Is All Really Calm and Bright for the Church?

As we get ready for tomorrow's Christmas Eve liturgies, it seems a good idea to take a look at "A Tough Season for Believer" by Ross Douthat, a column in the New York Times on Monday, December 20. This is not a feel good Christmas column, but it is something that Christians (especially clergy and lay leaders of congregations) need to read. Douthat articulate well, I believe, the place of the church in 21st century American culture.

I encourage you to read the entire column, but here's what he writes at the end:

"This month's ubiquitous carols and crèches notwithstanding, believing Christians are no longer what they once were—an overwhelming majority in a self-consciously Christian nation. The question is whether they can become a creative and attractive minority in a different sort of culture, where they're competing not only with rival faiths but with a host of pseudo-Christian spiritualities, and where the idea of a single religious truth seems increasingly passé.

"Or to put it another way, Christians need to find a new way to thrive in a society that looks less and less like any sort of Christendom – and more and more like the diverse and complicated Roman Empire were their religion had its beginning, 2,000 years ago this week."

With a full church on Christmas Eve, it's easy to think that "all is calm, all is bright," which is to say it's easy to think that all is OK and we can just keep on doing the same old thing. But I suspect the popularity of Christmas these days has more to do with Santa than Jesus.

This is, in my opinion, an exciting time to be a Christian. But for that to be true, we need to find "a new way to thrive." Christmas may be a good place to start.