Among my life’s
greater blessings are young friends who remind me of what it’s like to be youthful, who inspire me with their intellect and creativity, and whose curiosity about
all things arouses my own. Some of these
young friends are drawn to participate in my faith community by what they find
and hope to find there, such things as a community that shares and promotes the
values they learned as children, faith stories with which they can identify and
in which they find wisdom for living, and an environment that encourages their
search for meaningful faith. Some
express appreciation for elders who are open and responsive to their questions
about life and faith and who allow them room to express themselves and pursue
their searching free from fear of correction, censure, and rejection. They look for those who, like them, are
making their own faith path, one that best serves them and their human family.
What many encounter
in their taste test of institutional religion are belief systems that seem to
be set in stone by those who earnestly believe that religion must identify and
hold on to what they embrace as timeless truths essential for moral living in
an ordered society and which form a fabric of life that cannot be broken
without devastating consequences. Such
truths, often held in the sanctity of differing tribal traditions, are credited
to divine revelation and not subject to question or alteration. This creates a conundrum for minds trained to
be inquiring and critical of all assumptions.
What are such minds to make of “blessed
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29 KJV) in a world
where “seeing is believing” is accepted norm and where finding answers and
solving mysteries is both expected and rewarded performance? Does not the ecclesiastical community, by and
large, deal with this as a faith matter, or more precisely, a “lack of faith”
matter, with the fault attributed to the questioner’s apparent inability or unwillingness
to abandon intellect and accept as “mystery,” ideas that require an expression
of faith beyond an assumed reasoning capacity of the human mind? Trust and Obey, very spiritually meaningful
words for my mother, can present difficult challenges for younger generations conditioned
to view such words as idealistic and naïve.
If I were once
again a young adult, I would not want to associate with a church of “club
mentality” whose existence relies heavily on conformity of thinking and where non-conformist thinking is dismissed as impertinent and
heretical. The Church continues to
founder wondering why it cannot increase its participation and membership. The vitality and effectiveness of the Church
are weakened by declining participation due to death of older members loyal
with their participation and resources, disenchantment with “the way the church
is going,” frustration with church politics, squabbling and division within the
ranks, and a diminishing sense of direction and purpose. What can the Church do to change this
unwelcome reality?
Perhaps it is time,
if not well past time, for institutional religion, i.e. “the Church” however
named, to come of age, just as society expects its young to come of age in
their acceptance of responsibility for who they are as world citizens
functioning in an increasingly complex and interdependent world order. Might failure to do so spell doom for an
institution dependent for its survival in humanly recognizable form on the
committed resources of people … many people?
How can a church established on ancient and unsophisticated
understandings make timeless truths real to present and future generations whose cultures promise to be the
antitheses of “ancient” and “unsophisticated?”
What doctrines of
the Church are problematic for Generation Xers and Millennials? Why does the Church consider them essential
for the believing Christian? Is it time
once again to rethink identity and purpose, to remake the Church into a Church
for today rather than one fixated on ancient truths “good enough for Paul and
Silas” (therefore good enough for all time and all people)? What spiritual concepts would characterize
such a church? How might it reframe its
belief system without losing its uniqueness of purpose and message?
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