Mainstream Christianity in America has failed. It looks nothing like Jesus.

From Sojourners-

For the last few years Christians have been singing worship songs that include lyrics like “ keep my eyes above the waves, when oceans rise …” and yet have rejected refugees who’ve seen loved ones die beneath waves, who themselves have literally struggled to keep from drowning in oceans. Those American Christians — particularly white evangelicals — continue to sing the words: “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders …” but fail to realize the shameful irony that they’re largely responsible for refusing shelter and opportunity to some of the world’s most helpless and oppressed people.

This represents a predominant theme of Westernized Christendom: proclaiming Christian rhetoric while actively — or passively — practicing the opposite in reality.

Because while the gospels instruct followers of Christ to help the poor, oppressed, maligned, mistreated, sick, and those most in need of help, Christians in America have largely supported measures that have rejected refugees, refused aid to immigrants, cut social services to the poor, diminished help for the sick, fueled xenophobia, reinforced misogyny, ignored racism, stoked hatred, reinforced corruption, and largely increased inequality, prejudice, and fear.

More here-

https://sojo.net/articles/american-christianity-has-failed

12 Things Pastors Cannot Do

From Church Leaders-

Pastors are, in my judgment, amazing people. They faithfully serve Sunday after Sunday, often with no desire for recognition or fame. In faith, they can do a lot—but here are several things they can’t do:

1. Read minds. Everybody knows that, but many church members hold pastors accountable for unstated expectations.

2. Be everywhere. No human being can be every place at once, yet some members still get angry when pastors have to say “No.”

3. Change hearts. Only God can do that.

4. Know everything. Most pastors study hard, but nobody can answer every question somebody asks.

More here-

https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/298822-12-things-pastors-cannot.html

Amid national and local shootings, Colorado houses of worship turn to panic rooms and other heightened security measures

From The Denver Post-

During a Sunday service at New Hope Baptist Church in Denver in October, a visitor stood up and began shouting during the sermon.

It was a few weeks before a shooter killed 26 people and wounded 20 others at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, but it still alarmed many in the pews that day, said Rev. Eugene Downing Jr., the pastor at New Hope.

“That created some uncertainties for members of our congregation,” Downing said. “Some anxiety.”

But the worshipers also were prepared, trained in a protocol developed after nine people were killed during a Bible study meeting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.

More here-

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/03/colorado-houses-of-worship-sutherland-springs-thornton-shootings-security/

The Church We Need Now

From Plough-

This year’s five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation comes just as Christianity is undergoing what may prove to be its biggest recalibration since the fourth century. Christendom, the system in which Christianity shaped Western laws and society as the majority religion, has been shaky since the Enlightenment. Now it’s in its death throes, felled by secularization, consumerism, and the sexual revolution. For better or worse, Christians must learn to be a minority. There’s no better time than now to recall Karl Barth’s admonition: “The church must always be reformed.” What is the reformed church we need now?

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther famously affixed his Ninety-Five Theses to a Wittenberg church door in a brazen challenge to the authority of the pope in Rome. His action ended up sparking a religious conflict that would plunge the continent into a century of war between Catholics and Protestants. Out of the bloodshed, so runs the story, modernity was born.

More here-

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/anabaptists/the-church-we-need-now

How Church Leaders in Charlottesville Prepared for White Supremacists

From The New Yorker-

Just down the road from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a thousand white supremacists congregated around a statue of Robert E. Lee this weekend, is another historical landmark. It’s a large, two-story brick building called the Jefferson School, which first underwent construction in 1924—the same year that the Confederate monument went up—at the insistence of the local black community, whose children were barred from the city’s high schools because of segregation. Now the school is on the National Register of Historic Places.

On Monday night, a few hundred Charlottesville residents gathered at the Jefferson School, in an auditorium on the second floor, for a community meeting. Two days before, three people died and nineteen were injured when violent demonstrators from across the country came to Charlottesville with guns, shields, weapons, and flaming tiki torches for a “Unite the Right” rally. “We’ll fucking kill these people if we have to,” one of them told Vice News. A twenty-year-old neo-Nazi from Ohio ran over counter-protesters in his car, in an act that Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, later called domestic terrorism. (The President initially condemned violence “on many sides,” then followed up on Tuesday afternoon by saying that there were “very fine people on both sides.”) But, almost as soon as they had arrived, the agitators were gone, and community members were left to try to make sense of what had just happened.

More here-

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-church-leaders-in-charlottesville-prepared-for-white-supremacists?mbid=social_facebook

Let us be the Church

From Patheos-

As the news spills out from every corner of the globe and as our capacity as a nation to respond seems to evaporate, I’ve found myself thinking about the church.

