Essay by Brian D. McLaren
June 20, 2019
[In two previous columns: How I Got Here and What Am I Now?, I shared a bit about my own backstory and where I am now as a progressive Christian. In this third column, I’d like to share a bit about what I see and hope for progressive Christianity looking forward.]
In my 2016 book, The Great Spiritual Migration, I explained the ambivalence I feel when people ask me what I think is ahead for the Christian church in the West in general and America in particular. On the one hand, it’s natural for people who care about Christian faith to want to sort through the welter of statistics and get some sense of trendlines and forecasts. On the other hand, I think we humans have a bias to complacency, and we often use trendlines and forecasts to reinforce that bias.
For example, if I tell people that I am hopeful regarding the future, I inadvertently reassure them that everything is going to be fine, which gives them permission to remain complacent.
But if I tell them that I am deeply concerned, maybe even pessimistic, they interpret that bad news to mean that it’s too late for change, which gives them permission to give up and … remain complacent.
And here’s the thing, that complacency easily becomes the deciding factor that leads to less desirable outcomes. Complacent progressive Christians will not thrive, especially when their conservative and regressive counterparts are energized, active, unified, and organized.
I think in recent decades, progressive Christians have had a success hangover, and this success hangover has made complacency such an appealing temptation.
What do I mean by success hangover? The progressive movements of the 60’s and 70’s began to bring women and LGBTQ persons into leadership (although both groups are still a long way from equality and equity), got racism and white supremacy on our radar (although we’re still such a long way from equality and equity in this regard too), made the environment a valid spiritual concern (although, once again, we have so far to go), and brought the vision of social gospel and liberation theologians to more people in the pews (again, that was only a beginning). Many mainline Protestant institutions welcomed these gains, and as a result, trust among progressive Christians in their institutions remained strong.
Meanwhile, a counter-movement took shape in the late 70’s and has organized and grown for a full generation now. Sadly, many progressive Christians have been passive, complaining about the gains of this conservative resurgence, but failing to out-organize and out-energize it. The rise of Trumpism has begun to awaken some progressive Christians (although many still remain un-activated, preferring endless study and opinion-rendering to organizing and movement-building). But the pull back to complacency is strong, as evidenced in statements like “This is conservatism’s last gasp,” or “We’re dying, but they are too,” or “I hope our denominational leaders solve this,” or “I hope the church lasts long enough to pay my pension and host my funeral.”
That’s why I think asking the wrong question in the wrong way actually helps determine a depressing answer to the question.
A far better question, for me, is what vision of a desirable future would motivate the progressive Christians of today to abandon complacency and maximize our time, intelligence, money, and energy to build a spiritual movement to bring that desired vision to full fruition.
So here’s my “elevator speech” for a vision of the future. (This better be at least a seven-story building so I’ll have time to get the whole speech out before the elevator doors open.)
1. An ecological civilization:
It’s not that our churches are a problem and all other institutions are working OK. (Watched the news lately?) Virtually every institution in our society was developed to serve an extractive, exploitive, militaristic economy that now threatens our survival. Saving those institutions in their present form simply serves to prop up the present suicidal system. Our challenge in the years ahead (starting, like, yesterday) is to thread the needle … to let institutions reach a sufficient level of disequilibrium (and in some cases, full collapse) to be re-tooled or resurrected, without falling into complete chaos (a bigger danger, I fear, than most of us realize). We have to envision a whole new era of human civilization that lives within ecological (i.e. God-given) limits (remember the tree of destructive knowledge in the garden of Eden story?). And we have to envision churches that proclaim that vision, because a vision of genuine harmony among people, within people, with creation, and with God is, very literally, what Jesus meant when he said “the kingdom of God.” Were he here today, I imagine he would proclaim, “the eco-civilization of God.”
This vision is not simply of a better church. It’s a vision of a better world.
2. Revolutionized and realigned local congregations:
With such a vision to live into, our congregations would be revolutionized. There would not be one Sunday of “ordinary time,” in the sense that every Sunday we would have explicit, urgent goals in mind, seeking to bring our people along and spiritually activate them to activate others. I often say in my public speaking that fundamentalists are clear and certain about what they stand for, and mainline Christians are clear and certain of one thing only: that they are not fundamentalists. Many of our churches survive by ambiguity alone. By remaining utterly unclear about God, Jesus, gospel, mission, spirituality, and purpose, we hold people together for a weekly ritual of lightweight belonging. That would change. We would need new clarity about God as the creative and personal love by whom, through whom, and in whom we are connected to one another and all creation. We would need new clarity about Jesus, as the revolutionary leader who proclaimed the earth-saving gospel of the new civilization of God that is, indeed, still at hand and still within reach. We would need new clarity about our mission of joining God in the healing and restoring of the world. We would need new clarity about the absolute necessity of spiritual practices and a spiritual life that helps us become catalytic people. And we would align everything — absolutely everything — with that urgent, life-and-death purpose. No liturgy, polity, policy, or asset would be off limits in this radical realignment.
3. Streamlined and interdependent denominations:
Denominations organized for individual self-preservation are expensive and slow-moving. Denominations organized for interdependent mission are expensive (in a very different way) and agile. In order to help bring to birth the next phase of the “new civilization of God” that the Spirit is hovering over the current chaos to create, we need to envision, not the abolishment of denominations, but the abolishment of denominationalism, i.e. denominations that exist for their own perpetuation. Imagine if the heads of communions spent forty to eighty percent of their time in collaboration, not as bureaucratic managers but as collaborative strategists. Imagine if leaders of mid-level judicatories became, instead, regional movement leaders, announcing a new kind of Christianity characterized by justice, generosity, and a commitment to the common good.
