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Secularization for the sake of religion
- 1. perspectives from a secularized corner of the globe Wim Nusselder SECULARIZATION FOR THE SAKE OF RELIGION Christianity and the future of our societies What can & should Christianity contribute to meeting our global challenges... … when & where our relevance is denied?
- 2. perspectives from a secularized corner of the globe Wim Nusselder SECULARIZATION FOR THE SAKE OF RELIGION Christianity and the future of our societies What can & should Christianity contribute to meeting our global challenges... … when & where our relevance is denied?
- 3. STORY The devil was walking down the street with a friend. Ahead, a man picked up something from the ground and put it in his pocket. The friend asked the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “A piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is bad business for you!” said his friend. “Not really,” the devil replied, “I will let him organize it. He will build a church around it. It will throw people apart."
- 4. CAN WE SHARE CHRIST? Signpost: “One True Church”
- 5. religion re-ligare (= to re-connect) ‘identifying with a religion is violence’ organized religion divides “The strength of connectedness” 125 year Christian Social Movement: funeral or rebirth
- 6. Christianity is co-responsible for meeting the challenges facing our world 1. the fragility of democracies 2. newly emerging geopolitical constellations 3. the financial crisis and ongoing corruption 4. poverty and deprivation 5. depletion of natural resources and ecological problems 6. the moral and social implications of new technologies (e.g. communication technology) 7. religious radicalism and fundamentalism
- 7. SUMMARY: SOCIOLOGY 1. Contributing to society is difficult when you are distrusted, not considered relevant. 2. The distrust is understandable. 3. Secularization is a choice of people. 4. Treat secularization as opportunity to renew, not as a threat!
- 8. SUMMARY: SOCIOLOGY ‘secularization is a scheme of the Spirit’
- 9. SUMMARY: SOCIOLOGY 1. Contributing to society is difficult when you are distrusted, not considered relevant. 2. The distrust is understandable. 3. Secularization is a choice of people. 4. Treat secularization as opportunity to renew, not as a threat! 5. Challenges for churches: 1) let members identify primarily as Christians 2) network rather than appeal to authority and hierarchy 3) express yourself in secular, understandable language 6. The ‘reality’ of ‘God’ is not essential for the relevance of Christianity. “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” William & Dorothy Thomas, 1928
- 10. SUMMARY: THEOLOGY & PHILOSPHY ‘Philosophers only interpret the world. The point is to change it.’
- 11. SUMMARY: THEOLOGY & PHILOSPHY • Sociological tasks: Theology and philosophy must serve. • Theology can deal with putting the ‘reality of God’ on hold: cf. Meister Eckhart, Don Cupitt, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Robinson, Harvey Cox. • Theology = the ‘power of the Word’: use rhetoric responsibly! • Philosophy can help us understand ‘Truth’ & ‘reality’. • Narratives, perspectives, performativity: language creates reality. How to improve the ‘performance’ of Christianity?
- 12. transforming Christianity for the sake of society 1. secularize Christian language 2. informalize church organization 3. radical ecumenism: embrace all spiritual, humanist, agnostic and atheist perspectives 4. let go of concepts of ‘God’ to find divine experience and guidance
Editor's Notes
- ↲ This conference is about the challenges facing humanity. Christianity, the largest world religion, is co-responsible for meeting these challenges. This paper is about secularization. ↲ I hope the link is obvious: Secularization for me is about recognition of relevance. Secularized society denies the relevance of religion. ↲
- ↲ Time for the first commercial: The church is boring, if it is not relevant. If people leave the churches, churches are apparently not relevant to them. ↲ Who am I: I am the oldest son of a minister in the Reformed Churches, now the Protestant Church in the Netherlands; I am a development economist by training; While studying in Amsterdam, I discovered that I am a Quaker, so I became a member of the Religious Society of Friends, our official name; I work as financial controller in idealistic organizations. Secularization is a very personal experience for me: only 11.6% of the non-churchgoing Dutch trust churches. It is the least trusted institution in the Netherlands. My closest family & most of my colleagues are among the remaining 88.4% who do not trust us, or at least do not think we are relevant anymore nowadays. You now expect a summary of my paper. ↲
- Before I summarize the paper for you, let me first tell you a short story. ↲ ↲ ↲ ↲ ↲ ↲ In good Quaker tradition I will now let you contemplate this story in silence for a couple of minutes. ↲ What can Christianity learn from this story? [Silence] ↲
- This image may help. ↲ [Silence] Anyone who has a short message from the silence, to share, please stand up and do so. [Silence] { This is what the image tells me: Christ obviously does not feel at home in our present churches. Christ is there where people Meet in his name, sharing him, people from different denominations, with different religious identities. Religion is about sharing our pieces of Truth, about laying down authority, leaving behind hierarchy. It is about speaking from the heart, however simple. } [Silence] ↲
- Religion should be about reconnecting, about reconnecting as Christians, ánd about reconnecting with the secular world. ↲ Some of you may have recognized the author of the story: Jiddu Krishnamurti. He used the story in his speech in 1929, when dissolving the Order of the Star in the East, the religious organization that had been built around him. ↲ He took a radical position, ↲ but he had a point. ↲ An alternative view will be presented at the Christian Social Congress in 2 weeks time, ↲ on the occasion of 125 years Christian Social Movement in the Netherlands. ↲ The success of that gathering remains to be seen. The organizers have been struggling with the question whether it will be like a funeral, commemorating past contributions of Christianity to society, or whether the Christian Social Movement can reinvent itself, become relevant again. ↲
