trading faith for faith: a critique of reasons for unbelief

A battle has raged for years between Evangelical Christians and those who claim skepticism/agnosticism/atheism on the grounds of critical thinking. The accusations are of garden variety: Christians allegedly aren’t able to think for themselves or keep an open mind. The charges are usually levelled by those who used to be believers, charges lobbed with all the zeal of a fresh convert.

One website I have become familiar with is manned by a former Christian trying to figure out “what it means to be an unbeliever and a skeptic.” I don’t mind that people choose to abandon their faith, that is, it does not offend me. Perhaps it should, but that’s not the point. That said, it does profoundly bother me when they proclaim their new gospel with little intellectual integrity or currency. To be clever or witty is not to be mistaken with being thoughtful or reasonable. It makes for good punditry, but awful, imbalanced rhetoric. (I’m looking at you, Mencken.) In other words, politicians ought not be mistaken for intellectuals; whether one wants to admit it or not, the battle for a dominant particular cultural theistic paradigm is more political posturing than anything else.

Plainly, there is no such thing as open-mindedness. To be open-minded does not say as much about a person as it does contrast from someone else. If someone claims to be open-minded, she says nothing about herself as much as she does those who she assumes are supposedly closed-minded. Ironically, the claim of open-mindedness actually is closed-minded, but under the pretense of relativism, she can claim nothing about herself as much as she can fling an under-the-radar ad hominem at someone else. It’s no different than a politician claiming to be ‘progressive’. What is that, anyway? What constitutes your progress? Without an assumption of something that is either status quo or regressive, the progressive has no leg on which to stand.

The issue here is assumption, particularly epistemic assumption. No one lacks epistemic assumptions, every person has a set of parameters by which he or she understands the world. So, the recently-converted unbeliever claims on the grounds of thinking for himself, presuming that believers do not think for themselves. Or that they have developed critical thinking capacities that preclude religious belief, presuming that religious believers are intellectual neanderthals.

In the interest of full disclosure, it comes as no surprise to many of you that I hold a particular disdain for the subcultural foolishness and accidental hubris of pop Christianity, I lament the general lack of theological development in our churches from clergy and laity alike, stupidity drives me batty and I generally have a low view of humanity. If that were all there was to it, I’d be a pretty miserable person. That said, I am moved by nobility and goodness, extraordinary acts of valor and beauty, celebrate in communities that have found a way to eschew mediocrity spiritual and social and am unafraid to act in sacrificial compassion for those around me. I refuse to be defined by the things that would keep me merely a cynic and nothing more.

It seems that our defiant agnostic friends would, in a great and terrible kicking against the goads, rather that they were simply not those people. Critical thinking, then, is a cop out, if for no other reason than the truth: critical thinking itself cannot and does not automatically render religious faith to be false. Critical thinking is not designed to deny the existence of things, but to affirm, leaving the a-theist, a-gnostic, un-believer in a most undesirable position: if the point of the aforementioned is to carve out a position that refutes supernatural or religious activity, why all the bluster? As has been said elsewhere, if there is nothing, from a purely materialist perspective, why (again, causally, not metaphysically) is there anything at all?

In sum, perhaps the time has come to doubt doubt, a point Michael Polanyi makes in his tacit epistemology. This falsification-run-amok has caused much harm to the intellectual cause. It’s easy to negate, it’s more difficult to affirm. Negation comes in the critique of something already presented, while the task of epistemic affirmation requires the enterprising and courageous mind to construct a case for something. The epistemic affirmation process requires, at its core a + b = c. The negation is a parasite to the affirming host. Rather than building a case for a-theism, the process ought to be a case for something else, for example, nihilism.

The absurdity of arguing against something that, in the mind of the skeptic, doesn’t exist reaches epic proportions. In a post next week on sailerb, I shall demonstrate why the Pfeffergorgles should have nothing to do with northwestern Iowa.

