Faith in Context

Will Business Be the Salvation of Churches?

by Loren Seibold

It always interests me how little is reported about religion in the press—unless a celebrity says it. 

That’s what happened when Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer of Cats, said that he thinks every church in Great Britain should get wifi. 

Webber’s not said much about his own faith, but he is a member of the Church of England, the son of a church organist, and author of two religion-themed musicals: Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar. He’s also been a leader in raising money (including some of his own fortune) to preserve Britain’s now-lightly-used historical churches. 

This opinion came in a rambling interview with the Daily Mail. “‘I want to get every church in the country on Wi-Fi,” he told Cole Moreton. The justification for it, though, is odd: “Once you do that, the church becomes the centre of the community again. They should go back to the medieval tradition, which is that the nave of the church is always used for local business.” He thinks the UK government should pay for it.

Webber may be a bit behind the times: most churches in the US already have wifi, and many in Europe. It hasn’t necessarily made them business hubs. But in truth, with faster mobile connections, even wifi may soon be an artifact of the past, as obsolete as 5.25” floppy disks. The bigger problem for most churches is too many people on their phones and tablets while the minister is attempting to lead a solemn ceremony. One priest in Italy even installed a cell-phone jammer in his church. 

Is the salvation of the church in making it a place of business? There, too, I suspect Webber’s reasoning is flawed. It is one use of a house of worship of which Jesus unhesitatingly disapproved. Webber’s mistake is supposing that people have to come to a church to connect, when the genius of the information revolution (becoming increasingly clear with ubiquitous mobil connectivity) is that it can happen anywhere.

Business may be coming to churches in a different sense, however. A recent Wall Street Journal piece notes that hundreds of empty European churches are on the market, and they’re not being purchased for religious use. One in Arnhem, Netherlands has been converted into an indoor skateboarders park. “In Holland, one ex-church has become a supermarket, another is a florist, a third is a bookstore and a fourth is a gym. In Arnhem, a fashionable store called Humanoid occupies a church building dating to 1889… In Bristol, England, the former St. Paul’s church has become the Circomedia circus training school. Operators say the high ceilings are perfect for aerial equipment like trapezes. In Edinburgh, Scotland, a Lutheran church has become a Frankenstein-themed bar, featuring bubbling test tubes, lasers and a life-size Frankenstein’s monster descending from the ceiling at midnight.” 

Communities don’t want to attend their churches, but they don’t want to lose them, either. “But the properties are usually expensive to maintain—and there is a limit to the number of libraries or concert halls a town can financially support. So commercial projects often take the space.” 

This isn’t a small problem. Says Lilian Grootswagers, a Dutch activist for church preservation, “The numbers are so huge that the whole society will be confronted with it. Everyone will be confronted with big empty buildings in their neighborhoods.” The C of E closes 20 churches a year, and the Catholic church shut 515 churches just in Germany in the past decade. In the Netherlands, the prediction is that within a decade 1000 Catholic and 700 Protestant churches will close.

So in an odd way, Webber may turn out to be prophetic.

Related articles

Net us pray: churches should install Wi-Fi, says Andrew Lloyd Webber

Is America Near a Demographic Tipping Point?

By Monte Sahlin

For six years in a row the number of births in the United States has declined. In 2013 there were 3.93 million babies born following 3.95 in 2012. Since a high point in 2007 the number of babies born in America each year has declined by seven percent.

One conclusion is that possibly the generation following the Millennial Generation should be marked as beginning in 2008. Generations are generally considered to be bordered by demographic events, not cultural or other events. So far, there is no consensus of what to call this new generation and no widely accepted idea of what years to include. It is possible that the consensus among demographers will wait until the current down trend in births bottoms out, as they did with Generation X (or Baby Bust Generation as it is known by demographers).

This means the Post-Millennial Generation could be seen as the babies born from 1995 through 2007, a period of 12 years. This is a short time frame for a generation, which means that likely the consensus will wait until the current down turn in births bottoms out. But, maybe not simply because that could be a long time; too long to contain in one generation. If so, that would mean that the Post-Millennial Generation will be the last big generation in America for a long time.

