CWA blog, "Certainly Uncertainty" - and Update

Merry Christmas season. Here are two things to get your read on. -h

Bill Kinnon UPDATED:

Marketing the Church, Part 1
Marketing the Church, Part 2
Marketing the Church, Part 2b
Marketing the Church, Part 3
Ed B on Marketing the Church

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From the CrossWalk America blog, "Certainly Uncertainty," 25 December.

Excerpts from "The Devoted Student" by Mark C. Taylor, published by the New York Times, Dec. 21 (requires free registration - link expires two weeks after publication).

More college students seem to be practicing traditional forms of religion todaythan atany time in my 30 years of teaching... Indeed, it seems the morereligiousstudents become, the less willing they are to engage in criticalreflectionabout faith.


...For years, I have begun my classes bytelling studentsthat if they are not more confused and uncertain at theend of the coursethan they were at the beginning, I will have failed. Agrowing number of religiouslycorrect students consider this challenge adirect assault on their faith.Yet the task of thinking and teaching, especiallyin an age of emergent fundamentalisms,is to cultivate a faith in doubt thatcalls into question every certainty.

More"uncertainat the end" sounds like a good description of not just Prof. Taylor'sclasses,but my own faith journey to this point. I think it would apply tothe disciplesas well, even post-Easter. In terms of my loose theme of aGospel that subvertsour expectations, my story, tradition, and communityhave always been catalystsof relentless questioning and a doubt that callsme forward.

My uncertainty is... certainly :-) ... in tension with my reflection on Mary's "Magnificat" from last week;thatthe Gospel's promise, fulfilled in Christ, is that love overwhelms power.For me, it flows likes this. I hear the message, and I choose to respondbytrying to follow its implications in my living. But looking around onmyway, I am never sure that I have placed my wager on a true promise. Thereistoo much work between us and a Realm of Love to ever make me feel likeitsarrival is inevitable.

Perhaps my only certainty is that such a vision is worth working for.

If we fail to appreciate the complexity and diversity within, and among, religioustraditions,we will overlook the fact that people from different traditionsoften sharemore with one another than they do with many members of theirown tradition.


...Until recently, many influential analysts arguedthat religion, a vestige of anearlier stage of human development, wouldwither away as people became moresophisticated and rational. Obviously,things have not turned out that way.Indeed, the 21st century will be dominatedby religion in ways that were inconceivablejust a few years ago. Religiousconflict will be less a matter ofstruggles between belief and unbelief thanof clashes between believers whomake room for doubt and those who do not (howie; my emphasis).

Oneofthe most common expressions the CWA walkers heard on the road were variationsonthe theme "I thought I was alone - the only progressive/compassionate/liberalChristianout here!" Maybe even feeling more in common with Buddhists, Jews,agnostics,atheists, Wiccans, or someone else than with other Christians(I know I haveat times - the connection itself is good, but feeling so distantfrom my owncommunity isn't).

Prof. Taylor has brought to light one possible reason for that feeling; our different stances towards doubt. In a slightly different context, author Blake Staceyhasdescribed the difference as between "nostalgic" (backward-looking) and"progressive"(forward-looking). I know my dad likes nostalgia, old stuff,and retellingthe stories of the past - which is great! - but he knows thatwhen it comesto making decisions about how to live, we strive to be informed by the past but looking towards the future.

This Christmas Day at my house there is joy for how God came among us two thousandyearsago, and reflection on what part we will play as the story continuesto unfold.

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Merry Christmas! Below is a link to an mp3 of my arrangement, featuring Scott Morris, of "O Come O Come Emmanuel." -howie

O Come Thou Dayspring - howie&scott, from XMAS.