Sad if true
I am hard-pressed to think of one [evangelical] congregation that is not divided—or in an adrenal stance of tension about the imminence of division—over the turmoil of the political moment.
Russell Moore. If true, that points to some fundamental flaw in Evangelicalism, doesn’t it?
I commend to anyone who cares Frances FitzGerald’s The Evangelicals, which includes this pointer toward the fundamental flaw:
In their eagerness to save souls, the revivalists introduced vernacular preaching styles, de-emphasized religious instruction, and brought a populist, anti-intellectual strain into American Protestantism.
Though I left Evangelicalism more than half a lifetime ago, I can’t feel good about its humiliating behavior because America looks at Evangelicalism (decreasingly at Roman Catholicism, in my impression) and thinks “that’s what Christianity is, and ain’t nobody got time for ‘dat.”
That’s not what Christianity is, but nobody seems willing to listen.
The eventuality of anti-intellectualism
Speaking of anti-intellectualism:
If evangelicals do not take seriously the larger world of the intellect, we say, in effect, that we want our minds to be shaped by the conventions of our modern universities and the assumptions of Madison Avenue, instead of by God and the servants of God.
Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (quote is from first edition; link is to the 2022 second edition)
For what it’s worth …
Mainliners have “less deference toward and trust for clergy” and for church governance than evangelicals do. “Mainliners are typically not intimidated by clergy or distorted ideas about pastoral authority.” Their pastors are more like “hired help.” An evangelical pastor’s authority is exacerbated when he (almost always a he) is the founder or built up the ministry or has served a long span of years, or his governing board is laden with his pals. Such pastors “become nearly unassailable.”
Richard Ostling, Mainline Protestants and Sexual Abuse Scandals
He who has seen me …
[T]he disciples ask Jesus to show them the Father. Utilitarian. You’re the tool that can do this job. But Jesus says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Jesus is not the “tool” but the Goal itself. Everyone who comes to Me sees the Father. It is only Christ who IS the image of the Father, no one sees the Father except in the person of Christ.
So then “no one comes to the Father except by Me” is not a threat, but a fact. What remains now is “what does it mean to know Christ, and how does one do that?”
Defending the West?
A lot of people who talk about “defending the West” these days are either trying to defend red in tooth and claw capitalism — the system which has done more to destroy culture and eternal values in the West than anything else — or they’re trying to defend free speech, individualism and the right to be rude on the internet. I would suggest that these things in themselves were the results of a settlement designed, in the process now known as “the Enlightenment” to replace the West’s original sacred story with a new, human-centred version.
Paul Kingsnorth, Is There Anything Left to Conserve
Sentimentality
Sentimentality is the subjecting of the church year to “Mother’s Day” and “Thanksgiving.” Sentimentality is the necessity of the church to side with the Sandinistas against the Contras. Sentimentality is “the family that prays together stays together.”
Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens
Confessions and Creeds
Today we confess that we have not done enough to protect our planet. We confess that we have failed to insist that our government set standards based on precaution. We confess that we, as consumers, have allowed companies to release dangerous toxins that destroy fragile ecosystems and harm human beings, especially those among us who are most vulnerable. God of justice, help us understand the need and send a clear signal to our political leaders about making the crucial choice between the present path of “destructiveness”—or the morally responsible path of compassion and respect for life, acknowledging our dependence upon you and our interconnectedness with all creation. Not much danger of this being described as “poetic.” It is driven by a pure fixation on content, aims to be primarily didactic, and would be very difficult for a congregation to recite together precisely because it has no rhythm or cadence that makes it sing.
James K.A. Smith, dissecting a very unlovable confession in his book You Are What You Love
I would be inclined to argue that it’s also superficial — avoiding the root causes of the “sins” it so ploddingly and unconvincingly describes.
Compare the Sparkle Creed:
I believe in the nonbinary God, whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic, and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling child of God.
I believe in the rainbow spirit who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity. I believe in the church of everyday saints, as numerous, creative and resilient as patches on the … quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud and whose eyes gaze at the stars in wonder. I believe in the calling to each of us that love is love is love, so beloved let us love.
I believe, glorious God, help my unbelief, Amen.
Here, at least, is a stab at something poetic, something that sings, but larded with fatuities and tropes that will not age well.
In a way — maybe several ways — I’m glad when heretics write faddish and foolish new creeds instead of mouthing historic creeds they no longer really believe.
Skipping Church
The No. 1 reason American churchgoers skip a worship service is bad weather.
The No. 2 reason is good weather.
(6 Reasons Bedside Baptist and Church of the Holy Comforter Are So Popular)
We are in the grip of a grim, despairing rebellion against reality that imagines itself to be the engine of moral progress.
The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world.
You can read most of my more impromptu stuff here (cathartic venting) and here (the only social medium I frequent, because people there are quirky, pleasant and real). Both should work in your RSS aggregator, like Feedly or Reeder, should you want to make a habit of it. I’m even playing around a bit here, but uncertain whether I’ll persist.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 