I am the author of a book titles Liberating
Christianity, Overcoming Obstacles to the Faith in the New Millennium, Revised
edition, 2021. It is available in electronic and paperback formats from amazon.com.
The Epilogue with which that book ends is something I wish had wider
circulation than the small number of those books I’ve sold would indicate. So
here is that Epilogue. I hope you will find it interesting, helpful, and
perhaps even inspiring. And I wouldn’t object if it inspired you to buy the
book.
EPILOGUE
© Thomas C. Sorenson 2021. All rights
reserved.
What Do We Do Now?
Christianity is in crisis in North America
today. In this work I have tried to analyze what I see as the basic causes of
that crisis and to suggest ways that the crisis might be resolved. Resolving
the crisis in North American Christianity must begin with recapturing the
reality of the spiritual along with the symbolic nature of all religion. With
that renewed understanding of the fundamental character of faith we can
overcome the Biblicism, the unacceptable theology, the reactionary social
ethics, and the distorted view of the Christian life that act as barriers to
the Christian faith for a majority of people in our context of the dominant
culture in North America. Liberating Christianity must begin with such a
re-envisioning of Christian theology. Theology is foundational. It is indispensable.
No religious movement can long endure without a solid theological foundation
that appeals to the people of the movement’s context and that makes the
religion accessible to those people. I hope that in this work you have found at
least a modest contribution to that necessary effort.
Liberating Christianity begins with
theology, but it cannot end with theology. Theology far too often remains a
matter of solely academic interest. Academic theologians far too often speak
only to other academic theologians. Indeed, our faith finds itself in such a
crisis today in large part because the insights of academic theologians over
the last century or more have not been widely disseminated in the church. As I
noted in the Introduction, academically trained ministers of the church have
largely declined to share the theological learning they acquired in seminary
with the lay people of the church. They have feared that the people will not
accept new and challenging ways of understanding the faith. We professional
ministers have far too often played the role of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor
protecting people from the truth rather than sharing it with them.
The result has been that Biblicist
Christianity has swept the field, leaving us Christians who have a better
vision on the sidelines wondering what hit us. Biblicist Christianity, with its
bloodthirsty God demanding the shedding of innocent blood and with its narrow
morality grounded not in grace and love but in ancient cultural prejudices has
monopolized the popular understanding of the faith. Those of us with a better
vision have remained silent for too long. In our silence we have been complicit
in the hijacking of our great faith by reactionary elements that fear the
accomplishments of the human spirit and seek to tie Christianity up in a
straightjacket of literalism and narrow, judgmental morality. We have yielded
the floor to the voices of those who define Christian values as opposition to
the equal dignity of LGBTQ+ people and to the right of women to make their own reproductive
decisions. We have stood by far too quietly as Christ’s values of nonviolence,
radical justice, and expansive inclusion have been ignored at best and
perverted at worst.
The time for our silence is over. If
we truly wish to liberate Christianity we must now speak up boldly, loudly,
constantly, and in great numbers. We must tell the world every chance we get
that Christianity does not require us to deny our God-given intellectual
capacities as the anti-intellectualism of popular American Christianity insists
that we do. We must tell the world every chance we get that Christianity
properly understood calls for the recognition of the equal rights and dignity
of all people and not only of those who live in a way that the vociferous
leaders of the religious right insist is the only moral way. That insistence is
truly nothing but ancient prejudice wrapped up in a covering of Bible verses
chosen not because they truly express the will of God but because they
reinforce the prejudices of our culture. We must tell the world every chance we
get that true Christianity does not support American imperialism abroad or
policies that favor the rich at the expense of the poor at home. We must
advance the Christian values of nonviolence, radical justice, and inclusion as
powerfully as others have advanced the un-Christian values of war and economic
exploitation of the powerless and marginalized at home and around the world. We
must tell the world every chance we get that true Christianity celebrates the
world’s religious diversity and rejoices when people find their connection with
God be that through Christianity or through another of the world’s great
faiths. We must tell the world every chance we get that true Christianity
supports the separation of church and state because it treasures freedom for
all of God’s people. The time for our silence is over. It has been over for a
long time. We must speak up and speak out.
