The New Great Generation

Richard Doak, a retired editor at the Des Moines Register, posted an Op-Ed in the Sunday Register yesterday (August 9, 2009) entitled “Next great generation may be on its way up.” I think he’s right, or at least I hope so. I encourage folks to read it.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090809/OPINION01/908090317/1166

Doak argues that the current student generation has, on the whole, a much different way of thinking about the world than the previous generation. They aren’t rebels, a la the sixties; they generally get along well with their parents. But they don’t think like them. The government is not a bugaboo to them. They don’t oppose taxes if they will be well spent to solve real problems. They are concerned about the environment. They are not opposed to immigrants. They have little interest in the “culture wars.” Of particular interest to those of us in “the Episcopal Summer of Our Discontent,” Doak writes:

“In general, today’s young adults are tolerant, accepting racial equality and homosexuality in greater numbers than their elders. Same-sex marriage might make the blood boil of Baby Boom conservatives, but to most young people it’s simply a non-issue.”

The downside of all this is that “religion appears to be less important in the lives of millennials, as a group, than it is in the lives of older Americans.” (Gee, I wonder why that might be?) Doak notes, as have others, that the rising generation of evangelical Christians is more concerned with the stewardship of God’s earth and the needs of the poor than with the moralistic posturing of their elders. (Actually reading the Bible can do that to you!) But for many young people, the institutional church simply has very little to do with their own experience of life and its concerns — and indeed is often hostile to it.

Obviously the rising generation should be a major concern for our mission and evangelism. But what is needed is not gimmicks to attract and entertain them, but serious attention to their own best commitments and values. I’ve noted lately, in the context of the recent General Convention, that the “reasserters” — whether schismatic or (so far) yet in the fold — are moaning and whining about how the Episcopal Church is swirling the drain, all because of the gays (or ordained women, or revised liturgy, or civil rights, or whatever). Right. Does anyone really think that ACNA or any other church based upon “no gay cooties” will still be around a generation from now? (Gee, that’s sure a church I’d like to join!) Actually, it probably will be, at least in remnants. Baptismal regeneration was a big deal 140 years ago, and the Reformed Episcopal Church is still here.

+Rowan, are you paying any attention at all to this stuff?

Good line from a movie

Yesterday I was watching the DVD of the film The Bridge to Terabithia, which I had missed when it was released to the theaters. Some will be aware that it is the story -- charming and poignant, from a book about 30 years back written by Katherine Paterson -- of Jess, a boy who lives in a rural setting, and Leslie, a new neighbor girl who has just moved from the city with her parents. (Excellent movie, and it's my intent to read the book.)

Jess invites Leslie to come to church with him one Sunday. (Leslie's family are not churchgoers.) On the way home they are talking about the day's Bible lesson, and Jess and his little sister comment that you have to believe the Bible or God will damn you to hell. (Gee, where have we heard that before?...) Leslie responds, "You have to believe it, and you hate it. I don't have to believe it, and I think it's beautiful."

Ex ore infantium....

Oops. Jesus made a mistake.

In reviewing the Gospel for the Feast of St. Stephen the other day, it occurred to me (well, it had occurred to me many times over the past many years, but usually I just didn't pay much attention) that Jesus made a mistake. He referred to "all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar." Of course he was referring to the first murder in the canonical Hebrew Bible (Genesis 4) and the last (2 Chronicles 24; 2 Chron. is the last book in the Hebrew arrangement). But it isn't Zechariah ben Barachiah, who is the prophet who presumably wrote the Book of Zechariah, it's Zechariah ben Jehoiada (his father Jehoiada was high priest at the time of King Joash of Judah), who was stoned in the temple courtyard at Joash's orders.

Well, maybe Jesus didn't make the mistake. Maybe Matthew made the mistake. The mistake doesn't occur in Luke's version, so either Matthew added the mistake or Luke corrected it from the earlier Jesus tradition. In either case, Matthew 23:35 contains a mistake.

Is this a trivial mistake? Absolutely! (The New Oxford Annotated Bible notes the error, explains it, but does not make a big fat hairy deal of it, as well it shouldn't.)

And my point is...?

The text of the Bible contains errors. Some of them are utterly inconsequential, and not worth a lot of discussion. Some of them may be more significant, and worth some careful reflection.

In any case, folks who claim to believe in a literally inerrant Bible need to get honest, or get smart, or both.

As God says to such folks, "You really just don't get it, do you?"

Schism

In an article on the National Post about the recent meeting of the Anglican Network of Canada in Burlington, Ontario, Charles Lewis quoted J. I. Packer, a well known, senior evangelical scholar:

"Schism means unwarranted and unjustified separation from the rest of the Church, causing an indefensible breach of unity. Those who are unfaithful to the heritage are the schismatics. It is not we who are the schismatics."

Professor Packer has surely been around long enough to realize that every schismatic in the history of Christianity has claimed that "we" are not the schismatics, "they" are the schismatics. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Apparently the Anglican Network of Canada, led by retired episcopal defectors Donald Harvey and Malcomb Harding, is planning to break from the Anglican Church of Canada and to join the Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise (also known as the Province of the Southern Cone of America), which has been trolling for disaffected dioceses, bishops, parishes, and money in North America.

