"Spiritual, Not Religious..."

For Sunday, December 20th, 2009

Lectionary Reading - Luke 1:39-55 (NRSV)

More than a few of the faithful have been wringing their hands this past week. Why? Well, perhaps you’ve read the news about a study completed by the Pew Research Center. It found that most people are no longer dogmatic about religion but tend to mix different faiths together. One other finding is that more people report encountering spiritual experiences than at any other time since 1962. This was the case in nearly half of the people surveyed. And most of those individuals self-identified as non-religious, non-church attending types. Lastly, there occurred another kicker from Gallup Polls regarding one of its annual surveys. The poll found that respect for ministers is at a 32 year low.

For some, the news above may seem to be one more nail in the coffin of organized religion. What it calls to mind for me is a time 16 years ago when Al Franken (now a U.S. Senator) had a religion scholar/author on his radio talk show. During the show, the individual told Franken that we’re seeing the birth of a new era wherein people choose to be their own priests, monks, and spiritual teachers.

Given all the preceding information, it appears that people, for one reason or another, do not trust or want organized religion. In short, they’ve decided to manage their spiritual lives all on their own. From the findings in other sociological work that I’ve researched over the past several years, the reasons for this are many. They range from church being boring, too structured, too traditional, and asking too often for money, all the way to it being oppressive, ignorant, toxic, resistant to change, and bankrupt morally, ethically, spiritually, and intellectually. Long and short of it, we’re in a situation where many in North America have concluded that organized religion has failed. It’s failed them personally and failed society in general. Yet the polls are pretty clear about one thing, i.e. that people do not feel that God has failed them. Nor do they feel that God has abandoned them. Indeed, more people than ever claim that they are spiritual but not religious and that their spirituality is providing them meaningful experiences for their lives.

So let’s step back in time to look at another period in human experience that might have some parallels to our current circumstance. Organized religion in the time of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was bankrupt morally, ethically, spiritually, and intellectually. It was oppressive, toxic, and utterly resistant to change. It chose to live in ignorance rather than responsiveness to the leadings of God’s Spirit. Things got to a point where even God couldn’t work with the system any longer. And what it took to change that system and re-open its heart and spirit involved nothing less than phenomenal intervention. As we also know, God determined that the system’s overhaul had to be initiated through the voices of poor, the disadvantaged, the brokenhearted and oppressed, the mentally ill, and even the untouchables. In short, God rebooted the organized religious system through people who were the most forgotten and despised.

The liberation effort began with Mary’s acceptance of God telling her that she would birth an amazing child. The life of the child would lead in turn to great blessings for all humankind. Being a poor unwed pregnant teenager, it was a phenomenal spiritual experience for a young girl in such circumstances. Despite that Mary’s experience heralded a bold and frightful departure from the organized religion of her day, she found reason for joy and voiced a song known in the scriptures as the Magnificat. In that song in Luke’s Gospel, she utters joys of liberation even before liberation had begun, let alone been realized. As Jim Rice, the editor of Sojourners put it, “This is Mary, the prophet of the poor, the champion of the downtrodden, proclaiming the overthrow of the social, economic, and political order of things. This Mary doesn't sound quite so soft-spoken, praising God for "routing the proud" and "putting down the mighty" and sending the rich empty away. God shows his power, Mary proclaims, by filling the hungry with good things and exalting the lowly.” In closing, Rice says, “She sounds more like Mother Jones than Mother Teresa!”

Ultimately, we know that the organized religion of Mary’s time changed and changed quite dramatically. It took about three hundred years from when Mary gave birth to Jesus, through to the persecuted beginnings of the early Christian church, to when Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Along the way, there was horrifying intolerance beginning with Jesus’ crucifixion to the infamous slaughter of Christians by lions in the Roman Coliseum.

So my question to you this posting is simple and I’d certainly like to hear from you your thoughts, “Are we also in a time where God is overhauling organized religion? What does the combination of declining numbers in many congregations and faith communities say to you, especially in the face of a huge uptick in the number of those choosing to mix and match faith traditions and be their own priests, teachers, and monks? What does the future of faith look like when you consider all these things together? What do you think God is trying to get through our thick skulls and say to us?”

For me these days, I look increasingly for the small messages God is trying to send me through loved ones and friends and seemingly insignificant things in order that I can find and understand the answers. In a sense, it’s an effort to recognize when a Mary’s Magnificat is happening in my own life. I think one such incident took place a couple of weeks ago in my local congregation. It followed after observing that my congregation is about half the size it was 15 years ago. My guess, in that moment of reflection, is that it will be down by half again in another 15 years. Perhaps the congregation will be gone altogether. As I looked around at my church family that morning, I felt and knew the love for them as I had always had. I realized it was the feeling I’ve had for people in any congregation where I have attended. Yet, I realized that we struggle for a future we’re unable to figure out. And quite possibly we’ll simply keep bumping along until there’s no energy or human resource to do that any longer.

As those thoughts rolled around in my brain and I became distracted from the worship service, I turned to look out the window by the pew I sat in that day. To my surprise there was a road sign perfectly framed in the center of the window. It read, “Dead End”. It seemed again that God was trying to say something, trying to get a message through this thick head of mine about the present circumstances in organized religion.

In that moment, I responded to God and said, “So what am I suppose to do about it? What is anyone suppose to do about it. You’ve not put the resources into my hand that are necessary for achieving change. Only a few people seem to truly care for let alone want the Peaceable Kingdom journey you’re advocating for. Most seem to want “church” to be a social club in terms of their congregation, the up-line judicatory, and their worldwide denomination. And come hell or high water, that’s how it will be.” But then I stop and remember that God halted organized religion in its tracks and scared it to death through the person of Jesus via the poverty-stricken unwed pregnant teenager who birthed him. Eventually a new course was charted and initiated. So I guess I’ll wait a bit until the path ahead becomes clearer. I’ll wait upon the Lord, knowing surely that more light and truth are bound to come forth and break through this thick skull of mine.

So what about you?