European Culture Archives - Passion for Planting

Think Again: Why Religion is Good for Us

Sean Cronin — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s post is written by Mark Clark. Mark is Senior Pastor of Village Church in Vancouver, a close friend, and co-creator of our courses The Art of Better Reaching and The Art of Better Preaching.

By Mark Clark

Religious people live, on average, seven years longer than non-religious people.

“Hold on, what?” you might be saying.

Fair enough. Let’s back up.

In his book Think Again organizational psychologist Adam Grant says that we can’t be afraid to be influenced by actual data in forming ideas versus what we thought was the case, or what we feel is the case or what we would rather be the case, in any given scenario.

For example, would we be open to changing our views on something we really believe in if data arose that said our prior conclusions had been wrong? Oftentimes we reject such data for a plethora of reasons, the most powerful of which is that we have become comfortable in our beliefs about things, and contrary data messes with that.

“When it comes to our knowledge and opinions,” Grant says, “we often favor feeling right over being right… we favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.”

This is a scary thought, but is proven over and over again in the realm of psychology, and as a pastor, I have seen it over and over again in ministry – whether that be people who hold hard against a theological conclusion that the Bible is clearly laying out because they have prior ideas, or behaviors that don’t line up, or people who have an interpretation of a passage and can’t stand the thought that maybe that isn’t saying what they thought it was.

We see this right now in our political debates online, whether they be about actual politics or the downstream discussions popular right now about vaccines, COVID orders, church and state debates, etc.

People have their views and they believe and promote data and ‘facts’ that support those views and ignore contrary data. It’s true about all of us.

People have their views and they believe and promote data and ‘facts’ that support those views and ignore contrary data. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

The lack of humility on one side or the other should be your first clue that maybe the person you are staring at isn’t open to think again or look at an issue from a different angle at all.

You know what they say: to a hammer everything is a nail.

To some people right now every idea, news story, piece of information they receive is only meant to fit into the narrative they have decided is true already, and that’s that. There is no convincing them otherwise. It’s a scary place to be, to be honest.

Jesus warned against people who aren’t so much deceived by others, though of course that is a part of this kind of person’s situation as well most times, but those who are self-deceived. And therein lies part of the problem: we don’t know what we don’t know.

Thus, I would say humility and open-mindedness to data and ideas is central to us as we find our way through this new world.

Which brings us to my point:

I want to turn this idea of ‘thinking again’ and aim it at an idea so rooted in the post-Christian west that I am sure it will mess with our brain a little. It is the idea that religion is good, indeed, great for society as a whole.

Of course the popular narrative of the western world over the last one hundred years or so, and especially the last 30 or 40 has been that religion is ‘poison’ as the famous atheist Christopher Hitchens used to argue. That religion creates war and atrocity, judgmentalism and racism, intolerance and ignorance, across the populace. Images of people denying science, hating others, doing violence against people, rule the day.

I grew up with this narrative. Not explicitly told me by people of course, but by osmosis. Through my education, reading, movies, television, the news, general conversations with friends.

This is the assumed truth of our western story. Atheism, or at least agnosticism, produces a better, more progressive society. Religion, a stunted or even backward trending society. So much so that in Universities and in the public square today it is just part of the unspoken story, and because it is thus, it also in some ways, goes unchallenged too.

This is the assumed truth of our western story. Atheism, or at least agnosticism, produces a better, more progressive society. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

But what if the data said otherwise?

What if your anecdotal story of that one religious uncle you know, or that one group on Facebook that time, was all called into question by the facts? Would you be willing to change your mind?

I don’t imagine a short blog post like this will do that, but let’s at least start the conversation. I would like to think you are open to ‘think again’ when it comes to this question, and I think you should, and here’s why.

The data tells us we’ve been wrong all along, and that story of the triumph of secularization is just plain false when we ask the question: how religion impacts and affects the cities, neighborhoods, communities, nations and individuals it exists within.

More pointedly, when the question is: does it have a positive or a negative impact on culture, the overwhelming reality is that it has a positive, not a negative one. In fact, it isn’t even close. The atheists are wrong. And by a long shot.

A STARK CONTRAST (see what I did there?)

