Dark Times as Colonialism Dies

Yesterday I listened to an interview on the CBC with author Alexandra Fuller who was brought up by white and English parents in Rhodesia, which has since become Zimbabwe.

Her candour in describing systemic racism and white supremacy as a matter of course was really astonishing. However, in the midst of the interview, she said a casual throwaway line that reverberated in my brain for the last twenty-four hours. She said, "These were the last days of colonial rule, and in the end times, the people hold on the hardest."

It was as if a light bulb went off in my thinking about the modern world.

In the last days of a system - instead of accepting the coming change and working to move carefully and harmoniously into the new world order, we fight tooth and nail against said change and seek to hold ever more tightly to the past.

Wow.

First off, the whole populist political shift in the world all of a sudden makes sense. We know, intuitively, that these are the last days of capitalism and our current economic system. We know that these are the last days of nationalism and independence. We see through travel, global economies, and transnational corporations that, well, everything is changing and what will be remains to be seen.

When I first started to become interested in the church, in religion and the like - I was still in the tail end of the era when we thought everything was set in stone. The '80s were a rich and heady time when everything was working. Systems and institutions had power. Racism and Sexism were being addressed. Life looked good for a few years there before it inevitably fell hard.

As the world tilts on its axis, we are finding ourselves deeper and deeper into shifts where we do not see the outcome. Whether we are talking the move from a goods-based to an information-based society, whether we are talking about the divide and class structures, or whether we are speaking of the climate disaster that will destroy most of what is left - things are changing and the final form of our politics, economy, and even global map seems unwritten.

But then it clicked in terms of church.

We are dying faster than most.

Or, rather, becoming irrelevant in the new system.

At our full power, the church controlled the medical, educational, and perhaps even the political realm. Now we have trouble influencing the crosswalk guard.

(see, this is where it clicked for me - I have for a decade been questioning how the mainline, progressive, left-wing United Church is attracting clergy, leaders, and even congregants who are right-leaning and traditionalist - that simply is not our jam, or was not our jam when I decided to play with the band) 

It only makes sense that what we see in our dying congregation is the last gasp of holding on to something of the past. Ministers are becoming more authoritarian and old fashioned. People are actually talking about heresy and fundamentals and things that would have been laughed out of an annual meeting not that many years ago. Our church who once fought the government for inclusion of LBGQT++ issues now turns inward and fights about the nature of biblical inerrancy or Christological significance.

I have been riding along, wondering who cares, and why, and how we got so off track from the socialist hippy message of loving everyone and sharing that Jesus taught us in kindergarten.

And it really is just fear. It really is just a lack of acceptance that those days are over. It is the hardcore believers in the institution and in the Christian Kingdom refusing to let go and say this is no longer Rhodesia and controlled by the Whites, it is now Zimbabwe and open to everyone getting their say.

(I realize it might not be the best example because Zimbabwe and most of the post-colonial countries had a hard go of it too - but I hope you get the meaning behind the example - the "church" we grew up in is not coming back...)

I think that we are seeing staunch belief in old fashioned religious ways of thinking because we are witnessing the fear of death. And the reality that death leads to resurrection is not good enough for most, because we cannot control the form of resurrection.

What will "faith" look like on the other side of this period of upheaval and change? We cannot know. But it too, like global boundaries, politics, and economic systems, will change. The change will be rapid and continue to be painful.

It could be easier if we let go.

But I admit it is always scary when you need to let go in order to fall into the unknown. It is hard to go with the flow and live in the moment and realize you cannot control tomorrow...

Still... we should try

Daisies Pushing Through

Today is 9/11. The first 9/11 I have been in full-time ministry for quite some time.

The original 9/11 was a bit of a problem for me. See, I was a young Turk, second pastoral charge, South Shore Suburban Montreal, meteoric career path, doing graduate studies, and I had a lot of answers.

I also had a parishioner, who worked in the Twin Towers, who had married the love of her life that summer. A Jewish guy from New York who seemed really cool and they seemed perfect together.

They died. Horrifically. Their death certificates said they were murdered. I sat with the family for weeks while they waited for news. More weeks while they confronted the inevitable. Then we set down to plan the largest funeral of my life.

Two years before this the worst funeral I did was for a young teenager, whose friends had stolen his clothes while he was in the river swimming with them. He was too embarrassed to get out, and they watched him drown.

9/11 was when I stopped believing in God.

9/11 was when I became an A/Theist

I gave up graduate school. I left Quebec. I left my wife. I left the church. Eventually.

Nothing was ever the same after that because I knew I was a fraud. I was a fraud because I told people that God loved them, that God had a plan, that History unfolded according to some predetermined but ultimately glorious outcome.

That outcome, it turns out, is hatred and death.

And God? God does nothing.

I am a master theologian. I studied ethics with Gregory Baum, Systematics with Doug Hall, Reformation History with Ed Furcha. If I had of written my Theses I would have ended up with five university degrees in Systematic Theology and Religious Studies instead of the three I have now.

And in one fell swoop, thousands of years of the greatest thought on the nature and essence of God meant nothing to me. My experience. My feelings. My mind told me there was no old man in the clouds who could make things better. If there was, he would.

18 years later and I am back in the pulpit.

And I believe in God.

And I am an Athiest.

But it took me a long time, a lot of reading, and a lot of feeling to put Humpty back together again.

Atheism got a lot of press for a while with the Christopher Hutchins of the world, and then the Greta Vosper debacle in the United Church of Canada. I read all that too.

I know that most people should have looked this up before if they follow any of this stuff - but Atheism does not mean "does not believe in God" it means "against theism"

And theism is a belief in the existence of one God, as the creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures.

Which is nonsense. There is no old man in the sky deciding who lives and dies. That idea is just untenable. And causes nothing but problems. For example, if we pray hard enough to our god, then he will listen and vanquish our enemies. Or I am cured of my cancer because God loves me. But Billy over there dies from the same surgery because of... what? God hates him?

We are a people of stories - that is what defines us - and throughout history, we have told stories where God is on our side, because it makes us feel better, and because we wanted something.

