I have some colleagues who claim a bump in attendance this
Easter.
Not the regular, more people than every other Sunday except
Christmas Eve; but rather, more people than last Easter. I do not know if this
is a phenomenon that is repeated in other United Churches or even other
denominations this year; but it does give one cause to think.
Someone claimed that the media attention given to the new
Pope points to a similar conclusion… are people getting interested in religion
again?
I knew a man, a minister, who has been one for a very long
time. In fact, of clergy I have heard of he has been doing it the longest, and
he pointed out that in his lifetime there have been cycles, up and down; from
the relatively non-religious days before the Second World War, through the religious
days of the 1950’s, The loss of authority and religious belief of the 60’s etc…
up and down.
He is not alone in this belief, in fact, experts agree that
there are larger cycles as well. Some, like Karen Armstrong, argue for massive
500 year cycles, or perhaps even longer. The reality they point to is the fact
that we are a people who move through our beliefs.
Humans come to know a truth, then we think about it long and
hard and abandon it, then we realize we are living without a part of ourselves
and embrace it. That is just who we are.
The thing is, all of the 1900’s, all of these relatively
small changes we saw over the last 100 years, are all part of a larger cycle of
change that we are in the midst of which is only half way done. Take our side
of the religious coin alone, and think about Christianity over the last 4000
years.
First there was this belief that there was a god for
everything, sheep and farming, rains and sunshine. Then, somewhere, there was
this period of religious and social upheaval that led to monotheism, the belief
that there was one, all powerful, God who controlled everything. That lasted
for a few generations and along came another period of upheaval and change
which eventually brought about Jesus and the idea that God is not distant and
all powerful but relational and here with us. Then at the turn of the last
century this began to change again.
It started changing with the industrial revolution, it
changed when more people moved to cities than lived in the country, it changed
when we published books, started scientific inquiry and built computers… it has
been changing for a while….
Sorry to wax so philosophical, but I am fresh off a month of
thinking about what Easter means to us here in the modern scientific skeptical
age. It is hard to figure that out, because we truly do live in an age of not
yet… the religion that was the cornerstone of our great, great, grandparents;
that led to the idea that Christians would conquer and convert the world, that
was sure life here had meaning because it would continue in heaven… that
religion has been dying a slow death for a hundred years. And here we are a
decade into the next hundred and we truly have no idea what it will be like 5,
10, 100 years down the road.
I write these columns to make people think. And for so long
I have been hearing about the death of the church; I have been hearing that
people are not religious anymore and that the ideas we hold are quaint. But
that is not true. We are just changing.
Some people hate it and are holding on with clenched teeth
to the traditions. Some people are afraid and do not know what to do. Some
people are exploring what needs to change and what makes sense today.
So perhaps things are coming around. Perhaps we are on the
other side of the current age of lack of faith and things really are going to
start growing again.
Whatever the case, I write these columns in the hopes that
you will join the last group, those who want to think about what next. Those
that want to work at making sense of what we have been handed. Easter is about
new life and I believe there is new life for the religions of the world, for
the faithful… I just don’t know what it will look like.