The birth rate is down not because of a low population, but because women are simply having fewer babies. Or fewer women are having babies. The average number of babies born to women between 15 and 44 years of age dropped to a record low in 2013 at 1.86 babies. This is similar to the highest rates in Europe where some countries (like German and Spain) have much lower rates.

The "replacement rate" necessary to maintain the population level is an average of 2.1 babies per woman during her "child-bearing years" (defined statistically as above). Because America is now significantly below that rate, immigration becomes very important in order to maintain the population at the current level. This is important because many mechanisms in society (such as an adequate supply of nurses and doctors, a balance of working and retired people, etc.) depend on a relatively stable population.

What does this mean for the church?

Immigration is a positive factor for church growth, but it makes the church membership more diverse than the general population. A clear Bible-based doctrine of diversity therefore becomes important because members have to be taught that their natural prejudice against a multicultural Body of Christ is wrong in God's eyes.

Should Christians Secede from the World?

by Loren Seibold

I call your attention to a piece in the July-August issue of Atlantic magazine, by Jonathan Rauch, about Christians refusing business from people whom they consider to be sinning. He gives the example of Pack Leader Plus, a Christian-owned dog-walking service in St. Louis that refused to continue serving a customer's pets because the customer supports the legalization of marijuana. 

They're not alone in closing doors to what Rauch calls "un-Christian custom." Another case (and one that has made it to the courts) has to do with wedding businesses that refuse to work for gay customers, on the theory that baking a cake for a gay wedding is in effect endorsing gay marriage.

Rauch identifies a useful polarity here, between Christian secession from culture and accomodation with it. He implies that secession is a relatively new current in American religion: "As far as I know, it never occcurred to Catholic bakers to tell remarrying customers to take their business elsewhere." He quotes conservative Ed Whelan that "Those of us growing up in the 1960's and 1970s grew up with an assimilationist ethic… [But] as the culture has become less hospitable to religious beliefs, there is a greater need to be more vigilant." Christians, Rauch surmises, are afraid that discriminatory religious convictions will become as unpopular as racism, and believers pushed out of  jobs and contracts. So, ironically, some have reacted by refusing work from those with whom they disagree.

Have lines in the culture war hardened where religion is concerned? I give Rauch (who identifies himself as a gay atheist) credit for recognizing that religious people have the right to accomodation. "There is an absolutist streak among some secular civil-rights advocates. They think, justifiably, that discrimination is wrong and should not be tolerated, but they are too quick to overlook the unique role religion plays in American life and the unique protections it enjoys under the First Amendment." 

His argument is that Christian secession simply isn't a wise strategy for the church. It "puts the faithful in open conflict with the value that young Americans hold most sacred." He suggests that Christians ought to tap into their "missionary tradition of engagement and education, of resolutely and even cheerfully going out into an often uncomprehending world, rather than staying home with the shutters closed." 

He adds, "This much I can guarantee: the First Church of Discrimination will find few adherents in 21st-century America." "They might as well write off the next two or three or 10 generations, among whom nondiscrimination is the 11th commandment."

Is Rauch right or wrong? What do you think?

Related articles

Conservative Christians Are Losing the Culture Wars and They Don't Seem to Understand Why

When conservatives disengage, we lose. End of story.

Americans Like Jews Better than Mormons and Muslims

by Loren Seibold 

For a June Pew Research Center study researchers asked what appears at first to be a fairly uncomplicated question: rate on a scale of warmest to coolest your feelings about a named religious group. Jews, Catholics, and Evangelical Christians elicited the warmest feelings; Mormons, athiests and Muslims the coolest.

• Not surprising is that we tend to be most warm toward the group we personally identify with, and Christians were most strongly represented in the survey group. The odd outlier here is the warmth felt toward Jews, who were a relatively small proportion of the panel surveyed (only 100 individuals out of a group of  3217). Does this reflect the links between Judaism and Christianity, particularly Evangelical Christians whose theology posits a central rôle for Israel in end time events? Or the outsize place of Jews in public life? Yet for their part, Jews felt quite negative toward Evangelicals—more negative than they do toward Muslims!

