Lost in the crowd?

Christians believe the church has a mission from Jesus and a message for the world around us.

But it seems the world around us (in first world churches at least) isn’t listening. There are barriers between the church and the community that the church appears not to be bridging.

Is there a way we can do better?

Cultural distance

Cultural distance is a description of the gap between two cultures, and therefore an indication of the barriers that need to be crossed for the two cultures to interact.

There is an increasing cultural distance between the church in most first world countries and the culture around them.

One aspect of this cultural distance is approaches to contemporary social issues.

Contemporary social issues

Personal observation and social studies reveal many issues that are on the minds of people in first world countries because they impact their lives and wellbeing. Issues like mental health, domestic violence, sexual equality and climate change.

Church vs community attitudes

It is obvious that on many of these issues, Christians and churches have traditionally held viewpoints that are increasingly being questioned and often rejected by contemporary secular society. (More details below.)

Not only that, but the church’s attitudes on these issues have become a major barrier to faith and church attendance. Because of this, many people find the Christian faith irrelevant to their lives (at best) and quite repugnant (at worst).

Since our mission from Jesus is to love our neighbours and ease the way for them to come to follow Jesus too, this situation should be of concern to us.

How to respond?

One response is to say that our concern is simply to preach the gospel and leave the rest to God. And so allow the cultural distance to continue or widen.

But this response doesn’t represent the gospel Jesus taught and embodied. We believe he was God incarnate – God taking the trouble to come to us, in our world, becoming one of us and communicating on our terms. His good news was focused very much on human wellbeing and on the kingdom of God here and now. He healed people. He engaged with social issues relating to women, societal outcasts and human wellbeing.

And Paul taught us to adapt our communication of the good news to the needs and culture of those we are speaking to (1 Corinthians 9:22 ).

So how to respond?

Pray & consider

It would be easy to assume immediately that we have no choice but to continue in our traditional (and we believe Biblical) approach to ethical questions, and so refuse to consider possible change. There are two reasons why I believe this is a mistake:

Many of these issues do not have explicit Biblical teaching – e.g. climate change, artificial intelligence, Christian nationalism or disability rights. Christian ethics may lead us towards a conclusion, but this surely makes “pray and consider” an important and necessary step.
Even issues where we believe there is clear Biblical teaching (e.g. gender, sexuality, wealth inequality), we could be out of step with the Spirit. This has happened in the past (and the present, sadly) with issues such as slavery and racial inequality. Sometimes the Spirit may show us new understandings if we are open to his leading.

It isn’t my place here to make a call on any of these issues. But I do believe the present situation gives us an important incentive to pray and review. We may need to change our minds on some cherished viewpoints.

Pray & consider

But even where we decide, after prayer, that an ethical viewpoint shouldn’t change, we still need to pray. If the church’s teaching remains the same, we must still address the fact that it is causing some people to turn away from God.

In many cases, current Christian approaches appear unloving or arrogant or hypocritical or harmful to many people. How can we be like Jesus and be known as loving and supportive by people who are far from God (Matthew 9:10-12).

Can we say less about matters that turn people away?

Can we be more sensitive and speak more carefully and more lovingly?

Are there better ways to present our teachings that communicate better to our contemporary culture?

This isn’t a case of conforming to the world and losing our Christian distinctiveness. Rather, I am suggesting we need to use this challenge to consider if anything needs to change, and then make sure we communicate lovingly, sensitively and clearly.

Lost in the crowd?

One thing seems certain. Our voice is being lost in the crowd of voices. If we don’t cross this cultural divide, it will continue to be lost.

Fact & figures

The above comments were based on the following information.

Contemporary issues

Many social and personal issues face Australian society, and I suppose most first world countries. Selecting the most pressing of them is subjective I guess, but here are some that come to mind (based partly on a Google search for “contemporary social issues”):

climate change and environmental sustainability;
social and wealth inequality – the wealth gap is widening;
gender and sexuality equality;
sexual and emotional abuse and domestic violence;
mental health;
treatment of indigenous peoples and refugees;
disability rights;
terrorism, international conflict;
Christian nationalism and political polarisation;
technology, including artificial intelligence.

If these are the things most people are worried about and talking about, what does the church have to say about them?

Criticisms of the church

When people are asked why they stopped attending church, or why they wouldn’t want to attend, they give a wide variety of answers. Many of the answers touch on some of these social issues.

In Australia

A 2017 report found that the biggest barrier to Aussies attending church was the churches’ attitude to homosexuality. This was a significant increase since a previous report in 2011.
What are seen as “repressive” attitudes to sexuality generally is another major issue.
Bad behaviour by church leaders, especially sexual abuse, abuse of power and hypocricy, are also significant barriers to engaging with church.
A 2013 study found that about half of all Australians felt church was irrelevant to their lives. It seems this means that it doesn’t help them connect with God, doesn’t help with wellbeing and life issues and doesn’t offer answers to the major life questions such as those above.
Other belief blockers relate to Christian doctrines people find hard to believe – these are generally slightly less important to most people than the above.

It is significant that church leaders often misunderstand how strongly non-attenders feel about social issues like climate change, gay marriage, decriminalising drug use and abortion access. Perhaps for this reason, Aussies generally want the church to stay out of policy and political debate.

USA

The main reasons people quit attending church are mundane – they simply moved house, their family circumstances changed or it became inconvenient. Many others no linger believe in the teachings of the church.
Some church attenders stopped because they didn’t agree with the strict traditional church views on sexual issues.
Many people are critical of any church involvement in politics, but it isn’t clear whether they see the church as being too aligned with the left or the right. The rise of Christian nationalism is a particularly divisive issue.
Christians are often seen as “anti-science”, intolerant and repressive. Young people often feel they can’t ask their “most pressing life questions in church”.
Many young people feel the church is “boring, irrelevant, sidelined from the real issues people face”.
Church leaders are often out of step with the community around them, on issues such as racism.

UK & Europe

Europe is generally more secular than Australia or USA. Most people who identify as Christian don’t attend church.

Practicing Christians in Europe are more likely than non-Christians and non-practicing Christians to oppose liberalising sexuality and abortion laws, have nationalist views, and to have negative views of immigrants and religious minorities.
Many Europeans identify as “spiritual” and having belief in God or a “higher power”, but not the God of the Bible.
Non-believers often see science as making religion unnecessary.
This website says loss of faith and non attendance at church in Europe were gradual, and often resulted from established churches being too associated with governments and the rich and powerful. And so the church was linked with privilege, inequality, war and harsh legal systems.

The issues vary, but there is a large and growing gap (cultural distance) between the church and the surrounding community.

Top photo by Harrison Haines.