Blogotional: Breadth of Experience

Monday, July 06, 2015

Breadth of Experience

Millenials so often express deep disillusionment with the churches where their faith was first cultivated, but I wonder if this is not due to the fact that many of them have been brought up their within a fairly narrow Christian tradition, usually a conservative and racially homogenous evangelical church. Their concept of "The church" is in reality only "The church that I knew growing up", which is not the only kind of church in existence.

But having no other experiences to draw from, their reaction to natural and inevitable disenchantment is sharp and reactionary, to push off from their sole point of reference to the opposite direction: from low liturgy to high, from conservatism to progressivism, from Southern Baptist to Episcopal, or vice versa. But had they been more aware of strengths and weaknesses of other forms of worship and theology, perhaps they would not be so quick to throw their spiritual heritage under the bus.

I really like those words - they are wise. Breadth of Christian experience and study matter a lot. But his next words are troubling:

Now don't get me wrong, it’s perfectly okay to cleave closely to a tradition that fits us best,

It is not about what fits us best, it is about what we believe comes closest to the right way, while acknowledging that none of them will have it exactly right. Chin goes on, in the same paragraph, to more or less say that:

and in my honest opinion, some traditions follow Christ far more closely than others. Also, I am not advocating for reckless church-hopping that is encouraged by our consumer instincts, if not by churches themselves.