Daily Bible Challenge: Post #1

1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always giver yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

I was nominated by my mother-in-law, Sue Anderson, to take part in the daily Bible challenge, and a good rule is to always listen to your mother-in-law, right? But I am happy that she did, as I will post a new Bible verse every day for a week and post a brief explanation of why I chose that particular verse and what it means to me.

I start with 1 Corinthians 15:58 because it is my life verse. It is not necessarily my favorite verse, but the verse I go to first when I think of my mission in serving the Lord. Why this verse is so powerful is the context of the chapter in which it is written. 1 Cor 15 is a chapter devoted to the Resurrection, the critical event/fact of Christ’s life and therefore our faith. With the Resurrection Christ conquered death and gave all of us life!

As 15:55-57 states:

“Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Indeed He does.

But what I like most about 15:58 is that with this knowledge and reality of the Resurrection, it lays out very clearly how we are to respond. We can stand strong in the Lord and know that all we do for him is not in vain, because of the reality of the Resurrection!

It’s Not So Good to Be King. Continuing My Look at Ecclesiastes

In my last post I took a look at the beginning of Ecclesiastes:

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2015/01/is-everything-meaningless-some.html

The theme of the book (especially the beginning) is about the meaninglessness of virtually everything about life. Chapter 1, which I covered last week, took a look at the meaninglessness of the big things, namely science/natural processes and the long arc of human history. After that the author of the book took a quick look at wisdom, and decided that no matter how wise one is it is still ultimately a meaningless pursuit. This point is especially brought home in 1:18:

“For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.”

To put it another way, to reflect on all things of life is to come to the realization that the individual things people may attempt to put meaning into will ultimately be seen as meaningless. This is especially true in Chapter 2:1-11, the verses that I will look at again.

As I break down the scripture, keep in mind who is writing these verses. It is either Solomon, or someone that is evoking the life and experience of Solomon. As I wrote in my last post, Solomon was the richest and most powerful king in the history of Israel. His life and the possibilities therein could be matched by only a handful of people in history – at least until the relatively recent developments of modern wealth and conveniences that in many ways we take for granted. In short, Solomon had access to pretty much anything that he wanted, particularly physical pleasures.  In the end, it probably did not end up as well for Solomon as one might expect.

This is the conclusion that he draws in the first verse (2:1): “I thought in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.’ But that also proved to be meaningless.” And with that he looks at several physical pleasures:

First is laughter (v. 2). “Laughter is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?” No amount of entertainment or good times with those around him could fulfill the longing in his heart for meaning. Nothing wrong with laughter, with entertainment or with good times, but it certainly will not be the end all be all of meaning, no matter what amount of wealth one possesses.

The second pleasure was to embrace wine and folly (v. 3). Folly here understood as drawing a contrast with wisdom. I take wine and embracing folly as a way for Solomon to escape the wisdom that he has, to escape the nagging suspicion that everything might indeed be meaningless. If everything is meaningless, might as well numb yourself and forget about it and do whatever comes to your mind. Solomon uses wine, but it could represent any chemical we might take now (legal or otherwise) or any activity that we know if not in our best interest for the momentary escape that it provides. But this too is meaningless. No matter what is done he can never escape the wisdom that he has and the conclusions are still there to be reckoned with.

The third pleasure he pursued was great, public accomplishments (v. 4-6). Mentioned here are the construction of house (palaces), vineyards, gardens, parks, water reservoirs, and probably many other things that are unmentioned. None of these are bad things themselves, and in fact much public good can be accomplished. I think of the many good things that are done by philanthropists throughout history and around the world. Good things, but ultimately meaningless in the eyes of Solomon. There is still something else that is missing.

The fourth pleasure that he pursued was owning large amounts of slaves and livestock (v.7). Basically Solomon was talking about owning lots of stuff, the best possessions of the day for anyone, remindful of the bumper sticker “He who dies with the most toys wins”. Not especially difficult to see the modern equivalent of this situation and how that was deemed to be seen as ultimately meaningless in the mind of Solomon. If possessions are what matter the most, it is impossible to sate that desire and of course it is something that cannot be transferred when you die, it is left that those that come afterwards, something that Solomon touches on later in the chapter (especially verses 2:17-19).

