Popular versus Academic Christianity

Recently the pastor of my church mentioned that during the pastor’s class that she holds each year for young children preparing for baptism, she ask this question of the youngsters… “How many of you would not be coming to church if your parents didn’t make you come?” She said they all responded with a sheepish grin! I would imagine most of us might identify with that grin. Most of us can probably remember a Sunday morning or two when, as a child, we were told we were going to church whether we liked it or not. We can also possibly all agree that, that parental insistence for us to attend Sunday school and church, turned out to be a good thing after all. In the end it provided us with a firm Christian foundation upon which we later built our lives. Unfortunately, however, for most Christians that foundational level of Christian training is all we ever received from the church. For most Christians the information they receive from the church, even as adults, is the same today as it was in their childhood Sunday school class. The material used in adult Sunday school classes, the liturgy in the worship service, the words of the hymns, the rituals, the creeds, the prayers, all reflect and reinforce that child like understanding of God, sin, Jesus, salvation, prayer, and the Trinity, that was taught to us as a child. Now, many of you are thinking, “So? Isn’t that the way it ought to be? And I’m here to tell you, “No! That’s not the way it ought to be.” In my latest book – GIVING VOICE TO THE SILENT PULPIT – I explain that there is a great deal of knowledge missing from our adult understanding of Christianity. In essence the two versions of Christianity I speak of, Popular and Academic, can be thought of as the childhood version and the adult version of our faith. These two versions of the Christian doctrine are so different that if striped of their Christian identity and presented side by side, most people would not recognize them as belonging to the same religion. In the book I refer to Popular Christianity as the domain of the people in the pews and Academic Christianity as the domain of the hierarchy of the church, from the pulpit to the highest level of the institutional organization. Popular Christianity is the church doctrine as articulated from the pulpit for the benefit of you and me, the people in the pews . . . and Academic Christianity is the doctrine as articulated in our colleges and seminaries for students and ministers in training. Let me try to explain the scope of these differences by using an analogy that everyone should be able to identify with: -- I believe it is safe to say that, as a child; each of us was indoctrinated with the story of Santa Clause. We were told – and we believed – that Santa actually lived at the North Pole with a group of elves. That he kept tabs on who was “naughty and nice” throughout the year and on Christmas Eve with the help of eight flight worthy reindeer he circled the globe to bring toys to all good little girls and boys. The story was real to us, and it remained real until one day in some way we were exposed to knowledge that took us to a higher level of understanding of the Santa Clause story. From that day forward we understood Santa in a much different way. Today as adults, we can appreciate the Santa story as a tradition and we keep that tradition alive for our children and grand children but we don’t think of it as a factual reality. In fact, if you were to meet someone, say, in their forties, who still believed in the Santa story as factual, you would probably consider him or her, well, rather odd. And yet, I believe we can all agree that there is a “spirit” of Christmas – a feeling of love and family, of caring and friendliness – that exists during the Christmas season. It is a special time of the year. It may be unexplainable, but it is real. We often hear people say, “I wish the Christmas ‘spirit’ could last all year long.” It is a special season, a special feeling that was there when we were children and it is there now in our adult life even with our adult understanding of the Santa story. Now, I would like to draw an analogy between our Santa experience and our Christian experience. (I expect some of you will not want to hear or believe what I will say, but I ask you to bear with me.) What you and I were taught in Sunday school and what is preached from the pulpit of most every Christian church around the world on any given Sunday, is what many scholars call “Popular” Christianity. It is the Christianity of our fathers and mothers. It is the Christianity that has come down to us through the ages. It is the only Christianity most of us have ever known. And for that reason it is called Popular Christianity . . . as it is preached from the pulpit and understood by the people in the pews. Whether you wish to believe it or not, the doctrine as understood in Popular Christianity is tantamount to the Santa Clause story as we understood it in our childhood. I know that is not a fashionable thing to say and I’m probably not making myself very popular by saying it, but I can assure you it is true. And your pastor and my pastor and every pastor that has attended a reputable seminary in the last sixty years will verify that, that is what is taught in Christian Academic circles. The ‘adult’ version of Christianity – which is synonymous with the adult understanding of the Santa story – is not taught nor preached in most churches. The ‘adult’ version, the – “ Academic” version – that understands and explains Christianity in ‘adult’ terms is taught in our universities and seminaries . . . but not from the pulpit of our churches. Why? Why, if the church is the source of our spiritual guidance, why if we are competent, educated adults, why are you and I not being exposed to and taught the same doctrinal information that our Pastors, Priests, church leaders, and Christian scholars understand to be the current and most advanced knowledge of our faith. Well, the answer to that question is not a simple one, but I will attempt to explain, at least in part. The blame for this deception does not lie with the church alone. Some, perhaps even most of the blame, whether we want to accept it or not, belongs to you and me, the