Why We're Not Going Back to Church After the Pandemic

Why We're Not Going Back

To Church After the Pandemic

https://mbird.com/religion/church/why-were-not-going-back-to-church/

by Sam Bush

September 1, 2021

If the church was actually what they said it was —

a hospital for sinners — then our sanctuaries

would be full of bodies. - Sam Bush

When hosting a party, it’s hard not to take a person’s absence personally, especially if the reason goes unmentioned. Without an RSVP, the host is left to assume the worst. Did the person die on the way over? Or worse still, did they have better things to do and never really like you in the first place? Such is the case, it seems, for clergy who are wondering where some of the pre-pandemic stalwarts have gone. I’m currently in my third year of seminary and, as someone who is hoping to be a future leader in the church, I went to a Sunday service four times this summer. (My kids went once.) I could provide a list of excuses, but none of them feel truly legitimate.

Why haven’t we gone back to church? The most obvious answer is no surprise. The Delta variant has kept at home those who are at a higher risk of infection. The pandemic is a good enough reason to explain someone’s absence in and of itself, but we’d be remiss to not explore other things going on beneath the surface.

One reason for playing Sunday morning hooky is that we’re exhausted. Getting a child dressed and out the door felt like an Olympic event long before the pandemic. For young families especially, church used to be simply another thing to be late to, but now it’s too much to ask. The spirit is willing but the flesh isn’t just weak; it’s depressed, it’s irritable, and it couldn’t find a babysitter last night. As Dan Sinker wrote in his essay in The Atlantic, “Parents aren’t even at a breaking point anymore. We’re broken.” Well, then, all the more reason to go to church, right?

Apparently not. I think an underlying truth is that missing church these past 18 months has been kind of nice. Our inner-introverts have thrived, our inner-extroverts have been tamed. We’ve been lonely, but Netflix has been helpful. The truth is, many of us have begun to wonder "What church is all that good for?"

These days, many Christians feel a general lack of urgency when deciding whether or not to get dressed whenever Sunday morning comes around. Self-discipline is a muscle that quickly loses its tone when not exercised. And it can be nearly impossible to get back in the groove once the momentum of a routine is lost.

For many people, going to church just doesn’t seem practical. Since the early days of the pandemic, we have been channeling the spirit of Marie Kondo, mercilessly ridding our lives of clutter and excess. A year and a half later and we are still in the business of extracting rather than adding to our lives. After all, if one’s ship is on the verge of sinking, the sensible thing to do is to throw things overboard in order to lighten the load. Keeping that family heirloom is nice, but it’s not helping the boat stay above the water. Similarly, if we were only going to church for sentimental reasons to begin with, we may never go back.

The English philosopher Alfred Whitehead once said,

“Apart from religion, expressed in ways generally intelligible, populations sink into the apathetic task of daily survival, with minor alleviations.”

It’s an apt description for believers and unbelievers alike these days. What is Covid but the apathetic task of daily survival?

Sadly, the church has not offered a worthy alternative. It has not expressed Christianity in “ways generally intelligible.” It has led many of us to ask what good going to church is if it’s not going to help in times of crisis.

Two thoughts come to mind. The first is that we have forgotten the urgency of our predicament. Again, I’m not talking about the virus as much as I am talking about life itself. In the apathetic task for daily survival, we have forgotten that we were already dead in our sin and that in Christ we have been made alive again (Gal 2:20). We have forgotten our need for our forgiveness to be proclaimed and received over and over again.

Our current understanding of church is equally apathetic. It’s similar to flossing or dieting. It’s good for you, but its benefits are only long term. Many people see church as a place that leans more toward a health and wellness checkup rather than an emergency room. And now, quite literally for many of us, we are in the emergency room [of faith].

If the church was actually what they said it was — a hospital for sinners — then our sanctuaries would be full of bodies. Which leads me to my second thought, that the church seems to have forgotten about the only actual ace up its sleeve: the proclamation that Jesus Christ loves us unconditionally and has forgiven us everything.

Of all the things that are essential to life (community, a sense of purpose and belonging, etc.), the gospel of God’s love and forgiveness is the church’s unique offering to the world. It is, as the Book of Common Prayer says, “necessary for our life and our salvation,” the very thing that can lift us out of apathy. Unfortunately, it’s a card that we have generally refused to play.

