The Future of Christianity
Second in Christianity Series: Finding my sign
The Future of Christianity
Mothers and House Rules
Sometimes the sign you are looking for is hanging on the wall of your own house right in front of your eyes. I have belonged to the United Methodist Church since there was such a thing (1968) so with the current conflict within the denomination I have been thinking a lot about the future of Christianity in general and of the United Methodist denomination in particular. Formal religion has always had two institutional supports: the church itself and the individual, home or the family embodying how the religion is lived privately and within a family context. When I was a child this link was powerful if not always spelled out, meaning there were serious house rules even if they were never written. Sometimes they were even posted. I’m a boomer so the old days means up until the 1980s, about a decade before the culture wars. As a general principle the house rules all involved avoiding sins of various types. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss, don’t see R rated movies, don’t see anything inappropriate. If you were alive at this time you can add your own details to this list of what was considered sin and what would not be allowed under a roof. This is an issue for another essay, but intrinsic to religion is the difficulty of aiming for universal acceptance, yet not being able to distinguish what is a religious matter and what is a cultural matter. For example, the once impassioned and even bitter conflict over whether men having long hair or women not wearing a dress is a sin. Is this really a religious issue or a cultural norm? I can’t think of a time in Church history or a place in the world where sorting out the boundary of church and culture was not an issue for the church. And you thought sorting out church and state was hard.
As a therapist and a Christian I have been on the front lines of the culture wars for so long that I now think of myself as a culture war medic. It was while being preoccupied with church conflict that I saw my sign. It is hanging on the door as you enter our kitchen from the carport. It is a list of house rules directed to family members but applying to anyone who enters. This is serious and you get an idea of how serious by how it starts, “Our Family Will… That sounds serious and there is no argument, no qualification, no loopholes, no excuses, no exceptions. Apparently this is not a request, it is a demand, an expectation, even an obligation. However, on the actual sign this demand is followed by three hearts, so all this seriousness is really trying to work out what Christians mean by this word love. This posting of rules is followed by eleven phrases that make it very clear what the expectations are. Even more important, each is followed by the posting of scripture that can serve as the source and support for each phrase. The fact that it is the scriptures that carry the authority and give legitimacy to the rules should please Christians no matter where they fall on the cultural spectrum. Here are the eleven rules and their Biblical source.
Love and Accept one another. Rom. 14:1, Rom. 15:7, 1 Peter 1:22, 1 John 4:7.
Pray for one another. Phil 1:3-4, 1 Tim 2:1, Heb 13:7, James 5:16.
Tell the Truth to each other. Eph 4:25, Col 3:9, 1 Pet 2:1, 1 Pet 3:10.
Be Kind to one another. Zech 7:9, Col 3:12, 1 Thess 5:15.
Bring Joy to each other. Prov. 15:30, Prov 17:22, Prov. 23:25, Phm. 1:7
Serve one another. Acts 20:35, James 1:27, 1 Pet. 4:10, 1 Pet. 5:5.
Be Patient with each other. 1 Cor. 12:12-25, Eph 4: 2, Col, 3:13, James 1: 19-20.
Comfort one another. 2 Cor 1:3-7, Gal. 6:2, 2 Thess 2:16-17.
Forgive one another. Luke 6:36-37, Luke 17: 3-4, Col. 3:13, 1 Pet 3:9.
Be Generous with each other. Prov. 22:9, Acts 2: 42-47, 1 Tim 6:17-19, 1 Pet. 4:9.
Honor each other. Mark 9:35, Rom. 12:10, Phil 2:3, 1 Pet 2:17.
So I had my sign. What if this is a roadmap to the future of Christianity after culture war exhaustion? Maybe this can act as a filter to sort out what really is universal and eternal about Christianity. To embody the message of this sign in your public and private life, and in your intimate family life would require living out the highest standards of Christian teaching yet none of these would require even taking a side in the culture wars. In fact this could serve as a road map for navigating the next twenty years with the people who we love and who love us. You see, I have a secret conspiracy theory based on my work as a therapist over the past forty years. I think individuals have been hard at work on their individual journeys and have reached a level of maturity and consciousness that our public groups and institutions are having trouble keeping up with. I think this transformation of consciousness was led by parents working out the practical, intimate dynamics of how to pass on a faith tradition while maintaining loving relationships through all the technological and cultural changes of the past fifty years. Institutions and interest groups were left behind the cultural curve which was being led by individuals and families. Institutions and groups get lost in abstractions while families have to keep their nose to the grindstone of practicality. As a therapist, time after time, I saw families find a way to maintain loving relationships despite all the slings and arrows of our outrageous fortune. Love would find a way. If you take this as your sign, the future of Christianity shifts from avoiding sin, maybe Christianity even shifts from being primarily identified by theological doctrinal debates contaminated by cultural circumstances. There has been a tendency within modernity for religion to be primarily identified with having the precisely correct beliefs as if the religious life was a multiple choice test asking for the correct answer to each question. In our new cultural moment perhaps a life of faith centers on the quality of our relations (Love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul and your neighbor as yourself). Centering attention on the quality of relationships with God, nature, others, and yourself. It is also significant that each phrase on the sign ends with “each other, or one another”. Notice that both endings include the word “other”. The simple grammar of each other and one another keeps us grounded in actual concrete relationships rather than abstractions. I think Christianity requires the transformation of everyone from the abstract category of “them” into the concrete reality of “a you”. Rather than reading The Bible concretely and creating an abstract theology, what if individuals focused on concrete relationships and a life of faith? What if Jesus was teaching that this focus on “correct relationship” rather than correct theology or even correct behavior was the way forward? Following a path, living out or embodying the principles listed above, within the context provided by The Church Body, the Scriptures and The Holy Spirit is a path of transformation of your heart, and your very self, into new life. This is a path that is open for Christians and perhaps even for all faith traditions in this cultural moment and into the near future.
Right relationships are what makes me feel ok. With my friends and family and my self too. Even with my world in general. I need something bigger to help me see where I might do better. Faith in that something is my process for reaching a better way.
I like the guideposts or signs as a way to find a good path in life. Reminders are helpful. In the midst of conflict and confusion little signs or saying from your childhood ,even lines you’ve read in a book or heard in a movie can bring me back to center. Sometimes it’s just something you heard someone say that rang true and captured your attention. I’m thankful when I remember to pay attention. I find it hard to hold on to my truth and remain open to learning something new but that’s what I’m trying to do.