In reflecting on Putnam and Campbell’s American Grace, Rod Dreher wonders if—indeed, worries that—our (relatively) newfound tolerance of religious diversity doesn’t come at too high a price:
The good news is that we Americans of different faith traditions get along remarkably well, not by casting aside religion, but by learning how to be tolerant even as we remain religiously engaged.
The bad news is that achieving religious comity has come at the price of religious particularity and theological competence. That is, we may still consider ourselves devoted to our faith, but increasingly, we don’t know what our professed faith teaches, and we don’t appreciate why that sort of thing is important in the first place.
I’ve certainly found many examples of this theological fuzziness, not to say ignorance, among my students and in various churches I have attended. Following sociologist Christian Smith, Dreher suggests there has been a remarkable breakdown in the religious education of our youth.
Any thoughts on the causes of this breakdown?
I have a few. Feel free to add or subtract.
(1) There’s the busyness of our lives, both for parents and kids, even in intact families. The demands of school and secular activities can squeeze out any serious efforts at religious education. Sunday School and youth groups aren’t adequate substitutes for serious engagement with creeds and catechisms. (Even the relatively serious denominations in which I’ve spent the past 10-15 years can’t seem to produce demanding and engaging Sunday School curricula for young people.)
(2) The concern about filling the pews can–to be clear, “can” does not mean “must”–produce worship services and religious music that aren’t terribly sophisticated theologically. I had one pastor who used to say of the seeker-friendly churches in our denomination that our church’s traditional worship service was for those who had found what they had been seeking.
(3) There’s potentially a slippery slope to non-creedal forms of Protestantism. If there’s a priesthood of believers and everyone is supposed to rely on scripture only, and ultimately on his or her own interpretation of scripture only, then there’s a real danger that the passions and pressures of the day, as well as the prevailing popular culture, will find their way into the hearts and minds of those who continue to think of themselves as serious believers. Community and authority can be barriers against this assimilation, protecting the garden of the church against the wilderness of the world. But they’re hard to maintain against the individualism inherent in non-creedal Protestantism.
There’s much else in this remarkably good essay, so please read the whole thing.
November 29th, 2010 | 11:39 am
I have been given a gift of great value – a collection of First Things magazines dating from 1991. Among the many, many articles that I will read and re-read, one caught my attention and contained a sentence that seems pertinent to this post. It is “The Things That Remain: An Episcopalian’s Credo” by Dr. Paul Zahl, which appeared in the February, 1991, issue. I highly recommend it.
Dr. Zahl, in referring to the “crisis of clergy deployment in the Episcopal Church. … too many clergy for a shrinking number of parishes” offers an analysis of the “deeper problem” as he saw it: “The root problem is an erosion of confidence in God to renew the Church.”
This point – loss of confidence, even dismissal of, God’s power through the Holy Spirit and, in addition, over-confidence in human agency – is most urgently relevant to the matters discussed in the Rod Dreher article.
November 29th, 2010 | 1:12 pm
[...] Mere Religiosity [...]
November 29th, 2010 | 3:26 pm
It strikes me that there is a pervasive assumption that if anyone strongly believes something to be the truth, that means he or she cannot respect those who do not believe the same thing. And lack of respect, it is then further assumed, will lead to civil strife and violence. This is translated to mean that we ought not to adhere to creeds — since creedal statements lead to dissention. The response, therefore, to a religiously plural society is for many religious leaders to assume that they must not teach what their faith has traditionally believed. Hence the theologically illiterate. The flaw in all this is that in the result, intolerance still breaks out, although now it is directed against those of any belief who actually define, state and adhere to those beliefs. The rational response would have been to teach our citizenry that those who believe differently are entitled to do so and that our disagreement with their beliefs need not be a source of fear, violence, contempt or hatred. This seems, however, to be a teaching that our political and often our religious leaders think is not worth trying.
November 29th, 2010 | 3:36 pm
Consider these two statements from John Locke’s A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION:
“Toleration…[is] the chief characteristical mark of the true church.”
“[e]very one is orthodox to himself.”
I’m tempted to argue that our “mere religiosity” represents the triumph of Locke’s project.
November 29th, 2010 | 4:19 pm
So, is Rod’s silencing by Templeton over? I mean, isn’t this the first thing he’s published since August?
