Category: Religion

In Response to the State of Our Culture, Do We Carry the Cross or the Sword?

Jesus told us to follow him by picking up our crosses, but many of us today are picking up our swords.

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

I recently heard Tim Alberta say that some modern evangelicals have picked up a sword, and that sword is Donald Trump. Such a sword is needed for success in a culture war, and a culture war mentality drives the politics of many, if not most, of evangelicals today.

Many evangelicals are concerned, if not fearful, of current cultural trends. People are pulling away from and rejecting traditional Christian values in the US. The change has been rapid (as far as cultural trends go). American society is going the way of Europe and Canada in letting go (and outright rejecting) Christian labels, overtly Christian thinking, and church attendance.

Perhaps, nothing demonstrates the cultural movement away from Christianity in the United States like the book, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, by Ryan P. Burge. The author says that only five percent (5%) of Americans claimed “no religion” in a 1972 poll. That number rose to over twenty three percent (23%) by 2018. This made “nones” as numerous as Catholics or evangelicals in the US in 2018.

Nones are predominantly young Americans, but this trend does not just affect the nation’s youth, and it has picked up momentum since COVID. Robb Redman reports from various sources on community trends and culture for worshipleader.com, including the following:

  • 70% of Americans were church members in 1999 (Gallup);
  • Less than 50% of Americans were church members in 2023 (Id.);
  • 45 million Americans have stopped going to church in that time;
  • 41% of Americans 39-57 went to church regularly in 2020 (Barna);
  • 28% of Americans 39-57 went to church regularly in 2023 (Id.).

Ryan Burge partnered with Jim Davis and Michael Graham to explore the reasons for this precipitous decline in church membership and attendance and the rise in self-described nones in their recent book, The Great Dechurching. This book has become the topic of much conversation in the short time since it was published. I haven’t read the book yet, so I posed the question, “What are the top five reasons people have stopped going to church, listed from most common to least common”, to two different AI platforms. The results from Bing Co-Pilot are as follows:

  1. Judgmental attitudes (87%)
  2. Distrust of organized religion (74%)
  3. Too focused on Money (70%)
  4. Busy schedules (67%)
  5. Loss of Habit (58%)

The Co-Pilot response summarized studies done by the Pew Research Center, Gallup Polls, the Barna Group, the Public Religion Research Institute and various academic studies to generate this list. I note that the first three reasons people have given for not attending church are issues with the Church I am referring to the Church (capital C) because I don’t know how this breaks down among denominations. The other two main reasons are unrelated to the Church; they reflect personal and societal lifestyle issues.

Chat GPT reported different results, citing some of the same sources (Pew and Barna) and some different sources (General Social Survey and books and articles, generally, including Sociology of Religion by Diana Butler Bass, an academic book). The Chat GPT list is not as straight forward:

  • “A growing disconnection with church teachings or religious beliefs” (about 60%-70%);
  • “Negative experiences, such as feeling judged or encountering hypocrisy” (about 30%-40%);
  • “A perceived irrelevance of church” and disconnectedness of the church to modern issues (about 25%-35%);
  • Busyness, lifestyle, time constraints, and changing priorities (about 20%-30%); and
  • Exploring alternative spirituality and religious practices (about 15%-25%).

Again, the first three (3) (and the most prominent) reasons for not attending church deal with the Church, itself. Worldviews are shifting away from the views held by the Church (which seems to indicate we are losing this “culture war”). The Church is perceived as disconnected from modern life and the modern world and not relevant to it, and the Church is perceived as overly negative and hypocritical.

The one area of overlap is the high percentage of people who list judgmental attitudes, including negative experiences and hypocrisy) as major reasons of not attending church. This is obviously a key issue (ranking 1st and 2nd respectively).

I find this to be highly problematic for the Church because the Paul plainly said the Church should not be (presently) judging the world (according to Paul (See What Business Do We Have Judging the World?)) And, Jesus said we should be known by the love we have for each other.

It seems pretty obvious to me in my own anecdotal experience that the American Church, generally, has some significant issues in this regard. We are not following Paul’s instruction not to judge the world, and we are failing to love each other well.

I recently watched a Gavin Ortlund critique of fundamentalism in the Church today that focuses on these issues. He says it well when he describes a segment of the Church that is focused more on what followers of Christ should against, rather than than what we should be for. When our focus is on the negative, our positive message is likely to be eclipsed and obscured and it lost in the noise.

I realize, of course, that this “indictment” of the Church generally, is a very broad brush. The church I attend does not fit this mold. Most of the Christians I have close relationships with do not fit this mold. We don’t have to look very far or deep on social media, however, to see evidence of judgmental attitudes, hypocrisy, and negativity.

