In Fitchburg it was once compulsory by law to attend—and tithe—weekly. If for some very good reason you were unable to be present in church, not to worry. The city provided well-wishers with wicker baskets to walk the streets on Sunday morning and collect your offering.
It is soon the 500th anniversary of the day Martin Luther tapped his protest of the Catholic church to the doors of the Wittenberg Cathedral and the protestant reformation was officially begun. This second great schism of Christianity eventually gave birth to the many denominations and expressions we see today including Baptists, Congregationalists, Seventh Day Adventists—the list continues into the hundreds. Luther and his contemporaries gave humanity the permission and the tools to question supreme authority. And for the last five centuries we have changed the world with it. It is a revolution that has ultimately begotten democracy itself.
Every 500 years or so world spirituality makes a great shift. It is often noticed by our western culture through the lens of Christianity, but these grand evolutions were not exclusive to only one faith or culture. Martin Luther’s protest sat against the modernizing and far-reaching backdrop of the Renaissance. Today, 500 years later, we are in a time which has been referred to as the Great Emergence.
A second renaissance has now occurred with the advent of the Internet in the same way the printing press accomplished it 500 years ago. Information is power. It connects us and our shared experience. We are changed by it every time. Each successive layer of new awareness we reveal about our neighbor changes every single thing about our society from our laws to our DNA. It is a terrifying process for humanity each time. And people do terrible things when they are afraid. Pray for them. Comfort the afflicted as we afflict the comfortable.
Our children have twice as many nationalities in them as did our parents; twice as many cultures and languages and facial features. The lines between white and black and brown have all become a bit more beige than some people are comfortable with. But that is the very indicator we should be looking at for comfort regarding our progress toward the inevitable unity of all humanity.
The same is true of church. The most inclusive spiritual thinking is plural.
Now that church is no longer compulsory, we are free to express our spirituality in any way we see fit. Sunday morning or no Sunday morning. We are free to explore and learn about other cultures. In the process, we ultimately discover what is intrinsically human about their various customs, beliefs and rituals. That is the prime directive of all systems of human faith. Look for God in the places where all religions overlap.
So what becomes of Sunday morning church? We see the numbers declining, but does that mean we are no longer spiritual beings having a human experience? If we are not, then we never were. But if we are, then our nature has not changed simply because the customs have. We still crave spiritual community. We still need the freedom, and most importantly the opportunity, to explore things together which are larger than ourselves.
For me Sunday morning church is a communal, contemplative experience. A time when my heart both rests and fills. But Sunday morning is only one component of church life. Committee work, visioning for the future, even basic maintenance are opportunities for mindfully practicing the teachings to love one another, even when you don’t always like one another. It is a classroom for the world outside. A place to practice the practice.
To collaborate, to listen, to remain humble, to remain open. These will always be the intrinsic spiritual needs of humanity. We will always devise ways to express them whether church continues to exist as we know it or evolves into something new. We will be fulfilled by life. We insist.
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