Bad Religion - Conclusion

A few weeks ago, we finished Bad Religion in our small group. Around that time, the Olympics were also going on over in London.

A couple of things grabbed my attention during the Olympics that fit right in with the conclusion of the book. For some background, the 10,000m race has been dominated by athletes from Kenya, Ethiopia, and other East African nations for decades. Prior to that it was Europeans. In fact, a US runner hadn't metaled in the 10K since 1964. But this year, a US runner, Galen Rupp, coached by Alberto Salazar, finally made it on the podium.

Some quotes following the race:

For Galen and Alberto, the silver medal was a work in progress that started in 2000 when Galen met Alberto as a freshman at Central Catholic High School in Portland. They have worked together ever since and dreamed of tonight with Alberto planning for it all along. Galen said, "What makes him so great is he is willing to adapt. He never leaves any stone unturned. He is meticulous in his plan. This has been a long buildup. ... I remember talking about this with him in high school. ... He said, 'This is going to take a long time. We're not going to take any shortcuts or do anything to go after short term rewards.' He takes a really long-term gradual approach and I think today he showed that pays off. I'm forever indebted to him. He's like a father figure to me. ... He's an unbelievable man."

On final getting the elusive American medal, Alberto said, "I absolutely believe starting twenty years ago American and Western Europeans had a defeatist attitude. They thought the East Africans were so good and there was just an onslaught of East Africans and they got so much better and for whatever other reasons the Americans and the Brits went through a little bit of a lull. Not only the East Africans running faster than anyone ever before, but now the Americans and Brits and Europeans were running slower, so all of sudden you had this huge gap and there really shouldn't be that gap. Back thirty years ago there weren't as many East Africans, but there still a lot of very good ones and they weren't any better than the best Europeans and Americans. I don't believe all of a sudden they were genetically better. I think a lot was psychological. I think Americans and Europeans just gave up. Another big problem I believe was there's too many people who use the excuse of drugs, that anyone who runs fast is on drugs. The second you start thinking that as a coach or as an athlete you're basically saying you're not good enough to compete with other people unless you cheat. What I've always told our guys is 'Don't believe all that bull. Those are the losers that say that.' Rather than trying to change their own training to get better they use that as excuse and it's a defeatist attitude. A lot of the mind-set for us was 'We can beat these guys. We've just got to train smart.'"

This of course brings to mind the language used by Paul:

 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

 This language is made practical at the end of Douthat's book as well:

To make any difference in our common life, Christianity must be lived - not as a means to social cohesion or national renewal, but as an end unto itself. Anyone who seeks a more perfect union should begin by seeking the perfection of their own soul.

That quest begins with a single step - over the threshold of your local church, back through the confessional door, or simply into an empty room for a moment's silent prayer.

Those simple steps are what make a habit, which in turn is what makes a life.

The future of American religion depends on believers who can demonstrate, in word and deed alike, that the  possibilities of the Christian life are not exhausted by TV preachers and self-help gurus, utopians, and demagogues. It depends on public examples of holiness, and public demonstrations of what the imitation of Christ can mean for a fallen world. We are waiting, not for another political savior or television personality, but of a Dominic or Francis, an Ignatius or a Wesley, a Wilberforce or a Newman, a Bonhoeffer or a Solzhenitsyn. Only sanctity can justify Christianity's existence;  only sanctity and make a case for faith; only sanctity, or the hope thereof, cam ultimately redeem the world.

And I end with this quote:

"Time and time again, Chesterton noted, 'the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs.' But each time, 'it was the dog that died.'"

Bad Religion - Ch 7&8

Chapters 7 and 8 talk about two other forms of heresy pervasive in our culture: the "God within" movement and nationalism.

The God within comes in many forms, pulling ideas from Eastern religions, Christianity, and deism to form a nebulous "God is within you" religion. The idea that ultimately, your innermost voice is that of God, because your innermost being is God. 

Douthat does fail to make the distinction between pantheism (God is everything, and that is all that is) and panentheisim (God is within everything but is beyond matter). Panentheism is uncharacteristically undefined, while examples of both types are all lumped together. The point of the chapter remains that while the God within movement borrows from many religions, it does not define itself by any particular religion. It ends up being a nebulous support of self, in which people aren't challenged to change themselves, because that self is actually God. 

The thesis of this religion is that "somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self that is out true identity, universal and devine". (E Gilbert). The key, the proponent say is not in organized region, rather God is beyond that, and therefore, heaven is available to us all here on earth.

