John H Armstrong

Religious "Reverts" -- Are Americans Coming Back to Church?

The Easter Weekend edition of USA Today had a front page story on religious "reverts." It explored the current push of various religious groups, including Jews and Christians, to reach out to a large and growing demographic. That demographic consists of millions of people who have left organized religion over the last two decades. The article told the story of people, ranging from cradle Catholics to former-Southern Baptists, who have come home.

For all that the article revealed about people who are on their way back this sentence said it all: "Then (referring to the reverts), unlike most, they came back." Simply put the stories of reverts make an interesting narrative but the numbers of such reverts is still small. Very few people who leave the religion of their childhood ever return to it.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life noted that more than half of all Americans say they have switched religions at least once. Only 9% of them say that they've come back to the churches or religious centers that shaped them, or maybe I should say never shaped them.

The interesting thing here is how much energy and money various groups are pouring into trying to regain these former members. Catholic churches have seemingly done the most with their "Catholics Come Home" effort. While this effort is well conceived and very professionally produced it seems to have born limited results so far. Mark Gray, a Catholic political scientist, says that it is not clear if those who have come back will really stay, at least not yet. He notes that the Catholic share of the population still remains at 25%.

So what makes reverts stay, so far as we can tell at the present moment? At St. Bede's, a Catholic mega-church of 3,700 families in Williamsburg, Virginia, it is a seven-week program called "Welcome Home" that seems to bear the most fruit. This class is specifically designed to answer the questions that reverts have. The intention is to calm their concerns about what has kept them away from the church. The program seeks to intentionally draw them back into the life of the parish, not just to return to Mass on Sundays. Education and evangelization are central to this approach.

One clear trend is clearly at the center of the narrative accounts of these reverts. Family is very important, both that of their past and their present. This is not surprising. Could the growing breakup of the family prompt many to search for faith and discover the church again? It is possible. I am just not sure that the numbers strongly reflect a major movement quite yet. I pray this will be so but right now most of those who were churched, and left, are not coming back. It seems to me that the harder work for the church will be to reach those who were never churched at all, which is increasingly a very large percentage of younger Americans.

Repentance and Faith: God's Gifts to Us in Christ

The first words of true mission are an invitation to repentance. To repent means to change, to turn, to believe the good news. Repentance and faith, so far as I can tell, are like two sides of the same coin. While some theologians separate them, in order to distinguish them, the gospel seems to keep them closely bound together. In some texts we read about faith in our Lord Jesus Christ while in others people are urged to repent and then believe the good news. John the Baptist began his ministry of preparation for the coming Messiah by saying, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:1-2). 

The Greek word metanoia is used in the LXX (OT Greek translation) to describe both God and man having repented about something. We read, for example, that God repented of having made Saul king of Israel. The rabbis used the word to primarily express how a person changes their mind about an evil life. God’s people were constantly called upon to repent because they continually moved away from the covenant. And the prophets believed the Messiah would lead all to God by conversion, a conversion which would follow upon repentance. 

In the New Testament repentance plainly means to take a new direction in one’s life. Deep conversion, which is a life long procession regardless of how it begins, is rooted in repentance. This is not, however, our effort or our morally righteous “work” but God’s gift that results in our turning around. The gift results in my willingness to follow Christ and to co-operate with God in changing my direction. 

Evangelicals are right to call upon people to repent. But they are wrong to think of this as a “one time” turning. It is a first step in a new direction. It is the beginning of a process. My whole life, and my attitude toward God, needs to be converted daily and repentance is God’s grace to pursue this change. I do make a decision to repent. But I make it daily if I am a disciple of Jesus. 

Various theologians have argued about which comes first, repentance or faith. I do not think the Bible is clear on this question. A case can be made, theologically, for either coming first. Yet I prefer to think that faith comes first since faith is the God-given ability to believe that God truly loves me and personally desires my fellowship with him in Christ Jesus. When I believe this to be true then I am motivated to turn from sin and to God again and again. If I do not believe that I am loved turning will be nearly impossible in many instances. 

Today ask God to grant you “eyes that see” and a “heart that believes” so that you might turn from sin and follow God’s call in your life. Begin each day with faith and repentance. In fact, live every moment in faith and repentance. Surely no true Christian can argue that faith and repentance are at the very center of the good news of Jesus. God’s gracious gift in Christ grants us the “eyes that see” so that we can repent and follow Jesus as our Lord!

 

Of Gods and Men

The recently released DVD of the highly praised 2010 French film, Of Gods and Men, affords a unique opportunity for people to see and experience what it was like for Cistercian Trappist monks in Algeria to live and die for their faith.