This is not to say that there is no place for critical thinking: clearly, there have been varying levels of crappy arguments for different things, from Xeno’s paradox to the earth-centered universe to the existence of God. The philosophical task involves the critique of substandard arguments, and standard arguments ought to withstand criticism. There is a level of quality control involved here, let there be no doubt. In fact, this work is an exercise in critique. I digress.

If critical thinking isn’t enough, there’s always science. Indeed, our friend also claims that reading science books (“with an open mind”, he proudly proclaims) helped to “[remove] layer after layer of propaganda”. Now, what exactly about science delivered him to salvation? Old-earth and (presumably Darwinian) evolution. This is a circumstantial ad hominem: the inference here is that young-earth creationism and intelligent design are non-negotiable aspects of Christian faith. This is patently false, moreover, they have nothing to do with Christian soteriology. Like much of what one will see coming from people like our unbeliever, it is a red herring.

I would agree that there is far too much happy, thoughtless chugging of the kool-aid in Evangelical church circles; our response to Darwin has been tepid at best. That said, there are two major points that have been deliberately left out of the general conversation. First, the line of thinking that faith and science are at odds with one another is a philosophical fiction, and actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Religion is often the strawman by which those who hold to naturalism (atheism repackaged) create their aire of dominance. Second, the acceptance of evolution does not, by any means, delegitimize Christianity. The head gasket of a car engine does not blow because someone purchases a car.  When it is also considered that a hyper-literal interpretation of Genesis is fundamentally improper, then the idea that evolution ruins faith is almost laughable. I am willing to concede, again, the fact that our churches have by and large abandoned the scientific conversation, but in the same way, science has generally abandoned faith. It’s a two-way street, paved not by science, but by philosophy.

Science is an extension of empiricism. For centuries, it was natural philosophy, a way of understanding the world around us. Today, it lurches toward scientism, the idea that science is the only way to properly interpret reality. There is one glaring problem, though: science, the process of understanding the empirical world, is reliant on epistemic assumptions, if for no other reason than everything can be reduced to one fundamentally unjustifiable premise. Science not only has its limits, it is, by definition, limited. Science cannot affirm or deny the existence of anything beyond the observable world, which makes Dawkins’ task, amongst others, utterly vain.

What can science do? It can provide powerful explanatory ability, help us understand and harness the capabilities of the world and its resources, provide us a means by which we can use technology as a tool to help (or sometimes, harm) humanity. It is reliant upon the observer or participant. It is not designed to provide us with a why, particularly, a why that is there is no why. And, in the process of understanding the world, it, like critical thinking, is designed to affirm truth and refute error. It also has been the means by which scientists for centuries until late have found a place of worship.

Science is always philosophical, but philosophy is seldom, if ever, scientific. That which is more limited has less explanatory power.

Even in these two instances, it is clear that the idea of science and critical thought somehow negates Christian faith is little more than a red herring, a diversion from the affirming task naturalism consistently fails to undertake. Through circumstantial ad hominem and a lot of clever sound and fury, there is little beyond the presentation that would constitute serious reflection on a very serious matter of personal worldview.

I grant that some of these matters cause serious questions for the theist, and we ought to consider them: if evolution has taken place, what do we do with Christian salvation? Is evolution a legitimate way to understand the creation of the world? If so, why is it that so many other fields of science have moved past the 19th century, while the origins of the universe have apparently been settled for nearly 200 years? Or could it be that Darwin’s work was a product of the times, a work fueled with the spirit of the Enlightenment? Could it be that Darwin, who clearly was inspired by/borrowed from Hegel, Lyell and LaPlace, simply applied a philosophical paradigm to the observable world? Even Newton got trumped. Why not Darwin?

