Fourth post from Bradley Wright

Bradley Wright's been posting on the subject of why people leave church, and for some reason I managed to miss noting the fourth post in this series.   (Fourth and last, by the looks of it.)

In this one he discusses the relative unimportance of non-Christians' influence in regard to a Christian leaving church.  Very occasionally the influence of a non-Christian will cause a Christian to leave the church and/or faith.   But it's by no means as frequent an occurrence as you might think.  

It's a somewhat different story after the Christian has left the church.   Then there is a stronger tendency for non-Christians to support those who left.  

Which seems reasonable enough.

Second post on leaving church

Bradley Wright recently uploaded his first post about why people leave church.   The second is available today.  

If the first seemed obvious, in some ways, the second is the same.   The first related to people who had intellectual problems with their faith, and were asking questions that in fact have been asked for ever - and often answered reasonably adequately. 

The second group are those who say because God hasn't answered their prayers therefore He either doesn't exist or isn't what He says he is, or doesn't keep His promises.   Wright has an interesting comment on this:

I am struck by how much these accounts resonate with sociological theories of human relationships, especially those coming from social exchange theory. This theory describes humans as judging the value of relationships in terms of costs and benefits. One variation of social exchange theory, termed equity theory, holds that people are satisfied with their relationships when they get the rewards that they feel are proportional to the costs that they bear. An inequitable is unstable, and it usually occurs because a person thinks they receive too little for how much they give.

These blog posts are worth keeping in mind; they may explain many of the issues that people in your congregation have with God, and/or church. 

Faith-based unit may close

Prison Fellowship is seeking support from Christians in an approach to the Minister of Corrections to try and save the faith-based unit at Rimutaka Prison, which is under threat of closure.

Prison Fellowship NZ has operated the national faith-based unit in partnership with the Department of Corrections, since October 2003. It is the only official faith-based unit in Australasian prisons and is widely respected internationally.

The unit's operations were extended first by Operation Jericho, a single mentor-based aftercare programme, then the whole throughcare scheme, the only scheme of its kind in a New Zealand prison. This scheme was extended by PFNZ, at considerable ongoing cost, with a more intensive community-led care scheme, Target Communities, based on an internationally proven model.

See the full story here.

V.I.M.

Len Hjalmarson's latest post summarizes an article written by Dallas Willard in which he puts forward an approach to spiritual growth that's worth thinking about. It's not a 'method'; however the three stages are all necessary for any kind of change or learning, as Hjalmarson shows.

Vision – Intention – Means – this is the pattern that Dallas Willard uses to talk about a framework for spiritual growth. He defends this frame very well and it's a convincing bit of work. I discovered on the weekend that he has a lengthy article online that pulls much of the core material from his book “Renovation of the Heart.”

Perhaps these things don’t interest you greatly – one more system to try to work through. But consider for a moment that this same framework can be applied to the formational agenda of a faith community. Do you know where you are going? Do you understand the working of the system you are attempting to change? Are you ready to commit to going there? Will all your key leaders commit? Do you have a means worked out, step by step, to practically move forward?

Hjalmarson goes on to give some good examples of how Willard's framework works out in ordinary matters, like learning a language, or overcoming addiction.

This might be news to you

In a recent post, Andrew aka Tall Skinny Kiwi, who has been back in NZ for a spell, writes:

We are staying for a few days at Ngatiawa which is a monastery in the new-emerging fashion. This used to be a Presbyterian camp in a previous life but has been bought out and changed over and broadened in its use to become a monastic center for protestant youth, with a connection to the Anglicans. Good people here. There are actually 6 urban monasteries in this area under the Urban Vision banner and one rural monastery which adds some balance to the ministry. Ngatiawa is that rural piece of the puzzle - land, cows, gardens, daily prayer in a nice chapel, dung between your toes, etc.

In case it's news to you (as it was to me) that there was a 'new-emerging' monastery called Ngatiawa (which appears to be the joining together of the Maori tribal name Nga Tiawa but may not have particular connections) the following paragraphs from the NZ Urban Vision people may help:

We are a contemporary monastery set in the beautiful Reikorangi valley – inland from Waikanae, on the Kapiti Coast, north of Wellington. Ngatiawa seeks to give priority to nurturing a contemplative life within UV Vision and be an open community for others to experience. We offer prayerful rhythms, retreat and solitude. We enjoy and care for our land, seeking to live more sustainably. We also offer training and team building, as well as plenty of hospitality and recreation in a new way.