It’s interesting to me that resources Co-Pilot pulled from identify more negatives (distrust of organized religion and too focused on money) in the top three reasons for not going to church, while the Chat GPT sources identified “growing disconnection with church teachings or religious beliefs” and perceived irrelevance of church” and disconnectedness of the church with modern issues. Distrust and money-focused have nothing to do with message, but disconnection with church teachings and a perceived irrelevance with modern issues has everything to do with message (theology).

Exploring alternative spirituality and religious practices (the 5th reason noted by the Chapt GPT response is related to the disconnection responses. I don’t know whether these things are causal or just symptomatic. If people were finding what they were looking for in church, they wouldn’t disconnect and look elsewhere. If their church experience wasn’t negative, they might still be connected.

On the other hand, both sources identify other things that are going on. Busyness, lifestyle, time constraints, and changing priorities are “neutral” pressures that are affecting not just churches, but service organizations, fraternal organizations, and other traditional ways people have gathered together.

We see a spike in this trend of disconnection from Church membership and attendance after COVID (pun intended). COVID seemed to supercharge changes that were already in the works in many areas of life. People were already disconnecting from face-to-face contact with other people with the proliferation of hand-held devices and social media going back at least to 2012. COVID isolated people even further.

Sociologist, Jean Twenge, finds sharp changes in teen behavior and mental health starting in 2012, which she attributes to teen use of smartphones and other hand-held devices. Her findings about the changes in the behavior of teens is a yardstick to measure the pulse of society.

A published interview with Twenge as Time Magazine’s Person of the Week, reports that “Gen Z is in the grips of a historic mental health crisis, with teenagers struggling with record levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.” Twenge, who has studied many generations of teens, discovered “big and sudden” changes in Gen Z starting around 2012, when hand-held devices became normalized among teens.

Those changes included, among other things, a doubling in the diagnosis of clinical depression among 12-17 year-olds from 2011 to 2019. At the same time, teens reported significantly less face time with other people corresponding significantly with more screen time. I have heard her say that teen pregnancy is down (which seems to be a good thing) because teens spend more time on their phones in their bedrooms alone than spending time with each other (which is problematic).

So, what does this have to do with Donald Trump and Christians fighting a culture war to try to preserve their power and influence in a society that seems to be pulling away from us? I seem to have wandered far afield, but now I am going to pull it in and get to the point.

It seems our culture needs Jesus more than ever. At the same time, people are do not see the benefits of knowing Jesus. At the very time when people need the grace and love of Christ most, people are being pushed away by judgmental attitudes and negative experiences. As people are struggling with isolation, polarization, and mental health issues, the Church is becoming more irrelevant, disconnected, and inaccessible to them.

Ironically, it seems to me, we are not only losing this culture war, the culture war seems to be the very thing that is pushing people away and isolating them from us. As we are circling our wagons defending ourselves against these “outsiders”, and attacking them from behind our theological walls, we have lost sight of the fact that Jesus sent us out into the world to bring the Gospel to the lost.

We are failing in our most critical mission.

Continue reading “In Response to the State of Our Culture, Do We Carry the Cross or the Sword?” →

A Tale of Two Processions, Two Kingdoms, and the Triumph of God

Two processions, two kingdoms clashing, and God’s triumph in the death of God incarnate on the cross

kevingdrendel2 Comments

Episode 124 – Statement of Triumph – from the BEMA Podcast, with Marty Solomon and Brent Billings, inspires my writing today. It was the subject of discussion for the Saturday morning Bible study I have attended off and on with an exceptional group of men for several years.

The subject was Matthew 21:1-11. The chapter heading in the NIV translation (which would not have appeared in the original text, because there were no chapter headings in the original text) is “Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King”.

This is usually how we read it: a “triumphal entry”. We celebrate it as a triumph, and it was. But not perhaps in the way we tend to think about it. Certainly, not in the way the erstwhile followers of Jesus perceived it when it happened.

Marty Solomon sets the stage in the podcast, noting that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey during the week of Passover, an unusually tense time in this region of the Roman world. The uneasy tension arose in that time in that region because it was home to the only group of people in the Roman Empire who refused to worship the Emperor.

The Jewish people were stubbornly true to their God. Even so, Rome allowed the Jews to have their own ruler, Herod the Great. Herod was Jewish and powerful in his own right, but he was happy to be propped up by the Romans, and the Romans accommodated him to maintain stability in the region.

Even so, this small piece of real estate was problematic for Rome. It sat at the crossroads of the earth. The Hebrew people long inhabited it, but they were a headache for the Romans because of their entrenched religious traditions and unabated worship of their God.