This is what we have by the very pen (or, in this instance, fingers) of our friend: “I was an evangelical Christian for over a decade, completely convinced that God was real and Jesus was alive today. I attended Bible college to train to be a pastor. I worked at a Christian church for many years. I have ‘led people to Christ.’ I have left tracts in bathrooms. I have knocked on hundreds of doors asking people to repent and believe in Jesus. . . . I no longer believe in a personal God or that Jesus was born of a virgin, worked miracles, and rose from the dead. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, angels or demons, holy books or prophecy. I don’t believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago, or that God intelligently designed every species.”

What does he believe? As a self-professed “unbeliever” and “skeptic”, he believes that Christian faith is false, and that there is no way to know anything with certainty.

Problem one: faith cannot be false, a faith claim is a belief claim. Truth and falsehood are terms reserved for facts, not beliefs. Problem two: he is certain that nothing can be certain. However, he is certain that critical thinking works and that Darwinian evolution is factual. He is also certain with regard to probability. (Never mind that Pascal was certain about probability, and yet held firmly to his Christian beliefs.) A skeptic, by definition, doubts the possibility of real knowledge. Why science? Why logic? In spinning himself out of one alleged delusion, he has strangled himself with another.

So, what we have is a person who simply no longer wants to be a Christian, and believes he is warranted in doing so. And that would be fine: he is welcome to find his own way. I have no relationship to him and have no way to provide insight or investment into his life. That said, his reasoning for abandoning faith is little more than one watery excuse after another. He is not interested in declaring what actually happened to change his mind, or in building a case for a better worldview. He is only interested in differentiating himself from his subjective cultural experiences in a setting that affirmed young-earth, literal six-day creation and demanded that he and his friends go door-to-door with tracts and win the lost for Jesus. And in his attempts to say “I’m not one of them anymore,” all he has are generalities: Christians don’t think for themselves, believe in science or probability, ask tough questions, can’t imagine the Bible as anything but literally written by God, and are closed-minded anti-intellectual bigots who believe that God literally created the universe in six days about six to ten-thousand years ago. He may as well be campaigning against bleeding heart liberals or tax cuts for the rich.

In all honesty, I pity him; that his experience in Christian faith was so intellectually vapid that he felt the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I have no pity for his reasons, as they are insulting to anyone who is interested in thoughtful discourse. He is entitled to his reasons for walking away, but he ought not presume to insult the intelligence of his audience, many of whom simply accept his conclusions as true. Preach it, brother!

In reality, his new-found faith is no more reasonable than the faith he left. His new faith is, also, quite unreasonable. He just doesn’t realize it yet.

http:// unreasonablefaith [dot] com [slash] about

[This is  major essay submitted for one of my classes last quarter. It earned an A, which gave me great satisfaction. Enjoy. --b.]

***

The traditional model of Christian missions is to go to another culture or people group, set up a church facility and invite people in. This is what has become known as a classic “missions station”, and it has been criticized by experts in comparative religion as well as put into disuse by missionaries themselves for its Westernizing and syncretizing effect in the cultures missionaries have attempted to reach with the Gospel.¹

While not referred to as a missions station, Christian attempts at social justice right here in America in no small part resemble the missions stations of a bygone era in overseas missions. Though well-intentioned endeavors, what has happened is that, like the advent of hybrid Christian-native religious practices in the Caribbean and Latin America as a result of the slave trade, the model has been turned on its head. As homeless shelters, drug rehabilitation centers, food pantries and urban outreach efforts, all of which are noble Christian responses to serious domestic concerns, have become a part of the American cultural landscape, rather than addressing and resolving said concerns, they have become dependent upon them.

Hypothetically, if the problem of drugs in a metropolitan community was solved, a drug rehab facility would have to be closed, thus putting people out of work and money invested, usually by churches and upper-middle class benefactors, in facilities wasted. Or a converted hospital intended to be a one-stop refuge for all sorts of social ills: a homeless shelter, drug treatment facility, workplace training, urban ministry; what is to be of such a complex (and there are several of these around the country) if these problems were solved?

