A Lutheran Response

Full disclosure:  At least part of my father's family has Lutheran roots.  The operative word there is "roots."  I did not grow up Lutheran (nor did my dad for that matter, my grandmother had left the Lutheran church she attended as a child before she married my grandfather), and the only times I've been to a Lutheran service has been for weddings, funerals, or for professional reasons.  And it is for professional reasons that Lutherans are on my mind today.

Next month will mark two years since the publication of The Mainline.  While for me, that will be an important enough milestone, it is nice to know, professionally, that the book is still being read and being reviewed.  In the latest issue of Lutheran Quarterly (Spring 2014, pages 457-458), the Reverend Dwight Zscheile of Luther Seminary was kind enough to offer up a review of my book.  I was pleased to first hear about the review several months ago, and happy as well to read it.  Not only does the Rev. Zscheile provide a very nice summary of the book's contents, but also offers up a sound critique (as a professor who often assigns his students review assignments, it is the kind of review I'd like to see them write).

Part of that critique hints at something I'm planning to address in a later blog post, religious pessimism.  In the past year  or so, I've seen it crop in a host of articles, mostly centering around the notion that organized religion is in decline (whether liberal or conservative in theology), that the youth (read Millennials) have abandoned the Church, and that assumptions that say the Religious Right held firm to throughout the twentieth century no longer hold true in the twenty-first, not to mention the "evangelical crack-up" that has been reported of late.  Indeed, the Rev. Zscheile end's his review with the question "is the concept of a 'majority faith' relevant in twenty-first-century America?"

As I said, that question is one I hope to take up in the weeks ahead (quick answers:  the decline might not be as bad or as real as some commentators believe; no, not all Millennials have left the Church; no, the Religious Right isn't dead; the evangelical crack-up is kind of the norm within American evangelicalism; and yes notions of "majority faith" do indeed matter).  Instead today, I'll leave you with another line from the Rev. Zscheile's review:   "While in some circles, the very premise of Christianity being 'mainline' in any form in twenty-first-century America is hotly contested, Lantzer wants to retain and redefine the term."  On that note, he get's it exactly right!

Spectacle of Toleration

 Back in January, when I was in the midst of both enjoying and having an epiphany about Disney World and religion (which remains the most popular post on this blog), I was standing in line at the Barnstormer with my children checking my email when I came upon a call for panelists for a conference to be held in Rhode Island. The conference was dedicated to the notion of religious toleration in American History, with a focus on Rhode Island's colonial charter.  As I've always enjoyed going to Rhode Island, including when I got to speak in Newport back in 2006, I jumped at the chance to make a return to the Ocean State.



I agreed to be a commentator for a panel that was built around how the notion of toleration had played out in the early and mid-twentieth century.  The papers covered topics ranging from the granting of peyote usage in religious ceremonies by Native Americans starting during the New Deal, to the legal struggles of Jehovah's Witness around World War II (the famed Gobitis case), the mainstreaming of Mormons, and (in light of my own work on the Mainline) the attempt by the National Council of Churches to silence conservative religious voices on the radio by using the FCC.  I was really looking forward to being a part of the Spectacle of Toleration conference, but alas, for a variety of reasons, I ended up not being able to go.  Thankfully, my panel was both gracious (allowing me to email in my commentary for today's event) and tolerant of my absence.  The papers I read, each in their own way, open the door for further research.  Not just on their own, particular topic, but also the affect that World War II had the course of American Religious History.

Though I wasn't able to attend, and have been quite busy on my own both personally and professionally in the past few weeks, I've also been doing some very interesting reading about topics I've addressed on this blog before, namely on the issue of the Millennials.  There is this intriguing piece on how the Religious Left (or maybe, liberal evangelicals to be more precise) are attempting to reach out to Millennials.  Whether or not they are successful, or whether or not some of them are genuine in their attempt (if I'm reading the author of the article correctly, she believes their chief goal is simply to shore up political support for liberal politics), like most things with the Millennials, we'll have to see.  But that is the future (beyond the speculation), in an attempt to understand how we got to the point where we are talking about Millennials and the Church at all by far the best article I have read on the subject is this one.

I really can't say enough good things about Matt Marino's post.  Not only do I think it hits on something that needs to be discussed, but it is one of the most obvious things that might be an answer to the question about Millennials and the Church to begin with....and thus one of those things that might easily be over looked.  The history of Sunday School in the United States is a long one, with several twists and turns, and there is also no doubt that there is much to recommend it even today.  As someone who went through Sunday School, whose parents have taught/helped in Sunday School, and who has himself taught Sunday School classes, I have lots of positive memories and am sure that it helped shape my faith.  And yet, at the exact same time, Marino's point that American churches and their Sunday Schools, at times, have put "programing" ahead of the Gospel and that children can grow up in a church without ever spending much time participating in the life of the church, really hits home.  For the Mainline, who made an effort to raise Christians rather than seek to save/convert people (even little ones) to Christianity, Marino's post seems to make even more sense.  And if reading his post doesn't also make you wonder whether or not it would be better to have your kids with you in the sanctuary with you tomorrow rather than in a Sunday School classroom, then I'd urge you to read it again!

Enough with the Nones?