• While Mormons believe in Christ, and Islam is a fellow Abrahamic religion, these ended up near the bottom of the list. I am surprised by the antipathy toward Mormons, given that we have seen so many Mormons successful in American life, including a presidential candidate who was popular with Catholics and Evangelicals. Note that Islam, even though  historically related to Christianity, rated lower than rather alien eastern religions like Hinduism—and even lower than atheism.

• The survey showed that American atheists feel more positive about Jews, Hindus and Buddhists than about any of the Christian faiths. The eastern religions have strong strains of non-theism, though it isn't clear if that's what makes them more palatable to atheists, or whether it's because they tend to be less doctrinaire and evangelistic than the Abrahamic religions.

• The feelings of people with Republican leanings were more polarized toward Christianity and against atheists and Muslims than those leaning Democratic. Democrats' answers clustered to the center, suggesting less strong feelings about religion generally. There's also an age divide: older Americans felt warmer toward Jews, Evangelicals and Catholics, while younger Americans gave higher ratings to atheists and Muslims than did their elders.

• The study showed that simply knowing someone of a particular religious group results in warmer feelings about that group—proving that ignorance about those who differ from us may be the reason for our prejudices about them. 

Note that the survey asks for respondents' feelings, not what one thinks about a group's doctrine, actions, or reputation. Though one would suppose that feelings and thoughts would closely reflect one another, I wonder whether the results would look different if they'd asked people to react to the named religion in a different way.

Related articles

Pew survey: Jews most popular religious group in U.S.

Was PBS's "Secrets of the Vatican" Anti-Catholic?

My wife and I watched Frontline's "Secrets of the Vatican" in a stunned silence. There wasn't any single item there that was entirely new to us. Pedophilic priests, corruption in the Vatican Bank, a secretive Curia, the cult-like Legion of Christ, blatantly homosexual priests—all have been reported before. Frontline brought these things together in a way that leaves one feeling the erosion of the moral and spiritual foundation of the Roman church. Its only hope, it seems to me, is deep organizational repentance. 

But that's not how some Roman Catholic apologists see it. Bill Donohue of The Catholic League called "Secrets of the Vatican" "contrived," a "hit job" by "Catholic bashers."  But it's hard to argue with the central contentions of the piece, all of which are well-documented—and when Donohue tries, he sounds disingenuous. Of sexual abuse, "This problem is practically non-existent in the Catholic community these days, and is rampant in the public schools, as well as in the Orthodox Jewish community."

It is hard to hear bad things about an organization you love. But this is a classic example of the denial one hears frequently from offenders and defenders of offenders, and surprisingly often in a religious context. Examples:

1. It didn't happen. Or it isn't happening anymore. Or it's been greatly exaggerated. Or it's a thing of the past, and anyway, you should mind your own damn business.

2. And if it did happen, others are doing worse things, and you should be accusing them rather than us. Donohue: "None of these people at PBS give a hoot about the sexual abuse of minors, for if they did, they would cover those communities where it is thriving."

3. It isn't what you said, it's how you said it. Donohue complains about cinematography—"ominous dark images; dramatic music; a deep voice-over; bleak hallways; shadowy figures locking doors as a boy enters the room; the words 'Power,' Money,' and 'Sex' flashing about"—as though that minimizes the offenses documented.

4. Even if the accusations are true, we can find a few items in your presentation that are arguable or inaccurate, so that negates the rest of what you say. This blog is a good example.

5. You may be worse for pointing out our sins than we are for having committed them, because you're not forgiving and giving us a chance. I recently read a call to forgive and restore a Protestant clergyman rapist because he is such an effective proponent for a certain conservative point of view. "It was just a momentary lapse [with 8 different women identified so far] and he's beyond it now. As a Christian you have to forgive and forget and let him get on with his important ministry."

