In 2007 I attended the 50th anniversary General Synod of the United Church of Christ as a delegate of the Pennsylvania SE Conference of the UCC. This shindig was a huge deal; amazing speakers every day challenged and educated us in ways that I had never experienced before. The list of famous people was overwhelming (it included the recently announced candidate for president, then Sen. Barack Obama); it was obvious that the denomination had gone all out to celebrate our uniqueness and centuries-long history. One of the speakers I was very excited to hear was the Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes, Chaplain and Professor of Religion at Harvard University. His eloquence and wisdom were everything I expected, but one thing he said stood out above everything else. He said, “The church is suffering from generations of inadequate Christian education and spiritual formation. This is why we are in so much trouble.” He didn’t mean that there weren’t any congregations or individuals who had been doing this well, only that, in general, our attempts to pass the faith on to each generation had largely failed to produce committed disciples and strong faith communities. I agreed then, and I agree now; we are suffering from spiritual malnutrition.
Part of the problem, to be honest, is that the Scriptures are not easy to teach. There are entire books that are so boring they put me to sleep, and I am a Bible fanatic! There are large parts that have material that is inappropriate for children and should not be tackled until the teenage years. We have spent way too much time teaching mythology (the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, etc.) as fact; these stories, while valuable to a point, have served to teach our children that they have been lied to. What makes it worse is that many Christian adults believe them to be true! When 4 out of 10 Americans believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old (Gallup poll from 2014), we have a serious problem. In a 2012 poll, 73% of pastors do not believe that God used evolution to create human beings. We have an ignorance problem, and that has starved our people spiritually.
We can see the fruits of this malnutrition throughout society. I am not an alarmist, and I don’t jump to conclusions, but recent culture wars over education, black history, covid, masks, inappropriate behavior in schools and the workplace (to name just a few); seem to point out that we have lost our center in too many ways. This isn’t about taking prayer out of schools; this is about the majority of Americans having no training in basic morality and ethics, and a large minority of Americans being taught to hate people based on warped religious values. The middle ground has been disintegrating before our very eyes, and we feel at a total loss to correct it. Those of us who are trying to hold on to some sense of reason and sanity to correct the problem are failing.
We have never been a Christian nation, but we were, for much of our existence, a place where religion was taught and respected. Our similarities, mostly, mattered more than our differences, and we learned to coexist peacefully. As dangerous fringe religions have grown, however, the middle has receded, and this has fed our discontent and division. No society can last very long if there is no social contract that creates understanding and acceptance of others who are different. We have become a place of intolerance, and we won’t last for very long if we don’t find a cure.
Prayer – Holy God, we are different in the way we worship and understand You, but we are the same inside. Cure our warring madness before we devour ourselves. Amen.
Today’s art is a map of religious and bio-diversity. I couldn’t find who the artist is.