These attempts at social justice, though undertaken with good will and intent, are no different in spirit and scope than the obsolete mission stations of missions efforts past, and I intend to argue that they, rather than address the myriad problems of urban and suburban America, exacerbate them. Further, and more subtly, I intend to argue that our churches have themselves become missions stations, exacerbating a culture in decline from its Judeo-Christian ethical moorings. In brief, as we institutionalize, we minimize.

***

“Chinese is not a language, it is a speech impediment!”

– an unnamed missionary wife from the 1981 biopic Hudson Taylor

***

Missions stations were the primary mode of global evangelism from the medieval period up to the 19^th century. Missionaries would reach their intended destination and build a church, greet the natives and work to compel them to faith in Western Christianity.² It should also be noted that missions efforts were inexorably tied to the expansion of colonial power, with European powers viewing those heathens who were open to the faith as easily subjected to their encroaching respective political, military and cultural empires (Africa). Those who were not so welcoming would simply be trampled and conquered (Latin America) or abandoned (Japan).

If the point of the missions station model of evangelization is to bring the masses to a place in order that they get exposed to the message, it also doubles as a cultural foothold. The missions station is symbolic of the missionary bringing his or her culture to an unfamiliar people, the church is symbolic of a specific value set, for the missionary from that period, the church is a slice of home, with the hope, shared by missionary and country, that it is a seed for growth to come.

It is precisely for this reason that the mission station model was refuted an abandoned: not only were some parts of the world syncretized by the fusion of Christian faith and traditional religious practices,³ but the notion of cultural supremacy created resentment. Feudal Japan was very hostile to the missionary efforts of Catholics after Xavier, as depicted in the powerful historical fiction of Shusaku Endo’s Silence. The crusades left an entire culture hostile to Jews and Christians. Is it then any surprise that the post-Christian West is fundamentally hostile—or worse yet, ambivalent—toward Christians, their message and lifestyle?

The West may have seen the rise of capitalism, monarchies, empires and democracies, as well as Christian faith, but the two are not intertwined: that divorce was made very clear in the Enlightenment. Rulers from Constantine to Hitler tried to corral the power of the church toward their own motives with varying degrees of success. This is especially true in America, where the religious vote has been courted by nominees from local leaders to the presidency. The underlying message of our history is clear: our churches are and have always been American mission stations. As Charles Chaney has frankly said it: “The missionary task is one task.”⁴ The failure to recognize our churches as missions stations does not mean they are not. And if our churches are found to be missions stations, our ministry efforts are guilty by association as well.

***

“We have seen it out here in the West, where beside our rivers and lakes our towns expand; the first petal it puts forth is the Church—the second is the theatre.”

– an unnamed Unitarian minister, as quoted in Life: the Movie by Neal Gabler

***

It is generally common knowledge that for years the church and her adherents led the way in regard to caring for the sick, elderly and poor in America. The social gospel of the late 19^th century emphasized Christian charity, some would argue at the cost of soteriological efficacy.⁵ All across the country, Catholic, Methodist and Baptist hospitals dot the cityscapes, from major metropolitan areas to farming towns on the byways. Nursing homes, homeless shelters, entire quasi-franchised drug rehabilitation centers all were fueled by Christian compassion for the less-fortunate and desperate. These facilities and programs were designed to alleviate suffering, an attempt to cure social ills and better the general welfare of the communities in our nation. And yet here we are, well into the 21^st century, and these problems still persist and are as prevalent as they ever were, possibly worse.

Of course, the sick and poor will always be with us; about this Jesus was certainly correct. That said, if the problems we have set out to address have not been solved or even appear to be improving after an entire century (and counting, both before and after) of Christian charity and attempts at social justice, we must stop looking at how bad the situations have gotten and begin to analyze our methods, ethical standards and theological basis. Given the fact that the presence of churches has not stemmed the tide of cultural postmodernism and the rise of post-Christian America, is it then any wonder why our attempts to make our cities and towns better places have also not solved issues of drug abuse or homelessness?