When Herod the Great died, three of sons took over different areas of this land that Herod ruled as a vassal of the Romans. Herod Phillip ruled the north (Caesaria Phillippi). Herod Antipas ruled the middle region, and Herod Archelaus ruled in the south (Judea).

Archelaus only lasted two years, so Rome brought in its own ruler, Pontius Pilate (the Roman Bulldog), to maintain Rome’s control over the region. Pilate didn’t live in Jerusalem. Pilate lived in Caesarea Maritime (Caesarea, By the Sea), a city built by Herod to honor Caesar.

The week of Passover would have been a particularly tense time in Jerusalem, the Jewish holy city. Jews from all over were in town to celebrate the feast that remembered their great deliverance and triumph over the superpower of an earlier time, Egypt. The last thing that Rome wanted was for this celebration to get out of hand after rebel Jews got all fueled up with wine and remembrance of their former deliverance.

If there was any holiday that might make the Romans nervous in Judea, it was Passover. Zealots were always stirring up trouble, and Passover would be the most opportune time for a Jewish revolt against the Roman rule of this territory that the Jews long held out as their own. After all, the Jews still believed this land was to be theirs again through based on their understanding of prophecies about a military coup to be led by a messiah (savior) in the line of their once great King, David.

Every year at this time Pontius Pilate would head south from Caesarea down the coastal road to Joppa. He would head east from Joppa to make his way into Jerusalem. Pilate would enter Jerusalem from the west. He traveled with great pomp and a show of force, with an army of soldiers, trumpeters, heralds, banners, and pronouncements. Pilate would lead the way on a white stallion symbolizing Roman conquest and rule.

This show of power, of course, was intentional. I found the article, In Through the Back Door, September 24, 2022, by Terry Gau that describes these yearly processions made by Pilate into Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover week. He cites historians, John Dominic Crossen and Marcus Borg, in their book, Last Week, memorializing the historical and political context for the final chapter of Jesus’ ministry on earth. the procession is described this way:

“Traditionally, Pilate paraded into Jerusalem on the first day of Passover Week, entering the west gate – the front gate – with legions of chariots, horses, and foot soldiers, dressed for battle and armed with swords and spears.  Rome’s authority would not be questioned.  The majesty with which Pilate enters the front door of the city was meant to inspire awe and fear, respect and obedience.”

Marty Solomon says,

“You could have heard him coming from miles away. The message he wanted to send to the Jews was clear. ‘Don’t even think about it! Keep everything under control, or Rome will crush you!’”

BEMA Podcast, Episode 124

Pilate would stay in Herod’s palace in Jerusalem for the week until the festivities ended. Then he would go back to Caesarea. He wasn’t there to celebrate, though. He was there to ensure things didn’t get out of hand and to keep the peace.

During one Passover week under the rule of Pontius Pilate in Judea another procession took place. It may have even happened on the same day at the same time that Pilate was entering the City from the west. This procession took place on the east side of Jerusalem where Jesus, riding on a lowly young donkey with a small, rag tag bunch of unarmed disciples entered through the east gate – the back door to Jerusalem.

“This parade was just as carefully staged as Pilate’s entry into Jerusalem. It was a counter-procession, a different vision of what a Kingdom should be, a subversive action against the powers that ruled Jerusalem. Jesus’ humble, yet triumphal, entry into Jerusalem stood in contrast to the magnificence and brutality on display at the opposite end of the city. Jesus brings peace, while Pilate brings a sword.”

In Through the Back Door

This was the backdrop for episode 124 of the BEMA Podcast and of our discussion. I sit writing at a temporary table with one chair left in my house that is all but cleaned out and being readied for sale. My future is uncertain as I recount one of the most pivotal times in human history and the dealings of God with man and what it means for us, today.

Continue reading “A Tale of Two Processions, Two Kingdoms, and the Triumph of God” →

Diving for Pearls in the stories of Dustin Kensrue and Mark Driscoll

Dustin Kensrue’s music is as good as ever, but it comes with the melancholy of what used to be.

kevingdrendel7 Comments

I recently spent some time listening to Dustin Kensrue’s new album, Desert Dreaming. I like his music, and the new album is good. The first song I heard, though, reminded me of the rumors that he has walked away from orthodox Christianity:

When I left town, I was swept up
With the visions of a man from Galilee
Along the way, I lost my bearings
I got swallowed up by sins of certainty

The heart of sedona

The words to this song triggered a desire to research the truth. Kensure was an impactful Christian musician who wrote the worship album of the year not to many years ago. I wondered, therefore, why he walked away (if indeed he did).

