The Pope is coming! The Pope is coming!

Apr 17, 2008 by Daniel Ross-Jones

Alright, I know the Pope is already here, but “The Pope is here! The Pope is here!” doesn’t have the same connection.

A couple of people have asked me if I’m excited about the Pope’s U.S. travels.  Usually, I gently remind folks that as a Protestant Christian, I’m not all that interested in the comings-and-goings of the Roman Pontiff.  The last Pope, John Paul II, I would have been excited for.  I might have even tried to find a way to go out east.  But Benedict XVI doesn’t strike my interest.

There have been a few thoughts I’ve pondered surrounding the Pope’s visit, however:

1. There is a lot of talk about this being such an “historic” event.  Yes, a religious leader traveling is important, and genuinely something to garner interest and excitement.  But historic?  Its not the first time a Pope has visited the United States.  JP2 came in 1995.  Listening to much of the media coverage, I’d think The Vatican had just perfected the technology to move the popemobile.
2. The Pope’s response — or lack thereof, depending on your vantage — to the clergy sex abuse cases.
3. Massgate 2008.  The eleventh commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Scalp Pope’s Mass Tickets,” is apparently landing some people in the confessional.  For this guy, the ticket is more meaningful than just getting a glimpse of the sixteenth Benedict in person.  Of course, worship is about community with Christ and fellow believers, so shouldn’t there be ample overflow for blocks around?

On the news this morning, however, was the key story I’d been waiting to see: the greatest “crisis of faith” Christianity has ever seen.  This one is certainly so big it will fell the institutional church for good.  Fewer people in church on Sunday, a generation coming-of-age which would rather sleep than worship.  We’re baptizing fewer babies, confirming fewer youth, marrying fewer adults.  Those adults are having children later in life and not raising them in the church.  In 40 years, the church will simply cease to exist, since the last member will have died and no one is filling their pew.

Puh-leeze.  Such a crisis has been plaguing folks since… well, since the High Priests condemned Jesus for working on the sabbath.  Or talking to gentiles.  Or radically changing the social agenda.

To be sure, churches never looked older than they are today.  Generation Y, even less than Generation X preceding it, attends church so sporadically that its hard to get solid statistical data in some denominations.  A growing pluralism and globalization in society is blurring the distinctions between faith traditions, let alone between sects and denominations within those traditions.

But this isn’t a crisis of faith — its is a need for reformation and transformation for how we’re used to doing church.  A couple of examples:

• In the time following Hurricane Katrina, the vast majority of the relief response has been from faith-based agencies.  College students, those heathenistic GenYers, from all across North America took their spring breaks the past three years to travel to the Gulf Coast to assist in the clean-up and rebuilding.  Ask them why they’re doing it, and they’ll often point to an intangible spiritual experience of helping others, building community and connecting with humanity.
• My own denomination, the United Church of Christ, offers a “virtual chapel” of sorts, called i.UCC, providing Bible studies, prayer connections, devotions, meditations and more for those who want to be part of a community, but disenfranchised from church.
• Last week at my fraternity chapter’s annual retreat, I facilitated a workshop on spirituality and meditation.  Beyond the numbers that attended (a mixture of both alumni and undergrads), the conversation and reflection built in a way I didn’t expect.  The connection to external powers outside the self is very real, very motivating.

I often say “survival mode is exactly what will kill the church.”  It is painful to disconnect from what we know, to detach from the safety of tradition.  But change will happen.  It is inevitable.  To be bold in our radical witness, an extravagant welcome, an unparalleled commitment to the other in society will mean being more concerned about action than worship attendance, more concerned about relationships than right doctrine, more concerned about justice than structure.

Sounds a lot like that crazy, long-haired dude who pissed off the establishment 2,000 years ago, doesn’t it?

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