We created God in our image because it was the best that we could do. But we have had thousands of years of history and development and thought and grace and love and hate and it should have taught us how to move past this.

To me God is the collective spirit of Good in the universe, perhaps drawn from the living organic creatures in the same way we name Gaia the collective spirit of or energy from the planet.

People said of Greta Vosper, how can an atheist remain a minister. Well, the simple answer is that theism is a small part of our understanding of what God is or could be, and not subscribing to theism does not mean that one does not subscribe to the idea of divinity, of God(s), of the spiritual, or the magical.

So I am back in full time because, I guess, the thing of it is, I still believe in the idea of goodness and that we need to actively work at being good, helping each other to love, and spreading the message of hope.

I have a social media presence. I just need to turn on my computer to feel bad about the world. But we still have a role to play by being followers of Jesus, who basically wanted us to enjoy life and love abundantly.

That is what 9/11 did to me. It made me into the person Jesus would have loved to drink with.

Face(book)ing Depression

Everyone has their triggers. Everyone has something that annoys them.

It has been a year now since the Journal of Social and Clinical  Psychology published a study saying that Facebook leads to depression. Other studies have come to a similar conclusion and it may not be limited to Facebook as a platform.

In my way of seeing it, there could be many reasons for this link. First off social media presents a lot of the world in an easily digestible form. Therefore I end up knowing and hearing all too often that the polar ice is melting, whale carcasses are washing up, mass murder is going on, death, destruction etc... All of the things that would normally depress us are amplified. Then there is the whole comparative factor where I get to see my contemporaries who are enjoying their hot tubs and SeaDoos while I am trying to decide if I can afford to get a coffee at Tim's this morning.

Last but not least there is the way that it somehow makes us lose our faith in humanity. I blame this mostly on the comments section. It is as if we gave all the crazies who used to write letters to the editor (and get weeded out) free reign to instantly publish their diatribe to an audience of millions. Thus anti-vaxxers and climate emergency deniers, evolution protesters and, well, mean people, seem to be getting a louder and louder voice. 

I have my own problem that combines the two of these things. Triggers, depression, and "fake news."

It all started when I went to seminary yet continued my unabashed love of storytelling and movies. I watched a lot of movies. There are religious people in a lot of movies. They are by and large Catholics. I remember saying to anyone and everyone who listened that this was a pretty one-sided view of the church and clergy.

Then the Millenium brought to the forefront the wackadoodles, which is the official term, who thought that the world was ending.

But now... Now... I cannot turn to Facebook and scroll without seeing religion portrayed as some abomination. Whether it is people talking about Trump and therefore the conservative right-wing church in the states, or anti LGBQT+ propaganda, or, well, anything.

We have created a world where the wackadoodles get top billing and the moderates or liberals are left shaking their heads.

The thing is, I am depressed because this is becoming the way most people understand the church. Understand me. And I more than ever think we need the opposite.

I know I am over-educated, I know I am liberal and left-wing, but seriously... how can anyone believe some of the rhetoric of these people who have stolen Christianity and made it so narrow and hateful?

Jesus and his followers were exactly like me. left-wing, lovey-dovey, radical protestors who talked about the hippy ideals of love, peace, and understanding. That is not an opinion, that is not a guess, it is historically and accurately portrayed in every facet of not only the Bible but of Roman history. That is why he was killed, as a traitor to the Roman government, for inciting rebellion, in the name of peaceful civil protest for equality.

It is just not really debatable. "Love everyone," said Jesus... and no matter what anyone else said - "you don't mean Romans? Slaves? Blacks? Jews? Samaritans? Cops? Politicians? Sick People? Poor People?" Jesus said, "Did I stutter? EVERYONE!"

But I turn to Facebook and there is a priest supporting Donald Trump. There is a pastor saying gays are going to burn in hell. There is a sociologist blaming the church for racist political agendas.

And I have been forced into the place of an apologist (for those who do not study church history - I mean that academically as the type of Christian writer who writes about the faith for non-believers in order to point out that it is actually a pretty cool thing).

And it is hard. It is what made me take a break from ministry for a while. It is what keeps me up at night. I don't want to be associated with the wackadoodles. But they seem to be multiplying.

Even in the progressive and left-wing United Church of Canada we are becoming more and more conservative and literalist. Both of which are SO not Jesus like that I cannot believe people are not seeing it.

I don't know. Maybe the psychiatrists are right and the only thing I can do is abandon social media.

But then again - someone has to keep trying to present the other side. 

This is Us!

Donald Trump relies on the fact that you believe in stereotypes.

Other people have said this or things like my opening statement to various degrees and purposes. But for now, let me point out that Mexicans are violent drug addicts who somehow live their entire lives trying to steal jobs from ordinary working-class Americans.

One trip to Mexico City should dissuade most people of this. And if that does not work make your way over to the Museo Nacional de Antropología, one of the ten best museums in Mexico City (yes, one of the top ten - there are more than ten) and you will get a pretty complete education of the cultural and historical people of Mexico.

Defining Mexican people as lazy violent sheep stealing vagabonds is about as useful as defining Americans as orange haired megalomaniac sexist racist narcissists.

Most of the world sees this - right? Very few people are so narrow-minded as to say all Americans are, all blacks are, all natives are, all Irish are... It is impossible to lump a whole people into a category and have it hold up (except for Cape Bretoners - they are all the same, what?)

In fact - white male Maritimers like me range from ignorant bastards right through to saints. From smart to dumb and rich to poor. Some are faithful and some are criminals. And that pretty much is just looking at my High School graduation class for statistical analysis.

And then we come to church.

There is this most bizarre of phenomenon where "Are you a Christian" usually means, are you a clone of me. Which is ridiculous.

I overheard a story where a minister actually said: "We don't believe that." to someone. And I am afraid it sort of set me off as this column testifies to. There is no "we." There really isn't. There never was.

If I preach a sermon to 50 people and say something fairly benign. Like, Jesus wants you to be good people. Then I guarantee I have just encountered 51 completely different definitions of the word "good."

Even should I choose to go completely religious on people and say Salvation through Jesus means acceptance into heaven, I have now exponentially diversified belief.  Every single person in the room has their own definition of Jesus, salvation, acceptance, and heaven.

