[Dialogue] 8/09/18. Progressing Spirit: Eric Alexander: How are your Church investments doing?; Spong revisited

Thu Aug 9 07:26:42 PDT 2018

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How are your Church investments doing?

Column by Eric Alexander
August 9, 2018

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the future of the Church. It is an institution I love, yet it is also one which I harbor frustration for because of its resistance to adapt. Now I do realize that I’m referring to the Church here as an it, as a single entity, as opposed to what it actually is, a large and diverse community of denominations, pastors, board members, lay leaders, parishioners, and infrastructure. Similar to the stock market, which is made up of individual stocks, investors, and trading floors, we often refer to psycho-social institutions like this as a single entity, “i.e., the market.”
In fact, stock market investors are excellent parallels to church leaders. Much of Church leadership is like an investor who holds a bad stock, instead of selling that stock when they see the writing on the wall of its decline, they continue to hold the stock with false hope that it will suddenly turn around and gain a profit before they sell it; only to find that they have taken more and more losses on it. Many even hold the stock until it goes all the way down to zero. A collection of fear, pride, and plain mis-education doesn’t allow the investor to admit to the reality of the situation any earlier, and they end up losing it all. They would rather ride their stock down to zero than implement a new strategy to keep the portfolio viable.
When it comes to the solvency of the Church there is almost a study per week that shows its membership in sharp decline. Besides some certain expressions and corner cases which I will discuss in a moment, by-and-large Churches are dying and being closed all around us at an extreme rate. While I believe that most studies and statistical conclusions need to be taken with a grain of salt, my own time in church leadership would agree with the general trend we are seeing in these studies.
A recent PRRI study was shared with me by Ned Armstrong, who is a long-time subscriber of this publication. The findings illustrated the church being in steep decline among all ages, and especially the youth. It also showed a similar correlation to a decline in football watching interestingly.

