Religion today is changing as
never before, even beginning to welcome uncertainty as perfectly valid in
religious experience. Indeed, the growing number of people who admit to
uncertainty may well hold the key to the future, for that opens them to new
perspectives on belief and practice which could prove fertile ground for the
future of their faiths. Christianity is a prime example of that, as Dr Nigel
Leaves, canon of Brisbane’s Anglican cathedral, made clear to the Sea of Faith
national conference in Hastings last month.
Dr Leaves presented an overview
that clusters the bewildering diversity in contemporary Christianity – now
comprising an estimated 39,000 denominations around the world – into a
smorgasbord of seven major types, each with its own emphasis and ethos.
Boundaries are not clear-cut, however. Some people will find elements that
appeal in more than one category.
One readily recognisable
cluster holds firm to the doctrine that everlasting death awaits all who
disobey God’s laws – but fortunately, Jesus bore the penalty for sin on our
behalf, opening the way to eternal life. Shoring up that belief is the
conviction that the Bible is inerrant, Jesus is a divine being, and the Virgin
birth, Christ’s miracles and his bodily resurrection are factual events, and
anyone who disagrees with that is not Christian.
A second category shares those
core beliefs, but tinkers with church structures in so-called “fresh
expressions”, especially lively, even jazzy, worship designed to appeal to
younger people. These churches involve themselves in a range of “outreach”
community projects. Televangelists and mega-churches built around a strong
personality belong in this group. Many in the churches, however, are
uncomfortable with that rigid theology. So a third major cluster retains the
traditional church structures but recasts the message to take account of the
knowledge explosion of the past 200 years.
Liberal Christians are at home
here, as too are the “progressive” churches that have sprung up in most western
countries over the past 20 years. Both present a more positive interpretation
of what Christianity is all about.
Their biggest departure from a
more conservative Christianity is their abandonment of the idea that Jesus died
on the cross to bear God’s punishment for sin. American United Church of Christ
minister Robin Meyers is among those who see Jesus primarily as a teacher,
abandon metaphysical speculation, and promote Christianity as a way of being
rather than a belief system. Faith is re-oriented towards a search for meaning.
Churches in this group are affirmative of women, inclusive of minorities and
strong on social justice.
Those categories would all call
themselves “Christian”. Others venture beyond Christianity, or reject it
entirely.
One centres on world religions
considered as a whole. It sees each of them as a valid pathway to the sacred,
but none as the only way. The universe of faith experience is wider than any
one tradition.
Dr Leaves commented: “Here God
is greater than all ‘gods’, and religions merely point to the existence of
something greater than themselves.” A fifth group elevates spiritual experience
above creeds and institutions, as reflected in the common phrase “I’m not
religious, but I am spiritual.” This has produced myriad small groups, each
with its own focus, expression, and label. Dr Leaves also places here those
Christians who reverse the traditional pattern of believing, then behaving
accordingly, then choosing to belong to a church, to a spiritual sequence of
belonging to a community, behaving accordingly, and finally coming to faith.
The goal is “a mystic unity with all that is”.
On the opposite side of the
ledger, a modern brand of atheist attacks all of the above, insisting that
science alone has the answers to the mysteries of life and can even determine
human values. That makes of their atheism a total mode of the interpreting and
living of life – which, of course, is one definition of religion.
The seventh category merges two
other emphases as people try to find a niche for themselves within the modern
Christian experience: they strip away all supernatural underpinning, and
promote a secular version of Christianity.
That means they abandon any
concept of an all-powerful, all-knowing God actually existing “out there”, in
favour of a non-realist idea of God as a guiding spiritual ideal. And they
promote making the Kingdom of God real in the here and now – with or without the
church. In short, “an ethical humanitarianism”.
Not all
of these clusters are mutually exclusive. People may well see merit in more
than one. That, too, is a feature of modern religion.
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