Sometimes Hope Isn't Hope
"Can Christianity Become a Religion of Hope Once Again?" series, Part 1
This article kicks off my series “Can Christianity Become a Religion of Hope Once Again?”, which will continue throughout the month.
In 2006, I was ordained as a Minister of Word & Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church USA. During the ordination service, a fellow pastor and friend gave the sermon. At the end, he held up a sign to remind me of what I was always to preach. The sign read, “Hope”.
Hope is good.
Challenge accepted.
But I think a lot of what passes for hope in Christian circles isn't really hope at all. It's often feel-good candy that justifies inaction.
It's safe to say that all the church leadership out there is acutely aware of the fact that the culture we live in has shifted. People are not interested in going to church anymore. As a result, membership declines, and along with that the finances that make continued operation possible.
So, where is the hope?
Many Christians will hear from the pulpit and in meetings that “Our hope is in God”.
Nothing wrong with that message in itself. In fact, it’s a good and holy message for people to hear.
The problem is the message that often (even if it is unsaid) goes along with it, which is…
“There's nothing we can really do about our situation, so we should just sit here in despair and wait for God alone to take care of it for us.”
In response, then, congregations do the same old-same old business as usual. They gather for worship. They have their meetings. They tend to the flock. And, they continue their decline.
It seems to me that “Our hope is in God” has become little more than theological morphine designed to help congregations pass into nothingness.
In my book, that is not hope.
And that is not what I will preach.
Yes, I say “Our hope is in God”, but it is also up to us to participate in the Divine Creative Spirit in order to manifest that hope in this world.
So, the hope I preach is participatory.
You can listen to this article if you prefer. Enjoy!
Looking at the problem
Back in 2022, a poll asked people who left their congregations why they left in the first place. (Update Note: Here’s information about a new, more recent poll.) The dominant reason was that they didn't believe what the church believed. The second most dominant reason was they did not like the way LGBTQAI+ people were being treated.
Christianity is continually coming under attack as a religion of abuse, oppression, and violence. This is most especially prominent in response to Christian Nationalism, where the goal is to acquire power and make America officially a Christian nation that is guided by the social values of Christian fundamentalism (other Christians are not recognized as “Christian” when they disagree with these values).
This political/religious agenda includes things like…
Denying rights outside of heteronormativity
Enforcing patriarchy
Elimination of social programs
Ending religious freedom outside of Christianity
And it seems to even include overturning democracy as our form of government when they don’t get their way
Right-wing evangelicalism has become far more political than theological in recent years. Those who support LGBTQAI+ rights are rejected as not even being Christian at all, even though they uphold Evangelical beliefs.
In other words, those who don't agree with them politically are not “real Christians” and are to be dismissed as diabolical.
I believe that this dominant right-wing voice is a threat to our society and we need to resist it. More and more people are noticing this every single day, and as a result they have begun to push back hard. Many are turning their backs on their churches and walking away for good.
Progressive churches are also in decline
Progressive churches started their decline earlier than Evangelical churches did. In his book, US Lifestyles and Mainline Churches, Tex Sample understands the decline of mainline churches as being the result of the rise of liberal education in universities.
In short, those who attended universities learned critical thinking skills that their denominations were not overly fond of. As a result, they had to make a choice: stay and endure, or simply leave.
Many of those who attended universities, then, faded out of the church. As a result, the social/theological spectrum in the mainline church shifted to the right. Congregations stopped representing the fullness of thought in society, which had been one of the keys to its continued existence in the past.
I believe today's mainline denominations struggle because the world around them has experienced a paradigm shift (from modern to postmodern, and potentially now metamodern) and they have refused to engage it themselves.
Is there hope for Christianity in America?
Back when I was on the Congregational Redevelopment and New Church Development Committee for Blackhawk Presbytery in the early 2000s, it was important to recognize that not all congregations would be able to experience revitalization. Sometimes, the lack of finances, personal energy, and drive to create something new were just too low to get any traction
In those cases, the question for congregations wasn't “What new thing can you become?”, but rather “What will your legacy be?”
In 2001, Leonard Sweet wrote in Soul Tsunami,
Postmodern culture is a change-or-be-changed world. The word is out: Reinvent yourself for the 21st century or die. Some would rather die than change. (p. 75)
He wrote that nearly a quarter of a century ago.
Nothing has changed.
The writing is on the wall.
I don't believe that the denominations are going to survive what is coming.
I would love to be wrong. I would love to see my own Presbyterian Church USA revitalize and start making a difference in this world through love. But with more than half of our membership at the age of 65 or higher, I just don't see it happening.
I suspect that institutionalized Christianity as we know it today will be mostly gone by 2050.
That’s bleak. So, what does preaching hope look like today?
Hope is not the same thing as wishful thinking. With wishful thinking, you sit back and dream about what could be, and that's the extent of it. You don't do anything to work toward bettering the situation. Just leave it all to God. After all, “Our hope is in God”.
When we live in hope, however, it’s different. We not only have a dream of what could possibly be, but we also watch for the emergence of new opportunities that can get us there. And then, we jump in and go with the flow.
The key difference between wishful thinking and hope is this:
Hope is participatory.
If we want to have hope for the future of Christianity in America, then we need to be willing to roll up our sleeves and work for it.
After all, Christianity is an incarnational religion. Yes, we have hope that God will break into this world and make things better, and meanwhile we also recognize that the way God breaks into this world and makes things better is through us.
If Christian congregations intend to preach hope in this day and age, it will require them to become hope for the world around them.
Even on the brightest of days, we see darkness all around us.
More and more people struggle with keeping roofs over their heads and food on their tables every single day.
US citizens are having their rights threatened, even their voting rights.
We see no end to mass shootings in schools, where children should feel safe.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
To make matters worse, with each turn of the calendar page, things seem to get worse, not better.
Which brings us to next week’s article: The coming apocalypse.
Peace, Bo
www.evolvingchristianfaith.net
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Excellent commentary!!
Excellent commentary!!