Rodney Stark is one of the most celebrated and respected sociologists of religion in the world. “He has written over 30 books, and more than 140 articles on subjects as diverse as prejudice, crime, suicide, and city life in ancient Rome, and has twice won the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.”

In one of his books which I read recently he sketched out some fascinating conclusions based on detailed sociological data that are so contrary to popular opinion and the assumed narrative of the post-christian west that most will greet them with a filter of suspicion, or outright disbelief, but as we said above, that doesn’t mean they aren’t true – only that we may be victims of our own self-selected confirmation biases, fooled by our own carefully curated news, opinions and information, if not about a number of things in our lives, certainly in regard to the areas Stark explores using America as a microcosm example of the west at large.

So what areas does he explore and what are his conclusions? And what does it mean for us?

HIS CONCLUSIONS

There are a hundred and one things his data concludes which you can read for yourself in more detail, but here are some of the more interesting ones. And again, let’s remind ourselves, his conclusions are based on actual research done by an actual sociologist and his colleagues, not what passes today as research – i.e. a google search, and a scroll of your Facebook feed, and that website which has those Youtube videos by that doctor.

In his rigorous and pointed style Stark shows that the academic literature routinely ignores evidence of religion’s beneficial social effects. He demonstrates that religious people:

Are the primary source of secular charitable funds that benefit victims of misfortune whatever their beliefs
Dominate the ranks of blood donors and other prosocial behaviors
Are much less likely to commit crimes
Far more likely to donate their money and time to socially beneficial programs and to be active in civic affairs. (The impact of religious people on volunteering alone is an estimated $47 billion annually in the United States alone!)
Enjoy superior mental health – are deemed happier, less neurotic, and far less likely to commit suicide
Enjoy superior physical health – have an average life expectancy more than seven years longer than that of the irreligious
Read more than their irreligious friends and neighbors
Are less likely to believe in the occult, UFO’s, Bigfoot, etc.
More apt to marry, less likely to divorce, and report higher degrees of satisfaction with their spouse.
Religious husbands are far less likely to abuse their wives or children. This is of course contrary to the story that religions create systems of oppression in the home because of ‘male patriarchy’.
Religious fathers are more likely to be involved in youth-related activities such as coaching sports teams or leading Scout troops, etc.
Religious couples enjoy their sex lives more, women are more likely to have regular orgasms, and sex happens more often.They are also far less likely to have an affair.
Religious students perform better on standardized achievement tests, are far less likely to drop out of school, obtain better jobs upon graduation, and are far less likely to be on unemployment (the studies for all of these and especially this one and all surrounding crime stats, etc., factor in races/geographies across the U.S.)
In 247 studies done between 1944 and 2010: religion has a positive effect on society in regard to crime, deviance and delinquency.
Crime rates in the US compared to the decidedly less religious countries of Western Europe are glaringly less in many categories, with the exception of homicide rates: Denmark has nearly two-and-a-half times as many burglaries per 100,000 people, and is exceeded by Austria, Switzerland, the U.K., Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands. The same is true for theft, and assault rates.
Urban stats going from present-day back to the 1920s shows that the higher a city’s church membership rate, the lower its burglary, larceny, robbery, assault and homicide rates.

Stats going from present-day back to the 1920s shows that the higher a city’s church membership rate, the lower its burglary, larceny, robbery, assault and homicide rates. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

I point all of this out to not only because it plays a fascinating role in forcing us as individuals to constantly be open to re-thinking what we thought was true and why we thought it was so (a much-needed posture of humility is needed in this regard on both sides of the political aisle), but also to challenge the powerful, overarching narrative of our time – that God and religion have no place in society and that the real hope for us is fill in the blank: education, technology, the arts, science – as if those are antithetical to religion.

Not only is that a simplistic, reductionist narrative to sell the public, it is blatantly wrong.

The data not only doesn’t back it up, it actually draws the opposite picture.

That without religious people and groups, society as a whole, including most importantly, the marginalized, would be far worse off.

