R. B. N. S.
Once upon a time, there were three ministers who were gathered together for coffee. Much to their chagrin, they discovered that they all suffered from the very same problem. They all had bats in their belfries…bats in the belfries of their churches, that is. The first minister said, “I tried shooting the bats with a B.B. gun, but those bats were so quick, I just couldn’t hit them. All I accomplished was to put a few holes in my stained glass windows. My bats are still there.”
The second minister said, “I tried trapping the bats alive. Then I drove five miles out into the country before I let them go. And wouldn’t you know it? Those doggone bats beat me back to the church! My bats are still there, as well.”
The third minister said, “I used to have bats in the belfry of my church too, but not anymore.” The other ministers said, “How on earth did you get rid of them?” The third minister said, “It was really quite simple. I baptized them, I confirmed them…and I haven’t seen them since!”
Although we may wish it were not so, sadly…that story reveals a great deal of truth. Out of a typical confirmation class, only about a third of them will remain active in the church throughout their high school years, and even fewer will remain active in the church throughout adulthood. We live in a changing world; one that would appear to prioritize its relationship with God less and less all the time.
The Pew Forum on Religion recently conducted a survey of faith in America today that seems to back that theory up. What they discovered is that one-fifth of the general public – and one-third of adults under the age of thirty – are religiously unaffiliated today. In other words, they have no part of the institutional church. That number represents the highest percentage in the history of the survey.
Yet lest we think the news is all bad, consider this. In a recent book entitled, God Is Alive and Well: The Future of Religion in America, editor-in-chief Frank Newport makes the case that religion is as alive and well in America today as it has ever been. In fact, Gallup Poll research projects that religion may become even more significant in the years that lie ahead. Newport writes, and I quote, “We may even be on the cusp of a religious renaissance.”
While the research appears to be conflicting, here’s what seems to be happening. Religion as we have known it for the last one hundred years may in fact be dying, but this death is not the result of the rise of outspoken atheists like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. The Pew Forum research indicates that those who identify themselves as “atheists” or “agnostics” have grown by less than five percent over the course of last ten years. On the other hand, the religiously unaffiliated – those whom we refer to these days as the “nones” (that’s n-o-n-e-s, not n-u-n-s) – the “nones” have risen by twenty percent. Although the Gallup poll projects a rise in religious interest, it notes also that: “Increasingly, Americans do not have a religious identity, or they identify with broad religious labels…rather than with specific denominations.”
We live in an era called post-modernism where people are open to various forms of spirituality. These forms tend not to resemble organized religion. The Pew Forum research found that many of the forty-six million unaffiliated adults are in some way religious or spiritual. Two-thirds of them indicate that they do believe in God. They refer to themselves as what we call S.B.N.R. S.B.N.R., of course, is an acronym that means: Spiritual…But Not Religious.
We are seeing a sharp rise in people who are religiously unaffiliated, while also seeing a sharp rise in interest in God. Thus, when we ask the question: “Is faith in God dead or alive?” perhaps the answer is, “Yes.” Yes, faith in God as we have known it may be dying, but faith in God in general is still very much alive. Thus, the solution to our problem is not contemporary music in worship or the gospel of prosperity…far from it. Worship as entertainment is not the answer.
Harvey Cox is a professor at the Harvard Divinity School and the author of a book called, The Future of Faith. In it, he makes the point that our society is undergoing a major transformation regarding human experience of the divine. Cox believes we are moving from an era we might call, “The Age of Belief” to an era we might call, “The Age of the Spirit.” The Age of Belief was characterized by an emphasis on creeds and doctrines; it was an era where like-minded people gathered on Sunday mornings with others who shared similar beliefs. The Age of the Spirit is a little bit different. The Age of the Spirit is characterized as non-dogmatic, non-institutional, and non-hierarchical. These people are likely to be far less ordered – yet perhaps a bit more open – to the movement of God’s Holy Spirit.
Here’s how I would describe it if I were to attempt to put this theory into my own words. In days gone by, people wanted to know all about God. Today it seems as though people want to know God. Again, in days gone by, people wanted to know all about God. Today it seems as though people want to know God. Do you see the dramatic difference?