Our guest house hosts groups each week from Urban Vision, as well as other friends and neighbours, and church and community groups. Individuals also come to join us for retreat, support, recreation or to explore issues of faith, justice and community and personal wholeness. At least annually we host larger gatherings and festivals, and hope to be a place of connection for others committed to God's love and justice.

All this is great, although the more I read on the site the more it all sounds like what monasteries have been doing pretty much since they began. Certainly they were often more contemplative than active, but reaching out to the marginalised and working justly isn't exactly 'emerging' in regard to the history of monasteries. Just quibbling...!

Unchurched

There is a dread code word that church people, particularly Professional Church People, use for those who are, well, unchurched. For sheer stupidity it ranks with ‘deplane,’ as in ‘in an emergency, you will deplane from the door or window nearest you that is marked as an exit.’ My favourite days are those in which I am a thoroughly ‘deplaned’ person.

The best commentary on the word ‘unchurched’ that I know of came from a grocer in a small town in Iowa, apparently one of the suspect heathen. One day the pastor of the Lutheran church approached him about providing food for a district meeting of church evangelisation committees. These are the people, the pastor explained, who have a special ministry – here he paused, significantly – a special outreach to the ‘unchurched.’ The grocer took the order for cold cuts, sliced cheeses, rolls, cookies, and fruit. When the pastor unveiled the large deli platter in the church basement, he was startled to find that the centrepiece was a cross constructed out of slices of bologna.

From Amazing Grace: a vocabulary of faith, by Kathleen Norris, pg 325

Faith from different angles

Just for a bit of a laugh check out Steve Martin's 'Atheists don't have no songs' video. (Incidentally, his movie, Leap of Faith, from 1992, still stands as a surprisingly good 'discussion' about faith, real and fake.)

On another tack, I received an email from Rowland Croucher yesterday in which he explains how an introvert (like him) uses Facebook. If you're not already a Facebook user, you won't be able to access his page - and you may not want to - but he provides some examples of ways in which he's started discussions recently, all of which have got people thinking about faith, and the spiritual dimension of life. It's another positive way of using what some people think of as useless Internet flotsam and jetsam. Here's the list:

* What does one say to a sad-looking lady, who obviously has some mental health issues, who stops you in a shopping mall and asks: 'Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Is there anything wrong with my face?' (She was 'wall-eyed', and she would not have won a 'beauty contest', but... ')??? Two key responses: 'Why not ask why's she's asking?' And: 'Were you looking at her to prompt the question?' (Answer: no: the pedestrian traffic was fairly heavy!).

* If you were to put a brief 'Statement of Faith' together, what would it look like? Here's one I wrote about 20-30 years ago. Should I update it? (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/topics/missions_evangelism?p=8057). Most people picked up on the women/men in leadership section!

* When/what was the last verifiable miracle you witnessed? Then a link to an article about 'Weird Christians' here - http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/25441.htm . One response: 'I prayed over a couple in our Church in 1998 who just been told by doctors that they could not have children because of the man having a non-existent sperm count. She fell pregnant within two months and they have three children now. He went for a sperm count check after the first child was born and it still registered zero.'

* Addiction: “Just 'cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.” “You do anything long enough to escape the habit of living until the escape becomes the habit.” “Why is it drug addicts and computer aficionados are both called users?” One response: 'I have a theory that someone who is addicted to self harm is doing it so they can feel. There is a real sense that they are emotionally numbed to the internal pain, there is a need for an external pain source to allow them to feel...'

* (WWJW - What Would Jesus Wear?) - A man has been kicked out of a church in the US - for dressing like Jesus. Neil Thompson dresses up like Jesus and goes to a new church every week. But when he got to St Paul's Church in St Louis, Missouri, police were called and he was asked to leave. Response: 'Obviously Jesus wasn't up on security plans when in the garden of Gethsemane. He was such easy prey to the mob and rejected the offer of a sword. We are so paranoid. Jesus deliver us from our preoccupation with our own safety rather than loving the outside even if he does prove to be our enemy and a threat to our lives. "He who tries to save his life will lose it".'