The fifth pleasure that he pursued was money, specifically gold, silver and “the treasures of kings”, as well as territory (v. 8a). As mentioned, Solomon was the richest and most powerful king of Israel and ruled when Israel had the largest territory in its recorded history. The pursuit of these were ultimately meaningless to Solomon, he took no lasting joy in them and desired something more. Like possessions, money and territory cannot be brought with you and they will be left to the next generation. And sure enough, within a couple years of taking power his son, the heir and the next king, squandered all that Solomon had built up by losing over half the territory of the kingdom.

The sixth pleasure was the finest music (v. 8b). This included the best singers, soloists and instruments that could be found in the world. I personally like music as much as anyone can, but music is ultimately as meaningful as any type of entertainment. Great to enjoy but will not fulfill the longing in the soul.

The seventh and final pleasure that Solomon pursued in this section was “the delights of the heart of man,” his harem and his wives (v. 8c). Solomon was not shy about the amount of wives and the size of his harem, with both of them numbering in the hundreds, including women from all around the world (as a side note, it was the amount of foreign women that he married that God cited for the reason that God was going to take Solomon’s land away from his descendants. Not away from Solomon out of favor to his father David but from the next generation). There was no way that this physical desire could be sated, and it was with him his entire life and was seen to be meaningless.

After looking at these different pleasures, Solomon (rightfully) declares that became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before him (and after), and that in all of this he maintained his wisdom (v. 9). This is the conclusion that he came to after all of this (v. 10-11):

“I denied myself nothing that my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

I am left with two questions. What, if anything, can be learned from this? And what, if anything, is actually meaningful?

The first question goes to the heart of the title of this post, “Is it good to be king?” And to expand it to a more relevant comparison, is it good to be extremely wealthy or a person of great power? I think that the musings of Solomon would suggest that it might not be as good as we might imagine. He can have anything in the world and finds it all lacking, perhaps because he cannot have the genuine things that take no money and no power to acquire. To be king, to be powerful, to be wealthy, is realize that virtually everything comes with a cost or an expectation of being paid back in some way. What I think Solomon misses as much as anything, aside from true relationship with God (which I hope to cover in a post soon), is true, meaningful relationship. There is not a member of his court or military that will have true relationship with him, it is having relationship with everything that he represents and can ultimately give them (or take away from them). And with multiple hundreds of wives and concubines, no significant relationship can be maintained with any of them.

So, as we examine the pleasures that Solomon sought and ultimately rejected, I think that we can start to realize what is actually meaningful. It is nothing that can be purchased and it is not a physical pleasure that can be fulfilled, as those will come and go and never fully be sated. What is truly meaningful is the connection that you can have with others, which perhaps ironically, is the very thing that is most likely to be lost when you become a person like Solomon. The one thing he craves, something meaningful, is something that he will never be able to achieve.

My next post will look at the other part of this, who was God to Solomon. 

Is Everything Meaningless? Some Reflections on the Beginning of Ecclesiastes

After a good long break for the Holidays, I am returning to my blog. With some luck my hope is to write a new post each week and post it on Tuesday. We’ll see how it goes. Have to admit I have missed writing them (and hopefully you enjoyed reading them), but sometimes life gets in the way.

To start off this year, I am going to write some reflections on the first two weeks of the Bible study we are starting for the young adult group at my church. It comes from the book of Ecclesiastes, generally considered the most unique book in the Bible. It is also one that I haven’t looked at very closely since I started Seminary. This is notable because when I first started reading the Bible seriously during my undergrad, Ecclesiastes was instantly my favorite book. Something about the style and message really grabbed me. As I had written about before:

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2014/07/jesus-perfect-philosopher-personal.html

A big part of my faith story is the previous study of philosophy and how I saw Christ as the “perfect” philosopher. Ecclesiastes is without question the most “philosophical” book in the Bible, part of the wisdom tradition, with an examination of the world on par with any secular philosophical tradition.

Key to understanding Ecclesiastes, especially the beginning, is to understand Solomon. By tradition Solomon is credited with writing Ecclesiastes, and though many (if not most) serious Biblical scholars would now say that it is unlikely that he is the author, it is still important to know his life and his situation because significant portions of the book are written from his perspective. (There is much more to be said about Solomon as the author of Ecclesiastes that I will not touch on at this time).

Solomon is known for many things, but for those that don’t know, I want to touch on a few of the highlights.

-Solomon was the second son of David and Bathsheba. He was conceived after the first son, a product of the infamous adultery (2 Samuel 11), died as an infant as God’s punishment for the adultery (2 Samuel 12:19).

