This explosion of religious tschochkes says a lot about the kind of faith that’s spread across this country in recent years. God’s turned into a mascot for the home team to cling to, a promiser of goodies to those who hold up John 3:16 signs at ballgames. It’s as though faith itself has become a consumer item, swallowed whole and more soothing than a tryptophan-loaded bedtime snack.
Like so many things in our lives that matter, that shape us that we invest with thought and emotion – they are not all primary to our life, identity or calling. Those years we spent in college, or school, or summer camp. Even our present time spent in jobs, activities or (since it’s an election year) politics: these things matter, but are they primary to our life, identity and calling?
The fact is we don’t know what God looks like. We haven’t a clue. Scripture certainly gives us lots of images of God. But I can’t really tell the boys that God is a rock or a whirlwind or fire. We’re told that we’re made in the image of God but that doesn’t really help us too much. Is that literal or metaphorical? And getting into an existential debate with a four-year old is a road to nowhere. Believe me, I’ve tried.
The statement “I’m spiritual but not religious” has a way of raising a wall between a regular, church-going sort of person and a friend who has no intention of becoming a regular, church-going sort of person. It says, “Back off. I know all about you ‘religious’ folks. You want to tell me I’m going to hell or imply there’s something wrong with me. Well, I have my own way of connecting with God. So shut up.”
For some reason, the promise of free care, free healing, the free repair of our broken hearts is not something we leap at in this world. For some reason, the gracious love of God is not MAKING us be different. For some reason, the Love of Christ as poured out in a manger, at a table, and above all on a cross, is not FORCING us to be better.
A few short statements summed up the intellectual struggle that ended in a decision to offer myself to the ministry. One found in a Forward Movement publication was the idea that although I can’t do everything, I’m not going to let that get in the way of things I can do. Another was that life has a real meaning if all things that religion claims are true; if not true, life has no real meaning.
One of the greatest challenges to us as church is to go against the culture’s use of time as a commodity, its business model of program evaluation, and its focus on production and consumption. God loves us. God saves us and makes us whole. God rests on the seventh day. If we decide to embody this as church, what will the shape of our time look like? How will we operate differently from the culture around us?
People who follow no religion compose about fourteen percent of the American population. Their numbers more than doubled–from 14 million to almost 30 million between 1990 and 2001. Together with those who profess a faith other than Christianity, they compose practically twenty percent of the American population
Recently two researchers at the University of British Columbia concluded that 6.5 to 16.5 percent of children’s happiness can be accounted for by their spirituality. They asked 315 children to describe their daily spiritual experiences by rating statements such as “I feel a higher power’s presence,” and answering questions including “How often do you pray or meditate privately outside of church or other places of worship?”
Perhaps the forty days the risen Jesus spent with his disciples points to an indefinite but considerable period of time following Jesus’ crucifixion in which the disciples experienced Jesus’ presence with them. They experienced Jesus in a new, radically different manner, a manner that the disciples did not know how to describe, a manner that transformed their despair over his death into the hope that built the Church.