, gentler" version of atheism, especially since I knew
that several members of her family were pious Christians.  I thought
there was a slight online grin there. 

****

A young couple is sitting in my office.  They want to get married.  They
are extremely nice, interesting, earnest people.  He's a special
education teacher, I remember, who considers himself a role model for
at-risk kids.

They are sitting in my office, having completed the pre-marriage
inventory that I offer.  We are talking about Spiritual Beliefs, which
is one of the categories on the inventory.

"We don't believe that you have to go church to be saved," they tell
me.  They say it with a slight bit of embarrassment, as it is Sunday,
after church, and I am wearing a collar, and until about 15 minutes ago,
I was leading worship.  But it's only a slight bit of embarrassment.

The thing is, if the sentence is exactly the way they said it, "I don't
think you have to go to church to be saved," I don't disagree with
them.  I don't think you have to go to church to be saved, if you put it
in those particular words.  The sentence makes going to church sound
like part of a salvation check-list, and going to church like taking
castor oil or eating your spinach.  Good-for-you, they say, but somehow
unpleasant.  (Which I suppose it is, for some people.)  There's the
problem with the words "have to", but there's also a problem with the
words "Go to church", rather than "go to worship."  It makes church
sound like a place you spend a little time to fulfill your religious
requirement, rather than a community of people who are committed to
listening to God and following Jesus. 

****

Saturday, I met with a couple of women who want to join our
congregation.  Mostly, we just had a conversation, although I gave them
each a copy of Daniel Erlander's book Baptized, We Live
And a copy of Luther's Small Catechism.  They asked questions; we
talked about a few of the fundamentals of what it means to be Christian,
and Lutheran.  I offered my favorite part of the catechism, which is
Luther's explanation to the Third Article of the Creed (on the Holy
Spirit), "I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot
believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy
Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts,
made me holy and kept me in the true faith...."

"You're here because the Holy Spirit called you," I offered.  "At least, according to Luther." 

"That's what we think," they both said.

****

Last Wednesday, I heard a little bit of a presentation by Diana Butler
Bass.  The title of her lecture was, "The Great Religious Recession",
and was taken from her forthcoming book, Christianity after Religion
She did a lot of research and told stories about the decline in esteem
for religion all over the world, including here.  A lot of what she said
rang true.  Though it is not true that Christians are a persecuted
minority in the United States, it is true that the religious climate is
changing, that culture is more skeptical and less friendly to religion
in general.

There are days when it can get discouraging.

But somehow I think that the Holy Spirit is still around.

But, all I have is stories.

Originally posted at Faith in Community

Diane Roth

Diane Roth is a Lutheran pastor in Texas. She blogs at Faith in Community, part of the CCblogs network.

All articles »