The Flavor of Weak Sauce

I love my denomination, but if I am entirely honest, it often frustrates the bejabbers out of me.

At our recent General Assembly, we once again backed away from investing our resources in renewables and other forms of energy that might blunt or slow the onslaught of the climate crisis.

For over a decade, we've been noodling around  the edges of making our investment portfolio more clearly reflect care for creation, but once again, our bottom line got muddled by the endless competing interests that sabotage progress amongst progressives.

Of more concern, frankly, was the tepid, enervated approach to the incipient collapse of our republic.  Presbyterians were at the forefront of the American Revolution back in the day, and watching the work of the Founding Fathers systematically undone by the far right should stir us to a hue and cry.  

"Christian nationalism," in the context of both the American Constitution and the Presbyterian Constitution, is an abomination.  It reflects a fundamental failure of representative government, and a toxic commingling of political power and faith that betrays the intent and purpose of the Gospel.  

The current name of that movement is Trumpism, and it is organized around Trump and those who are either in on the grift, in his thrall, or taking a transactional perspective to morality.  

Its rise threatens every single social position the denomination holds: on climate, on racial justice, on inclusion of Queer folk, all of it.   

But it is, ultimately, not a political challenge.  It's a spiritual and existential threat, one that demands an immediate moral response.

And for that, my fellow Presbyterians are catastrophically ill equipped.

What we collectively did on that front?  We funded a study to examine the dynamics of White Christian Nationalism.  

A STUDY.  I know what that means.

I mean, I've lived most of my life inside the Beltway.  I live here now.  I can hear the thrum of 495 in the distance from my front yard.  If you want to do nothing, or to stall, or to kill something, what do we inside-the-Beltway types do?  We commission a study.  We say more information is needed, and that we need to be more deliberate in assessing the complexities of the issue, and opine that there are subtleties that need to be examined, and more perspectives that need to be considered.  We need to hear from all of the constituencies, particularly those that are historically underrepresented.

By the time that study is completed, Christian Nationalism may well be in power, in such a way that meaningful constitutional governance of our republic no longer exists.

"Something is actually happening, Reg!" as that line from Life of Brian goes.  

Which, of course, calls for immediate discussion.

The Church that Fights the Tide

Christianity is in retreat in America, falling back and away, or so says whatever Pew study that American Jesus people are wringing their hands about lately.

The old liners are continuing to fade, of course.  Declining and talking about decline is just what we do.

But even the Big Box Churches of AmeriChrist, Inc. are waning, despite their evangelical fervor and seeker-hungry marketing savvy.  It's an across the board retrenchment, one that should be troubling for any who think the spread of the Way is a good thing.

But as with every trend, there are outliers, communities that have within themselves alternate dynamics that make them buck against the tide.

For years, I've studied such a community, most recently as part of the research for my last novel. 

It's a Christian denomination that has grown ferociously over the last two decades, doubling in size.  The trend-lines, for those who study that community, look really really good.

The sect is, of course, the Amish.

They're bucking the trend, radically so.  There were around 100,000 Amish folk in the late 1980s, when I first studied them as part of my undergraduate Religion program at the University of Virginia. As of three years ago, there were 251,000 Amish folk.  They're on track to have nearly half-a-million within the next two decades.  At which point, given trends, they may outnumber the Presbyterians in my old-line denomination.  Perhaps we'll wave to one another as we pass.

Why? Why are they growing, as all around them more conventional Christianity struggles?  There are many reasons, but I'll highlight three:

Reason One:  The Amish Reproduce.
To our traditional alliterative Amish image of beards and barns, bonnets and buggies, we need to add "babies."  The Amish have lots and lots of babies.  Large families remain a positive asset when you're farming the land using traditional methods.  They don't wring their hands about how to pay for college, because the Amish don't go to college.  They don't  worry about how to coordinate all of that anxiety-parenting soccer and karate and test-prep, because they don't do that, either.  

The Amish do not helicopter, or fret about the ROI on their children.  They just have kids--on average, six or seven--who help out around the farm or business.

This is a real part of their growth, one that isn't "replicable," as they say.  I mean, sure, I could propose that to my church, but somehow I think that'd go over so well.   "My plan for growing this church is that you all start having more babies right now!"  There'd be laughter, right up until they knew I was serious, at which point I'd need to hone my skills in retail.

