Convincing the world of the need. . .

As longtime readers of this blog well know, I prefer a fountain pen and paper to every other tool in writing.  There is something blessedly content about the flow of ink from a good pen onto smooth paper and its pace seems to match my thinking better than a keyboard.  Of course, eventually things get moved from the journals to the word processor or screen.  They end up being closer to the final product than a rough draft and that fits me well.  I suspect few agree with me.  The local office supply store no longer carries either the fountain pen or its ink.  I get mine online.  The rest of the world has rushed to the keyboard, screen, or even AI to produce its words.

Apparently there is something similar to religion in the demise of the fountain pen as staple of life.  One author has suggested that the reasons religion is losing ground are many but chief among them is obsolescence.  We just don't need God or the Church or piety anymore.  I think there is truth to this.  Death is no longer our enemy (as long as we think we have some control over it) and life is presumed to be happy (unhappiness the disappointing exception).  These are decidedly different from the way things were generations ago when death was the feared enemy and happiness was considered rare enough and contentment with one's lot was the goal.  Who needs religion or God when things are going well?

Religion as the supplier of what you cannot obtain for yourself is the obsolete religion no longer considered urgent or beneficial and certainly not necessary.  Sure, there may be those who like a fountain pen or those who like antiques but they are not the mainstream and so Christianity has slipped from the center of life to the fringes and beyond.  It is not irreligion that is the problem or the enemies of the faith so much as it is a lazy view of life in which things not needed are forgotten.  I have posted in the past about author Christian Smith, a sociologist at Notre Dame.  His 2005 book Soul Searching, brought the phrase “moralistic therapeutic ­deism” into our vocabulary and I found his newer work Why Religion Went Obsolete compelling as well.  It is not simply what he says I appreciate but his style of writing as well.  He explores this idea of obsolescence across the various aspects of our lives -- not simply religion.  We are remarkably self-sufficient in the sense of the screen and how we order our lives even if we are even more dependent upon the suppliers in the marketplace to deliver to us what we order.

Orthodox Christianity may seem to be on the way out but spirituality is here to stay, he says.  In other words, the transition from a Biblical faith to a therapeutic one continues as spirituality is disconnected from doctrine and even morality.  Instead it is what the individual defines it to be and serves the purpose for which the individual determines.  In this way, he teaches us to see that content is not always as big an issue as how it is delivered and how important the basic need for access is to the faith.  Progressive Christianity is fully onboard with this and has chosen relevance over orthodoxy and a morality which is a slightly slow but solid echo of what is in fashion at the moment.  Orthodox Christianity has to begin not with what is believed, taught, or confessed but why it is important and how it tags to our everyday lives.  That is my conclusion to his thought, anyway.  We need to begin not with what we know in Christ but why what we know in Christ is urgent, compelling, and beneficial to those who do not know Him at all or who know Him merely as a sentimentalized idea.  

We can have coffee bars and baristas, pleasant architecture reminding us of any public space, comfortable seating, good music, and inspiring messages but still lose people because we have given them no compelling reason to meet Christ in His Word and Sacraments or to need Him in their everyday lives.  That is my indictment of modern liberal, progressive, and evangelical Christianity.  Their plea that God is not so bad does not marshal much support among the masses because they are convinced that despite all the bad new, life is relatively good.  And it is.  We no longer as a people worry so much about food or shelter or medical care and these are the measures of a rich people.  Nostalgia means we will keep things deemed unnecessary around for sentiment and that explains the holidays while admitting the rest of the time the pews are empty.  Once a month has become the norm for church attendance, according to polls, and this too accords with the idea.  No, in order to make headway we must feel the bite of sin and death in our lives and come face to face with our own inability to repair what we think is wrong.  This now is also part of the job of Christianity -- outlining the need even before God's remedy.  Translation:  the law must still be preached!