"We believe that Jesus saves us so we get into heaven" is almost a nonsensical statement when you stop and think about it.

And this is where religion has always broken down in my mind - there is no US.

There does not need to be, there should not be. I was asked in an interview "what is your theology" and my answer was that it did not matter. I am not there to make you believe what I believe, I am there to help you work out your own existential questions and come to peace with the universe.

And when we say, people are not coming to church anymore, people are not Christian anymore, etc. The truth is we are defining narrowly again. People are having trouble subscribing to a set of beliefs that institute one way of thinking and declare it to be universally right for everyone.

People are still asking religious questions like why am I here, and what is my purpose, etc. But they want to come up with answers that echo truth and their own experience.

People like Richard Rohr on the one hand, or John Shelby Spong, or Greta Vosper or even Michael Hutchins are actually doing a better job of evangelizing God than most churches. Why? because they are the ones pointing out that the know it all answers of a hierarchical and medieval church might not actually capture faith for the majority of people.

When we step out of the comfort zone and realize that there is no universal truth in the way the church has argued, then we begin to allow people space to actually find faith.

And it is faith in the axioms, the overarching things that human experience reminds us are part of the sacred, part of the divine, like love, like acceptance, like grace, like passion...

Jesus said different things to different people. So did Muhammed and Buddha. All of them were trying to help people find deeper meaning within themselves, to get in touch with their own divinity.

And the only way we are going to contribute to this endeavour, to this "work of God" is to stop with the narrow definitions. To stop with the assertion that there is a right and a wrong way.

I am a Christian who thinks reincarnation makes more sense than heaven (or at the very least I am for Elysium Fields and Valhalla) I am a Christian who thinks Jesus was no more divine than I am. I am a Christian who thinks God is the force from Star Wars. I am a Christian who thinks that Shamanism makes complete sense in a way that Christian Theology does not.

But most of all - I am a guy, who wants you to find and be your best self. I want to explore that with people in song and story and conversations over hot or cold beverages and try to make this world soooo much better. That to me is at the core of the ministry. It has nothing to do with what I proclaim from the pulpit unless what I am saying is, you are loved, you got this, whatever you believe is valid if it brings you a sense of the sacred, and we are all in this together.

Saying there is one true path has never helped anyone. Ever. Ask Jesus.

Deck Chairs

I just came back from the Annual General Meeting for my church Region. Well. For two church Regions that used to be one Conference. If you are not part of the United Church of Canada ignore the second sentence and focus on the first.

I want to be particularly careful in what I say here because for once, what I am about to say is not judgement but an observation. I do not think this is anyone's fault - and I do not think it is unique to the world of churches and their ecclesial hierarchy. I wager those of you who have annual corporate or shareholder, or NGO, or even parliamentary meetings could echo what I am about to say.

What a waste of time that was.

And perhaps this is human nature. Perhaps this is corporate culture. Perhaps there is absolutely no way to satisfy the needs and wants of any group larger than, say, one.

Still, and not to put anyone down, I am going to use an example from three days of church meetings involving 350 people. I don't say I have a better answer or understanding or anything - so don't hear this as chastisement or ego driven or anything - it is... as I have said... observational.

Last year the church voted to divide this group in half - for efficiency, for cost, for a new vision of how we work and are in community. So we began the next phase of church life as Regions 14 and 15 - and hired separate staff and began a separate journey of identity.

We then promptly voted to meet together for our annual meeting anyway.

And then, I kid you not, we spent somewhere up from six hours of business time debating whether or not to continue to meet together.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Okay - think about that a second. 350 people spent 6 hours debating how to circumvent a change to modernize our meeting and governance practices to ensure that they remained the exact same as they have been since 1925. 

That is 2100 work hours of the church to decide we need to spend the weekend together once a year. 

Do you know what other discussions or business we had? Others might interpret reality differently, but I would say nothing. Sure - we rubber-stamped a few things that now we actually do not have a say in any more - such as who was ordained and what the budget is.

Generally, this is what the changes that went into effect six months ago did - gave the power to decide things to a higher court or paid staff and made it easier to get things done.

Except for this meeting.

Now, I am not complaining. I get to take a Sunday off, go there, have my room and board paid for, hang out with friends, drink beer and commiserate.

But this is not a necessary business meeting, although people will stand up and say the reason we need to be together in this fashion is to do then work of the church. And it is not a spiritual retreat although some people will stand up and say it is. And it is not networking although that happens...

Like most of the corporate culture, no one can quite put their finger on why we do it this way and whether or not it works.

I really think this will be the epitaph on the tombstones the cockroaches erect to remember us all. "They always did it this way."

and gosh darnit, we will die trying not to change.

Too Bad We Don't Believe this Whole Death and Resurrection Thing

(as an aside - my brain is constantly at work - but I have to admit that is often because of the conversations I have with many people wiser and more experienced than myself - some of the impetus of my thoughts comes from them - but I do not tell you "Dave said this" because I want to be fully responsible for the upset and ire my blogs create. But I am humbly grateful for those who share their deeper thinking with me)

I am not talking about Jesus.

I am not talking about us.

I am talking about the general philosophical principle that in reality was once the centrepoint of our theology. Things die - things are reborn.

It is at the very beginning of the Bible for God's sake - we get kicked out of the garden and have to start over. The world floods and we have to start over. The prophets are replaced by a monarchy. Deportation and Exile to rebuilding and restoring... Our history, whether written or experienced is one of the old ways dying and the new ways emerging.

To be fair - this often does not go as well as we might hope... just ask Martin Luther - whether you are talking about the medieval or the modern one. When we stand up and admit things have to die, no one wants to hear it. (For that matter, ask Jesus...)

And this is where we find ourselves.

The prophetic voices in the midst of most congregations stand up and say this is a failing enterprise. There are those who admit that our resources are almost depleted and the doors will soon close. And often they are told to hush... that negativity will not win the day... that we should focus on what we have... or some variation of the type of thinking that I fear got us into this mess in the first place.

"What can we do to bring people back into the church" has become our sacred mantra. We invent program, services, music, and outreach based on our belief that the way we do things is not only right but has more meaning than the rest of the world understands.

