The front page of the April 22, 2012 Denver Post had a story, “United by Faith, Divided by Politics”, which highlighted the growing rift between 18-34 year olds and their elders; there is apparently even a growing movement among them called “post-denominational”. To quote “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, the movie not the TV show, “Does the word ‘duh’ mean anything to you?”
“Post-Denominational” heralds the death of denominations and of centralized, hierarchical, and conservative religion. Also out this month is the “5280” story, “A Religious Experience: We want to know: What do Coloradans Believe?” What the numbers show is that 60% of Coloradans are Christian and of those Coloradans, 20% or 1 in 5 are Catholic (that is 31% of the Christians), 13% of Coloradans are “other”, 11% are nondenominational, and all other denominations combined make up just over the decimal point of 20% and that makes 64% not 60. The story does not reconcile the numbers between its pie charts; this leaves an overlap the size of Colorado’s Jewish community, but we will use the numbers anyway.
What I have noticed first of all is that the media, even local media, highlights the anomaly in religion in order to distort the reality of religion; in the 5280 story, for instance, not one Catholic was interviewed, but who would want to speak to a member in the majority of believers? They instead spoke to a Lutheran pastor who has her service in an Episcopal Church and a pastor of a Mega-Church.
The “other” has to include the Church of Christian Science, the Unitarians, Salvation Army, various Orthodox Churches, Pentecostal, Anglican, Assembly of God, Bible Churches, Church of Christ, Church of God, Episcopal, Mennonite, Messianic, Nazarene, Seventh Day Adventist, Fellowship, Zion, home churches, etc., etc. The point is that “post-denominational” churches may share some of the 13% of the “other” and they may share some of the 11% of the non-denominational numbers, but they cannot reasonably be a significant portion of either of those numbers, as “others” 13% is carved up at least 20 or 30 different ways, at least, and non-denominational tends to actually mean that rather than “post-denominational”. So can we give them logically like 5-10% of the total Colorado Christian experience? It’s a stretch perhaps but the Post made no attempt to actually quantify anything which gives the story undue weight.
Why do they matter at all to the Denver Post, let alone giving them a front page cover story? Because it propagandizes the liberal minority of a conservative voting bloc; it reminds the reader who is not Orthodox that they have choices; they have all the choices in the world! Every aspect of their faith is constantly in play and up to them to determine; which is a reality for us all, however, many of us require map and signpost or at least the sun and stars of the Church by which to navigate.
The options when “seeking” God are as open as the sky, they are truly unlimited. Christians agree that the bible is instrumental in describing the Christian faith. It was St. Jerome who said, “Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ.” The way the bible is interpreted is not self evident regardless of what virtually every Protestant theologian has said since the Reformation, thus the proliferation of denominations up to this post-denomination precipice. To illustrate this point I was listening to a preacher on the radio who held the Bible in one hand and the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the other he said, “Catholics place more trust in this book (I assume he raised the Catechism) than this book (raising the bible).” This is a flatly false statement of course; he made many false and anti-Catholic statements in the surrounding sermon, but this is the one which is most pertinent. He then expanded upon how he used his intellect and the bible alone to become a preacher. As soon as I was able I looked up this preacher on the internet I did and guess what? He had a library of books for sale so we can understand the bible and the Christian faith as clearly as he does! He had his own fractured, more expensive, and much less complete catechism; the real difference is it would never occur to him to raise one of his own books in place of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
His catechism was not peer reviewed, as he really has no peers, his catechism draws not upon two thousand years of scriptural interpretation and thought, as his mind is only about 50 years old, his catechism relies upon his own understanding of Jewish tradition, and so on.
What the post-denominational set propose is even more callus. The reason, at least most denominations start with some, even one, biblical precept; the post-denomination people start with themselves and assume biblical precepts based upon nothing but their own feelings. The bible is subject to them and they are not subject to it, period.
The further point is not that there is no place for individualism, but that individualism as proposed is a sham. One assumes that one is simply what one is and that is all one has ever been or could ever be; this approach negates the influence of environment and antecedent inflections and reconditioning upon ones habits, inclinations, and personality. Anyone who takes this approach is incredibly shallow, myopic, and lacking in examined experience; thus they tend to be reactionary. The 18-34 year olds are prime persons for these pitfalls; though many tend to grow out of it by 34, unless they have become addicted to their own pride or crutches. As one gains in intellectual ability but lacks the perspective of age, one often generalizes their immediate condition as universal and galvanizes those misconceptions against a misperceived world at large. It may seem a rather harsh appraisal, but I assure you I have come through harsh personal examination myself.
The resulting personal philosophy being: 1) I care not for my own opinion, 2) I long to do as St. Benedict prescribes and, “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ.” Actually the first rule is redundant in the light of the second but I needed to keep it crystal clear for myself, this clarity keeps me from wandering anywhere near post-denominationalism.
I understand that denominationalism was a fatal error in the first place; opening up the Pandora’s Box and releasing the tempest which batters the church into smaller and smaller splinters. These tiny splinters may be held up and examined as the possible trend of all other splinters, but that will never cause the splinters to spontaneously reassemble into a whole. That requires the self sacrifice which should be inherent of Christianity, but is ever diluted by the lure of convenience and self interest endemic in the philosophy of post-denominationalism.
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