Of Gods and Men is a drama film directed by Xavier Beauvois, starring Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale. Its original French title is Des hommes et des dieux, which means "Of Men and of Gods" and refers to a motto from the Bible shown at the beginning of the film. It centers on the monastery of Tibhirine, where nine monks lived in harmony with the largely Muslim population of Algeria, until seven of them were kidnapped and assassinated in 1996 during the Algerian Civil War.

The film tells a story that is primarily about a peaceful situation between local Christians and Muslims before it became lethal due to external forces. The screenplay focuses on the preceding chain of events in the decay of the government, the expansion of terrorism and the monks' confrontation with both the terrorists and the government authorities that led up to their deaths. Principal photography took place at an abandoned monastery in Azrou, Morocco with careful attention to authenticity.

Greg Erlandson noted in a recent edition of Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) “Such a description does the movie an injustice, for it is a beautiful, profound meditation on Catholic faith and witness, on the spiritual journey of monasticism and on the challenge of being men of peace in a time of cruel violence” (OSV, July 24, 2011, page 18).

Erlandson correctly notes that Of Gods and Men is a most un-American movie. (It was nominated from France for the Academy Award for best foreign film but it did not make the list of the five finalists!) There is no sex, no fast car chase, no large explosions, no large musical score to drown out every inch of the film in noise, etc. The music score is mostly monastic singing and chanting! The film tells a beautiful and moving story by weaving together scenes of monastic prayer with scenes of work and witness in a Muslim land. Simply put the film shows what it means to truly follow Christ into the hardest places and then to live and die for the glory of God!

I saw the film in a small art theater with only a handful of viewers present. There was a silence about the film and the theater that was uncommon. The prayers of the monks, the process by which they slowly and carefully made their decision to remain in their monastery when they knew that they could die and the struggles of fear and dark nights of the soul all pervade their story. (By the way, we know the true story because one monk escaped capture and was able to tell a great deal of it in writing. Some parts, for example how the men died, remain unknown.)

Reviewers responded to the film in various ways. One said you could sum it all up by saying the story was about a group of old men too set in their own ways to save themselves when they clearly could have lived and gone free. To him these foolish old men died needlessly. Another reviewer said the real problem in the story is religion since it is religion that endorses so much killing. I honestly wonder what film this critic actually reviewed, or if he even saw this film.

Roger Ebert offered a thoughtful review, though one we should consider as Christians living in modern America. His comments should cause Christians to seriously discuss this “American” perspective. Ebert wrote:

Did they make the right choice? [To remain in their place and face death willingly?] In their own idealistic terms, yes. In realistic terms, I say no. They have the ability to help many who need it for years to come. It is egotism to believe their help must take place in this specific monastery. Between the eight of them, they have perhaps a century of life of usefulness remaining. Do they have a right to deprive those who need it of their service? In doing so, are they committing the sin of pride?

Roger Ebert is an admittedly secular film critic (and often a very good one). He speaks here about what is realistic and what is sinful. I found this very surprising to be honest. His argument is typically American: pragmatic and utilitarian. His view is that a monastery in a remote part of Algeria is valuable only to the extent that it dispenses free medicine to the poor and thus can actually help people. We respect this kind of help as a culture. But we have no understanding at all of the deeper meaning of a life of solitude and monasticism.

Erlandson suggested in his OSV review, “A Band of Brothers,” that this response raises an interesting question: Should we seek the world’s approval since the world will never understand our choices and lifestyle? If we try to explain the gospel in pragmatic and utilitarian terms the world will still be unconvinced.

Of Gods and Men offers the world a response to suffering, pain and purpose that the world will not hear from pragmatic, market-driven Christianity. I suggest you see it and I also suggest you show it to young adults and discuss it. This goes for both Catholic and Protestant readers.

“I Have Never Found Anyone in Israel with Such Faith” Part Two

Yesterday I showed how God coming into this world made this the “visited planet,” to quote one of my favorite lines from the late J. B. Phillips. Today I want to explain further what this means for true faith.

I begin by making a statement that I have come to understand over the last decade. Until I understood the incarnation as I now do I would have said what the evangelical Protestant church needs the most is a bigger view of God. I would now disagree with myself and say what we need even more, to the surprise of many who read these words perhaps, is a much bigger view of humankind. We have a radically deficient anthropology because we have a radically deficient view of both creation and incarnation.

So when Jesus says of the Centurion that he had never found such faith as that which he expressed in all of Israel it was more than an exaggerated statement for effect. He was saying that religion can never produce such great faith. Only faith in the person of Jesus – his wisdom, grace and love – can ever amount to anything in the realm of spiritual reality.