The problem is that the God Within movement promises much, but fails to deliver: "... It's striking that the things that therapeutic, God Within religion doesn't seem to have delivered to Americans are the very things that it claims to be best suited to provide-contentment, happiness, well-being, and, above all, the ability to forge successful relationships with fellow human beings. Instead, the solipsism and narcissism that shadow Got Within theology seen to he gradually overwhelming our ability to live in community with one another."

Nationalism is another form of heresy common today in both sides of politics. Douthat states, "the obvious resemblance between America and the Christian Church - both pan-ethnic, universalizing bodies that promise to create a new man out of the old one, and redeem a fallen and corrupted world - has tempted many Americans to regard the United States as a whole as a New Israel, a holy nation, a people set apart." I can completely relate to this. Growing up and attending a Christian school for middle school, high school, and undergrad college, I heard this argument either implicitly or explicitly with surprising frequency.

As our policital parties continue to become more polarized, the effect of this has actually become more dramatic. "Instead of balencing each other out, the two heresies of nationalism have taken turns in the driver's seat of both political coalitions, giving us messianism from the party in power and apocalyptism from the party out of power, regardless of which party is which."

Striving

In our small group discussion on Bad Religion, it was brought up that the author points out many ways that the Christian faith deviated from Orthodoxy, but it didn't offer many solutions to how to become better Christians. It is a good question, worth pondering. I think that the author may have intended to point these things out and not merely offer a solution.

There are two reasons for this: first off, we are all creatures of habits. In fact, around 40% of what we do each day is simply habit. I would say that most of the ways we demonstrate (or not) our faith through actions are also habits. Moreover, the first step in changing a bad habit is the knowledge that it exists and monitoring it. So in pointing out habits that Christianity developed is part of the answer.

The other other key is contained in Philipians 3:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The word that is written here as "press on to take hold of" here is also translated strive.

The verb strive (diwkw) is used 24 times in the New Testament. It is used thirteen times in Matthew-Acts, always with the sense of to persecute or hunt down, as, for example, in the case of Israel who always persecuted the prophets sent to her (Matt 23:34; Acts 7:52). Paul uses the term ten times (Romans 9:30; 12:13, 14; 14:19; 1 Cor. 4:12; 14:1; 2 Cor 4:9; Gal 6:12; 1 Thess 5:15; 2 Tim 3:12), both in the sense of “to persecute” (Rom 12:14; 1 Cor 4:12; Gal 6:12; 2 Tim 3:12) and “to ardently pursue” something, i.e., righteousness (Rom 9:30); love (1 Cor 14:1); doing good to others (1 Thess 5:15). Whether Paul is thinking here of the athletic metaphor of running a foot race, as Hendriksen suggests, the point is clear: it is strenuous and requires great effort and focus. 

I think that this is a great word for us. Especially since, as we have seen in this book our tendency towards heresy can be out of wanting to make things easier. Or even to just decide that God wants us to be happy just the way we are. This is human nature. The challenge then is when we receive a word from God that is challenging to the place our hearts are in, either individually or collectively, we need to strive to move from that place. It will take effort and focus, intentionality and vulnerability, it may hurt or be embarrassing; but changing a heart is not easy business. And as Paul says, this is a continual striving. We will consistently be able to move more from our old selves towards Christ.

Bad Religion - Ch 5&6

Section 2 of the book talks about the main ways the American Church has wandered from Orthodoxy. First, Douthat points out that all heresies attempt to remove paradoxes from the gospel by focusing on a few main tenets while minimizing the other details. This results in a "more consistent, streamlined, and non contradictory Jesus." The crux being the following: “Every argument about Christianity is at bottom an argument about the character of Christ himself, and every interpretation of Christian faith begins with an answer to the question Jesus posed to his disciples: ‘Who do you say that I am?’ From Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy, America’s famous heretics have always offered their own answers to that question, drawing on a mix of scholarship and supposition to craft alternatives to the Christ of orthodoxy.” Additionally, scholors have suggested that the current iterations of Christianity have won out from older editions of Christianity, and that tomorrows Christianity will be yet another iteration. 


Meanwhile, if we review the texts, there has not been this wild variation. In general, orthodoxy has, in the past help establish tradition within a very narrow road with core ethics and beliefs consistent with the oldest accounts of Christ available (the letters of the Apostle Paul). 

Chapter 5 also introduces three mainstream deviations that are popular today: The prosperity gospel, which associates faith with material blessing; the God within movement, which suggests that God is inside all of us and that our own deepest longings are actually those of God; and Nationalism, which claims America is the second Israel, God's favored land.

