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I’m on vacation in Sun Valley, Idaho. We are visiting a few friends but mostly resting and reading. It is a great way to recharge after a busy Advent and Christmas. I just finished Harvey Cox’s
The Future of Faith. It was recommended by Diana Butler Bass when she spoke at Trinity Cathedral several weeks ago.
This is Cox’s retirement book and is well worth reading. In 1965 he wrote the wildly popular The Secular City and started teaching at Harvard. In the 60’s, if God wasn’t dead, God was certainly dying, and Cox charted the future of the anticipated secular civilization. Much has changed since 1965 and Cox has been studying and teaching theology these 44 years. This book offers a drastically different view of our contemporary, very spiritual world.
On the first page, Cox gives a brief nod to his, and other’s, past predictions. ”The resurgence of religion was not foreseen. On the contrary not many decades ago thoughtful writers were confidently predicting its imminent demise.”
In The Future of Faith Cox divides the history of Christianity into three ages. The beginning of Christianity, which lasted about 300 years, was marked by faith in Jesus. Faith, for Cox, is a trust or a deep-seated confidence. It is relational and existential — related to awe, love and wonder. It is marked by one giving one’s allegiance to another. He calls this era the Age of Faith. Nascent Christianity in this era was wildly diverse. Multiple Christianities sprung up in different cultural contexts.
In the 4th century, this Age of Faith was replaced by the Age of Belief. For Cox, Belief is an intellectual assent to an idea. It is propositional more than relational. Being a Christian shifted from trusting Jesus to believing certain things about Jesus. Three characteristics marked this era. First, leadership and authority were given to professional, elite clergy. Second, the Church became closely associated with the Empire. Third, right belief was formalized into creeds. These creeds were used to eliminate diversity and bolster the authority of the official church. Cox does not view these changes as positive ones. While faith was still possible in the Age of Belief, much of the beauty, mystery and awe was replaced by dogmatism.
In the last couple of centuries, people began to reject this strong, dogmatic religious structure. But people aren’t moving away from faith. Cox sees the dawning of a new era, one he calls the Age of the Spirit. It is much closer to the situation in the early church where faith is experienced in a diversity of religious communities and there is less credence given to a centralized church structure. This can be seen in both the emphasis on “spirituality” as well as the rapidly growing Pentecostal churches in the Global South.
In chronicling Christian faith/belief, Cox gives most attention to the shift to the Age of Belief in the time of Constantine, and the shift away from it in the 19th and 20th centuries. He also gives a very good description of the recent rise of fundamentalism.
I think this is book is very helpful for understanding our current religious landscape. It also reinforces the excitement I feel about the future of Christianity and the future of the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church is decentralized, non-dogmatic and comfortable with mystery and diversity. It seems like a perfect option for people who are yearning for ritual in their spiritual practice. It is great to be a Christian and an Episcopalian in the dawning of the Age of the Spirit.
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Living life on several fronts. As usual.
My 13 year old son just started wrestling. It’s great to see him get so involved in an intense sport. Two Saturdays ago I took him to his first wrestling tournament. It lasted 10 hours. He wrestled six minutes. And it was great!
At Trinity Cathedral, this has been a fascinating Advent. We are getting so many new and younger people that it is feeling, if not like a new congregation, then a renewed congregation. Lots of new faces. More piercings and tattoos.
And we are housing the homeless! With the turn in the weather and the lack of city/county shelters, there are lots of people in the cold and rain. We have opened our hall on several nights and housed and fed close to 100 people. We are trading off with a couple of other places so we don’t have people here more than two nights in a row. That way we don’t become a “shelter,” which I don’t think we are allowed to become. We are preparing for people to stay over the night of the 23rd! What a great way to start Christmas. We will provide a hot dinner Wednesday night. On Thursday morning we will have breakfast w/ our guests and there are folks putting gift bags together so each person gets something. Then we will have our 5 (5!!!!) Christmas Eve services.
On a personal note, my daughter comes home on the 23rd. I can’t wait to see her. We will be together at home through Christmas and then drive her back to her school in Utah and then head up to Sun Valley, Idaho.
Have a great Christmas!
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As an Army grad, I don’t often cheer the other, “lesser,” academies. But I have to cheer the success that the Air Force Academy has had at welcoming cadets with diverse religious views. In past years, the ethos at the Air Force Academy was strongly influenced by evangelical Christians and there was little tolerance for other religious views. I had heard that this was impacting the climate in the Air Force as well.
According to Dan Elliott in a recent AP article, the Superintendent has been successful in changing that climate. Here’s how the article begins:
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — The Air Force Academy says religious tolerance has improved dramatically since allegations five years ago that evangelical Christians harassed cadets who didn’t share their faith. Even the school’s most vocal critic agrees.