What is the church? How should the church respond? And why is it that too many Christians seem to be indistinguishable from their political counterparts in describing a way forward?

We are equally at war with one another. We are armed with the same capacity for vulgarity and name-calling. The only thing that often differs is a thin veneer of churchy language.

There are undoubtedly a number of explanations for this state of affairs: It is easy to become caught up in the same anxiety, anger and fear that roils our world. It is comforting to wrap the language of partisans around us and find strength in numbers. In difficult times, the emotional satisfaction that lies in nuking our neighbor can lend a sense of moral superiority to yet another day of complex calculations. It is easy to lose a sense of vocation to the proclaiming the foolishness of the cross in a complex world. And the desire to be relevant is among life’s greatest seductions.

More here-

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/whatgodwantsforyourlife/2017/06/let-us-church/

Why do Christians keep inviting you to church?

From CNN-

"Hey, do you want to come to church with us on Easter?"

You may have heard this or something similar from a friend, co-worker or family member. Depending on where you live, perhaps you've already received a mailer or two about a local church service.

Maybe you've wondered why Christians like me won't just leave you alone. I assure you, it's not because we like imposing ourselves on others. In fact, for many of us, it's just the opposite.

On a recent Sunday, I stood up at Moody Church, an evangelical church in Chicago where I am interim pastor, and encouraged people to invite their friends to our Easter services. I reminded the congregation that Christians should be committed to the task of evangelism, that Jesus commanded it.

But I also know that, to atheists or adherents of other faiths, it can be confusing to know how to respond to such outreach. Understanding our motivation may help.

More here-

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/14/living/christians-invite-easter/index.html

The new alarmism: How some Christians are stoking fear rather than hope

From The Washington Post-

When did Christians start stealing scripts from home security commercials?

We’re all familiar with the canned tropes of the alarm system advertisement: the female resident alone in a darkened house; the ominous threat lurking outside with a crowbar; the horror-flick music rising to a crescendo as the intruder approaches the door—but then repelled by the sight of the ADT sign in the window. Whew! Crisis averted. Cue bright sunshine and smiles and a three-course breakfast with the whole family around the table. Secure.

The home security industry trades on a combination of fear and idylls. In fact, they depend on swelling the idyllic in order to heighten the fear. The more you have to lose, the more you feel the threat.

A spate of recent books from Christian leaders and intellectuals seem to have stolen this script, swelling the jeremiad shelf. We might describe this as “the new alarmism.”

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/03/10/the-new-alarmism-how-some-christians-are-stoking-fear-rather-than-hope/?tid=ss_tw-bottom&utm_term=.d8bd192f2fc3

The most and least racially diverse U.S. religious groups

From Pew Research-

The nation’s population is growing more racially and ethnically diverse – and so are many of its religious groups, both at the congregational level and among broader Christian traditions.  But a new analysis of data from the 2014 Religious Landscape Study also finds that these levels of diversity vary widely within U.S. religious groups.

We looked at 29 groups – including Protestant denominations, other religious groups and three subsets of people who are religiously unaffiliated – based on a methodology used in our 2014 Pew Research Center report on global religious diversity. This analysis includes five racial and ethnic groups: Hispanics, as well as non-Hispanic whites, blacks, Asians and an umbrella category of other races and mixed-race Americans.

More here-

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/27/the-most-and-least-racially-diverse-u-s-religious-groups/

Fallout from child protection law felt in Pa. churches, libraries, fields

From Western PA-

Soon after the Diocese of Greensburg started mandating that volunteers have criminal background checks and child abuse clearances, the number of people donating their time to be cooks, eucharistic ministers, even ushers, started to drop.

“What's really hard is when you lose your Sunday school teachers,” said Virginia Long, secretary at the partner parishes of St. Ambrose in Avonmore, St. Matthew in Saltsburg and St. Sylvester in Slickville, which lost a handful of volunteers and has the challenging task of trying to replace them.

Welcome to the reality of living in the post-Jerry Sandusky world.

More here-

http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/8705095-74/volunteers-checks-background#axzz3hkUb9gMC

Michael Palin: my seven of the best (Churches)

From The Church Times-

CHURCHES, of one kind or another, have played important roles throughout my life, although, I must admit that I am no longer a devout worshipper, if indeed I ever was.

I remember filming for the Himalaya series at Rawalpindi in Pakistan, in the only brewery in the entire country. There was only one outlet for the products of the Murree Brewery, and that was a hole in the wall at the back of Raffles Hotel on the Grand Trunk Road. Here, liquor could be purchased, but only after I'd filled in a very thorough form: "Mother's Name; Father's Name; Place of Birth; Religion."

