Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=spiritrave0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1439178305\")
.\u00a0The book is meant to generate debate on both the left and the right, for no matter what your denominational or political leanings, there\u2019s something to offend everybody in his critique.<\/p>\nOf liberal-leaning churches like ours, Douthat writes, \u201c[They have] burned their candle at both ends, losing their more dogmatic parishioners to more fervent congregations and their doubters to the lure of sleeping in on Sundays. Any institution that calls human beings to devotion and self-sacrifice needs to justify that call.\u201d<\/p>\n
That last sentence gets to the heart of our problem, I think. What is it that justifies the call to our church? What makes us different than a social club, a political party, or a service organization? What feeds our spirits, draws us out of our comfort zones, and challenges us to be better people? Where is the transcendent in our church?<\/p>\n
I thought of Douthat\u2019s critique when I spoke to an Episcopalian recently who told me how she\u2019d grown up in a conservative denomination, one that she was happy to have left behind forever. \u201cThe thing I like about the Episcopal Church,\u201d she said, \u201cis that you can believe and do whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n
In one sense, of course, her statement is right. The Episcopal Church respects individual conscience. We value the importance of questioning, debate, and skepticism. But her comment also made me wince. If we take our Christian faith seriously, we can\u2019t believe or do anything we want. The church is not a cafeteria buffet line.<\/p>\n
Located in a left-leaning university town, my home church loses few parishioners to more conservative denominations. But we have too many who simply drift away because there\u2019s not enough to anchor them in our church. I must admit that on some Sundays I envy them their leisurely mornings spent with a stack of newspapers and cups of coffee. Their spiritual-but-not-religious orientation looks mighty inviting: listening to NPR\u2019s \u201cOn Being\u201d with Krista Tippett and reading the occasional book on spiritual topics, they don\u2019t have to deal with the messy and often-frustrating aspects of parish life.<\/p>\n
Given this, it\u2019s not surprising that one of the fastest growing categories in surveys of American religious belief is the \u201cnones\u201d\u2014people unaffiliated with any organized religion. A religious studies professor who spoke at our church last year put the problem this way: the biggest challenge facing the Episcopal Church, he said, is to keep people from \u201cthinking their way out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
We want to keep people thinking, certainly, but we also need to realize that rationality alone is an arid and lonely path. And I think we need to resist the urge to accept our declining numbers, dismissing those who have fallen away by saying that they weren\u2019t the right kind of Episcopalians anyway. We need to pay more attention to thoughtful outside commentators like Douthat as well as those within our church offering critiques from both ends of the political and theological spectra.<\/p>\n
I speak as one who came relatively late to the Episcopal Church. I came back to Christianity after a long time away because I was drawn to the traditions, liturgies, and intellectual challenges of Anglicanism. I respect its mysteries and paradoxes and its commitment to social justice. I don\u2019t want this church to become a kind of boutique denomination:\u00a0 small, exclusive, self-congratulatory, and increasingly irrelevant.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For a couple of years I\u2019ve had a very enjoyable gig as a monthly columnist for the Episcopal News Service. Alas, the ENS is dropping the commentary section from its website, which means my column is no more. My final effort is below. It may be a bit too much of Episcopal-inside-baseball, so I hope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-episcopal-church"],"yoast_head":"\n
Justifying the Call<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For a couple of years I've had a very enjoyable gig as a monthly columnist for the Episcopal News Service. Alas, the ENS is dropping the commentary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2012\/12\/30\/justifying-the-call\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Justifying the Call\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For a couple of years I've had a very enjoyable gig as a monthly columnist for the Episcopal News Service. Alas, the ENS is dropping the commentary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2012\/12\/30\/justifying-the-call\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Holy Rover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-12-30T20:10:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/files\/2012\/07\/154-225x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lori Erickson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lori Erickson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2012\/12\/30\/justifying-the-call\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2012\/12\/30\/justifying-the-call\/\",\"name\":\"Justifying the Call\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-12-30T20:10:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-30T20:10:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#\/schema\/person\/66e798593cfa9b70fcd5c97aa9ca7933\"},\"description\":\"For a couple of years I've had a very enjoyable gig as a monthly columnist for the Episcopal News Service. 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