Well, it’s my birthday. I’m 47—practically still a babe in arms, if I go by how I’m feeling and the color of my well-dyed hair. Ten years ago, I imagined it would be a terrible thing to arrive on this day. How old, I thought, must one be to get to be almost fifty? But, honestly, I couldn’t be more delighted.
Why, you ask? First, I’m thrilled that the last ten years, which have been a real grind, are over. Maybe some people in the world have liked their 40s, but I haven’t been one of them. Get me out of this, is what I’ve been saying every day since I turned 37. Second, I’m excited because I’ve heard the decade of the 50s is pretty great. Multiple people who know about these things have told me the Fifties Are Fantastic. You’ve learned not to care anymore, and also your 40s are over. Third, and finally, I’m tickled pink because the internet gods delivered up to me, as of first importance, this depressing article that deserves a little blogging attention. I just acquired a copy of the book he talks about, but haven’t had a chance to even glance at the Introduction, but now I’m going to clear the decks and launch in.
The article, if you haven’t clicked on it yet, is from the Washington Post and is written by Perry Bacon Jr. who describes himself as one of those so-called Nones. He promptly sets out on a cheerful walk through his religious “journey” out of the church and into “nothing in particular:”
During my childhood in Louisville my father was one of the assistant pastors at a small Charismatic church that my uncle still runs. Our family was at church every Sunday. Members often stopped by our house during the week to get advice from my father. His way of teaching me to drive was sitting in the passenger’s seat as we went to the midweek Bible studies he led. Before I left for college, the congregation passed around a collection plate where they gave me several hundred dollars to congratulate and support me in my new adventure. Once on campus, I attended church more than my peers, while enjoying the freedom of not being in services every Sunday. But in my 20s and into my 30s, I developed a religious life that wasn’t based on my father’s. I was a member of a few different nondenominational churches. (These were much smaller but similar in style to the churches run by prominent pastors such as Joel Osteen and Rick Warren.) I was at times quite involved: acting as a chaperone when the church youth group went on a trip; hosting a church-based small group at my house; even giving a sermon once.
This is where the whole thing takes a nose dive:
I was never totally confident that there is one God who created the Earth or that Jesus Christ was resurrected after he was killed. But belonging to a congregation seemed essential. I thought religion, not just Christianity but also other faiths such as Judaism and Islam, pushed people toward better values. Most of the people I admired — from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to my parents — were religious. And I figured I might as well stick with Christianity, the creed I was raised in.
I can’t tell you how discouraging it is to contemplate this phenomenon. This nice young man “even” gave a sermon and engaged in other kinds of “ministry” without being “totally confident that there is one God who created the Earth or that Jesus Christ was resurrected after he was killed.” It’s fine to stop reading, right here, because everything Mr. Bacon says afterward is the usual confused mess of politics and self-justification that has been the property of American religiosity for far too long. It’s so telling that Mr. Bacon reports that key piece of information almost as an aside. It is relevant, but not, for him and probably the many people who invested in and trusted him, the very core of the problem.
“Total Confidence” is an interesting way of putting it. I rather like that instead of the more usual term “belief” which possesses that nagging hint that the substance of what we’re discussing might not be true, or might not come to pass. I “believe” for example that I will be going to church in an hour for the usual Tuesday morning activities—Bible Study, a meeting, a few moments to putter in the atrium. But I could be wrong. Something might happen to prevent me. On the other hand, I believe (without any scare quotes) in God the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and in his only Son etc. In that case, I do have total confidence that what I just typed is true, and not only so, but that the Triune God is trustworthy enough a One upon whom to rest the weight of my soul for eternity. Not only is the statement true, but I also believe it in a total confidence way, as the most true thing that holds sway over the cosmos.
