SEX, TERSE, AND NONES

The New York Times's Nicholas Kristof published a column on Sept. 4 titled "What Religion Would Jesus Belong To?" After noting that great religions often migrate far from the idea(l)s of their founders, and pointing out the staggering religious illiteracy among Americans who call themselves Christians, the column unsurprisingly moved to defending action above doctrine.

And in the age of Pope Francis -- who nevertheless, at the beginning of his pontificate, stressed that the Church's mission is not to become a religiously-tinted NGO -- this seems to be the way even the Catholic Church is tending. The Anglican church, of course, has been churning steadily in this direction for decades. Meanwhile, not only is church attendance falling but, as Kristof notes, the percentage of "nones", those who when asked their religion answer "none", is growing by leaps and bounds. In the very religious USA, it is now at 25% and among millennials at one-third; in Once-Catholic France it is not far from 50%.

Some clergy insist that this is not a problem. What is falling away, they say, is merely the churchgoing, and the adherence, out of habit; what is left is the core of true believers, real disciples, who are the essence of the church (and who, some though not many still claim, will some day change and convince the world by their faith and action). Others do see it as a crisis but persist in believing that the solution lies in "reaching out" ever more to the young and the unbelievers by "updating" the church, its doctrines and practices, and putting it "in tune" with contemporary life. Their explanation for the emptying of pews and the growth of the "nones" is that the church is old-fashioned, bourgeois, stick-in-the-mud, reactionary and unable to cope with the issues that really concern thinking people in our time.

As an Anglo-Catholic living in ever-more-aggressively-secularist France among Vatican-II-raised Roman Catholics, I have ample time, occasion and reason to ponder these issues. And over the years (because I am now numbered definitively among the Elderly if not the Elders) I have come to a few conclusions which contradict both the positions described above.

To the "thank goodness we are now left just with the core of true disciples" clergy I say the following: if bad habits can eventually ruin us, as we all know, why may good habits not eventually save us? I am convinced that those who went habitually to church every Sunday morning, slept through mediocre sermons delivered without microphones, were rarely offered, and rarely took, Communion, but knew the texts of Matins, Evensong and a number of Psalms by heart, were extremely fortunate. Because when a crisis struck their mind, body or estate, they were surrounded and held up, if not by a small group of active well-wishers, certainly by a deeply-integrated body of words and doctrine become habit, by a parish that still observed feasts and fasts, and suprisingly often by a good and compassionate vicar or Rector. What, now, in like situations sustains the 3/4 of  their children become Nones? The 1/4 who have become True Disciples have prayer, fasting, and helping Syrian refugees to sustain them, as well as the knowledge that their church approves; but the others are foolish virgins at best, no oil in their lamps, no wedding-garment on a Monday. Who, moreover, are made to feel that the church doesn't really want them, not as they are anyway. In any case, the new/alternative/common-worship services they might go to are all geared to touch them to the heart and call them to action in everyday language, not recognising the fact that they might prefer to be left in peace in their pews with the comfort of age-old glorious English and their own quietly but urgently recited prayers.

Which leads me to the second class of clerical opinion: that the church must be in tune with the times, holding (as the current Archbishop of Canterbury put it) "the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other". Each church service must be attuned to the casual None passer-by, to draw her in with instantly-comprehensible language and gestures, with clearly-expressed involvement in current public issues, with catchy music, and with well-organised child-care. In the first place, this ignores the fact that a congregation, a parish, is a group of baptised and confirmed adults (with their families, if any) that meets as a body to meet its Maker and Saviour, and that its "family" meetings are not necessarily Mission services. No family organises its every family birthday, Christmas or Sunday dinner in view of the first casual passer-by. Secondly, this view ignores, and so by implication contemns, those whose ecclesiastical needs are expressed in a mood of collective reverence and awe that best incarnates itself in great ancient music and texts, in visual beauty and in much stillness. At best such people, in the Anglican Church, are given the sop of a spare and minimal 8 a.m. BCP service; in the RC church they are mostly given nothing at all.

Beer comes to mind. Many years ago Carlsberg, with Tuborg a fine Danish lager much prized by connoisseurs, proudly announced to Canadian beer-lovers that it would henceforth be brewed under licence in Canada and thus be much more, and more cheaply, available. We then found that Canadian-brewed Carlsberg had a quite different taste and had become simply another Canadian beer, like Molson's. When I mentioned this to a brewery executive, he smiled and said: "The original Carlsberg had maybe 25,000 customers in Canada. The new Carlsberg has a million and a half. Why should they care about the original 25,000?" Why should the modern Church care about what they think is the minority to whom faith is expressed in awe and reverence and ancient beauty?

Except that there is no million of new customers, and the Nones flourish. So my conclusion is this: is the thought not at least envisageable to those in charge of Church doctrine, education and worship that the Church has been driving away as many people as, if not more people than, it attracts? I personally know a number of Roman Catholics who have been alienated from their Church, and consequently from their faith, by an unfortunate remark by a trusted priest. I also know a number of both Roman and Anglican Catholics who no longer feel at home in modern liturgies and resent being pushed into early-morning corners. And I know several of both kinds who need their faith, and who need their church, without necessarily wanting to be lectured to, at every turn, on the absolute cost of, yet the imperative need for, True Discipleship.

Christ had twelve disciples. But He touched and healed many -- dozens, hundreds, thousands. What happened to them? They saw and treated, I'm sure, their troublesome neighbour a different way. They prayed with more thanksgiving when they woke up and went to bed. It was perhaps for them that St Bernard wrote, "Whoever loves God even a little, and loves his neighbour even a little, is united to God." It seems a shame to let them drift off into Nonehood.

Finally, the answer to doctrinal illiteracy is not, surely, to ignore it as long as there is enough admirable social action. Christ spent much of His time teaching. He taught in synagogues, He taught on beaches, He taught on the slopes of green hills. He taught over lunch with tax-collectors and over dinner with Pharisees. Should the Church now renounce its teaching function because doctrine is difficult and sometimes breeds discomfort? No, an epistle is not a female apostle. No, Joan of Arc was not Adam's wife. Yes, the Eucharist is a stupendous mystery but not therefore impossible to comprehend. Not all teaching is or should be about sex. If there have been different theologies of the Holy Spirit, that does not mean it's better not to bother with Him at all. And as for Good Works, let us remember the title, as well as the content, of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical: Caritas in Veritate -- Charity, in Truth.