At this point, I slightly digress to address a potential criticism of my thesis, that these “American missions stations” have actually expounded problems than adequately addressed them. It is true that hospitals and clinics do not make sickness worse (though a day spent in a urgent care waiting room might convince one otherwise), that would be the correlation-causation fallacy. And that would be a valid form of refutation, but for hospitals and clinics, and even then a point for the thesis can be made. There are those who, for whatever reason, will habitually show up in emergency rooms and urgent care centers trying to work the system. And therein lies the problem: it’s a system.

***

“There’s a great soup kitchen in downtown Scranton. Delicious pea soup on Thursdays.”

– Creed Bratton, NBC sitcom The Office

***

The Christian response to real people’s suffering in our midst is to create systems. Systems do not care for people, they fulfill perceived needs and perceived requests are inherently prejudicial statements. Homeless shelters do not solve problems of homelessness because they only treat the immediate symptom and operate with an implicit premise that there is enough of a long-term need that a church or non-profit is justified in making such an investment. Even a Christian homeless shelter will not solve homelessness, if for no more obvious reason than Christian salvation does not come with a home, a soup kitchen does not keep a person full, but rather gives the down and out another option for shelter or food tomorrow. Similarly, inner city ministries are reliant on the premise that inner cities are dangerous, violent places and they also happen to be sinful. Christian drug rehabilitation programs rely on a similar premise as the homeless shelter: if the problem weren’t long-term, there wouldn’t be such a push for investing in facilities, materials and manpower.

Again, we see that these are problem-based solutions; cynically, they are solutions looking for problems. Could it possibly be, then, that our churches operate in a similar way: that they exist to address the perceived sinfulness of the saved and secular? If one historically has come from the other, is there a way to say no with a straight face and sober mind? The reality of the matter is that our ministry efforts are a direct reflection of how we view ourselves, a window into the soul of a faith community. Frankly, if what we are doing is out of some misguided sense of civic duty, then we have already failed to act in Christ-likeness and we have failed ethically. We cannot extend a hand of compassion while our collective head is turned and the other collective hand is pinching shut the collective nose.

As the Great Society government initiatives of the 1960s have proved, soulless disregard for the personal nature of social problems has left in its wake nothing but cultural devastation and dependency. Housing projects destroyed the once-proud fabric of African-American communities, welfare payments took away the incentive for disadvantaged people to find work, the poor got poorer while also losing their (owned) homes for (rented/subsidized) ‘housing’. Governments are not supposed to be in the business of compassion, the terms ‘government’, ‘business’ and ‘compassion’ are prima facie mutually exclusive in the supposedly constitutionally democratic West. And, while the term ‘church’ should invoke the imago Christus, perhaps in actuality, it should be included amongst the aforementioned as well if the Church operates in such a cold, problem-based manner in response to the needs of those the Church has mandated themselves to reach.

Thus another problem arises in relation to these missions stations, an existential Catch-22: do these outreaches exist to address particular needs with the intent of ending them, or do they exist to address a need that will never go away? While a third way also exists (what if there is no endgame in mind?), it ultimately would fall into the second category, the lack of endgame thinking would seem to indicate that there is no end to the various social ills, or else they would strategize in a way that would show they are interested in ending problems instead of unintentionally embracing them.

These organizations, and the people who staff and support them, are not acting out of malice: many of these people are Christians who take their faith seriously. They are simply unaware of the unintended consequences of our outreach efforts, but are all for changing things for the better. If the missions station model has been largely abandoned overseas, why do we still rely on it here in the States, which are admittedly post-Christian? And why has there been so little second thinking on the matter?⁶

In our zeal to serve God and the world with compassion and a message of repentance, in a way that sometimes seems to reflect Machiavelli’s prince more than Christ’s great commission, we have othered the downtrodden. My reasoning is based in a criticism of overseas missions: many times I recall it was commonplace for missionaries to come to churches wearing the garb of the culture they were working with and have slide shows of desperate mothers and children in examples of extreme poverty, only to eventually get to a picture of the missionary, usually in American business casual or a classic minister’s suit, preaching at some kind of crusade or church with a financial appeal at the end. Though they have definitive Christian foundations established and have their own native missions efforts, America still is eager to send missionaries to South America and Africa. During the Cold War, it was thrilling to hear about Bible smuggling operations past the Iron Curtain, underground church meetings and escaping the police. A similar excitement exists today with missions efforts into the so-called 10/40 window.

