A Churchless Faith
This is a day late. And it's far too long. I think I got the good bits done in the first 500 words, however, so feel free to stop not long after the book summary. But, since I'm auditing, I think I can get away with my rule breaking.
Here's my consideration of A Churchless Faith:
People leave churches. At a certain point in history, maybe most of the last 2000 years, this would be a sure sign of their apostasy. Cyprian, in the 3rd century, said it most clearly, “Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress is separated from the promises of the Church, nor will he that forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ.” The adulteress here being nothing other than an unacceptable congregation.
But people do leave churches and it’s not because they leave God. It is often because the God who is calling them deeper is not to be found in the churches they attend, and the pastors who lead may not themselves know of the depths of the Christian faith. So they leave to find this elsewhere, sometimes landing no where.
Alan Jamieson seeks to analyze those who leave the church in his book A Churchless Faith, with his premise being that many who leave the Church are not leaving the faith but seeking the Faith.
In his interviews he came up with four types of leavers, each reflecting a different level of faith response in their leaving. The Disillusioned Followers who have left the church because of specific complaints about “the direction, leadership or level of care offered by the church” (50). Next there are the Reflective Exiles, who have decided questions about the faith of the church itself and seek answers their church cannot provide. Then there are Transitional Explorers. These people have moved past the stark questions and are looking to rebuild their faith in a renewed journey. They want more, and the Church does not seem to offer these new paths of discovery. Finally, there are the Integrated Wayfinders are those who have found a new path, and have integrated their faith according to new values, which may not reflect the values in their present church experience.
Jamieson continues his book with an examination of Fowler’s Stages of Faith, which puts the responses to the Church in terms of each individual’s present apprehension of faith itself. People have different sorts of faith, with different questions, responses, and needs, which then affect how and why they leave church. With this, Jamieson concludes with some helpful suggestions about how and why these leavers can be integrated within the broader concept of Church, helping both themselves and the communities which they left.
Being my own focus is on an Unchurched Church this text might seem both quite insightful and helpful. Yet while I appreciated his initial categories, and the stories which led to them, I can’t help but think Jamieson is missing something in his analysis, and indeed is far too accepting of the reasons people give for leaving church as being positive steps of faith. In another class at Fuller, lo those seven years ago, but with the same two people in charge as now, I studied a different analysis of church leaving. In that class the focus was on nominality. Rather than being an expression of new stages of faith the reasons people leave church have oftentimes a lot more of the lateral move about them. Those at stage three, in my estimation are a large number of those who leave, placing their confidence in a different “religion” but not exhibiting any maturation of faith. Indeed, unlike Jamieson I do not romanticize those outside the church who leave their, as he puts it, commitment to literal interpretations. Rarely have I found someone at a more advanced stage who has left the church. Almost always I've found those who left to have a rather anemic sort of faith indeed. Though there are exceptations, they are not the rule.
Instead, I’ve discovered a great deal of rationalization. For to advance in a stage of faith does not require mere openness and acceptance, but instead it requires great challenge, either within or from others who both show the need for advance, and exhibit in word and deed the responsibilities the next stage entails to find and maintain.
Most of those who leave the church are not stage five, as he seems to heartily suggest. Rather they are likely stage three, and maybe stage four, in which they will likely never advance after finding an new affiliation in work, political partisanship, or another cause. Or stage four, in which they disdain conservative faith and idealize the freedom which they themselves have not yet attained apart from a newly chosen semi-faith community. They redefine their categories with stage four or five language, being such is attractive to them, but generally their actions, commitments, and relatedness does not in fact change. Just their language and rationalizations.
Now, being that I don’t attend church it may seem peculiar that I come down a bit hard on those who do leave the church, and do not necessarily respect this as a choice reflecting an advance in faith consciousness. There can be many reasons to leave, and the monastics seem to suggest that the most common reasons for leaving a community are either a lessening of faith or a spiritual attack which causes listlessness and discontent in the community. Like with a marriage, commitment is itself a spiritual lesson, and those who truly have faith can advance in the faith no matter the context.