Chapter 6 covers the Prosperity Gospel. The face of modern prosperity theology being Joel Osteen. "By linking the spread of the gospel to the habits and mores of entrepreneurial capitalism, and by explicitly baptizing the pursuit of worldly gain, prosperity theology has helped millions of believers reconcile their religious faith with their nation's seemingly unbiblical wealth and un-Christian consumer culture" 


The problem of this is this:

"But like many forms of liberal Christianity, the marriage of God and Mammon half-expects somehow to undo the Fall, through the beneficence of Providence and the magic of the free market. In its emphasis on the virtues of prosperity, it risks losing something essential to Christianity - skipping on to Easter, you might say, without lingering at the foot of the cross.

It's there that you find the pieces of Christian tradition that a gospel of prosperity leaves by the wayside. An understanding that there can be strength in weakness and defeat; an appreciation for the idea that there might be greater virtue in poverty and renunciation, suffering and purgation, than there is in abundance and "delight"; a hard-earned wisdom about the seductions and corruptions associated with worldliness, power, and wealth." (p.205)

Bad Religion - Ch 3&4

Chapters 3 and 4 describe the two ways in which mainstream Christianity responded to finding itself in decline.

The first was to attempt to accommodate culture. In the view of these Christians, the reason Christianity was losing it's appeal was that it was too dogmatic and judgmental, and that by becoming more accepting of people as they were and letting the standards become more lax.

This ended up being a very slippery slope, as some accommodationalists continued to push away from the dogmas of traditional Christianity to the point of denying that Jesus ever claimed to be God.

Interestingly, the net result of becoming accommodating was not to win the culture, but rather to continue to shed membership. The author implies that for most people, if Christianity didn't hold on to at least most of its orthodox standards than there wasn't much point in being a part of the club.

The resistance movement was led mainly by the Evangelical Church and traditional Catholicism. This shared cause actually led the two to work together to emphasis similarities and fight back against the accommodation movements. It was effective in the sense that the Evangelicals became the largest segment of Christianity.

Recent events that have weakened the resistance movement were the Catholic Priest sexual abuse scandal and the Bush administration, which was widely supported by Evangelicals despite its faults. 

Unity

Chapter 3 of Ross Douthat's book "Bad Religion" starts the discussion of how we became a country full of various denominations. According to some sources, there are about 38,000 denominations worldwide. Even though that number double counts for churches that exist in many countries, the number of denominations is mind-boggling. We talked a little in our small group about how this diversity is a good thing, because it allows for everyone to find a place that fits their personality. While this is true to some extent, I'm hesitant to fully agree with that statement.

The culture of the day worships personalization. This is not news. But to the degree that the Church copies culture, this can begin to become a problem. Church becomes not so much a place of community where you are challenged and can grow, but rather a place where everyone else is similar to me, allowing us all to dwell in our collective blind spot(s).

The call of Christianity is convergence on Christ. So the measure of our success, I would say, is how much our churches converging on this goal? See John 17. So if unity is how others see through us Christ, then this needs some serious effort. This is not a call to squash out our uniqueness, of course, but rather one of allowing ourselves to be challenged so that we can be transformed.

Bad Religion - Ch 1&2

Chapter 1 covers the early to mid 1900s, describing how we came to what Douthat calls the golden age of Christianity. He discusses the impact of Reinhold Niebehr, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King Jr., and Fulton Sheen on the resurgence of Christianity in that time. Interestingly, all mainline branches of Christianity seemed to have influential leaders that were well respected in and outside of their respective communities. The confluence of having such leaders all at the same time is very interesting. Perhaps it was only because of the general popularity of the faith, but it is hard to say for sure. In general it was a time where Churches were growing, seminaries were full, and culture at large had a positive view of Christianity.

Chapter 2 talks about what Douthat calls "the locust years". Five factors that swayed the culture away from Christianity: political polarization, the sexual revolution, globalization, growth of wealth, and class. Politics became more polarized as the issues being debated were less about a common enemy (nazis, racism). Instead religion found itself aligning on one or the other side of the fence in gray areas, causing divisions. The sexual revolution came about largely with the advent of the birth control pill, which provided a cheap, convenient way to separate the pleasures of sex from the consequences for the general populous. This caused many to choose between the ethic of the church or the sexual freedom of autonomy. Globalization showed that there were many other cultures that adhered to many other religions. The growth of personal wealth meant that people were able to live comfortably and further away from each other, so they no longer had to rely on others or the church to provide for them in any way. The intellectual elites began to reject Christianity on an academic level, which trickled down to culture at large.