4. Creative difference and constructive division:
Progressive Protestant and Catholic Christians need to end our denial (or recover from the “success hangover” I mentioned earlier). We are no longer mainline or mainstream. Our choice going forward is between being sub-cultural (a nostalgic remnant of some bygone era) or counter-cultural (visionary agents of a new day). Right-wing Evangelicals and Charismatics and right-wing Catholics have forged an effective forty-year alliance. They’ve made a deal with deal-maker Trump, the Republican Party, much of corporate America, and the weapons-industrial-complex (symbolized by the NRA) to create an alternative power structure that possesses abundant zeal, wealth, and weapons. They have a win-lose vision that is nationalistic, patriarchal, militaristic, white-supremacist, environmentally exploitative, and economically inequitable, and they are in charge, so deeply in charge that no single election will be a solution. Progressive Christians have to have the courage to say, “No. We are different. That is not us. We will not comply. We will not only resist, we will organize and build generations of spiritual activists for a better win-win vision, a vision for the common good that will in the long run benefit even our antagonists.” The word division obviously has negative connotations. But at its root, it means “different vision,” and we need to be confident and clear enough about our vision that we’re not afraid to be rejected and even persecuted for it.
5. A massive promotion for everyone, with massive re-invention to support the promotion.
I am not joking when I say that we need to give everyone a promotion. First, we need to promote our members from consumers of religious goods and services to spiritual activists who bring our message and vision to their homes, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, political and economic systems, and social networks. Not only that, but we’ll rediscover the joy and proper meaning of “the e-word” (evangelism), deploying every spiritual activist as a community organizer and recruiter, inviting people into God’s new ecological civilization and economy of revolutionary love.
Then, we need to promote our local pastors to quasi-bishops and seminary professors who are training member-ministers for their work as spiritual activists. They will stop simply teaching and instead train people to train others. They will stop simply curating a weekly worship event and instead gather people for a weekly (or monthly, or whatever) empowerment event to build momentum for a spiritual revolution, not just 52 times a year, but 365 days a year. The gravity pulling them back into conventional pastoral roles will be strong, and frankly, many will not be able to manage the change. That’s OK. We’re on the cusp of a massive turnover in professional ministry as the baby boom generation retires. We just have to be sure that we recruit as few younger leaders as possible to fill conventional roles and as many as possible to pioneer the new role.
Seminaries will go through a revolutionary promotion as well. Instead of training people for conventional pastoral roles through conventional curriculums and accredited programs, they (or some of them) will become training centers for this new vision. Many seminaries, congregations, and denominational offices will, no doubt, divest of current properties and assets that were bought and developed for an old model and the dying era. Those assets can be redeployed for the new context. Then, regional and national denominational leaders will be promoted to the role of movement leaders, collaborating for the common good, building deep relationships first with their Christian counterparts and then with their multi-faith counterparts, working together to build a trans-denominational and multi-faith spiritual movement for justice, joy, ecological restoration, and peace in the Holy Spirit.
By the way, the promotion includes all the people in the community who do not currently participate in the church. They become the new congregation, and they are seen as the beneficiaries of the vitality and vision of the collaborating congregations.
6. A creative collaborative mindset and skill-set
I once met a Methodist minister who successfully ran for congress. After serving her term, she told me, “Conservatives can unite around a lie, but progressive can’t unite around the truth.” I think she spoke a sobering truth. For reasons I hope to explain in my upcoming book, “Faith After Doubt,” progressives of recent decades have been stuck in a critical, suspicious, and deconstructive stage of immature progressivism. In that stage, there is constant virtue-signaling and posturing as “moral progressive than thou,” with people constantly checking one all kinds of progressive purity tests. Beyond that necessary but insufficient stage, there is a broader and deeper mindset, enriched by contemplative and non-dual practices, that will develop the skill-set to walk and work together. May that day come quickly.
7. A bold announcement
Once momentum is building in the previous six ways, it will be time to announce that something new is present, a new kind of church, a new kind of Christianity, a new understanding of God, gospel, and everything everywhere. This announcement needs to be local and regional, bubbling up simultaneously in rural areas, small towns, and big cities. Once this new kind of Christianity is being modeled anywhere, it can spread everywhere.
The necessary conditions for this vision to be born are in place more than ever, I think. A vibrant and integrative progressive Christian theology is taking shape, more and more leaders know that the future will not be a revival or continuation of the past, people are rediscovering vital spiritual practices, and nostalgia for some supposed golden age is being replaced with a sense of urgency and opportunity. Things may be getting bad enough, finally, that they are ready to get better.
The one obstacle that I see is complacency, the temptation to yield to either pessimism or optimism rather than opt into a sense of empowerment. If there is to be a hopeful future, not just for the church, but for the whole planet, it will depend on you and me becoming God’s collaborators, God’s agents, God’s embodiment to bring it to be. We can’t wait for someone else to fix things. Everything hangs on our faith, hope, and love ... our congregations, our networks, and our hearts, voices, and hands. This truly is a moment of great danger and ultimate opportunity, a time to look, lean, and lead forward.
~ Brian D. McLaren
Read online here
About the Author
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. His most recent joint project is an illustrated children’s book (for all ages) called Cory and the Seventh Story. Other recent books include: The Great Spiritual Migration, We Make the Road by Walking, and Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World).
Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980’s, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer for denominational and ecumenical leadership gatherings – across the US and Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He has written for or contributed interviews to many periodicals, including Leadership, Sojourners, Tikkun, Worship Leader, and Conversations.
A frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs, he has appeared on All Things Considered, Larry King Live, Nightline, On Being, and Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. His work has also been covered in Time, New York Times, Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN.com, and many other print and online media.
Brian is married to Grace, and they have four adult children and five grandchildren. His personal interests include wildlife and ecology, fly fishing and kayaking, music and songwriting, and literature.
|