How does this apply to me then and my unchurched Church? For one, I did not leave church out of a faith exploration. I left my church because I moved, and since I moved, for various reasons, I have not committed to a new community. My personal appropriation of each stage I’ve come to has always encountered both the frustrations and successes of personal growth while within a context of a faith filled community. A Church, in my experience, neither hampers nor helps real faith advancement, which is indeed a personal journey.
Jamieson notes there have been rare instances of stage six faith persons, however these people have left writings, and they note that the journey upwards is never apart from spiritual mentorship, and never apart from absolute pursuit of the faith even with the questions. Yes, there is to be honesty, but doubt is not a Christian value even if it is sometimes a part of our own sinful existence we have to face and overcome.
It is not enough for me to share with others the struggles of my own faith. I know my struggles, I don’t want to wallow in them. I want to be around people who have moved onwards and upwards, not discuss my situation in a non judgmental forum. I want to be challenged. To pursue and be pursued.
In this I think there are two different kinds of categories for the unchurched. There are those who leave Church because they have become nominal, pausing in their faith journey even if their faith journey begins to take on different contexts. Jamieson tells the story of the deep sea fishermen, but forgets to tell us why they are better. Going farther out to sea is not diving into the depths, and we can also suggest that it is the fishermen, who do not get the exercise of the swimmers, who are the farthest from the truth. One does not discover the depths with line and pole, but with greater lung capacity and muscular strength. The swimmers who persist are the ones who will find the depths, never the fishermen. There are far more lateral movements than Jamieson realizes, and in he mistakes a change of context for a real upwards movement.
Then, however, there are the monastics among us, who generally insist on a more intimate mature spirituality, but generally within the context of community. They are the ones who may leave the Church for a greater faith, but they leave with even more discipline in mind rather than more openness. The monastics, however, greatly encourage staying in a situation, even if it is difficult, for as one says, "stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."
Leaving the church should be an agonizing decision based on a particular work of the Spirit in a person’s life, for a specific season. It is not a sign of a faith journey to leave, nor to stay. Indeed, leaving can indicate profound nominality, justified in Jamieson by spiritualized language, and staying can indicate an mature desire to grow in faith, while both a teacher and a student.
One of the Desert Fathers once noted that anyone who goes into the desert must be a teacher rather than a seeker or student. Jamieson describes a lot of seekers who go wandering, many of which will never even begin the process of faith advancement. As someone who taught, and led, and created within a church context my leaving and now present absence from formal church is only possible because of a schedule which allows for increased spiritual reading and prayer and continual interaction with those as and more spiritually advanced than I am.
I am able to not go to church on Sundays because I do church more than ever before, taking it all more seriously, rather than letting it go and trying to find my way. I also have the resources and training to self-teach when necessary. Jamieson is off track to imply the leaving of Church is a sign of spiritual advancement. It is not, and only very rarely can spiritual advancement come in the absence of a church community. More often than not it is not a state of faith being realized, but a stage of nominality being rationalized. This is a fact I continually consider in myself, and constantly seek the wisdom of others in making sure I am in fact moving forward.
My worry with this book is that a nominal Christian can see themselves, wrongly, as a spiritually advancing person, rationalizing their lateral movements as advancements, and thus being happily and proudly stuck going no where.
I do not go to church. But I do not recommend not going to church to anyone. I see it as a movement of the Spirit in my life, and one which insists I am more cautious about my faith. This is definitely not something to approve let alone take pride in, even if in doing so I strongly feel I am pursuing Christ as he leads me. As a hermit once said, “When you flee from the company of other people, or when you despise the world and worldlings, take care to do so as if it were you who was being idiotic.”
People leave churches. But they really shouldn’t. Not unless it is the Spirit clearly leading them, and making sure they leave only with the wise counsel of other undergirding the decision. A faith journey is never isolated, and it is the enemy who often lies to us, deceiving us that we will find light outside the church when we can’t find it within the church. Far too often we stay in the darkness and begin to call this light, never finding our way out again.
This is a day late. And it's far too long. I think I got the good bits done in the first 500 words, however, so feel free to stop not long after the book summary. But, since I'm auditing, I think I can get away with my rule breaking.
Here's my consideration of A Churchless Faith:
People leave churches. At a certain point in history, maybe most of the last 2000 years, this would be a sure sign of their apostasy. Cyprian, in the 3rd century, said it most clearly, “Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress is separated from the promises of the Church, nor will he that forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ.” The adulteress here being nothing other than an unacceptable congregation.