November 29th, 2010 | 4:54 pm
In evangelical churches, I think one primary contributor to this “theological fuzziness” is the strong emphasis on small groups/community groups. We are being highly encouraged to study Scripture in small gatherings which, let’s be honest, often become more fellowship groups (“Let’s catch up on the week!”) than study groups (“Let’s go in-depth in Scripture.”). And in the churches that encourage this practice (which I certainly don’t think is all bad), there is often very little accountability for these groups. So, one often does not know what is being studied (if it’s even the Bible at all, or just an Osteen/Meyer-type book), or how things are being taught, or whether any type of study is actually taking place at all.
We’ve been going through such a situation in my own largish suburban evangelical church. We hear anecdotally that a lot of rather shallow “learning” is taking place in some of these community groups, and then the staff wonders why our pews seem to be so filled with people lacking even basic theological understanding.
In fact, it’s becoming so troubling that some of us are trying to encourage a move back to a more catechetical, standardized learning style, which, only a few years ago, would have been completely verboten in many evangelical circles, for fear of appearing too “catholic.” (Like being similar to the Catholics is a bad thing.)
November 29th, 2010 | 4:59 pm
Having taught both a Sunday School class and a more heavy confirmation (i.e. catechism and creed) class for about 15 years here and there, I’ve got a couple of pet (i.e. crackpot) theories:
1) The prioritization of time is definitely one. This is just not a priority for most parents, and the kids know it.
2) The timing of instruction no longer coincides with real responsibility and authority being granted. You can remain sheltered in real consequences until you are 26 today. That is not healthy for a religious imagination.
3) You can’t neglect the spiritual aspect that you can’t argue someone into faith. The gospel is like a rainstorm. It pours for a little while and moves on, and sociological reasons for being church-ed are coming to an end.
November 29th, 2010 | 5:32 pm
Former Wellesley President Nannerl Kohane in a commencement address mentioned “tolerance with principle” as a worthy goal. Tolerance of anything and everything would lead to loss of personality.
Did John Locke mean to refer to the virtue of “charity toward all” while holding fast to one’s principles as a mark of belonging to the true church – or was he advocating erasure of personal definition in favor of a herd mentality?
November 30th, 2010 | 4:49 am
Puts me in mind of Ronald Knox’s description of Canon Streeter:-
“For he, discerning with nice arguings
‘Twixt non-essential and essential Things,
Himself believing, could no reason see
Why any other should believe, but he.
(Himself believing, as believing went
In that wild Heyday of th’ Establishment,
When, on his Throne at Lambeth, Solomon
Uneasy murmur’d, “Something must be done,”
When suave Politeness, tempering bigot Zeal,
Corrected, “I believe,” to” One does feel.”)
He wish’d the Bilge away, yet did not seek
To man the Pumps, or plug the treach’rous Leak:
Would let into our Ark the veriest Crow,
That had the measliest Olive-branch to show.
Who has not known how pleasant ’tis to sigh,
“Others, thank God, are less correct: than I “? ”
And that was written in 1913!
Small wonder that Knox pined for the days:-
“When Saints were more accounted of than Soap
And men, in happy Blindness, serv’d the Pope”
November 30th, 2010 | 7:31 pm
I have a suspicion from some years in the ambit of mainline protestantism that theological education in seminaries is and has been for many decades in the hands of seminary faculty engaged in fruitless intellectual gamesmanship (anagous to the work of literary critics) or exercise (analogous to people who do crossword puzzles). The seminaries screen out people who have a vocation (they cause trouble) in favor of people who want to ‘do ministry’ but are largely indifferent to the proper object of that ministry. The language of the faith is merely an idiom for people who want to spend their lives as salaried den mothers (with a side order of organizing sing-alongs and social gatherings and superintending a piece of property). The challenge of living according fixed moral and ethical norms, of reflection on the metaphysical, and of ascetical practice is wholly alien to the psychology of these people.
December 2nd, 2010 | 3:40 am
I’m one of these very poorly catechized Catholics myself. I think Mark B’s comment above is dead on in explaining how this happened for me, especially #2 (timing of religious education not coinciding with being given any real responsibility in society). I’m in my early 30s, and it’s only in the last few years that I’ve become more interested in returning to the Church. I’m still looking for a Father Maloney-like priest to help me with this.
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