British versus American faith

Stanley Hauerwas wrote in The Guardian:

I am not convinced that the US is more religious than Britain. Even if more people go to church in America, I think the US is a much more secular country than Britain. In Britain, when someone says they do not believe in God, they stop going to church. In the US, many who may have doubts about Christian orthodoxy may continue to go to church. They do so because they assume that a vague god vaguely prayed to is the god that is needed to support family and nation.

and....

Americans do not have to believe in God, because they believe that it is a good thing simply to believe: all they need is a general belief in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce interesting atheists in the US. The god most Americans say they believe in is not interesting enough to deny, because it is only the god that has given them a country that ensures that they have the right to choose to believe in the god of their choosing, Accordingly, the only kind of atheism that counts in the US is that which calls into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and happiness.

See the full article here.

Australian spirituality stats

I flew to Auckland for a day the week before last in order to attend a conference run by the Church Life Survey people. It was valuable both in terms of meeting people and in hearing the plans for the next survey coming up in 2011.

I spend a good deal of my average week working with stats, both church and government (and any other kind I can lay my hands on), so I have some idea of the state of Christianity in New Zealand. The Church Life Survey is one source of such information. It has some connections with a similar group in Australia, and I've just been reading an article by Rowland Croucher which shows that the church/spiritual/Christian stats in Australia are pretty similar to those here in NZ.

Rowland's complete article is here, but those figures are culled from Shaping Australia's Spirituality: a Review of Christian Ministry in the Australian Context, by Philip Hughes and others (2010). This is a 150 page book (with some proof-reading errors, according to Rowland - the result of a publication date not leaving enough room for thoroughness) and, as Rowland says: ...you won’t find more interesting summary-data on modern Australia and its religions, especially Christianity, anywhere else in one small readable volume.

The book was produced by the Christian Research Association in Australia - we used to have a similar body here. You can buy a copy from CRA themselves, or from some Australian bookshops (not Koorong, as far as I could see).

Two views, one subject

As so often happens two different blogs I read came at the same issue from different perspectives: on Prodigal Kiwi(s), Paul Fromont quotes a writer called Amy Hollywood, who begins an essay called Spiritual but Not Religious: The vital interplay between submission and freedom in this way:

“Most of us who write, think, and talk about religion are by now used to hearing people say that they are spiritual, but not religious. With the phrase generally comes the presumption that religion has to do with doctrines, dogmas, and ritual practices, whereas spirituality has to do with the heart, feeling, and experience. The spiritual person has an immediate and spontaneous experience of the divine or of some higher power. She does not subscribe to beliefs handed to her by existing religious traditions, nor does she engage in the ritual life of any particular institution. At the heart of the distinction between religion and spirituality, then, lies the presumption that to think and act within an existing tradition—to practice religion—risks making one less spiritual. To be religious is to bow to the authority of another, to believe in doctrines determined for one in advance, to read ancient texts only as they are handed down through existing interpretative traditions, and blindly to perform formalized rituals. For the spiritual, religion is inert, arid, and dead; the practitioner of religion, whether consciously or not, is at best without feeling, at worst insincere…

On the Out of Ur blog, Gordon MacDonald writes a gentle post about Anne Rice, her denunciation of 'Christianity', and about other people who have left the faith for various reason.   He begins in this way: 

Best selling author Anne Rice has quit Christianity. She is not quitting on Jesus Christ or the Bible, she says, but she is quitting organized Christianity.  Ms. Rice announced her quit-decision not through a resignation letter (where would one send it?) but through her website and TV interviews.

Anne Rice’s decision to go public with her decision is not the only way people quit Christianity. Some do it quietly, gradually dropping out of the programmatic activities of religious institutions and out of personal contact with people whose devotion to the faith seems solid. One day someone notices an empty seat in the sanctuary and says, “I haven’t seen Bob (or Jennifer) around for a while. Wonder what’s happened to him (or her)?”

He goes on to discuss what's behind people leaving the church, the faith, (and sometimes everything else in their lives too).   He seems to be looking at the same question as Amy Hollywood: can you have faith in Christ apart from His Church?  

