CHRISTIANITY 101: A DEGREE IN CONDEMNATION ENGINEERING
Are you aware of any young men or young women who have left the institutional church? Do you wonder why the church doesn’t seem to have the enormous children’s choirs it once had? Do you wonder why drug usage, depression and suicide rates are on the rise, while morality and decency seem to be on the decline? Does your heart break as watch your own children fail to raise your grandchildren in the church, even though you were very faithful about raising your children in the church? And if any of the aforementioned scenarios is true with you, do you feel as though this is something that someone should try to do something about? Or, do you think we should simply stand idly by and watch…as the world charts a path to destruction? What do you think?
The fact of the matter is: the Christian Church is not what it once was. People are leaving the institutional church in droves. What’s more, over 71% of those who leave the church these days do so before they reach the age of thirty. Perhaps the question now is: What might we learn if we took the time to listen to their stories? What might we learn if we considered the church from a younger person’s point of view?
A researcher by the name of David Kinnamon has taken the time to listen to what young people are saying about the church these days. In a book called, unChristian, he made the profound point that to young people today, the church is known more for what it stands against…than it is known for what it stands for. In a more recent book called, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith, Kinnamon outlines six basic concerns that young people seen to have about the church today. They are:
1. The church is perceived as being overprotective. By that, they mean that the church seems to be more concerned about itself that it is about anything else.
2. Their experience of church is typically rather shallow. They tend not to know the “whys” or the “wherefores” of what it is we believe.
3. They believe the church is anti-science. It is inconsistent with – or antagonistic toward – modern scientific thought.
4. They believe the church is exclusive in that they often have to choose between their faith and their friends.
5. They perceive the church to be repressive sexually, and that when it comes right down to it, the church is more concerned about rules and regulations than it is about anything else.
6. The church is doubtless in that it simply will not deal with the genuine questions they have. The church, in their minds, fails to leave room for divergent opinion.
Please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not insinuating that these concerns are all legitimate and that we need to rush out and change who and what we’ve been for 2000 years just to win back a few wayfaring souls. I am simply saying that these are the concerns that young people seem to have. Kinnamon then proposes three specific categories of young people who – greatly disturbed by these issues – choose to leave the church. Using biblical terminology, Kinnamon calls them Nomads, Prodigals, and Exiles. Now this is not to say that each individual who leaves the church doesn’t have his or her own unique story. Still, he believes the basic categories of young people who choose to leave the church are Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles.
Nomads are young adults who walk away from church involvement, but still consider themselves to be Christian. They simply believe that personal involvement in a community of faith is optional. Perhaps the importance of faith has faded a bit for the Nomad. These are people who could also be described as being spiritual but not religious. They want to be relatively close to God, but they don’t necessarily want to be close to you or to me…especially me!
Exiles are young adults who are still invested in their Christian faith, but feel lost or stuck between church and culture. They’re skeptical of institutions, but are not wholly disengaged from them. They sense God moving outside the walls of the church. They’re not completely disillusioned with religion…they’re simply frustrated with shallow expressions of religion. In other words, they need the Christians they encounter on a daily basis to be genuine.
Then there are the Prodigals. Prodigals are young adults who have lost their faith and no longer describe themselves as Christian. They often feel varying levels of resentment toward Christianity in general…and toward Christians in specific. They have vowed not to return to the church and have – in their minds – moved beyond the confines of Christianity. They genuinely believe they have found a better way.
What do you think? Can we learn anything from the concerns today’s young people express about the church? Or should we simply abandon them and leave them to their own devices? Do we reach out to them with love and compassion, or do we spurn them with disdain and judgmentalism? I think you know how this is going to come out in the end. In any case, keep that thought in mind as we move on.
A number of weeks ago, we noted how – each and every day – we make decisions that move us closer to a life of virtue, or closer to a life of ruin. Though the past may be written in stone, the future is more like wet cement…pliable, soft, and ready to be shaped by the decisions we make. Our goal is to develop a more godly life narrative. Our goal is to discover what it means to live a life of virtue. Our goal is to seek to discern where our deep happiness may truly be found.
We suggested that our deepest happiness is found in the kingdom of God. We noted that the kingdom of God is not just something we hope to attain in the future. As Jesus clearly stated, the kingdom of God is also a very present reality. Thus, the kingdom of God of which we speak is not a place. The kingdom of God of which we speak is an interactive relationship with God…an interactive relationship that brings us peace of heart and mind.
We noted how many of us will not even consider a more godly life narrative – many of us will not even begin to seek out an interactive relationship with God – until we encounter a drought in life…until we come up against something that we cannot control. So what we did was consider a social problem that appears to be beyond human resolution: bullying in the classroom. We postulated that while we may not be able to resolve all the social ills that surround us, God is able to resolve the un-resolvable. What we need to do is recognize that fact, and be open to the movement of God’s Holy Spirit. That, my friends, is where our own transformation truly begins.