Let me try to explain how we got into this predicament in the first place. The Age of Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, began in the 17th century in Europe. Closely tied to the Age of Enlightenment was the Scientific Revolution. Science and its discoveries overturned many traditional beliefs, and introduced new perspectives on nature and humanity’s place in the grand scheme of things. Thus, when it came to religion, the Bible was demythologized. The Bible became a textbook to be studied, examined and understood…as opposed to a gift from God that studied, examined and understood us.
In short, the mystery of the Bible was summarily removed. As Max Weber once put it in a lecture at Munich University, “If you want to be part of the modern world, grow up and bear the burden of disenchantment.” For many, many years, people have done just that. The highest praise given to a modern person was that he or she was rational or scientific. The deepest insult given to a modern person was that he or she was, “spiritual…but of no earthly good.”
Christians – in particular, mainline Protestant Christians – quickly became products of the Age of Enlightenment. They worked hard to harmonize faith with this era by making it a rational and scientific enterprise. Christianity, during the period of the Age of Belief, emphasized the rational “truths” of the faith. Moreover, many Christian scholars worked hard to make Christianity a scientifically valid system of belief. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, much of the mystery of faith was gone. And in the process we became what we might call: R.B.N.S. R.B.N.S. is an acronym that I made up for this sermon. It means: Religious…But Not Spiritual.
Today we suffer from what a seminary professor by the name of Cheryl Johns calls: E.D.D. E.D.D. stands for Enchantment Deficit Disorder. Symptoms of Enchantment Deficit Disorder include a loss of a sense of wonder, and a skepticism of anything that smacks of the supernatural or the miraculous. Enchantment Deficit Disorder has left a generation of young people searching for the wondrous, for the miraculous, for the holy, and for the spiritual.
The Spiritual But Not Religious can be characterized as being open and hungry for personal spiritual experiences. In short, they long for enchantment. Consider the popularity of books and movies like: The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or the Twilight series. I think they reveal how deep their hunger for enchantment really is. Why else would an otherwise sophisticated, modern-day person read about hobbits and witches and vampires and werewolves? People long for the places where the veil between this world and the world of the Spirit becomes transparent.
A lot of people asked me recently if I was going to watch that T.V. show on the history of the Bible. I said, “No, I don’t like those T.V. shows on the Bible. They tend to demythologize or disenchant. My philosophy is: ‘Never destroy a person’s ideology unless you can replace it with a better one.’” What do I mean by destroying ideologies?
There is a long-running T.V. show called, Ancient Mysteries of the Bible. In a show about the Exodus, they tried to present archaeological evidence that suggested that Moses led the Hebrew people across the Reed Sea, not the Red Sea. The Reed Sea was a much shallower lake to the north that – due to certain wind currents – frequently parted on its own. In short, they were trying to explain away some of the mystery or enchantment of the Bible. And all they managed to accomplish was to shatter a lot of people’s ideologies. What does that accomplish?
Now listen to this. Further archaeological study reveals that the Red Sea is very deep, but there is a shelf that splits it that is not nearly so deep. What’s more, archaeologists have now found evidence of ancient Egyptian chariot wheels and spears and armor on that shelf. How do you suppose that got there? Archaeological study initially shattered our ideology. Yet further archaeological study suggests that our ideology may have been right all along.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating the cessation of archaeological research. Nor am I blessing the realm of the Spiritual But Not Religious. In my humble opinion, the Spiritual But Not Religious tend to turn to God only when they want something from him. What I am advocating is that we learn to move beyond the realm of the Religious But Not Spiritual. We need to learn to be open to wonder. We need to learn to be open to enchantment. We need to learn to be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit of God.
It all begins with how we view the Bible. Is the Bible simply a textbook to be studied, examined and understood? Or is the Bible a gift from God that studies, examines and understands us? Read it sometime…and be open to the mystery and the wonder and the enchantment of God revealed within its pages. You may even find yourself becoming spiritual in the process. Amen.
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