As I was on camera I felt I should be scrupulously honest; so I wrote down "Agnostic" and pushed the form towards him. He took one look, shook his head, and pushed it back to me. How could I be more specific? I thought again, and after some deliberation wrote "Agnostic with doubts". I pushed this across to him, he took it quite happily and passed me a large bottle of Murree whisky.

More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/22-may/features/features/michael-palin-my-seven-of-the-best

Class in America: Want to Get Ahead? Try Church

From NBC (with video)

Attending religious services regularly can confer many things besides salvation. For generations in America, houses of worship were places where families built relationships with similar families, and where clergy could provide the kind of mentorship that helped working class kids step up the economic ladder.

These days, though, young people are less likely to say they belong to a religion than their parents were at the same age. And the gap is not just generational — it's also about class.

Social scientists are finding that in the last 40 years, teenagers whose parents are in the bottom third on the socioeconomic scale stopped coming to services twice as fast as kids from the top.

More here-

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/class-america-want-get-ahead-try-church-n325796

From church triumphant to ‘least of these’

From The Washington Post-

News articles about turmoil at General Theological Seminary had immediate impact on those of us who attended Episcopal seminaries.

But the news “went viral” far beyond that small coterie and for reasons beyond nostalgia.

For one thing, it’s a juicy soap opera. Faculty playing hardball, then finding themselves unemployed. A dean pushing back, then losing credibility as word about him spread. A board looking confused and high-handed. Students wondering if they, too, should go on strike.

More here-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/from-church-triumphant-to-least-of-these-commentary/2014/10/14/a95694c4-53b8-11e4-b86d-184ac281388d_story.html

Organized religion does a lot of good for the needy

From Mississippi-

I sometimes hear folks argue that organized religion does no good. Religion has started wars they say, and witch-hunts, The Inquisition, all in the name of God.

Some of that’s true, but religion has also started hospitals, schools and homeless shelters. Believing that organized religion still does much good, I recently embarked on a three state speaking itinerary in search of that good.

snip

The next day, Chaplain Tom Baker of Baxter Regional Medical Center had me speak to a packed hospital auditorium. After delivering a speech about battlefield trauma ministry, I toured the hospital floors where Baker provides pastoral care to nearly 220 patients (a population served by five chaplains at my hospital).

This middle-aged Episcopal priest also DJ’s at a pizza party every Friday night for 200 teens come to dance and hang out – even with retired adults. Baker says it’s “a safe place where ‘church’ isn’t all about recruitment. It’s about love.”

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/life/faith/2014/09/17/norris-burkes-september/15797157/

Churches putting faith in social media

From The Pittsburgh Tribune-

“Old time” religion is getting a modern assist as churches and other houses of worship embrace social media in creative ways.

Across the country, printed bulletins — and, in some cases, prayer books — are giving way to smartphone apps with sermon notes, prayers and details of congregational activities. In addition to saving print costs, the apps have the added benefit of being “green.”

Members are accessing their congregations' Facebook and Instagram pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels — even making their donations via secure Web pages.

“Social media is the language people are using today, and, as a church body, we would be remiss to not speak that language,” says Dawn Check, communications director of the Cranberry-based United Methodist Conference of Western Pennsylvania, which represents 830 churches and 171,342 members.

Read more:

http://triblive.com/lifestyles/morelifestyles/6494278-74/says-media-church#axzz39FL8h1fk

Are Liberals Too "Special" to Go to Church?

From Religion Dispatches-

New research from psychologists from the New York University suggests that the desire to feel unique can undermine consensus, cohesion, and mobilization—at least in political contexts.

My hunch is that this may extend to religious contexts as well.

Chadly Stern and colleagues reported in the journal Psychological Science in November 2103 on the findings of a study on “truly false uniqueness” and “truly false consensus” among political liberals, moderates, and conservatives.

The study looked at two things. First, the researchers considered the degree to which participants over- or underestimated their sense that their beliefs were the same as those of others in the same political grouping (liberal, moderate, conservative). Second, the team measured the degree to which participants in the study were motivated by a desire to feel unique versus a desire to feel the same as others in their group.

Overall, Stern, et al found that “liberals underestimated their similarity to other liberals, whereas moderates and conservatives overestimated their similarity to other moderates and conservatives.”

More here-

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7498/are_liberals_too__special__to_go_to_church#.Utcrg3zFeAU.facebook

Black and white in America’s churches

From The Washington Post-

Flashing lights caught my attention that night. I opened my front door to find a man face down on my front lawn with four cops, guns drawn, standing over him. The man on the ground was black and the police were white. I was ordered back into the house.

