Look out! Here comes another Christmas! What started as a purely religious celebration, of an unrecorded birth of an illegitimate infant in an obscure Jewish village, has gradually evolved into a social juggernaut based on family togetherness and over-indulgence.
Besides being an annual bonanza for retail sales.
Christmas comes around very year, as predictably as winter. Which is followed by spring, and then summer, autumn, and another winter.
Fifty years ago, Joni Mitchell captured that cyclical pattern in a song: “And the seasons they go round and round…”
Ups and downs
By pure coincidence, 50 years is also the period covered by a book just published by the BC Conference of the United Church. Eighteen authors contributed chapters about their own special areas of experience.
I was asked to edit those chapters. And I was surprised how prescient Joni Mitchell’s lyrics remain: “And the painted ponies go up and down…”
Like Mitchell’s painted ponies, the fortunes of the church have gone up and down over that 50 years. One decade, the church boomed; another, it bombed. Programs came; programs went. Institutions flowered; institutions shrivelled.
Some churches closed. Some camps were sold. The proceeds funded innovative new programs.
We called the book Times and Tides. Both times and tides are cyclical. They flow out; they come back again.
Running down
“We're captive on the carousel of time…” Mitchell wrote.
In 1970, the book’s starting point, the United Church had peaked. Adult membership was still over a million. The church sometimes boasted of opening a new church or a new church hall every week.
Then the decline began. First the Sunday schools, then the adult membership. But faithful members kept the money coming. So the calliope music kept playing. For a while.
Now the carousel is slowing down. As Mitchell wrote, “We can't return we can only look behind/ From where we came…”
In this area, a region the United Church calls Kamloops-Okanagan Presbytery, there were once more than 40 active congregations. There are now 30. And half of those face extinction in the next decade.
Only four congregations are thriving. Only four.
So what happened?
Flawed assumptions
Conservatives will conclude, with complete conviction, that that’s what happens when you move away from traditional religious teachings and embrace liberal theology. When you take up social issues like ecology, evolution, politically correct language, and the gay agenda --- whatever that is – instead of teaching the absolute authority of the Bible.
They’re wrong. Statistics show that even in the U.S., the most church-going nation in the world, conservative and evangelical churches are starting to show the same declines that hit mainline denominations 50 years ago.
And they’re wrong in practice. Here in the Thompson-Okanagan region, the four United Church thriving congregations I mentioned are, for the most part, way out in front theologically. They’re deeply involved in justice issues. They use gender-neutral language, even for God. And at least three are led by gay ministers.
The dying churches, by contrast, cling to the past. The old hymns. The old liturgies. The old understandings of God and church.
A loyal and aging few keep the congregations alive, serving their own needs, going “round and round/ In the circle game.”
They’d rather fade away than change to a different carousel.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
Perhaps I supported Colin Kaepernick last week as the lesser of two evils.
Bob Rollwagen responded, “English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall coined her defense of free speech and many other intelligent observations as a person who understood the reason for language and used it as a tool to advance society. I believe that hate and senseless abuse of others were not aspects she was trying to defend. If we allow anyone to be a bully in any way, we permit all to be the same in the fashion they choose. Bullies attempt the destruction of a social order for the benefit of self. Pandora's box has fallen from the shelf. Only those who understand the right of free speech and continue to speak, can keep the lid from falling off.”
Isabel Gibson had a dilemma: “Perspectives differ. I don't find President Trump palatable, nor do I endorse his comments. I don't question Mr. Kaepernick's right of free speech (or his opinion, in large part), or the athletes inspired by him.
“I do question the choice of venue and the timing. I'm amazed that any employee can use their employer's ‘stage’ to express personal comments on something that has nothing to do with their relationship with that employer. If I had tried anything remotely similar on any of my jobs, I believe I would have been shown the door very quickly.
“If black athletes (or any athletes) wants to use their celebrity, fame, or name recognition to advance a cause they believe in, good on them. I'd just rather they did it on their own time.”
“I was delighted to see the position of Colin Kaepernick articulated so well,” wrote Gloria Jorgenson. “I do, however, question the line that suggests the economic situation of the officer and CK have anything to do with the issue. There are many wealthy people who are less than perfect and it would be an unhappy situation if the police did not pull over anyone who seemed to be in a higher income bracket than themselves. Maybe I'm not getting the point, but I don't see the relevance of that sentence. (All of this is spoken in a most calm and rational manner.)”
JT: I know I had something in mind when I wrote that sentence, but even if I could recall it, it would probably take another column’s worth of words to explain.
Richard Best liked the analogy of “pushing a string” that Tom Watson used in a letter. Richard wrote, “Decades ago I read about General (later President) Eisenhower illustrating this to his staff during the ETO. He is quoted as saying: ‘Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.’”
Robert Mason wrote about a different subject: “I really appreciated your paraphrase of parts of Psalm 80 this week. [It was] truly an inspirational and challenging message as we approach Advent, especially with the commercialization of Christmas. May I and your other readers remember this particularly during this Christmas season.”
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PSALM PARAPHRASES
The lectionary recommends verses from Psalm 85 for this coming Sunday. The NRSV’s version implies, for me at least, a pie-in-the-sky everything-will-be-all-right attitude that doesn’t match some people’s harsh realities. So here’s how I paraphrased it.
1 Pious voices utter platitudes: "Trust in the Lord. It's God's will. God knows best."
2 People say with certainty: "The Lord gives, and the Lord taketh away."
Or, "With faith, all things are possible."
8 "Silence!" I want to cry.
"Take your frozen formulas and leave me alone!
Let me listen for what God has to say.”
9 For God will not let a broken heart bleed by itself in the night.
10 When wounds cut to the bone, only God can sew together the torn edges of a shattered life.
Only God can soothe such throbbing pain."
11 Surely goodness and mercy will grow again, and sunshine return to the sky.
12 Sorrow is holy ground;
walk on it only with feet bared to the pain of every pebble.
13 Through the darkness, the Lord comes walking on the salt sea of tears.
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.
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I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca
I’m leaving out some of the links to other blogs and pages, to see if those links have caused the recent blockages, preventing some of your from receiving the columns at all, and preventing others from sending responses. We’ll see.
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PROMOTION STUFF
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca
Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet