What I meant to say in this week's sermon

Okay, the title of my sermon this past Sunday was "Do Over: What I Meant to Say Last Sunday" so you would think that I said everything I meant to say this time around. Well, that was not the case. Although, I feel much better about this past Sunday's sermon than I do about the week before, I did leave out a bit that was at least meaningful to me.

I've been reading Cornel West lately, and I have found a critique he wrote of American religion nearly twenty years ago to be even more relevant for today's religious landscape. In the preface to his 1988 book Prophetic Fragments he writes the following words:

To put it bluntly, American religious life is losing its prophetic fervor. There is an undeniable decline in the clarity of vision, complexity of understanding and quality of moral action among religious Americans.

West writes that this decline in prophetic fervor spans the gamut of religions "from Christianity to Buddhism, from reform Judaism to Islam." This trend results in the "widespread accommodation of American religion to the political and cultural status-quo."

"This accommodation is, at bottom, idolatrous--it worships the gods created by American society and kneels before the altars created by American culture."

He goes on to say, "American religious life--despite its weekly rituals and everyday practices--is shot through with existential emptiness. This emptiness--or lack of spiritual depth--results from the excessive preoccupation with isolated personal interests and atomistic individual concerns in American religious life. These interests and concerns unduly accommodate the status-quo by mirroring the privatism and careerism rampant in American society."

This accommodation "yields momentary stimulation rather than spiritual sustenance, sentimental self-flagellation rather than sacrificial denial." Therefore, "religion becomes but one more stimulant in a culture addicted to stimulation--a stimulation that fuels consumption and breeds existential emptiness."

The result of this type of religion is "social amnesia" that fails to understand the broader cultural, economic and philosophical reasons for human suffering, because all sense of "collective struggle" has been lost. . Instead, "personalistic and individualistic explanations" are found for complex problems like poverty, hunger and social catastrophe.

In other words, the great problems of our culture are the result of the flawed decisions or morals of the individuals suffering from them. They failed to try hard enough or failed to remain moral enough to achieve the American Dream. Gone is any sense that our culture as a whole or even particular religious communities must unite together to change our culture for the better.

When I preached Sunday about why Jesus came to bring division rather than peace, I tried to explain that the status-quo must be overturned. A status-quo that is based upon the oppression of others is one that cannot stand before the coming of the Kingdom of God. Whenever the status-quo is overturned, conflict results. As Americans, our over-stimulated culture is a means of blocking out the cries of those who suffer around the world and even next door. To respond to those cries means giving up comfort and people--even faithful people--will fight to hold onto their own comfort, even if it means others must subsist on far less.

Raising a prophetic voice in a culture that does not wish to be bothered will by necessity bring conflict--disagreement, division and even at times violence (think of MLK). Yet, that should not surprise us given that we follow a savior who ended up dying on a cross.

Grace and peace,

Chase