Without religious people and groups, society as a whole, including most importantly, the marginalized, would be far worse off. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

We see this reality play out over and over again. Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times wrote an article years ago wherein he explored the work of an unknown evangelical Christian doctor who ran a hospital in Angola, where the child mortality rate was the highest in the world. He raised his family in one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Kristof writes:

“Most evangelicals are not, of course, following such a harrowing path, and it’s also true that there are plenty of secular doctors doing heroic work… But I must say that a disproportionate share of the aid workers I’ve met in the wildest places over the years, long after anyone sensible had evacuated, have been evangelicals, nuns or priests.”

That of course doesn’t mean that religion is true, that is for another day – but it is to say, importantly, that skeptics need to be careful in their argument against Christianity and religion based on a purely social argument.

They need to tread far more carefully when they want to argue that somehow religion is toxic to a culture. It is not. See even the latest arguments from thinkers like David Berlinski, in his The Devil’s Delusion, a secular philosopher /scientist who sees a connection between many of our social ills and atheism, especially in the realm of the question of meaning, and how people absorb suffering.

Sure, ‘this’ or ‘that’ version of religion could be toxic, admittedly, it could lead to racism, or oppressive attitudes toward women, or minorities, etc. That is still true, and something we need to always be fighting, especially given that the central story of Christianity in particular is its central figure, Jesus, dying and serving to raise others up, not being opposed to any, but loving all.

Bad versions and applications of religion are everywhere, and we need to be weary of them.

Stark’s point is not that we should ignore those proclivities, but that we do need to get a far clearer and fuller picture of the positives of religious impact on the west in a cultural moment when the narrative around it is almost exclusively negative.

Bad versions and applications of religion are everywhere, and we need to be weary of them. – @markaclarkClick To Tweet

CONCLUSION

I am not a sociologist, but I am a pastor which means I have a lot of conversations with people who are opposed to Christianity. A lot of them over the years point out how bad the idea of God is for the world.

That story is popular and well-told over and over again so much so that it lives in our consciousness as a fact.

I share this data to simply ask the skeptic to be willing to stop doing what they ask religious people to stop doing on the daily: spreading false-hood.

The idea that religion is bad for society simply isn’t true and it isn’t true in a hundred different ways. Are you willing to adjust your framework of the world and the question of God and the church around data versus what you have heard, or want to be true?

We all have to be willing to doubt our doubts and at least take a second or third look at the question of God as it relates to the experience of individuals, societies, cities, nations, towns, which of course, include your own communities, and be open to the idea that in the end the God hypothesis may prove to be harder to leave behind than we once thought, or, in the spirit of today’s arguments, we may not want to leave it behind at all, because it may be our only way to accomplish socially what we all desire.

You ever wonder why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., cited the prophets of the Bible in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, versus an atheist manifesto?

Because his larger vision, his dream, could only be accomplished by it being built on a foundation of transcendence.

That is what gave humankind it’s equality. The fact that it was made in the image of God. Not the state, or reasons of the social class, or because it was a more enlightened primate, or whatever other reasons for equality and justice we construct.

His argument, like Wilberforce and so many others before him, was that social good and flourishing was rooted in God. As others have pointed out, it wasn’t that America needed less religion, but better religion.

If we are going to reach the post-Christian west, we need to hold tightly to idea not that individuals alone need to come to know God, but that in knowing him there will be a horizontal impact on the world around it.

A good and flourishing impact that brings shalom even to people who don’t agree with it. Life-giving, not toxic. Serving, not taking. Loving, not judging.

Facts don’t adjust because we feel they should.

We are better to adjust in light of them instead of burying them beneath bias. The truth will set us free, Jesus said. Seems like it is setting others free as well.

Whether they appreciate it or not.

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Is Your Church Ready For Future Evangelism? Take The Free Church Outreach Assessment To Find Out.

Almost every church leader wants to grow their church by reaching more people.

When youu2019re done, youu2019ll be far more equipped to accomplish your mission.

Donu2019t be discouraged. You can still reach people.

Take the Church Outreach Assessment now!”,”label_pos”:”above”,”parentType”:”html”,”element_templates”:[“html”,”input”],”old_classname”:””,”wrap_template”:”wrap”}];nfForms.push(form);

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Want more?

For more on how to interact with the post-Christian west as a Christian leader see our upcoming course The Art of Better Reaching.

If you want more help responding to the skeptics, check out my book, The Problem of God: Answering a Skeptics Challenges to Christianity.