What we may be able to glean from this study is that our proverbial stock (the Church), is in steep decline, and it is not showing much trending or indicators that it will magically turn around without an intervention or bailout. So the question then becomes whether we can (or should) use this data to salvage something truly valuable?
One of the current successful corner cases in the Church portfolio is the evangelical mega-Church. I know that so many of us are tempted to hold contempt for such churches, but they do hold some keys to survival which I want to look at openly and honestly. They also are examples of exactly what’s wrong with today’s Christian trend as well, and I want to look at that too.
For some of the positive aspects, most mega-churches do a great job of quickly connecting people into relevant small groups, which from there create tight bonds of community and mission. These groups meet for meals, look out for each other’s children, go on mission trips, do local service projects, and organize community events. Of interest, one of the healthiest progressive Christian churches I know of does the same thing. During one visit Marcus Borg commented that while most churches will be closed in 20 years, that one wouldn’t, because he recognized the effect of their strong community focus and tight bonds within their very intentional member groups.
Another component we see at many mega-churches is that the theology of the members is often superficially based on what they’ve been told, and not something they’ve rigorously and academically studied for themselves. The benefit of that more pedestrian style of theology is that members tend to focus on the high points of the scriptures and ask one another how it might apply in their lives today, which often provides fruitful and transformative discussion. This overall model is extremely transformational in group member’s lives. Even for myself, some of the most meaningful Church experiences I have ever had were being part of such small groups where the focus was on the message and not the historicity of the messenger. And of course, that simple theology also comes at a price, which I will get to in a moment.
On the negative side of things, most mega-churches tend to suck the life out of other churches in their community. With lots of glitz and pomp, they attract many people under age 65 from many other churches in a town, which causes those other churches to lose economic viability. They pump a ton of their weekly financial intake back into professional caliber worship and arts. They pump a ton of money into youth facilities that would put many schools and daycare facilities to shame. They pump a ton of money and resource into charismatic pastors and staff who are highly trained to come across cool and relatable. And they pump a ton of money into advertising and marketing. In other words, they have found an equation to attract a lot of people -> take in a lot of money -> and re-invest it where the market is returning high growth rates.
The main problem with these mega-churches though is their theology. If they were open and affirming maybe no one would be complaining? The small churches would still be upset, and it would deplete the community of much needed variety of expression and style, but like anything in a capitalistic market, hitting the sweet spot would be rewarded. But the theology is setting up a house of cards that is likely to fall later on. Their youth programs are highly focused on indoctrination around untenable messages such as a literal eternal hell and 7-day creation. Their mission trips are based around saving souls by accepting Jesus as one’s lord and savior – and all activities are ulterior motives for evangelization. And this would all be fine if the theology they taught could stand up to the scrutiny of education, logic, and science; but it will not. So these institutions are creating an army of young folks who are likely to become disillusioned if they begin to go deeper and start asking questions.
With the aforementioned said, we tend to put a lot of focus on the youth when we discuss church studies and our future, but more should probably be gleaned by what the elders are doing. The trend we see from those over age 65 is quite different (notwithstanding some reading this publication of course). While there are exceptions to every rule, many over age 65 are tending to go down with the ship instead of make prudent investments. It’s not that they don’t care, but more specifically it is that they are often being led astray by poor investment advisors (i.e., their pastors).  Many over age 65 are not just passive observers who don’t care about the future though. A subset of those folks are still passionately giving of their resources and legacy to keep the Church viable for future generations. But they are sometimes being led to believe that it can be turned around with mere copycat steps to the mega-church trends.
These practices do not often work for growth. The main problem is again something I’m going to parallel in financial terms; it takes money to make money. These struggling churches can’t easily build a nice enough youth complex. They can’t easily hire more staff. They can’t easily remodel the sanctuary. They can’t easily assemble a professional sounding worship band. They can’t easily attract a pastor with incredible communication skills. They can’t easily attract the big givers and local celebrities. And they can’t easily become marketing machines. If they do somehow figure out how to put on such a show, they may have a chance to survive if they’ve chosen to offer the mega-church type product. But most will never get there and only drag out the inevitable by kicking the proverbial can of worms down the road.
So what else can be done? Here are three general ideals that church-investors can consider about building a different kind of church that can hold its own within the portfolio by catering to the non-evangelical mega church crowd:
Radical diversity of expression. While many mainstream church-goers are not ready for anything other than the liturgy they may have grown up with, there are many younger folks who don’t yet have a standard expectation baked into their paradigms – or they are yearning for something new and fresh. They are ready for impactful and relevant forms of worship, gatherings, study, teaching, social action and mission. It can still feel holy, reverent, and rooted though. In fact, when surveyed, many young people say that’s what they would like in a church experience. But it needs a shot of relevance too. It must feel right to them, which often means it won’t also feel right to the 65-year-old lifelong denominational churchgoer. Some churches seek to meet this need by holding traditional and contemporary services, but often the only difference between the two services is that the pastor removes his or her suit jacket and the organist picks up a guitar. That is not enough.

For example, about a year ago some good friends of mine who happen to be conservatives caught on to a similar idea, and they began holding services in a mall. The service times are only on Saturday nights, and they give 25% of the congregation’s giving back to local community missions (most churches give 10% or less back to missions). Sometimes they even substitute the services to go out and personally serve the community during that time with their gifts and resources, so the attendees really see their giving at work. Other times during services they block out time to light candles and pray or reflect quietly for extended periods of time, just like meditation, noting that many under age 65 live unprecedentedly hectic lives in today’s society.

Radical diversity of theology. It is not untenable to imagine a gathering where people of many theological beliefs gather for community and good purpose. One could view Jesus as an ontologically unique lord and savior, another could believe that Jesus was just a good man, and one could believe Jesus was just a myth. They could intentionally focus on the universal virtues of love, forgiveness, compassion, and service without getting hung up on their differences. And they could focus on the overarching moral of the Bible’s teachings and not become stifled by demanding common doctrinal creeds. This could take place in all denominations by simply throttling down the need for creeds, doctrinal unity, and rigid what-we-believe statements. Young people who weren’t raised in the church are extremely welcoming of this idea.