And I wonder - does all of this mean that we, at our core, do not believe the central tenet of death and resurrection.

See, the whole story of Jesus dying and coming back from the grave on Easter morning was never meant to be about one person - or about supernatural powers - or about heaven... Instead, it was meant to be the philosophical underpinning of kingdom thinking.

Everything Dies - Something New Rises Up

We should all get tattoos of that phrase. We should be required to say it as a mantra. We should come to understand that when Jesus taught us to pray that things on earth would be more like things in heaven - this is what he meant - that we would be able to see that life leads to death leads to resurrection.

And again - it is not about me. It is not about getting into heaven. It is about seeing that everything has a time and place, energy and enthusiasm, an impact and meaning - AND THEN IT DIES.

It is only then that something else comes along to continue on in a different form.

Imagine if this really was our core belief. Imagine if I could say that the people in imaginaryville built this church when the town was founded to give a sense of community and purpose and holiness to the endeavour of creating a town - but that work is finished, it has lived its life, and it is time to die... Let's burn the church and figure out what comes next.

Look around - the modern world does not find meaning in the things it once did. People have changed so quickly and dramatically - the traditional church will not ever come back to life - it has served its purpose....

Now people find meaning in nature. They find meaning in art. They find meaning in online social arguments. They find meaning in the "religious" experiences of a rock concert, or a party, or even a vacation to Disney.

If our goal is to see the Kingdom of Heaven become an accepted reality, why are we holding on to a "kingdom" that was never of heaven and no longer exists? Why are we not looking at the real world and real experiences and saying - how do we find holiness, spirituality, sanctuary, nirvana - however you want to define those thin moments - in the actual day to day reality we face.

What would it be like if we believed that it is possible the local church needs to die in order for something to be reborn from the ashes.

After all - aren't we all about celebrating resurrection?

So Was Marx Right?

It is Holy Week.

A very traditional high holy time where we focus on one or two ideas which force us to equate Jesus with God and, perhaps, limit our understanding to a black and white reality.

To wit, Jesus died for our sins. Or. Jesus rose again to conquer death.

Somewhere along the way, we added layers of dimension which broaden the script somewhat: Death, Suffering, Rebirth. Although psycho-emotionally deeper they still maintain the black and white naivete of people who believe they are bad and believe some external force can save them.

It is this jarring juxtaposition to our understanding of mental and emotional health that really forces me to dig deep in order to do justice to the festival while failing to accept the premise.

Have any of you ever read the poem Bio: Black Baptist/Bastard by George Elliot Clarke?

It is from a book of poems exploring racial identity within Black Canadian - and specifically, Nova Scotian culture... But I am fascinated by the imagery of church that it evokes and essentially blames for the predicament of self-hatred... I present it here in its entirety for your perusal:

 History fell upon us like the lash.

(I am not rash.) Black Baptists wept out prayers—

Passion—to hector tar into nectar,

To harvest undeniable honey,

But our scorched eyes were stooped by white faces,

We sank, stupefied by white capital,

Eating grained self-hatred in our churches,

Gulping Welch's grape juice, bile, and venom,

While chalked Jesus carped at us like a cop,

His sneered face crapping, "God damn your black ass."

Slavery was dead, wasn't it? But blood

Crusted on our rusty-tasting sermons,

A taint of blood for saint-plush lips. We could

Not look at the Adantic and not cry,

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" We knew

The terror of evacuated faith.

The stars had fallen cold where they were stalled—

For no one had believed—loved—for aeons.

The air swerves cold with such calamity.

I chronicle a cold, pockmarked epoch,

Map a county where trains gnaw their way home,

Blackened mummies pitch, gutted by gypsum,

Frail Baptists fall, their crotches worm-eaten,

Debris escalates when black ice sleets in.

I come from Windsor Plains, wine-stained poet,

Choosing not to imbibe William Williams'

Rain in the galvanized pail by the well.

Well, as a child, I spread blackstrap on bread

Between bitter dollops of the Bible.

I had to. I was guilty. I had spied

My sun-skinned mother's glaring skin. (I eyed,

Self-condemned, her shimmering, mixed-race breasts.)

Enough snow has fallen without license.

A Putsch arrests my heart. My life's naked.

Listen closely. I am trying to cry.

That's my condemned blood on the page.

Now - I do not mean to appropriate this poem - it is clearly about Black identity and the way self-hatred is ingrained... But what I do want to point out is that the poet himself feels the church, specifically his black Baptist church with a chalk white Jesus has been complicit in this understanding of self as less than.

Is it not at least worth a second of our consideration that this experience is also part of what has driven the masses from our halls? What if we viewed Easter through this lens?

It was Augustine, not Jesus, who claimed we were so evil that only the sacrifice of the blood of a God would save us. He made that up echoing Jewish traditions of sacrifice and scapegoat he probably never really understood in order to appease his own self-hatred for his lust, adultery, and an illegitimate child. (okay, I am being simplistic and harsh - but it is true)

Years later Marx would famously quip that the church was the opiate of the people - that we used it to feel better about our sorry state knowing we would be rewarded in heaven. What Marx also believed but we do not remember is that the church was complicit in the creation of the said sorry state. 

When we declare people sinful - and then offer a way of salvation - are we not just using the system to perpetuate elitism and classism? 

Perhaps. 

But these are the things we don't preach from the pulpit. These are the things that we don't ponder out loud.

It makes one wonder if we are not the enemy to all that Jesus was trying to accomplish. We are a part of the powers of imperialism - whether capitalistic or monarchist - that enslave the children of God through self-hatred.

Why are we not asking if this is not at least a part of why people are falling away - they no longer see "Good News" in what we say because they are capable of seeing the historic and cultural significance in a way they were not before the information age.

So - back to Holy Week. It is not death as atonement followed by universal salvation through defeat of death and rebirth - that is a cultural layer added by the imperialistic church.

For Jesus I think it was political rebellion followed by execution, leading to a new movement.

Jesus wanted us to stop being led by status, by riches, by grasping - and instead to be led by love and compassion. And he was willing to die for his beleif that if we accomplished this, it would be heaven on earth.

