Study Guide for Session 1

Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass is divided into three parts:

• Part I: What Happened to the Neighborhood Church?
• Part II: Ten Signposts of Renewal
• Part III: From Tourists to Pilgrims

Who is the audience for this book? “If you are satisfied with your local congregation, if you like the kind of Christianity that offers certainty and order in an age of change, if you think church is about closing your eyes, this book is not for you. It is not for the comfortable, the certain, the religiously content. If you feel anxious, however, consider this an invitation. I invite you on my pilgrimage to some very different kinds of churches, old Protestant churches that have found new life in the face of change. They reminded me that Christianity is a sacred pathway to someplace better, a journey of transforming our selves, our faith communities, and our world” (page 11).

Part I: What Happened to the Neighborhood Church?

• Introduction: Bass summarizes the methodology behind her study. Some highlights:
  
  
• 50 participating congregations researched
• 10 congregations served as “in-depth” sites where researchers devoted several weeks or months to the churches.
• The sizes of the congregations ranged from 35 to 2,500 members
• Churches represented the following six denominations: United Church of Christ (UCC), Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), Episcopal Church (ECUSA), United Methodist Church (UMC), Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), and Disciples of Christ (DoC).
• She’s most interested in what she calls “emerging Christianity,” which is a faith that is adapting to changes in a “pluralist, post-Christian world.”
• The 50 congregations were chosen “in which new things appeared to be happening, and where people were growing deeper and experiencing a new sense of identity by intentionally engaging Christian practices” (5).

• Chapter 1: The Vanished Village. This chapter summarizes Bass’ own spiritual journey from her childhood church in Baltimore to where she is now. Since leaving her childhood church, she saw herself becoming one of the many “spiritual nomads” who lack a strong identification with a denominational church. We’re post denominational. Bass believes strongly that Christianity is about change and that churches cannot become “refuges from change” or resist change. Jesus’ life and teachings in the New Testament serve as a model to show that Christians should embrace change.
  
  
• Chapter 2: Remembering Christianity. This chapter argues for a “creative third way” for congregations. The “third way” needs to be reinvented periodically as the religious poles change. Rev. Lillian Daniel, the minister of Church of the Redeemer in New Haven, CT, embodies what Bass sees as third way for churches today: “…a blended sort of Christian theology and spirituality that draws from the deep wells of tradition and yet is generously open to change and the remaking of those very traditions. Congregations need to become “comprehensive churches” that emphasize “life in this world” by offering practices “that enable people to live better and more faithfully in God” (36). A comprehensive church does not make “grand claims” about eternity and salvation.
  
  
• Chapter 3: The New Village Church. According to Bass, churches too often assume that because the people who attend are Christian they do need any help to be, think, and pray like Christians. However, the primary mission of a church should be as a spiritual community that “forms people of faith.” It may seem like conventional wisdom to become more secular in order to appeal to a larger number of people and thus grow the congregation, but Bass argues that “[m]ainline churches decline when they neglect scripture and prayer, discernment and hospitality, contemplation and justice” (45). Bass emphasizes more than once that mainline churches must be careful not to simply become a kind of Christian Rotary Club. Instead, churches should form a “trinity of vitality.” This trinity is:
  
  
• Tradition, Not Traditionalism
• Practice, Not Purity
• Wisdom, Not Certainty
  
  
• Chapter 4: Finding Home. This chapter covers different groups of individuals who are seeking a church home: returnees, exiles, immigrants, converts, and villagers.

Some key terms

Comprehensive church: Diversity would be a key word for the comprehensive church. Such churches appeal to a wide variety of Christians and they do not make “grand claims” about eternity and salvation. Instead they focus on “practice,” helping individuals to “live better and more faithfully with God” (36).

Convert: People without a religious background who are coming to church. Bass sees this term a little differently than a fundamentalist might where conversion is a one-time event. Instead, conversion is on-going; it is a pilgrimage.