As humans, we are forgetful beings. Thankfully, the structure of our Sunday service is mercifully built upon the act of remembrance. Every week, we take the Body and the Blood as the memorial of our redemption. While Jesus’ death on the Cross was done “once for all,” his Body and Blood are meant to be taken as routine nourishment for whoever is hungry. “Don’t forget that I love you,” Jesus tells us. Of course, we will forget, but, rest assured, he is there to remind us every first day of the week.

I hope the church can serve as an emergency room for people in crisis. I hope it can be a place where people who are struggling feel comfortable showing up late and in pajamas. I hope it can be welcoming to people who are exhausted and offer the life-giving words that all is forgiven. I also hope that we can grant ourselves permission to cease the apathetic task of survival; to sink into the deep waters of God’s love and die, that we might be raised up, any given Sunday.

I’m still quite hopeful about the church’s future. As the great hymn proclaims, its foundation is none other than Jesus Christ our Lord. Yes, it’s a faulty institution, but it is still and will forever be the body of Christ. I can only hope that those of us who haven’t been back to church will eventually do so when they’re reminded of their need for him and that the church will be there to receive them gladly. In such a difficult time for so many people, the hymn is good to remind us that as we cry out, now more than ever it seems, “How long?” we can trust that “soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.”

- SB

The Legacy of the Christian Blogosphere

a deeper story

 

 

 

A History of Outrage

http://deeperstory.com/a-history-of-outrage/

 

by Mason Slater

August 3, 2012
 

Chick-Fil-A, Love Wins, the maelstrom over a particular post about 50 Shades of Gray – sometimes I find myself worrying that this will be the legacy of the Christian blogosphere, that these controversies (and hundreds like them) will be all that people remember in twenty or fifty years.

Sure, we wring our hands at the unpleasantness of it all, but that’s usually while we are busy rolling out the outrage machine and the language of persecuted minority or righteous-defender-of-all-that-is-good-and-true.

We say we wish it wasn’t like that, that we don’t want to be this way, that they started it.

But, sometimes, I really don’t think that’s the case.

I think much of the blogosphere can’t do without it. We have become the outrage-industrial complex, building a digital empire by speaking in the vitriolic language of us vs. them.

I think that if there wasn’t a conflict we would have to start one.

I worry that if people twenty years from now remember the Christian blogosphere as driven by controversy, outrage, and infighting, tragically they might be more right than wrong.

How many blogs would soon fall silent if there wasn’t an “enemy” to oppose? We get a high off it, but like any junkie we are quite talented at denying we have a problem, no matter how much damage we are doing, no matter how out of control it has become.

And it’s a shame, because so many of you have beautiful stories to tell, and incredibly brilliant ideas to share. So many bloggers are writing and doing things that are redemptive, imaginative, an outworking of the Gospel story.

But those bloggers, the sort who don’t want to play the game, they often tend to drop out over time, exhausted and disheartened by it all. Or, these wise and quiet voices get passed over in our mad dash from one controversy to the next. And so, one way or another, we never hear them.

I suppose that is part of what I appreciate about this community. True, it is not afraid to address difficult or controversial issues – but it finds its identity not in outrage but in grace, love, and the little bits of life that we share through our stories.

I think if all the controversies went away, by some miracle of God’s mysterious grace, the people here would have just as much to say. These writers would not fall silent.

Because it isn’t simply writing about a controversy that’s the issue, it’s when we start to confuse these controversies with the Gospel, and confuse our stance on them with our identity as children of God. These controversies are not our story, or at least, they shouldn’t be, because our real stories are far better.

And it’s those stories, those stories about love and grace and resurrection, that I hope people remember long after the controversies have been forgotten.


About Mason: Mason is a husband to Melinda, seminary student, blogger, and freelance writer in Grand Rapids, MI. He is passionate about theology, community and justice. What little time is left amidst his busy schedule is devoted to reading, coffee snobbery and a new adventure in home brewing.