I think if presented this way - more people could get behind Easter. 

Death and the Maiden

My wife just underwent emergency surgery.

She is fine. It is better. The sickness is cut out in the form of a blocked duct and she is one gall bladder lighter and comfortably recuperating at home.

Over the last year and a bit, I had four surgeries.

I am now cancer free - but for a while there, what with a grapefruit-sized tumor that could very well have been stage three by the time it was found - the future was uncertain at best.

Still - the one thing I had to come to grips with really fast was that I was dying. If I was "lucky" I would survive this, but with no guarantee that I was not on a quicker path to demise then others. The survival rate for colorectal cancers in Canada is only 64% at five years.

And then who knows - my body has been proven to degrade to cancer in one place - odds are small, like 3% chance of a second different cancer... but there are odds.

I don't say all this to get sympathy - but rather to tell you about the aftermath... The plan...

You see, when you realize that death is imminent you do everything you can to avoid it. Thus four surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, cannabis, and a change to a whole food plant-based diet. None of which are easy or pleasant to cope with when you are forced to do them (well - that is a lie - cannabis is pretty easy and pleasant ;) )

But when faced with great odds of death and poor odds of continued survival - change seems necessary and most of the arguments against it go out the window.

There is also that moment when you look back and realize - if I had not smoked for 20 years, if I had not continued to dip my arms shoulder deep in a vat of acetone while working as a fibreglass canoe modeler, if I had not have eaten meat for almost every meal, and so many other horrible choices - This may not be where I find myself now.

Ok - so this is a church blog - and this is the thing - Jesus used Parables to explain reality in an acceptable way so that we had religious and spiritual understanding. And the above is my parable... and what I want you to say is this:

Imagine there is a church that discovers it is dying...

Ahhh..... there's the rub. You see. This is exactly what happens to us as an institution.

There comes a moment when our mortality takes centre stage. There comes a moment when we say, the survival rate at five years is 64% at best. There comes a time when we frantically do everything possible to try and prolong that life expectancy.

And how much easier, how much better would it have been if we either did the things from the beginning - or at least had yearly check-ups where we asked ourselves, how can we be healthier? Where are we declining the most?

There is a clear parallel here and for some reason, human nature is all about pretending it won't happen to us. But it will. Or something else will. But mark my words. If we just pretend everything is okay, one day it won't be.

My church has 5,000 set aside to hire a new minister. For advertising, moving expenses, etc. Now - most of them hope I never leave. But wouldn't it be less stressful to have the means to put on a really good job search should that day ever come?

This is the way we need to start thinking about everything. Aging people are going to stop contributing. Population shifts are occurring. There are a hundred little changes happening year over year and we should be proactively looking at them and adapting.

Which is also - if you want to look at it a different way - what Coca Cola or any successful company does. At some point, someone pointed out that people were getting healthier and so the next year coca cola started selling health drinks, then straight up bottled water - changing year after year to meet a different perceived need.

Time for some serious health checks and product evaluation...

What We Lost in the Fire

Tis really a requiem for those verdant hippy days of yore 

So - do you remember the 80's? Do you remember the 80's in the United Church? Oh those heady days when we were clearly the largest protestant denomination in Canada and quite a lot of people still went to church. 

I was younger then, and easily influenced, and as a teenager joined the church - my family was not United Church and yet - for me - it was everything. 

I was a kid who wanted to change the world. I joined Greenpeace, I advocated for ecology, I did all those 80'ish type things. 

And each and every year the United Church came out with a powerful position on world events - and mission themes to go with them.

It was the United Church that made me aware of South Africa and Apartheid. It was because of them that I read the book BIKO and became an advocate. 

And that was true of women in ministry, of LGBTQ++ rights, or Palestine... of so many things. 

You see, I have been spending an inordinate amount of time lately thinking about why the church exists. 

I work in a small congregation where there are few people and few resources. I also minister to a huge university where there are thousands of people and little desire. Both things serve as a sort of crucible of thought - allowing me to ask specific questions of myself and others in comparison to entirely different cultural and social realities.  

Or to make that entire paragraph into a simple sentence - I get to ask why old people and young people do not come to church. 

And I really think the idea is tied up in the "what good do we do?" question.

There seems to be a trend lately to pretend that what we do is saving souls. I think this started because people in mainline churches were thinking evangelical churches were still in good shape because of this emphasis. This is entirely incorrect - evangelical congregations attract a mere 2% of Canadians while the United Church can still claim around 6% (the Catholics were at 38% or they were before this latest round of scandal)

But you know when people really paid attention to the United Church? When we advocated for social issues. We were the people the government of Canada consulted with around Gay Marriage. You know why? We had a history of standing up for, fighting for, and developing new ways of seeing those said underdogs.

We were LGBTQ++ before it was cool. We ordained women before women were seen as equals. We stood for something Jesus liked to call the Kingdom of Heaven... or as we might say it now, making things right here on Earth.

You know what truly does not matter to most people, or to the world, or even to God? Whether or not you accept Jesus as Christ and your personal saviour. Whether or not you believe in God or call God father, sister, mother, brother. Whether you believe in the Trinity and virgin birth... or whether you have been saved - whatever that means...

When people worshiped Jesus in his own day and age he kept saying, Cut that out. I am no one. I am just trying to point the way.

And when people said, ok, what is the way? Jesus said - love everyone, love yourself, love God, take care of widows and orphans, don't lie cheat or steal, etc. etc. etc.

JESUS' WAY WAS SOCIAL JUSTICE

And when we concentrated on what Jesus cared about - people cared about us. We were a player on the world stage.

Now our concern is about doctrine and thought policing, about saving souls and things we did not care about in our heyday.

Why is no one seeing the correlation?

Mental Health and Culture Clash

Can an organization have a personality?

I think most of us if we thought about this, would determine that the answer is yes. A political party has a personality, a hospital has a personality, even a restaurant has a personality.

We tend to use the word "culture" to describe this. In fact, a lot of organizations adopt a particular culture for a particular reason. Think about Google and the culture of openness and creativity and fun they try to create for their employees so that said workers do better work.

