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Young adults, older adults, and leaving church

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Roman Catholics are asking the question, too.

We may acknowledge some of their criticisms, but we are quicker to point out that they don’t understand. “Kids these days!” we exclaim in so many ways, throwing up our hands—while millennials walk out the door. “Will we continue to preach to the (aging) choir?” Fullam asked.

Answering that question may mean the difference between a vibrant religious community 20 or 30 years from now and a truly post-religious society like that of Western Europe. Every sociological measure is showing that the youngest members of the church aren’t staying, and it would be foolish to hope that they will return when they get married or have kids.

We can either keep repeating the same lines or we can zip it for a while and listen to what they are really saying. Maybe if we are quiet long enough, they might ask us why we stay. If they do, we better have a good answer.

Rachel Held Evans gives fifteen reasons why she left the church, and fifteen why she returned. Both posts should be read by everyone interested in young adults and the good news of Jesus Christ. There’s a story behind each of those thirty reasons, stories that play themselves out in the lives of young people every day.

The great American sociologist of religion Peter Berger reflects on the article by Putnam and Campbell to which I’ve previously alluded. He points out that many of the “nones” may be believers without belonging (certainly Held Evans, to the extent that she left church, belonged to that group). About the “nones,” he posits two groups, one consisting of those who have been convinced by the “new atheists;” the other made up of descendants of the counter culture of the 60s. I doubt there are very many in this latter group. Berger is intrigued by the socio-economic status of the nones cited in the Pew survey. They are not, mostly, members of the elite, but of the lower class, often lacking high school education. This suggests something else, that they are profoundly alienated from institutional religion, and probably profoundly alienated from other institutions of American life. I wonder whether we are not reverting to the state of affairs that existed in the nineteenth century.

To see the alienation from institutional religion in action, from someone who is perhaps moving away, unlike Rachel Held Evans who has made her way back, apparently; read the piece by Michael O’Loughlin: a flickering light:

I’m no longer surprised when a close female friend, successful and well educated, looks askew at a male-dominated church and cringes before she walks away. When those charged with teaching the faith tell their flock to believe or act a certain way because their authority gives them the right to do so, it becomes easier to see why many chuckle as they interpret this as a parent scolding a toddler: do this because I said so. Gay men and women rightly refuse to succumb to bullying in their professional and familial lives, so it’s not a surprise when they leave a church that calls them disordered. And though we are over a decade removed from the revelation of clergy sex abuse of minors, many in my generation will never again give the benefit of the doubt to the Catholic hierarchy on matters of faith, morals, or much else.

The question is, given the profound distrust of institutions among millennials, a distrust much deeper than anything we’ve seen before, how can those of us who are clergy, representatives of the institution, speak authentic good news?

Quitting Church

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This week there’s been a good bit of discussion around the web about quitting or leaving church.

I’ve been thinking about this theme myself, in part because of recent encounters with a number of Roman Catholics who are struggling with their faith and their membership in that Church. Some can no longer find a spiritual home there and have embarked on a journey that leads them away. Others are struggling to find some way of finding peace with a hierarchy from which they are alienated and finding peace as well with a personal history and family tradition that still binds them.

Over the weekend, our neighbors down the street at the Freedom from Religion Foundation had an ad in the NYTimes urging Catholics to quit the church. Here it is:

The ad has produced its desired result: considerable response from various quarters. Sidney Callahan wrote about it for America magazine’s “In All Things,” observing that:

Helpfully, the free from religion folks provide a long list of oppressive “dark age” errors that “must be stopped.” One can become a member of their cruade by sending checks ranging from $40 (Individual) to $100 (Sustaining) to $500 (Life) to a puzzling category of (After Life) for $5000. This pitch for money prompted one wag to reply, “Hey people, you can quit for free you know.”

I’ve long joked that I would love to run an ad campaign directed at Roman Catholics with tag-lines like “The Episcopal Church: All of the Liturgy, none of the Guilt.” I do believe that the Episcopal Church can offer a home to at least some Roman Catholics who can no longer be at home in their church. But at the same time, to make such a direct appeal seems problematic. Here’s another version, from Rev. Matthew Lawrence.

A generous, pastoral response is necessary; and above all, humility that the Episcopal Church might not be the appropriate place for everyone who is estranged from the Roman Catholic Church.

One Catholic who left the Church and an order, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, is Mary Johnson. An interview with her  is here.  Her story of leaving is An Unquenchable Thirst.

