Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening [Hardcover]

Most Americans are aware that recent decades have been a time of change in religious belief, behaving, and belonging. Most who read this blog have some knowledge of varying aspects of these shifts. Few people understand how the many trends are linked and fewer still grasp how this looks within the context of church history. Diana Butler Bass draws on her rich experiences as a researcher, consultant, subject matter expert, and perpetual student of the topic to craft a book that is sure to become the starting point for conversation in the academy, the church, and even in the many communities that together comprise our culture.

Christianity After Religion is a three part story that is designed to be read sequentially:

*Part 1, "The End of Religion," considers the changes within the framework of decline of traditional measures, primarily focusing on the last decade. Rather than simply recounting polls and popular opinion, Diana Butler Bass explores the deeper issues they suggest. (Readers will identify with their own life experiences while simultaneously better understanding the religious world in which they live.)

*Part 2, "A New Vision," captures the many and varied efforts to reshape Christianity for the future. These efforts have been underway for decades yet clarity, much less unity, remains elusive. Butler Bass proposes that new visions must end the centuries old approach of believing, behaving, and belonging in favor of the more ancient order: belonging, behaving, and believing.

*Part 3, "Awakening," moves from possibility to practice by arguing that the current experiences are a Fourth Great Awakening. By way of comparison with the first three Great Awakenings, the fourth seems enough like the previous to warrant the label yet dissimilar enough to warrant being considered the Fourth Great Awakenings (plural) or the Great Global Awakening to note its spiritual emphasis and impact on multiple religions.

Recommendation
While I regularly recommend books to specific people, I rarely recommend a book to everyone. As one who often writes and speaks about the decline of the mainline and the larger issue of religious change, I know that this topic is of incredible importance to those within the church (and those within the traditional structures of their religious traditions) and of incredible interest to those who are spiritual yet exist primarily or exclusively apart from the dominant religious structures from previous generations. Wherever you are on your spiritual and/or religious journey, I encourage you to read this text. If you engage it fully then discuss it with others, you will find many benefits including an enriched perspective on your experiences, a better understanding of the experiences of others, and an increased willingness to live your faith fully in the present while making time to glance at the past and look into the future.

So What?
The change is not just past or future; it is now. It is being performed today and every day. Diana Butler Bass explains:
The new global Great Awakening is not contained by the stage of the local Congregational church, in small groups, at camp meetings or tents, or at Pentecostal tabernacles or progressive political meetings. The awakening is being performed in the networked world, where the border between sacred and secular has eroded and where the love of God and neighbor - and the new vision of belonging, behaving, and believing - is being staged far beyond conventional religious communities. Although churches seem the most natural space to perform spiritual awakening, the disconcerting reality is that many people in Western society see churches more as museums of religion that sagred stage that dramatize the movement of God's spirit (p. 258)

If I didn't have a sermon to write I would have finished this one in one sitting. I've liked all of Diana's book, but this one takes her to new territory and explores issues that are at the heart of what I'm about in ministry. The historical framework about awakenings she uses provides a helpful perspective on what is going on in the world today. It presents an incredible challenge to those of us, like myself, who have spent their lives in the church, but see the need now for something far different from what we have been and been about. It's in no way a "how-to" book, but it is ultimately an extremely practical book - one that will provide the insight and perspective needed to work on the how-to's in whatever setting we find ourselves.

This author makes several interesting points about the recent shifts in American religious affiliation, but quickly devolves into a hypocritical tirade against conservative Christians, and conservatives in general. I'm neither politically or religiously conservative (I'm not even Christian), but I expect a little intellectual integrity from an author of Mrs. Bass' standing.

On several occasions she lampoons the religious right for their mixing of religious and political beliefs, but then goes on to do the same with her own beliefs and holds the result up as something completely different. Apparently we are supposed to accept that Christ identifies with modern, elitist liberalism while being offended that conservative evangelicals claim Christ's blessing upon their narrow dogmatism.

It's strange that so much of the book revolves around politics. The author seems incapable of separating them from the religious sphere - so much so that she calls the Tea Party a religious movement. Again, I'm not a conservative. I don't like the Tea Party's brand of social conservatism. At the same time, I'm willing to state my differences of opinion with their policy choices without blatantly inventing nonsense about them. What shocked me most was where on page 251 Mrs. Bass equates the Tea Party (who have never, as far as I know, committed violence) with terrorists, African religious fundamentalists who kill homosexuals and torture children, and religious dictators, among others. You can disagree with somebody as much as you want, but such accusations are truly absurd.

She also goes on to quote a friend as saying that "This is the worst version of religious and political hatred in American history for at least one hundred and fifty years." Tell that to the African Americans who suffered under the disenfranchisement Jim Crow and terror of lynching campaigns. A comment like that can only come from somebody completely out of touch with reality. That Mrs. Bass could repeat it in good faith is beyond me.

This isn't to say that the book doesn't have any merit. It does, but all of its finer points come toward the beginning. The rest is a sad exercise in the pot calling the kettle black.