Tweeting from Edinburgh

Some tweets from the Edinburgh 2010 Mission Conference, which has been taking place over the last couple of days or so. These are rather randomly listed - I copied the ones that most interested me....

First some stats:
In 1910, 80% of Christians lived in countries of at least 90% Christians. In 2010, 33% of Christians live in 90%-Christian countries – from Edinburgh 2010.

Across all faiths, the world is “less religious” in 2010 than 1910 - and yet, the world in 2010 is more religious than it was in 1970.

In 2010 about 27% of all Christians are "Renewalists": Pentecostal, Charismatic, Neo-Charismatic - Todd Johnson's report is context for...?

In 1910, 66% of all Christians were European, with an additional 15% from N America; in 2010, 25% in Europe, 12.5% in N America.

86% of Muslims, Hindus, & Buddhists do not personally know a Christian. This lack of interfaith *friendship* is a crisis in mission.

These statistics mentioned by Todd Johnson for #th2 are from the Atlas of Global Christianity project.

And some pithy statements, some of which take a bit of unravelling:

Fr. Jan Lenssen: Real, radical "communities of hospitality" make more of a difference than sheer numbers of Christians.

1910’s urgency to conquer diversity has paradigm-shifted into 2010’s reluctance to smother diversity..

In order to reach people in contexts of secularism and pluralism, witness must embrace religious tolerance rather than confront it.

*Understanding* other faiths is a priority, before either dialogue or evangelism: there is a place for the Qur'an in Sunday school...[This one struck me as adding more complications - Sunday School often seems to struggle to teach Christianity, let alone the Qur'an!]

priority: Inter-generational dialogue. Dialogue between "native speakers" of modernity and "native speakers" of postmodernity.

priority: Deepening our understanding of God's mission, rather than inventing and carrying out our own.

The secular world also adds to our discourse – it helps us “discern the spirits”. Indeed, we cannot uncritically affirm religion..

Rev Roderick Hewitt from the United Church of Jamaica talks to participants about child resiliency & building ‘youth friendly’ churches. [This should please NZ's Presbyterians, who have a Kids Friendly programme in place, and running very successfully.]

Our plurality today - diverse cultural, theological, ecclesial flourishing - is a sign of hope and vitality, not lack of direction...

"How can we possibly claim to be a credible witness community if we are still far from practicing equality, charity, etc, in our lives?”

How easy it is to be confused or dismayed when what we see in the world does not match our learned categories of understanding!

Greg Boyd the possible backslider...

Greg Boyd doesn't blog often, and sometimes what he blogs about is more about his family than his spiritual life (yeah, yeah, I know, the family is part of the spiritual and vice versa).

However in his most recent post he talks about how easy it is for him to be a backslider. I know this isn't a word used in all Christian circles. For those to whom it's unfamiliar, it usually denotes someone who's slipping away from the faith, day by day, and will eventually - most likely - lose their faith altogether.

Boyd isn't quite in that category, but this is how he opens his post:

I suspect I’m more carnal than most, but I’m stunned at how easy it is for me to “backslide.” I’m not talking about falling into some heinous sin. I just find I gravitate strongly toward an atheistic consciousness. I’ll go for a couple of days easily remaining aware of God’s presence, moment-by-moment, but then I’ll go through a long period of slumber during which my God-awareness is spotty at best. This is how its been with me, more or less, for more than 20 years!

There are only a couple more paragraphs to the post - Boyd is succinct at the best of times.

More than a bit more about Boyd.

The Fabric of Faithfulness

I haven't read the book, The Fabric of Faithfulness: weaving together belief and behaviour, by Steve Gerber, but based on the double review by Byron Borger, in which he classes it (in its reprint edition) as the book of the decade, I'm certainly going to check it out.

Borger notes: The Fabric of Faithfulness is a splendid resource even if one doesn't work with young adults or new Christians. It is well worth reading for the sheer joy of walking through a near barrage of contemporary Christian authors (from the prophetic social critique of Jacques Ellul to the Christian educational theory of Craig Dykstra), wise novelists and writers (from Dostoevsky to Milan Kundera and Walker Percy) and classic theologians (Augustine, Lewis). But the sources are wider still; one is often surprised with an excerpt from a Mike Royko column or a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon.

