Morality: The Face of Public Christianity

September 30, 2015

A non-Christian who read recent newspapers to learn about Christianity might arrive at the following picture. Christianity believes that marriage is between a man and woman, so no marriage between members of the same sex. Christianity believes life begins at conception, so no abortion and no stem cell research. Christianity believes that God created the universe, so evolution should not be taught. Sexual activity belongs in marriage, so no premarital sex.

In this picture, Christianity is about actions that people should or should not do; it is about morality. What is missing from this public Christianity are the religion’s core features. Salvation, Scripture, faith and belief have disappeared from public view. How did this happen?

The story begins in the early 1500s, with the Protestant Reformation. Prior to that, the Christianity of Western Europe was Catholic and centered on community. Based on their doctrinal interpretation of Scripture, Catholicism raised a group of men out of the community to become priests. These priests then mediated between God and the people to bring salvation, forgiveness and blessings from God to the people. The church stood with individuals before God, buffering them in his majestic presence.

Starting in 1517, Martin Luther changed all that. Instead of the church standing with the individual, Luther held that individuals stood alone before God, with only their faith, based on their understanding of Scripture, alongside them.

Despite this theological change, the social reality altered surprisingly little. Individuals still lived in communities and these communities shared a single doctrinal interpretation of Scripture. Individuals did not interpret Scripture on their own, but rather followed their community’s understanding.

Often, these communities were formed around the teachings of influential theologians and leaders. Luther founded the Lutherans; John Calvin founded the Reformed Church and influenced the Puritans; and John Knox organized the Presbyterians. And these are just a few of the communities, the churches, if you will, created from the Reformation.

So, early forms of Protestantism took a similar structure to Catholicism: Each was a community that brought a common interpretation to Scripture which, in turn, led to common social norms (i.e., morality).

The Puritans brought this communally organized Christianity to America, where they established a new community that would help individuals lead moral lives in keeping with the Puritan interpretation of Scripture.

But Luther’s dictum of the individual alone still rang out. When Roger Williams interpreted Scripture for himself in the 1630s, the Massachusetts Puritans expelled him. Williams believed in a radical understanding of Luther’s dictum: The church should be separate from the government so that the church could not use government powers to enforce doctrine and interpretation on individuals.

Williams’ idea become the foundation of America’s religious freedom. By the 1680s, variety was the religious flavor of the era. Formulations of Christian beliefs, called catechisms, proliferated. Puritan preacher Increase Mather thought that “over 500” different catechisms were circulating at the time. Over the next century or more, European immigrants brought in new Protestant denominations and Americans created their own.

By the 1800s, Christians realized all this religious freedom fragmented Christianity and interfered with its ability to accomplish the great deeds needed. So, they banded together into non-denominational organizations to take on moral projects. To accomplish this unity, they overlooked doctrinal features that divided them.

Thus, the great ethical movements of the century were founded: anti-slavery, temperance, women’s suffrage, and missionary projects to evangelize both foreign peoples and the USA’s “unchurched” masses. By the mid-20th century, new non-denominational groups joined with those of a more secular bent in the civil rights and women’s rights movements. The lessons of these movements was that, if the divided Christian populace overlooked matters of doctrine and Scripture interpretation, they could unify on moral issues.

Toward the end of the 20th century, a new alliance of Christians was formed. Since the great moral concerns of slavery and personal civil rights had been resolved (more or less), these groups took up new ones. Thus, the “right to life” movement, for example, took up the cause of the unborn. This brought together an alliance of conservative Protestants, Catholics and Mormons, who were able to overlook their differences on doctrine and Scripture, to unite on what they saw as a great moral concern.

Thus, morality is the great religious unifier, where different religious groups can agree. They may arrive at those moral positions through different doctrinal interpretations of Scripture, even from different versions of Scripture. But, to strengthen their unity, they ignore those differences. The public unity of Christianity, as apparent in American news coverage, comes from morality rather than doctrine.