Having got that out of the way, we can see how the rest of the article, as a good representation of how American Christianity is panning out, represents very dark times:
I didn’t leave church for any one reason. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, I was reading more leftist Black intellectuals. Many of them either weren’t religious or were outright skeptical of faith. They didn’t view Black churches as essential to advancing Black causes today, even though King and many major figures in the 1960s civil rights movement had been very devout. I started to notice there were plenty of people — Black and non-Black — who were deeply committed to equality and justice but were not religious. At the same time, my Republican friends, many of whom had been very critical of Trump during his campaign, gradually became more accepting and even enthusiastic about him. While my policy views had always been to the left of these friends, our shared Christianity had convinced me that we largely agreed on broader questions of morality and values. Their embrace of a man so obviously misaligned with the teachings of Jesus was unsettling. I began to realize that being a Democrat or a Republican, not being a Christian, was what drove the beliefs and attitudes of many Christians, perhaps including me.
What a clever trick of the devil, to drive a wedge between “the teachings of Jesus” and the central and key fact of his rising from the dead. There isn’t any reason to listen to Jesus if he didn’t rise from the dead. Rising from the dead was the vindication of all he said. If he didn’t rise from the dead he was a liar and no one should ever listen to him about anything.
Go ahead and keep talking about Mr. Trump if you want to, but Christianity isn’t about Mr. Trump or Black Lives Matter of being a Republican or a Democrat or the color of your skin or who you voted for. All kinds of people who “believe” a lot of things can be Christians if and only if they have accepted that Jesus, the Son of God, died, rose again, ascended into heaven, and is sitting at the right hand of the Father. The kind of acceptance I’m talking about is that “total confidence” kind where you are actually joined, supernaturally to the Father by the power of Christ’s cross, through the Holy Spirit so that you are compelled by spiritual life beyond your own to love and good works.
We’re not talking about ideological inclinations here. We’re talking about a spiritual reality, one no less powerful because you can’t happen to see it as you click through Netflix. You no longer get to make all your own decisions, or even cast your eye over your life with the self-justifying ennui of the world:
I also came to a more nuanced understanding of my own life story. I had adopted the view from my parents and relatives that my rise from a middle-income household in which neither parent had a bachelor’s degree to Yale University and prestigious journalism jobs could have happened only with divine intervention. Perhaps that’s true. But an alternative explanation for my success was that I was the child of supportive, middle-class parents; they got me into some of the best schools in Louisville; and I did well in grade school, college and my jobs afterward. Finally, something happened at church itself. One of the men who had been in the church group I hosted had sought to lead one himself. But a church higher-up told him that he could participate in church activities but not lead anything because he is gay. I had not realized the church had such a policy. I learned that my church would also generally not conduct weddings for same-sex couples.
This is tragic but I’m glad that it’s happening. If you think that a wedge can be driven between what God says in the Scriptures and the person and work of Jesus you should not call yourself a Christian. If you think that the Lord blesses sexual immorality, you should not call yourself a Christian. If you think that Jesus “affirms” you in any kind of sin, you should not call yourself a Christian. If you think that your human, fallen “identities” should stand alongside your identity in Christ, you should not call yourself a Christian. It’s tragic to watch people go away, but it is good and right to be able to see things as they are. This, though, as a lover of going to church, breaks my heart:
On this front, the pandemic was kind of a relief. Churches were mostly closed. I couldn’t continue my halfhearted search for a new one. I watched an Easter service online in April 2020, during the early stages of the pandemic. But over the past two years, I’ve been to church only a handful of times — even skipping Easter services.
I, on the other hand, can’t think of the horrors of “Couch Church” without crying. That particular Easter, at the height of Covid, was a desolation. Not gathering with other believers for the holiest and most joyous day of the year felt physically painful. We tried to do all the Holy Week services at home—Tennebrae, the Vigil—and it was so torturous. Certainly, God is God, and we were not left as orphans, but having joined ourselves to Christ through faith, therefore being necessarily joined to other believers, we discovered in a fresh way that going to church was, in fact, “essential.” If you are a Christian, you want to be with other Christians on Sunday, even if you can’t explain to yourself why. Anyway, Mr. Bacon is still sort of missing “church:”
People have told me to become a Unitarian Universalist. Unitarian churches that I have attended had overwhelmingly White and elderly congregations and lacked the wide range of activities for adults and kids found at the Christian congregations that I was a part of. But they have a set of core beliefs that are aligned with more left-leaning people (“justice, equity and compassion in human relations,” for example) without a firm theology. I’ve also thought about starting some kind of weekly Sunday morning gathering of nones, to follow in my father’s footsteps in a certain way, or trying to convince my friends to collectively attend one of the Unitarian churches in town and make it younger and more racially diverse.