This was 14 years ago when I lived in Alameda, California and was pastor of that town’s Episcopal parish. When the movie “Fruitvale Station” opened I was particularly interested in seeing it, especially because I’d taken the BART train from that station many times.

“Fruitvale Station” is based on the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant, 22, an unarmed black man shot in the back by a white police officer. Watching the scene where white BART cops surrounded black suspects triggered memories of similar images, like ones of white Los Angeles police officers beating an unarmed Rodney King. And with the not guilty verdict of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin still so fresh, I find myself among many Americans of faith wondering how to prevent this from happening again and again.

More here-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/09/09/black-and-white-in-americas-churches/

Why Christians need the church: An interview with Lillian Daniel

From Religious New Service-

Young people are disillusioned, disenchanted, and in some cases, downright disgusted with organized religion. So while they still want to follow Jesus, they are leaving the church and all its judgmental, hypocritical, anti-gay, partisan baggage behind.

In the middle of this storyline, which is quite frankly growing staler by the headline, comes Rev. Lillian Daniel and her hit book When Spiritual But Not Religious is Not Enough. It’s incredibly well-written, and though she is a liberal Protestant minister, I think her message resonates with where many conservative evangelicals are.

Daniel shares how she has seen the good and bad sides of the local church–a BB gun-toting grandma, a rock-and-roller sexton, a worship service attended by animals and a group of theologians at Sing-Sing prison. Despite their flaws, she argues that local Christian communities play an important role in the life of faith, even though her spiritual journey extends well beyond the pews. Here we discuss why so many people want to follow Jesus without attending church and why she thinks this approach isn’t enough.

JM: In your opinion, why has this spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNR) trend become so popular today?

LD: People mean a lot of different things by SBNR, so let me clarify what I mean: Somebody who feels connected to the divine in some way but does not practice or worship with any community.

- See more at:

http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/08/13/answering-the-spiritual-but-religious-an-interview-with-lillian-daniel/#sthash.KqCfjM5R.dpuf

God is good for you

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-

One of the most striking scientific discoveries about religion in recent years is that going to church weekly is good for you. Religious attendance -- at least, religiosity -- boosts the immune system and decreases blood pressure. It may add as much as two to three years to your life. The reason for this is not entirely clear.

Social support is no doubt part of the story. At the evangelical churches I've studied as an anthropologist, people looked out for one another. They showed up with dinner when friends were sick and sat to talk with them when they were unhappy.

The help was sometimes surprisingly concrete. Perhaps a third of the church members belonged to small groups that met weekly to talk about the Bible and their lives. One evening, a young woman in a group I had joined began to cry. Her dentist had told her that she needed a $1,500 procedure, and she didn't have the money. To my amazement, our small group -- most of them students -- simply covered the cost, by anonymous donation.

A study conducted in North Carolina found that frequent churchgoers had larger social networks, with more contact, affection and social support among their friends than their unchurched counterparts. We know that social support is directly tied to better health.

Healthy behavior is no doubt another part. Certainly many churchgoers struggle with habits they would like to change, but on average regular church attendees drink less, smoke less, use fewer recreational drugs and are less sexually promiscuous than others.

Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/god-is-good-for-you-688238/#ixzz2TjfDJ2LQ

Fed Up with “The Church”? Try a Different One (Maybe Even in the Mainline!)

From Patheos-

In a hugely popular post titled “Confessions of an Accidental Feminist,” blogger, author, and evangelical upstart (in a good way) Rachel Held Evans shared this quote from her exasperated husband:

“It seems to me that the only thing you have to do to be controversial in the Church is to say something true and be a woman at the same time.”

This statement was so lusciously tweetable because it speaks to many evangelical women’s experiences. Within American evangelicalism are people advocating for traditional “Biblical” roles for women (that is, as homemakers and supporters of their head-of-household husbands) as well as people who consider themselves feminists and who advocate for an egalitarian model of marriage. When people with such different worldviews attempt to abide and converse within the same religious community, fireworks can result.

In such an environment, many women indeed feel that their contributions to the fraught conversations over how we are to live as Christians are judged more harshly, and given far less weight, than the contributions of their male counterparts. Rachel Held Evans’s relatively moderate views on women and social issues are regularly branded as dangerously radical feminist vitriol by some evangelicals. I’ve privately conversed with a number of women writers who feel that the work they produce for major evangelical publications is judged differently, and more harshly, than work produced by men.

More here-

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ellenpainterdollar/2012/09/fed-up-with-the-church-try-a-different-one-maybe-even-in-the-mainline/