Recently the Pew Research Center released a 164-page report containing compelling evidence suggesting younger generations are drifting away from God - in large numbers. In statistical terms the secularization of youth might be called a landslide. In only three years the number of young people saying they ever doubt the existence of God has doubled. In demographic terms this is huge. The 164 pages fill in all the details I omit here in my six lines.
Ominous to me was the observation that fundamentalists are turning off young people in large numbers. One observer suggests, “Younger folks are simply more likely to figure that, if their religion is teaching them things that they believe to be silly … then their religion must be silly, too."
At one time religion taught a cosmology in which the sun circled the earth. Galileo and Copernicus nearly lost their heads because they found this belief silly. Countless others were burned at the stake for not buying into silly ideas. Jan Hus, a beloved priest, was burned at the stake in 1415 because he jeopardized institutional advancement and power by challenging ethical abuses in the Church. Not buying into silly ideas got him killed.
Not so long ago many fundamentalists believed the Human Immune Deficiency virus was custom built by God to smite homosexuals. Some still do. It didn’t matter that early on virtually all AIDS cases were transmitted between heterosexual adults and probably emerged from a simian population in Uganda along the Kinshasa Highway.
A few weeks ago I was in London’s Westminster Cathedral where I sat through Evensong, then stayed on for Holy Eucharist. After receiving the Host I turned away from the minister and walked about five feet away to give prayers of gratitude before taking the Host, standing out of line, looking at the Host in gratitude, thanking God for safety on my long voyage and carrying me through dark seasons of life into my present golden season. My revere was broken when I felt pounding on my back with urgent demands that I instantly consume the wafer. Half an hour later after Mass was over the same minister came to me and told me I was condemned to hell for taking Eucharist as a non-Catholic. I have no idea why it was decided I was non-Catholic. It didn’t matter the Paulist Fathers had told me years ago I could take the Eucharist. Was I suddenly an infidel to be fearful of, one of ‘them’? Is it silly for me to think I had a right to participate in that mass?
Is it a silly idea to believe the Lord actually died and gave His life so that the world should not perish and at the same time condemn most of us infidels for daring to take the sacrament, the very sacrament intended as a reminder of the global inclusive nature of His sacrifice? Six hundred years ago my independent thinking would have seen me put to death. In the present era it just got me put out.
Recently I paid $11 to roam around Kings Chapel in Cambridge. Included was the right to take interior pictures without flash. Setting up a tripod I captured some wide-angle panoramas of the grand fan-vaulted ceiling and oceans of luminous stained glass. Shortly a verger came to me and insisted I not use a tripod, stating the building was copyrighted and the good images of the inside were being sold. I complied and simply boosted my camera to ISO 3200, getting splendid images without a tripod. Privately I was thankful I had a camera with a really good sensor. Later in bright sun while taking a hand-held image of the grass in the south quad I was again chased down by the same Verger, being reminded to not use my tripod, despite it lying folded up on the ground.
Is it a silly idea to believe I was suddenly a risk to the financial future of this six-hundred year old Anglican community by taking pictures of grass, someone to be fearful of, one of ‘them’? Is it silly to think something like Kings Chapel is a world treasure to be shared, even on a tripod? When I later saw this same frowning verger minding the gate at Evensong, I kept on walking, instead finding a most hospitable Buddhist on the street to talk with. Perhaps it was a silly idea for me to believe I could have a numinous experience in there, as a threat to the place.
Westminster Abbey is perhaps one of the greatest architectural icons in the Western World. For nearly fourteen hundred years it’s been a venue where much of British history has been crafted. For $26 tourists are allowed to walk around and gawk at history and the 611 tombs contained therein. I once was in love with this place, having attended as many as five services during Holy Week. Then I became a threat to its keepers.
Having taken a good friend there for Morning Prayer and then Holy Eucharist, I committed the unpardonable sin of taking a non-flash non-tripod photo of the rose window in the north transept in the half-hour interval between these two services. A Verger saw me do it and he came shrieking across the vast once-numinous space offering up nothing short of a Deuteronomic scale curse upon me. Humiliation was included at no extra cost and I was certain I would be remanded to the custody of the Metropolitan Police and my cameras reduced to rubble. I left the place shaking like a leaf.