Christian Morality, Gay Marriage and Divorce

While the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether it should legalize gay marriage, the debate continues over whether Christian business people, and others holding religious disagreements over gay marriage, have a right to deny gays wedding services like cake baking, celebratory flowers and photography. This debate centers on laws called Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) recently passed by states such as Indiana and Arkansas with the intended purpose of providing that ability.  

It is impossible to predict the high court’s decision or even the future of RFRA laws, but there is another way to address the issue of whether Christians need such an exemption. Of course, not all Christians object to gay marriage; those who do tend to belong to denominations and independent churches that claim to base their beliefs on the Bible.

This type of American Christianity, often called evangelical or born-again Christianity, believes that Jesus -- God in human form -- provides salvation to humanity, and his teachings are paramount. Evangelicals who object to gay marriage claim to be following moral beliefs laid down by Jesus. But, are they really?

Not obviously. Jesus never expresses an opinion about homosexuality, let alone gay marriage. None of the gospels give so much as a hint.

But, born-again Christians, as a group, believe that Jesus would have disagreed with gay marriage if he had said anything about it. Given this belief, how should modern Christians act with regard to gay marriage?

Jesus had clear views on one aspect of marriage, namely, divorce. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell us his view; and Matthew does it twice. Jesus is against divorce. A look at how modern Christians handle Jesus’ views on divorce should reveal a model for Christian behavior with regard to gay marriage.

Jesus holds that God does not approve of divorce. Moreover, divorced people who remarry, according to Jesus, are guilty of adultery. In Mark 10:11, Jesus says, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” This view is reiterated in Luke 16 and Matthew 19.

Given Jesus’ clear and strong statements about the sins of divorce and remarriage, born-again cake bakers, flower arrangers and wedding photographers should be refusing to participate in the weddings of divorcees.

No such refusals have come to light.

Why not? Because evangelicals, born-again Christians and other biblically based Christians divorce frequently. Indeed, their divorce rates seem higher than those of other Americans.

According to a 1998 study by the evangelically oriented Barna Research Group, 29 percent of Baptists, by which the study means Southern Baptists and independent Baptists, have been divorced. Only members of non-denominational Protestant churches, mostly Pentecostal or evangelical, divorced at a higher rate: 34 percent.

By contrast, only 21 percent of atheists, Catholics and Lutherans had been divorced. They were below the national average of 24 percent.

Christian organizations heavily criticized Barna for this study for not taking into account mitigating factors. Most born-again Christians marry much younger than other demographic groups, have less education at the time of marriage and are often poor. All these known factors make divorce more likely.

When Barna studied divorce rates again in 2008, they changed their survey methodology. This resulted in an average overall divorce rate of 33 percent, and most Christian groups registered within a point or two of that number. Only Catholics were significantly lower, at 28 percent. (Atheists were at 30 percent).

Both Barna studies of American Christians and divorce indicate that Christians get divorced as frequently as, or perhaps more frequently than, non-Christians. Jesus’ express views on the matter make no difference to divorce among today’s Christians. A third of them willingly violate his explicit statements.

So, if modern Christians engage regularly in practices that Jesus forbade, then those Christians should not have the right, based on their religious beliefs, to deny services to people who engage in practices that Jesus neither forbade nor even expressed an opinion. As Jesus said, “Take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).

Morality: The Face of Public Christianity

A non-Christian who read recent newspapers to learn about Christianity might arrive at the following picture. Christianity believes that marriage is between a man and woman, so no marriage between members of the same sex. Christianity believes life begins at conception, so no abortion and no stem cell research. Christianity believes that that God created the universe, so evolution should not be taught. 

In this picture, Christianity is about actions that people should or should not do; it is about morality. What is missing from this public Christianity are the religion’s core features. Salvation, Scripture, faith and belief have disappeared from public view. How did this happen?

