Challenges for the Next Decade
I read a blog post this week that echoed some of the questions we’ve been asking at JustPeace recently – how do we get people talking to one another again? In our churches and in our wider culture, it seems like we’re quickly losing the ability to have good conversation about topics when we disagree.
Rev. Jeremy Smith is a United Methodist pastor and blogger who blogs about faith, technology, culture and the United Methodist Church on his blog Hacking Christianity. He recently spoke at Boston University School of Theology after having won their Distinguished Young Alumni Award. The entire transcript of his talk (he actually spoke at two events) is worth reading, but he made two points in particular that I want to highlight. They were made during a panel discussion about challenges of the next decade.
Smith is concerned (and so are we) about how we choose to relate to one another. It seems as if the world is becoming increasingly polarized and simple conversations between people with opposing viewpoints are becoming more and more rare. How can the Church respond to such dissonance and be a force that brings people together in community? How can we create a safe place in our churches for people to share their stories, hopes, dreams and fears in a way that values diversity of ideas and sees conflict as a potentially positive path towards transformation?
Below is a big block quote of these two points by Smith. I should point that this particular talk had three points – these are the second and third points. And, he begins with the 100th challenge instead of the 1st to indicate that there’s a myriad of challenges facing the church – these are just three challenges that most pertain to his interest. Be sure to read his entire post and check out the rest of his excellent blog, Hacking Christianity. And, let us know what you think!
“The one hundred and second challenge is how to be the church in a world that is fully customizable and without dissonance.
- This is related to the first one but a separate issue that I tend to obsess over. As technology marches on, our world, more than ever before, can be made into an echo-chamber where we only hear voices we align with. We can choose to watch Fox News or MSNBC, read the Wall Street Journal or the New Yorker, read daily bible reflections by Bishop Spong or Al Mohler, listen to NPR or Talk Radio. There’s even religious search engines like Jewgle that returns only Orthodox Jewish results, or SeekFind that return only conservative Christian results.
- We customize all of our media experience so that we don’t have to listen to dissonant voices and when we do, it is in a framework to our liking. More than just the media, in his book The Big Sort, Bill Bishop notes that people move into neighborhoods where they see likeminded people and form landslide counties where political votes become one-sided, increasing 300% since the 1970s. We increasingly live, experience, and surround ourselves with media that reinforces our beliefs rather than challenges them.
- The question is an evangelistic one: how do we preach Christ, a dissonant voice that challenges our comfortable spheres, in a way that breaks through these customizable existences? In Scripture, Jesus was invited into Pharisees home and threw down with them, challenged by scribes on the street who disagreed with his message or methods, and was present at the well when the woman came to get a drink. Today, the only Christ you hear is often mediated through your choice of a church or a TV show or a podcast or a blog that you already agree with. Indeed, often the only understanding of Christ that is mentioned is one that, oddly enough, matches your beliefs. Hmm.
- How does the church find the avenues into these increasingly rigid spheres? Do we water down Christ to make him palpatable? Do we focus on Christ’s promises of personal transformation or calls to social transformation? And least but perhaps most of all, how do we ensure our churches do not become increasingly stratified, each serving only a particular slice. Or is that the only way forward is to take down the big tent churches and cater only to particular persuasions? If people live and get their news from the echo chamber, does Christian evangelism have to replicate those lifestyles to break through? Do we need SUV-driving materialistic suburban whites to get into the grooves of “those” people, or in doing so do we emulate our ghettoized cultures rather than critique them. I don’t know…that’s why it is a challenge.
- I just worry how many generations it will take until the human psyche can no longer handle dissonance and social groups can no longer navigate conflict, and how the church can respond.
The one hundred and third challenge is specific to the United Methodist Church and it is to develop a broader understanding of what it means to be United.
- I have a clergy friend in Oklahoma and we call our relationship “The Spectrum”. We went to polar opposite seminaries, hold polar opposite theologies and ecclesiologies, and yet we both deeply consider ourselves and the other to be Methodist. We joke that we were not ordained the same year because the altar could not handle the spectrum exhibited at one time.
- If you take our relationship as a microcosm of the entirety of the United Methodist Church, our primary point of tension comes over the hot button issues yes but it’s not really about the issues themselves. It’s about what we consider our church to be. For her, being United means we have a uniformity of Doctrine and everyone follows it the same, whether we are in Africa or in America. For me, being United means having a uniform mission but a variety of expressions based on our contexts. If our doctrine and polity allowed for a diversity of expression but uniformity of mission, the church could better adapt to a multicultural and global world.
- The constant criticism is that if we have plurality of doctrine then we become the Untied Methodist Church, one that has ecclesial anarchy and cannot possibly function as the body of Christ. I disagree. As 1 Corinthians 12 says, “we are many parts but one body.”
- One personal recollection. In 2005 I was in our United Methodist History class and the question came up “does anyone think the UMC will not eventually schism.” I remember and I may be wrong but I remember being the only person dumb enough to say I did not think we would split. Every four years on the hot topic issues when our church votes to change or retain our church doctrine, we are divided 45/55. One these topics, one could see us as two churches. But I don’t think 2 churches is the answer, as both churches will continue to have underage abortions, gay children, and pluralities of opinions on important topics.
- Perhaps my answer in History class was not naive idealism but hope. I fully believe in my heart and in my head, that one of the best contributions that our Methodist church can do to a culture that is increasingly partisan and polarized is to model what unity of mission and diversity of expression looks like. It will take some changes to our doctrine and it will take a committed laity to reign in the schizmatics and the bailers.
- Thankfully, Boston University has made a lot of headway in that. Phil Wogaman has advocated for a unity in diversity approach at various General Conferences, and Tiffany Steinwert did her dissertation on this topic in 2009. So there’s a lot of work being put into research and rhetoric but more works needs to be done at the local level so that more churches see themselves as United even if our practices and expressions of our faith lie on a broader spectrum than they are comfortable with.”
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Thanks for the link, Adam!