Millennial Conventionality

A cler­i­cal aquain­t­ence and fel­low mil­len­ni­al recent­ly sparked a con­ver­sa­tion on Face­book when he shared an arti­cle by the Rev’d Mr Matthew Mari­no enti­tled, “Exclu­sive Inclu­siv­i­ty: Will The Epis­co­pal Church Keep Gay Mil­len­ni­als?” My acquain­tance affir­ma­tion­al­ly quot­ed Marino,

Did you notice that GenCon12 vot­ed to become both more pro­gres­sive polit­i­cal­ly while, at the same time, hold­ing the line on the­o­log­i­cal ortho­doxy? Did you notice the groundswell to shrink nation­al struc­tures and sell the nation­al Church Cen­ter? Did you notice the Acts 8 Moment?

Many Boomers seemed sur­prised at those swirling winds…

Sur­prised, indeed. As a mil­len­ni­al, I have felt woe­ful­ly mis­un­der­stood by ear­li­er gen­er­a­tions — the pow­er-wield­ers — with­in the Epis­co­pal Church, for what appears to be a dis­com­fort with, even hos­til­i­ty toward, the blend of pro­gres­sive val­ues and ortho­dox con­fes­sion which many of my peers and I pro­fess. The assump­tion they make is that either one is pro­gres­sive and uncon­ven­tion­al or one is con­ser­v­a­tive and conventional.

Well, my friends, I am sim­i­lar­ly dis­com­fit­ed with, even hos­tile toward, such false either – or dichotomies and the gen­er­a­tional prej­u­dice they betray. Tem­per my indig­na­tion though I may try, I can­not help but believe that the gen­er­a­tion that has fought hard­est for the full and unqual­i­fied inclu­sion of all peo­ple with­in the Epis­co­pal Church has also sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly excised the very grounds of its exis­tence and pur­pose: Jesus Christ.

If the Epis­co­pal Church hopes to keep many mil­lenials, it will have to face the real­i­ty that there are innu­mer­able pro­gres­sive non-prof­it social jus­tice orga­ni­za­tions with equal­ly impres­sive, if not bet­ter, records of inclu­siv­i­ty and diver­si­ty, with accom­plish­ments that would make the Epis­co­pal Church pale in com­par­i­son, com­pet­ing for our sup­port and service.

If the Epis­co­pal Church is noth­ing more than its pop­u­lar car­i­ca­ture — the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty at Prayer — and if it can­not stom­ach the robust, intel­li­gent, sophis­ti­cat­ed the­ol­o­gy, resplen­dent litur­gy, and rich poli­ty of which it is present­ly an ungrate­ful heir, then mil­lenials will take their con­vic­tion, their prayer, their loy­al­ty, and — in what I am sure will be the worst blow for baby-boomers — their wal­lets elsewhere.

Is there any­one of that gen­er­a­tion who sees the intense­ly humor­ous irony, that in becom­ing cul­tur­al and philo­soph­i­cal rel­a­tivists; that in mak­ing an espe­cial point to estab­lish open, respect­ful over­seas mis­sions in places like Africa and Asia that cel­e­brate local cul­ture — places his­tor­i­cal­ly abused by west­ern impe­ri­al­ist gov­ern­ments and their equal­ly con­de­scend­ing mis­sion­ar­ies, liv­ing out the white man’s burden and the white man’s com­mer­cial inter­est — are those places where vibrant, uncom­pro­mis­ing, and unabashed con­ven­tion­al chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties are blos­som­ing, quite lit­er­al­ly explod­ing with blooms of grace faster than we count.

The very peo­ple whom we have his­tor­i­cal­ly oppressed and whose cul­tures we have mer­ci­less­ly sup­pressed as infe­ri­or to our own, do not believe that it is nec­es­sary to aban­don our sto­ried con­ven­tions, even as we hem­or­rhage out every­thing pur­pose­ful and mean­ing­ful in our tra­di­tion in their name. It would seem that those who have felt most dis­en­fran­chised and exclud­ed are sur­pris­ing­ly the least like­ly to desire a fur­ther dilu­tion of their faith.

