Introduction

There are two issues that motivate me to keep writing. The Christian church is on a steep decline. While surveys, such as those from Pew Research and Gallup, capture this downward trend, they are only scratching the surface.

I believe that  Ryan Burge‘s graphs and data pierce that surface. He is a professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University and a former American Baptist Church pastor. The previously mentioned pollsters, Pew and Gallup, focus on the marker of “church attendance.” While that is dropping, it is missing the large number of people who still love the church traditions, still attend, but in their personal views, they no longer hold even the basic views of historical Christianity, such as God exists, Jesus is the Messiah, God is a personal entity Vs a pantheistic force, and that the primary teaching of the historical Jesus is love.

The second reason I write is that not only is the church in decline, but so are democracy and American civilization, and I believe there is a reason for both the loss of interest in Christianity and in truth in public life, and it is the same reason: the loss of rationality in finding factual truth. In public life, the politician who lies the most gets elected and all the power. Unsubstainable.

The Basics

The most consequential decision a civilization can make is whether we are alone, the product of random events in an impersonal cosmos, or are deliberately created. The latter would imply that there is meaning or standards for conduct, which we call morals. The former claims to have a reason for meaning and morals, either existentially or, in other words, through living. But classical logic would render that impossible. Notice that I say “reason” for meaning and morals, as I have found that most atheists have a higher standard of morality than religious people.

The next major decision regards the nature of that creative being. There are several dimensions of that nature that could be discussed as binary choices. These include whether the creator is good or evil, is deterministic or grants free will, and is loving or hateful. However, this series will focus on the binary trait that, I think, is the impetus that we see in our society today. Is the creator rational or irrational? The dominant belief in the Christian church, both among conservatives and progressives, is that God is irrational. This is a relatively new development in the Christian church, yet it has long existed as a marginalized view, dating back to the first-century Christian Gnostics. It preceded them as an idea, but, of course, not a Christian one.

A Personal Story of an Irrational God

I remember circ. 1976, sitting in a fellowship circle of a Christian discipleship group, one man, Tom, shared something that was, to me, profound. Tom was an extremely nice guy, the son of a Methodist minister, and was known around campus for his choice to go al natural, meaning barefoot and shirtless, even in the winter. He went through a phase of wearing only a T-shirt and earned the nickname “Tom T-Shirt,” which stuck.

Tom shared, my paraphrase, “God is irrational. Reason is a man’s invention, of the flesh, but God follows a different perspective. In God’s perspective, nothing makes sense for the rational man. In God’s world, Newton could see an apple fall, but it may go straight up, or sideways, and the next time the same apple falls, it could go in the opposite direction from the last time, or even turn into a banana on the way.”

There were big smiles in the group, including mine, because he was reinforcing an idea we were already familiar with. But this was the first time I heard it spoken out loud. And it is stuck with me, in the area of the brain where you ruminate, like a cow to hay, interesting thoughts… up until the present.

Since the 1970s, this idea has gone from being a novelty to dominating Christian as well as secular thinking (but they don’t use the “God” term). It totally controls the world we live in now, but thank goodness, that control is starting to splinter.

For the past thirty years, since I left evangelicalism, it has felt like every time I try to get involved with a church, first conservative churches, and now a progressive one, someone finds it necessary to punch my lights out… verbally. This impulse seems to be always fueled when I speak in rational terms. To prove this, stand in the pulpit of any church and say, “Through my rational studies, I have come to know God to be wonderful!” I guarantee that, whether in a conservative or progressive church, someone will put you in your place within 24 hours. The attack may be brutal and personal, like my last church, where the head elder yelled out, “You’re not even a real Christian!” Afterward, the pastor came to my house, uninvited by me, and chewed me out in front of my kids. Traumatic.

Even the progressive church, who champions acceptence and love will do the same, I know from experience. There may be some of you right now feeling tempted to send me an e-mail explaining that I am a very, very bad man. Please don’t.

Take those same churches, and stand at the pulpit and say, “God is wonderful, beyond our reason, totally irrational and mystical and bizarre, in a way that we can’t imagine.” You will hear nothing but “Wows” and people telling you how much they agree with you.

I vowed to keep this series short, so I am stopping the story here.

In Peace,

Mike