I don’t want to be mean, but this reminds me of Lewis’ description of Hell in The Great Divorce. When you and your core ideological considerations become the measure of all things, you aren’t going to find anyone you can stand for a whole hour once a week. They will be too old or too young or too unborn or the wrong color. Your “justice” becomes a very narrow path through looming, empty neighborhoods, the universe expanding to accommodate the alienation of each ego bent ever inward in self-worship. Or you can go to the farmer’s market:
The Saturday farmer’s market in my neighborhood and a weekly happy hour of Louisville-area journalists provide some of what church once did for me: consistent gatherings of people with some shared values and interests. I’ve made new friends through both. And there are plenty of other groups and clubs I could join. But none of those gatherings provide singing, sermons and solidarity all at once.
Ah yes, the “sermons and solidarity.” I wonder how that works? Why isn’t Mr. Bacon curious about the Christian God? Does he really think that sharing “values and interests” is enough to get people to alter all their inclinations, to pour themselves out for the good of others? Obviously not because he admits he can’t be bothered to go himself. Whereas, in point of fact, the “solidarity” between people comes when God uses his own Word to transform you from a wicked person into a person who loves him and loves others.
But you’re right, Mr. Bacon, losing this—losing church, real church that is about Jesus and his work is a tragic, a terrible loss:
My upbringing makes me particularly inclined to see a church-sized hole in American life. But as a middle-aged American in the middle of the country, I don’t think that hole is just in my imagination. Kids need places to learn values like forgiveness, while schools focus on math and reading. Young adults need places to meet a potential spouse. Adults with children need places to meet with other parents and some free babysitting on weekends. Retirees need places to build new relationships, as their friends and spouses pass away.
Actually, all these kinds of people need Jesus because, as he says, every one of them is going to “pass away.” The other way of saying that is “die.” And then they will meet the person who created them. And then what? What will they all say? I voted correctly? I made sure only to spend time with those who properly aligned themselves with me politically and ideologically? I kept my children home so that they would never encounter the astonishing mercy of God who made them for himself? I insulated myself from God’s Word so totally that I never found I ever had any sins to repent of, but please, let me into your kingdom? No, that’s not how this works. You can’t have all the benefits of the Kingdom without bowing your whole self before the King. Unfortunately, Mr. Bacons is not planning to do that any time soon:
I don’t expect the church of the nones to emerge. It’s not clear who would start it, fund it or decide its beliefs. But it should. And personally, I really, really want it to. Theologically, I’m comfortable being a none. But socially, I feel a bit lost. I really hope in a few years that Charlotte and I are something in particular.
For my birthday I’m going to pray for this poor, foolish man. Maybe you’d like to join me as a special birthday treat—all of us in our houses, seemingly isolated, perhaps beleaguered, maybe bowed down in grief or anxiety, and yet spiritually joined into the mystical body of the precious Son, invisibly united before his heavenly throne in supplication, caught up into the glory of his mercy and love.
Have a nice day!
The desire for the blessings of the Church without any of that pesky doctrine is echoed in the wider society as the desire for peace and safety without regard to the obedience due the Creator and the respect due those made in His image.
I can't find it online at the moment, but Dorothy L Sayers wrote the perfect Creed for Mr. Bacon to use, should he ever wish to act on his idea of beginning a Sunday for Nones service. If I find it, I'll post it.
He seems like yet another example of someone who despises God but wants his stuff (in this case, a communal gathering with Singing, Sermons, and Solidarity). Everybody loves the creation. The Creator? Not so much.