But there is an irony here that does not escape me.  The Christians who buy into the idea that evolution is just the way God works tend not to procreate.  The Amish, who don't?  Their social structure and set of expectations is more robust, from a strictly Darwinian standpoint.  Go figure.

Babies aren't where that ends, though.  Because babies grow up.

Reason Two:  Amish Kids Become Amish Adults.
One of the most striking features of Amish community is just how little attrition occurs as their children grow to adulthood.   Unlike Catholicism, which produces plenty of ex-Catholics, the Amish have an astoundingly high retention rate.  Depending on the study, between 85 and 95% of Amish children choose to be Amish adults.

This is not because the Amish try to be "relevant" and "young" in their worship services.  They couldn't care less about appealing to kids.  Their worships are long and traditional and unrelenting.  They do not hire hippity-happenin' youth pastors.  And yet there the stat is.  They succeed, wildly, at engaging their young people in community in such a way that they choose to remain.

It is also not because their kids are unaware of the outside world.  Rumspringa, the Amish version of confirmation, actively encourages disengaging from the church for a while and experiencing the world.   And yet a significant majority choose to stay.

Why is this?  Because the entire goal of Amish childhood is to become an Amish adult.  In point of fact, that's the totality of how they orient their children's upbringing.  You're preparing your children to be a farmer or craftsman, a mother or a father.  Period.

And sure, we might cluck at that approach, finding it more than a wee bit claustrophobic and slightly oppressive.  How stifling!  How crushing of the human spirit, to not let our kids be anything they want to be!

But as we do so, we have to ask ourselves: does our culture create paths of life-giving meaning and identity for our children?  Does our economy--meaning the way we structure our life together--give them a sense of belonging, of place, of purpose?

Hah.

More pointedly: does our congregational culture do that?  Really?

And there lies the third strength of Amish identity.

Reason Three:  Clearly Countercultural Economy.
Christians of all flavors like to claim that they stand in tension with the culture.  We leftist oldliners tend to articulate that in terms of our orientation to justice.  The evangelicals assert it as a radical commitment to growth and the spread of the Gospel.  The fundamentalists focus on bible-belief and nation.

But honestly?  The Amish show the lie of our claims.  Can I claim to be countercultural, living in my suburban home, facebooking and tweeting my critiques of culture?  No, I can't.  I depend utterly on culture.  I am embedded in it.

So are you, if you're reading this.

Can the evangelicals who grasp at every cultural trend to further the marketing of their message make that claim?  No.  The medium of consumer culture seeps into their message, and when the medium is itself culturally shaped, it makes spreading a countercultural message difficult.

Can the fundamentalists who fuse their rigid literalism with nationalism, wrapping themselves in both the Bible and the flag?  No.  The blending of Christian faith and the state has always been a betrayal of the message of Jesus, and fundamentalism is just modern-era empiricism applied to the texts of Scripture.

Can the progressive Christian left, which so adopts the language of academic leftism that it can't meaningfully distinguish its own voice from whatever #tropes are #trending on #twitter?  No.  No it can't.

But the Amish?  They are counterculture.  They teach and live nonviolent agrarian counterculture in every aspect of their existence.   Theirs is not a perfect society, and I don't view them through rose-colored utopian glasses.  The Amish are very human, with all of the foibles of humankind.

But the model of life they offer is both faithful and radically distinct.

They do not rely on or mimic the oikonomia of the world.  They have created their own economy, intentionally self-sustaining and separate.  In some ways, it is arguably superior and more robust.

It is not a community that creates anxiety within its members, that sets them against one another.  Their economy is not red in tooth and claw, with a handful of victors and a scrambling mass of losers.   Their economy does not shift wildly on the whims of the powerful.  It does no violence, not just in its pacifism, but in its attitude towards those in times of need.

There is a clear choice, for those who are part of their faith and their community.  You can live like the world--like the English.  Or you can can be the Plain Folk.

And for now, the Plain Folk are trending in ways that the rest of us are not.

America: Now With 50% Less Gay!

When I first saw the research findings a few weeks ago, I knew it would cause a stir.