I learned that Kensrue was a former worship leader for Mars Hill, the failed church that rose to the heights of evangelical influence with many campuses, only to collapse with the failings of its erstwhile leader, Mark Driscoll.

Listening to the song, Heart of Sedona, off Kensrue’s new album, Desert Dreaming, gave me pause. The words seem to confirm the rumor, and the story seems all too familiar lately.

His music is as good as ever, but it comes with the melancholy of what used to be. Or maybe it never was. It’s hard to know how to process the deconstruction of someone else’s faith.

Given the back story (involvement in a failed church movement), I suspected his “deconstruction” (and many other artists who seem to have followed a similar path) may be symptomatic of some malady that has infected Evangelical Christianity.

My entre into Kensrue’s story begin with the article, It’s Not Enough: Dustin Kensrue’s Turning Away, which is where I learned that Kensrue was intimately involved in the toxic environment of the Mars Hill church movement led by Driscoll, a controversial and polarizing personality.

I had heard of the rise and fall of Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill Church, but I did not jump on the curiosity bandwagon when people associated with Christianity Today produced the podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. I only heard about it, and I had listened to a discussion of the podcast on another podcast. Therefore, I finally felt a need to hear it firsthand to gain some perspective.

The podcast describes the talent and bravado of Mark Driscoll, who was also polarizing and toxic and seemingly proud of it. Driscoll was staunchly reformed in his theology with a cultish personality and a flair for the dramatic. He attracted people on the edges of faith in the notoriously countercultural Seattle area. I summarized some of my thoughts on what I learned in Keeping It Real for the Church: Talent in Tension with Character)

I have also gone back, now, through the tweets highlighted in the article I noted above, and I have poured over Dustin Kensrue’s Twitter (X) feed to gain further insight. These things give me additional food for thought in considering the “deconstruction” of Dustin Kensrue as it relates to the American Evangelical Church.

Though I have spent considerable time researching these things, my thoughts remain preliminary and exploratory. I am not certain that I have gained sufficient perspective to be clear or certain of any conclusions, but all this seems to confirm my sense that the story is symptomatic of a problem with the American Evangelical Church.

In fact, the original article I found, itself, seems to be symptomatic of issues in the American Evangelical Church. These issues may also be reflected in current American culture, affected as it is by social media. I apologize for the length of this article, but I am afraid I do not do much more than scratch the surface here.

Continue reading “Diving for Pearls in the stories of Dustin Kensrue and Mark Driscoll” →

Gospel Shoes

The art of music has a way of moving us and conveying messages that might not be as well received more directly and bluntly spoken

kevingdrendel1 Comment
Blindfaller by Watchhouse

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? ….
God will judge those outside….

1 corinthians 5:12,13

Paul wrote these words to the Corinthians while urging them to deal with sexual immorality in the church that was so bad it would not have been tolerated by pagans. (1 Corinthians 5:1)

I am reminded of these words that Paul wrote as I listen to Gospel Shoes by the folk/Americana group, Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange) from Chapel Hill, NC. This isn’t a “Christian” song written by people who profess to be Christian, but it speaks with poignancy, clarity, and tenderness. This version is particularly well done:

 Some set their heads to swimming, nothing to lose
Drift about their good times, slivers in their boots
Some walk the straight and narrow, only passing through
Trading this world over for a pair of gospel shoes

The opening stanza of the song contrasts the “pagans” of the world with the “Christians” (more or less). Andrew Marlin (the writer of the song) may put it another way. He might say that he is contrasting “normal”, average, typical people with “religious”, church-going people.

To be fair, the caricatures of religious people do not accurately describe most of the people in my church (or in any church I have gone to, for the most part). BUT, those caricatures do have some elements of truth to them about some people, or some segment of people, who are religious in our society.

Those who “set their heads to swimming, nothing to lose”, are living this life for all it can give them because they believe this life is all there is. They “drift about their good times” because they have no particular aim, meaning, or purpose. They are looking for whatever fun and pleasure they can get, though they accumulate “slivers in their boots”.

Those who “walk the straight and narrow, only passing through”, are the religious people, of course. They are people who profess to believe in a better life after death, “trading this world over for a pair of gospel shoes”.

The term, “gospel shoes”, finds some resonance in Isaiah:

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

Isaiah 52:7

The word, “gospel”, of course means “good news”. The feet are beautiful of those who say “God reigns!” because it is news of peace, good tidings, and salvation. Or so it should be. Paul says, our feet should be “fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

Ironic, isn’t it? That Paul in talking about the “armor of God” includes “shoes” made of the “gospel of peace”. (Ephesians 6:15) It’s no wonder that we send mixed messages out into the world. But, that isn’t the “fault” of scripture; it’s our misunderstanding of it and of the upside down nature of the kingdom of God that Jesus preached.