But people do leave churches and it’s not because they leave God. It is often because the God who is calling them deeper is not to be found in the churches they attend, and the pastors who lead may not themselves know of the depths of the Christian faith. So they leave to find this elsewhere, sometimes landing no where.
Alan Jamieson seeks to analyze those who leave the church in his book A Churchless Faith, with his premise being that many who leave the Church are not leaving the faith but seeking the Faith.
In his interviews he came up with four types of leavers, each reflecting a different level of faith response in their leaving. The Disillusioned Followers who have left the church because of specific complaints about “the direction, leadership or level of care offered by the church” (50). Next there are the Reflective Exiles, who have decided questions about the faith of the church itself and seek answers their church cannot provide. Then there are Transitional Explorers. These people have moved past the stark questions and are looking to rebuild their faith in a renewed journey. They want more, and the Church does not seem to offer these new paths of discovery. Finally, there are the Integrated Wayfinders are those who have found a new path, and have integrated their faith according to new values, which may not reflect the values in their present church experience.
Jamieson continues his book with an examination of Fowler’s Stages of Faith, which puts the responses to the Church in terms of each individual’s present apprehension of faith itself. People have different sorts of faith, with different questions, responses, and needs, which then affect how and why they leave church. With this, Jamieson concludes with some helpful suggestions about how and why these leavers can be integrated within the broader concept of Church, helping both themselves and the communities which they left.
Being my own focus is on an Unchurched Church this text might seem both quite insightful and helpful. Yet while I appreciated his initial categories, and the stories which led to them, I can’t help but think Jamieson is missing something in his analysis, and indeed is far too accepting of the reasons people give for leaving church as being positive steps of faith. In another class at Fuller, lo those seven years ago, but with the same two people in charge as now, I studied a different analysis of church leaving. In that class the focus was on nominality. Rather than being an expression of new stages of faith the reasons people leave church have oftentimes a lot more of the lateral move about them. Those at stage three, in my estimation are a large number of those who leave, placing their confidence in a different “religion” but not exhibiting any maturation of faith. Indeed, unlike Jamieson I do not romanticize those outside the church who leave their, as he puts it, commitment to literal interpretations. Rarely have I found someone at a more advanced stage who has left the church. Almost always I've found those who left to have a rather anemic sort of faith indeed. Though there are exceptations, they are not the rule.
Instead, I’ve discovered a great deal of rationalization. For to advance in a stage of faith does not require mere openness and acceptance, but instead it requires great challenge, either within or from others who both show the need for advance, and exhibit in word and deed the responsibilities the next stage entails to find and maintain.
Most of those who leave the church are not stage five, as he seems to heartily suggest. Rather they are likely stage three, and maybe stage four, in which they will likely never advance after finding an new affiliation in work, political partisanship, or another cause. Or stage four, in which they disdain conservative faith and idealize the freedom which they themselves have not yet attained apart from a newly chosen semi-faith community. They redefine their categories with stage four or five language, being such is attractive to them, but generally their actions, commitments, and relatedness does not in fact change. Just their language and rationalizations.
Now, being that I don’t attend church it may seem peculiar that I come down a bit hard on those who do leave the church, and do not necessarily respect this as a choice reflecting an advance in faith consciousness. There can be many reasons to leave, and the monastics seem to suggest that the most common reasons for leaving a community are either a lessening of faith or a spiritual attack which causes listlessness and discontent in the community. Like with a marriage, commitment is itself a spiritual lesson, and those who truly have faith can advance in the faith no matter the context.
How does this apply to me then and my unchurched Church? For one, I did not leave church out of a faith exploration. I left my church because I moved, and since I moved, for various reasons, I have not committed to a new community. My personal appropriation of each stage I’ve come to has always encountered both the frustrations and successes of personal growth while within a context of a faith filled community. A Church, in my experience, neither hampers nor helps real faith advancement, which is indeed a personal journey.
Jamieson notes there have been rare instances of stage six faith persons, however these people have left writings, and they note that the journey upwards is never apart from spiritual mentorship, and never apart from absolute pursuit of the faith even with the questions. Yes, there is to be honesty, but doubt is not a Christian value even if it is sometimes a part of our own sinful existence we have to face and overcome.