“This is the first time we feel positive about things there,” said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which battled the academy in court over claims that evangelicals at the school were imposing their views on others.
The academy superintendent, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, says the improvements are the result of a topdown campaign to foster respect and a commitment to accommodate all cadets, even nonbelievers and an “Earth-centered” religious group that needed a place for a stone circle so it could worship outdoors.
“If we are going to have success in our primary mission of developing leaders of character, we have to do that based on respect in all things, whether we’re talking gender, race or religion,” Gould said.
Academy commanders say the school has started to seek out the religious needs of its cadets and accommodate them, instead of waiting for cadets to ask. For example, a Cadet Interfaith Council with about 20 members helps identify upcoming religious holidays so schedules can be adjusted around them, when possible.
“There’s been a huge shift,” said Maj. Joshua Narrowe, an academy chaplain. “Previously, if somebody wanted to have special (religious) needs taken care of … that cadet had to petition. That was often denied.
“The default answer now is, ‘Yes, go ahead,’” Narrowe said.
The entire article is HERE.
Go Air Force! (And please beat Navy — somebody needs to.) I continue to be impressed with our military academies. With their focus on honor and professionalism, they can do a very good job of responding to problems within their ranks.
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Here’s what I wrote for this week’s enewsletter:
On Tuesday night the vestry concluded its discussion of Stephanie Speller’s Radical Welcome. I chose this book because it focused on a core value of Trinity Cathedral – openness. Stephanie challenges churches that consider themselves to be inclusive or welcoming to look beneath the surface and see how open they really are to people who are different. She asks us to look at our neighborhood and see if the people inside the church reflect those who walk by the church. She also points out that if we are truly open to others, we will be changed by welcoming them into our midst. This books has had a lovely impact on the vestry. We are now more open to the leading of the Spirit. We are more sensitive to the presence of people that pass through our facility who aren’t connected to our community. We aren’t sure quite where we will be led, but we know God afoot and we are being led on an adventure.
At the same time we were having this discussion, 93 homeless people were being fed dinner in the Great Hall. They were to be our guests for the night. This was the fourth night in the past week we have housed homeless people in response to this sudden cold and wet spell. The vestry talked about the possibility of opening the church so our guests could enjoy the peace and beauty of the sanctuary. We couldn’t do it that night because we were also hosting a community musical group that was presenting Handel’s Messiah.
It was a great night to be the church.
I hope you can find some way to be involved in the activities at Trinity Cathedral this next week. There are many, many exciting things happening.
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Cadet Ben Salvito wrote an excellent
editorial for The New Ledger in response to criticism of President Obama’s speech at West Point and the cadet’s stoic reaction. I recommend reading the entire thing. Here’s an exerpt:
The President chose the United States Military Academy at West Point as his backdrop carefully and deliberately. As one of America’s great bastions of military power and a crucible for teaching leadership, the cadets and those who work to teach them are among the most affected by his words. Unfortunately, the President’s decision to place his podium at West Point and the reaction of the Corps of Cadets to his speech has been criticized by the media almost as much as the new strategy itself.
Many members of the media condemned the audience for its lack of enthusiasm or emotion in response to what was said, though it is unclear what alternative reaction was expected. To applaud or to boo at the announcements made last night would have both been equally inappropriate for the Corps of Cadets. In fact, the stoic reaction by all ought to leave the world confident in the Corps’ and the military’s ability to be apolitical and execute the policies of the President and Congress with fervor and duty. In an interview posted on Politico, Arron Conley, the President of the Class of 2010, said, “My role is not to advocate policy but to execute it.” No words more accurately describe the mission of the officers in the US Army and those whom they lead.
This is perhaps the most vapid response one could muster, especially in an attempt to retract such a scathing statement. The President came to West Point because he desired to address those whom his decision would affect the most. From my experience, West Point cadets are one of the most polite audiences in America. A letter published at National Review Online says it best:
Whether out of professionalism (the vast majority of cadets) or fear of punishment (the rest of them), the Corps of Cadets would never be disrespectful to the Commander-in-Chief. In fact, West Point may be the only place in America where President Obama can simultaneously trash George W. Bush and announce an increase in troop levels in Afghanistan and not be booed from the right or the left.
Indeed, the President came to West Point because of the non-partisan nature of the institution, which truly exemplifies the beauty and finesse of the civil-military relationship. The Corps was reminded to be reserved, restrained, and respectful, as any military audience ought to be.
I have always been struck by the professionalism of our non-partisan military. West Point emphasized this strongly when I was there. This essay makes me so proud of our current cadets.
You can read the entire piece HERE.
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Here’s a great 7 minute interview with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on the Atlanta NPR affiliate.