Radical diversity of political views. This point can seem challenging to many progressive Christians. It has become a standard that evangelical churches these days align with Republican politics, while progressive or some mainline churches trend more Democrat. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Churches can utilize scripture and modern-day examples to reflect on what Jesus and other saints stood for and promoted, and members could decide which messages feel to be aligned with deep spirituality and universal morality.

For example, studies show that the most successful way to win someone over isn’t through challenging their deeply held political affiliations, but rather by challenging their heart for the poor, weak, oppressed, and destitute. When the actual issues are investigated in light of the social teachings of Jesus there is often much less rationale for right-wing politics, or left-wing elitism.
Peace, Eric
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About the Author
Eric Alexander is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is a board member at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and is the founder of Jesism, Christian Evolution, and the Progressive Christianity and Politics group on Facebook. Eric holds a Master of Theology from Saint Leo University and studied negotiations at Harvard Law School, and and is author of Teaching Kids Life IS Good.

Question & Answer

Q: By Carl from Colorado Springs

In a non-theist world is there a place for prayer? What is it? How does it look?

A: By Bishop John Shelby Spong

Dear Carl,
Everywhere I go to lecture across the world, your question is almost always the first question to be posed. I think that is for two reasons: 1. Prayer is an all but universal human experience. 2. Prayer is the ultimate link to the deity we yearn to have protect us in this vast and sometimes apparently empty universe.
When I try to describe or point to a God-experience that does not fall inside the boundaries of the traditional God definition, many of my hearers seem to feel the angst of both loneliness and potential meaninglessness. The role of God, understood as a supernatural being who dwells somewhere beyond the boundaries of this earth, who intervenes to accomplish the divine purpose and who answers our prayers, is our bulwark against that vision of nothingness. So when this understanding of God wavers, so does our understanding of prayer. That, in turn, drives us, I believe, to seek assurance or reassurance.
To begin to address this concern we must, first, examine what these assumptions say about both God and prayer. The God we speak of appears to be in our employ and can, therefore, direct our destinies. That inevitably means that the theistic God is bound to disappoint us for that is finally not the way the world works. Neither God nor prayer saves our loved ones from death in Iraq. Neither God nor prayer will reverse the progress of an inevitable death-producing disease. Neither God nor prayer will change the weather or cause mental illness to decline. Neither God nor prayer will cause one's stocks to rise or guarantee a victory in the lottery. Neither God nor prayer will enable a nation to defeat its enemy. A theistic understanding of both God and prayer has been dying since the writing of Isaac Newton. It was pushed into oblivion by the work of Louis Pasteur. The theistic God to whom people tend to pray began to fade when the size of the universe was discovered in the work of Copernicus and Galileo and God's dwelling place above the sky was obliterated. It was further pushed into decline by the work of Charles Darwin who demonstrated the power of natural selection above supernatural guidance in the evolution of life on this planet. It disappeared from view for man when Sigmund Freud revealed how neurotic most God talk is and when Albert Einstein reduced all talk, including God talk, to relativity.
The question we need to ask, however, is this: When a long-standing human idea of God dies, does that mean that God dies? Of course not! It only means that one of our human definitions of God has proved to be so inadequate that this definition has died. Does this mean that prayer has become meaningless? No! It only means that a particular understanding of prayer has become inoperative. Only those who cannot envision God outside the categories of theism will have problems with prayer.
God is so much bigger than our image of God, and prayer is far more than asking a divine Santa Claus for a favor. We have work to do in this area but to loosen the ties of past theological thinking is clearly the first step. It would take more space than a question and answer column can provide, but let me assure you that I believe in God deeply and I pray every day. How I understand both my belief in God and the way I pray, I tried to spell out in my book: A New Christianity for a New World. I wish you well on your journey.
~ John Shelby Spong

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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

Was Jesus a Feminist in a Patriarchal World?