Per­haps, they real­ize that it is not the creed that is his­tor­i­cal­ly at fault; it is not Jesus Christ incar­nate, cru­ci­fied, dead, buried, res­ur­rect­ed, ascend­ed, and return­ing, who is exclu­sion­ary. To deny chris­t­ian tra­di­tion is to deny the founder, the mover, the inspir­er of the very grace that led us to a more expan­sive, more inclu­sive church.

If not Jesus Christ, if not the Holy Ghost, then who, then what? If it were any­one, any­thing else, why main­tain the cha­rade at all? We might as well pro­claim our­selves sec­u­lar human­ists with a pass­ing fan­cy for mys­ti­cism. Or, worse, is our con­tin­u­ance as a church real­ly faith­ful­ness to the Church Pen­sion Fund? Now, there is a thought.

Tes­ti­mo­ny to this effect is found in the afore­men­tioned arti­cle by Mr Mari­no, most espe­cial­ly in the case of LGBT mil­lenials, who, in his expe­ri­ence, are no longer enam­ored with the Epis­co­pal Church’s pan­der­ing to them by loud­ly parad­ing ’round and belaud­ing their sex­u­al­i­ty, but who mere­ly want a church that helps sus­tain and enrich their faith, pro­vid­ing them a con­text with­in which they may do the same for oth­ers; a church that does not with­hold or dilute the truth, or reject the essen­tial along with the inessential,

As the cul­ture con­tin­ues to change, will the Epis­co­pal Church keep Gay Mil­len­ni­als? Or will they end up going some­place else — some­place that puts more emphases [sic] on their faith than their orientation?

Today, mil­lenials are more inter­est­ed in a church that behaves like a church. We do not believe in christ­less chris­tian­i­ty. We do not believe in squishy rel­a­tivism and core­less antifoun­da­tion­al­ism. We do not pro­fess Christ mere­ly mor­tal, some­time preach­er of good ideas, teller of mem­o­rable tales, wear­er of a wicked awe­some hip­ster beard, and vic­tim of an admit­ted­ly unfor­tu­nate polit­i­cal exe­cu­tion. We do not believe in a repack­aged, bad­ly inter­pret­ed, west­ern rehash of ori­en­tal mys­ti­cism. We do not believe in the Epis­co­pal Church as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty at Prayer.

We do not believe that there is noth­ing excep­tion­al about Jesus Christ, because if there is noth­ing excep­tion­al about Jesus Christ then why in the hell are we wast­ing so much time and mon­ey main­tain­ing an insti­tu­tion that bears his name? We do not believe in a church of noth­ing more that do-good­ers and well-wish­ers who pay their ten per­cent, drink their cof­fee, and take a hol­i­day from pray­ing in the sum­mer­time to antique in Rhode Island, sup lob­ster in Maine, or sip wine in Martha’s Vineyard.

We do not believe in the Church of the Holy Con­cert Series; Ss Wine, Whiskey, and Cheese; the Basil­i­ca of the Mod­ern Art Instal­la­tion; or the Cathe­dral Church of the Bian­nu­al Con­gre­gants. We do not believe in white­wash­ing, cher­ryp­ick­ing, gloss­ing over, veneer­ing, sug­ar­coat­ing, or toss­ing the baby out with the bath water. We do not believe in a buf­fet-style, cafe­te­ria chris­tian­i­ty where­in we can take a lit­tle of this and lit­tle of that and leave the rest until they dis­con­tin­ue the menu item.

We do not believe in John Shel­by Spong, Mar­cus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Diana But­ler Bass. We do not believe in our esteemed lead­ers inca­pable of even mouthing the holy name of Jesus Christ in pub­lic pro­nounce­ments. We do not believe in a church more pre­pos­sessed by prop­er­ty seizure, equi­ty accru­al, invest­ment div­i­dends, trust funds, pen­sion plans, copy­right enforce­ment, mar­ket­ing schemes, and retal­ia­to­ry lit­i­ga­tion than it is by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, mak­er of heav­en and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eter­nal­ly begot­ten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begot­ten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our sal­va­tion he came down from heav­en: by the pow­er of the Holy Spir­it he became incar­nate from the Vir­gin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was cru­ci­fied under Pon­tius Pilate; he suf­fered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accor­dance with the Scrip­tures; he ascend­ed into heav­en and is seat­ed at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glo­ry to judge the liv­ing and the dead, and his king­dom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spir­it, the Lord, the giv­er of life, who pro­ceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is wor­shiped and glo­ri­fied. He has spo­ken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apos­tolic Church. We acknowl­edge one bap­tism for the for­give­ness of sins. We look for the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