-Solomon succeeded David as the King of Israel. This was not a sure thing at the time, but some shrewd maneuvering and judicious use of violence secured his place on the throne for several decades (1 Kings 1,2).

-Solomon was very successful as a king. During his reign Israel was at its most powerful and wealthy and controlled the most territory. Through alliances and marriages Solomon was able to secure peace, trade agreements, and acquire enough resources to construct a majestic temple and palace (1 Kings 6,7).

-Solomon was famous for his wisdom and his justice. This was noted is his asking the Lord for wisdom (1 Kings 3:5-15) and in his wise ruling in a case brought before him involving two women claiming to be the mother of the same baby (1 Kings 3:16-28).

-Finally, Solomon was known for his wealth and for his many wives and concubines. Amongst these wives were many non-Israelites, who influenced him to follow foreign gods. Because of this, the Lord declared that Solomon would have his kingdom torn away from him (ie his descendants), but it would not happen until he died (1 Kings 11:1-13). This was the fate of Israel after the death as Solomon, as within 3 years the kingdom was divided and it never returned to the power and wealth it knew under Solomon.

So it is with this context of Solomon that we look at the beginning of Ecclesiastes.

Chapter 1:1-11 is a sort of introduction that sets the theme for the rest of the book.

“Meaningless, meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” This will be the key phrase as the author of the book takes a long look at everything that is (seemingly) valued by humanity.

“Meaningless” here can have several translations including “futility” or “frustration” or “absurdity” to name a few. No English word can perfectly capture the Hebrew word that is being used, but the sense should be obvious.

There are two main things that are looked at initially in this introduction – the idea of natural laws and the idea of human history. It is the conclusion of the author that neither of these will ultimately bring meaning. All natural and scientific processes happen in a never-ending cycle:

-the sun rises, sets and returns to where it came from

-the wind blows all directions and eventually returns to its course

-and all streams continue to flow to the sea, yet it is never full.

And around and around it goes, never stopping. When looked at from this perspective, there is certainly truth in the thought that looking merely at natural processes will be meaningless. Everything that happens in the (natural) world has happened before and will happen again. Nature is a series of cycles and returns back to where it all began.

The analysis of human history is perhaps even more bleak:

-generations come and go, but the earth remains

-there is more in the world than can possibly be seen or heard

-all things that are have been before, there is nothing new under the sun

-and there is no true remembrance of those that have come before, and as is said, even those that have yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

The first two points seem pretty straightforward to me. No matter what has come before in the history of humanity, the earth has remained more or less the same and almost certainly will in the future. And the world is so cast that no individual, no matter what resources one possesses, can possibly experience all that the world has to offer.

The third point brought up by the author is interesting to me. Obviously the author is not talking about specific technological advances, but more about the experience of the human condition. There is no thoughts, feelings, interactions, etc. that have not been experienced before. In that sense, if we think we are going to get ultimate meaning from our specific unique experiences, it is true that they have happened before.

The fourth point raised in regards to human history is interesting to me as well. I remember reading somewhere that there are two types of remembrances about a person. The first is the memory of someone who someone currently alive interacted with – for example, my grandmother lives on in the memory of those that knew her until finally the generations pass away so no one will be alive who lived at the same time as her. At that point she will be the second type of memory, which is probably more of a legend. And I think this is what is being referred to here.

In one sense, some of the greatest and most important people throughout history are remembered through studies of history and the like. However, the question is how well are they actually remembered and, perhaps even more importantly, how important is that for the individual that is no longer here? That is what the author is getting at here in my opinion, that the actual person is not remembered; it is merely a historical character that may or may not reflect the reality of who they are. The true remembrance is gone once all people who knew the individual when they were alive or no longer alive themselves. And it has been that way since the beginning of recorded history.

So in the big picture of human history and of natural and scientific processes, this is all meaningless. So what is meaningful? Next post will take a look at Chapter 2 of this great book. 

Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference, Part 2

In my last blog post I looked at the beginning of the article “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Political Backlash and Generational Succession, 1987-2011”.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.sociologicalscience.com/articles-vol1-24-423/

And here is a link to my last blog post:

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2014/10/why-more-americans-have-no-religious.html

The main takeaway from the introduction to the article was that the increase in “Nones” (those with No Religious Preference) in America was 7 percent between 1987-2000. 3 percent of this change was from political backlash, 3 percent was from generational shifts, and 1 percent was from children coming of age who were not raised in a religious home.