Exile: Displaced or disenfranchised people from other faiths (Catholicism, fundamentalism) who appreciate the openness of mainline churches.

Historical amnesia: Misconstruing the past to better make sense of the present or to increase one’s power in the present. For example, Christians might be guilty of historical amnesia when they argue that the founding fathers were Christian and thus intended for the United States to be a Christian nation. In a narrower sense, we could apply the term within churches themselves when members forget or misconstrue the religious traditions of their denomination.

Immigrant: Bass uses this term for both literal immigrants (people from Mexico, for example, who have found a home in a U.S. mainline church) and people like herself who are finding church to be a home again.

Mainstream or mainline church: Bass has referred to mainstream or mainline churches as “brand name” churches where the name of the denomination appears in the church name. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life uses mainline church to differentiate between two other major Protestant branches, Evangelical Protestant Churches and Historically Black Churches. Mainline Protestant Churches would include American Baptists, United Methodists, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, Disciples of Christ, and the United Church of Christ among others.

Practice: This term is a contrast to purity in Bass’ book. Christian practice would refer to things that Christians should be doing, but they are done in an “open, inclusive, and nonjudgmental way” (49). Purity, on the other hand, would be exclusivist practice that it centered on moral or theological superiority.

Returnee: People who are “returning home” to the church traditions of their childhood.

Spiritual nomad: A person who lacks a “home” church. Bass says that spiritual nomads might feel like “strangers in a strange land” when it comes to church.

Third way of Christianity: “[A] blended sort Christian theology and spirituality that draws from deep wells of tradition and yet is generously open to change and the remaking of those very traditions” (34).

Tradition: Bass makes a distinction between tradition, which she sees as positive, and traditionalism, which she sees as negative. She believes that tradition can be a “fluid, dynamic, and critical process” (47) for churches, whereas traditionalism is more authoritarian and exclusive.

Trinity of vitality: Three interrelated characteristics of thriving churches: tradition, practice, and wisdom.

Villager: Lifelong members of a church or denomination. People who have never left.

Wisdom: Wisdom is a contrast to certainty. Churches that emphasize wisdom enjoy asking questions. They resist dogma and certain answers. They are comfortable with some ambiguity.

Some questions to consider

• How has the world changed since you were a child? How has the church changed since you were a child? In your experience, is change positive or negative?
• How influential was the church in your upbringing? Does the church of your childhood influence your beliefs today?
• How do we define liberal and conservative when it comes to churches?
• How aware are churches today that people have choices in life?

Highlights from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

• Among people 18-29, 25% say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion. Among people 70 or older, on 8% say they are unaffiliated.
  
  
• The United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country with the numbers of Americans who are members of Protestant denominations at 51%.
  
  
• The 51% breaks down along the following lines:
• Evangelical Protestant Churches: 26.3%
• Mainline Protestant Churches: 18.1%
• Historically Black Churches: 6.9%
  
  
• Catholicism has the greatest net loss as the result of “affiliation changes.” 31% of Americans were raised Catholic; 24% now describe themselves as Catholic.
  
  
• Catholicism’s numbers overall have remained stable because many immigrants are Catholic. Among immigrants, 46% are Catholic and 24% are Protestant. Among native-born Americans, 55% are Protestant and 21% are Catholic.
  
  
• Among people 70 or older, 62% are Protestant.
  
  
• Among people 18-29, 43% are Protestant. This lower percentage, plus the higher percentage for unaffiliated people in this age group from the first bullet point above, suggests that declines in the Protestant church and a growth in people unaffiliated with religion will continue.
  
  
• Members of mainline Protestant churches and Jews are older than members of other groups.
  
  
• The Pew Forum’s survey sampled 35,000 adults from May 8-August 13, 2007.

Websites of interest

• Diana Butler Bass’s website: http://www.dianabutlerbass.com
• The Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: http://religions.pewforum.org/
• The Emergent Village: http://www.emergentvillage.com/
• Christianity for the Rest of Us Blog: http://aprilsmallgroup.blogspot.com/