Christianity as a Cultural Religion
Over tea and brownies at my friend Erik's house last week, I was struck by comments made during a conversation among a number of my friends about vocation and the ministry. At one point, as we were grappling with the discussion about the relative vitality or stagnation, and petty conflict that are often the most notable elements of a congregational ministry, Erik said that he thinks part of the problem is that the United States has gone through a progression like Europe, towards compartmentalizing its Christian identity as one aspect of culture, and not as central to identity or behavior. While we noted the rising popularity of the evangelical movement as a counter example, we continued to focus on what it means for Christianity to be a cultural religion. From the historical fluke of Constantine 's endorsement of Christianity and his eventual conversion, Christendom was born, and the role of the Christian faith turned utterly upside down. Having spoken from the fringes, out of and to a marginalized population, the faith found the mainstream.
But Erik thinks that something is inherently in conflict when Christianity is in this role. He said that Christianity “can't be true to itself as a cultural religion,” which implied any sort of affiliation with the state or governing powers. In response to this comment, I asked Erik if he thought the ideological tendency of Christianity would be towards anarchism, and, not knowing very much about it, he couldn't say. There are definitely scriptures about obeying the governing authorities, but those authorities are always assumed to be separate from the religious ones. What happens now, in this atmosphere of religious justifications for foreign policy, or the desire to keep a choke-hold on the “Christian” identity of this country, which is not, in fact, any such thing? There are downright bigoted, discriminatory organizations whose fear of pluralism or moral shades of gray have caused them to adopt titles such as the Center for Reclaiming America and to rail against the liberal media, homosexuals, abortion, separation of church and state, “tolerance,” and the theory of evolution ( www.reclaimamerica.org ).
While ruminating on Erik's comment, I'm wondering how this view of keeping Christianity separate from mainstream culture would affect the various roles of the church, particularly a priestly role (click here to download a PDF file of my pamphlet describing the sociology terminology of the church's role as Prophet & Priest). Also, does the observation preclude the possibility that Christianity could spread to all people? Or just even all people in one culture? Would it necessarily be a cultural religion then? Does Christianity require opposition to survive? Is the temporal world opposition enough? More questions than answers…but fascinating questions. Also, Erik is a very good cook. So it's all worthwhile.
Homosexuality and the Church: Social Change Confronts the ELCA
Taking part in the second of two “studies” conducted amongst congregants by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), this on Homosexuality and the Church, I was struck by the difficulty of approaching an institution whose members must either come to a consensus or be divided over an issue that is currently incredibly divisive in broader society. The resources and questions provided by the church were very useful in encouraging thoughtful and respectful conversation among participants. Knowing that at least two of our participating members at St. Olaf were lesbian, it was both a meaningful and challenging process. Coming from the perspective of a woman who intends to go into the ministry, and who cannot be in a church that openly discriminates against GLBT people, it was also somewhat unsettling. I am faced with the prospect of walking away from certain aspects of my own upbringing and personal faith journey as a result of a decision that I find to be significant but taken far out of proportion in contemporary conversations.
Perhaps the most concise means of expressing my thoughts after participating in a month long process of weekly meetings that lasted one hour, which was never enough, would be to copy my response on the form I sent in to the ELCA after our meetings had ended:
While the standards of scripture and tradition present a challenging set of circumstances for how to discern the right course of action for the church on this matter, it is my strong belief that a very valid interpretation of the scriptures on homosexual intercourse could judge them as an insufficient source to condemn the entirety of homosexual orientation and relationships as against God's will. I believe it is necessary to find a Biblically grounded set of standards for a godly relationship that equally emphasizes the good fruits of human love as well as the indications of its potential toward idolatry and immorality. We must define love as both what it is and what it is not. If the central characteristics of love are met by a homosexual couple as well as a heterosexual one, isn't that a more important indication of the sanctification of each of those relationships than the fact that a selected set of scriptural passages of limited and contentious context might condemn intercourse between the two people in one relationship and not the other? It is difficult to make ourselves vulnerable enough to let God do a new thing with us. It is difficult to let go of the material tangible benefits of staying where we are to embark on a new journey. There are risks, and relationships that may be damaged. But there are so many more opportunitie to build new relationships and move forward as a community of faith. The expansive, beautiful mystery of the wilderness of God's Creation is only seen more and more as we venture off the hard beaten trails. Our feet find thorns and uneven ground when we walk somewhere new, but out eyes and our hearts are embraced by a new view of God's glory. It is time to bloody our feet and fill our hearts and watch God do something new. I believe and have faith that it will be a beautiful journey.
For a mainline protestant denomination to face this question, which forces either a socially conservative or liberal stance to be endorsed in response, is a difficult and intriguing thing. I would hold more intellectual curiosity about the matter if it was so personally important, I suppose. (To see some of my earlier reflections on homosexuality and the church, read "A Genuine Christology: Advocating for GLBT Liberation.")
Save WCAL: Religion at Play in a Secular Grassroots Movement
As a member of Students for WCAL and its parent organization SaveWCAL, I can say for certain that the primary motivation of the community members who wished to preserve St. Olaf ownership of the classical independent radio station 89.3 WCAL instead of support its sale to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) was not religious in nature. A variety of reasons existed to advocate St. Olaf ownership of the station, including financial benefit, community responsibility, preservation of tradition, and providing unique opportunities to students and community members.