I think we can even imagine what clashing personalities would look like in this scenario - like when someone who is used to bartering goes to Walmart. Or when you are a relaxed beach bum and go to a swanky gourmet restaurant. There is an obvious culture clash.

In some way or another, your personalities do not mix.

So what does this have to do with the church? I maintain it is everything that goes wrong - we pretend a church does not have a personality when in fact each and every individual congregation has a separate personality and culture.

When I was ordained, lo these many years ago, there was a belief that the training and preparation I received allowed me to serve in any congregation in the United Church in a completely interchangeable way. In fact, that was back in the days when you did two internships, one in a congregation in your home region, and one in a far-flung location... just to prove the point.

I don't know if at one time it was true that every single United Church was the same - But it is certainly true that our personalities and culture continue to grow apart. This is probably true of every denomination.

What if we thought of each congregation as a sibling of every other congregation, who then moved away from home and went out on their own. That might bring us closer to the reality of individual personalities.

Just because we are both United Church Congregations simply means we had the same parents and the same upbringing, but now we are totally different. We are not clones, we are not even twins.

Not only that, but each and every single thing is evolving in its own way.

Back in the 80's the United Church as a national entity appeared to be a pretty easy going parent. I could call up the executive secretary and ask a question over the phone and they would laugh and answer it - both of us would feel our connection growing and I would go off and be a good little kid, basically knowing that I was following in my parent's footsteps.

The institution has grown different in the last couple of decades. I don't mean to argue if it is better or worse, but it is different - sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.

So now, the parent has become more distant, or the children have, and we grow further and further apart.

We have adopted subgroups that delineate us in ways I wish had never happened - things like Affirm and Cruxifusion divide us into liberal and conservative  - and not in a helpful way.

And what we are left with is a bunch of congregations out there in the world, being led by a bunch of ministers, being attended by a bunch of people - all of whom are situationally the same, but globally different.

I preach in Penniac and Marysville and those two congregations in the same charge are different. They are different again then each and every other church in Fredericton, and on it goes.

So no - I am not trained to work in every congregation - I probably never was. There is no uniformity.

Should there be?

I think at the very least we should have more and deeper roots. We should be recognizable as being in the same family. We should be able to look at each other and instantly understand each other in an "insider" way.

Our individuality and congregationalism have led to an identity crisis. We all know this - but for some reason, we pretend it is not true and we pretend that it does not matter. But it does.

I go to McDonald's, when I do because the cheeseburger I get there is identical to the cheeseburger I got there 45 years ago. The decor, the sounds, and sights have changed - the cheeseburger is what I go for.

We have given up on a solid identity as the liberal thinking left-wing social justice church. That is who we were for the longest time, and that is what people expected to find when they walked in the doors.

As we have decreased in numbers some have decided that we need to change the core of our personality in order to attract more people and do more work - I disagree.

We need to go back to fighting for justice and welcoming all - that was what made us a power to be reckoned with, so much so that our moderators consulted with prime ministers on social issues.

I wish it was still true.

What is our Ministry?

I hate cutesy titles.

Just throwing that out there.

So when I look at a church bulletin and they have simply renamed every single thing they do as their "ministry" it always causes me to roll my eyes.

ministry of music, the ministry of toilet cleaning, the ministry of coffee hour, the ministry of envelope stuffing, the ministry of...

When churches do that I think they are just pulling a fast one, switching out the idea of an essential part of the workload by calling it their ministry. There is nothing inherently wrong with this... it just does not work for me.

You see - I don't think running a church is part of the ministry.

I know this is a controversial thing to say - but I want you to think about this in other ways. Maintaining a hospital is not providing health care. Painting a tank camouflage is not part of the purpose of the armed forces. Getting an oil change is not the purpose of a car.

There are in fact two distinct things happening when we look at a church and for some reason, we have never liked to separate them out. We are running an organization called the church, and we are doing the ministry of a Christian.

I think the two are separate and they do not overlap nearly as much as we think.

So we need to upkeep a building, keep records, worry about sound systems, transportation, budgets, and administration. We need to have background committees on every level to ensure the functioning of the organization. We need to hire and fire and discipline staff. And on and on and on...

This is not ministry - this is business.

Now, to follow Jesus we need to, figuratively, care for the widows and the orphans. In reality, we need to have outreach programs in the community to care for the disadvantaged, we need to host worship services for deepening spiritual understanding, we need to offer educational opportunities to learn about faith, we need to mentor and counsel people on morality and ethics, we need to provide life transition events like baptisms, weddings, and funerals in order to give meaning to existence...

In either category, there are thousands of other possible answers but I hope from these two examples you can see the line I am trying to create. There is the business and there is the outcome. And perhaps it is time to separate the two out.

Back to the cutesy titles. I think it is disingenuous of us to pretend that we are doing the latter when we are doing the former. I think most of our effort is spent on the business of being the church and too little of our time is on ministry.

And on top of that when we do ministry we are often doing it for the reason of business. We operate programs as if they were advertising campaigns... We do good works hoping that they will lead to engagement with the business.

If you do not think this is true I want you to think back to any planning meeting and ask yourself if you have not heard this statement in some form or another - "well, how does that put bums in the pew?" "Does this bring more people to church?" "Does this translate into increased giving?"

If any of those questions can be answered - then you are probably doing ministry for the wrong reasons.

Again, would it not be better to have the two things completely separated out.

We need to provide a school breakfast program... (because there is child poverty, because education is important, etc.)

What business strategies do we need to engage in to afford and manage a school breakfast program? (meetings, budgets, advertising, etc.)

You see where I am coming from?

We are always asking - how do we keep the church open? And then secondly we are asking what we can afford to do.

What if we turned that around and asked - what ministry do we need to do? And then secondly we asked how do we become able to do that?

Is Sunday Morning worship important for us? What outreach is necessary for the community? What would Jesus do if he lived here? NOW... after we answer questions like this... then ask - can we afford our own building? Where would the best place to operate out of be? How many people do we need to hire to do this? etc.

