MARCH 22, SUNDAY

CHURCH SPIRIT

This was the last church service before the arrival of the new minister, Jessica Riegel, who will preach her first sermon with us this coming Sunday, Palm Sunday. The guest minister talked about the spirit that drove the early church and questioned why the Presbyterian church and other so-called mainline churches were losing members. What we need is a revival of the spirit of the early church. It was a pep talk to change direction, to be a more lively church and to revive our dwindling congregation alongl with Jessica, whom almost none of the congregation have met.

We are a congregation of mostly white haired elderly people and have been dwindling in membership for years. This is not the fault of this congregation, it is happening to mainline congregations all over the United States and, I’m guessing, in Europe as well.

The guest preacher has written on the subject and thought about it much more than I have. So my casual opinion is mine along. I don’t attribute a loss of members to a loss of spirit but to a rapidly changing world in which Biblical stories are challenged by scientific facts about the origin of the universe, the arrival of humans, and empirical evidence about humans identity. It is also caused by a feeling of relativity. There are obviously many intensely believed visions of God and our relation to god which as the world shrinks threaten each other. While every religion is right for it’s adherents, no religion can be the right one, the one that is true with the others false. Both of these changes makes absolute belief in the Christian version of the divine more difficult particularly if you believe in science and evolution or the relativity of all religions. The old still believe but the young are skeptical.

Except for the Christian fundamentalists. They are full of spirit and dismiss science and evolution and mock secular relativity. These churches and the megachurches which preach Christian faith leading to wealthy. These churches are alive. But I don’t think that Christian nationalism and the fervor of MAGA Christianity is what the guest preacher had in mind.