"Mormon Envy"? Sue Legnani on Chapter 3 of Almost Christian

I have to admit that I do have “Mormon envy” for the Mormons do keep their young people close to the church.  In fact, Mormon youth are so close that they are able to articulate their faith much better than many of the youth and, for that matter, some of the adults that I know in the Episcopal Church.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are lots of wonderful people, young and old, who attend church faithfully and love their church.  They just can’t tell you what they believe about God or Jesus or name a favorite Bible story.  They work tirelessly on fundraisers, paint and maintain buildings, fix broken snow blowers, or shovel snow in the worst of conditions.  But they can’t bring themselves to invite a friend to the church they have worked so hard to maintain.

I also envy the framework that Mormons have worked so hard to build over the generations.  This framework guarantees that there will be future generations of Mormons, unlike our mainline Protestant churches whose numbers are declining at an alarming rate.  Their Christian formation is so complete because parents and other adults are very invested in the instruction and life of their youth that these kids always have someone to mentor them at home, in church and in the world since most of their friends are Mormons too.

It makes me wonder what the Episcopal Church might look like if every priest was able to sit and talk individually with each young person in the church to check in with them and, “make sure they were doing all right”? (Mormon bishop’s do this on a regular basis.)  What could happen to Episcopal family life if we took one night a week to spend with our children at home to read the scriptures together or to just have some down time to talk about our Christian faith? (Mormon’s do this every day.)  What if the children and parents of our Episcopal Church families were in church every week so they and their parents had the chance to learn the vocabulary of our faith through attending and participating in the liturgy and Sunday School from infancy through high school? (Mormon youth assume that their contributions to church life matter.)  Would any or all of these things make a difference, not in attendance numbers, but in commitment to Jesus and the mission of his Church? 

Christian educators in the Episcopal Church are wrestling with this very question of life-long Christian education and faith formation.  At a resent meeting of Christian educators from a broad perspective of denominational perspectives (Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Episcopal) Sharon Ely Pearson, Christian Formation Specialist for Morehouse Publishing, writes that those attending this meeting discussed these questions:

• How can faith formation flourish in Christian churches over the next ten years?
• How can congregations address the increasingly diverse spiritual and religious needs of people today?
• What are the promising innovations that can guide faith formation for all ages and generations in this decade?

There are four scenarios or outcomes that are identified for the future of faith formation.  In brief they are:

• Vibrant faith and active engagement: similar to the highly devoted teens in Dean’s book.
• Occasional participation, but not actively engaged or spiritually committed: their spiritual commitment is low and their connection to the church is more social and utilitarian than spiritual.
• Spiritual, but not religious: this reflects a growing minority of the American population, especially among the 18-39 year olds.
• Unaffiliated and uninterested: this group rejects all forms of organized religion and reflects a steadily increasing percentage of the American population, especially among the 18-29 year olds.

Pearson ends with this thought: “Imagine what faith formation could look like if your church is responding to the challenges and opportunities of all four scenarios.  Imagine the impact on the life of your congregation if faith formation addresses the spiritual and religious needs of all ages and generations in each scenario.” 

What a challenge and what a blessing this will be!

  

Sue Legnani

Director of Christian Formation

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

Medford, NJ

Kindness or Honesty? Kep Short on Chapter 2 of Almost Christian: Claiming a Peculiar God Story

One evening not long ago, Jennifer and I found ourselves reading through a book of questions – the kind of questions intended to foster conversation.  When we came across the question, “Is it more important to be honest or nice?” we initially offered the same answer – nice, of course!  Perhaps it is our southern upbringing, but we like for people to get along, and fall back on the idea that most conflict could be avoided if people were just thoughtful and considerate towards one another.

It isn’t really true, of course.  While compassion and kindness certainly make our world a better place, they do not erase disagreement.  Excessive amounts of deference to others robs us of our ideals, slips our identity away from us, denies us a chance for collaboration, and all the while teaches us that we still can’t make everyone happy no matter how hard we may try.

Chapter 2 of Almost Christian illuminates a reality for many of us in the church: we practice a “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” that is an empty and easy substitute faith which demands little, teaches little, and delivers little.  In the name of being nice and attempting to make everyone comfortable in church, we have gutted the gospel of its true call of self-sacrifice and passion that make Christian faith so unique and urgent.  We have quietly reshaped Christianity so that it fits neatly (and without disruption) into the fabric of everyday life.  Churches often resemble polite social service clubs more than communities of fiery seekers and followers of Jesus Christ.

For those young people who do go to church (and that number is waning), this is often their experience.  This is what they learn - a vague and foundation-less faith in niceness at the expense of honesty.  Honesty is avoided or unaddressed from fear of offending others or making church “too hard” – honesty about our holy hope and joy, honesty about our own sin and shortcomings, honesty about the promises and demands of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I understand.  I really do.  It feels easier to be nice than it does to be honest.  But over time, lack of honesty comes with a great cost.  It costs me, and everyone around me.

There is no doubt to me that the change we need begins with us.  We must know our own personal and unique God-story and be willing to share it – without judgment but also without apology.  We must claim the passion and burden of Christ for ourselves, knowing it is the only thing that can truly liberate us.  Our children learn from watching us.  Our journey with them begins at their birth and baptism, and watershed moments can occur at the most unlikely and unplanned times.  Are we with them to help shape and share in those times?

