Military theorists will often espouse that the tendency of all armies is to be prepared to fight the last battle. Because it takes time for large institutions to change, because humans typically respond to experience, there is an inertia towards preparedness for yesterday’s battles. The classic example of this is the French army’s readiness to fight a World War 1 style of battle on the eve of World War 2.
Well, new data from the American Religious Identification Survey (March 2009) shows, it claims, that ‘the challenge to Christianity in the US does not come from other religions but rather from a rejection of all forms of organised religion’. If that is true, and it seems to have some purchase, then what we need as a church is a way of doing church that answers that question about organised religion. Instead, of course, what we find is a highly organised mega or traditional church that is geared to answer the question of felt needs through a multitude of programmes. We have an army ready to fight World War 1 on the eve of World War 2.
Pot shots at organised religion
I’m not sure it’s just American culture in this respect. The highly popular and (among Christians) controversial series of books, His Dark Materials, takes none-too-subtle pot shots at organised religion. While the author Philip Pullman has made no secret of his aggressive brand of agnosticism, the emotional focus and arguably the appeal of his brand of anti-God rhetoric is ‘The Magesterium’, or organised religion. Pullman, of course, is British.
