Part 2 – Christian 'Heritage' and American Exceptionalism

It is not unusual to find that those who have incorrectly begun treating Christianity as a heritage also cling tightly to a modern, warped conceptualization of American exceptionalism.  In the US, many people have conflated their religion and their patriotism in a way that makes it is hard to tell where one begins and where the other ends.  For the Church, the body of Christ, this has created a very volatile and decidedly un-Christian environment. 

Let's begin, though, with a look at American exceptionalism.  What it has come to mean and what it is supposed to mean have drifted too far apart.    American exceptionalism is supposed to point to the unique qualities of the formation of the United States.  (Conservatives who use the term might also be surprised to find out that it was coined by the American Communist Party).  It points to the way we were formed, the ideologies that influenced our formation and the uniqueness of the structure of government which developed out of those things.

What it has come to mean is something quite different.  Exceptional has been made equivalent to superior.  Many times those making a call to  American exceptionalism are now really making an unfounded call to the superiority of America and its ways in comparison to all other ways.

As if that weren't problematic enough all on it's own, the converse of what I opened this article with is equally true: It is not unusual to find that those who cling tightly to this modern, warped conceptualization of American exceptionalism frequently are also those who have incorrectly begun treating Christianity as a heritage.   They wrap crosses in American flags as if the two have always been together and through that imagery claim what amounts to an unholy union.

When the two are practiced this way, the blind faith that is necessary to practice Christianity as 'heritage' and the blind following of an unquestioning patriotism combine to make a group of people who are necessarily closed to outsiders and particularly opposed to anything that favors anyone other than themselves.  The blindness of it all, the unquestioning devotion to what they perceive as the traditions of their Protestant Christian heritage and the unflappable support of all policies that come from 'their' representatives in name of patriotism, calls for them to practice either cognitive dissonance or willful ignorance any time the facts point to something other than what they want to believe.  

This is a problem for the Church, the body of Christ, because that is not who Jesus taught us God calls us to be.  We are told to care for the outsiders, particularly those who are marginalized and undeserved.  The conflation of Christianity as a 'heritage' and  American exceptionalism create communities where the exact opposite of that is practiced in order to maintain the purity of the group.   The Bible tells us that God “moves about in a tent,” is “about to do a new thing,” and we see that Jesus constantly asked the people he met to change.   The conflation of Christianity as a 'heritage' and  American exceptionalism demands a steadfastness and rigid resistance to change of any type as well as an unquestioning devotion to the past.  We also know that biblically, wisdom is that thing in which God delights daily, but the conflation of Christianity as a 'heritage' and  American exceptionalism, as I have already noted, requires a constant denial of facts that negate what you want to be true.

The conflation of Christianity as a 'heritage' and  American exceptionalism is killing the Church and trying to do the same for our nation.  Those who are willing to confront these realities must begin working together to breakthrough the blind haze that has entrapped our communities.  We do so by naming it out loud, by no longer sitting silently aside and shaking our heads in not only sad amusement but in our own self-serving form of superiority.  We must trust that the truth will indeed set us free and stop being afraid to name the problems because of the negative backlash we might suffer in our places of worship and ministry, because those places are the the very places that need the truth to be prophetically proclaimed. 

Part 1 of this series: The Pitfalls of Practicing Christianity as Heritage

Hopey-Changey

Churches are dying at an alarming rate. Research by The Barna Group suggests that 3500 to 4000 churches close every year. More than 2,765,000 people leave the church each year.  And yet we, the Church, insist on doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting different results. When confronted with change we insist that “it has always been done that way,” as if history is an acceptable excuse for continuing down our path to demise. 

In thinking about this, it is helpful to turn to Dr. Paul Batalden. In looking at the dis-function of our health-care system Dr. Batalden, a Dartmoth Medical School Professor, is fond of saying, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the the results it gets.” If your church is dying, it is perfectly designed to die. You can keep repeating the past over and over again and consistently get the results of dying. That's exactly what most churches are doing.

For years and years churches have joined in with movement after movement, each designed to help the church change. Most of them don't work – at least not in terms of change. They do tend to be very good at distracting from real, substantive change. They are very successful at taking away our guilt for having a church that can't attract new members, because we think "at least we are doing something."

The problem with why these programs fail more times than they work is also part of the problem with many churches themselves: our ability to accept cognitive dissonance. Talking the talk, but not walking the walk... and not really being bothered by it, more or less acknowledging it. The world outside the church, in large part, see us as hypocritical. And we've given them every reason to do so. Churches profess love of neighbor yet either explicitly condemn people of certain lifestyles or implicitly condemn them by our silence when others claiming to be Christians do. We profess that we are all made equal and that we are equal in the eyes of God yet we are astoundingly silent on issues of social justice. The list could go on and on, and I'm not saying that some churches aren't authentically living into these things (because some are). What I am saying is that the world outside the church just doesn't see it much. What they do see leads them to deem us all hypocritical.

That kind of existence allows us to work our way through programs on emerging\ transforming\re-imagining church without ever really doing much more than the head work.  We have learned the skill of cognitive dissonance well. It keep us from having to do things that make us uncomfortable like spending time in low income housing areas, talking to the homeless, ministering with those in jail...you know all the things Jesus said we were doing to him when we do them. Cognitive dissonance means we get to be 'Christian' without actually being very Christ-like.

Naturally our churches get to do the same. We can read all about the “hopey, changey” stuff, talk about it it in positive tones, and ultimately back away from it when it leads us to do something as drastic as playing a guitar instead of an organ during worship... or worse yet, playing a guitar instead of an organ during worship and feeling like we have really stretched ourselves. 

While we “study” the programs on changing, we get to feel like we are doing something. The problem is the companies who market them have to  be able to... well, market them, so the programs always have some kind of a release valve built in that allows those who don't really want to commit to change to be able to do a little something different, feel better about having done something, without actually really addressing any of the systemic problems. It leaves the core system in tack and it continues to perfectly get the results it gets...but we feel better because, “Well, at least we tried.”

In the next three parts of this four part series, we will look at how we got here, the Church's response to dying, and what we might do about it.  In book after book, authors have tried to take on this topic so the work I'll do here is admittedly cursory, but maybe it will be a place for you and/or your church to begin engaging in the conversation.  If so keep one thing in mind, don't do it if you aren't willing to enter into it with a willingness to be committed to the vision and the change.  This is more than a good idea; it is more than a possible way to keep your church from dying; it is an act of faith.

Part 2: Sit Boy, Sit. Good Dogma.

I've been bothered, and I suppose curious, for awhile about people who claim to be Christian and yet passionately carry around signs like this:

And look, she's smiling.  God loves a joyful hater...or something like that.  It's almost as if they can't be bothered with the actual words of Jesus.  You know, pesky little sayings that get in the way of genuine American hatred.  Things like, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

The cognitive dissonance it takes to both claim to be a Christian and gleefully hold up such hateful signs is astounding.  "You are doomed to hell! God hates you!...but I love you because you're my neighbor.  Oh, and have a nice day."

Then there are the nuts that assign violent acts to God as some sort of retributive act for the 'sins' of those that aren't as loved by God as they are:

Yes folks, not only does the Prince of Peace hate 'fags,' but he gets his Daddy to kill a disproportionate number of the poor along the gulf coast as well as honorable soldiers to show us just how bad it really is...because that's just how God rolls (can you hear the sarcasm yet?).  Or it could be that we all just look alike to God - kinda' like the way we see ants.  In that case, it would only follow that the way God's anger is actualized is somewhat blind and discriminatory.  (Because if there is one thing Jesus taught us it is how unruly God is, prone to unfair, prejudicial treatment of the children of God - particularly the one's that aren't like 'us.')

I guess it's that kind of thinking like that leads so many Christians to get all worked up over the thought of getting to go vigilantly in the name of God.

After all, if God is a violent God and we are the children of God, created in God's image, it only makes sense that from time to time we should pull out weapons of destruction and aim them randomly at those who don't look like us  or at least threaten to - after all, they all look the same, right?

What's the point to this post? Well, it's mostly just a rant because I'm tired of it.  I'm tired of people trying to making God look more like them rather than trying to make themselves look more like God.  I'm tired of people acting like Christianity is a members only club that has its privileges rather than a peaceable kingdom that has its responsibilities.  I'm tired of people metaphorically putting the smoking gun in the hands of God to justify their own hatred.

I'm tired of it because it is not what God wants; it is not what Jesus taught us; it is not who the Spirit calls us to be.  And I AM MAD about it!

I guess I need to take a lesson from those holding the signs in these pictures and "hate the sign but love the signer."