Survivability of the Christian Church
Re “Do Churches Really Matter Anymore?” by William F. Buckley Jr., Column Right, Feb. 2: The illustrative efforts to spell the demise of the Christian church are canceled by his closing quote that spiritual downturns are often reversed. On the first Sunday of May I will celebrate the 60th anniversary of my first Sunday in the Methodist ministry, beginning in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Across all my 86 years, including these last 20 in active retirement, the Christian church has been in crisis.
It was born in such a time. Throughout its history prophets have anticipated its doom. When I began service there was critical confrontation with Communism sweeping the world and Europe was being overrun by the Hitler and Mussolini alliances. A family in my first church gathered with others on a nearby hilltop to await the end of the world, typical of many such events across history.
But the Christian movement survives and grows because it is a must in a world that honors the cry for violence and hatreds as much as ours does. The break into a new millennium will be celebrated by many as a fearful time of God’s judgment; but most of us will roll up our spiritual sleeves and serve the one agency on Earth dedicated to the will of God, in spite of its careless, human failures. We will honor other faiths for the best, not the worst, of their religious understandings.
The church keeps alive through the rebirth process. From Paul to St. Francis to Martin Luther to Martin Luther King and thousands of others throughout history we have seen what happens with the hand of God upon human history.
Almost 2 billion people around the world call themselves Christian, a large multitude of these taking it seriously; this is a far cry from the 12 who started with Jesus 2,000 years ago. It’s all been done while living in crisis--and the end is not yet, certainly not for the church.
THE REV. CLARK ROBBINS
Rancho Palos Verdes
* Buckley addresses a subject that has distressed us for some time. With great sadness, we have seen our denomination (Episcopal) go through a dumbing-down process. It is no longer the thinking man’s church. A mindless kind of Evangelical/Pentacostal mind-set is being substituted for sound scholarship and clarity of presentation. From the pulpit we have been subjected to embarrassing “witnessing” by priests. One man “brayed” at length that he was praying for the gift of celibacy when God sent a wonderful woman into his life. It’s nice he found someone to keep his feet warm on a cold night. But, whatever happened to good taste?
What is there to hold the allegiance of intellectually curious, emotionally vigorous people? What has this to offer intelligent young people searching for answers? No wonder they are leaving churches in droves. If their intellectual and spiritual needs were being met, they would stay.
We believe that “the fountainhead of Christianity is inexhaustible.” We also agree with the philosopher George Santayana that what America needs is more Christianity and less churchianity.
MARTHA WILLETT
Bakersfield