The armor of God does not protect us against people (flesh and blood) but against dark spiritual forces. (Eph. 6:12) We are not intended to use the armor of God as a weapon against people.

Of course, some people often don’t want to hear about God. They don’t want to do be accountable, so the news of God is not “good” to them. The people who set their heads to swimming, who think they have nothing to lose and drift about the good times, however, are bound to gather slivers in their boots.

Drifting through life doing “whatever feels good” inevitably results in hardship and heartache. These are people, however, for whom God emptied Himself to become human in Jesus and for whom Jesus gave up his life, dying on a cross. He didn’t come to condemn them; he came to save them. (John 3:16-17)

Those slivers in their boots are problems that will fester and get worse. People often do not wake up to the folly of our youth until we have accumulated more hardship, difficulty, and pain than we can handle. And sometimes, those slivers cause problems that linger for a lifetime.

God who loves “those people” so much that He gave His son for them. He loves them no less than any religious person in the world, no matter how devout. Thus, God desires to reach them with His Gospel, the good news that there is a way for them to avoid the pain of their own doing and judgment that inevitably follows this life and enter into relationship with the God who created them and loves them.

As I recall Paul’s words to the Corinthians, I am struck that we often seem to have gotten things backwards. Instead of loving the world and seeking to reach them with the good news, we condemn the world and preach judgment.

Continue reading “Gospel Shoes” →

Keeping It Real for the Church: Talent in Tension with Character

Talent, confidence, and boldness can be a dangerous combination in the Church without the character to counterbalance it.

kevingdrendel1 Comment

I have been listening to the podcast series, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. I didn’t listen to it when it came out and was popular. I tend to eschew popular things. This might be wisdom. It might be pride, or it might just be the way I am wired.

That instinct or intuition or character trait, whatever it is, has been good for me in many ways. I resist going along with the crowd, and I have learned not to trust crowds and crowd mentality. That mentality may have been instrumental in my coming to faith and becoming a follower of Jesus.

Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14, NASB) When I read that, I was (perhaps) predisposed to be drawn to that sentiment.

Perhaps, I was that way because of some noble intuition. Perhaps, I was that way because I felt like an outsider. It’s hard to be sure (really) of our own motivations. I think the prophet, Jeremiah, was right when he said that human hearts are deceitful. Who among us can really (truly) know our own hearts completely?

Pride has a way of making our own weaknesses look like strengths. Pride tempts us to embrace our character flaws and to lead with them. Pride can even clothe itself in a form of humility and nobility.

The truth is often a very mixed bag. My inclination to buck what is popular and trendy and to seek “the narrower” way may have helped me in being willing to embrace Jesus and become a follower, but it has also lead me down some rocky and rough terrain that was, frankly, dangerous.

For one thing, I almost didn’t return to college for my senior year because of a “cultish” denomination that believed their theology was right, and everyone else was wrong. I was afraid that going back to college might be walking away from God because I was predisposed to believe in the narrow path. (And their path was very narrow!)

Another example has had much more long lasting effects on my life and sent me on a trajectory that continues today. I shared recently some of my story in, Keeping it Real on the Path to Wherever I am Going. My predisposition to avoid the beaten path influenced me to take an alternative route to ministry, which is all I wanted to do after I got “saved” in college. In that piece I wrote:

“I didn’t trust my college advisors because they didn’t believe the Bible like I did. I should have gone to seminary, but I didn’t because the apostles who stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached powerfully and eloquently in various tongues to the crowds in Jerusalem were unlearned men. I wanted to be like them.”

Keeping it Real on the path to wherever I am going

That path to ministry never worked out for me, and maybe it’s a good thing it didn’t! The audacity to think that I could perform in ministry like the apostles without sitting at the feet of Jesus in the flesh for three years would not have been a good foundation for shepherding his flock.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is an object lesson in where my kind of disposition can lead. I am not saying that it must (necessarily) lead to the kind of crash and burn that occurred with the Mars Hill church movement, but the danger is certainly great.

I have listened to all of the primary episodes of that podcast, and I am listening now to the bonus episodes. I am finishing the one that features Tim Keller. The more I listen to him and read what he has written, the more I appreciate his depth of understanding and wisdom.

(You can listen at the link below if you are so inclined. In fact, if you don’t have enough time, energy or inclination to go much further here, I suggest you stop and listen rather than read on. But, I will continue anyway.)

Continue reading “Keeping It Real for the Church: Talent in Tension with Character” →