people in the pews. If you have ever had the occasion to serve on a Pastoral search committee, you should be able to identify with what I believe to be the Genesis of this problem. Generally speaking, when interviewing a candidate for the position of Pastor, one of the first qualifications the search committee is concerned with is; “Is this candidate ‘Biblically based’”? Translated this means, “Do we think this candidate will preach the Bible in the manner we have been taught since our second grade Sunday school class?” We, the people in the pews, tend to want stability in our spiritual life and that usually means, no surprises. Most clergy can tell you stories of the abuse they received from parishioners when they have strayed, even slightly, either on purpose or by accident, from ‘accepted’ (meaning traditional) doctrinal teachings. And so, in order to preserve their job, most Pastors and Priests are loath to ‘rock the boat’ by introducing what they know would be controversial new knowledge. Many Pastors have told me in one-on-one conversations that they feel they must preach what their congregation wants to hear. Most, even if they wanted to, have not been trained on how to move their congregation across such a great divide from Popular to Academic Christianity. Now you are asking, “What are these great doctrinal differences that I maintain are being kept from the people in the pews?” Well, in my book I list ten doctrines (seventeen if you count the doctrines within doctrines), side by side, Popular version vs. Academic version. The doctrines cover a wide range from Original sin, to atonement, and the concept of God. On the left side of the page I display the Popular understanding of each doctrine and on the right side the same doctrine as it is taught in our colleges and Seminaries. Viewed in this manner there can be no mistaking the differences between Popular and Academic doctrine. None of the material is conjecture on my part. It is all factual data reported by students, Pastors, professors and other Christian scholars who have first hand knowledge of the issues involved. This duality has been going on for decades. But it must end before Christianity becomes nothing more than a fringe religion on the edge of society among the uninformed and uneducated. Church leaders know this charade must end; the question is how and when. How does a Pastor begin the process of educating his/her congregation? Can Christians accept the changing doctrine and still focus on the teachings of Jesus and the mission of the church? Why do I maintain that the charade must end? Consider these statistics; in 1910 (the earliest figures I could find for the last century) about eight percent of the US population had a high school education. Today, that number is approaching eighty-five percent. In 1910 approximately two percent of the US population had a college degree, today that number is near thirty percent. The education level of the average person in this country has been raised significantly over the past century, and with it our understanding of the cosmos, nature, religion and the human condition. Our worldview today is drastically different than it was two and three thousand years ago when the foundations of the Christian faith were formed. Today, students in high school and college are being taught information that logically and rationally invalidates much of the data presented in the Bible. i.e. This is not a three tiered universe, the sun does not revolve around the earth, virgins do not give birth, humans were not created out of clay, evolution is real, rubbing dirt and spittle on a blind man’s eyes will not make him see, slavery is not acceptable, women are not second class citizens, homosexuals are not perverse human beings, and on and on. An educated young person sitting in a church pew on Sunday morning in this century is finding very little that he/she considers intellectually honest. Most of what he/she hears from the pulpit, sings in the hymns, recites in the creeds, appears to him/her to be nonsensical, and bankrupt. The church is being found irrelevant by the very constituency it is attempting to attract. This same phenomenon is also occurring among many members within the church, many of who are leaving to seek a more relevant and intellectually honest—spiritual—experience. These accusations are borne out by the unrelenting decline in Christian church membership across this country. Surveys continue to shown an approximate one percent decline each year for the past several decades. Adults need to be treated like adults; it’s as simple as that. The laity of the church needs to demand that it happen. And until the church, at every level, decides it is time to do just that and begins to preach an intellectually honest doctrine, Christianity in this country will continue it’s downward spiral. I know it will not be an easy or painless task, but it must be done if Christianity is to survive. My personal experience has been that an honest, mature – Academic – understanding of the Christian doctrine is much more wholesome and rewarding than the superstition and folklore filled doctrine that I had been fed all my life. But for now, it seems most Pastors must acquiesce to the presumed desires of the multitudes and preach only the ancient, outdated, and basically irrelevant Popular doctrine of the past. The victims of this charade: - · The people in the pews—who are denied an intellectually honest under-standing of their faith. · The Pastors—who must, daily, perjure themselves in pastoral contact with their parishioners. · Society at large—which is deprived of intellectual growth and religious maturity. The winners: - · Those who would use religion to impose their particular brand of social ethics on others. · Those, around the world who, today, use the ‘word’ or ‘will’ of God to terrorize, murder and oppress others in the name of religion. If the church is to survive this duality in doctrine, the curtain between Popular and Academic Christianity must come down. Intellectual honesty must prevail. I know of a few brave Pastors and Priests across the country who are actively trying to educating their congregation to the Academic level of understanding . . . but there needs to be tens of thousands more.