By the way - I do think we need to be very honest about staffing too... Right now most churches expect staff - whether orfained, administrative, or even volunteer - to accomplish all of category A, all of the business, while hoping that they are actually spending most of their time on category B, ministry.

I don't think we have really stopped to consider if this model works. Or if we are being honest about what we want and how to get it.

The Clergy Problem

There are two sides to every story... Although true, this is inaccurate, there are as many sides to any situation as there are participants. So I am going to ask you to take this post with the potential grain of salt that comes from knowing that it is based mostly on the ruminations of my mind and not on hard data.

That being said, I started writing this blog to say out loud what the last few decades in the church have made me think deeply about from an institutional point of view.

I am thinking of joining a union. There is an option, Unifaith - a community chapter of Unifor.

The reason for this is that I no longer hold any illusion that the United Church of Canada as an institution is looking out for or interested in the clergy. It has become a "keep the church open at any cost" type world where standards of education and practice are becoming lower and lower... It is becoming a world where I am expected to work full time for part-time wages and apologize for the fact that I am highly educated and seasoned to the point where I cost more money to hire because I have more experience.

The church wonders why there are not as many people becoming clergy. The obvious reason would be to say that people are not religious anymore, so why work for the church. Which is both true and too simple? So let's look at some other factors.

Money is a real one. Not only because it is necessary to survive - but also because it is a measure of value...

There are only four real comparable careers in terms of education. Doctor, lawyer, and university professor. (I know, there are thousands of others and variations, but I am using the easiest to understand)

Average salaries in New Brunswick for each look like this: $223,000 for doctors, $60,000 for a lawyer, and university professor is $86,000

After 25 years as a minister, my yearly salary is 45,000. I have 12 years of university education as well.

Not only that - but at almost every meeting of every church board, it is made painfully clear that my salary is breaking the bank so to speak.

When this imbalance began it was made up for in terms of perks. People brought clergy everything from vegetables to furniture. Car companies and YMCA gave us massive cuts in terms of what we paid. We got free housing, free heat, a free ride. Clergy paid almost no tax and were treated with respect everywhere. So in other words, the horrible pay was made up for by the simple fact that almost everything we needed was provided. Today I'm lucky to get some extra zucchini in the summer from someone's garden.

Ok, so let's say I am in it for something else besides the money. let's assume for instance that I am religious. Well - no one who goes to church actually cares. That might seem harsh, but it isn't, it is a reality. There are very, very few people who want their faith to impact them outside of Sunday morning. Most people will not engage in studying the scripture or their faith unless it is made SUPER convenient. And most people balk at the idea of paying any more than a couple of bucks a week to keep a church open. So you are going to end up being the ONLY person who cares about the faith in the way you thought everyone would.

Both of the above are disheartening - and would be bad enough, but the next two truths are actually more to blame with why no one wants to do this and very few of us stay doing this...

First, every single person you meet thinks they can do it better. The hymns you chose, the language of your prayers, even the way you schedule your days and vacation are subject to each and every person voicing their opinion. And it is not only about work... how you dress, what you eat, where you go, whether or not you are seen in a bar or at the liquor store. Everyone has an idea about how you should live and what you should do. And no one wants to hear that you have any problems.

Last but not least in this weeks tirade is something I call cumulative pain. I may have made this term up. But here is an example of what I mean. I started out in a church in Quebec and every four or five years I have moved. Not only have I never seen any of those people from any of those churches again - but most of them are dead.

Where you might go to two or three funerals that really affect you personally, I have buried hundreds of people I genuinely loved and cared about. I have also buried murderers, victims, loners, and street people. Beloved grandparents and teenage suicides. I have sat with a mother who did not even know their son did drugs till he overdosed and died. I have known and buried people drowned by friends, hit by snowplows, and who dropped dead suddenly while shaving.

I have performed over a hundred weddings and there are like two of those couples who are still together. I have baptized over a hundred babies who as adults no longer attend church.

I have watched congregations dwindle and buildings close all the while feeling the people's eyes on me asking the unspoken question as to why I personally cannot save the church.

Who in the hell can do this for a lifetime?

The answer is two types of people... The majority, unfortunately, are those that are so needy that they absolutely cannot leave it all behind. The lesser variety of which I count myself one are those too stubborn to let go of the dream that someday, in some way, this might make a difference.

But if you want to know another side of what is wrong with the church - this is it. Clergy are devalued and dehumanized. Constantly. I am going to give my life ad soul for a community you all seem to just barely care about in order for me to end up poverty stricken and alone... That seems to be the idea... and it has to change.

The Truth About Change

In the United Church of Canada, we have something called a Needs Assessment. It is a document that is created every time a church wants to hire a new minister. 

There is a formulaic way that a Needs Assessment is created and it ends up highlighting the community at large, as well as the congregation. It spells out the benefits that will be paid upon the successful hiring of a candidate and all that jazz - but at its heart, the document is exactly what it says it is. This is what we need. 

At the risk of sounding bitter - I can tell you what your church will say in its assessment before I even read it. 

I have read scores of them and helped to create a handful more. They all differ in terms of what they describe their community as, and to be fair and upfront one in a hundred will be different from what I am about to say - but in a nutshell, despite the idea that each church is creating a unique document, they are all the same...

Here is what they need:

- an engaging, biblically focussed preacher who can connect to all ages

- a minister who loves to visit and will always be there in times of crisis.

- a minister who will perform weddings, baptisms, and funerals.

- a minister who works well with others.

- a minister who loves children and youth.

- a minister who will do administration tasks.

- a minister who will be visible in the community and represent the church well.

In other words - someone who does what has always been done and does it better than the last gal.

If you read the whole package, the surveys, the write-ups, and everything between the lines - here is what I imagine every church means by this.

 - You have to be interesting enough that people will flock to hear your sermons.

 - You need to seek out every single person who ever attended this church and have tea with them and hope that makes them feel better and perhaps even come back on Sunday.

- You need to be willing to baptize our grandchildren from away while at the same time doing such a good funeral that we all feel taken care of.

- You need to not rock the boat. There are people in this congregation who have been doing things here longer than you and you have to honour their wisdom and play along.

- Bring back our kids. Pure and simple. Our church needs more people paying the bills and somehow that will be accomplished if young families come and bring their children.

