I realize that there are some progressive Christian voices out there, but I’ve heard some claim that there are many and they’re just being ignored. I don’t believe it. A few academics, a few independent minded people and a couple of revolutionaries in the ranks don’t equal many in my book. Back in my college days, I studied several twentieth century theologians, intellectual giants they were, who tried to drag Christianity into the modern era. One of my professors at WVU had studied with one as a graduate student at Harvard, probably the most well-known, Paul Tillich. In his day, Dr. Tillich not only made an impression on his fellow academics, but he wrote popular books that landed on the best-seller lists back in the ‘50s. He was on the cover of Time Magazine at least once. And even though Dr. Tillich was good at getting peoples’ attention, he still failed to make a lasting impact on Christianity. He’s largely forgotten now.
His student, and my professor, Dr. Mietzen, once told me that when people start turning away from a religion, it is the religion that has failed. The people aren’t the ones who are to blame for not giving the religion a fair hearing. The religion is there to serve the people. When it stops reaching them, when it stops inspiring them, when it stops meeting their needs, it not only dies, it deserves to die. And that’s so a fresh, more inclusive, more powerful, more unifying mythology can rise up in its place.
Religions come and go, but humanity marches on. Human history is not dependent on Christianity in my view. Christianity is dependent on humanity. The ancient Egyptians had a religion. It lasted for three thousand years. Decade after decade, generation after generation, century after century, the people of ancient Egypt were devoted to it, believed in it, and ordered their lives around it. But times changed, and the religion failed to keep up, and the only interest in ancient Egyptian religion today stems from intellectual curiosity not devotion. No one believes in the ancient Egyptian gods anymore.
In my opinion, the only thing people owe Christians are common courtesy and respect. That’s it. If they want us to take their religion seriously, they have to earn it. And lately, they haven’t been earning it. European interest in Christianity has been steadily declining for decades. And now we see the same thing happening here in the U.S. Christians are still making a lot of noise, still having a significant impact on politics, but it’s the reactionaries who are out front, the ones who want to rewrite history and science to fit their outdated beliefs. And how do they expect to get the rest of us to go along with them? Through fear and intimidation. They warn us that if we don’t believe them, their god will punish us.
Bullshit! I do not believe that. And I think if that’s the best they can do, then we’re seeing Christianity’s last gasp. I think that if there is a god, or something more to life that escapes our ordinary sensory perceptions and our capacity for reason, then the truth of it is not dependent on the Christian religion or any single religious tradition. It’s time for the Christians to dazzle us with hope and inspiration rather than shake their fingers at us and call us sinners if we don’t mindlessly follow them. If they’re not up to it, we should just shove the dead carcass of our ancestors’ religious traditions out of the way and get on with it.
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