• Sick this week and on the couch, watched the presidential Debate and debates about the Debate, reading political pundits, watching interviews and noting, everywhere, the condition of my culture and country. This is probably impossible, but let me try to pull together, in several paragraphs, some broad, complex ideas that bear on the moment. This is longer and not everyone’s cup of tea, but I encourage you to take a moment and read to the end.
• First, I was encouraged by an article (elder Hani Rizkalla found this and sent it to all the elders) that argues the current numeric decline of Christianity is really just the departure of “cultural” Christians from the Church. What we’re seeing, the author argues, is the end of “Christian nominalism.” “Christianity is not collapsing,” he writes, “it’s being clarified.” It was bound to happen. As John said, “they went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 Jn 2:19). Hold that thought.
• In my sick-sofa wanderings around the Web (pursued the entire time by Brad Pitt, Chanel No. 5’s first male model), I noted the growing insistence in certain quarters that personal faith be excluded from the public forum, especially politics. Nothing new in this, but as fewer people identify with Christianity, or sympathize with its transcendent moral framework, the argument for excluding religion from public discourse becomes easier to make. After the Ryan/Biden debate, one writer (Adam Gropnik in the New Yorker) attacked Ryan’s views on abortion. Ryan had said, “our faith informs us in everything we do.” Gropnik’s complaint was Ryan wanted to build public policy on personal views, an effort that made him sound just like an Iranian Ayatollah — an argument by which Gropnik, if you read the entire piece, is implying, 1) Christianity and Islam have the same effect on society and, 2) both aspire to theocracy.
• Anyway, is it actually possible for a person to act in any public arena, detached from his or her “private” beliefs? Isn’t the person who says their strongest convictions have no bearing on their public actions just being naive? Jesus said: “…no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit… out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:43-45). No matter what a person may think, the fruit produced by a soul cannot be divorced from the essence of that soul.
• Richard John Neuhaus said, “politics is most importantly a function of culture, and at the heart of culture is religion, whether or not it is called by that name.” The key phrase here is “…whether or not it is called by that name.” The fact is, Adam Gropnik has a “religion,” a collection of beliefs that govern who he is and what he does. He holds ideas, in the essence of his being, that are bearing a particular kind of fruit. His problem with Paul Ryan is not that Ryan speaks of abortion from the standpoint of traditional Christian orthodoxy, it’s that Ryan is speaking in violation of Gropnik’s orthodoxy. This isn’t about religion vs. secularism; it’s about two competing religions.
• So (coming full-circle) even if it’s true the Church is being “ clarified” and so reduced in size, there’s no need to be intimidated into silence. While those who oppose you are now more vocal, this is exactly how Jesus described our role in society: “all these things they will do to you on account of my name” but the Holy Spirit will comfort and help us (Jn 15:21ff).
• My only caution is this: though our political system drives us to cast our lot with one politician or another in elections, I urge you to not conflate the work of the Church with any particular political party. I am, for example, weary of Evangelicals trying to convince me that Mitt Romney is basically a Christian because they feel there must be a 1:1 identity between the Church and the Republican Party. This does nothing but weaken the Church’s theology. Mormonism is a Trinitarian and Soteriological heresy. Christians need to get over this and move on.
• And finally, you have nothing to fear or be discouraged about. After laying out in the Upper Room the dire circumstances into which the Disciples were about to descend, Jesus said “in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). Or, as the young heroine says, striking out for parts unknown in the beginning of the Cohen brothers new version of “True Grit” (much appreciated at our house), “the Author of all things watches over me, and I have a fine horse.”