Why Leave the Church?

I stumbled upon this blog this morning, and it’s got me thinking. I’m not going to do a full response right now, but will return to it several times over the next several days. 

I’ve listened to the concern of many a pastor about people leaving the church once they hit adulthood, and I’ve thought many times about why this happens. This piece does appear to be dead on in many cases, however, I can’t see myself in all of his arguments. I don’t think this is because I’m 30 years old and have always gone to church (making me a minority for sure). Some of the differences are because I’m from a small town and a small church. Some of the differences are because I went to a Christian boarding high school and college. Of course, some of those same differences are the reasons that I know many of my peers left the church a long time ago.

I won’t give a set timeline for my responses (since this is my first post in 5 months), but I want to explore these reasons for leaving the church, how they relate to me and the people I know, and of course, why I haven’t left.

Mere Christianity: Part 2

In Lewis’ second chapter, I am reminded of what I miss while working with large groups of people every day at work: people forget to consider the counterargument. In a room of 30 students, each feels like he or she has a perfect argument because they never stop to consider somebody else’s opinion. Lewis dedicates the whole chapter to what people have said in response to his ideas. Aside from a great rhetorical device, his arguments themselves are marvelous.

What stands out to me the most from this chapter is Lewis’ comparison between morality and mathematics. They both must be taught, but they both exist regardless of their being taught. Again, Lewis has not brought God into the conversation at all yet, he is still working on establishing the grounds of his argument by convincing us that there is an inherent morality that people feel even if they don’t always follow it.

The other brilliant point that Lewis poses is that our moral choices are not set in stone, they  are flexible and we follow different rules at different times. I can’t begin to express how great this is for people to understand. Every impulse we feel can’t be put into a category of good or bad, but they often depend on the circumstances. I know that gets into the realm of conditional morality and ethics, but it supports the third chapter of Ecclesiastes very well. For everything there is a season. This calls on us to do a balancing act that, at times, is desperately difficult, but also allows for the kind of decent behavior that Lewis claims we all feel a pull toward.

I can’t smack down everybody that thinks and believes differently than I do because, to do so, it would put my own decent behavior and morality at risk. Beyond that, if I agree with Lewis that morality and math must both be taught, then I can’t expect everybody to act the way I want them to all the time–they may not have been taught. They may be like the city of Nineveh, not knowing from right and wrong, in which case, tolerance, patience, and grace are essential.

Mere Christianity: Part 1

I like C.S. Lewis. I think his work is brilliant both within and without the Christian context. His work with Narnia is amazing, not for the stories themselves, but the great way he ties in so many great ideas, theories, and philosophies about life and interpersonal interaction, and the mysterious nature of God. The Screwtape Letters blew my mind, not just because it helped expose some of the subtleties that distract and detract from fully living, but because of the whole concept of using the demonic characters to show the power of the Almighty.

Now I’m rereading Mere Christianity. I interacted with this text before and was thrilled with the clarity Lewis provides when discussing the very nature of religion. I return to it now though for another reason. I recall a college professor talking about losing faith after analyzing Scriptures with an extremely intellectual and open mind, and he said that it was the work of Lewis that restored his faith in God. This is what I seek now. I need a revitalization in my religious life. I have spent a long time focusing on the intellectualism of Christianity and I’ve kept a mind more open than many. However, I have been struggling, not with the belief of God, but with my interactions with Him. I am hoping that Lewis will help me find something that I have missed that will recharge my spiritual batteries.

Lewis’ first chapter is a great little argument that is so simple that it catches me off guard. Essentially, we all know what it feels like to be cheated and we can all see some things that are wrong. We may not all agree on what these things are when it gets down to the particulars, but we have a sense of what right and wrong are.* Lewis never attributes this feeling to the presence of God as I would expect a Christian writer to do. And by the end of the second chapter, Lewis has refrained from insisting that this inherent moral compass is proof of God.