- You too, will have read the description of the theme of this conference on the website. ↲ I found 7 challenges facing our world, in that description. { Even in a secularized society like the Netherlands, churches are among the largest membership organizations. They organize a larger percentage of their potential constituency than any other type of organization. Even if considerably less of their members actually go to church than 50 years ago, their ability to make their members actually do something is still larger than that of say labour unions or environmental organizations. Political parties could feel even more responsible. However, they are a type of organization that is least able to organize its constituency, the electorate, and to mobilize its members. } ↲ THE question of my paper is: how can organized religion become part of the solution of these challenges? Or is it doomed to be part of the problem, as my wife, my son and my boss claim? ↲
- { Before I start the summary of my paper: This session is called a workshop. After my presentation I hope to hear from you what struck you as most relevant, relevant for the theme of the conference, that is. Relevant for the contribution Christianity has to make to meeting our challenges. } In my paper I make 6 main points in terms of sociology: { Please read them for yourself on the screen. } ↲ As said: 88.4% of the non-churchgoing people in the Netherlands distrust churches. Churches are the least trusted institution in the Netherlands. ↲ For me personally it is hard not to understand that distrust. I would have to reject my family and colleagues, if I didn’t accept their perspective as valid, too. From their perspective churches abuse their status and organizational strength, they have a history of bad practices, they are divided, competitive and therefore divisive. ↲ My paper is a plea to understand and frame secularization as a choice, made by people, not just as an abstract sociological phenomenon. ↲ It is also a plea to understand it as an opportunity for renewal. ↲
- Time for a theological distraction: Theologian Erik Borgman called secularization ‘a scheme of the Spirit’. We can indeed understand it as a way in which the Holy Spirit tries to undo the scheming of the devil to throw people apart. By leaving the churches, by leaving organized religion, the Spirit inspires us to reconnect, to Meet as Christians, rather than as members of a denomination. ↲
- Back to sociology. ↲ My paper presents the churches with 3 challenges, which we have to meet to become relevant again. { Any questions so far? About the sociological aspects of my presentation or my paper? Before I present the really tricky part? } ↲ From a sociological point of view and on behalf of non-believers: I ask you to please put on hold, all talk about the ‘reality of God’ and about other dogma’s, for a while. ↲ According to the Thomas Theorem in sociology, reality is what we define it to be. The problem is: in secularized societies Christianity cannot dictate definitions of reality. Not anymore. ↲
- That’s where my paper enters the realm of theology and philosophy. ↲ I hope I do not step on too many philosophical toes when I endorse the inscription on the grave of Karl Marx: ↲ “Philosophers only interpret the world. The point is to change it.” Meeting global challenges and dealing with secularization are sociological tasks. Theology and philosophy should serve, not lead. ↲
- ↲ Theology can deal with invisibility, absence, denial or even non-existence of God. ↲ In my paper I drop various names of theologians. I will not go into detail here. My main point is, that academic theology is flexible enough. The problem is church theology, the theology of creeds. Creeds divide people. ↲ Theologians are trained in rhetoric, in delivering sermons. Rhetoric is needed, to help people meet challenges. Our global challenges are about reconnecting. So let’s not abuse theology to throw people apart anymore, to create and strengthen different religious identities. ↲ Philosophy can serve too. What is that ‘Truth’, around which we build our churches? In what sense does God ‘exist’? ↲ Truth consists of narratives, stories that influence people. A narrative influences people, if they can share its perspective. Narratives and perspectives can be combined by choosing a broader perspective, by putting the pieces of Truth together again. The most useful concept that I found in philosophy, was that of ‘performativity’. Language creates ‘reality’, it says. Less so for physical and biological reality. More so for social reality. That is what the Thomas Theorem implied. As in: “I now pronounce you husband and wife”, the statement that creates families. Most of all language creates our spiritual reality. God exists because we believe He exists. There is no point in debating whether God exists physically and biologically, whether ‘God exists’ in the ordinary meaning of that word. It is the social and spiritual reality of God that we need. We need God to connect and inspire us. God as love and God who makes us strive beyond our limitations, to improve society. ↲ The concept of ‘performativity’ reframes the central question of my paper, into: “How to improve the performance of Christianity?” How can Christianity connect and inspire humanity to deal with its challenges? ↲
- My paper presents a programme to improve the performance of Christianity in 4 points. ↲ ↲ ↲ ↲ THE answer to secularization is ecumenism. Not just ecumenism among churches, but ecumenism that connects with secular society as well. ↲