Uh, that is the big deal.
Rice has joined the fastest growing movement in American religion, the “spiritual-but-unaffiliated.” Her now-oft-quoted Facebook page says why:
I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or being a part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
Same for the other spiritual-but-unaffiliateds? Yes and no.
For some unaffiliateds, the reason goes to the core of the message proclaimed. For those evangelized according to the eternal life insurance model — i.e., “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior to avoid the fires of hell” — there follows exactly no reason to unite to the body of Christ. “I’m saved. I’m safe.” End of story.
In spite of the sounds of stellar church growth among such churches, many who have lived and grown by such preaching are watching their numbers fade. Some, like Bill Hybels, have diagnosed the problem and re-written their preaching script. They’re building a church of disciples, not simply populating heaven.
Nevertheless, many a church member has left many of those churches.
Then again, many a church member is fading away from mainline churches, where we have followed the model from the first Christian Pentecost, And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2:47b-bold print added). We know that Christian commitment requires church commitment.
However, too often folks in our churches blurt, “If that’s Christian community, I don’t need it.” Whether we are griping about the pastor’s sermon or debating over hot button issues, our attitude of certitude, our contentiousness, our self-righteousness and our collective hubris – all baptized in just enough God-talk to make it smell like candy-coated dung – drives the folks from the fold.
When they leave, our need to self-justify drives us to find somebody else to blame.
They see through our blaming. They know we’re shirking the responsibility to own up to our own bad attitudes. They see the disconnect between our proclamation of grace in sanctuary and our spewing of judgment in fellowship hall.
For us Presbyterians that underside is begging to showcase its ugliness as recommendations from the recent General Assembly call upon us in the pews to take action. We’ve been asked to send our pastors and elders to presbytery meetings where they will vote yet again on how we measure faithfulness and readiness for ordained ministry. Those same pastors and elders will debate and vote over the merits of adding a new confession to our Constitution; whether or not to trade our present Form of Government section of the Book of Order for a proposed replacement. And we all have been asked to study documents on differing understandings of monogamous, same-gender relationships.
Will we engage such matters with grace, demonstrating to both our first-time visitors and our long-term members, to both our students and our seniors a Christ-inspired way to discuss and discern God’s will in our day? Or will we give them just enough impetus to become another one of the spiritual-but-unaffiliateds?
Anne Rice’s story has gone viral because she has put her finger on a reality that we all need to own. And amend.
— JHH