I’m afraid that we supported these missionaries because they offered a kind of sex appeal: these are exotic people with exotic traditions, if for no other reason than they are merely different than the Scandanavian American nuclear family sitting in a church in the upper Midwest, transfixed by the stories of how badly these people need the gospel we’re going to take to them. And the reasons for reaching these people are not entirely pure, when 1) we have already othered them; and 2) Evangelical mission is heavily guided primarily by eschatology rather than compassion: “…And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”⁷ What, then, is the reason for domestic social justice ministry? Genuine compassion, a desire to see things change or perhaps is it white guilt? Perhaps it is, to varying degrees, all of them.

Though the culture has dramatically shifted away from Judeo-Christian moorings, our strategies have not; in so doing, there has been a dual syncretism taking place: these ministries accept the fact that they will not make things better and simply keep operating for the sake of operating, and those who are recipients of these outreaches always have options that keep them in a cycle of dependency. Neither option is very palatable, but very much rooted to the reality of the situation.

The aforementioned one-stop urban missions stations that began to spring up in the 1990s came from a megachurch model that saw its height of popularity in the late 80s and early 90s. Such an idea is reminiscent of Oral Roberts’ failed City of Faith complex, itself an unorthodox syncretism of faith healing and medical practice that ended in embarrassing fashion in 1989. A one-stop urban missions station developed in a former hospital in Los Angeles was the brainchild of an charismatic megachurch in Phoenix, which linked the missions effort to the church they were planting in the same area. The model was so blatantly similar that the pastor’s son became the pastor and director of the LA enterprise. A similar effort was started in New York by the same people who launched LA, and the idea began to grow.

Sensing the excitement, a denominational branch in Wisconsin was hoping for a similar effort in Milwaukee. A Milwaukee-area health care provider finally donated an old hospital complex in 2000, and ambitious churches and denominational leaders rallied behind what some bragged would be Milwaukee’s own version of the LA operation. Nine years later, the dilapidated complex sits largely vacant, some of it parceled off to developers, a fraction of it actually used for ministry and efforts to keep it alive have nearly caused a financial implosion for the denominational chapter. More tellingly, the neighborhood where this complex is has not been rejuvenated in the least by their presence; Milwaukee’s most dangerous years, including being in the running for being the “murder capital” of the US, were during the nine years between the opening of the complex and today. They may not have contributed to making things worse, but clearly, things are not getting better in the central city. With or without them, Milwaukee, a once-proud city with a great sense of tradition, continues to rot with few silver linings around the myriad dark clouds.

The same denomination is the parent of a major Christian drug rehabilitation program, which proudly cites an 86% long-term success rate.⁸ The program is a fusion of drug rehab, Christian discipleship and personal renovation, with facilities and programs all around the world. Its advent was the subject of a compelling, best-selling book in the early 1960s and is a major recipient of donations and denominational manpower. After over 50 years of existence, a major US initiative to crack down on the drug trade and thousands upon thousands of dollars in donations, rehabilitation ministry to drug addicts is as needed as ever. It is true that they were the benefactors of failed domestic policy, they have also failed to resolve one of the most troubling domestic problems America faces.

***

“For the poor you will always have with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me.”

