Are we living in a Post-Christian Culture?

Are we living in a Post-Christian Culture?http://www.mlefc.org/Blog.aspx?site_id=27&blog_id=71963How radically has our world/culture changed and what will our response be?EN-USCopyright © 2010 Mt. Laurel Evangelical Free Churchhttp://www.triplePixel.comSat, 30 Jun 2007 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.mlefc.org/Content/27/Thumbnails/71963-thumbnail.jpgAre we living in a Post-Christian Culture?http://www.mlefc.org/Blog.aspx?site_id=27&blog_id=71963Michael WallenmeyerHow radically has our world/culture changed and what will our response be?Michael Wallenmeyermichaelw@mlefc.orgnoAre we living in a Post-Christian Culture?http://www.mlefc.org/Blog.aspx?site_id=27&entry_id=71964http://www.mlefc.org/Blog.aspx?site_id=27&entry_id=71964Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:00:00 GMT LISTENING TO THE VOICES OF OTHERS... As followers of Christ we need to be reminded that we are called to live and think like missionaries right here in the comfort and security of the USA. But what exactly are the changes that have taken place within our culture and what does it mean for those who desire to effectively live out and communicate the gospel? The following article is taken from <a href="http://www.allelon.org/">www.allelon.org</a>. They are a group of people who are watching the signs of change and asking the tough questions that we all need to consider. Enjoy... "CHRISTENDOM" Beginning in the time of Augustine, the Latin and Greek churches moved further and further apart. As the Roman Empire divided between Old Rome (Latin West) and New Rome (Constantinople, the Greek East), the dire straits of Old Rome forced the church to take on more and more of the task of maintaining culture. This was true from the time of Augustine onward. With the rise of Islam, first in the East and then throughout northern Africa and eventually parts of what we now call Spain and Italy, the New Rome became isolated from the Old Rome, surrounded by pagan Slavs and the new religion of the Koran. This hastened the need for the church in the Latin West to preserve and sustain civilization as they knew it. In short, almost all the tasks of maintaining Western culture became tasks of the church. If you wanted to become a doctor, you went to the church; if you wanted to become a lawyer, you went to the church; even the development of warriors became invested with Christian commitments in the movement of knights. Music, mathematics, politics, medicine, and law became the business of the church. By A.D. 800, a Pope crowned a new Holy Roman Emperor. The formation of Christendom, a fusion of Christianity and civil kingdom— Christendom—was complete. For the local church, this meant a new reality of the parish and parish pastor. The Christian parish was a political and geographical area within which each person, except the rare Jew or Muslim, was considered a member. Within this political geographical area, all residents were presumed members of the flock and required, as a result, a parish shepherd, a parish pastor. The parish pastor’s responsibility was to maintain the flock: to hatch, match, and dispatch the members. Evangelism and mission became relatively irrelevant. Evangelism was done by the parishioners having babies. Financial support of this parish pastor depended on the complex systems of the political-geographical princes and bishops, but not the members of the local parish. Between 800 and 1648 the business of European Western culture and the business of the church were relatively indistinguishable. To be sure, the missionary movements north and east of the Rhine incorporated more and more Europeans into Christendom. This incorporation into Christendom required brave, determined, and smart missionaries, most drawn from missionary orders. Eventually most of Europe became Christendom. For all of its call for change, radical and otherwise, the Reformation of the 16th century did not truly change this situation. Indeed, in some ways, the centuries-old struggle between church and state, pope and prince, seemed to be leaning in Protestant lands toward the prince, but the separation of prince and church was yet to happen. Indeed, the attempt to resolve the governance issue by the principle of “as the ruler believes, so go the ruled” became the source of tremendous suffering. DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH First disestablishment In no small part, the birth of modernity (1650–1950) grew out of the desire to end religious wars by grounding political life upon pure reason and objective facts rather than the profound but irrational dogmas of religion. This eventually led to the separation of church and state, one of the primary achievements of modernity. It is no acci•dent that the first of the freedoms enunciated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clarifies both the free exercise of religion and the disestablishment of any state religion. And, although it would take until 1825 and 1827 in the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut for the Congregational Church finally to give up establishment, which began the first of three major disestablishments of religion in the United States. Second disestablishment For the local church, the first disestablishment meant very little for many decades in most communities where the Protestant church in its various forms maintained a de facto establishment, a kind of “folks church” or community church. Roman Catholics refused to give way to the illusion of cultural disestablishment, especially in places where they created a critical mass. They refused to send their children to so-called public schools where the Protestant establishment ruled, founding a substantial parochial school movement instead. With their movement into the political and economic establishment in the early 20th century, the de facto Protestant folks church experienced a second disestablishment. Third disestablishment Following the Second World War, a third disestablishment of the church took place with the greater recognition of Jewish religious traditions. The idea of the Judeo-Christian tradition of American and Western culture entered the lexicon. This third disestablishment has continued with a growing Muslim presence and, since 1965, the religions of