That’s what we believe and if the inten­tion of the Epis­co­pal Church’s pow­ers-that-be is to hol­low this con­fes­sion with indif­fer­ence rather than hal­low it with faith­ful­ness, well, mil­lenials — like most human being — are bipedal­ly equipped and quite capa­ble of walk­ing away and going else­where. The truth is, though, that we do not want to walk away, we want to remain and con­tin­ue to build upon the good work that the Epis­co­pal Church has done, is doing, might do — except we want to do so in the name of Christ for the glo­ry of that name, not as an act of self-con­gru­la­tion for how love­ly and wel­com­ing we are.

If our baby-boomer brethren and sistren (I promise that this is a real word) want to sit in sym­po­siums and sem­i­nars dis­cussing “How to Keep Mil­lenials in the Church,” maybe they should take some advice from actu­al mil­lenials. We would like noth­ing more nor less that a faith­ful church that preach­es Christ incar­nate, Christ cru­ci­fied, Christ res­ur­rect­ed, and Christ enthroned. We want a church that is unashamed to preach atone­ment, sac­ri­fice, suf­fer­ing, ser­vice, and salvation.

Mil­lenials were born with extreme­ly sen­si­tive bull­shit barom­e­ters and we want hon­esty, trans­paren­cy, and integri­ty. We want a church where we can devel­op rela­tion­ships, build com­mu­ni­ty, and engen­der fel­low­ship despite dif­fer­ence and dis­agree­ment, but with­out pre­tend­ing that we believe noth­ing lest we offend some­one, any­one. We want a church that respects us, because we have the courage to live in both faith and doubt, cer­tain­ty and uncer­tain­ty, bold­ness and meek­ness, and count­less oth­er seem­ing­ly oppo­site traits wed­ded togeth­er in con­scious imperfection.

We want a church that doesn’t make us choose between arti­fi­cial cat­e­gories of super­fi­cial divi­sion. We want a church that allows us to be authen­tic chris­tians as well as pro­gres­sive activists, a church that does not assume that con­ven­tion means we are big­ots, that we are fun­da­men­tal­ists, that we are young earth cre­ation­ists, bib­li­cal lit­er­al­ists and innerran­tists, “God Hates Fags!” pick­eters, or hard­line anti-abor­tion, anti-women, anti-immi­gra­tion neo­con­ser­v­a­tives. Our church is his­tor­i­cal­ly the church of the via media — fraught thought that term is — and its mem­bers should know well the sort of cohab­i­tant and coöper­a­tive cul­ture we yearn for and which we find lived out in the pages of the gospel, in the life of Jesus Christ and the acts of his apostles.

Our idea of church is a place where ideas can flow freely and where ques­tions are nev­er sti­fled, but also where our his­to­ry is accept­ed and our tra­di­tions respect­ed. Chris­tol­ogy, hamar­ti­ol­o­gy, escha­tol­ogy, and the­ol­o­gy in gen­er­al should not be for­bid­den sub­jects, the domain of divin­i­ty stu­dents who will nev­er revis­it their study. Wor­ship should be less about nov­el­ty, play-act­ing, and pleas­ing and more about ado­ra­tion, sup­pli­ca­tion, lamen­ta­tion, and obla­tion; you know, worship.

We are thor­ough­ly tired of a church that dis­re­spects us by trem­bling fear­ful­ly in our pres­ence, ter­ri­fied that it may offend us or chal­lenge us. We want to be offend­ed, offend­ed by our com­pla­cen­cy exposed in the light of the gospel; chal­lenged by the indict­ment of sin­ful self-regard and the sub­se­quent call to go and sin no more, to be dis­ci­ples to all nations and car­ry the love of Christ to all peo­ple. We want a church that remem­bers what it was, works with what it is, and reimag­ines what it could be.