My doubts in the convent were more questions about my call than doubting God or my Catholic faith — that came later. Though I’d felt called to serve the poor, I was assigned years of administrative work. Eventually when I was superior of a house that cared for refugee women and their children, I was forbidden to start programs that would have helped the women toward self-sufficiency; my superiors insisted that I limit myself to providing food and shelter. As Mother Teresa aged and her health failed, I clashed with two powerful sisters who had pulled the community very far to the right. I also realized that I needed deeper human connections than the rules allowed. I kept hearing within me the words of Jesus in the gospel: “I came that you may have life, and have it to the full” — and life in the MCs didn’t look very full. I felt as though I was suffocating.

Lisa Miller points out that women are giving up church in growing numbers. According to the Barna Group, regular attendance by women has dropped by 20% between 1991 and 2011. Her focus is on conservative Christianity.

One woman who struggles with church-going is Elizabeth Drescher, who writes about  “Giving up Church for Lent.”

Dave Kinnaman (The Barna Group) on their current research findings, postulating “two worlds” one of active, engaged Christians; the other consisting of secular people completely alienated from religion and Christianity. He suggests that perhaps whole segments of our population and culture have given up church. That is to say, religion is no longer of any significance or interest to them.

Elaine Pagels on Revelation

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I previously blogged on Pagels’ most recent project. She lectured at UW Madison a couple of years ago. Here’s what I said then:

she seemed to suggest that the author’s Judaism was in some way more important for making sense of the visions than his belief that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. I think you can do that only if you separate out the letters to the seven churches from the visions. For if the same audience is implied then the most important context is the relationship between Christianity and the empire, not Judaism and the empire.

More troubling is her blaming Athanasius for the canonization of Revelation. His wasn’t the leading or primary voice. There were too many other things in its favor, particularly, by that time, the universal assumption that the author of the gospel of John and the author of Revelation were the same person. And it wasn’t just Athanasius who attacked alternative visions or revelations. Early Christianity is filled with such visions, and attacks on them. Unfortunately, Pagels’ bias against orthodox Christianity, the Great Church, whatever you want to call it, in favor of the personal experience emphasized by the Gnostics and others, blinds her to historical reality

Adam Gopnik’s review in the New Yorker is here.

Martin Marty comments here.

An interview with Pagels is here.

One excerpt is here. Another is here.

The conversation on the Church’s Budget: Updated. Updated again (3/12)

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Updated with a link to the feedback site. Add your thoughts!  http://jscpbf.blogspot.com/

It’s heating up. If you want to follow some of the more active participants, I commend to you:

Are there others?

Mission, Ministry, Restructuring, and Budgets–The disfunctional Episcopal Church

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We’ve been debating restructuring in the Episcopal Church for some time now. As General Convention approaches, things are livening up. Yesterday, the proposed budget for the 2012-215 triennium was released. It’s shocking because of the priorities it sets, the lack of transparency, and the lack of conversation about where the church should focus its energies. Information about the budget is here. Tom Ferguson’s passionate, thoughtful, and provocative take is here.

I don’t have the expertise, time, or inclination to read the budget as carefully as Tom has, but I’m not sure it isn’t a deliberate in-your-face to all those of us who have been advocating a thorough restructuring. There’s more money for the Presiding Bishop’s office, more money for the General Convention office, more money for the Chief Operating Officer’s office. Meanwhile, funding for formation, youth, and young adults, is slashed. These things, the budget documents say, can better be done on the diocesan, provincial, or local levels. Perhaps. As Tom points out, if the national church can do anything, it can provide resources that are of use throughout the church, rather than forcing us on the diocesan or even parish level to come up with our own.

The misguided nature of the budgeters’ thinking is even more obvious in other places. There will be no funding for General Ordination Exams. This, too, the budget suggests can be better done on a local level. This is absurd. I suspect we will have one or two candidates for ordination in the Diocese of Milwaukee. How much time and energy, how many hours will be taken up in 1) trying to figure out how to assess candidates’ competencies in the canonical areas, and 2) actually doing the assessing? How much time and energy, therefore will be diverted away from ministry and mission on the local level in order to do the assessment that will have to be done in every other diocese across the church? It’s nonsensical!

But let’s increase funding for the Washington office so the Episcopal Church can do more advocacy. Why isn’t it more appropriate for such activities to take place on the local level? Or for our interests to be expressed by our ecumenical partners? Does every denomination need a Washington office?

Can we have a conversation about where the national church should focus its efforts, which efforts are more appropriate for dioceses or parishes (spare me the whole idea of provinces), and yes, about restructuring? Why don’t the central offices–Presiding Bishop, General Convention, COO, begin by decreasing their budgets by the percentage decrease in total income. Let’s talk about mission and ministry priorities only after they’ve done that.

 

Ash Wednesday 2012: Ashes to Go? or Ashes to Stay?

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Last year, I stood outside the doors of Grace Church before Ash Wednesday services to offer ashes to passers-by. I wasn’t self-consciously participating in “Ashes to Go.” Rather, I did it because it was another way I saw of reaching out to our community during the protests and political upheaval.