6. It's not the organization, it's just individuals in the organization. Never mind what the organization claims to be, or its authority over its people: the organization can't take responsibility for what its employees do. Catholic writer Adam Bowers, who blogs under the nom de plume Quartermaster of the Barque, adds, "This is all bad, evil stuff, but it is unfair to imply that the reasons are institutional rather than individual." My God, Adam—really? If there is nothing institutional contributing to the pedophilia in the church, then why is it so concentrated there? And, if there's no institutional reason for it, then there's nothing the church can do to correct it, either. Children, beware.

7. You just don't like us because of who we are, so our offenses, no matter how egregious, are incidental.

There are bits of truth scampering through all these excuses, but they conspire to minimize and deny horrendous problems. True, there may be less priestly pedophilia right now, with the spotlight focused so intensely on it. Yet this church first denied pedophilia, lied about it, hid it, defended priests they knew were guilty, and drug their feet about preventing it. And yes, of course sexual abuse happens in other communities, too, but that doesn't mean you're off the hook.

As for the organization having no culpability: the Roman Catholic church isn't a loose, informal gathering of like-minded individuals, like, say, Justin Beiber fans, but one of the oldest, wealthiest, most powerful and authoritarian organizations in the world, an employer of millions, and one which claims to have authority over the present behavior and eternal salvation of billions, living and dead. 

We all should hate the kind of prejudicial anti-Catholicism that references crimes of centuries ago, or resurrects old myths and lies. But there's no way that current Roman Catholic church leaders can wriggle out of responsibility for terrible things that happened, and are happening, because of their action or inaction.

Bowers adds this disgustingly self-pitying "do what we say, ignore what we do" comment: 

"In other words, the Church isn’t despised because of the sexual abuse crisis or any other scandal (this is just delicious opportunity); she is hated because in spite of the sin and hypocrisy of all of her members, she always holds to what is true, even while all of us individual Catholics perpetually fall short."

What puerile nonsense. Your truth is only as good as how you live it. Roman Catholic churchmen have allowed untold suffering because of arrogant and unrepentant ecclesiasticism. It's far too soon for them to claim they've repented enough and can move on to being victims. And to their credit, the wisest among them are taking responsibility for it.

What we saw on Frontline wasn't perfect reportage, but it wasn't anti-Catholicism, either. It was the press holding accountable an organization that hasn't managed to do that for itself. 

Americans Are Increasingly Polarized, Pew Finds

The Pew Research Center’s recent study puts numbers to something I think we’ve all knew was happening: an increasing political polarization between left and right in the United States. 

My family of origin was rather apolitical: there were no impassioned speeches about the necessity of one party over the other. My father leaned mildly in the direction of the Republican party, which he thought might do a better job for small businesses like his. I was aware that others in my community thought the other party was better, but I don’t ever remember fierce arguments or accusations. All political discourse, should it happen, was overlaid was two contrasting feelings: that the leaders, whatever their party, deserved respect as long as they were doing something, and at the same time that the whole enterprise of government was by its nature slightly soiled, and there probably wasn’t a whole lot of difference between one candidate and the other in that regard. 

After studying the latest Pew survey, I suspect that their attitude was probably typical of the time: people simply weren’t as passionate about their political ideology as they are now. Here’s Pew’s summary statement:

 “The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.”

That people are more polarized is, it seems to me, the less surprising finding. More consequential  is that everyone is angrier. 27% of Democrats see the Republican party as a threat to the nation’s well-being, and a whopping 36% of Republicans think the same of the Democrats. When pushed to explain, Pew’s Carroll Doherty admits that the “greater levels of partisan antipathy” are “currently more acute on the right than on the left.” It’s even more intense when when the split is thought of in terms of ideology rather than party. “Among consistently conservative Republicans, 66% regard Democratic policies as a threat to the nation’s well-being. Substantially fewer (50%) of consistently liberal Democrats think Republican policies represent a threat to the nation.”

There’s undoubtedly a religious element here: conservative Christianity is a major factor with conservative voters.  To what extent is this this mutual hatred reflected in religion, and could it lead us into religious strife as is happening in many of the world’s nations right now? 