Then we wrestled in turn with overcoming anger, lust, lying, and the law of reciprocity. We took a stab at defeating vainglory, avarice and worry. The theory behind such an endeavor is that abiding in the kingdom of God is different than abiding in the kingdom of this world. Those who abide in this world ask, “How can I get more?” Those who abide in the kingdom ask, “How can I do without?” Those who abide in the world ask, “How can I find myself?” Those who abide in the kingdom ask, “How can I lose myself?” Those who abide in the world ask, “How can I win friends and influence people?” Those who abide in the kingdom ask, “How can I truly love God?” Ladies and gentlemen, there is a profound difference between abiding in the kingdom of this world and abiding in the kingdom of God.
Today our goal is to overcome judgmentalism. Let’s be honest here. There is a measure of judgmentalism in all of us. How do most of us respond to pierced noses, pierced tongues, pierced eyebrows or pierced…you fill in the blank? How do most of us respond to tattoos on every body part imaginable, or hair that’s been dyed a bright shade of pink? How do most of us respond to those who walk around town all day, talking or texting on their cell phones, but lack the resources to feed their families? How do most of us respond to Nomads, Exiles and Prodigals when they leave the church and then live pain-filled lives replete with drug abuse, depression and meaninglessness? What many of us would really like to do is tell them off and straighten them out with our wealth of wisdom on the folly of their ways. Ah, perhaps there’s a measure of judgmentalism in all of us.
Judging another person has to do with making a negative assessment of them…without standing in solidarity with them. Thus, when we judge someone, we are criticizing them, but not as a caring friend who simply wants to help. So what is the difference between constructive criticism and judgmentalism? Perhaps the difference lies in the heart of the assessor.
You see, there are two primary reasons why we come to judge another human being. Number one, we feel as though we have a deep-seated need to fix them; and number two, it also tends to make us feel better about ourselves. Dr. James Bryan Smith calls this condemnation engineering in a book called The Good and Beautiful Life. I think a lot of us have a degree in condemnation engineering. We know just what we should say to set those around us who displease us right – be it a stranger, be it a spouse, or be it a child – as if it was somehow our job to set them straight. The main problem here is that condemnation engineering – in spite of our noble intentions – tends not to be terribly well received. Nobody likes to be criticized.
Jesus addresses this issue in the first passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew. He says, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Jesus is using hyperbole here…or is he? Typically we do not see ourselves as being nearly as sinful as those we aim to engineer. To that I say: Think of this. When we evaluate our own sinfulness – or perceived lack thereof – basic theology teaches us not to compare ourselves to our neighbors. We tend to feel pretty good about ourselves when we do that. Instead, we are to compare ourselves to none other than Jesus Christ. And when we do that, we don’t seem so high and mighty any more. Perhaps there is a log in our own eye that keeps us from seeing clearly, and that log…is judgmentalism. As Mother Teresa once put it, “When you judge people, you have no time to love them.” And as Philo of Alexandria once put it, “Be kind to everyone, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
Perhaps that’s why Jesus went on to address judgmentalism in greater detail. In the second passage we read from Matthew, Jesus adds, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” Perhaps therein lies the answer to our judgmentalism. Perhaps the answer is found in the simple words: ask, seek and knock.
Here’s the point. The first thing we need to do when we really want to help someone else…is pray for them. Yet in that regard, I think of one of my favorite descriptions of prayer. It has been said that prayer does not change God; prayer changes us. Thus, when we actually begin to pray for someone else, our hearts tend to shift to consider that person’s own well-being. It is almost impossible to pray for someone and to not begin to feel compassion for him or for her. So the first thing we do is invite God into the situation. In the process, we come to feel less critical, and more compassionate. What’s more, we then come to have the wisdom of God at our disposal. Praying for another person can bring us to see many a situation in a whole new light.
Jesus then says we are to seek and to knock. In other words, we need to be persistent in our prayer. God seems so often to require persistence in prayer. Perhaps that’s because persistence in prayer is not a sign of a lack of faith, but rather, persistence in prayer is a sign of the depth of our commitment. What’s more, persistence gives prayer more time to change not God…but us. Thus, we show our love for another human being by praying for them, and by letting that person know that he or she is not alone.
Our world is becoming more and more filled with church dropouts all the time. In the meantime, drug usage, depression and suicide rates are on the rise. You see, the problem with leaving God behind and abandoning the community of faith is that it quickly dissipates any semblance of hope. Perhaps there is no hope apart from God. I mean, can one really find hope at the end of a needle, or at the mouth of a bottle, or in a bigger bank account? Those kinds of hope tend not to last…and need to be replenished time and time again because they never seem to satisfy.
God is the source of our greatest hope because – as I’ve said before – the kingdom of God is never in trouble. Don’t you think the dropouts could use a dose of God? Don’t you think the Nomads, the Exiles and the Prodigals would benefit from the community of faith? And don’t you think praying for them just might be the best place to start?
One of the biggest criticisms those who leave the church have is that Christians are not genuine. They feel as if Christians do not live the life of faith they claim to profess. Perhaps eliminating judgmentalism is the first step on the way to reflecting a genuine faith. So I beg of you: Do not exercise your degree in condemnation engineering. Pray for those who need it. Pray persistently for those who need it. And then, do whatever it is you have to do…to stand by their side. Amen.
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