– Mark 14.7 [ESV]

***

In the zeal of wanting to improve our communities, Christians have devoted countless hours and an enormous amount of money and manpower in the attempt to cure some of the social ills that have plagued our culture for seemingly as long as America has been a country. Some efforts predate the nation, others came from the grassroots of the American churches and revivals. While we ought to admire the efforts of those who have tried to make the world a better place, in the same manner, we ought to face the sobering reality that we not only have not solved these problems, but have accidentally perpetuated them by creating institutions and programs that only address these issues as extensions of sin.

In conclusion, and to be fair, these efforts are not the only ones worthy of criticism: first, no one person or organization has adequately tackled issues of homelessness or drug addiction. One must, when considering the gravity of the matter, consider whether or not Jesus was right when he suggested that these problems may never go away. How seriously do we take his advice? It seems to be that the best remedy for overcoming such problems lies within the will of those who are homeless or addicted. Shelters can be exploited and rehab can quickly turn into relapse, but the determined person, surrounded by a supportive community can overcome.

Second, these Christian social justice enterprises are a direct mirror image of the Church’s utter inability to grant others the grace of humanity needed to be made whole. As the missions stations of old failed to adequately bring the message of Christ to cultures, the American missions stations which dot the landscape from one coast to the other—that is, our churches—have a myopic, sin-oriented perspective that permeates everything we do, giving off a sense of persona non grata to anyone who is different than us. Like the religious leaders of antiquity, Evangelicals have a difficult time seeing people for their inherent value but for their sin status. A properly Christian ethic addresses those who are poor or afflicted with compassion, while flatly refusing to other those who may not be ‘one of us’. The fusion of proselytizing with charitable work has left these well-intentioned organizations insufficient in regard to both: if our churches cannot adequately convey the gospel to the surrounding culture, what gives us any hope that our social justice efforts will adequately address the serious needs of our suffering neighbors?

In short, perhaps we, the Christians, are the ones who need to be rehabilitated.

1Guenther, p. 457

2A good example of this is found in Hovland, p. 144

3Some would argue that the early patron saints were, in fact, a syncretism of Christian faith and pre-Christian European gods.

4Chaney, p. 52

5The social gospel movement’s advent during the same time period as the holiness movement’s tent revival meetings and healing crusades is, in all likelihood, not mere coincidence.

6Multiple searches for criticism of urban ministry efforts or missions stations models of Christian evangelization, over multiple academic and periodical databases, yielded nothing that directly relates to this matter. The auxiliary material is included in the bibliography and has influenced this work, as noted elsewhere, but to this specific concern, the voices are eerily quiet.

7ESV

8While they do good work, the 86% statistic only tells so much: it neglects those who are dismissed or withdraw from the program, and it, like the 50% divorce rate tossed about several years ago in churches, comes from a 1975 government study. (Citation withheld to protect the organization.)

My friend and former pastor found these words of mine good enough to repost after I commented on his post on existential anxiety, aka, my wheelhouse. So I figured I ought to put them out here, too, for all five or six of you to read.

It’s almost as if you were begging me to comment! You had me at exist, friend.

What you’re saying is spot on, but I would add one key caveat: the doing and being dichotomy can be dangerous even for the sincere believer. Many, many Christians suffer from existential anxiety because they feel as though they need to be an active (or hyperactive) part of the church machine, involved in everything, part of anything, anything to quell those same existential anxieties.

And, to our discredit and convicting shame, we’ve for a time catered to fulfilling the superficial anxieties rather than addressing the serious existential concern of what it means to be the people governed by the resurrection. This issue of which you speak–and speak rightly–is not a sin problem as much as it is a human problem. To be a person of the resurrection is to be identified with the living Christ and the God who is necessary and sufficient. The subject without a clause is the subject to which we ought to be subject.

To be a believer is not to be forgiven or to have been delivered from the past; it is, indeed, to be an entirely new creation. The moment it becomes us versus them in any way (and it is too easily and subtly reduced to such bigotry) is the moment it ceases to be truly Christian and, ironically, exemplifies the type of existential anxieties that plague the nameless soul.

OK, I’m done now.