Secondly, Lewis emphasizes that even though we sense a morality of some kind, we don’t stick to it. Instead, we often bring it up only when we feel we are being wrong. We appeal to a sense of fairness and a standard that is never explicitly stated, but always assumed in human interactions.

For me, Lewis’ point about not keeping with the Law of Human Nature is where I feel this journey taking off. The concept of not keeping with the a moral law is nothing new to theological thought. My hope: that reading the work of a man who has thoroughly explored the theological landscape and has found a very logical and practical way of living leads me to find a more balanced way of living for myself.

 

*I’m not going to spend the time explaining everything that Lewis has already written, so if things seem like they need further explanation, please read the book. You won’t be disappointed.

Facebook vs Reality: The Like Button

Like a lot of people, I get pretty snooty when it comes to online social interactions. I like actually talking with people, I like being able to use nuance and inflection to make the best of a social exchange. So for years I refused to press that silly little thumbs up. It was cheap and too many people abuse it without thinking.

Then I actually did like something. I don’t recall the first time it happened, but I read a status update from a friend, and I actually enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I had nothing to say in response. But could I just let it sit there all by itself to be lost among the thousands of updates that nobody pays attention to ever? It didn’t seem right. So as if I was supporting some local business I slowly, apprehensively clicked that tiny little thumbs up and showed my appreciation.

Even more recently, I discovered how this little social interaction, cheap and lame as it may be, might be preferable to actual human interaction. A friend of mine from out of state posted something that demanded my making fun of him. He responded back and I responded again. Before I knew it, we had a great little back and forth that was being updated every 30 seconds or so. But this is where Facebook, or any other online interaction for that matter, gets awkward. What happens when I stop responding?

Like texting, people start feeling like it one’s obligation to always answer a message immediately. But now that my friend and I did a nice little back and forth, I was done. In a real, face-to-face situation, this would likely result in a change of topic or some kind of uncomfortable silence. I didn’t feel like I could walk away from the conversation entirely–It was my turn to say something and everything. That’s when I noticed it.

It was perfect. A response that wasn’t actually a response. A gesture that in a real conversation would never work and would probably seem rude. But now? It was the greatest thing ever. I clicked it and walked away…or tabbed away…whatever.

Life is loaded with weird conversational moments in which we flail and struggle to know the best way to not look rude or stupid. The like button, for all of its non-committal annoyance, might just be the perfect break from an otherwise social-rule bound society.

The Most Excellent Way

Everybody has a place in a body of believers and within a society. Everything that people can bring into their community is a gift. But even if you can’t recognize the gifts that people have, Paul suggests a more excellent way. In 1st Corinthians 13, Paul outlines, in what is probably in the top 5 most popular and well known chapters in scripture, the model perspective for all people.

Paul begins the chapter but referring back to some of the gifts he had outlined in chapter 12. He claims that you can have the greatest gifts available to you, but they don’t help anybody. You make noise, you lose your value, and you gain nothing unless you have love at the heart of it. Even if the chapter went no further, this would be a world altering idea if people lived it out. What if the world was just as divided as it already is, if inequalities still damaged everything for millions of people, but people would actually love one another?

We can’t know the full extent of this kind of power. We can’t fathom it. For now, we only know in part, with the greater realizations still to come. This is probably why the whole idea sounds a bit too hippie-esque. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Because even if love is ranked number one in the top three, faith and hope are still to play a major part. Love is a risk it all plan, something we can do without knowing how things will turn out. It’s a strategy to change yourself and change the world, but there are only so many known factors. But to move forward in faith and hope with love as a primary focus and goal, we will, eventually, know fully even as we are fully known.

The Value of Spiritual Gifts

As I’ve been working through 1st Corinthians, I’ve been more keenly aware of the context of Paul’s writing. Some of the most famous lines in this book are often taken out of context. For instance, in chapter 11, Paul talks about the Lord’s Supper–a passage I hear read at almost every communion–but, Paul seems to be in the middle of rebuking the Corinthian church when he brings that up. It’s odd, I guess, that even the description of such a beautiful event as the Lord’s Supper could be read as a rebuke about how the Corinthian church was way out of alignment.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.