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong on December 7, 2005

If, as I have argued, organized religion is almost universally anti-female and even misogynistic, was Jesus different? Did he stand outside that pattern? Certainly, the religion developed by his disciples has historically made major contributions to the denigration of women. One only has to look at the church debates that have resulted in the exclusion of women from significant positions of power and authority within Christianity. Underlying these debates was a definition of women as less than human, not created in God’s image or as somehow impaired or defective. At one point in our history, women were even defined as “castrated males” and the menstrual cycle was viewed as the way the female body mourned monthly for its lost organ. Given what we know today about biology, these ideas are not only illogical, but they constitute irrational nonsense. Yet they have been in the past and are still today operating in the life of a church that never seems to be concerned about its own illogical assumptions.

The question I want to raise, however, is about Jesus and not the church that his followers created. Was Jesus also an unenlightened sexist? Does the sexism that has marked the Christian church reflect the attitude of the one the church claims as its founder? If Jesus can be demonstrated to be guilty of the sexism that the church has so overtly manifested, then the central Christian claim that God has been met in him is in ultimate jeopardy. How though can we discover what Jesus actually taught did?

Typically, the answer traditionally given has been to search the gospels. That does not always work since we now know that the gospels were written some forty to seventy years after the earthly life of Jesus came to an end. Forty to seventy years means that before the gospels appeared his followers had already interpreted Jesus, so that we are never sure that what we read is an authentic reflection of the man Jesus or these later interpreters. Seeking to discern Jesus’ actual attitude toward women in the gospels is thus not easy. Yet, despite this limitation, scholars still believe that if the gospels are examined deeply enough, both the echoes and the imprint of that incredible person who stands behind the Christian tradition can be discovered. Sometimes truth is located in the counter-intuitive nature of his words or actions, giving us clues to the authenticity we seek. Though this process is never an exact science, it is nonetheless the method we have to use. In this column I seek to probe this biblical content, opening it to my readers, for careful weighing.

The first idea that must be engaged about Jesus’ attitude toward women is the obvious but neglected fact that Jesus had female disciples. The male-dominated church of the ages has made it almost impossible for us to see these women but they are there in the gospel texts and cannot be expunged. These women disciples do not become visible until the final scenes in the life of Jesus, namely at the time of his crucifixion and resurrection. The primary reason for this is that all of Jesus’ male disciples forsook him and fled when he was arrested, so the women, the only disciples left, are allowed to come into full view. The gospel writers then say, by way of identification, that these women had followed him from his days in Galilee (see Mark 15:41, Matt 27:55 and Luke 24:29). The image we have of Jesus wandering around Galilee with a band of twelve men is simply not an accurate picture.

The Bible is quite clear that for his entire public ministry, Jesus had both male and female disciples. The assertion made by John Paul II, to justify denying ordination to women in the Roman Church, that Jesus did not choose any female disciples is thus not correct. Defenders of the Pope argue that what he meant was that Jesus did not select any women from among his followers to be included in ‘the twelve.’ The problem with this suggestion is that the idea that there ever were twelve male disciples is now for several reasons suspect in the world of biblical scholarship.

First, there is no agreement in the gospels as to who constituted the twelve. Matthew and Mark have one list; Luke and Acts have another. John, who has no list, introduces disciples like Nathaniel whom none of the others mention. In Chapter 21, which is regarded as an appendix to the Fourth Gospel, John actually refers to seven not twelve disciples. Second, the number twelve itself appears to be shaped by later messianic expectations. It was said of Jesus that his messianic task was to build a new Israel. Since the old Israel was made up of twelve tribes who were identified as the descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob/Israel, so twelve tribes must mark the new Israel. Matthew and Luke both say that Jesus intentionally appointed the twelve so that they might “sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes” of the new Israel. This suggests that the idea of twelve male disciples chosen by Jesus was a later interpretation of Jesus read back into the Jesus of history and needs to be understood that way.

However, the fact is that Jesus, in a bold counter-cultural act, appears to have had male and female disciples. Pressing this insight more deeply, the gospels clearly indicate that the leader of these female disciples was Mary Magdalene. In almost every account of the women, Magdalene’s name is listed first just as Peter’s name is always first among the male disciples. Yet despite her gospel priority, Magdalene’s reputation was trashed by institutional Christianity with the suggestion that she was a prostitute. There is absolutely no evidence for that charge in the biblical story.

