The Church After Religion

I was one of the folks who sat in a conference at Columbia Theological Seminary this week led by Diana Butler Bass. She has a new book out soon called "Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening." Her talks outlined the book's main ideas. I won't spoil her thesis, but I can say that the book has some dramatic tension and (I think) a happy ending. It's great - get a copy.

After a few days to mull over the conference, I can confess two things: 1) I love Diana Butler Bass' scholarship and 2) I am not motivated by "the end of the church as we know it" theses. The first may need less explanation. I find Bass to be the most lucid, clear-thinking, sensitive observer of contemporary church culture I've encountered; and if you've ever heard her speak, she marshals great facts and even better illustrations. She's a powerful example of the good that can happen when someone thinks, writes, and speaks rationally about contemporary religion.

So what about the end of the church? Yes, unquestionably, things are changing. Yes, some forms of being church are dying. Since I began seminary in 2001 (when it started to look like I would hook my life to the institutional church), I have followed with interest the prolific talking and writing about what's happening in churches these days. I used to try to stay ahead of the trend. I was desperate to know what was happening next in the life of the church. I figured this was a strategic move: if I could stay ahead of the trends, I would be a relevant voice. Maybe I could even be known (which is the vain, secret hope many pastors harbor).

I became a "next church" groupie: I attended emergent church gatherings (which I quite enjoyed). I read lots of books on the next church - from all kinds of theological stripes. I participated in countless conversations about the church that was yet-to-come (conversations I still enjoy).

But I started to grow weary of it. Two things happened, in retrospect.

One, I realized that no one knows what's happening next in church. We all can read the signs (at least those with eyes to see a clear set of data points). We can make predictions about the signs... stab in the dark about what might come... but no one knows, really. So much of the conversation about what might happen next in church is about what the individual speaking wants to happen next. What God wants or needs for the Body of Christ rarely comes up in these conversations, nor does our dependence on God for guiding us into the future (which itself is fashioned by and belongs to God). Viewed in that light, much of what I was reading began to feel like a thinly-veiled attempt to market something to me - a product, a consulting service, an idea. I felt like I was a target audience for a diet pill. I wanted to be thin - and this pill would work like magic! (While the only one who gets thin is the guy who sells the diet pills - he makes enough cash peddling the dream to hire a personal trainer and raw food chef.)

The deeper I get into "running" a church, the more I realize that pastors (whom one might assume would be the people most able to effect a change in the church) don't really control our own churches, let alone can we determine what might be next for the church. Even if we did have a sense of where the church should go, does any other pastor out there doubt their own ability to get the church there? I'm not sure I could get my own congregation "there" - if, in fact, I knew where "there" was. I know it sounds horribly naive to talk about the future and ask God for direction. Who does that, really? But in a historical season in which the institutional church appears, to me, about as far from the Realm of God as any other institution, should we really trust our own intuitions, preferences, and limited talents to guide our future? Don't you suppose that if well-meaning people (who are abundant in churches) had any control over things, the church would look a bit different than it does today? I've been at poker games, barbecues, and trips to the Social Security office that feel more like the Realm of God than the institutional church does.

There is a lot of anxiety in the church about the change in the culture that is (maybe) making churches less important. There are a lot of us invested, whole hog, in the church that exists now; we have a lot to lose if the church crumbles: jobs, pensions, investments in buildings and systems, family histories, personal identities. There are also a good number of folks who make a living telling us convincing stories that the old way of doing church is terminal and something new and different is bubbling up and you better catch it! I'm just not anxious and I'm not buying into any anxiety about the future church. If the church is teetering for it's life, sign me up for a spot on the "death panel." If I ever thought that the point of church was putting little Presbyterian churches on every corner and getting every human being into a congregation, I would never have gotten in to this line of work. I really don't care what happens to contemporary American church culture with its celebrity pastors and niche-marketed Bibles and stadium seating and denominations and church campuses that greedily gobble up too many of our resources. Let it die. It's not the world's salvation.

Which brings me to my second realization.  What matters most to me about church is that it offer an opportunity for people to gather - in some way, shape, and form - around the Jesus that can be known through the Gospels and in the company of the Spirit that can be known by who-knows-how. I suspect that kind of gathering would be simpler, more economically efficient, and potentially more spiritually satisfying if there were no "church" to go to. But, for now, there is a church. And my current church is a good place to go to know Jesus and feel the Holy Spirit and experience community. And, come what may, that's all I have control over - and as I suspect, I don't even control that.

I'm not worried about the future of the church. Nor am I in charge of it. When the church crumbles, there will still be young people around to pick through rubble and find treasures.

It may be the end of the church as we know it. But, truth is... I feel fine.