This year, as more jumped on the bandwagon and the practice received considerable publicity, I pondered my own participation and decided in the end against. My reasons paralleled those of Tim Schenck. In addition, Grace is situated such that passersby could easily come in for the service–office workers or students headed to lunch, for example. Today was a nice day and as is my custom I stood on sidewalk before the service in my vestments, greeting people as they came to church and greeting passers-by as well.

As I stood there, I was greeted by a man who asked me if I had ashes. He had been among those who received them from me last year and was hoping to receive them again. He was very disappointed. We chatted for a few minutes and he stopped inside the church to pray, although he couldn’t stay for the service.

It was a powerful encounter for me, a reminder that the assumptions we make about the effects of our actions, liturgical or not, are unpredictable. We all know that sermons we struggle over and think are awful are often experienced as transforming; we know that pastoral encounters we wish we could have done over sometimes are healing moments. We know that even the liturgies that we botch can be channels of God’s grace. There were people in both of our services today (so far) that I’ve never seen before, and probably will never see again. How different is that from an encounter with a passer-by, a brief prayer, an ashed thumb-print cross, and the words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” God can use that, even that as a channel of grace, and who am I to prevent it?

So next year, I’ll be on the street corner again, offering ashes to go. I won’t be participating in the hype, however.

Lenten Resources

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(Updated February 23, new links at the top)

Busted Halo’s online lenten calendar

Lots of resources and links from America

There are a number of wonderful Lenten resources on the internet, including daily reflections. I’ll be updating these from time to time.

From ERD (Episcopal Relief and Development)

From the Church of Ireland: A Lenten study on Economic Justice

From Episcopal Credo: my friend Michael Battle’s daily reflections for Lent

The Daily Office for your computer; and for your smartphone: St. Bede’s Breviary

From the Society of St. John the Evangelist:

Lent Madness from Tim Schenk and Scott Gunn. Here’s their description:

The format is straightforward: 32 saints are placed into a tournament-like single elimination bracket. Each pairing remains open for a set period of time and people vote for their favorite saint. 16 saints make it to the Round of the Saintly Sixteen; eight advance to the Round of the Elate Eight; four make it to the Final Four; two to the Championship; and the winner is awarded the coveted Golden Halo. The first round consists of basic biographical information about each of the 32 saints. Things get a bit more interesting in the subsequent rounds as we offer quotes and quirks, explore legends, and even move into the area of saintly kitsch.

More on young adults and the church

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Brandon J. O’Brien explores the religious views of 20-somethings in three posts at Out of Ur. Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.

O’Brien was teaching a World Religions course in a community college and gave his students writing assignments that explored their religious commitments, beliefs, and practices. He was sobered by what he read. Among his conclusions:

Very few of my students could identify any way religion might impact their daily lives, specifically their future personal and professional goals. Even the students who consider themselves committed Christians failed to recognize what difference their faith made, say, in their marriages or careers. They could point to superficial things—like wanting to be married in their church, which meant they had to marry a fellow Christian—but couldn’t go much deeper than that.

Skye Jethani read this posts and reflected, producing: Back to (a Theology of) Work We Go….

Interesting reflections on outreach to young adults, beginning with this premise:

Our religious lives, our communion with God and formation as his people, primarily plays out in two spheres of our lives–family and work. Our closest relationships (marriage, children, parents) are where we experience the joys and pains of life most acutely. They are where we practice, or fail to practice, love, patience, forgiveness, kindness, etc. So it would make sense that we utilize family relationships as a key context for discipleship–learning and applying the teachings of Christ.

The church has focused its efforts on the family, leaving vocation and work to the side. What does this mean for young adults who are delaying marriage? That we have nothing to say to what is the primary sphere in which they live and search for meaning:

We have not been trained or conditioned to consider a person’s vocation as a central part of their lives or spiritual formation. It is not a venue most churches value or equip their members for. But work is where most adults (young and old) spend most of their time and what occupies most of their identity. Without the ability to connect faith to either family or work, there is little remaining to engage young adults other than entertaining gatherings or a celebrity in the pulpit.

David Kinnaman of the Barna Group offers six reasons why young people leave the church. An interview with him on NPR.

I’ve got no clue on how to solve the problem, how to reach out to young adults, but it seems to me, that authenticity is key. We’ve got to be able to speak to them in a language they understand and relate to, and offer them relationships that are life-giving and transforming. What strikes me at Grace is that we don’t have trouble attracting young adults to our services. We have some difficulty getting them connected, but very often they do, even when we don’t make it particularly easy. Above all, we have to be open and welcoming, and allow them to set the terms for our relationship, not impose expectations on them.