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The Role of Freelance Theologians

The state of theology and the role of freelance theologians

http://www.postost.net/2011/07/state-theology-role-freelance-theologians

by Andrew Perriman

Friday 22 July 2011

• Post-Christendom

James K.A. Smith, who stayed in our house in the Hague with his family a few years back, wrote last week about the state of contemporary theology, complaining in particular about the “balkanization” of professional theology today. He attributes this—in part, at least—to a shift in the way theologians identify themselves. Traditionally theological identity was determined by denominational allegiance: Reformed, Roman Catholic, Lutheran. Now theologians appear to have developed a taste for more abstract and theory-laden labelling: “ecclesio-centric”, “apocalyptic”, “radically orthodox”.

Jamie attributes this development to an “ecumenical” theological education, exacerbated, naturally, by the blogosphere, and he is not happy about it. It’s unhealthy.

I also think this state of the field is a by-product of the fact that many up-and-coming theologians right now are not what we used to call “churchmen” in any strong sense (“churchwomen” included): they are not tied to denominational identities, they are not participants in the specifics of ecclesiastical governance/teaching, they are not subject to ecclesial magisteria of any sort, they are not aspiring to chairs in their denominational seminaries, etc. From where I sit, freelancing does not seem very conducive to healthy theologizing.

So he argues, instead, for an old-fashioned, broad or “thick” confessionalism. It doesn’t have to be true, necessarily, but it has to be “good”, or at least “good enough”. He regards his own Christian Reformed identity not as a “recipe for sectarianism” but as something that frees him up to “engage selectively, critically, and generously”. I can see what he’s getting at, but I’m not entirely convinced by the argument for the following reasons:

• I can see how an “ecumenical” theological education may undermine traditional commitments, but how is the new “balkanization” any worse than the old “balkanization” driven by denominational commitments? Arguably, it’s a lot better.
• The denominational categories keep us firmly within the Christendom paradigm. They reflect the patterns, preoccupations and prejudices of historically determined debates. If theological activity has to be partitioned (I guess it’s unavoidable and probably not a bad thing) I think that it is well worth testing new ways of mapping the landscape—ideally ways that follow the contours of scripture better.
• It ought to be much easier to let go of theoretical identities than denominational identities. If the new partitions are the product of a more ecumenical education, then we might hope that they will preserve something of this spirit of ecumenism. The institutional and cultural containers of our theologizing are much too rigid.
• The sort of abstract theoretical commitments that Jamie is wary of cut across denominational boundaries and must to some extent mitigate the controlling force of denominational allegiances and politics.

But what prompted me, in the first place, to write this piece was Jamie’s dismissal of freelance theologizing, which I take rather personally. Freelance theologizing is what I do. I have an M.Phil and a PhD in theology. I have a loose but invaluable relationship with a non-denominational theological college in the UK and with a cautiously progressive US-based church-planting organization. I have always been strongly committed to diverse evangelical churches wherever we have lived, from Chinese Baptist to francophone African, from Anglican to Reformed Church of America, from restrained seeker-sensitive to romping charismatic. But I would not know what “thick” confessional location to plant myself in. I think of myself currently as a sort of post-Christendom, post-modern evangelical, but what does that mean?

While I understand the appeal of a centred approach to theological study, my view is that there is a real need for decentred theologians to challenge the massive consensuses that still set the agenda for western English-language theology. The blogosphere is an anarchic and promiscuous place, but it provides an important counter-medium for an exploratory, conversational, non-conformist mode of theological thought that may prove critical for the future of the people of God.

That said, Jamie is right to be concerned about a loss of collective responsibility in the shift from denominational to theoretical classification of theological positions. A “radical orthodox” or “apocalyptic” or “New Perspective” theologian has no clear constituency to support or be supported by; there is no underpinning ecclesiology; the danger of narcissism is apparent; and the connection between theology and what is traditionally called “discipleship” is greatly weakened.

But the answer, in my view is not to revert to traditional denominational categories but to seek to forge new collective identities, a new ecclesiology, a new sense of what it means to be in continuity with the biblical narrative in the aftermath of the collapse of the Christendom model. No matter how far outside the traditional boxes we find ourselves in our search for a way forward, we still have to confess. We are still part of the story. We still have to affirm the vocation of a people called originally in Abraham to be new creation. We still have to have do theology for the sake of the future of the people of God.