The story begins in the early 1500s, with the Protestant Reformation. Prior to that, the Christianity of Western Europe was Catholic and centered on community. Based on their doctrinal interpretation of Scripture, Catholicism raised a group of men out of the community to become priests. These priests then mediated between God and the people to bring salvation, forgiveness, and blessings from God to the people. The church stood with individuals before God, buffering them in His majestic presence.

Starting in 1517, Martin Luther changed all that. Instead of the church standing with the individual, Luther held that individuals stood alone before God, with only their faith, based on their understanding of Scripture, alongside them.

Despite this theological change, the social reality altered surprisingly little. Individuals still lived in communities and these communities shared a single doctrinal interpretation of Scripture. Individuals did not interpret Scripture on their own, but rather followed their community’s understanding.

Often these communities were formed around the teachings of influential theologians and leaders. Luther founded the Lutherans, John Calvin founded the Reformed Church and influenced the Puritans, while John Knox organized the Presbyterians. And these are just a couple of the communities, the churches if you will, created from the Reformation.

So, early forms of Protestantism took a similar structure to Catholicism: Each was a community who brought a common interpretation to Scripture, which in turn led to common social norms (i.e., morality).

The Puritans brought this communally-organized Christianity to America, where they established a new community that would help individuals lead moral lives in keeping with the Puritan interpretation of Scripture.

But Luther’s dictum of the individual alone still rang out. When Roger Williams interpreted Scripture for himself in the 1630s, the Massachusetts Puritans expelled him. Williams believed in a radical understanding of Luther’s dictum: The church should be separate from the government so that the church could not use government powers to enforce doctrine and interpretation on individuals.

Williams’s idea become the foundation of America’s religious freedom. By the 1680s, variety was the religious flavor of the era. Formulations of Christian beliefs called catechisms proliferated. Puritan preacher Increase Mather thought that “over 500” different catechisms were circulating at the time. Over the next century or more, European immigrants brought in new Protestant denominations and Americans created their own.

By the 1800s, Christians realized all this religious freedom fragmented Christianity and interfered with its ability to accomplish the great deeds needed. So they banded together into non-denominational organizations to take on moral projects. To accomplish this unity, they overlooked doctrinal features which divided them.

Thus, the great ethical movements of the century were founded: anti-slavery, temperance, women’s suffrage, and missionary projects to evangelize both foreign peoples and the USA’s “unchurched” masses. By the mid-20th century, new non-denominational groups joined with those of a more secular bent in the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements. The lesson of these movements was that if the divided Christian populace overlooked matters of doctrine and Scripture interpretation, they could unify on moral issues.

Toward the end of the 20th century, a new alliance of Christians was formed. Since the great moral concerns of slavery and personal civil rights had been resolved (more or less), these groups took up new ones. Thus, the Right to Life movement, for example, took up the cause of the unborn. This brought together an alliance of conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons, who were able to overlook their differences on doctrine and Scripture, to unite on what they saw as a great moral concern.

Thus, morality is the great religious unifier, where different religious groups can agree. They may arrive at those moral positions through different doctrinal interpretations of Scripture, even from different versions of Scripture. But to strengthen their unity, they ignore those differences. The public unity of Christianity, as apparent in American news coverage, comes from morality rather than doctrine.

How to be a Biblical Wife

When evangelical Christians want guidance about living their lives, the first place they go is the Bible. After all, they believe the Bible contains God’s truth for human interaction as well as divine worship.

So, what is the Bible’s guidance for how to be a good wife? There are lots of comments about being a mother, but surprisingly few rules and only a little more advice for how to be a wife. The New Testament has little more than an admonition for women to obey their husbands. That is such a broad and bland generalization that it can be interpreted in almost any direction one wishes.

Most of the Old Testament references to wives feature marriage rules, as in Leviticus 18. The best place to look is Proverbs 31:11-31. Here, the wife is an independent actor, even though subordinate to the husband. She should buy and sell land, and engage in farming, trade and commerce. She is expected to provide sage counsel to her husband and kind words to her family, feed and clothe them, and bring her husband “profit.”

