I view religion and faith as a good thing. But I have a particular fondness for Jesus.
Religion is turning into one of those questions that is just too complex to answer. Comparable to those vexing and troublesome standardized questions about race, the modern generation is viewing religious designation with increasing skepticism – and we are progressively disinclined to answer the question. When someone asks me about my religious category, I opt for the abrupt and sarcastic: “I kind of like Jesus; he had some good things to say, and he did some good stuff - but who’s asking?”
Our parents, seemingly all too willing to subscribe to convoluted and institutionalized systems of belief, have left us jaded by the proliferation of categories and subcategories. No longer do young people object to the once short list of available religious categories; now, we reject the fundamental notion of a categorization system. We don’t reject the terms of religious definition; we reject the basic concept of categorizing ourselves altogether.
Because religion is no longer the system of belief and theology that it once was. At one time, the tenets of the faith were so engrained in popular culture that onlookers could distinguish between practices on the basis of belief. The very identity of each denomination was founded on a unique premise of theological character. And church bodies relied on their beliefs in popular society, where they served as demarcations, as theological branding, by which consumers could locate and patronize a product with which they identified theologically.
But the theological understanding has been lost in a deluge of cultural associations, institutionalization, and socio-economic divisions. Given the attrition of confirmation and a pastoral reluctance to adapt towards marginally effective teaching methodologies, the suppression of clear theological transmission in church life leaves congregants with only a vague understanding of their ascribed system of belief. In too many cases, the church has not branded itself with its theological underpinnings; it has allowed culture to brand church with the perceived characteristics of its believers.
Today, young adults are on a frontier of ministry that has no demarcation. This ministry is erratic and uncontained. It is something to which the previous generations cannot identify, because its terms are unclear and variable. Today’s religion is fluid, dynamic, creative. In fact, it’s no longer representative of a religion – it is a relationship of individualized terms.
The social networking websites scream with alternative descriptions of religion. The young adults who frequent these sites are constantly creating new definitions of belief, scrapping the traditional designations and devising unique categorizations of theological witness. The less creative are leaving the question blank altogether – but a growing percentage are setting terms like, “I just follow Jesus,” and “rethinking Christianity.”
Because in today’s popular culture, denominational labels don’t represent theologies. They signify unique cultural and institutional identities, ones to which many young people are not willing to subscribe. For many, a Lutheran is no longer a theological proponent of justification and monergistic grace; too frequently, a Lutheran is a middle class caucasian who participates in an bureaucratized institution for recruitment and social service. A Lutheran may generally be a good person, but she is not necessarily any more helpful than is a secular volunteer or a nonprofit administrator. Certainly, a deep faithfulness may be present in today’s Christian, but these aspects are guised beneath a mission of church growth, or volunteerism, or social service. Observers cannot employ veiled characteristics when conceptualizing identity.
And so, with the theological demarcations wholly suppressed, the church’s identity becomes one of a social service institution, not fully distinguishable from a government service or an NGO, and the Christian is merely an agent of such institution. Since the church has failed to brand itself with labels of theology, it has left its marketing to the perception and caprice of society; and society has termed it culturally.
As Christians, we can talk about what it means to reclaim Christianity, or to re-associate denominational nomenclature with theological identity. Many have dreamt up processes for engaging young people in the life and practice of the church – simply to find that their ideas engage only the seminary-bound and those with young families. Ultimately, there must be a better reason for the population to follow Christ than hollow attempts at teaching their children well.
When we try to reclaim Christianity, we miss the point. And that is what this article is about. Reclaiming Christianity is merely the revival of something that won’t work for this generation. These days, we won’t even talk about denomination as something about which we are a part, and no matter how well it is salvaged, we will still object to the nomenclature (that is, until we have children and suppress the issue entirely).
No, this article is about re-commissioning the church, re-forming its traditions to re-found it as a community of grace in Christ Jesus. This is about adapting creatively to the constantly changing demands of a consumer population, while retaining sound systems of theology and distending their promulgation. This is about identifying the locus of the church’s identity not in institutional practice, but in the life and walk of Jesus. Because religion is generally a good thing, but it’s not the point.
Ultimately, this is about breaking down a bureaucratic organization that nobody is willing to break down. Finger-pointing abounds as field-based stakeholders point to those in charge to reform the institution, but those in leadership are ill-equipped to reposition such a massive entity. This is about mitigating a burgeoning organization of “church” that is reminiscent of IBM in the 1950’s. It’s about streamlining and supplanting the “organization man” with the creative and adaptive “faith practitioner.” It’s about seeking the Spirit by looking to ourselves as the grassroots mechanism for re-commissioning the church, allowing the Spirit to construct new worlds that we can inhabit as believers in community.
Importantly, re-commissioning the church is about sacrifice. Because meaningless traditions and emotive attachment runs deep in our congregants, and that leads many young people to abandon the ship. And although the church is not the agile speedboat that it once was, most young people have not yet disbanded. We are waiting, watching to see if this Titanic can rediscover its agility and again become a locus of faith formation, shedding its cultural associations and reshaping its identity in clear terms of theology. We are waiting to see if God can re-commission this ship towards the business of transforming lives in Christ Jesus.
And if that can happen, if “Christian” can imply “Christ” and not “church,” then maybe we, as a generation, can be comfortable in reclaiming the nomenclature.