Not only was the early church itself blatantly anti-female but as it moved into the Mediterranean world it confronted a body-hating, flesh-loathing, neo-platonic mentality that exacerbated this trend. By the second century anxiety grew, that in the gospel story a flesh and blood woman was at Jesus’ side in his life and that this same woman was pictured as the chief mourner at his tomb in his death. Threatened by this close proximity, traditional church leaders, decided to remove Magdalene by assassinating her character and replacing her with a more acceptable female figure. That is when the mythological portrait of the pure, spotless virgin mother of Jesus began her march into ascendancy. In the gospels themselves, outside the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, the mother of Jesus is portrayed negatively. Mark, Matthew and Luke all show her as thinking Jesus was out of his mind and seeking to take him away. John portrays Jesus as rebuking her for trying to force his hand at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. In recent years the idea, quite popular in the Middle Ages, that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus has re-emerged. I argued for this possibility in a 1991 book entitled, Born of a Woman. The popularity of Dan Brown’s 2003 book, The Da Vinci Code carried this idea into common awareness. Harvard Professor Karen King’s book on the Gospel of Mary Magdalene seeks to recover her historically as a central force in the Jesus movement. Magdalene is today escaping her ecclesiastical putdown. She was a major follower, a disciple of Jesus.

Two other gospel stories merit notice as we seek to discern the attitude of Jesus toward women. One is told only by Luke (10:38-42) of Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany. Martha is busily engaged in the kitchen preparing to serve her guest. She was doing the tasks associated with the role of women in that culture. However, her sister Mary had positioned herself at the feet of Jesus the teacher, assuming the role of a pupil, a learner, perhaps even a rabbinic student. In the process she was redefining the woman’s place in that society. Martha, irritated that her sister was not doing her share of the ‘women’s work,’ demanded that Jesus force Mary to abandon the inappropriate posture of a pupil and return to her proper place in the kitchen. Jesus refused to do so and defends Mary’s choice with the words, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” This can only be read, I believe, as a radical assault on the patriarchal value system of his day. Jesus appears to be a feminist!

In the second episode, unique to the Fourth Gospel (John 4:1-30), Jesus violates the operative code of his culture, by engaging a woman in dialogue. Both she and Jesus’ disciples “marveled that he was talking with a woman (vs. 6, 27, 28).” Jesus and this woman discussed theology and liturgy, that is, who God is and how to worship. Such serious subject matter would not be discussed with a woman in that time. The prevailing cultural attitude was well described by Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians (14:34-36) when he wrote, “Women are to keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but they should be subordinate, even as the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home.” Jesus clearly turned that cultural expectation on its ear. Sufficient biblical data suggest that Jesus was an exception to the rule that religion is almost universally negative to the legitimate aspirations of women for equality and full human dignity.

The church, however, that grew from this Jesus all but universally opposed the feminist revolution that occurred in the 20th century. Yet that revolution gave women in the Christian world the right to university educations, job
opportunities, the vote, and equal treatment before the law. In that same century in some churches women took on the male power structure to win the right to be pastors, priests and bishops. These victories for women were won with the aid of the secular spirit of world humanism fighting against the male forces of organized religion. I think the record of the gospels demonstrates that the sexism in the Christian church is far removed from the ideals and passions of Jesus, its feminist founder. If the church had listened to, observed and learned from the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth about women in both church and society, then the church would have led this fight rather than being dragged screaming and kicking into this new day. If, as John suggests, Jesus’ purpose is that all might have abundant life, then equality and respect for 50% of the human race becomes a compelling Christian necessity.
~  John Shelby Spong

Announcements

Gretta Vosper Lecture Series

August 25th at University of North Georgia,
Mountain Top Lectures presents the Rev. Gretta Vosper.

Gretta  is a highly regarded speaker and author who argues that Christian congregations should embrace everyone who is moved by Jesus’ message of love and compassion, even if they are atheists or doubters or seekers of any kind.

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