The authors of the article came to these conclusions (of changes in 1987-2000) through cleaning up previous work that they had done. The next part of the article will cover the changes in Nones from 2000-2011.

The first thing they did was change the time series of the data, adding the years 2000-2011. The trend that they saw was that the increase in Nones was steady, that it was neither increasing or decreasing relative to previous 13 years studied. Next, they recalibrated the reasons for the increase in Nones, now that the number was a 13 point increase (for the 1987-2011 time frame) instead of a 7 point increase (for the 1987-2000 time frame). What they found was that political backlash was still important, but a larger percent of the increase comes from generational succession. There was still limited weight given to secularization. Finally, they did some work on modeling of generational cohorts to see if there could be some clarity for the reasons of the changes.

With these changes, the final conclusion reached by the authors of the paper is “Americans decreasingly identify with organized religions despite still holding religious beliefs because political backlash and generational succession, both rooted in cultural changes and conflicts in the 1960s, continue.”

So, as I read this, I would suspect that religious beliefs, for example opinions on God, heaven and hell, the role of the church, the search for meaning and purpose, etc. are really not all that changed across generations. However, due to political backlash, which I discussed in my previous post and will discuss soon, and cultural changes, including the general acceptance of people being able to identify as None, America is seeing people move away from organized religion.

The next sections of the paper are as follows:

-Updating the Time Sequence

-Explaining Trends I: Political Backlash

-Explaining Trends II: Generational Replacement

-Explaining Trends III: Beliefs

-Explaining Differences Among Cohorts

-Politics and Personal Change

-Conclusion and Discussion

I will dig into each of these sections in this post and in the subsequent posts following.

Updating the Time Sequence:

I have touched on this already in this post. The authors changed the time sequence of their data from 1987-2000 to 1987-2011. The background for this is that the percent of those who identified as Nones increased from 5.5 to 6.2 percent between 1972 and 1973 and remained relatively stable at around 6.2% until some time in the late 1980s. At this point, which is the beginning of the study, there seemed to be the start of a steady increase in those who identify as Nones.  From some point in the late 1980s until 2012, there seemed to be an approximately 0.5% increase each year in those who identify as Nones, seen as 8% in 1990 to 20% in 2012.

While I don’t have a graph on the blog, this is a relative consistent increase each year, which is why they concluded that there has not been a increasing or decreasing rate in the growth of Nones.

The two initial explanations offered by the authors, which will be fleshed out more, are the fact that political debates have not subsided over this time frame. In fact, the timeframe of 2000-2012 have seen an increase in not only the political debates, but seemingly a more active engagement from religious institutions on a specific side of the debate. The issues that are mentioned are abortion, gay marriage and legalizing marijuana. Religious organizations are seen as generally oppose all three, and their positions are leaking from outside the religious institutions into the public political discourse. Also, religious organizations that oppose all three do seem to flock to a specific political party. This is again an example of the corruption of conjoining the church and state.

This corruption plays out in two fascinating ways in my mind, one from the “conservative” side and one from the “liberal” side. I put those in quotes because I think it is difficult to completely box in political beliefs. I like to think that people are a little bit more complicated than two buckets of political views, no matter what our political system seems to offer. But, in many ways, these three issues represent the current culture wars that the church has inserted itself into.

I do want to keep abortion somewhat to the side, because that is a much more complicated issue as far as general trend is concerned. While no doubt the political party in power has some impact on abortion policies in a wide range of ways, the general attitudes on abortion are relatively unchanged over the past several decades, in the sense that the same percentage of people have maintained relatively similar views on abortion across generations, and even the younger generations do not hold positions, unlike on gay marriage and marijuana, that are significantly different from older generations. Also, the debate on abortion very much precedes the scope of this study in a way that the debates on gay marriage and marijuana do not.

Also, from a personal perspective, and this is admittedly anecdotal, but I really haven’t encountered people who are upset with the church (or other religious organizations) for their position on abortion, or see a position on abortion as a reason to join or leave the church when compared to the other two issues (and especially gay marriage, which will be covered soon). Perhaps we are reaching a point where the politics of contraceptives will fill in some of this gap, but this is outside the scope of this study, and is probably best left for another day.

(Or if you want, you can check out my blogs on the Hobby Lobby case that deal with contraception:

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2014/07/some-thoughts-on-hobby-lobby-decision.html

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2014/07/hobby-lobby-revisited.html )

So, with these caveats, I want to expand my thoughts on the “conservative” and the “liberal” side of the church respectively to these trends.

