Christian Piatt - postChristian: Whats Left? Can We Fix It? Do We Care?

Seeking Peace with Those We Hate to Love

P ost-Christianity is an often-misunderstood term. It means that today we live in a culture where Christianity is no longer the baseline for cultural identity and discourse.

We are witnessing the end of Christendom in the West as many have come to understand it: the dissolution of Christian hegemony. Some who value freedom of religion in a broader senseor even freedom from itview this favorably because it suggests that the stigmas and pressures against non-Christians are giving way to greater pluralism and tolerance, if not affirmation. Others who tend to view the United States as an essentially Christian nation point to a post-Christian society as the beginning of the end of Western civilization.

Secularists often cheer the decades of decline in mainline churches. Now, even evangelical Christian churches are experiencing similar declines; the retraction has reached all corners of Western Christianity.

On the other side, Christians are admonished to hold fast to their convictions, to defend God in our culture at all times and at all costs against the pervasive influence of mainstream media in our lives. The waning power of organized religion offers a clarion call to arms in the culture wars. Every slip in Christianitys status as cultural standard-bearer is viewed as dire news.

Frankly, both sides are out of line. Christianity can hardly be contained by religion, and in some cases, freeing it from the doctrinal limitations and economic encumbrances of the institution allows the faith to be more nimble, adaptable, and virally embedded in the culture in new ways. Yes, the Church has done damage, and yes, it is paying dearly for its own transgressions in the form of declining numbers and eroding credibility. But the heart and soul of Christs message to the world was never bound to the institutional Church. Jesus spoke of liberation from bondage, justice for the oppressed, and sustenance for those in need. And yet too often, Christianityand religion as a whole, reallyfalls well short of that ideal.

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The onset of the post-Christian era might just be the timeliest opportunity for Christianity to be remade in the image of Jesus. For the last fifty-plus years, Christianity has occupied itself with justification and self-preservation, rather than humbling itself collectively before God and the world, welcoming accountability, and begging mercy for the countless historic and contemporary ways we have failed to faithfully serve the One we claim. Jesus would be calling us to account, instead of calling us back to the Church in its current state.

Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and maybe hed join us in tearing down the walls of the contemporary Church until no stone was left, one on top of another. Or perhaps he might ride in on a cloud of glory, accompanied by bands of angels, to set Christianity right, placing himself at the helm of culture.

Or maybe hed do something that no one would expect.

Maybe our idea of Church and Jesus idea of Church are different, and we have gotten it wrong.

If, in the post-Christian era, we forsake the Church and all its flaws, we also risk losing much that it affords us. There are few, if any, other places in our world that place such emphasis and value on interdependence, story, unity, hope, justice, and radical, selfless love. We need these things, and Jesus knew that. We crave meaning, belonging, and community with others who bear witness to our lives. Rituals ground us. Symbols reach a deep part of us where language and reason often fall short. We need one another, even if weve forgotten how to be together in meaningful, vulnerable ways.

On the other hand, Christianity has been responsible for, or at least complicit in, some of the worst atrocities in history. The list is endless, and sadly, it continues to grow. Authority figures in churches prey on the vulnerable of their flock, we ignore the travesties of the world while planning another building extension, and politics are more important than people, just to name a few. The record seems to point to a toxicity in the Christian religion that humanity should endeavor to stamp out.

Its in basic human nature to choose sides in a conflict, to bifurcate the cultural landscape into us and them. Jesus followers believed him to be divinely empowered to conquer the emperor and fully expected him to lead a victorious revolution that would establish a new order. Instead, what they got was a suffering servant who died a criminal death. They didnt understand that Jesus came to serve as liberator rather than conqueror. Rather than wipe sinor death, or corrupt systems of powerfrom the face of the earth, he pointed a way toward freedom from their power. But Jesus the Liberator and Jesus the Conqueror are very different in important ways.

A conqueror obliterates or oppresses the enemy. A liberator removes the enemys power over its victim, with this result: both oppressor and oppressed must find a way to coexist, living side by side in a world where they can no longer be content to label their enemy as other.