It's interesting how the word "post" can put people on edge. With it comes a feeling of uncertainty, a loss of influence, and a sense of insecurity. I think some of those I was conversing with were possibly thinking how can this be? There's almost two billion Christians in the world. It's the world's largest religion.
I think this confusion stems from a competitive mindset that leads one to compare. When I mentioned post-Christian world, I was fairly certain some were thinking I was making an implied comparison between Christianity and the growing number of Muslims in the world or the growing number of "nones," the unaffiliated. I wasn't.
Post- Christian, like post-American means that other things are emerging, as they always do, as they always have done. It's not about competition or a loss of influence. That there is a sense of loss or insecurity stems from an innate resistance to change we all possess. The meaning of "post" that I am positing is that life moves on to new phases and there is little one can do to stop it without causing great damage to peace and stability.
POST-CHRISTIANITY
Nothing better illustrates the emerging post-Christian world than the recent Irish vote to change its national constitution to allow marriage between two people regardless of their sex. The Irish rightfully understand this as a revolution. For as long as I can remember, Ireland has been associated with the Roman Catholic church; that outside of the Vatican, Ireland was the most Roman Catholic country in the world.
So what happened?
One thing that seems to have generated the overwhelming support for permitting same sex marriage in Ireland is related to the fact that the Irish suffered from a repressed environment as a result of being so Roman Catholic; a church so dogmatic and rigid in its dogmatism regarding sexual morality as means to control its laity that it was bound to implode and implode it did with a sex scandal that rocked the Christian world and exposed the hypocrisy of Roman Catholic Church as a moral authority.
This was undoubtedly a factor in the Irish vote, but there is more to this vote than that, more to its significance than merely poking the Vatican in the eye. For the Irish it was the long-awaited consummation of it's national independence.
All of Christianity should take notice. All of Christianity is on notice. This isn't just a revolt against Catholicism or an attempt to send the Vatican a message. The Irish vote exposes the spiritual anemia that has affected Christianity for some time.
For as along as I can remember, almost every Christian church's claim to moral authority was hinged on controlling the sexual behavior of its membership as the primary means of ensuring that authority. Christian churches largely gave society its understanding of what constituted "deviant sexual behavior," and societies, for the most part, have accepted it including non-theistic societies.
Consider the following:
- Having sex out of wedlock was toying with hellfire, but easily remedied by getting married.
- Adultery got you to the gates of hell, if not in it. Repentance, remorse, and sticking with your spouse (no matter how abusive the relationship) might remedy that.
- Divorce was a serious breach which could deprive one of Holy Communion in liturgical churches, a sure sign one had a reserved hot seat down below. It's remedy was to try as hard as one could to stay in a relationship no matter how abusive it was or to get an annulment from the church.
- Masturbation was comparable to stealing.
- Homosexuality was comparable to murder.
- Celibacy was a ticket to heaven, if one stayed pure.
- Marriage and having children would get you a reservation there too, if you stuck with your vows.
SEX AND BASEBALL
As a young Lutheran, growing up in a plains state, I remember going to a local youth group convention where we had a good talking to about appropriate sexual conduct, which could have been simply stated in three words: "DON'T DO IT!" Nevertheless to drive that point home, a young, recently ordained pastor, took us boys to the chancel area of the church where we were meeting at to tell us in no nonsense terms about not letting our hormones get the best of us. The girls were taken to the church's basement where some Deaconess was having a similar talk with them. We boys were told the importance of not getting carried away with romance; that we should wait till we're married before even thinking about sex.
Trying to relate to us in a manly way, this young pastor awkwardly talked about the sexual temptations we would encounter in dating. His means of doing so was to use the well-worn baseball metaphor about reaching first, second, and third base. Occasionally he would be interrupted by snickering sounds from some of the older boys and had to stop in order to give us a serious shushing sound which made some of the younger boys giggle harder. He was clearly out of his league.
Being so poor at baseball myself, I felt relatively safe because in baseball I rarely made it to first base. His analogical link to romance made my prospects quite grim. If his intent was to deter us from thinking about sex, he failed miserably. By the end of his talk and on the way back home we could talk about nothing else. That was fifty years ago. Not much has changed in the church's view and use of sex.
My point in telling this story is to illustrate Christians lack of understanding scripture in their failure to appreciate the fact that forbidden fruit is the most alluring fruit in the orchard. Ultimately, church leaders became caught in their own web of sex-orientated control. It is almost becoming a routine occurrence that those who vehemently preach against sexual immorality are the most ardent practitioners of what they preach against.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Ireland commented something to the effect that the church is out of step with the youth of Ireland and the world. This is true of all churches and I felt it to be true when I was a young adolescent. I questioned back then, why all the fuss about Bible camps and youth retreats? Why can't the church just be the church? Why does it think it needs to make a special appeal to the young people? What was their fear? The answer is clearly apparent in the Archbishop's comment, losing control.
