The State of Christianity

I am adding Liberty spikes to a bust of a bald eagle I have made out of blue Play Dough. Ryan is building a wall of blocks with a toddler next to him. On the perilous edges of the tower the bearded man and child place figurines of farm animals, as one would expect from a block tower.

This is how it goes at Cheeky Chimps, the once-a-week toddler program at Bourne Methodist Church. While Ryan has his toddler, I've wound up hanging out with Jacob, another toddler, and chatting with his mom, Sally. We talk about direct distribution business models, then about organic skin care, both of which make up her business. Jacob is exuberant, hardly paying attention, and is deftly forcing the pure red and purple Play Doughs together to form an inseperable hybrid.

Sally asks if I am religious, which is a question I never like. I would like to say that I have experienced something of the grace of God through Christ, and as such my mind is no longer my prison, I can think very far out of the box, knowing that nowhere I can go, even to Sheol, will I be away from God. I would like to say that, because of my faith, I will protest oppression but yet strive to love both the oppressed and oppressors like a good radical. Because of my faith, there is no one beyond capacity of being valued. Instead, for simplicity's sake, I just say yes.

I am used to the look she gives me. As a Religious Studies major in college, "the look" covered everything within the spectrum: one person giving "the look" says "he's a hardnose conservative who shirks education for blind faith, and anything he writes must be lame and unrelatable to the masses"; another person's "the look" says, "he's a bleeding heart liberal, one of those academic types, crushing traditional values, and he probably believes in evolution! (which I do)" It's often a look of suspicion and, in creative writing, music, and Religious Studies communities, betrayal.

Yet Sally's look is different and more drastic: it says, "In spite of our conversation, by your answer, I'm honestly pretty certain we no longer have anything in common."

And so it goes in this country, especially among the twenty- and thirtysomethings. This is not to say that England is losing faith, in fact, the Church is growing in some great, real ways in London; rather, I feared that the problem would be with the churches, and that culture was waiting to see a church that looked like Christ. I believe that is the case in the U.S., where so many have been judged, discouraged in education (especially science), or manipulated by the rise of fundamentalism. Furthermore, many of us in the States abandon our churches when we realize that the Church is supposed to be a loving and progressive voice in the world, as Jesus was in his time; if all we know of Church is that our local church isn't being these things, then we leave, rather than stay blind and inactive. Yet, in all of these disaffected Americans, there is usually a religious basis, often of an Abrahamic religion, or at least a platform of personal spirituality with which to have dialogue and wax philosphically about.

Yet here it is as if God is taboo, especially so the mention of Jesus. I'm told it's the two World Wars that have led to this, that so much death in such close historical proximity has created a culture of unbelief. Yet what I don't understand is that everyone is spiritual--anyone who has ever loved or strived for something has used their spirituality, even if they didn't realize it. In fact, the only option to avoid all spirituality is to be nihilistic, and even nihilists have to care about something or enjoy life at some point and, hence, leave their nihilism behind.

All that said, the congregations here are lovely. They are welcome, often elderly, but full of energy, jokes, and not a few jokingly flirtatious old ladies. But how do we bring young people in when even the mention of spirituality flips the light switch off? How do we let moms of toddlers know why we are serving them if telling them about the Church's mission may make them feel disrespected?

I have no answer, but God is good.