And in another place he writes: In the middle of the ... book The Fabric of Faithfulness, Steve Garber tells the story of a meeting with one of his students, a student who "asked wonderful questions about important ideas." As one experienced in mentoring college students, Garber saw that the student seemed not to take his intellectual search all that seriously. Our author found himself doubting that the fellow "really understood the difference of truth and the difference it makes." In a move which seems uncharacteristic for the gentle teacher, Garber issued an ultimatum: he would talk no further with this student until he watched all of the films of Woody Allen, from Annie Hall on. It should be a clue as to who might enjoy this book, as well as who ought to.

I wrote 'double review' above because Borger first reviewed the book on its original published date back in 1996, and then wrote about it again just last year - the book was reissued in 2007. His (now) very long post on the Hearts and Minds site is well worth reading for its enthusiasm for the book, if for nothing else.

You can also read a piece by Garber called Learning to Love what God Loves on the Leadership U site.

Keeping Faith Alive

Real life situations are sometimes so bitter that they consume all the carefully nurtured faith down to its roots.

I have closely watched the Zimbabwean situation. I have interacted with my friends in Zimbabwe. Now in India, I am closely watching the status of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Heart rendering [sic].

I bleed in my heart seeing the photos of the burnt homes, sexually violated girls and women, child soldiers handling weapons with their tender hands! All such situations are tsunamis that could drown our faith in God. Where am I supposed to find God's healing hands in such situations?

The question we need to ask ourselves is not 'Is God Dead?'; rather - "Is my faith Alive?"

CWM Missionary, Joseph Kennedy

Keeping it Simple

Here are some significant marks of a faith-based, holistic program of communication and caring organisation, as expressed in Mark 6:7-13 (in The Message translation.)

He sent them off with these instructions:

‘Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this.
You are the equipment.
No special appeals for funds.
Keep it simple.’
And no luxury inns (6:7-10).

This is a brief extract from John Smith's Who Needs an Agenda from the Faith Page?

John Smith describes himself as a Keynote Speaker, Biker, Business Anthropologist, Author, Advocate. I'm not entirely sure what a business anthropologist is....

See also the quote from Barbara Brown Taylor on The Daily Writer.

Grab 'em while they're young?

Barna Research begins its comments on recent research into the correlation between regular attendance at church as a child/teenager and ongoing attendance and faith as an adult by saying:

What is the connection between childhood faith and adult religious commitment? Parents and religious leaders are naturally interested in knowing if spiritual investment in young lives pays off in the long run.

A 'pay-off' may not be how you view your 'spiritual investment' in children, nevertheless, there's no doubt that bringing children to church as a norm when they're young, and aiming to keep them involved through their teenage years does make a difference in their adult view of faith. They may change their views, they may slide away from regular church attendance, but the spiritual input from the early years is seldom lost entirely.

Check out more detail on Barna's research on the Long-Term Effect of Spiritual Activity among Children and Teens here.

Churchless Faith - do churches help?

In a recent post in the Prodigal Kiwi blog, Paul Fromont writes the following (taken from an email conversation with a couple of friends) about 'churchless faith':

Crises often function to highlight our unfreedom and lack of wholeness. Thus they also highlight our need for deep liberation and healing. And in this sense I think that Richard Rohr and David Tacey are right in highlighting the place and importance of crisis (which includes disillusionment etc). I also think that churches are incapable of helping in any deeply meaningful way. In this sense church will invariably, and I’m going to say, needfully fail us for this is a journey that we must own and take responsibility for. Sadly too, the church, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, often acts to prevent people from encountering and experiencing God (and so research by someone like Paul Hawker can suggest that people in church seldom, if ever, experience God). Church all too often gets in the way, both intentionally and unintentionally – church and belonging, in particular ways, doing particular things, fitting particular expectations etc become more important - become central to church belonging.

Often too, the local church often seems incapable of opening up the kind of space needed for people to explore the deep questions, aspirations and longing of their lives, while continuing the belong.

[He comments on the above] People therefore invariably find that these deep questions etc take them beyond the edge of church belonging... and as Alan Jamieson’s most recent research indicates (published in 2006 as Five Years On in NZ), very very few ever return to a local church context, even though they may continue to belong in a much broader and more marginal sense than a lot of church goers are comfortable with.