Think about this: to become a Christian requires that you begin with faith. You may not even know where or how you began but you must have faith in this person. As the years go by real faith grows, flowers and matures. People ask for proof of faith and I answer, with Jesus I believe, look at how faith in this man changes lives! How can you write off this life-changing faith as mere imagination?

But Phillips suggests that it is here that real trouble often lies. “The uncomfortable fact is that there is no proof without commitment.” You cannot know God and experience the fellowship of Jesus unless and until you commit yourself to that way of living which Jesus taught and lived himself. You cannot remain a cozy and uncommitted believer and be a Christ-follower. If you want to know God, and experience his kingdom, then you have to enter into your own life in Christ experience by believing on him. The story we read yesterday in Matthew underscores this very point.

When you read these words you cannot help but believe that Jesus was surprised by the faith of this Roman centurion.  Here is how the story puts it:

⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

Let me try to explain this story simply. This Roman soldier took it quite as a matter of course that since he knew how to give orders and expected others to obey them so Jesus had all authority and could command unseen forces and answers would be forthcoming. It was, on his part, a simple deduction. In a way, this is what faith is – a simple deduction based on divine logic. This logic is rooted in the incarnation.

I cannot help but think that such faith is largely absent today. It is a simple, direct confidence in the power of Jesus. But this is exactly what we see on the pages of the Synoptic Gospels again and again.

Before you assume that it was easy for people who saw Jesus to have such faith think again. The multitudes did not believe on him. Yet some did and this account reminds us of what “great faith” this man had in Jesus.

But this is not all. In the epistles we see how this same faith transformed early Christian believers who trusted Jesus and were baptized in the triune name. God transformed people. It is safe to say that this kind of faith – a faith which reaches out to God in Jesus and depends on him – is essential for those who would be real followers of Jesus. Hebrews says that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Phillips notes that this is not so much a threat as a plain statement of fact. We do not really begin to live the Christian life until we exercise this faculty which God has planted in the human heart. The New Testament calls this “faith.”

Do we have the courage and determination to believe like the centurion and simply, directly reach out to Jesus and believe on the one whom God sent into the world to save the world? This is great faith. Everything else doesn’t matter, at least in comparison with this. We can, and we do, disagree about a great deal but we cannot disagree about this and remotely think of ourselves as followers of Jesus. This is not a Protestant thing or a Catholic thing. This is not a conservative thing or a liberal thing. This is simple reality. Do you believe on the Son of God?

“I Have Never Found Anyone in Israel with Such Faith” Part One

In Matthew 8 we have an astonishing account of true faith. I have heard many theological definitions of faith given over the years but none comes close to this story. (Have you ever noticed that Jesus did not give definitions of faith but stories that reveal what true faith looks like in a person’s actions?) This is such an account.

⁵ When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

⁷ Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. ¹² But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

So many people think true faith is believing something and that’s that. But there is so much more. True faith is rooted in the incarnation. It means believing that God himself came to this planet and revealed to us the very nature and heart of God. God lived in human history and God, in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth, lived and died. God expressed himself in Jesus. Jesus is the right name for a truly human person. Once you’ve come to the place where you truly believe that Jesus is God – God revealed as much as is possible in human flesh – you then know that you don’t have all the answers but you have a remarkable amount of light to live by. Your conception of God is revolutionized and this changes your life from one stage of faith to another. Why? You see him as the God who so loved the world that he became Man for us and our salvation.

Jesus, who was God in human flesh, then defines your attitude toward humankind. For Jesus, who was God of God, was unashamedly man, the Son of Man. Jesus shows us that the love of God can never be separated from the love of human beings. In fact, in the parable of the Last Judgment we find the Son of Man insisting that the way we treated people will be the way we treated Him. If this doesn’t amaze you then you’ve read too much theology for your own good. Even the people in the story are amazed, even horrified, by the pronouncement.

But it all stands to reason. If God became man then the value of man increased exponentially. By coming to this planet God lifted homo sapiens to the highest and most exalted place. He gave us a future beyond anything we can imagine. The heart of true Christian faith lies right here: if your neighbor is your enemy then you must love him precisely because God’s coming into this world makes it possible for him to become your brother, a “son of God” along with you. Once you believe that Jesus was God who came into this world then you find yourself becoming sure that this world really does matter. It is not garbage being made ready for a dump! It is, as J. B. Phillips so powerfully called it, “the visited planet.”

Tomorrow: True Faith, Part Two