When
I was in cause marketing, we used to talk about the difference between emphasizing
features and emphasizing benefits in explaining a new program or
initiative. If I applied this analogy to
selling a car, saying, “This car has antilock brakes, side-curtain airbags, and
the latest collision sensors,” I would be selling features. Saying “This is the safest car we have for
taking your kids to school,” would be selling benefits.
Too
often I think that those of us in the Independent Sacramental Movement (ISM) try
to sell our churches’ carefully thought-out features when people actually want
to know about basic benefits. When
someone walks through the door, we say, “The ordination process is open to women
and LGBT people; we support the Millennium Development Goals; and we practice open table communion” when
it might be more effective to say, “Welcome!
We’re so glad you’re here today.”
This
brings me to a second dichotomy: the important difference between necessary and
sufficient conditions. A “necessary”
condition is one which is required for something to happen. Electricity is necessary to light an
incandescent bulb. A “sufficient”
condition is one which in and of itself brings a thing about. For the electricity to light the bulb, one
still needs wires, a filament, and other things. Inclusion to my mind is a necessary condition
to be the Body of Christ, but it is not sufficient. There has to be more. People are coming looking for something in
particular. Certainly, they want a place
where they are welcome, as they do in a restaurant, gym, or school, but, as
with those other establishments, the person who comes through the door is
looking to have a certain need met, even though they might not be quite certain
what it is.
What
is this need? Clearly, I’m skeptical
that it is inclusion or political relevance.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to spend most of
my working life as a human rights advocate.
I protest and politick at the drop of a hat, but it’s not what I go to
church for. On the contrary, I would say
that it is the faith nurtured in the church that strengthens my commitment to
peace and justice. Passionate as I am
about my faith, church is not at the top of the list of places I would go to
try to accomplish something concrete in the 21st century.
I
believe that the terms liberal and conservative will begin to lose some of
their importance in the religious landscape as society increasingly divides
between those who believe in metaphysical reality and those who do not. To most of my agnostic friends, much less to
gung-ho new atheists, a Southern Baptist, a Wiccan Priestess, and a Roman
Catholic monk are all more or less differing shades of the same thing. Churches, be they ISM or mainstream, will be
relevant in the future to the degree they offer people metaphysical value. Insider language and fine distinctions on
matters of polity are increasingly lost on an unchurched world.
This
brings me back to inclusion and community.
Ultimately, the community we are selling is the communion of
saints. People are looking for a
personal relationship with the Divine. For
me, that’s the person of Jesus Christ. Others
would accent or phrase that differently or say something radically different,
but, whatever our particular beliefs, people in the 21st century come
to religious bodies for religion.
At
one time Christian churches in this country conferred social respectability,
maintained the social service net, and led the fight for human rights. Today, churches are minor players in these
areas and they are going to remain minor players for the foreseeable future, if
not permanently. This is not so much because
they have become timid or lost their way, but because religious organizations were
enormously successful in spawning a vibrant and innovative non-governmental
sector that now accounts for two-thirds of all charitable giving in the
U.S. Some organizations may remain
faith-based, but faith groups increasingly find themselves in a crisis of
identity. Many have seen showing their
cultural relevance as their hope of regaining public attention and attracting
new members, but the results of these efforts seem to show again and again that
most people go to church to address their spiritual aspirations. Other organizations serve people’s passion
for justice more directly and better. Many
people like Walmart because they can swing by the bank, auto center, and
optometrist while they’re there, but they go in the first place for the prices
and selection. In short, engagement with
the larger society is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the
success of a faith community.
This
does not seem to be a problem only for mainline Protestants, though we’ve had a
generation of heated rhetoric between progressives and conservatives in those
churches. Now the trends show us that
conservative evangelicals are feeling the same pinch as the infrastructure of
the political and charitable organizations they have created are rapidly
outstripping the power of their parent bodies.
