Questioning the Place of the Institutional Church

Did you know we have a "marriage gap" in the United States? (And no, I am not talking about gay marriage.) What the heck is a marriage gap? I'm glad you asked.

Ross Douthat, in his recent column in the New York Times ("The Changing Culture War") defines it this way: "college graduates divorce infrequently and bear few children out of wedlock, while in the rest of the country unwed parenthood and family breakdown are becoming a new normal."

Without going through his entire column, Douthat is essentially sharing more data (in this case based on education levels) that tell us something we already know if we are paying attention: societal definitions of marriage and of family are changing . . . rapidly! For more reasons than I can name here, we're witnessing a huge shift in what it means to be a family. This is not insignificant as the family has been a core institution in our society (and I should add here that I believe this broader definition of family is a good thing).

What really caught my interest in the column is this paragraph:

"But as religious conservatives have climbed the educational ladder, American churches seem to be having trouble reaching the people left behind. This is bad news for both Christianity and the country. The reinforcing bonds of strong families and strong religious communities have been crucial to working-class prosperity in America. Yet today, no religious body seems equipped to play the kind of stabilizing role in the lives of the 'moderately educated middle' (let alone among high school dropouts) that the early-20th-century Catholic Church played among the ethnic working class."

I'm not sure if I agree with Douthat here, but I believe while sharing his thoughts on the institution of marriage he is saying something significant about the institution of the church and its place in American society. From his view, the institutional church is no longer strong enough or equipped enough to play a stabilizing role in a society in which fear and anxiety are prevalent and deep.

Is he correct? I hope not. I'd like to think that--at least on the local, congregational level--the church still manages to be a place of stability in people's lives.

But I have no doubt that--correct or not--he reflects an increasingly common view of the place and value of religious communities in American society. We are not in the center any longer.

So, what are we going to do about it?

What Does it Mean to be “Church”?

What does it mean to be "church"?

This morning a few people sat down together at the local coffee shop for a "Theological Coffee Hour." Our conversation was not particularly theological, if by that one means some sort of heady and intellectual discussion about God. On another level, it certainly was theological because God was at the center of our discussion.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that our conversation was ecclesiological because we spent most of our time answering the question about what it means to be church without having ever asked it! At the table were three generational views: Silents, GenX, and, yours truly, a "cusper" (born in between the Boomers and the GenXers). We had one clergy person and three lay people. Three of us could be considered "lifers" when it comes to participation in church and one would probably be considered a "seeker" who is looking for the community that best fits his journey of faith.

The question that took us into this ecclesiological conversation was simple: What is the Emerging Church? I won't go into an explanation here because there are probably better people to answer that in a technical sense.

What strikes me as a replay the conversation in my mind is the way our conversation moved from talk of the church as institution to the church as community. We didn't talk about doctrine or core beliefs or canon law. Instead, we talked about the yearning to participate in a community of faithful people who listen to God, follow Jesus in their daily lives, and live with an almost organic structure that encourages diversity and provides a place of contemplative silence. We talked about the American society in which we live with our lack of rootedness and our desire of home. We discussed the yearning people feel to be connected and the need to bring together generations so that we can discover and create a proper balance of wisdom and action. The church, we realized, is one place that allows all of this to happen, one place that provides a spiritual home for those who yearn to be connected with others and with something (or perhaps it is better to say Someone) beyond themselves.

In a recent blog, Diana Butler Bass wrote the following:

Younger Americans feel greater ambivalence toward the word "Christian" than do older adults. In 2005, the Barna group polled 16-29 year olds asking the question, "What do you think of when you hear the word 'Christian'?" 91% of young adults outside the church replied, "anti-homosexual;" 87% responded "judgmental;" 85% said "hypocritical;" 72% reported that Christians were out of touch with reality; and 68% pegged Christians as "boring." ("Who are Christians Anyway?", June 14, 2010)

Well, that's daunting, isn't it? Especially among GenXers and Millenials, fewer and fewer Americans see the church as a place where one can be a Christian. Or, they are simply rejecting Christianity because they equate being Christian with the institution of the church. For as long as I can remember, folks in the church have said that young adults will come back to church once they have children and want them to be baptized and go to Sunday School. Well, if the Barna survey reflects accurately the attitudes about Christianity and the church, the vast majority of those young adults are not going to walk through the doors of our buildings . . . ever!

Where is our hope? Well, I find hope in my conversation this morning with one GenXer who is seeking God through the community we call the church. I'm not sure if he will "join" Christ Church or not, but that may not be the most important end result. If we can find a way to help him ask his questions and find a deeper relationship with God through Christ, then perhaps that is a great success. Joining is, after all, a very institutional sort of thing. What matters most is that we open doors that invite people to follow Jesus, that we create relationships based on divine grace, joy, love, and radical hospitality.

So, what does it mean to be "church"? My conversation today tells me that how we answer that question will make all the difference when it comes to our future vitality as a community of faithful people. Ultimately, what will matter most are not the words we use to answer the question. What will matter is how widely we open our doors—the doors of our buildings and the doors of our hearts—and how faithfully we live in the world.