the East have created a diversity of religious life and practice for many North Americans. Many mainline Christians find themselves, like my family, living among Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, agnostics, and secularists, along with growing numbers of articulate conservative evangelicals, charismatics, and Pentecostals as family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. This diversity continues unabated in North America. For the local congregation, this three-stage disestablishment has looked very different depending on geography and demography. Folks churches, in some cases, remain alive and well. I have worked with a number of Lutheran and Baptist churches that remain the “community church” for their location. New folks churches are being born in some communities, especially in recent immigrant communities. Korean Presbyterians, Chinese Baptists, and Peruvian Pentecostals are three emerging folks churches I have had the privilege of serving and learning from. Indeed, new immigrant church development remains one of the most underdeveloped and potentially fruitful fields of the New Missional Era in North America. For most local churches, however, the experience of disestablishment has meant challenge, change, stress, and struggle. Those traditions that are most dependent upon the patterns of folks church are the most stressed. They expect the community, schools, families, and neighborhood nonprofit organizations to provide the social pressure, encouragement, and expectation to be Christian. They presume that the immediate environment will provide some of the primary practices of Christian belief, like teaching the Ten Commandments (or, at least, thinking the Ten Commandments are important for everyone) and honoring the Golden Rule, the value (if not the practice) of prayer, the rough outline of a church year as a normal way of understanding time (with Christmas and Easter being at least understood as important), Sunday closing laws, no extracurricular activities on Sunday morning, and so on. Such congregations continue to expect their immediate environment to provide the primary resources for making Christians, forming disciples, and forming Christian community. In my experience, clergy who are functioning in the Christendom folks-church system complain that the young adults in their confirmation and youth ministry are biblically illiterate; ritually incompetent; highly suspicious of the church and church authority, especially of the clergy; highly self-conscious in a church atmosphere; struggling with family and school issues; and less than docile in the church environment. The list of complaints could and does go on. All of these complaints I shared as a teacher of catechism and Bible school. And I have come to one simple piece of advice for myself and other such church leaders: Get over it! Grieving the Loss of Christendom Easier said than done, of course. Yes, grieve the loss of Christendom. I am not one of those consultants who want to dance on the grave of Christendom. I am a child of it, in some modest ways. But, to tell you the truth, I grew up not so much in a post-Christendom environment as a pre-Christendom environment in the inter-mountain West of the United States. Religion in general was considered something for women, children, and other weaklings. If you were over 14 and a male, the easiest way you could prove you were a man and not a child was to stop going to church. I am almost the only male in my extended family who attends church regularly and, as my Uncle Ralph has noted more than once, “You wear a dress on Sunday morning!” In my childhood, less than 12 percent of the community participated, even nominally, in a religious community. The pioneer spirit lived on, although of course romantically, even into my generation. No, my Christendom was tied deeply to a recognition of minority status, a way of being in the world that most of my friends and some of my relatives did not share. To be a Protestant Christian was odd, though tolerated. Although no doubt better than being a Catholic or a Jew, my Christian identity was best left in a private space. Still, I grieve the loss of Christendom. I grew up singing German Lutheran chorales, often auf Deutsch. This was not a distinction of class but of culture. This music still remains my soul music. Its passing out of most churches in the New Missional Era grieves me deeply. I grieve the loss of grandmothers and mothers like mine who taught me to pray, who put the scriptures into my hands, who explained the everyday reality of life in terms of the scriptural narrative, who sat beside me in church, who ran their fingers under the liturgy in the service book so that I became literate in the liturgy long before I learned to read in school, who reviewed my memorization of Scripture and catechism most Friday nights of my early adolescent years in preparation for Saturday morning catechism classes. I grieve the loss of aunts and uncles, great aunts and great uncles who took all of this seriously in their lives and in mine, whose joy in this way of life was and is contagious, who did all of this, not because they felt some duty (though they no doubt felt duty), but because they wanted to pass on to me what gave them life, what made possible hope in their own really dark, hard, passionate, and purposeful lives. When I think of Christendom, I think of these people and practices in relationship with the local church and its pastor, but driven quite clearly by an ongoing tradition that gave these people life. I think of Mr. Classen, my public school sophomore biology teacher and a member of my congregation, who at the end of one class period said, “We will be teaching Darwinian evolution in this class. I know some of you might find this difficult to put together with your faith. I would invite you to meet with me after school to discuss how this theory of evolution can be related to the Bible and Christian faith.” He said it once. He met with a few of us, usually only two or three, and talked about how he put together his understanding of Darwinian evolution with Genesis 1–2. I have changed my mind about how he interpreted Genesis, and I have changed my mind about how he interpreted evolution. But no other person, including some world-renown philosophers and theologians