First, the “conservative” side. I have personally seen an increase in the amount of articles and postings on the idea of persecution. There is a sense that Christianity is under attack and that the cultural movement is away from them. In a sense, they are absolutely correct. Cultural movement is moving away from their beliefs and Christianity, as they understand it, is surely under attack. When Christianity is defined as taking certain positions on social issues, when those issues are starting to be beaten, both at the ballot box and via judges, that is seen as an attack on the faith and persecution. There is always discomfort when things that were assumed and taken for granted are no longer the case, but that does not necessarily mean persecution. There are calls for First Amendment rights, Freedom of Speech, returns to the way it used to be, a Biblical understanding and tradition, and the like.

The problem is that none of these social issues are explicitly addressed in scripture. There are certainly scripture verses and religious traditions that inform positions, but it is not clear. And the other problem is that it really doesn’t matter, as far as political positions are concerned. In a pluralistic society such as the US, things change and things progress. The issue is that when faith is tied to a political position, and that political position is no longer tenable, that results in crisis. That results in feeling that you are under attack, and the easy way out is to scream “persecution” or to start concocting all sorts of fanciful visions of what the future holds.

Take, for example, this video:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152825938584669

The other response is that which comes from the “liberal” side of the debate within the church. They sense an opportunity here as a response to conservative position that is slowly slipping away. They do not need to read reports or crunch data to know that political positions that are being held tightly by the conservatives but are becoming less popular in the general public, especially the younger generations, are a significant cause to people not wanting to associate with the church. They can gather this perfectly well through conversations with people around them and see that the church is not attractive.

The mistake, though, comes in what is offered instead. It is basically the same thing conservatives offer, just in reverse. It is “Christianity with better political positions”. So, the main focus in the debates of the church is pretty much a continuation of the culture wars that are already happening, only now the very fate and identity of Christ becomes wrapped inside of it. The focus is now on what do you have to believe to “really” know Jesus rather than focus on what Christ did for you and what He demands from you in response.

In way too many ways the church is becoming an extension of the culture, and in all the worst ways. I suspect that this, truly, is the heart of the political backlash within the church. As I mentioned before, I genuinely believe that many people are looking for something bigger than themselves and some sort of meaning within their lives, but they are not finding it within the church, and that this is surely a big part of it. Christ and the church can offer so much more, it is up to the people in the church to show that.

My next post will continue this discussion by looking closer at how the article explains the trends it is seeing.

Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference, Introduction

So I am back after a little bit of delay. I always intend to write more but life does get in the way, specifically in three ways for me.

First, I started a new part time job doing sports data at a company called SportsDataLLC. Second, I have been doing s decent amount of work on my house including the basement and exterior work. Third, we had a sudden and unexpected death in our family that has hit many of us hard. The man who was basically my stepfather, Bob McCormick, passed away in Scotland while on vacation with my mom and we have been responding to that for a couple of weeks. I may write about his life in the future.

With that said, I wanted to get back into writing and I thought I would talk about an article that I came across. The title of the article is “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Political Backlash and Generational Succession, 1987-2012”. As you might expect from the title it digs into many of the topics that I have written about before, but this is a more academic study of phenomenon that is written about in other ways. Here is a link to the article:

http://www.sociologicalscience.com/articles-vol1-24-423/

And I want to start out by quoting the abstract before digging into the article a little bit more:

Twenty percent of American adults claimed no religious preference in 2012, compared to 7 percent twenty-five years earlier. Previous research identified a political backlash against the religious right and generational change as major factors in explaining the trend. That research found that religious beliefs had not changed, ruling out secularization as a cause. In this paper we employ new data and more powerful analytical tools to: (1) update the time series, (2) present further evidence of correlations between political backlash, generational succession, and religious identification, (3) show how valuing personal autonomy generally and autonomy in the sphere of sex and drugs specifically explain generational differences, and (4) use GSS panel data to show that the causal direction in the rise of the “Nones” likely runs from political identity as a liberal or conservative to religious identity, reversing a long-standing convention in social science research. Our new analysis joins the threads of earlier explanations into a general account of how political conflict over cultural issues spurred an increase in non-affiliation.

