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I’m at Sewanee this week for the School of Theology Alumni lectures, followed by the Trustees meeting (starting today), where I am the clergy representative for the Diocese of Georgia, one of the owning dioceses of the University. In between, I’ve been at the library putting together my thesis proposal so that, once approved, I can begin writing. It has also allowed me to see Eva a few times, including working at the same table in the library for a couple of hours – something I would never have imagined happening. The alumni lectures have been engrossing and helpful for those of us in parish ministry. Some years, the lectures are very academic and, while interesting, not necessarily engaging.
This year, the lecturer has been Dr. Andrew Root, a professor at Luther Seminary. Dr. Root is a prolific writer around my age, whose lecture style resembles what we see with TED Talks. It’s one thing to preach a sermon without notes; he gave three hour-long lectures without notes in front of him. And, as a Gen-Xer like me, his pop culture references landed perfectly. We have a shared lexicon of television, movies, and music. In fact, there is one area with a lot of overlap. One of his books, co-written with his wife, a Lutheran pastor, is a book to encourage parents and pastors, using the metaphor of pilgrimage, but not just any pilgrimage. They wrote it as a reflection on their family’s hike along the Way of St. Cuthbert, the 100-kilometer walk our family made about eight years ago. It’s a small world.
Dr. Root is a practical theologian, which means his area of expertise bridges classical theological study and the practices of the church. Practical theologians get to the heart of the matters of faith where the rubber meets the road. Root’s lectures were given under the heading, “Ministry in a Secular Age,” and summarize much of his thinking after having written six books on the church’s reality in a secular age. He shared academic reflections to be sure, explaining how the world has changed from the days when everyone was religious. The world has gone through a series of eras that have gotten us to today, where religion is a private/public debate, we have largely lost most magical thinking about religion, and the church is just one possible choice and reality among many others.
He challenged us to resist adopting more of the tendencies of secular society, which cause the church to be lost amidst the fads and phases that ultimately draw us further from the core of Jesus’ calling. An example I’ll give from one of my recent experiences was someone who, when asked (not by me) why they attended a certain popular church, their answer was devoid of any theological reflection, but referenced the music (style, not substance) and the fact that they use a snow machine for their Christmas service. Those are precisely the sorts of things Dr. Root’s scholarship identifies in this age, when churches are viewed as a consumer choice and evaluated more for their amenities than the actual ministries they do—secularity at work.
There is little hope (or desire) that we will return to a new era in which everyone is religious, and we probably don’t want to. Everyone must accept the changing landscape of religion and the decline of the church in the Western world (In other parts of the world, Christianity is growing, in theory, and via Pentecostalism in particular. The Christian church will look VERY different fifty years from now). Even the evangelical tradition, the last segment of Christianity to claim growth in numbers, has officially reached the crossover point where its older members outnumber its younger members. It is a demographic reality that is a harbinger of accelerating numerical decline. For comparison, the Mainline reached that point twenty years ago.
Some of the most helpful things from this week’s lectures include a reminder that those who still participate in religious life are increasingly counter-cultural. It takes effort to participate in a church community, or to get up on a Sunday morning and gather with others to worship using the ancient words prayed by generation after generation. Like Root, I am grateful for those who do, as we can create a unique experience of God’s presence – literally becoming the Body of Christ when we do. That alone is a sign that God is at work in the world, but there are others.
God is always at work, as Dr. Root reminded us. He played a song from an indie band called the Purple Mountains in which the refrain includes the questions “How long can a world go on under such a subtle God?” and “How long can a world go on with no new word from God?” He contends that the church needs to reclaim the transforming word of God in Christ for a world that needs it, in part, by letting people tell their stories of God’s interactions with them. He echoed what the Men’s Group heard earlier this year when we read Dr. Dale Allison Jr.’s book Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age. As we learned in our reading and our sharing, many people have “God experiences,” but they aren’t discussing them openly. God isn’t as subtle as we like to pretend, and God continues to offer a word to the world. We just don’t listen very closely.
Root’s lectures were not depressing or negative. They struck the same tone that I have been humming for some time now. The church has a bright future because God is in our midst, continuing to work for the transformation of hearts and minds and the world we inhabit. Our mission is more easily defined when we aren’t just a choice among many, but a shining city of light on a hillside. We know who we serve and who has a vision of this world that can set us free – a word of salvation. We tend to be the subtle ones, not God. Especially as Episcopalians! God has a word for us and this world, and it’s our calling to hear it and repeat it for others to hear. Without it, the question might be valid: how long can the world go on?
