Saving the church, losing religion. . .

Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco was one of the many places of worship I visited in choir tours in college.  It was and is an impressive structure.  Built in 1912, it is a grand space but, like many grand church spaces, it is not so packed with people.  Even as a cathedral it is not overflowing with members or attenders.  Until more recently.

Though fewer people joined the congregation or were showing up for worship, Grace did what other largely urban sites have done.  They began programs to bring people in.  The problem is that hardly any of those programs had much to do with Christianity.  The centerpiece of their programs is Grace Arts, a conglomeration of varies kinds of classes, artsy stuff, and musical events whose formal membership dwarfs that actual number of religious members.  So you can go to Grace and find everything from light shows and trapeze artists to drag queens and carnivals.  The rich and the famous are showing up along with so many others to do yoga in the main sanctuary and to enjoy musical events called sound baths, in which you enjoy candlelit musical events while snuggled into your sleeping bag.  With the other music you can enjoy tribute concerts to Sting, Queen, Taylor Swift, etc.  

Along with the ordinary trappings of Christianity, there are all sorts of other things going on under the stained glass windows, beneath the gothic architecture, and within the rich acoustical environment -- things that attract the spiritual but not religious and those who find church normally a turn off.  So you get a sense of community, a focus on joy, some kind of spirituality, and inner peace minus the heavy baggage of religious content of any kind.  They may be saving the building but killing the church -- or, to put it another way, saving the church while losing their religion.  Is that a cost too high to bear or is the price tag of keeping the doors open?

The folks at Grace Cathedral are not the only ones trying to sort the line between killing the religion while saving the church.  You see it everywhere.  Churches have become one stop shopping centers for nearly everything people might want to enrich their lives and they can enjoy it without someone trying to give witness to Jesus.  There are weight rooms and exercise centers, self-help schools and day care, entertainment and motivational centers, the offer of all kinds of new age or old school Eastern forms of meditation and spiritual care without the pesky problem of talking about Jesus.  Is it worth it to save the real estate while killing what that real estate was for?  You tell me.  In our search for income streams and support for maintenance projects, we just might have forgotten why we put in those pews and what it was that was supposed to happen therein.  But will Jesus be happy we kept the building going at the cost of the very integrity of the faith?  Maybe we should secure our money tables to the floor just in case.