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No doubt, the statistic given in the article is true. Many, almost most people no longer attend a church of the denomination they grew up in? Why is this?
Let me suggest a couple reasons:
1) People no longer choose churches based on confession. They may pick a church because of the charisma of the pastor, the proximity to their home or favorite part of town, or their programs or facilities, but few choose by examining doctrine.
2) Most churches are the same. Their was a day when Methodists talked about holiness and total santification, reformed churches lived in Calvin’s theology proudly, and Lutherans held their middle road denying the works salvation of the Catholic church and the anti-tradition influence of the later reformers. Today, the message is often so generic that there is no reason to choose. It all sounds the same. Most churches do everything possible to hide their distinctive doctrines by only extolling only the essentials in any setting where perspective members may be there.
3. People choose their mates without discussing their beliefs in any sort of depth. They fall in love or lust, get married, and choose some church both feel comfortable in the first week rather than deciding to truly search the scriptures and choosing the church that teaches what they believe the bible to say.
4. The modern ecumenical movement has made it taboo to speak of another Christian denomination in any derogatory way, therefore people are not informed enough to avoid heresy.
5. With all of modern distractions, most Christians do not know enough of the truth revealed in God’s word to make an informed decision.
6. Postmodernism and its “all truth is good truth” ways. (I can feel Tom’s eyebrows rising)
Okay I will stop there. Add your own or argue away.
I will post, daggumit. Let me ask a question to your question. Why is this necessarily a bad thing?
Perhaps, they had left the church and God at some point and through life circumstances have had a ‘crisis of faith.’ And they tried a church (maybe the type they grew up in doesn’t exist in the small town they now live in, or is too liberal, or is too fundamentalist, etc.) and found wonderful, Godly, biblical messages in addition to the love of God, the compassion, the grace, the mercy, the forgiveness, etc. of God through the working of the community of faith itself.
In other words, I don’t doubt all of your reasons but I am not sure all the reasons need to be negative.
Are we being too territorial? Do we get so caught up in our own local church, or denomination that we forget that we are part of the kingdom of God. We really are in this together. (Yes, I know, not every church is necessarily part of the kingdom and it is there that I share some your concerns).
I just think, overall, just as there are some bad reasons people choose a different church than what they grew up in there are some really good and valid reasons as well.
And perhaps you wanted your post to highlight the negative side of “switching” but do you feel that there are positive reasons? Other than everyone “seeing the light” and becoming LCMS? 🙂 I really would be interested in knowing what you think.
Tom,
A short answer for now, church calls soon. I really believe that the percentage of people leaving a church to go to another because it has a purer theology is very small, although it does happen. Most I feel change churches for no other reason that style preference or convenience. I know I know, way to stay negative. But I really believe it is a reality.
BTW, you didn’t know Jesus healed a blind man, he then handed him a pre-release copy of the Ausburg Confession?
Hey,
I guess I didn’t realize that last part about the Ausburg Confession. 🙂
I do agree that a lot of change is based on preference, convenience and the like.
I guess maybe some of it depends on whether the article is talking about people who simply change churches during their adult life or adults who have been out of church (even the church of their youth – if they went to church) and have “come back” to church, as an adult, for whatever reason.
I would agree people who “shop” for churches, most, probably, don’t look for ‘purer’ theology (of course every denomination thinks theirs is the closest one to being 100% pure)….but if you are talking about someone who has re-entered a church after being away for years and years….they may not be overly concerned with all the particulars.
And that is part of my argument for those who have re-entered a life of faith. Should we not be overjoyed that they are now part of a community of faith (again, I realize not all are good….i am talking about those faith communities that are sound, biblical, Christ-centered) though they may not be part of us (our local church or even our denomination)?
btw, i read the article (i think it is the one you have on the right hand side of your blog – “religious ties shifting”)….and it really doesn’t seem to indicate whether these are church-hopping people or people who are re-entering a church after being away for years. I do believe there is a difference at that point.
