As Stephen Bullivant has pointed out in his book Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America, for every one convert the church makes we lose five "Nonverts." A Nonvert is a person who was raised in a religious tradition but who now identifies as a None, as in "no religious preference." That is to say, a Nonvert is a person who has left the faith.
Many years ago, growing up in the Arkansas Ozarks, I used to hear people say "You can't talk your way out of what you behaved your way into" and "You can't give what you ain't got no more than you can come back from somewhere you ain't never been".
I believe our words can play a part in religionless Christianity if they are not to convert, but to raise up the morale of our neighbor by expressing confidence in their goodness. I think that the church in focusing on the importance of grace has made the mistake of downplaying the goodness of the human being...we can speak of people's goodness without weakening the power of grace...in fact, acknowledging another's goodness is a message of grace.
I’ve been thinking a lot along these lines. One of my conclusions is that Evangelical Protestants have been promoting a kind of “easy believeism,” that being a Christian is really about believing in Jesus and thus being saved. This completely ignores that being a Christian is about transformation into becoming like Christ, who happened to end up on a cross. I’ve pointed out to people that each and every text in the NT that talks about the judgement we will all face says quite clearly that it is based on our works, not our faith. The goal is transformation, being disciples of Christ.
Now, on the other side, Mainline Protestants have been pushing this idea of social engagement and transformation for decades, but have, perhaps, largely missed the other side of the equation, and failed to a “re-enchant” their people with a vision of Christ that captivates their faith and imagination. The engagement we need is of a community that truly follows Christ and is not afraid to identify him as their Lord.
I suppose this is similar to Hunter’s ‘To change the world’. But there it’s easier to agree with the resolution to our cultural mandate: “Can we change the world? Well, who knows? Probably not. But we can perhaps, just perhaps, make it a little better by living godly lives as aliens and strangers in it.”
But here we are asking how to reverse a trend of ‘nonverts’, a trend ostensibly caused by moral corruption and overzealous politics. I don’t buy it. For one the same trend exist in places without the mega church scandals or crazy politics. Also, it seems too fragile that political zeal or sex scandals invalidate the good news of Christianity. Do Christians not sin? Maybe just not the real ones. Or certainly not their leaders.
Not to invalid that damage of sin, but how did we become so brittle? And political view, why can’t people have strong political views? Is this really a scandal to our witness?
‘Deeds that interpret themselves’ has always been a reality. From any corner of any group and across the full spectrum, it is always these actions of faithfulness that really matter. Everyone knows this. But is this just rhetoric to muzzle a political voice?
I can agree and admit that I don’t care for the weird and wild politics of (especially Christians) on the right and the left. I can disagree others for all sorts of philosophical/theological reasons. But I’d rather see those debates happen out in the open to sharpen one another rather than to suggest we’ve lost the moral ground to speak. [perhaps what we've lost is the language and the forum for real discussions]
It just seems like a rule unevenly applied and a false either/or. It’s not just Christianity failing against some neutral background of unbelief. There are other gospels that are at work witnessing. People are being saved from new declensions. So, why is it that Christianity doesn’t make a lick of sense to most modern people? The examples cited here seem like mere excuses.
I see people leaving the church as a sign of their disenchantment. Yes, we need an action-oriented witness which sounds much like love. We need words as well as long as they are free from dogma. Our actions and our words must be religionless. The larger problem in my view is that it is still important that these words and actions flow from a community and not only from an individual. I see smaller communities - families, small networks of friends, etc. - being the primary context for this work.
And yet people are heading to traditional Catholicism and Orthodoxy. A friend said at her parish the confessional line extended out into the street. The Orthodox Church is growing by leaps and bounds.
First, the Church loses its moral authority when it preaches one thing but does the other. For example, the Church preaches moral purity yet is involved in sexual scandals, including horrific abuse. Second, the Church loses its moral authority among some Nonverts when it preaches one thing and does that thing. For example, some churches preach the right of Israel to claim Palestine, and they support Israel's brutal attack on Gazans. As another example, some churches preach that LGBTQIA+2 people are sinful, and they shut them out. So. Perhaps both words and deeds by some churches are necessary to demonstrate to other churches when certain preaching and deeds are contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Also, the "silent righteous action" of churches tends to go unnoticed by many Nonverts, especially when it is overshadowed by loud self-righteous words and action. Nonverts need to hear churches condemn the preaching and the deeds of hate and violence, ones that increase the suffering of the poor and the vulnerable. But the Church must put its house in order before it can expect any Nonverts to return. The bigger concern might be how many Nonverts have not only left the faith but have become atheists, rejecting the reality of God altogether.