Biblical stories about specific wives might also be a source of guidance. But which ones? And which actions should one emulate? Even if we eliminate “bad” wives like Jezebel, the “good” wives often do things we would not approve of in today’s world. Abraham’s wife Sarah and both of Jacob’s wives (Leah and Rachel) had their husbands get children with their slave women. Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, committed adultery with David, who later became her husband.

There are, of course, many prominent women in the Bible who are not known as wives. Some women were prophets, such as Miriam during the Exodus and Hulda at the time of King Josiah. They were respected and listened to, but provide no model for how to be a good wife.

God intervened in the lives of some biblical wives, but usually with regard to motherhood. Angels visited both Samson’s unnamed mother and Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, to assure them about their children’s future. Samuel’s mother, Hannah, received a divine blessing when God opened her womb.

And don’t forget Deborah, who led the people Israel as a “judge.” She even gathered an army, appointed Barak as its general, and defeated the Canaanite army of Hazor. She was respected by the Israelites and led them for many decades, but nothing appears about her behavior as a wife.

That brings us to the most famous woman of scripture, Mary, the mother of Jesus. In the four gospels, she is nearly always referred to as a mother or a mother-to-be, but never as a wife. The stories tell how Joseph cares for her, but not how she cares for or relates to Joseph.

The two nativity stories describe her as a pregnant, yet an unmarried girl who gives birth. Elsewhere in the gospels, she appears as the adult Jesus’ mother, sometimes with her other children, sometimes with some disciples or women of Jesus’ followers.

Mary has become an important symbol for Christianity, especially for Catholicism, but her imagery is almost completely related to aspects of childbirth and motherhood. She is rarely held up as a model wife, because there are no tales of her and her relationship to her husband Joseph.

Indeed, to preserve the belief in Mary’s eternal virginity, the Catholic Church declared that the people clearly labeled in the gospels as Jesus’ “brothers” were actually cousins. In this view, Mary did not even have wifely conjugal relations.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the role of women in Christianity and in societies dominated by Christianity is controversial. The Bible, the textual foundation of the religion, provides little guidance for what wives should do or how wives should behave. Each religious culture must figure it out on its own.

Maybe Proverbs 31 should be used as a guide, with married women expected to both look after their household and to engage in commercial activity outside the home. Does this mean that Proverbs anticipated today’s American society where, rightly or wrongly, women seem to both pursue a job in the workplace and look after the family at home?

‘Thinking with the Church’: The Pope Engages the People

Pope Francis is an impressive guy. Impressive not in the sense of his “wow” factor, coolness, charisma or even power, but impressive in his calm inner humility. It is not what he shouts that is gripping, but what he speaks in a whisper (to borrow Frank Bruni’s characterization).

In a recent interview in the Jesuit publication “America,” the Pope characterizes himself as a “sinner.” And then, realizing how that remark will be interpreted, he goes on to say, “This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”

When he thinks about his church -- and as a Jesuit he emphasizes “thinking” -- Pope Francis sees the overwhelming problems it faces. To solve them, he wants to “think with the church,” the “people of God.” Why? Because the people of the church “considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief.” Of course, as a Catholic leader, he means the “‘holy mother, the hierarchical church,’…the church as the people of God, pastors and people together,” not some form of “populism.”

This “thinking with the church,” in the Pope’s view, can and should lead to changes in “human self-understanding.” He spoke of slavery and the death penalty as mistakes from which humanity and the church have learned and changed. And what test indicates when a past understanding is no longer valid? “When it loses sight of the human, or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself.”

In that light, the Pope sees each individual human being as more important than the church’s doctrine. The message of salvation for all should be its front and center, not its doctrinal condemnations. While Pope Francis does not want to change church doctrine, he does want to alter how church leaders present it.

The church has sometimes “locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules.” When talking about divorce and remarriage, abortion and homosexuality, he almost turns folksy, giving several anecdotes emphasizing a loving attitude toward individual humans, “sinners” and their life choices.