Dating back to October, when the then most recent Pew Study came out, there has been increasing chatter about "The Nones" -- the perhaps 20% of respondents who told Pew that they were not part of organized religion in modern America.  Over those months, there has been growing clamor over what this means (Has decline of all religious institutions no set in?  Has secularization in the form of militant secular humanism now not just taken root in the United States, as it has in Europe, but also starting to bloom?), as well as (at times in a tepid manner, at times overtly) linking the Nones to the Millenials (and thus, crafting a narrative of the current and future decline of organized religion, or at least a lost generation).

But, as I and others have pointed out, maybe this narrative isn't quite what some (in particular as put forth in some sensationalistic journalistic accounts) have made it out to be.  Indeed, if you spend time with the Pew study, you quickly find that the Nones they focus on aren't anti-religious at all.  And for every story about the decline of a particular church, you also find many that are growing (and full of young families to boot).  One of the arguments I tried to make in The Mainline was that we focus, in American Religious History on decline that we often miss out on stories that don't fit that narrative (hence the importance of a new Mainline for the twenty-first century).

No sooner did my most recent post go up Saturday night (where it has helped the blog garner some attention in Latvia apparently -- Es ceru, ka kādu dienu mēs varam apspriest maģistrālēm, un salīdzināt amerikāņu reliģijas vēsturē ar to, kas ir nesalocītā Latvijā.) than Professor Rodney Stark entered the fray.  The Baylor University professor has a new book out in which he talks about polls such as the one Pew conducted and why it (and they) may very well be skewed against actually counting the religious voice of the nation.  You can read Stark's interview with St. John's University Law School's Center for Law and Religion Forum here.  It is well worth the read, and well worth thinking about when it comes to the Nones and everyone else.

Tides of Time

 

Vacation is a time of rest, relaxation, reflection, and re-invigoration.  But that doesn't stop relevant stories from popping up, just me from commentating on them.  While I was enjoying good times with good friends and family "Up North" in Michigan (see above), the following came my way -- I was just delayed in offering my two cents.  So, here some ramblings from one who is "tanned, rested, and ready" to engage once again!

The first article that came my way was by Rachel Held Evans about why Millennials are leaving churches.  Let me start by saying that I enjoy reading her stuff, whether I always agree with it or not.  She often asks good questions about American evangelicalism and raises good points that contribute to conversation and soul searching.  That being said, and I won't rehash the (at times I think devastating) critiques offered here or here about her article, I will say that I really don't think we know enough about Millennials and their habits/feelings about faith, religion (organized or not), and what not to be writing to deeply about them.  Perhaps, that is because (I guess) I am a member of Generation X -- and don't feel all that ready to talk to much about my generation, let alone the one my younger sister, brother, and cousins (again, I guess) belong to.  But in our media driven society, I can't say that I'm surprised that based on a few polls and blog posts, this kind of article could be written or have gotten the attention that it has.  If you don't believe me, just take the time to read or look at the comments in the three articles linked above.  And yet the thing that jumped out at me the most about RHE's article was something I've talked about before when it comes to some in the Emergent Church and their critique of the Religious Right:  A surprising amount of naivete when it comes to politics and the culture wars.  One of the points RHE makes is that Millennials have been turned off by the culture wars of their parents, but at the same time, she asserts that Millennials want the Church to be active in the pursuit of "social justice."  Her chief example of working for social justice (as I read her article) is pushing for the rights of the LGBT community.  The problem is that the moment laws become involved or become the goal, you have entered into the world of politics, and hence the very culture war that RHE claims Millennials want no part of.  It is, at best, an ill conceived argument, or at least a very under developed one.  

The second article that caught my eye was also over a debate, this one over a hymn.  The Presbyterian Church (USA) is currently working on a new hymnal and was considering including a song by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend entitled "In Christ Alone."  The problem for some members of the committee was a line in which Getty and Townend talk about Christ's death on the cross appeasing the wrath of God for sinners.  You can take a look at the full lyrics here.  Wanting to include the popular praise and worship song in the hymnal, the committee proposed changing the lyrics to talking about God's love instead.  The songwriters said no, word leaked out, and controversy ensued (you can read more here and here).  One can see it as either a major change (and thus an attack on the theological message of the song) or a minor one.  Either way, the story is a reminder of two major problems for the Mainline of the Seven Sisters:  The first is that the inclusion of the song (altered or not) might be seen as an attempt at a "cosmetic change" to attract younger people (such as the Millennials RHE talks about) -- perhaps in a genuine attempt at outreach, perhaps in a somewhat cynical one.  The other is that the entire debate speaks (as the linked articles argue) the theological "wishy- washy-ness" of the Seven Sisters, in particular the Presbyterian Church (USA) in this case (one wonders what they would omit if the Westminster Shorter Catechism was proposed today).  Or, perhaps John Turner's call to "end the hymnal wars" with the recognition that serving on such a committee to begin with is sure to be a thankless job no matter what your theology is what we should take away from this dust up.

The final article was an interesting one about Pope Francis and the Press.  Is it possible, in this day and age to get a religious message out through the secular press?  Pope Francis seems to think so.  How long this will continue remains to be seen.  After all, the press seemed initially reluctant to comment on how many young people showed up for World Youth Day in Brazil.  The figure that is now coming out in reports is 3 million.  Not to bad for his first such event -- and one that could be even more important in the years to come, not just for Roman Catholicism but also for Christians of whatever denomination.