- We need you to manage all the forms, census, housekeeping etc. in such a way that we do not have to worry about it, but simply vote on it. 

- Bring more people to church by going out there and being so popular and present that everyone who sees you anywhere wants to come to church on Sunday. 

And the unwritten expectation is this - you need to keep our church open, by getting more people, who will give more money, simply to enjoy the show on Sunday morning. 

You have to realize that this blog is where I air my own grievances and frustrations - so I apologize if that sounds bitter. But I think we need to start owning the real problems of the church. And this is a real one.

Every congregation seems to harbour this secret fantasy that they will magically return to the 1950's and 60's when their church was the "boys club" of professionals and the "wive's club" of the community and everyone went and everyone had coffee together, and maybe there was a church picnic, and there were bowling leagues and couple's clubs and everyone loved being there but no one really had to do anything.

The world has changed. Society has changed. Faith has changed. Technology has changed. Hell, everything has changed and the church is the one single organization that spends the entirety of its effort trying to go backward. 

We are not living in the past - we are actively trying to recreate it. To return to it. To glorify it. 

You know what - just because everyone came did not make it better. People were not more faithful. People did not follow Jesus and more closely. It was a sham. 

If we were serious about this whole faith being the important thing we would be spending all of our passion, energy, and enthusiasm in figuring out what we should BECOME and how different that needs to be from what we WERE.

From Martin to Martin

"If Church history teaches us anything, it is that we cannot afford to be a vacillating Church. We minister to a people who are in great need of hearing the truth, we dare not make any attempt to soft-pedal that glorious truth." - Martin Luther

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

Ahhh... But What is Truth

So often I hear it joked that one should never talk about religion, politics, sex, and money. I am sure you have heard this said before as well. We make the joke but in reality, we are trying to convey this social contract that we somehow believe will make the world a happier place. 

Let's not talk about the things that we might disagree about. 

The other side of this is that somehow we have gotten ourselves to a sort of social popularism where what matters most is our own opinion. (Yes, I do see the irony as an opinion writer that I am putting my opinions out there as truth and thus... well... nevermind)

My point is that "but I feel like it" often trumps the "but this is the way it really is" way of seeing the world. 

And I think "the church" has become more and more afraid of its prophetic role as time has gone on and we have started fighting for our survival. Martin Luther was not only right, but he was also prophetic in saying that we were becoming an irrelevant social club.

I am not meaning to misrepresent either of these fine gentlemen, and I am not even sure what I am meaning when I say "the church" I do know there is a great variety of denominations and callings, as well as a great variety of faiths and understandings. 

But overall - I think religion in North America (my only context) bought into the idea that we should not talk about some things and so we should try to be what people want us to be. we decided, to misquote the older Trudeau, "in the bedrooms of the nation" 

But the thing is that if the church stood up and said proudly what we know to be true - we would be relevant. 

AND NO - I DO NOT MEAN THE THINGS THAT MAKE NEWS ALL THE TIME - GOD DOES NOT HATE FAGS AND TRUMP IS NOT ANOINTED.

I mean if we could honestly say to rulers - rule justly or get the hell out. If we could honestly say to people possessions don't matter and stop chasing after the wrong things. If we could echo the Bible in saying race, religion, sexuality, class don't matter - we are all the same. And if we had the courage of our convictions - do you not think we might be relevant on the current world's stage?

But no, we get bogged down on virgin births and the ten commandments and other petty articles of faith that Jesus told us right out do not matter at all. 

The thing is, and I believe this completely with every bit of my essence - we in the church are not Christians. 

I wonder if that has anything to do with declining numbers? 

The Simple Thing Martin Luther Got Wrong

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately.

I have also been talking a lot with friends, asking a lot of questions on social media, and generally making a nuisance of myself.

Part of that comes from my need to reinvent the wheel which is the church. 

I have been focussing on worship and the fact that it is not doing what I would hope it would - connect people to something greater. 

Out of that, there was an A-ha moment that has really brought on that good old cognitive dissonance where once hearing this everything has to change. 

I have to give credit where credit is due - so without outing anyone, this is not my idea, it was told to me by a friend in a discussion about church over some wonderful craft beer - and he told me it was a friend of his who had originally shared the idea.

Okay, enough beating around the bush. Martin Luther changed the church by saying the focus should be on the word of God - as written, as proclaimed, etc. Before that the focus was on the Eucharist - the literal presence of God in the elements of worship.

So we moved the altar back and the pulpit forward and the centre of worship became the readings and the sermon.

At first, it was novel and connected and we felt God's presence in a new way. But what really happened was that we had shifted away from the presence of God and towards the explanation of God. Church membership became about assenting to certain explanations and ideas. We had to accept Jesus as x and y in order for God to be present. 

But... no... You see, what the church had right before the Reformation was a sense of mystery and awe that required nothing from us. God is present on the altar whether we are there or not. We don't have to believe anything in particular for God to be with us - God is with us and we accept it or not. 

Worship, in the beginning, was simply a way to encounter the mystery and awe that is "God"

Even if you are like me and see God as more akin to the force in Star Wars then to an old man in the sky this still makes total sense. 

No matter how many times Obi-Wan told Luke about how the force worked - it meant nothing until Luke felt the force within himself. Until he had an encounter with something that was bigger than himself. 

We know this to be true about other things. If I explain to you how beautiful a waterfall is  - even if I paint a picture of it and show you - that does not evoke nearly the same feelings that actually seeing the waterfall would evoke in you.

I know everything about the Grand Canyon and have seen countless pictures - but I have exactly zero feelings about the Grand Canyon. Whereas the Rocky Mountains of Alaska and the Yukon which I have seen up close and personal still conjure a sense of majesty and awe in me though I have not been there in two years. 

So protestant worship - whether traditional, contemporary, artistic or seeker focused is still at a disadvantage simply because we are looking in the wrong direction. We are focused on the word of God which means we are one step removed from the holiness and mystery and awe which is to be found in actual contact with that divine spirit. 

Until we change this focus - we will not be getting at the heart of why traditional religion is failing. 

Now - how to do that?