As I was leaving, the Verger and two of his colleagues were spinning contrails across that vast nave chasing down other witless threats to the future of the Anglican Church. Have I suddenly become a risk to the financial future and integrity of the Protestant Realm as well? The official web site for this venue states a fear of what inappropriate things we nefarious photographers might do with pictures of the place. Is it a silly idea to really believe an ordinary tourist is going to do something despicable with an image of the Abbey that he could not also do with one of a million scannable paper images in a million history and travel books? With Photoshop all things are possible to those who believe. My last two times in London it’s taken everything in me just to walk by the Abbey; there are always stern-looking vergers milling about the gates. Perhaps it’s a silly idea to believe I could experience the numinous in there again.
Last week I had the audacity as an Episcopalian to wander down to Lambeth Palace. I learned it was more than presumptuous to think I could walk over the bridge, just show up, and see the Anglican/Episcopal equivalent of the Vatican. No one wanted to tell me exactly how to get into the place. Staff at several locations on site claimed to not even know where the public entry was. Eventually I learned for $12 I would be allowed to see part of the gardens. For another $20.25 I would be allowed into one room to see an exhibition of old prayer books and hymnals. If I wanted to see the Palace I would have to apply on-line for a ticket on a commercial ticket site (Ticket Master). I was told the first available ticket would be in October. I didn’t bother to ask how much it would be. I never did figure out where the front door was; it was probably behind the vast tower gate that occasionally opened, quickly letting high-end cars in and out. Perhaps it was a very silly idea to think I could visit the place I’ve made offerings to for a lifetime. I did get to use the café toilet without paying.
There’s a mega-church in my home town boasting tens of thousands of members. Each time I’ve visited I’ve had a subliminal sense of increasing fear there. I was refused admission one Sunday because I would not submit to a physical search. We left. I was clearly one of ‘them’ to be afraid of. The friend with me during that incident has not been in a church since. Was it a really silly idea to think I could take struggling addicts to church and be admitted without a physical search?
Another time I invited a friend from out-of- state to visit for the evening service. After driving 260 miles we had the auditorium door closed in our faces just as we started to enter. Institutional policy says late-comers don’t happen in this church. Was it a silly idea to think a place talking about Jesus would admit weary travelers, even if they are five seconds late? The last time I went I was with three men in recovery. One was highly insulted during the vetting process applied to us before the service. He left post haste. One of the others made the mistake of leaving the service to use the restroom. No latecomers and no toilets during services. Was it really silly for me go back three times, inviting struggling individuals, only to have them humiliated?
Christian scriptures describe a broad way to destruction and a narrow way to salvation. I can’t but wonder if ecclesiastical apparatus in its various forms is not often itself causative of much of this destruction. Perhaps the dissonance and cacophony of those afraid of losing power, prestige, or money, or being targeted in some fashion is so loud and distracting as to keep most of us from ever finding the narrow way, acting as barriers to the Kingdom.
Is it a silly idea to think God really did send his son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life? Is it a silly idea to think that merely asking God to guide me every day, every moment, to do the next right thing is enough? I guess it depends on who you ask?
A disgruntled ex-church member stated in a forum discussing collapsing church attendance: "The world is trying to find God but they can't because the church is in the way! … Jesus Christ did not come to bring a religion or a church. He came to bring the Kingdom of God to the earth. People are not looking for a good church--they are looking for the Kingdom!!! And the church is not the Kingdom--that's why folks are leaving!!!” If this sentiment is gaining ground across the Western world, it might well explain the rapid secularization taking place, why people feel there are barriers between them and the Kingdom.
If my experience of church attitudes is even remotely typical for others, it’s little wonder the younger generations are voting with their feet. The Pew study cites fundamentalist thinking of any flavor as being off-putting. It might explain why for the first time in my adult life, my church attendance has become sporadic at an age when church members should be comfortably settled in for their remaining years. We’ve already seen the complete secularization of Europe and the Pew study suggests America is fast on its way. One church growth professional reported in 2008 overall regular church attendance in America has declined to 18.7%. I can’t but wonder if it’s a really silly idea to think I will find community and acceptance in those very institutions hog-tied by their own entrenched ideas and fears, places seeing me as some kind of threat.
Paradoxically I’m suddenly feeling younger and even closer to God than ever. I just pray my sentence of condemnation isn’t enforced. I don’t tolerate heat very well.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
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