Today the face of Evangelical America is Joel Osteen, not Jerry Falwell,
and survey after survey shows that a growing number of young evangelicals are
weary of the culture wars. Plunging Mass
attendance figures among Roman Catholics seem to tell much the same story. “Spirit of the Council” justice rhetoric and
the neo-conservative siege mentality each find their partisans, but the overall
figures say that something is missing.
Millions
more dollars will no doubt be spent by progressive churches trying to be
relevant in the public square and even larger sums will be spent trying to
barricade it by conservative churches, where the trend started later. Sadly, we seem to have more than enough data
in hand to know that you can make the world’s most comprehensive statement of
inclusion and put it in an institution with every conceivable program and
service, but if people don’t feel that their core desire is being realized,
they won’t stick around. The same goes
for groups like the Southern Baptist Convention, which have seen membership
stall as nondenominational and Pentecostal churches gain momentum on formulae
rooted in spiritual and personal growth, even if many of us would question the
assumptions in those models.
Rather
than focusing our external rhetoric so intently on why we’re relevant and who
we welcome—and more and more places offer ever more inclusive welcomes—I
believe we have to give more thought to what we offer once someone comes in the
doors. Nine out of ten people will have
looked at the website before they come or will call to establish that we won’t
turn them away, so what do we give them once they’re here?
Storefront
churches open every day and grow. While
most ISM communities may not offer such a hot gospel as many of them preach, we
may have been too quick to dismiss the transformation they offer as an
endorphin-driven gimmick. These other
independent communities, at least the successful ones, are not focused on the
exclusionary practices and imperfections of the bodies they left. They are new creations promising those who
come through their doors that they can be new creatures. Whatever their faults, they understand that
new wine cannot be made in old skins, in refighting old quarrels, and in nursing
old, if very real, wounds.
I
would suggest that we’re here to give people sanctification. Acceptance is good and welcome is better, but
people come back week after week to grow in grace and holiness, to make
progress in their journey to put on the mind of Christ, to encounter the Risen
Lord in the Sacraments, and to offer their worship. (Fill in the appropriate language, whatever
your tradition.) Here, I stand firmly with Flannery O’Connor, who said, “If
it’s all just a metaphor, then to hell with it.” If it’s all no more than ethics and bringing
in the kingdom, understood as a just society, to hell with it. We are here to build up something that the
gates of hell, be they a metaphysical reality or the injustice brought about as
a result of human sin, cannot conquer.
Anything less will prove as fleeting as our own lives and other
institutions are meeting those needs in exciting and innovative ways. (Again, adjust the language dial to your
theology.)
Too
often, we may be offering saltwater instead sanctification and it may well be
why so many people wander off after a short period. I say “saltwater” because of something I
heard years ago at a vigil before an execution.
Sr. Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame spoke then of how prosecutors
used the families of murder victims, telling them that execution would bring
closure, but really only offered these people saltwater to drink, since
indignation and vengeance only bring a desire for more of the same.
Many
people come to us wounded, as they do to many if not most other churches. What do we offer them beyond a shared experience
of rejection and oppression or righteous indignation veneered with the language
of justice? Do they come into our
churches to find people who are as stuck and angry as they feel? Do we offer more than slogans that show how
enlightened we are?
We
are called to be love at work in the world.
Certainly part of that work is to bind and heal, but that is only part
of the calling to have life and have it more abundantly. Some may come to us seeking affirmation and
we may play an important part at a critical juncture in someone’s life in this
way, but this is triage work and most people will move on when that need has
been met if they don’t sense that something more fundamentally transformative
is on offer. In more extreme cases, our
peddling of features rather than offering benefits may leave some feeling that
religion has nothing to offer beyond an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on,
a palliative respite rather than fundamental transformation.
If
we are offering someone no more than a shared identity as one of the righteous
or one who has earned his or her battle scars for righteousness’ sake, are we
offering any more than the worst sort of fundamentalist churches that offer
people salvation as divine fire insurance but do little to tell them how to
live and grow toward God?
So,
what are we offering?