Being human...

To be human is to be responsible. That is the inner meaning of the "dominion" of Genesis 1:26, which is a dominion not of domination but of stewardship, taking care of the world's back yard ... God the world-maker is God the care-taker. Humans properly stand over other creatures only as they stand with other creatures, showing them love, giving them space, and granting them "rights."

- Kim Fabricius,
from his book, Propositions on Christian Theology: a Pilgrim Walks the Plank

I thought it was worth adding this from the book's blurb...
In this little book, a kind of contemporary enchiridion [handbook], Kim Fabricius engages some of the main themes of Christian theology in prose, poetry, and song (his own hymns). It does not aim to be systematic or comprehensive; rather it goes straight to the main contested areas in the church today, the red-button issues in doctrine, spirituality, culture, ethics, and politics.
Fabricius's imaginative vision and lively conversational style moving freely between the interrogative and the polemical, the playful and the profound invite us all to the vertiginous experience of faith. The book's concise format and no-nonsense approach make it a perfect guide for inquiring Christians as well as committed disciples and an ideal discussion-starter for both church groups and college classes.
The author's passionate commitment to a self-critical faith is a provocative invitation to religion's cultured despisers to join him if they dare on the plank.

And a little more on Fabricius himself:
After spending most of the 70s wasting his youth (which he reckons is better than having done nothing with it), he was blasted into faith reading Karl Barth’s Commentary on Romans. This led him pretty directly into ministry, which Kim describes as “that wonderful vocation provided by the good Lord for displaced Christian intellectuals who are useless at proper work.”

Religious Diversity in New Zealand

The first edition of the Statement on Religious Diversity in New Zealand in 2007 was the result of an extensive consultation and the contribution of people of diverse religious backgrounds. It sparked debate, and sometimes controversy, in the respective religious traditions.

Two years later, in the light of the value of the work done since then, the Roman Catholic Church has endorsed the revised edition.

In the new Statement, the eight key principles of 2007 are retained; the commentary on each of these reflects the changes and experience of the past two years. The revised text reflects submissions from the public and from organizations, especially faith groups and churches.

Principle 8 on Cooperation and Understanding reads: Government and faith communities have a responsibility to build and maintain positive relationships with each other, and to promote mutual respect and understanding. The Statement recognizes the right for Christian schools to provide “a programme of religious instruction as part of an individuals’ formation within a particular faith,” but also affirms that “education in schools about religious diversity is essential if we are to understand New Zealanders, our Asia-Pacific region and the wider world in which we live.”

This latest version of the Statement is unlikely to be the last; as John A Dew, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington notes: We have heard today of the need for dialogue / debate / discussion on religion in the work place - this will be ongoing and this statement should be a framework for national debate.

More information about the Statement, its revisions and other related matters are on the related Human Rights Commission website.

That Mosaic Generation

The Barna Group has recently published the results of their ongoing research into the biblical worldviews of young American adults - the Mosaics, as the Barna Group calls them.
Though the results have not changed substantially for better or worse since the last poll four years ago, they are not particularly encouraging amongst the 'born-again' component of the survey, who appear to be almost as prone to believing what they prefer to believe as the non-born-again component.

The Barna Group notes:

Varying numbers of Americans embrace the different aspects of biblical worldview thinking. The survey found that:

• One-third of all adults (34%) believe that moral truth is absolute and unaffected by the circumstances. Slightly less than half of the born again adults (46%) believe in absolute moral truth.

• Half of all adults firmly believe that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches. That proportion includes the four-fifths of born again adults (79%) who concur.

• Just one-quarter of adults (27%) are convinced that Satan is a real force. Even a minority of born again adults (40%) adopt that perspective.

• Similarly, only one-quarter of adults (28%) believe that it is impossible for someone to earn their way into Heaven through good behavior. Not quite half of all born again Christians (47%) strongly reject the notion of earning salvation through their deeds.

• A minority of American adults (40%) are persuaded that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life while He was on earth. Slightly less than two-thirds of the born again segment (62%) strongly believes that He was sinless.

• Seven out of ten adults (70%) say that God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe who still rules it today. That includes the 93% of born again adults who hold that conviction.