The National Health Interview Survey is a CDC administrated survey of the population of the United States, one with an unusually large and representative sample.  This was science for the sake of understanding population dynamics, with no agenda.  It was solid, meticulously-designed empirical research, geared to answer an array of questions about our society.

Among the questions: do you self-identify as gay, lesbian, or with a non-traditional sexual identity?

The return on those particular data-points:  About one point six percent of the American population self-identify as gay, or lesbian.  About point seven percent are bisexual.  One point one said they were "other" or did not answer.  Ninety six point six percent were straight.

This is a robust finding, and that worries activists for those who differ from the norm sexually.  Why?  It's less than half of the percentage typically claimed or found in less rigorous studies, and vastly lower than popular perception.

The worry is bluntly political: if there are fewer gay people, that's a problem, because that means fewer votes.   Fewer votes reduces political influence, and reduced political influence will embolden reactionary forces in our culture.  "Look how few gays there are," right-wingers will shout.  "We should be able to oppress them with impunity!"

Or so the thinking goes.

There is a temptation here, no doubt, for advocates to attack the messenger, to pick through the research for flaws in methodology in an attempt to discredit it.  Or to look for ad hominem ways to attack the research team.  But that's dangerous ground, because when you start attacking science, it means you've ceased to be interested in reality.  The researchers involved are already viewing this critically, examining the study themselves without concern for political points.  Because, you know, that's what good science does.  But in the meantime, it's the best available finding.

How can there be so few?  Our culture spends a huge amount of energy on this issue, and...it's that little?

It seems to change the flavor of the issue, taking it from whole-milk to two percent.

It also doesn't *feel* right.  I know so many more LGBTQI folks than that, you say.  I know so many, I even know what all those letters mean.  But your observations are anecdotal, and particular to a subculture.  If you're a creative, and hung around with the drama crowd in high school, sure, you knew more gays and lesbians than that.  If you live in an urban, progressive area, sure, you know more than that. This makes sense.  If you're not actively toxic and hateful towards a certain group of people, you'll tend to know more of them.  They won't lie to you about who they are, or just avoid you altogether.  That's how that works, kids.

This finding reminds us that none of our immediate, local realities is quite as representative as we think.  That's why science is so very useful, eh?

I don't think this is much of a worry, though, for two primary reasons.

First, sure, the number is lower.  We're talking about a smaller minority.  Why does that justify oppressing that minority, or refusing basic human rights to that minority?  It does not morally strengthen the hand of the ultra-conservatives.  If anything, it weakens it.

Here, a small group.  Why are you so insistent on repressing them?  Why is every other sermon your pastor preaches focused on hammering on those sinful gays, if there's a tiny number of them?  Why do your organizations spend all this time going on about what a huge threat tolerating this tiny minority will be?  Perhaps that's a sign that something's gone seriously wrong with the priorities of the people shouting at you.

Second, the number still works, and it works tribally.   What do I mean by that?

Two percent means the odds are there's one in every fifty.

More significantly, there are three in every hundred and fifty.

One hundred and fifty is an important social number.  It's Dunbar's number, the rough number of individuals that make up organic human social networks.  The number of people you know personally, and are part of your sense of the world and your place in it?  That's around 150 total souls.

Even with the social sifting in our culture, everyone will know someone who was just...um...born that way.  Within every American's network of belonging, there will be one or two or three people--a friend, a co-worker, a cousin, a child--who self-identify as gay, lesbian, or some other orientation.  We know them.  They are our friends and our family, and we love them, and now that we know how much our culture has hurt them, we want that to change.

Because, as Horton said, a person's a person, no matter how small a demographic percentage they represent.

Or something to that effect.

Getting Buzzed at Church

A recent study from the University of Washington provided an interesting but not unexpected reflection on church worship attendance.   Old liners often anguish about meaningful, relevant worship, and find themselves wondering if worship is even necessary for faith.  Are we boring?  Are we inauthentic?  Do we need to move away from ritual?  We fret and worry at our liturgical fingernails until they're bitten to the quick.

The many Jesus MegaPlexes of AmeriChrist, Inc., on the other hand, have no such anxiety.  People...like to go to their worship.  Why?  Because it feels good.   The study found that congregants in  Large Venue Churches routinely experienced euphoric states of consciousness.   It was pleasurable.