Amish Success—More or Less.

by Loren Seibold

The researches of the Third Reich into eugenics ended, perhaps permanently, any serious pursuit of creating a better human race by intentional breeding choices. At one time it was a favorite topic of Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Harvey Kellogg, among others. Now, even researchers into disease inheritance have to be careful, particularly if said disease involves identifing a group racially. The link between biology and populations is impossible to deny, but it becomes dangerous when it is used in critiquing traits of specific populations.

One who has stepped up to that dangerous line  is Gregory Cochran, a physicist and adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Utah. He’s made arguments about selection for intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews, and advanced a theory that homosexuality is caused by a microorganism. One of his latest contributions, with Henry Harpending, is a draft paper suggesting that the Amish have been successful because their social system acts as a selective breeding program, choosing for the traits of subservience to authority, hard work, plain living, and in general, a personality that fits into the American Amish community, while rejecting for breeding those with tendencies toward dissent or innovation. 

Cochran and Harpending call it the Amish Quotient, (AQ) and posit that by marrying only within the faith, refusing converts, and “boiling off” at least 10% (some say more than 20%) of their less tractable offspring, they are increasing the AQ for plainness and cooperation. And it seems to be working: according to Ohio State University researchers and the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, there are around 200,000 Amish in the United States, and they’re set to double every 21 years. 

The Amish have been laughed at for their anti-technological lifestyle, and idealized for their clean, rural life. Neither is entirely merited. They’re not opposed to all modern innovations (they love plastic and polyester), and their rules for what is permissible are quite specific and suprisingly narrow. They accept rides from others, borrow phones, let their teenage children have cars, accept modern medicine, and have little hesitation about using themselves as tourist bait. Many use highly sophisticated machinery adapted to alternative forms of power, as long as an engine doesn’t drive rubber tires or use electricity off the grid. They may be “green”, but that’s not the principle that dictates their choices. In fact, in some communities, a majority are no longer farmers: there's not enough land to support their large families.

Nor is their world idyllic. They quash any desire for advanced education. They experience a host of genetic disorders (the community is almost entirely descended from 200 18th century founders). Sexual abuse and incest aren't uncommon and are handled privately (which means very, very badly). Congregations schism, and internecene fights have led to violence and shunning. And families' rejection of children who don’t remain in the community is brutal. (See the documentary "Shunned" shown on PBS and still excerpted on the internet.)

But they’re remarkably successful for a group that moves in opposition to so many vectors of American culture (some of which we'd admit they're better off without), and perhaps Cochran and Harpending are identifying the reason. All of us in some way breed with a purpose, simply by the mates we’re attracted to. Perhaps the success of the Amish is that they’ve done it purposefully within their very restricted human ecosystem.

Related articles

Cochran-Harpending paper on "Amish Quotient"

What is the Book of Revelation Really About?

by Monte Sahlin

Many conservative Protestant/evangelical Christians read the Book of Revelation as a tool for predicting the end of life as we know it. Is that the way God intended it to be read and understood, or did He have a different purpose in mind?

The document "is about how Christians can follow Jesus while living in an empire whose political, economic and cultural power is seductive. Revelation sets up a tension between Christians who accommodate themselves to the empire and those who separate themselves from and oppose the empire." That is a very different perspective, advocated by theologian Warren Carter.

It is consistent with the language and theme analysis scholarship that links the Book of Revelation to the sermon of Jesus in Matthew 24-25, which begins with the question (from the disciples), "When" will be the time of the end of the second coming, but moves into a response by Jesus that is about "how" to wait for His return. This theme of "how to wait" connects directly to the above perspective on Revelation and is probably closer to the original reading than many of the currently popular ways of reading the book.

What do you think? Why?

What Young Adults Think about the Bible

Today's young adults, the Millennial generation, now 19 to 34 years of age, have significantly less regard for the Bible than do older generations. That is the general conclusion from a survey conducted for the American Bible Society by Barna Research Group.