Our job, as Christian adults with our children (biological and otherwise), is to be passionately in love with God, dangerously committed to the way of Jesus Christ, and willing to lay down everything we have to see God’s work done in the world.  We need not demand that others believe exactly what we do.  But we must know what we believe and why, and not hesitate to claim the powerful stories of our faith.  For they may just be a doorway, an inspiration, a thought, or question for someone else. 

Perhaps the kindest thing we can be is honest.


Kep Short is the Director of Youth Ministry, Diocese of New Jersey.  [Learn more about youth ministry in the Diocese of New Jersey]

Bishop George Councell introduces One Book and reflects on Chapter 1 of Almost Christian

Introduction: One Book for the Diocese of New Jersey

Our Vision is that the Diocese of New Jersey is one family of diverse and unique congregations, belonging to Jesus Christ and belonging to one another, for Jesus’ sake. That vision is realized whenever we worship or serve or bear witness together. With their “One Book” proposal, the Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation invites our diocesan community to live our vision of belonging to one another through common study of a new book entitled Almost Christian, by Kenda Creasy Dean.

I commend the Committee for their creative work in development of this proposal and the selection of a challenging volume that will help us all to think critically about what we mean when we affirm that we will “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers” (The Baptismal Covenant). While this work is about the faith of teenagers, it is addressed to the entire Church. It details some of the Church’s unmistakable failures while never losing confidence in God. It is well written, clear and accessible. It is worthy of our best efforts to “ read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” its findings and recommendations.

My prayer is that each of our 155 congregations will develop opportunities for members to read and reflect on the issues raised in this volume. Consider study and discussion groups; forums and lectures; sermons and seminars. Stay tuned to this blog for notes on each chapter, offered by different writers across our diocese. Above all, let us keep our hearts and minds open to the leading of the Holy Spirit in the renewal of the Church. May we see today an answer to our prayer: Lord, in your mercy, make New Jersey new. Amen.

Chapter One of Almost Christian: “Becoming Christian-ish”

A recent cartoon in The New Yorker magazine pictures four people seated around a table in a sports bar, enjoying drinks and chips. One man announces, “I’m in the market for an easier religion.” [view the cartoon]

Why not something Christian-ish? How about the Church of Benign Whatever-ism? This “church” is an expression of an easier religion, known as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, whose guiding beliefs are:

1.     A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

2.     God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3.     The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4.     God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.

5.     Good people go to heaven when they die.

Now, before you read on, find a copy of The Book of Common Prayer and recite The Apostles’ Creed. Then ask yourself, “What are these two statements about? Which is the easier religion? Which is the set of beliefs that our Church has passed on to youth?”

That exercise was just one segment of a powerful daylong workshop led by Kenda Creasy Dean at our Cathedral last month, sponsored by the Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation and the Right Onward Vision Committee of the Diocese of New Jersey. Kenda Dean is a longtime youth minister, an ordained United Methodist pastor, a wife and a mother of two adolescents, a Professor of Youth, Church and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of many books and publications, including Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church.

In Chapter One, Professor Dean begins, “Let me save you some trouble,” and gives us the gist of her book: American young people are fine with religion. They just don’t care about it very much, and it doesn’t last for very long after they graduate from high school.

But, in her second paragraph, Dean plunges us into a world of trouble when asserts that, “we’re responsible.” What? Why? Because teenagers’ religiosity is a reflection of their parents’ religious devotion (or lack of it) and the devotional life of their congregations.

There is more disturbing material ahead, with lots of research to back up claims that should shake the Church down to its foundations. The results of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) are all over these pages. They are clear, convincing and point to what we already know: the question is no longer, “How can we keep young people in church?” Rather, the question is, “Does the church matter?”

At this point I pause to reassure the reader that I have no time or interest in reading another punishing study from a sociology department that tells me what’s wrong with the Church and why it can’t last. But Kenda Dean sets this research in a framework of faith and uses it to speak the truth in love to faith communities that have “fallen from faith to religion.” She finds the theological and ecclesial crises amidst the sociological findings. She writes, “In Christian tradition, faith depends on who we follow, and that depends on who we love. Believing in a person…creates a very different set of expectations than believing in ‘beliefs.’ [F]aith means cleaving to the person, the God-man, of Jesus Christ, joining a pilgrim journey with other lovers and following him into the world.”  

In her first chapter, Professor Dean also introduces us to the idea of Christian Parasitology (think of the 1979 movie Alien) and gives a quick sketch of the NSYR.

There are spiritual gems on every page and she is not at all dry or boring in her presentation. She writes with passion about a Church that has lost its passion. She makes clear that the findings of the NSYR are a mirror for the Church. God has become an object, not a subject; an idea, not a companion; a butler or a therapist, not a living Lord. And so we have passed on religion as a trivial pursuit rather than a “consequential faith.”

We can do better. There much more to learn and much to do, by God’s grace. Read this book with your parish, your diocese, your bishop. Read on. Right onward!

The Right Reverend George Councell

Bishop of New Jersey