Being social critters, human beings have a strong reaction to sharing a crowd experience.  Euphoria is common at major sporting events, as your excitement level is amplified by the thousands roaring around you.  It's also a something people at concerts experience, as thousands roar shriek and sing along and hold their lighter...er...smartphones in the air.

In the context of a faith event, that sense of collective euphoria is magnified and interpreted through the lenses of faith.

Therein lies the challenge for the little churches that make up the majority of the congregations in the United States.  We just can't give you that buzz.

That was always the challenge in my last congregation, which was young and small.  The definitive worship for that community was the Christ Omlin concert experience.  Folks would come back from Christian concerts pumped up, and psyched to play the new songs in worship.  But despite the fact that the praise they were able to pull off was really rather good, and there was a remarkable range of musical gifts in the little church, folks were never quite satisfied with the feeling in worship.  It just didn't feel right, no matter how loudly and vigorously it was played.

It couldn't.  It just wasn't the same.

That crowd-feeling just can't be replicated by smaller congregations.   Nor should we worry that we can't evoke it.  That's just not what the little church is.

What does work is intimacy, honesty, and mutual support.   Sure, it might not be the most astoundingly choreographed event, but it's real.  And real is good.  Yeah, small and intimate may reduce the social-mammal-opiate-peptide release, but it doesn't have to diminish meaning.

If anything, it can deepen it.

Churchy Books

As I move towards (God willing) a new chapter in my life as a student, I'm anticipating a significant increase in the amount of reading that I'm required to do.  I always read, of course.  I love reading, be it hard sci fi or philosophy or Christian mysticism or one of the wonderful books that trickle down from my wife's longstanding book group.  Such admirable and sophisticated taste, those women have.  Whether it be for pleasure or just part of my compulsive tendency to learn, I gets me plenty o' readin'.

But since I got my M.Div. oh so many moons ago, there's a genre of books that I've not really cracked all that much.  It's what I like to call the "Churchy Book."  Meaning, it's a book that's written by Christians, for Christians, but doesn't explore faith per se.  Instead, such books talk at great lengths about the dynamics of being church.  What does it mean to be church?  What does it mean to lead a church?  How can we assess the health of churches as organizations?  Such books contain metrics and measures.  Charts and graphs.  Hey...why are you wandering off...

Honestly, I don't mind these books.  Heck, I know people who write them.  I like those people.

But sometimes, I wonder how much all that writing about churchy stuff gets to be "inside baseball" talk.  Instead of singing about the joys of the game, some of what I've read is the Jesus equivalent of four guys sitting in the SportsCenter analyzing baseball contract negotiations for an hour. It makes us feel smart and aware and...well...churchy...to know this stuff.  But the crack of a well struck ball or a blindingly perfect pitch or the athleticism of a leaping catch aren't anywhere to be found.  People who aren't already into the game would quickly change the channel.

Now that I'm diving into a 30 hour training program for pastors who specialize in managing transitions, and then starting doctoral work, I'm going to have to read a whole bunch more in this genre.  Rather than rely on my somewhat spotty neural network to record my responses to those books, well, I might just pitch out some of my insights and critiques here.

So I'm apologizing in advance. 

Piled Higher and Deeper

As I contemplate an undesired but likely shift in my employment status in the near term future, I find myself strongly considering something that I've not considered before. That option is a return to school. After seven years in the ministry, I'm at more or less the right point in my pastorly life when a doctorate would be something to think about. It makes a ton of sense from a career perspective. Congregations in my neck of the woods expect advanced degrees, mostly 'cause pretty much everyone in this hifalutin' area has an advanced degree. And my Masters of Divinity doesn't really count. That's the baseline. If I want to have a whisker of a chance of serving a church after the last grain of sand drops through the hourglass here at Trinity, I'm going to need to hit the books again.

While it's both necessary and practical to be thinking about that now, I do struggle a bit with the purpose of it. Having done the pastor thing for a while now, my sense is that a traditional academic Ph.D. is almost utterly pointless if congregational ministry is your calling. The specialization required for a classical academic doctorate seems to provide exactly the opposite of what most congregations actually require.

Pastors are, by necessity, generalists. That's particularly true for ministers who serve little struggling churches like mine. I not only preach and teach and counsel. I need to be on top of church finances. I need to have a good working knowledge of building issues, up to and including knowing how to use a drill and circular saw, and being comfortable mucking out downspouts on a high roof.

