Make No Small Plans: A Case for Hope: Nathan Ferrell on Chapter 9 of Almost Christian

There is no question that we the Church are in a very challenging time.  We all have heard of or seen the statistics on church decline, falling religious affiliations, and shrinking church budgets. All of these are symptomatic of larger shifts in our society as a whole.

Kenda Creasy Dean suggests that many of us in the Church have adopted Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as a default position, as the path of least resistance. It is certainly easier for me to pursue this path and to be accepted by the people around me, rather than to pursue a passionate relationship with Jesus Christ and perhaps to be written off as a zealot or - even worse! - a fundamentalist. But rigidity grows out of fear, and I believe that Dean is right in pointing to another way, a third way between these two options. As the inheritors of an Anglican penchant for discovering a “Via Media” resolution, I sincerely hope that we will all embrace the incredible depth and richness of our Christian tradition without watering it down and without allowing fear to govern our thoughts.

Hope is the antidote to fear, but it is not the same as optimism. I imagine that many German citizens felt very optimistic about the glorious future of their nation during the Third Reich. On a lighter note, we know that almost all baseball fans feel optimistic about the potential for a World Series victory by their home teams during the spring-time of each year. For me, optimism is the duty of being a fan. We must believe that our team could win, that our nation will prevail, that our Church could grow and become strong. But just because we believe this way does not mean that it will in fact become reality. Optimism reflects the particular viewpoint of the invested fan. As the divine apostle stated, this is part of what it means to view things "according to the flesh" or "from a human point of view." I assume that all who are reading this are "fans" of The Episcopal Church. It is right then that we might feel optimism about the future of our beloved Church, even if this optimism has no connection with reality as it will come into being.  

Hope, as I see it, implies a vision of the future as seen by a big-picture reality. Our Christian hope comes from seeing the world, our lives, and our Church from God's point of view. There is, of course, always reason for hope. This is God's Church; this is the Body of Christ. God is in charge of nourishing and strengthening this human community known as the Church. And I have no doubt that God is doing this right now. The shame of the matter is that we might not be part of the Body that is getting the most attention at the moment. As with any human body, some areas grow stronger with attention and focus, while others might plateau and decay.

I have heard it said that if you were to ask a mother in Japan about her hopes for her children, she would say that she hopes her child is successful. And if you asked an American mother of earlier generations this same question, she would say that she hopes her child is good. And when an American mother is asked this question today, she says that she hopes her child is happy. If happiness is our commonly accepted goal, then Moralistic Therapeutic Deism likely is the best path to lead us toward that goal. But this truly is the inane and bland dis-interest of a half-hearted bystander. It is not a goal worthy of our commitment. 


By contrast, if our goal as Christians is to fall deeply in love with God as revealed in Jesus and as seen in the faces of human beings around us now, then we must immerse ourselves and our children in our “glorious inheritance among the saints” and feel the passion of folks like Miriam and Moses, Mary Magdalene and Peter, Macrina and Anthony, Brigid and Patrick, Clare and Francis, and countless others. These are no tame, dull souls who labored only to be happy consumers of society’s entertainments. These faithful souls give us hope, because they reveal to us that “it can be done”, that a passionate and faithful life lived with God gives “more life than the ways of the world.”

And so, to be honest, I am not very optimistic about the visible success of our Church (sorry about that – I’m still a fan, though!). But I do maintain hope for us. After all, God is in charge of this entire human experiment, and God’s plans are always good. It is likely to not be easy for our Church in the years to come, as God prunes and refines us for a future better than we could imagine. But as long as we can focus upon loving Jesus and being sent by the Spirit into the world, then we may have hope.


The Reverend Nathan Ferrell is vicar of Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry, Gloucester City, NJ.