Monday, July 16, 2012

Salt, Light and Honey Part I

In yesterday's New York Time's journalist Ross Douthat wrote an insightful critique of the future of liberal Christianity. He points out that as liberal denominations like the Episcopal Church become more and more like the world their church shrinks more and more. In the last decade the Episcopal Church has shrunk nearly 25% with not a single diocese showing any growth. He writes: "Today, by contrast, the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism." Douthat's point is that as the church becomes more and more like the world, the world sees no reason to become involved with the church.

In St. Mark's Church in Stuttgart during the post-war years of 1946-1948 German theologian and pastor Helmut Thielicke delivered a series of sermons on the Sermon on the Mount. Those sermons have been collected into a book, Life Can Begin Again. Preaching on Matthew 5.13-16 Thielicke writes, "To look at many Christians who are soft and effeminate and sweet one would think that their ambition is to be the honeypot of the world. They sweeten and sugar the bitterness of life with an all too easy conception of a loving God...They have retouched hell out of existence and only heaven is on the horizon. When it comes to the devil and temptation they stick their heads in the sand and they go about with a constant, set smile on their faces, pretending that they have overcome the world. For them the kingdom of God...has become an innocuous garden of flowers and their faith a sweet honey they gather from its blossoms. And this is also the reason why the world turns away, sickened and disgusted, from these Christians." 

The world doesn't buy it, Thielicke argues, because they know life is harder than these Christians are making it out to be and a watered down God of happiness and sugary pleasure isn't a God at all. Thielicke goes on to say, "But Jesus, of course, did not say, 'You are the honey of the world.' He said, 'You are the salt of the earth.' Salt bites, and the unadulterated message of the judgment and grace of God has always been a biting thing..." (p. 28)

I am struck by the similarity in the observations. Germany, as is the rest of Europe, is post-Christian. Of all the options for religious affiliation in Germany, "No religion" leads the charge with 34%. Among German youths (12-24) 23% are agnostic and 28% are atheists. In Hamburg, where Thielicke spent most of his career post-WWII, no religion is the dominant affiliation. Thielicke realized the popular religion being preached and the changes that were advocated for within the church were attractive to the world and so useless for the kingdom. Now, denominations in America are drifting the same way. All we have to do is gaze across the pond to see the future of the American church if these trends continue. In line with that Douthat concludes that as American denominations change and lose their distinct Christian heritage and adopt more of the world's culture "..their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die."


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