with whom I have studied, so profoundly and thoroughly shaped my theological imagination as Mr. Classen did. He carried on a clear act of Christendom by connecting that informal class with his teaching of the sophomore biology class. I find it strange, even perverse, that anyone could dance on that grave. Although I realize that such mothers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, and sophomore biology teachers are rare and that the culture in which they were common is, at least for the time being, gone with the wind, I still grieve their passing. A New Missional Era Healthy grieving frees us for healthy new visions. Healthy grieving makes possible seeing the New Missional Era for what it is: God’s invitation to join in this new adventure in the life of God and world, gospel, church, and culture. And, as deeply as I grieve, I more deeply delight in this new adventure. Partnership for Missional Church™ looks at this time around the world, including North America, and says “yes” to a partnership with God in this new era of the mission of God. This is God’s mission, not ours. This is God’s mission and not just the church’s, for it is the reign of God that is near, not just the church. The reign of God is far more than the church, though of course the church continuously experiences the breaking in of the reign of God. Imagine the reign of God as the space and time, will and movement of God that is at hand (but not in hand), that is present and creating the church but always more than, and even at times over against, the church and culture. In this New Missional Era, this time of the missional church, those congregations that are faithful, effective, and efficient will be a part of transforming mission. They will be transformed by the mission—called, gathered, and centered in Word and sacrament, and sent into the mission of God in daily life. This calling, gathering, centering, and sending crosses boundaries—boundaries established by powers and principalities often greater than even the will of all people, but most often exercised by the will of all people. In our time, these boundaries might be crossed by living out the biblical theme of hospitality to the stranger. But now I am getting ahead of myself; we are just describing where we are now. Remember, “We are here now.” We are in a time of Big Change. Christendom for most of us has passed; some of us who value its blessings grieve, and we should. Many of us have not noticed its passing. Some, very few, still live in locations and social environments where a folks church form of Christendom remains. However, most of us mark our Xs on the map of the history of Christianity at “Post-Christendom.” Hopefully, you will also place that X in a time of New Missional Era for your local church. LISTENING TO THE VOICES OF OTHERS... As followers of Christ we need to be reminded that we are called to live and think like missionaries right here in the comfort and security of the USA. But what exactly are the changes that have taken place within our culture and what does it mean for those who desire to effectively live out and communicate the gospel? The following article is taken from www.allelon.org . They are a group of people who are watching the signs of change and asking the tough questions that we all need to consider. Enjoy... "CHRISTENDOM" Beginning in the time of Augustine, the Latin and Greek churches moved further and further apart. As the Roman Empire divided between Old Rome (Latin West) and New Rome (Constantinople, the Greek East), the dire straits of Old Rome forced the church to take on more and more of the task of maintaining culture. This was true from the time of Augustine onward. With the rise of Islam, first in the East and then throughout northern Africa and eventually parts of what we now call Spain and Italy, the New Rome became isolated from the Old Rome, surrounded by pagan Slavs and the new religion of the Koran. This hastened the need for the church in the Latin West to preserve and sustain civilization as they knew it. In short, almost all the tasks of maintaining Western culture became tasks of the church. If you wanted to become a doctor, you went to the church; if you wanted to become a lawyer, you went to the church; even the development of warriors became invested with Christian commitments in the movement of knights. Music, mathematics, politics, medicine, and law became the business of the church. By A.D. 800, a Pope crowned a new Holy Roman Emperor. The formation of Christendom, a fusion of Christianity and civil kingdom— Christendom—was complete. For the local church, this meant a new reality of the parish and parish pastor. The Christian parish was a political and geographical area within which each person, except the rare Jew or Muslim, was considered a member. Within this political geographical area, all residents were presumed members of the flock and required, as a result, a parish shepherd, a parish pastor. The parish pastor’s responsibility was to maintain the flock: to hatch, match, and dispatch the members. Evangelism and mission became relatively irrelevant. Evangelism was done by the parishioners having babies. Financial support of this parish pastor depended on the complex systems of the political-geographical princes and bishops, but not the members of the local parish. Between 800 and 1648 the business of European Western culture and the business of the church were relatively indistinguishable. To be sure, the missionary movements north and east of the Rhine incorporated more and more Europeans into Christendom. This incorporation into Christendom required brave, determined, and smart missionaries, most drawn from missionary orders. Eventually most of Europe became Christendom. For all of its call for change, radical and otherwise, the Reformation of the 16th century did not truly change this situation. Indeed, in some ways, the centuries-old struggle between church and state, pope and prince, seemed to be leaning in Protestant lands toward the prince, but the separation of prince and church was yet to happen. Indeed, the attempt to resolve the governance issue by the principle of “as the ruler believes, so go the ruled” became the source of tremendous suffering....71964http://www.mlefc.org/Content/27/Thumbnails/71964-thumbnail.jpg?0812050333