Law

This quote came from a post about cycling, but it got me thinking:

"At least once, and usually more, when I ride the road (US-40 a rural Kansas Highway), some <driver> will pass me, crossing into the opposite lane going up a hill. Inevitably, a car will be coming from the other direction and have to swerve, brake or something. It never ceases to amaze me that the guy in the other lane nearly always honks or flips me off when he comes by.
I just don’t get it. The car that was passing me is nearly always crossing a double yellow line on a blind hill and the other car blames the cyclist. What’s up with that?
It is even worse when I’m riding with someone else. The drivers of the cars think, mistakenly, that we’re breaking the law by riding two abreast. Somehow that mentality gives these people the need to try to enforce their mistaken thoughts by honking or coming by dangerously close, usually passing illegally themselves. It is super weird, like the law should even matter enough to endanger someones life."

I can resonate with this on a couple of levels. Obviously, as a cyclist, I experience the bad side of this mentality. However, I can also relate to this on a more philosophical level. A truth that was exposed be Jesus to the religious leaders of his time is that the church also has the tendency of doing this to our own detriment. We talked a bit last night in our small group that the church has always had these blind spots, where we are threatening people in order to keep "the law". I'm not sure what the best way is to deal with these things, but I know that we are called to keep learning from people different than us, keep looking to Christ as our guide, and being willing to have our worldviews continually be moved, as unsettling as that can be.

Bad Religion - Prologue

Just started the book Bad Religion by Ross Douthat in our small group last week, covering the prologue.The book focuses on Christianity in the US today and how it got to its current state. Douthat's thesis statement is that the interplay of orthodoxy and heresy has been essential to the formation of Christianity, but recently, the heresy has been dominant.

He discusses the value of having a both/and stance, showing the paradoxical causes us to wrestle deeply with issues. The black and whiteness of orthodoxy being challenged by heresy keeps us moving forward in a flexible way, allowing what is considered orthodoxy to shift and fit into cultures.

Our group discussed how this movement bred our many denominations allowing people to find churches that mesh with their personalities and tastes. We also discussed how today's Church goers may be more devout, as a whole. than those past generations, due to the inherent cultural differences between today and our grandparents generations. In the early to mid 1900s, church was an accepted social activity, what most people did simply because that is what everyone else did. Today this is no longer the case. And while there now seem to be so many variates of churches that anyone can find a place that suits them best, the tradeoff of the multi-denomination/many-church model is that in some ways we have lost a bit (or more) of the generational hierarchy that used to exist within the church, where the older generations of Christians are able to mentor and pass along wisdom to the younger generations.

In all, the discussion was interesting and lively. Looking forward for the material to come.

Quote(s) of the day 6/1

From the blog of Pastor Larry Shallenberger:

"Jesus is in the business of this reclaiming us and restoring us into beautiful versions of ourselves. Ortberg uses the analogy of a mechanic restoring an old motorcycle, believing that the old rusted bike has its best years ahead of it:

My friend, Jeff, started a blog  where he writes about buying and restoring old motorcycles. I’ve never seen Jeff as animated as when thumbs through his iPhone and finds pictures of the last old bike he rescued from rust and neglect. His idea of a good afternoon is to drive to an old barn in some forgotten part of Ohio and to sift through mountains of defunct bikes. He’ll find a handful of motorcycles with promise and negotiate with the owner until man is willing to part with his treasures. Jeff, then, spends months nursing the old bikes to their former glory, pouring time, money, and parts into his projects. Once he’s finished, Jeff photographs his prizes, and sells them. Then its back to the junk heap to do it again, simply out of his love for motorcycles.
This is, I think, why God is so committed to our change. It’s easy for us to get frustrated with God tinkering at our lives all the time. Didn’t Jesus or George Beverly Shea sing the words “Just As I Am” at a Billy Graham Crusade? If he loves us so much, why he is discontent with our current condition?
We tend to get insecure and imagine that God is critical and angry at us. Or that his love is somehow conditional, based on our ability to jump through a series of rings aflame with holy fire. The truth is that God is a bit like Jeff, or vice-versa. He loves us and recalls what we looked like before corruption and decay pocked the sheen on our lives. He is committed to changing us because he know who we really are.

We religious people, meanwhile, tend to handle each other like airport luggage handlers. This leads to the false belief that its better to lower our heads and fit in."