Instead of condemning sinners, the church should do triage. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds.”

Francis repeats this phrase, “Heal the wounds. Heal the wounds.” The church needs to return to the world and “accompany” the people who live there, wherever they live: in poverty, in sickness or in spiritual need. He points particularly to the bishops, who should not only support the “movements of God” among their flock, but should “accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths.”

“Finding new paths” seems to apply to Francis’s thoughts about women and their place in the church. “Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed … the church cannot be herself without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the church.” He even states, “We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman … the feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.”

Unfortunately, the tone has suddenly changed here. No more anecdotes. No love of the individual. Instead, dealing with women directly, the church should create a generalized “theology of women.”

But a theology of women is not what the 2 billion women and men who belong to the Catholic Church need. A “theology of women and men together” would be a better idea, since Catholicism exists in a world that men and women increasingly share as equals.

Most adults have a wide experience of the opposite sex. In marriage, women and men are partners, working together in the most intimate ways: companionably, intellectually, emotionally and sexually. Together, they create and raise families, loving their children with a bond and strength only they can experience.

In today’s workplace, men and women work together more and more: as colleagues, workers, members of a team, as subordinates and as supervisors. Increasingly, over the decades, women and men have grown accustomed to working with each other in these different roles.

A theology is not what is needed, but a practical guide for the relationships and community dynamics of people’s daily lives; a guide through which the hierarchy can learn how church members live their lives, lives that the priestly, celibate commitment to the church prevents them from experiencing directly.

Pope Francis is bold to challenge himself and the church’s leadership to “think with the Church,” with all the people of God. For their sake, I hope he truly sees and enacts the full potential of his goal.

Note: The interview with Pope Francis appears online at America Magazine: http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview.

American Religions and Gay Marriage

As the Los Angeles Time’s author David G. Savage observed last weekend, the Supreme Court’s rulings on gay marriage, the voting rights act, and affirmative-action admissions policies stem from a single legal principle. They aim to ensure that all parties receive equal treatment, whether they are individuals (in the case of marriage and university admission) or states (in the case of voting rights).

Equality is one of this country’s founding principles and “Equal justice under the law” is carved into the Supreme Court building’s façade. Whether or not we agree with the specific decisions, on this July 4th weekend it is fitting to observe that equality still guides our country’s justice system.

How did the nation’s religious groups respond to the decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)? Their reactions have varied. Some welcomed it. The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and both the Reformed and Conservative branches of Judaism welcomed the decision.

The more conservative branches of Christianity and Judaism were condemnatory. Evangelical and Catholic leaders strongly criticized the ruling, while the LDS Church was predictably disappointed about the striking down of California’s Proposition 8 i. While Judaism’s Orthodox Union strongly disapproved, it also included the tolerant comment, “Judaism teaches respect for others and we condemn discrimination against individuals.”   

The national media have largely portrayed the opposition to same-sex marriage as religious. Following its typical strategy of giving a “balanced view” by citing pro and con positions, the news services have characterized the opponents of gay marriage as almost exclusively religious.

And religious leaders have certainly cooperated in giving this view. Cardinal Dolan of New York called the decision a “tragic day for marriage and our nation.” A similar thought was expressed by Southern Evangelical Seminary President Richard Land. “Today is a devastating day for traditional marriage and religious freedom.” Pastor Jack Graham, a former president of the Southern Baptist Conference, used Twitter to say, “The attack on the family continues. . . Don’t give up the fight.” Mike Huckabee, former presidential candidate, called it an “unholy pretzel.”

This characterization should be worrisome for religious leaders. How does it look when the secular Supreme Court comes out in favor of equal rights and it is religious organizations and leaders who condemn equality?

