What If Churches Ask for More and No One Says Yes? (disciple, Muslims)
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At least an insurance company gives you money in your (contractually-defined) hour of need. I don’t know of any church that does anything of the sort.
If that's the case, you haven't asked.
My church has what's known as a "Benevolent Fund". It's specifically for giving cash to people that need help, for such things as rent, or groceries. My pastor has authorization to spend some money to fill a gas tank or buy groceries, and he will be reimbursed. One does not need to be a member to partake of any of this. A couple weeks ago I was in his office when an man came in that needed help. He took him to the store, bought him groceries, a pair of shoes, and some various items, for which he was reimbursed.
Not to mention many churches operate food pantries, and even homeless shelters.
I personally have been on the receiving end. About 20 years ago I lost my job and the church I was a part of at the time helped me.
I was an evangelical Protestant for many years (the majority of my life). That said, my fellow parishioners since I've been Catholic have been extremely generous as well.
1. I still don't believe this.
2. Saying 'the church' gave you money is different than saying 'some fellow parishoners' gave you money.
We're in a period of extreme material abundance and comfort. When virtually all of one's physical desires are met in the here and now, it's hard to see why religion would be relevant to one's daily life.
For the most part, people tend to look to religion if they either:
1) are confronted with their mortality
and / or
2) have a guilty conscience
Our unique time and place (materially abundant and morally permissive) offers little opportunity for either of those things, and with endless opportunities for distraction at everyone's fingertips, there is little need/opportunity for personal reflection.
Hm. I have already confronted my mortality, just not in the way the church would hope.
And while I have a conscience ... it is not guilty. It is clear, in that I have always been true to the light I had at any given point in time.
Not only did religion not help me with either of those things ... it actually gave me a bum steer.
What I'm saying is that we have to order our lives around SOMETHING. Jesus was right when he said we can't serve 2 masters. We can't put 100% of our energy into everything, so inevitably SOMETHING will suffer. It's either we put all our energy into church, or something else....or we kind of dabble in both and do neither one well.
I don't really see it as either / or. There are MANY things to invest one's time and attention in, not just the church vs "not the church". Family, (a)vocations, charities, other types of organizations / societies besides church, education, travel ... the list is endless.
Maybe the real sea change is that the church works at its best when no one has any options ... when life is just existing with no hope of improvement. Then everything is displaced into the afterlife and/or the outside chance of the odd miracle happening, an outside chance that becomes easier to "sell".
As Mike is pointing out, there's a nonzero chance that things will get a lot more gnarly and limited for more folks in the foreseeable future. I don't disagree with him. It will mean that people will have to form community and help each other, whether through church or neighborhood or extended family or whatever. I'd argue that ALL of those forces were in play at one time, and tended to be mutually reinforcing. I'd just argue that this wouldn't represent a return to some golden age of community -- it had its downsides, too. But ... slinging code in my upstairs office 10 hours a day isn't going to cut it if we manage to devolve back to a 16th century standard of living, either.
That's fantastical. Then again, this is the Religion Forum.
Regardless, that will not drive people to religion. If anything, it will accelerate the demise of religion.
It is true that the genie is out of the bottle, the train has left the station, etc. However if the authoritarian theists have their way we will all be back to a pre-industrial society, no internet, nothing to do but beg god for mercy. Just like the Good Old Days!
We're in a period of extreme material abundance and comfort. When virtually all of one's physical desires are met in the here and now, it's hard to see why religion would be relevant to one's daily life.
For the most part, people tend to look to religion if they either:
1) are confronted with their mortality
and / or
2) have a guilty conscience
Our unique time and place (materially abundant and morally permissive) offers little opportunity for either of those things, and with endless opportunities for distraction at everyone's fingertips, there is little need/opportunity for personal reflection.
I have known some people who fell under your No. 1 above, but "guilty conscience?" The church TEACHES children to have a guilty conscience. They told us we were sinners as little kids and Jesus could see everything you did and even knew all the bad things you thought. They CREATED the guilty conscience, even before you had a chance to do anything more than think about snitching a piece of your sister's Halloween candy.
It took me years to learn that I wasn't the worthless piece of garbage that this form of Christianity told me I was, but there was permanent damage.
And when faced with the possible moment of my death, which was followed by some extreme ugliness on the part of a lot of Christians (not all), it made me back away from any religious affiliation for about a decade.
The times in my adult life when I sought religion, it was for emotional and spiritual help and comfort, but I didn't get either of those. I suppose that was my error in thinking that it should.
Most people I know do take time out for personal reflection, but that's probably just the type of people I know as well as my age.
Somehow (I suspect my fundagelical brother) I have started receiving a newsletter from Christianity Today. Their journalistic quality is better than most in the evangelical world, I'll give them that.
Today an article caught my attention. The title is the title of this thread.
So in a new book, according to the article, the author is proposing that the problem is that the church doesn't ask ENOUGH of people. By this, he means there needs to be some sort of call to "greater mutuality" wherein the church somehow returns to its roots of providing refuge for people.
It is an interesting question whether the church is somehow no longer serving as social glue, or if society no longer wants that particular glue. I don't pretend to know for sure. Nor am I sure if this sea change was underway already in my youth or if it's a more recent development. I suspect its roots go back quite a way -- back to the 1950s maybe.
There's a rural congregation outside of town here that advertises itself as a "community" with a "covenant of love" to bind them together. But it just comes off as affected and smarmy to me. I've seen too many such "covenants" that were nothing but window dressing and pretense.
Did such communities even ever exist anywhere but our hopes and dreams? I wonder.
Curious what others think. I can see a family providing that sort of thing, under ideal circumstances at least ... but a group of people with all their disagreements around dogma and practice and finance and priorities and governance ... I don't really think so.
Jesus and all his disciples with a great number of followers sold houses and crops, and land and everything they own to become willingly homeless, husbands and wives like the husband and wife who sold all they owned but held back part of the money.
They both lay dead on the threshold because of dishonesty after having sacrificed so much.
What was the one priority of Jesus and all who believed in him?
It wasnt the needy Babylonians, it wasnt the poor Romans either, it was the poor Jewish widows, Jewish orphans and the Jewish needy.
Of course today, well, its all backwards and the Jewish widows and orphans are no longer the desired recipients to Christians.
At least an insurance company gives you money in your (contractually-defined) hour of need. I don’t know of any church that does anything of the sort.
The LDS are well known for taking in any member who has fallen on hard times. Housing, feeding and clothing the entire family.
I have a close friend, Edwin, that I served with on a sub. Ed is a Mormon and I was serving as the Protestant Lay-Leader on our boat. Ed and I had many long debates about Mormon theology. Ed had not attended church for over ten years. When Ed was about 6 months out from his planned retirement, Ed's hometown Bishop called him at home while we were in port. His Bishop told him that he knew Ed was approaching his retirement. The Bishop wanted to know if Ed planned on returning to his former hometown, if so the church would help Ed to locate and finance a home. He wanted to know if Ed was finally ready to 'settle down' and to be an active member of the church if so the church was ready to assist in any manner to help get Ed's family re-located. So that Ed could settle into life there and be an elder within their church. The Bishop saw 20 years in the Navy as Ed's youthfulness.
What impressed me was the Bishop's willingness to accept Ed back into the fold.
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