But the need to be a generalist isn't just for the teensy churches. Even the Big Parking Lot pastor needs to have a broad range of well-developed skills. Yeah, they need a golden tongue, and they need the ability to convey the message of the Gospel. But they also need to be able to lead effectively. They have to understand congregational and programmatic dynamics. A big church pastor who preaches real good but fails to grasp the intricacies of their church...well...they'll fail.

This has lead me to think that perhaps, perhaps, a D.Min. actually makes sense. The D.Min. is a degree that gets no respect. I've heard it mocked as a degree for folks who lack the academic chops to get a real doctorate. It's a lame degree for church careerists. Only...well...it isn't. As I look into some of the D.Min. offerings at nearby institutions, I find myself seeing some real possibilities for it strengthening my ability to meet the day-to-day needs of a community of faith. Honestly, that feels more relevant to my calling than a traditional Ph.D.

Whichever way, I find myself surprised that having resisted the concept for a while, it suddenly seems both relevant and desirable.

Clergy Sexual Misconduct

Yesterday's release of a study from Baylor University delves into an area of some discomfort for most Christians: the issue of Clergy Sexual Misconduct. According to the study, one out of every 33 women attending a congregation has, at some point in their adult lives, experienced sexual advances from a religious leader. Some folks are resisting these numbers, reflexively assailing the results as anti-church, but from my experience, it sounds about right. It's a real issue.

I do, however, struggle a bit with the definition of Clergy Sexual Misconduct used by the study. It's a familiar one, one that I heard recounted in my pastoral counseling classes. As the study leader puts it:

"Many people -- including the victims themselves -- often label incidences of Clergy Sexual Misconduct with adults as 'affairs'. In reality, they are an abuse of spiritual power by the religious leader."

The prevailing thesis presented in seminary was that any sexually charged contact or romantic entanglement between a pastor and a congregant was automatically an abuse of power by the pastor. While I understand the intent behind this mindset, I think it overstates the case. Every instance of clergy sexual misconduct is not an abuse of spiritual power, and every romantic entanglement between a pastor and a congregant is not clergy sexual misconduct. While recognizing that discernment is necessary for every instance, I tend to parse the issue in three ways.

If a pastor has actively used his or her spiritual authority to coerce a congregant into sexual relation, it's not just an abuse of their authority. It's tantamount to rape. Vulnerable individuals are often identified by predatory individuals, who are willing to use the perception of their spiritual authority to manipulate and control those individuals sexually. These predators are a threat to the integrity of the church, and should be removed from any position of leadership...and, frankly, from the church itself. The dark compulsion that drives them is the enemy of the Way.

But all pastors who canoodle are not predators or abusers. Some are just human beings who screw up. The stressed-out overscheduled pastor who ends up having an affair with a married member of her choir is not a monster, nor is she manipulating that choir member with the power of her position. Pastors can, amazingly enough, be lonely and isolated. When they connect to another human being on a personal level, sometimes that desire for human connection drives some questionable actions. Stressed human beings make crappy decisions. Is such a thing predation or abuse? No. Is it Clergy Sexual Misconduct? Yes. A pastor must be held to high standards of integrity, and one of those standards is a deep respect for the sacred covenantal union between partners in a marital relationship. That standard needs to define their behavior, both within their own marriage and as they approach other covenant unions. If they breach that standard, they need to be subject to the discipline of the church. That should probably involve removal from the pastoral position, and a period of counseling. What they've done, though, isn't predation or abuse. The other individual involved is not a victim. It's just an affair, just ol' fashioned adultery.

Then there are consensual romantic relationships between unmarried pastors and unmarried congregants. These are deep into a grey area. On the one hand, it's nearly impossible to still be "the pastor" in that situation. It is also possible that when such a relationship ends, it can be disruptive to the life of a church. Heck, if it becomes a source of church gossip, it can be disruptive when it's going on. But presuming that pastors cannot actually fall in love with members of their churches assumes that we are no longer human beings. Those relationships need to be approached carefully, openly, faithfully, and with Christian integrity...but they are not inherently wrong.

Though I feel this isn't something that should be described using broad-brush generalizations, it is a real issue...and one that the church needs to take seriously.