But how? It isn’t easy. Those of us
who are members of a Christian church can begin by speaking up in church, by
calling our church and our denomination if we have one to fidelity to true
Christian values. If your pastor preaches against LGBTQ+ people call him or her
on it. If your denomination adopts resolutions at any level that discriminate
against any group, support war, or support unjust economic policies or policies
that despoil the environment, get involved. Demand that your denomination
change course. If all else fails, withhold your financial support until your
church adopts positions more in tune with true Christian values. Far too often
a decision to continue supporting a group with which we disagree so we can
“work from the inside” to bring about change only helps perpetuate the
stagnation of an institution badly in need of transformation. Our churches will
not become more faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ until we show that we
will not continue to support them until they do.
Yet speaking up inside the church is
not enough. Christianity is in crisis mostly because so many people stand
outside the churches refusing to have anything to do with them. The task of
Christian apologetics is to reach those people. To reach them we must venture
outside of our churches and into the larger public arena. Doing so can be far
more difficult than speaking up in the familiar and relatively safe environment
of a church. We can do it individually by talking to the people we know,
writing letters to the editor of our local newspapers identifying ourselves as
Christians, putting similar posts on Facebook and other social media, and
advocating progressive social and economic policies. We can let our elected
leaders know that not all people of faith are social conservatives. We can
become active as Christians in local politics, speaking out for civil rights
protection for all people and opposing attempts by biblical literalists to
hijack the public education system.
Education is the key. If you found
this book helpful lead an adult education series on it at your church. Or lead
a series on one of the other very helpful books that are available to introduce
people to non-Biblicist Christianity. Marcus Borg’s book The Heart of
Christianity, that I have mentioned before in this work, is particularly
useful. Church people have suggested to me that it would be helpful for people
to read that book first, then read this one. If you have friends who call
themselves spiritual but who resist or reject Christianity invite them to your
series. If you don’t feel up to leading a series ask your pastor to do it or
find someone else who can and will. We will never liberate Christianity by
quietly acquiescing in the perpetuation of the Biblicist version of the faith.
We must teach people both inside the churches and outside them that there is a
better alternative.
All of these individual things are
important, yet individual action alone is not enough. That is why organizations
like Jim Wallis’ Sojourners, the Center for Progressive Christianity, and Rabbi
Lerner’s Network of Spiritual Progressives are so important. Collective
activity is always more effective than individual activity. Joining and
supporting local and national progressive spiritual organizations is an
important way of spreading the word that spirituality can be and indeed in its
best forms is progressive. In addition, all of the so-called mainline
Protestant denominations have within them groups of people who are working to
advance progressive Christian values. Find out who those groups are in your
denomination. Join them. Work with them. Start a local chapter of one or more
of them. Our denominations will respond when enough people speak up.
In the troubled times in which I
write these words political activism has become more important than ever. Populist
politics of a reactionary and even fascist nature have become distressingly
prevalent both in the United States and around the world. Extremist conspiracy
theories become more and more mainstream. In the United States both the federal
government and many state governments are or until recently were controlled by
forces that seek to deny citizens their civil rights and to pursue policies
that benefit only the wealthy and the socially conservative. Liberated
Christianity stands in opposition to all of these movements. Progressive
Christians must speak up in opposition to any politician or political position
that contradicts Christianity’s values of peace and justice. It's easier to
remain silent, but in these times we simply cannot. In the 1930s most German
Christians went along with and even supported Nazism with tragic consequences.
Christians must never make the same mistake again.
The task is a daunting one, but it is not hopeless. Our faith
today needs nothing short of a new Reformation. Christianity has been reformed
again and again throughout its long history. Indeed, the faith’s survival over
two millennia is due largely to its ability to speak to people in vastly
different times, cultures, and circumstances. It can speak to people in our
context too. Our faith can speak a saving word to all spiritual seekers. Our
call is to present Christianity in a way that is approachable in today’s
context because it more accurately reflects the God we follow than do other
versions of the faith. If we will do that our great faith will continue to
connect people with God in powerful, life-saving, and life-transforming ways.
If we will do that our great faith may even be able to save the world. With
trust in God and in the power of the Holy Spirit we can do it. Let’s get on
with it.
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