I’d love to hear about 1 thing you’ve had to ‘think again’ about in the last year. While you’re responding below, please be kind. This is no place for outrage or toxic behavior.

The post Think Again: Why Religion is Good for Us appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: Think Again: Why Religion is Good for Us

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Leading Your Church In This Time of Sexual Questioning with Bruce Miller

Sean Cronin — Sun, 08 Sep 2019 09:00:45 +0000

by unSeminary: Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Bruce Miller, senior pastor of Christ Fellowship in Texas.

Today we’ll be talking to Bruce about his book Leading a Church in a Time of Sexual
Questioning.

Reach out. // Bruce mentions that the idea for the book came from his encounters with people who felt rejected by the church and Christian people. The book encourages Christians to own up in their responsibility to reach out in ways they haven’t. Be full of both grace and truth. // It seems that most churches want to be either a church of grace or a church of truth. But Jesus came to earth full of grace and full of truth. Truth is gracious and grace speaks truth—grace and truth come together in love. Jesus hung out with “notorious sinners” and they were drawn to Him like a moth to flame. The body of Christ needs to more fully follow Jesus and His walk in His footsteps.Extend the welcome. // Jesus modeled that while we are to be full of both grace and truth, grace comes first in practical pastoral ministry to others. Most LGBTQ people believe that Christians hate them and some have been mistreated by Christians. It will be a surprise to them to be welcomed to a church. We have to extend the welcome to them much more strongly than with the average person. Go to greater lengths. // You can have a difference in your beliefs on certain things in life, but still come together to worship Jesus. Bruce shares a story of a lesbian couple who was interested in attending the church, and he offered an opportunity to meet with them and hear their stories in person. During that time Bruce explained what the church believed, but told the couple they were still welcome to come and be a part of the church, and they did. Talk with LGBTQ people to learn about their lives and their desire to connect with God rather than making a snap judgement towards them. It’s about building a relationship with people.Put love first. // If a leader in your church comes forward as part of an LGBTQ lifestyle, put love first and listen deeply to their story and what they have to say so that you know what you’re dealing with. The leaders of the church need to be in unity on what the church believes. If a leader changes their position and you are really on different pages, then it wouldn’t make sense for that person to stay in a leadership position at a church they don’t agree with.We are all sinners. // In his book, Bruce writes about practical steps in dealing with these situations. The big question to ask is how to treat LGBTQ people at your church. They are human beings created in the image of God and Bruce says that they should therefore be treated like other people. Are you going to add something different to situations in church if the person is LGBTQ? Will they not be baptized, even though Jesus went to sinners in all situations and baptized them? Or have they trusted in Jesus Christ and is that enough? Will there be double standards?Love doesn’t compromise truth. // When writing his book, Bruce was impressed to find that love doesn’t compromise truth. When you open your arms and welcome everyone, you still aren’t compromising theology, but you are showing Jesus’s love. Association doesn’t communicate affirmation. Jesus hung out with sinners throughout the New Testament. But associating with these sinners doesn’t mean that you approve and affirm their sins, as neither did Jesus. Provide more robust training. // In situations such as student ministry, there are additional layers of complexity when it comes to conversations about sex and sexuality. Bruce emphasizes the importance of doing more coaching with student lay leaders or those who might lead small groups. The issues are more difficult so take time to provide extra training. Additionally Christ Fellowship wants to create a climate where students can be open about their sexual struggles. Lastly be sure to inform the parents in advance so they know what’s coming when you plan to talk with students about sex, and invite them to be a part of it.Check your theology on sexuality and singleness. // Bruce notes that sometimes our message to those in the LGBTQ community who are trying to follow Jesus is because you have to be single and you can’t have sex, you’re going to have a rough life. That view betrays a terrible vision for people; firstly it is a terrible theology of singleness, and secondly it betrays an overblown view of sexuality as if sex is essential for a good life. Life without Jesus is a deficient life, but you can have a great life without sex.

You can learn more about Bruce and his book Leading a Church in the Time of Sexual Questioning at his website brucebmiller.com. You can learn more about Christian Fellowship at cfhome.org.

Thank You for Tuning In!