This portrayal could be taken as just a momentary phenomenon that will disappear when the next big story comes along. But perhaps not. The same religious groups are attempting to deprive people of other rights. For example, Catholic and Evangelical leaders (including presidential candidates) argued during last year’s presidential election that all women should not have equal access to health care, particularly maternity health care and birth control. Legislation at state and national levels has since been introduced to enshrine that view in law.

It is beginning to appear that the Christianity these leaders and groups bring to the public is one that restricts the rights of others. Is this how Christianity should be seen?

The central message of Christianity is of course salvation for all. Jesus came to save all humanity and Christianity’s evangelizing over the millennia has emphasized that everyone can avail themselves of God’s saving grace if they choose.

But now the loudest voices in American Christianity are saying that even though everyone is equal in God’s eyes, they should not be equal in the government’s eyes. 

The future is not set in stone and there are a variety of ways to move forward. It is time for all religions and denominations of the United States reconsider their strategy for incorporating this new reality into the way they present themselves to their community and the nation.

Religious organizations do not need to change their beliefs, but rather how they express those views in public forums. It is important to have clearly stated theological positions, but it is also important to respect others and to act with respect towards others.

If Christianity truly “hates the sin but loves the sinner,” as is commonly said, then it is time to show that love through tolerance and acceptance of all America’s citizens rather than sound a call to battle. After all, isn’t that what the message of universal salvation is about?

Humanity and God in the Catholic Church

The election of Pope Francis I was significant because the Catholic Church is the world’s third largest human organization. With a membership of 1.1 billion, the church’s size is exceeded only by the countries of China (1.3 billion) and India (1.2 billion). Taken together, more than half of the world’s 7 billion people are either Chinese, Indian or Catholic.

More importantly, the Church of Rome has been the central, constant feature in the growth of Western Civilization since its founding nearly two millennia ago. During that time, it has played a number of different roles; its power has waxed and waned; and it has been endorsed and criticized. But it has always been there. Much of the character of today’s “Western World,” or in economic terms the “First World,” has been shaped in line with or in opposition to Catholicism.

Given this stature, we should analyze what the papal election reveals about the church’s concept of God before our memory of the media blitz fades away.

The pope was chosen in the traditional manner. All the church’s cardinals gathered, went into a secret conclave in the Sistine Chapel and voted. As in past elections, the choice was not made on a single ballot, but took several.

This conclave was fairly short, just two days; others have taken longer. Perhaps this was helped by the days of meetings beforehand, much like a business convention, where the cardinals got to know one another and shared their views of the state of the Catholic Church in both formal and informal sessions. According to media reports, they discussed the challenges facing the church, its present successes and accomplishments, and its future needs.

The cardinals’ votes and meetings show the human procedures the church undertakes to identify a new leader. God does not put in an appearance and publicly announce His choice. Nor does an Old-Testament-style prophet step forward to convey God’s word. God’s will, to use religious language, is instead sought by the cardinals through prayer, confession and shared worship.

Catholics certainly believe the pope is chosen by God, but the process reveals that the choice is mediated through and conveyed by human beings. It is not a revelation, but a group decision made by a majority (not a unanimity) of several dozen men. The face of God in this process is a human face.

This approach fits traditional Catholic theology nicely. The church understands its role as mediating between God and Christian believers. Its hierarchical organization places cardinals closest to God, and so they are best positioned to listen for and follow divine promptings. In a pope’s election, God reveals His will through them.

The human character of the pope was emphasized in Pope Benedict as well. In his decision to step down, Benedict showed he understood that his increasing frailness of both body and mind was beginning to hamper his ability to lead the church. He could no longer function as the “Vicar of Jesus Christ.”

In the past, it was believed that God would make this choice and that the pope would die at a moment of God’s choosing. But with the advent of modern medicine, it has become clear that this is no longer the case. Diseases that would quickly result in death just two decades ago can now be easily overcome and life extended for years.

But with long life often comes increasing mental and physical weakness, as is well known by people with elderly parents. A pope, like all human beings, experiences the diminution of old age, interfering with and ultimately preventing the fulfillment of his papal role, and even the ability to look after himself. Pope Benedict’s decision to step down was a recognition of this.