The political backlash always struck me as pretty self-evident. When media or other public outlets speak of religious faith they often draw from a very narrow view of what that might mean as far as political views are concerned. This has been exacerbated by identifying a specific political party with being a person of faith.

I personally don’t have a problem with the specific political beliefs people of faith have. That is, there is no set of political beliefs that are required for a person of faith, and someone who follows Christ can certainly come to different conclusions of political issues than I do. While the total volume of Christ’s words that are recorded are not as large as we might think, and he certainly does not speak specifically to many of the political issues we debate today, he is broad and cryptic enough to lead to a variety of political positions, especially depending on what the individual wants to emphasize in their own political life. Therefore, it is not surprising to me that people within the church represent a wide range of political beliefs.

However, this is often lost, as religious belief, at least as it is presented in public forms, is correlated with specific political positions. My position has always been that trying to merge state and church (ie political positions and theological positions) will corrupt both. But will corrupt the church much, much more. And data increasingly shows that this corruption leads to people wanting no part of the church, even if, as the article suggests, religious beliefs have not shifted all that much over time.

So, the article starts out by stating that “Nones,” those expressing no religious preference, have shifted from 1 out of 14 in 1987 to 1 out of 5 in 2012. This has happened in an era when religion is in unprecedented prominence in public discussion, as measured by the amount of times that “God” and “Christ” were mentioned by political leaders as a source of inspiration and rationale for their actions and beliefs.

The study found that 3 percent of the 7 percent increase in the rise of “Nones” between 1987 to 2000 were the result of political backlash, specifically liberals not wanting to be associated with a faith espoused by conservative politicians. Another 3 percent of the 7 percent increase was through generational succession. As older generations were being replaced by younger generations, the attachment to religious institutions was weakening. The last percentage point drop was attributed to the decrease in people being raised in a religious home – which resulted in more people entering adulthood with no religious connection.

So, to summarize, from 1987-2000, there was a 7 percent increase in the amount of people who identified as “Nones”. 3 percent was attributed to political backlash, 3 percent attributed to the turnover of generations and weaker connections to organized religion, and 1 percent attributed to people entering adulthood being raised in families with no religious upbringing.

My personal thought on the second point, as far as generations in concerned, is that this might be explained by more of a cultural shift. That for each successive generation it is becoming more acceptable to identify as a “None” so more people are being honest in their self-assessment. There is not so much a change in religious beliefs but instead a more honest accounting for what those beliefs actually are.

The purpose of this paper that I linked was to update the model that produced the data for 1987-2000. Most interesting to me was the hard look that the researchers did in regards to the “secularization” theory, that the “inexorable march of modernization, reason and science would banish traditional (ie religious) explanations of the material world. People would stop consulting traditional authority for guidance and would lose faith, the churches would empty, and religious identification would die out.” While indeed fewer Americans affiliate with organized religion, the research of this paper shows that secularization is hardly the reason. What we see is political backlash is still significant, but it is the generational churn that is most important.

The key here is to understand the difference between secularization and generational shift. Secularization, as explained in the previous paragraph, is the acceptance of modernization, science and reason as the source of truth and guidance over organized religion. While trust in religion has dropped, it is not being replaced by secular sources, but instead a more Agnostic bent, at least officially.

My working theory, as mentioned above, is that there hasn’t necessarily been a rise in this Agnosticism, but instead it is now more cultural acceptable to acknowledge what is true in regards to individual’s beliefs. What is interesting to me is that there hasn’t necessarily been an increase in secularization, which means that a couple of things. The first is that people are not necessarily being modern explanations for sources of truth and meaning, perhaps one of the reasons there is a natural skepticism towards the State/government or any other Utopian solutions.

The second, and perhaps most important to me personally, is that there are a whole bunch of people, especially in my generation, that are out there searching for a sense of meaning and purpose. People are calling themselves “Nones” or “Agnostics” they are not calling themselves “Atheists”. This is a critical distinction, and something that has been backed up continually in conversations that I have with people of my generation that are not all that interested in the church at the moment.

I still believe that ultimate truth and meaning will be found in Christ. As I have written before, I have certainly searched many other places, and I still do, but nothing compares to Christ. However, I say that with a sense that I certainly understand why people are not so interested in Christ – or at least not interested in the Christ that is being presented to them at the moment.

This post was based off the first part of the article. My next blog post will start to dig deeper into each of the identified causes for why more Americans have no religious preference. Hopefully throughout I will be able to provide some responses and thoughts on how the church can move from here.