But a current developed within this movement, of which I became a spokesperson. Out of a desire to continue and strengthen the religious mission of the college, WCAL ought to have been retained. This angle was played on primarily within the student community and received its widest recognition through the publication and distribution of a letter to the editor that I wrote to the Manitou Messenger in early fall. What interests me about this situation is not whether or not the religion angle received a lot of attention or whether or not it was justified, but it prompts a question: To what extent is religion or religious language incorporated into the many secular social movements or causes that arise, and why? Is the goal to use the power and deep resonance that religious questions have to get people's attention? Is religion really so prominent in the process of making everyday value judgments that it is simply part of how we assess the relative rightness of any cause? Is it basically non-existent outside of communities with highly religious consciousness (of which St. Olaf can be said to be one). Below is the text of the letter as it was submitted to the Manitou Messenger. It ran with some editing modifications:
Dear Mess Editors,
While the arguments voiced in the Save WCAL opinion piece that ran in your last issue should suffice to convince the Board of Regents and the President of our college to reconsider their decision to pawn off such a valuable facet of the St. Olaf identity as 89.3 WCAL, I have another, very deep concern about the negative effect this decision would have on the St. Olaf community.
As a college of Church , St. Olaf is responsible for carrying the light of Christ's love into the world. It does so in a number of ways, but perhaps none so directly as through the broadcasts of our beautiful chapel services and the support of classical radio programming which gives voice to the rich tradition of expressing faith through music on WCAL. Most members of our community have not spent as much time in Boe Chapel as the handful of us that are religion majors, but through the programming of WCAL, thousands have been enriched by the faith tradition that has shaped so many of our lives.
Supporting a spirit of harmony, encouraging a community appreciation for Creation's beauty, and advocating for the voiceless and disenfranchised are what I have come to value as my Christian mission. This is not an easy charge, and tangible examples of powerful Christian witness, such as WCAL, are sometimes difficult to find.
If $400,000 each year is more valuable to the college than maintaining the integrity of our religious heritage and calling, I must have misunderstood what President Thomforde has always meant when calling us a “college of the Church.” If our college's “core mission” of “great teaching” does not, as President Thomforde has said, include teaching students to value strong communities knit together through the loving ties of faith, I must have misunderstood what sort of “teaching” he means. We are losing something whose worth is difficult to put on paper. It is impossible to assign it a monetary value. However, I think this characteristic makes it more important, not less so. I implore the Board of Regents and President Thomforde to continue on in the spirit of not just “great teaching,” but the Greatest Teaching, and to appreciate the invaluable merits of spreading the beauty of God's Word on 89.3 WCAL.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Albert
The Israeli Refusers: Conservative Religion or None at All
Considering the history of the state of Israel , I shouldn't have been surprised to hear that if you're a religious Israeli you fall on the right end of the political spectrum, with considerable reliability. Noam Bahat and Shimri Zamaret are two Israelis who do NOT fall on that side of the spectrum. Nor are they religious. They were surprised to find that I was, or even that I studied religion for that matter. As the sponsor of their visit to the St. Olaf campus to tell their story about being part of the Refusenik movement by refusing conscription into the Israeli Defense Force after graduating high school, they expected me to fit into a different category.
While their perspective is one-sided in some respects, it is also well-informed, and their reaction to religiosity (and patriotism, which they used a similar tone to describe, particularly Noam) was somewhat visceral. There are Christian churches in Palestine working to aid victims of violence in the occupied territories, but the Jewish stance is particularly unified. For political reasons, it is easy to see why Jews are pro-Israel and why even a Jew who questions Israel 's actions would be hard pressed to criticize the Israeli state. Certainly non-Jews tread on the dangerous territory that sometimes draws the accusations of anti-Semitism. This is a perfect example of religion employed by a state to force a blank check from supporters to act however they please. The history of anti-Semitism justifies a great respect and protection of the Jewish identity, but not to the point that its adherents become destructive in the manner of their previous oppressors. This is a conflict whose layers of religious meaning and tension would make it a very interesting case to assess as far as the role of those religious meaning in the social activism in the society. (To learn the background of the Refuser movment in Israel visit The Refuser Solidarity Network website or the Israeli based site Yesh-Gvul)
Mr. Adbusters: Appropriation of Religious Symbols by Secular Activists
Paul and Carl and I all ended up in a fairly empty room in the Minneapolis College of Art + Design at an independent media fair last month. As wechatted to pass the time, I found out that Paul works for Adbusters (because he was trying so desperately to pawm off the back issues that had been cluttering his office). This was interesting to me in light of a few previous appearances in their publication of very traditional religious iconography couched in a context of social criticism. For example: the traditional Sacre Couer image of Jesus with crayon scrawled text below: “I want you to buy less, live more.” An image of Christ on the cross, wearing the crown of thorns, in agony, next to the text of Enoch 21:1-10- a text describing the apocalypse- introduces an entire issue that grows out of an imagined end times, borrowed perhaps from a conservative Christian aspect of our cultural consciousness. The publication mentions religion in all of its recent issues- usually criticizing U.S. Christianity and religion's role in current global conflict.
However, the more artistic appropriations of religious imagery seem to serve the purpose of both undermining contemporary religious discourse and symbols and yet capitalizing on their power. Paul, an associate editor of Adbusters, didn't offer too much in the way of explaining the choices, but reflected on his own sense of faith in connection to his activism. Though he attends a very socially liberal Catholic church, he still has deep struggles with taking any ownership of faith in light of positions taken by the Church which he finds completely contrary to his own beliefs. Is this the conflict of socially liberal people? Are there religious institutions who can balance a deep tradition of faith without becoming stuck in conserving tradition for its own sake, and instead using it to inform a search for justice and peace in the world, as it is today?