Phil,
I’m sure you were just waiting for me to say this so I’ll be silent no more. The fault lies with Martin Luther, his followers and the radical reformers. After Luther decided that the Church was no longer the pillar and bulwark of truth (and I’m referring to the Holy Orthodox Church here) and decided that his own interpretation of Scripture and the Holy Fathers was superior to the inherited catholic tradition (both written and not), can you have honestly expected anything else? It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.
What else did the Reformation do except make faith in Christ a tottally individualistic thing? How else can you explain some 30,000 Protestant communiites in the world except from the inheritance of Luther’s ideas that one man can single handedly determine what is and what is not the basis of the Christian faith or the Christian Church? And now you complain that people “church-shop” and do so according to standards which are not in conformity with finding the one true faith (which is Orthodoxy, btw). This current situation is one of your tradition’s own making. Quit complaining.
And Tom, I do agree that we should reserve judgment. We should be overjoyed that those who have come back in some way, have come back to find portions of the Truth, yet regrettably, not the whole. We have to pray that they will continue to search. Too many people seem to give up that search. Even among us Orthodox, it seems that too many people become lazy and complacent once the chrism dies! Solution? Constant and faithful catechesis. If only…
Funny, I thought it was my tradition that you first received Christ and were nurtured in your faith. And then you went church shopping because you didn’t like the styles of worship in the LCMS that you saw beginning to gain acceptance? Did you join orthodoxy for the theology and then live in the style, or was it the opposite way?
I can’t describe it, Phil and to attempt to do so would be in vain. It was the sheer totality I heard, prayed, sung and saw which brought me to the Church.
Is the OCA the Church? What of the rest of us?
Late to the game and commenting on the article…
Phil, I think a lot of your points are true (and when I first read this, I had a couple of the same thoughts that Tom already said). But I also think that some of the fault lies in the individual churches.
I’m at our current church because my husband is called here… but even if he wasn’t, I would drive an hour or more to get here on Sunday to worship, despite the fact that there are several closer churches that share my doctrinal beliefs on paper. The difference, in my mind, is that this church not only teaches biblical principles boldly and unabashedly, but is made up of a congregation full of people trying to live it daily. I’ve been a member at several churches that are great at regurgitating doctrine but terrible at living it. They can recite scripture backward and forward but fail to let the Word of God dwell in them richly. They’re spiritual cream puffs. They love doctrine for doctrine’s sake. They get caught up in ungodly power struggles under the false banner of good leadership or stewardship. Or they meet every Sunday and nod at the sermon, but return to apathetic lives after donut hour.
Of course that doesn’t apply to every individual (just as every individual at my church is not a sincere and faithful follower either), but it has most definitely applied to the overall church culture. It’s not enough to know the bible; we have to be living it in daily surrender to our Almighty God.
I think people are drawn to churches for a host of unimportant reasons, but I think one of the most powerful reasons is if the congregation actually practices what they preach and points people toward Jesus.
Jaime, do you really believe those churches you would pass by are full of people that are not trying to live the faith each day? I have comes to learn here at my little country church with almost zero programs that the life of Christians is mostly lives out in very ordinary ways by ordinary people. We sometimes think only the spectacular manifestation of the life of Christians are the real deal. I agree there are those in every church that are not real Christians and therefore just hang out. But don’t mistake the ordinary lives of God’s people as necessarily apathetic.
Phil,
Let me clarify that I am a member of the Antiochian jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church. OCA is a jurisdiction within the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church and Faith. It is not separate. It is one of the members of the body, not divided from it.
But is the HOC the CHURCH, and if so what of he rest of us?
It is. As for the rest of you, in terms of salvation, I cannot speculate nor will I. I commend that to our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Phil,
Actually, it’s the ordinary lives where I see the folks living stuff out. That’s what excites me… the authenticity of people who are really living it out, day by day.
And (as I tried to say in my former post) I do think *some* people in the churches I pass are involved with God on a more-than-Sunday basis… but the overall fabric of the church is content with head knowledge alone, or the act of going to church, without much action. I’ve been in those congregations, known the people, and wouldn’t go back.
In no way to I suppose that ordinary lives equal apathetic lives.