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ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US

Sean Cronin — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 10:00:21 +0000

by Peyton Jones: In order to discern your core values, you need to be able to understand what the community around you needs. Although you are deriving timeless principles from God’s word, you will be seeking to be an agent of change, and therefore your core values will reflect the burdens that God has placed on your heart by looking around. The core values you’d emphasize in one cultural context, wouldn’t be the same as another. For example, one of our five Pillars at Pillar Church was “contemporary”. I wouldn’t have felt the need to insert that in Southern California, but that term actually meant something in a culture that had never had a Jesus movement in the 60’s and 70’s. Many of the Evangelical churches in Wales had an iron grip on orthodoxy, but didn’t have a grasp on contemporary culture. In America, however, having “contemporary” as one of your core values would be a bit redundant. Therefore, the core values that you establish in your concrete mixing stage will be somewhat reactionary to what the culture you are launching into.

Years ago, a video game came out that repeated the phrase, “All your base are belong to us”. It was classic stuff. Somebody made a video of it, it went viral, and the rest is history (that you probably missed). The point is, that had a little more research been done, the target audience might have been intimidated when the alien horde invaded bellowing their verbal threat. Instead, it was laughable. Your church planting attempt can’t avoid being laughable if you don’t know your mission field. Put on your pith helmet, Dr. Livingstone, because it’s time you learned to study your own culture.

For example, when my New Breed Welsh partner in crime, Dai Hankey, began to launch out, he was dropping into a severely economically depressed area. After our partnership with Acts 29 Western Europe was established, they asked for a formal report on the areas where New Breed was planting. Although we’d not formally done that prior to planting, by nature of being missionaries at heart, we’d already recognized what the defining characteristics were of the intended drop zone.

For example, Dai came up with these statistics about Trevethin, where Hill City Church had been planted:

- Trevethin is among the 10 % most deprived communities in Wales. Trevethin is the most deprived ward in Torfaen (county).
- Torfaen is the 2nd most obese ward in the UK (after the Shetland Islands!)
- Torfaen is the anti-depressant capital of the UK – 11 out of every 100 prescriptions are for anti-depressants.
- The top 7 counties for anti-depressant prescription in the UK are all in the Welsh Valleys!
- Trevethin is trapped in high interest, easy access borrowing via door stop lending, thus reinforcing the poverty cycle.
- Domestic violence is a significant issue in Trevethin.
- The percentage of economically inactive people in Trevethin is among the highest in Wales.
- Trevethin has one of the highest numbers of cohabiting couples with dependent children. In 2017 Trevethin will have one of the highest numbers of children aged 5 and under.
- Trevethin has one of the largest numbers of children on the protection register in Wales.

As Dai finished that survey, I can promise you that once he knew all of the facts about the people living there, he began to see them more as God sees them, and his heart began to break for them more than ever. Unless you know who you’re dealing with, you won’t know what you’re going to be called to do. Trust me, once you do a survey like this, you’ll know. And knowing is half the battle. You’ll be a part of God’s strategic task force to undermine the effects of Cobra as they’ve carried out the destruction in the name of the serpent! Yo Joe!

Did you know that over 50% of the world lives on less than 2 dollars a day? Chuck Colson wrote in the 80s that “an estimated 36,000 homeless men and women have been wandering New York’s streets at night. The city’s maximum shelter capacity is just more than 3,500 and the budget is already overloaded, so Mayor Koch appealed to the city’s religious leaders for help. If each of New York’s 3500 places of worship would care for just ten homeless people, a desperate human problem would be quickly solved, without huge government expense.” (Colson – who speaks for god p85)

When your passion and the world’s needs meet together you often find Gods calling.

Another equally eye-opening bit of research that can be done is to look at the existing churches in the area. You’ll need to either partner with the churches in the area or steer clear of them. You need to know which it is and meeting with the Pastors is a quick way to find out. In many cases you’ll see what God has already been doing in the area. It’s never helpful for a church planter to believe that he’s God’s gift to a neighborhood. He’s merely reinforcements to the battle already waging. Another encampment. Another outpost. Another base.

Buy Peyton’s newest book “Reaching The Unreached: Becoming Raiders of the Lost Art” over on Amazon.com. You can also download a free chapter and watch a cool trailer for the book HERE or click the image below.

Source: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US

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