For one thing, I found that what the church thought I should be like, I wasn't like, which made me feel disconnected at times. I was supposed to like campfires, guitars playing "Kum Ba Ya", etc. I didn't. The church tried to herd us into a flock mentality of their own making; that we all had the same likes, dislikes, and hang-ups that our adult fellow parishioners were sure we had. Of course, if you didn't have such like, dislikes or hang-ups that these well-meaning adult Christians thought you had, one felt something might be wrong with oneself. What became apparent to me, back then, and has been confirmed since is the more the church attempts to make itself relevant to "youth" the more exposed its irrelevance becomes. That we were living in a post-Christian world was becoming very evident by the late 1960's.
There will undoubtedly be a backlash against the Irish vote, if not in Ireland, then in other countries, but the handwriting on the wall is clear. The Church has been rendered impotent. Nothing illustrates better our post-Christian world than its handling of the same sex issue. In fact, the church has been so smug with it's sexual control issues it seems to have been totally blindsided by the same-sex marriage issue. The possibility is that the Irish vote may have a far more reformative effect on Christianity than the Protestant Reformation ever did.
So called moral conservatives will see this as a sign of the end times. In a way they are correct. Change is coming; things are bound to be different.
The hierarchical structure of Christianity rests on a foundation composed of the unquestioning obedience of its laity and held together by their belief in the moral authority of its leaders.
Now that this belief is fading as a result of their own ecclesial arrogance and hypocrisy, the ecclesial hierarchy is at risk of being disestablished. In many ways, it already has.
As Rome goes so does the rest of Christianity.
Protestants may object to that statement, but Protestants are not immunized from what has taken place in Ireland. Sexual scandal after sexual scandal has plagued every known Christian denomination around the world. In that sense, the sex scandal in Christianity is a catholic (universal) scandal, not just a Roman Catholic one.
ERIN GO BRACH
The Irish voters may actually help save Christianity from total self-destruction and total irrelevance. In order to survive, to remain relevant, Christian churches need to wake up to the fact that its moral authority can no longer be hinged on its ridiculous obsession with sex and youth. Given the cases of sexual molestation of the children by pedophiliac clergy in Ireland, the Irish could have hunkered down on the whole sexuality scene, could have insisted that celibacy be abandoned; that monks, priests and nuns be allowed to marry to temper the sexual passions that all humans have, but they didn't do that.
They chose the better path of an open heart and an open mind; the path of Jesus. They chose to break open the biggest closet door in their midst, the door leading to the church's sacristy, the door of fear mongering.
The Irish may have well broken down the very gates of hell with the battering ram of acceptance and understanding.
The keys of the kingdom have been taken from the church because instead of unlocking doors so people could enter the kingdom, churches have been threatening, for far too long, to keep people out who dared to question its authority or who failed to keep their mouths shut when things were obviously skewed. While this has been identified mostly with the Roman Church, it is true of all Christian churches.
Those days are surely coming to an end.
We may not see the full effects of this change in the near future. It is not apparent as yet, but Christianity will change or Christianity will recede into a backwater cultic religion.
The Irish did what the church was called to do, open the hearts and minds of people to the power and goodness of love and to embrace the goodness of life in all its variety. It's a very Irish and Celtic thing to do. It was a very Jesus-like thing to do.
If understood correctly, being in a "Post-Christian" mode should allow churches to decompress, to do some soul searching with regard to what is and isn't important - to get it's head on straight and stop its insane obsession with control, fear, and sex. Pope Francis seems to get this as do other theistic religious leaders, but it may be a case of too much, too late.
A RENEWED SENSE OF MORALITY
What Christian churches must realize is that people are not seeking to become immoral, but rather to define morality in terms of acceptance and care, rather than fear and rejection. Christianity must learn the lesson of the Irish if it is to survive. Christianity, itself, owes a great deal to the Irish. Christianity would not have taken hold, in first place, if weren't for Irish missionaries back in 6th and 7th century. The pathway to a renewed sense of morality, as appreciation for life in all its variety is the new Gospel message that the Irish are now spreading. Christianity should take notice because Christianity is on notice.
A POST-THEISTIC WORLD
What I have said of Christianity, could easily apply to all theistic religions, especially, mono-theistic religions. Almost half of the world's entire population is non-theistic. For all of the evangelization and proselytizing done by Christians and Muslims, to spread their respective types of monotheism, the world is fed up to its collective eyeballs with their antics. While Christians compose the largest religious segment of the world's population and Muslim's a close second, both are in decline. In a recent report, Muslims are growing, slightly due to the rise in Muslims birthrates. The projection is that both of these "religions" will decline in numbers over the next few generations. It is easy to project this, based on a historical trajectory, that after the devastation caused by the Islamic reformation (as with the Christian reformation) that a period of enlightenment will arise which will question the stupidity of our present age. The fact is the Enlightenment has never really ended. It continues in an ebb and flowing way.
Post-theism, like post-Christianity, if understood and used appropriately, does not mean the end of theism, but rather affords theistic religions to get their act together, to purge themselves of their mindless and destructive theologies - to present God as intimately connected to all of us, not just the "right" type or the "right" behavior. Theistic religions have, at times, exemplified what is the best in humanity, but they have also stood back and became complicit with humanity at its worst.
The evangelization and proselytization of the world must end if theism is to remain relevant. Instead of conversion, theistic religions must engage in a redemptive, restorative process geared at saving what is, not what ought to be. What we ought to be will emerge naturally if humanity is guided to gently embrace and care for the fragility of life in all its current forms and ways.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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