Many years ago, growing up in the Arkansas Ozarks, I used to hear people say "You can't talk your way out of what you behaved your way into" and "You can't give what you ain't got no more than you can come back from somewhere you ain't never been".
I believe our words can play a part in religionless Christianity if they are not to convert, but to raise up the morale of our neighbor by expressing confidence in their goodness. I think that the church in focusing on the importance of grace has made the mistake of downplaying the goodness of the human being...we can speak of people's goodness without weakening the power of grace...in fact, acknowledging another's goodness is a message of grace.
I sometimes think it is not just our deeds, what we do. But, also what we don’t and won’t do.
I’ve been thinking a lot along these lines. One of my conclusions is that Evangelical Protestants have been promoting a kind of “easy believeism,” that being a Christian is really about believing in Jesus and thus being saved. This completely ignores that being a Christian is about transformation into becoming like Christ, who happened to end up on a cross. I’ve pointed out to people that each and every text in the NT that talks about the judgement we will all face says quite clearly that it is based on our works, not our faith. The goal is transformation, being disciples of Christ.
Now, on the other side, Mainline Protestants have been pushing this idea of social engagement and transformation for decades, but have, perhaps, largely missed the other side of the equation, and failed to a “re-enchant” their people with a vision of Christ that captivates their faith and imagination. The engagement we need is of a community that truly follows Christ and is not afraid to identify him as their Lord.
I suppose this is similar to Hunter’s ‘To change the world’. But there it’s easier to agree with the resolution to our cultural mandate: “Can we change the world? Well, who knows? Probably not. But we can perhaps, just perhaps, make it a little better by living godly lives as aliens and strangers in it.”
But here we are asking how to reverse a trend of ‘nonverts’, a trend ostensibly caused by moral corruption and overzealous politics. I don’t buy it. For one the same trend exist in places without the mega church scandals or crazy politics. Also, it seems too fragile that political zeal or sex scandals invalidate the good news of Christianity. Do Christians not sin? Maybe just not the real ones. Or certainly not their leaders.
Not to invalid that damage of sin, but how did we become so brittle? And political view, why can’t people have strong political views? Is this really a scandal to our witness?
‘Deeds that interpret themselves’ has always been a reality. From any corner of any group and across the full spectrum, it is always these actions of faithfulness that really matter. Everyone knows this. But is this just rhetoric to muzzle a political voice?
I can agree and admit that I don’t care for the weird and wild politics of (especially Christians) on the right and the left. I can disagree others for all sorts of philosophical/theological reasons. But I’d rather see those debates happen out in the open to sharpen one another rather than to suggest we’ve lost the moral ground to speak. [perhaps what we've lost is the language and the forum for real discussions]
It just seems like a rule unevenly applied and a false either/or. It’s not just Christianity failing against some neutral background of unbelief. There are other gospels that are at work witnessing. People are being saved from new declensions. So, why is it that Christianity doesn’t make a lick of sense to most modern people? The examples cited here seem like mere excuses.
I see people leaving the church as a sign of their disenchantment. Yes, we need an action-oriented witness which sounds much like love. We need words as well as long as they are free from dogma. Our actions and our words must be religionless. The larger problem in my view is that it is still important that these words and actions flow from a community and not only from an individual. I see smaller communities - families, small networks of friends, etc. - being the primary context for this work.
And yet people are heading to traditional Catholicism and Orthodoxy. A friend said at her parish the confessional line extended out into the street. The Orthodox Church is growing by leaps and bounds.
I see two issues, possibly three:
First, the Church loses its moral authority when it preaches one thing but does the other. For example, the Church preaches moral purity yet is involved in sexual scandals, including horrific abuse. Second, the Church loses its moral authority among some Nonverts when it preaches one thing and does that thing. For example, some churches preach the right of Israel to claim Palestine, and they support Israel's brutal attack on Gazans. As another example, some churches preach that LGBTQIA+2 people are sinful, and they shut them out. So. Perhaps both words and deeds by some churches are necessary to demonstrate to other churches when certain preaching and deeds are contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Also, the "silent righteous action" of churches tends to go unnoticed by many Nonverts, especially when it is overshadowed by loud self-righteous words and action. Nonverts need to hear churches condemn the preaching and the deeds of hate and violence, ones that increase the suffering of the poor and the vulnerable. But the Church must put its house in order before it can expect any Nonverts to return. The bigger concern might be how many Nonverts have not only left the faith but have become atheists, rejecting the reality of God altogether.