Packer claims that the Anglican Church of Canada has been "poisoned" by "liberalism." This seems to mean primarily the willingness to consider blessing the unions of same-sex couples. However, "The homosexual issue is just the tip of the iceberg," said Cheryl Chang, a board member of the Anglican Network. "It is what's under the water that is more critical to us. The liberals see the Bible as a book that can be changed and interpreted, and conservatives see it as unchangeable through generations. And those are simply irreconcilable views."

Yeah, they probably are. I find it incredible that these folks think that the idea that the Bible must be "interpreted" is a "liberal" notion, and that seeing the Bible as "unchangeable through generations" is "conservative" (rather than 1. false and two 2. stupid).

One difference between "liberals" and "conservatives" is that "liberals" hope very much that the "conservatives" will stay and argue their point of view vigorously. The "conservatives," on the other hand, or at least many of them, would rather stomp off in a self-righteous hypcritical huff and then accuse the "liberals" of being "schismatic."

It's getting a little tiresome.

Thanks to epiScope for pointing to this article. http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/anglican_church_of_canada/index.html

The National Post article is at http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=edcc8a09-290a-4b61-90c2-76d7afd08b05&k=38367&p=2

Not Even In A Big Brown Truck

Fr. Jake’s blog is running a post about the request of Bishop Dabney Smith of Southwest Florida to Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire asking that he decline an invitation to speak at a parish in Southwest Florida. The comments are extensive and for the most part measured, thoughtful, and reasonable. The link to this particular post is http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2007/11/bp-robinsons-invitation-to-southwest.html

But that’s not what I want to talk about here. About halfway through the discussion one of the commenters called attention to recent articles concerning two excellent, well known journalists in the secular press who are withdrawing after many years from the “religion beat.” They are Stephen Bates of The Guardian (UK) and William Lobdell of the Los Angeles Times. See these articles; they are very good:
http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=1009
http://newhumanist.org.uk/1630
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lostfaith21jul21,0,3530015,full.story?coll=la-home-center
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2007/11/15/burnout-on-the-god-beat-second-top-religion-writer-calls-it-quits/
Mr. Lobdell’s article in particular I found very disheartening, though I certainly cannot blame him. Mr. Bates has also shown great perception particularly in covering the Church of England, and is the author of A Church At War, which has received good reviews (I haven’t read it yet but it’s on my list).

This brought to my mind my own experience of some fifteen years as a non-stipendiary priest working at a secular position in a public university (after twenty-some years in parish ministry). Most of my colleagues knew that I was a priest, although we didn’t “talk religion” very much, nor should we have in that context. I was amazed, and not a little troubled, by the number of people — good, kind, honest, loving, concerned people — who have “fallen away” from the churches of their youth. I’m not just talking about their discovery that church leaders are sinners just like everyone else. I am, we all are, everyone knows that; most of us try to be honest about it and to repent. That’s not the problem. Most honest people understand about that. The problem is the authoritarianism, the religiosity, the intellectual dishonesty, the moral and financial corruption, the cruelty, the thirst for power and control (I could go on and on) that they had encountered and experienced. Terry on Jake’s blog commented, “Christianity is losing ground not because 'secular' thought is attacking it and winning. It is losing ground because it has lost its moral authority/leadership.” I think that’s right.

If we care about proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ we need to be a lot less afraid to point to things being said and being done out there — including in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion — that are false to the Gospel. I suggest we identify a “Not Even In A Big Brown Truck Society”* and not hesitate to name names. I am NOT suggesting that we stoop to the level of those who attack everyone who disagrees with them with insult and slander. In all things we must be charitable, though also remembering that love is sometimes tough. But in response to the Robertsons, the Dobsons, yes, the Ratzingers, and yes, the Akinolas and the Duncans and the Ikers, we must say, “No, in God’s name, no!”

It’s very popular, even among “progressive” Episcopalians, to dump on Bishop Spong. To be candid, I think a lot of what I have read of Jack Spong is not very thoughtful and sometimes heretical. But I also think we need to recognize that Bishop Spong’s analysis of various “fundamentalist” and authoritarian expressions of religion claiming to be Christianity has given many people hope that there may after all be a place for them in the Body of Christ. He asks a lot of the right questions even when not all his answers are on target. We need to quit picking on him and instead to look for ways he can share more fully in our genuinely evangelical task of proclaiming the Gospel of God’s love.

“Evangelical” has also become something of a dirty word, and we certainly need to reclaim it from the Big Brown Truck Society folks. (Some of whom, alas, are within our own Communion.) The Gospel of Christ simply cannot afford what passes for “evangelical Christianity” these days. But we also need to recognize with gratitude the truly genuine and authentic evangelicalism among relatively conservative protestants — I am thinking, for example, of Jim Wallis and Randal Balmer.

We as the Church are our own worst enemies — and perhaps even God’s worst enemies. We need to stop it.

*The “Not Even In A Big Brown Truck Society”: Those who would not recognize the Gospel of Christ even if Jesus himself were to drive up to their house in a big brown truck and personally deliver it to their front door.