So much of 1st Corinthians is a response to something that the Corinthians sent Paul. I really wish we had that document. I wish would could see the whole conversation and not just Paul’s side. However, in chapter 12, Paul starts constructing some of the greatest images and ideas so far in this writing that, regardless of the original questions the Corinthians asked, transcend Paul’s original intent.

Paul’s analogy for spiritual gifts is fantastic and ludicrous at the same time. By comparing the many jobs, acts, gifts, and abilities available within a church to various parts of the body, we can see not only a model for efficient church interactions, but excellent interpersonal relationships on any level. The underlying principle: we are all have something valuable to offer, so appreciate what you have and what others have because our system will fall apart if all these pieces aren’t in place. In a church, this means that you have preachers, teachers, greeters, prayers, scholars, and so on, and they are all essential for a church to fully function. This same idea, though, is what keeps society running. We need doctors, lawyers, mechanics, farmers, designers, publishers, sales reps, plumbers, garbage collectors, accountants, and politicians. Paul highlights the idea that what seems to be a more lowly position is likely the most essential and what seems to be the more praiseworthy position is likely the part that we don’t need so much.

What change we would see if we lived these ideas out. If we stopped glorifying the ones with fancy job titles and took more time to appreciate the jobs that actually make our lives move. This is some of the best of Paul’s writing and some of his best philosophy. From chapter 12 on, Paul hits a stride that adresses so many key elements that not only set up valuable and necessary aspects of a Christian life, but elements that are at the heart of a thriving community.

The Proverbial Stumbling Block

The stumbling block idea has got to be one of the most persistently irritating ones in all of religion. This little idea (though it is quite huge when you start getting into it) can be the ruin of every good and lousy Christian.

Paul mentions the stumbling block in chapter 8 of 1st Corinthians in regard to eating food that has been sacrificed to idols. In short, Paul seems to be saying that some people are eating this food and they are ok in doing so because they know that idols are silly and there is only one God, so really the food has been sacrificed to nobody or nothing. Having a fuller knowledge of God, therefore, allows the Christian to not live like a hermit or monk or Amish person. It allows for a very full life based on love.

That’s the good part. The obnoxious part is as follows:

Paul says that knowledge has a tendency of making a person arrogant. This knowledge, without the love of God, is a primary ingredient for intolerance. So what happens is one Christian, full of knowledge AND the love of God, is able to eat freely with other people at their tables in their environments guilt free, but another Christian, seeing only the sacrificial food, will freak out and run away. But the worst part is when the “weaker” Christian sees the other eating away but doesn’t know how to process it because, according to Paul, this confusion and the aftermath falls to the knowledgeable, God-love filled Christian.

So how does this ruin people? As Paul points out, the “weaker” Christian doesn’t know how to process what he or she sees. All they know is that they might might see a pastor or elder or Bible study leader doing something that doesn’t seem congruent with the knowledge of scripture (I won’t offer a specific circumstance as to not make a big deal of some petty activity). For somebody still trying to figure out religion or their own relationship with God, this can jack with the mind. So now you have a fairly new believer trying to really figure out the difference between a religious life and any other life–something that in the worst case would have a person drop religion completely and in the best case be a watered down religious person (which is still the worst case).

But that’s just one side of this. The obligation, then, is so heavy for the other Christian. They become responsible for how other people perceive them. This becomes brutal. It means even if I know that something is perfectly permissible (something that Paul says may not be beneficial elsewhere), I may still have to refrain from doing it because of how another person may perceive it. This can create a repressed Christian or a Christian that reaches of a point of just not caring.

I don’t know how to balance this aspect of religion. I highly value religion, and I certainly recognize the value in trying to represent it clearly, but I also don’t like the idea that what I do, or what anybody else does, is subject to another’s interpretation.