Nearly two in five Millennials (39 percent) report that they never read the Bible, as compared to half of the total adult population. One in five (19 percent) are of the opinion that no literature is sacred or has divine origins compared to just 13 percent of the total adult population.

Half of the overall adult population in the United States say the Bible has too little influence in society and it contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life. Among Millennials only a third agree: specifically 35 percent agree that Bible contains everything a person neds to know to live a meaningful life and 30 percent agree that it is too little influence in American society.

Among research specialists, Barna's surveys are generally known to have a conservative and Evangelical Christian skew .... so it is probable that things would be even worse if the same survey were replicated by NORC at the University of Chicago or the Pew Research Center or Hartford Institute for Religion Research, which tend to have less skew.

What does this mean? For pastors, churches, ministries and ordinary Christians who want to share their faith with Millennials, it means that the authoritative use of Scripture to prove a point or answer a question is unlikely to work. The conventional structure of doctrine and moral rules by using Bible quotes and logic is less and less feasible, unless you are dealing with Christians who are largely disconnected from the contemporary intellectual environment. Alternative approaches to share the gospel have to be found.

New Book About Waco Reopens Questions

By Loren Seibold

When the Waco siege happened, I was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor studying in a Presbyterian seminary. I remember my embarrassment at the questions in class the day it happened. I did what the rest of the Seventh-day Adventist church did: denied that the Branch Davidian had anything to do with us—even though they were a historical offshoot of the church, most of them ex or current Seventh-day Adventists, and studied the same prophecies and prophet (Ellen G. White) that we did.

Clive Doyle was one of the few believers to escape the fire in the Waco compound. He’s now written a new book called Journey to Waco. “If people read this account, they will at least gain a different perspective on who David Koresh was, where he was coming from, who we were, and why we believe the way we do,” he says. “Most people think ‘cult’ about us and think we are people who were brainwashed and deceived. They think our church members don’t know what they’re doing or where they’re going. Hopefully, my story can open their eyes.”

Indeed, most people do think cult. In a review in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell brings together the literature on the subject to show that almost no one tried to understand Koresh or why people were in the compound. The ATF prepared a response for bank robbers, when they were dealing with quiet, principled Bible students. The besiegers mishandled every step of the process. Whatever paranoia the group had extracted from Scripture (it was centered around an interpretation of Revelation's 5th seal) the ATF’s ham-handed raid reinforced.

Koresh was, to be sure, an odd yet charismatic character, and his taking young spiritual brides was repugnant. But it was all based on Scriptural explanations that most of the compound had accepted. As another Branch Davidianist, Steve Schneider, said, “All of these places talk about a man in the last days that’s a sinner. He can do one thing, open up the words of the book, open up the Seven Seals. Can’t do any miracles, doesn’t raise the dead, heal the sick, isn’t a psychic but . . . if people have questions about life and death, eternal life, no matter what the question is, he will show it in context from the book.” And Koresh could, at least to the satisfaction of his followers.

Conspicuously absent from any attempt to solve the standoff was the Seventh-day Adventist church, its theologians and leaders. At the time, the denomination, always nervous about being perceived as a cult, denied any connection to the Branch Davidian. The theologian who stepped in to try to solve the problem by looking at it through the cultists’ eyes was James Tabor of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He engaged Koresh on his own terms, Koresh even implying he'd turn himself in when his study of Revelation with Tabor was complete. Writes Gladwell, “Tabor and Arnold made a tape—a long, technical discussion of an alternative reading of Revelation—aired it on the radio, and sent it to Koresh. Koresh listened and was persuaded. He had been called a liar, a child molester, a con man, and a phony messiah. He had been invited to treat his children like bargaining chips and his followers like hostages. But now someone was taking his beliefs seriously.”

But the ATF refused to wait even a few days.

Even if you don’t read the book (and much of it is self-serving, as Doyle is still a believer), do read “Sacred and Profane” by Gladwell. It’s a mind-bending exploration of why we don't listen to people who are different from us.