It is not enough for me to share with others the struggles of my own faith. I know my struggles, I don’t want to wallow in them. I want to be around people who have moved onwards and upwards, not discuss my situation in a non judgmental forum. I want to be challenged. To pursue and be pursued.
In this I think there are two different kinds of categories for the unchurched. There are those who leave Church because they have become nominal, pausing in their faith journey even if their faith journey begins to take on different contexts. Jamieson tells the story of the deep sea fishermen, but forgets to tell us why they are better. Going farther out to sea is not diving into the depths, and we can also suggest that it is the fishermen, who do not get the exercise of the swimmers, who are the farthest from the truth. One does not discover the depths with line and pole, but with greater lung capacity and muscular strength. The swimmers who persist are the ones who will find the depths, never the fishermen. There are far more lateral movements than Jamieson realizes, and in he mistakes a change of context for a real upwards movement.
Then, however, there are the monastics among us, who generally insist on a more intimate mature spirituality, but generally within the context of community. They are the ones who may leave the Church for a greater faith, but they leave with even more discipline in mind rather than more openness. The monastics, however, greatly encourage staying in a situation, even if it is difficult, for as one says, "stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."
Leaving the church should be an agonizing decision based on a particular work of the Spirit in a person’s life, for a specific season. It is not a sign of a faith journey to leave, nor to stay. Indeed, leaving can indicate profound nominality, justified in Jamieson by spiritualized language, and staying can indicate an mature desire to grow in faith, while both a teacher and a student.
One of the Desert Fathers once noted that anyone who goes into the desert must be a teacher rather than a seeker or student. Jamieson describes a lot of seekers who go wandering, many of which will never even begin the process of faith advancement. As someone who taught, and led, and created within a church context my leaving and now present absence from formal church is only possible because of a schedule which allows for increased spiritual reading and prayer and continual interaction with those as and more spiritually advanced than I am.
I am able to not go to church on Sundays because I do church more than ever before, taking it all more seriously, rather than letting it go and trying to find my way. I also have the resources and training to self-teach when necessary. Jamieson is off track to imply the leaving of Church is a sign of spiritual advancement. It is not, and only very rarely can spiritual advancement come in the absence of a church community. More often than not it is not a state of faith being realized, but a stage of nominality being rationalized. This is a fact I continually consider in myself, and constantly seek the wisdom of others in making sure I am in fact moving forward.
My worry with this book is that a nominal Christian can see themselves, wrongly, as a spiritually advancing person, rationalizing their lateral movements as advancements, and thus being happily and proudly stuck going no where.
I do not go to church. But I do not recommend not going to church to anyone. I see it as a movement of the Spirit in my life, and one which insists I am more cautious about my faith. This is definitely not something to approve let alone take pride in, even if in doing so I strongly feel I am pursuing Christ as he leads me. As a hermit once said, “When you flee from the company of other people, or when you despise the world and worldlings, take care to do so as if it were you who was being idiotic.”
People leave churches. But they really shouldn’t. Not unless it is the Spirit clearly leading them, and making sure they leave only with the wise counsel of other undergirding the decision. A faith journey is never isolated, and it is the enemy who often lies to us, deceiving us that we will find light outside the church when we can’t find it within the church. Far too often we stay in the darkness and begin to call this light, never finding our way out again.
posted by Paddy O @ 8:07 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:32 PM,
Paddy O said…
Samuel, I definitely think you're right.
Churches can be constraining places in many ways. One of the bigger difficulties I had with my old church was they seemed to intentional derail attempts to spark spiritual growth opportunities and develop authentic community. This kept the power structure consistent but discouraged a large number of people from finding real involvement.
I think, also, there is a distinction between those who leave churches for other churches, and those who leave church altogether. Plus, I think a lot of people who leave churches for worldly desires or some such thing can deceive themselves into thinking it's for more spiritual reasons.
This is a fine line. For pastors generally always will blame those who leave, while those who leave will generally blame the pastors or other parts of the church. Like with all things fixing this in our communities requires real discernment on what's going on, and real humility in responding to it.
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