Spiritual Osmosis (& Why It Doesn’t Work)

I have a Jewish friend who doesn’t believe in God.  Another friend who’s a rabbi told me that this is not unusual:  to know someone who keeps a kosher kitchen, celebrates the high holidays and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs for the children, even though he/she does not believe in God.  Their Judaism is about history and family tradition.  It’s powerful.  It’s meaningful.  But it has nothing to do with a relationship with The Holy One.

I don’t really get this, but then again I do.

We know people who are cultural Christians in that they “get their children baptized” with no intention of raising them in a Christian community beyond the cursory activities.  They worship on Christmas Eve, Easter, and Mothers’ Day because it’s traditional.  And the music and flowers are so nice.  It’s powerful.  It’s meaningful.  But it has nothing to do with a relationship with God

This article by Emily Brennan from Sunday’s NY Times is  fascinating, and in a nutshell, it’s about African-Americans who’ve grown up in Christian families only to find themselves “godless” as adults.  

Stereotypically, church has had powerful cultural importance in the African-American community.  But according to the Pew Forum 2008 United States Religious Landscape Survey, some African-Americans  –  like other Americans –  are pulling away from the communities of faith of their childhoods.  Increasingly,  they are bravely saying that they don’t believe what they were raised to believe.  And this is new for that demographic according to the Brennan article.

It used to be true that our faith was formed genetically for all intents and purposes.  If we were born into a Roman Catholic family, for example, we stayed Roman Catholic for a lifetime.  If we were born into a Lutheran family or a Methodist family or a Mormon family, we became Lutheran, Methodist, or Mormon.

Not anymore.  But this is old news.

What we in the church are trying to remind parents – and everyone – is that profound faith is not about church culture.  We might love the fact that “We go caroling every Advent” or “The Christmas Eve music is so beautiful.”    But deep faith doesn’t happen because a church throws an impressive Christmas pageant every December.  It doesn’t happen because the preacher is stellar or the boxwood wreaths are always so pretty. 

It’s about relationships.  All those things – from Christmas pageants to carol sings to the hanging of the greens – are about relationships, all formed in the hope that people will catch a glimpse of what Jesus looks like while we are dressing children up as sheep or sharing hot cocoa after singing in the nursing home.  If they see “what love looks like” through people who follow Jesus, they might want to follow Jesus too – and not for the sake of keeping cultural norms going. 

Following Jesus is the best way to live.  It changes everything for good.  There.  I said it.

We don’t find faith through osmosis.  We discover it through grappling (that word again) and finding that our doubts and questions are not squelched. 

In the first paragraph of the Brennan article, the atheist in question also happens to be gay.  His mother’s church teaches that being gay is incompatable with following Jesus, so he left the church of his childhood. 

Imagine what might have happened if he had been invited to look at what Jesus said about this issue.  Imagine if he had delved into scripture with a compassionate teacher who knew personally what it means to be wretched and yet drenched in amazing grace. 

I kind of like the fact that people are leaving church if church was only a rote family custom like going out for pizza every Saturday or camping every 4th of July.  My hope is that they will experience a church community one day that is more about relationships that change the world. 

Image Source here.