It may sound odd for someone who serves in youth ministry to question the growth of what I call “big box” Christianity as well as the theology that supports it. If you can transform a place in the woods or a poorly decorated youth room into sacred space for worship should it matter? No and Yes. If it is drawing people, particularly young people, for worship and to the faith should it matter why they attend or should we question the theology? Yes. My sociology minor and curiosity in anthropology encourage the questions. My advocacy for children and youth as the Church today and my ordination covenant requires it.
With few exceptions these “cathedrals of praise” rock out with bands, professional lighting, video, and sound. The atmosphere is “comfortable” and the theology is an orthodox to conservative to evangelical to fundamentalists expression of Christian faith. But, there are few symbols of faith beyond a cross or the ministry slogan or logo. I worshiped with a congregation yesterday in their sanctuary. That space has all the symbols that indicate something important, mystical, is suppose to happen here even when the place is silent. Stained glass stories, communion table, candles, pulpit, and bible. Well placed video screens in the balcony for those that wish to sing of the screen rather than hold a hymnal. Fewer attend that service than do the service downstairs in the fellowship hall with the praise band, little symbolism, and round tables rather than seats or pews. Sitting there in the quiet space of an “ornate” Disciples of Christ sanctuary I pondered how the de-churched, un-churched, or bored ten year member could prefer “praise rooms” rather than set aside sanctuary space. It may be something as complex as a sanctuary representing institutional oppression, imperialism or another institution that has or is failing the public. It could be person’s self esteem and sense of worthiness. It may be a hospitality that is deeper than clothing or music that speaks to the spirit and inner conversation of a person.
Here is what I know about myself and how I have been conditioned. I would walk into the historic sanctuary of another denomination for silence and meditation rather than a converted warehouse, praise room, auditorium, or big box Church. The symbolism, even one that represents a Christian theology I no longer believe, helps me center, listen, and be still. It is personal, but it is also corporate. It is what I think we need to be offering the children, youth, and young adults among us if our expression of Christian faith, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is to remain relevant.
Today Sightings from Martin E. Marty
Until There Are Churches in Saudi Arabia
by Martin E. Marty | Sept. 20, 2010
The tantrum—let’s call it what it is—against government, taxes, Muslims, and moderates continues to rage, and will through November and perhaps long after. A child in a tantrum eventually stops stomping and rejoins the family, where speaking and hearing, agreeing and disagreeing, can resume. Sightings would like to move on to other topics about religion and public life, and may do so soon, out of boredom, fear, weariness, or, dare we hope, with hope for better, tantrumless times.
In the meantime in these mean times, out of thousands of choices from columns, blogs, and books, let me select two, one of the best, and one of the worst. In The New Republic Leon Wieseltier challenges readers with a question: Is Islam, as some defenders say, “a religion of peace?” He answers, “It is not. Like Christianity and like Judaism, Islam is a religion of peace and a religion of war,” depending on which era and which circumstances bring forth “the tendencies” within the religion. To relate terrorism to movements within Islam “is not Islamophobic. . . Quite the contrary: it is to side with Muslims who are struggling against the same poison as we are.”
As for the World Trade Center attacks, he pleads, don’t erect a cross as a memorial. “Christianity was not attacked on September 11. America was attacked. They are not the same thing.” American Christians who use the cross in their ads against Islam “do not deplore a religious war, they welcome one.”
Now read William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal. Ask yourself what does he and the tantrum-throwers to his far right, the Newt Gingriches and company want? Peace? Moderation? Can you find the beginning of the beginning of a way to peace in the McGurn column? Note that, for good measure, he links American liberalism to radical Islam. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, “perhaps” a “moderate Muslim,” Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, and others support “‘interfaith dialogue,’ and called for American Muslims and non-Muslims to ‘break bread’ together.” Not on your life, says columnist McGurn. Stooping lowest he asks, “What are the fruits” of the efforts at moderation and dialogue?
These efforts, he writes, produced as fruit the “obscure Florida Pastor” and other would-be Qur’an burners, those who tear out pages of the Qur’an in front of the White House, and—this one is half right—“angry marches between pro- and anti-Islamic Center crowds,” all to be blamed on one “typical experiment in liberal bridge building.” He implies that there should be no efforts at “interfaith dialogue,” “breaking bread together,” or differentiating moderates from extremists in all faith traditions. Whom to blame for the current rages? Muslims, of course; one Imam, of course; and “folks who cling to their liberalism and their antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
McGurn does have the grace to scold “Republican politicos” who, thanks to “liberal hectoring,” exploit tensions, “saying no mosque near Ground Zero until we see a church in Saudi Arabia.” Which sets us up for Wieseltier’s best line: “I also hear that there should be no mosque in Park Place until there are churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia. I get it. Until they are like us, we will be like them.”
References
William McGurn, “’Bridge Building’ and the WTC Mosque,” The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2010.
Leon Wieseltier, “Mosque Notes,” The New Republic, September 2, 2010.