So the Catholic Church reveals God through its human members; He is mediated through humanity. Catholics may believe that God is unchanging and unchangeable, but human beings are not. Our increasing knowledge of humans’ physical, mental and social character, as well as the increasing role of technology in our lives, alters the way humans relate to the divine and to each other. In the end, it brings about changes even in the Catholic Church.

The Repeating Cycle of Truth

Scientific exploration is designed for debate and working out differences. When studying a problem, different scientists approach it in different ways, studying different data with different methods and, lo and behold, they get different results. Remember when all cholesterol was bad for your heart and then, later, scientists discovered that some cholesterol was good for the heart?

It is not just that different scientists disagree. Sometimes one investigator will come up with conclusions opposite their earlier discoveries. It is good scientific procedure to announce and distribute the new results, but think for a moment of the personal experience. After years of publishing one set of conclusions, you start publishing ideas that contradict the previous ones. Embarrassment and soul-searching accompanies any such change, and colleagues will question the accuracy of your new work because of your previous positions.

In a religion, the same situation is more than embarrassing; it can be catastrophic. Religious pronouncements are often taken by the members as Truth, with a capital “T.” Issued by a god as a guide for belief or practice, such statements become hard and fast doctrines or rules that must be followed. Deviation from them can lead not just to embarrassment, but to expulsion from the religion.

Statements issued by a religion and its leaders in the past become Truth for the future. It becomes seemingly impossible to make a change in the present, even if it will produce benefits in the future. How can Truth change? If Truth can change, then it is not Truth. Right?

Because of this dynamic, it becomes difficult for religions to look to the future. They must always look to the past, and stay in line with their previous pronouncements. So, as the future comes toward them into the present, the Truths expressed in the past constrain their options for meeting it. The longer a religion’s past (i.e., the older it is), the fewer viable choices for future directions.

So, how does a religion change?

The Protestant Reformation provides a test case. The Protestant groups that arose during the 1500s and 1600s followed different paths, but two commonalities appear among the Lutherans, the Anglicans, the Calvinists and others.

First, each Protestant movement created a new religious organization. By becoming new, they were able to divorce themselves from Catholicism’s past and, just as important, from Catholicism’s organization.

Second, the new types of Christianity then changed the past. For example, they altered the foundational sacred text, the Bible, by removing 18 books and parts of books from the Old Testament. Once that was done, nothing could remain the same.

Of course, a new denomination cannot stay new for long. To maintain itself, a religious organization must institutionalize its Truth. It must pass itself on to each new generation and transmit its True practices and beliefs. And, so, the process continues. After a century or two, a religious group has built up enough past Truth to begin constraining its future.

To address the future, then, new religious organizations must form. Today there are more than 300 Christian denominations in America, and that is not counting the independent churches. My own small town of 30,000 people has more than 40 different churches.

In recent decades, the “new” evangelical denominations have been on the rise. They separated from “mainstream Protestants” (sometimes more than a century ago). They then changed the past by giving the sacred text, the Christian Bible, a new character, as eternally valid, unchanging and literal.

The evangelical alliance with the powerful political ideologies of the Republican Party has brought them and their Truth into prominence and increased their membership. And they have done this at the expense of the older denominations.

But time moves on and circumstances continue to change. Alongside evangelical denominations, the new mega-churches are becoming more widespread, especially in urban areas. As new, independent organizations they repeat the cycle by eschewing denominational pasts and the Truth of those traditions for the new.

This has enabled mega-churches to adopt new forms of worship, experiment with new ways of building community, and to propound new beliefs and ideas. Freed from the past, they can create their new Truth as they and their congregants see fit.

Are these radical changes? Perhaps, perhaps not. The important point is that they simply continue the cycle of religious change that has been going on for centuries. Truth may not change, but humanity’s understanding of it is continually renewed.