Dear Friends in Christ,
In a secular world, many wonder what the point is of church-going, or of celebrating Advent and Christmas. Fundamentalist Christians are clear about why they do these things because they believe the modern, secular world is a terrible mistake, even a sin against God. But for a Progressive Christian, one who believes that the Enlightenment was a gift from God, one who believes that modernity is a (not unmixed) blessing, and that secularity (not secularism) has found a way for humans to live together without the religious wars and intolerance that typified our past, and still reign in too many places on our globe (anyone want to live in Iran?) -why does this kind of person still worship? Wouldn’t Progressive Christians be better off taking Thomas Jefferson’s advice and reduce Christianity to the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount?
Well, some have tried that tactic, but I don’t think it has panned out. Humans do have a glorious capacity for ethics and I think we should celebrate and nurture that moral ability, but I firmly believe it needs to be connected to other capacities. The great Jesuit scientist and theological poet, Teilhard de Chardin, put his finger on something important when he said: “The day is not far distant when humanity will realize that biologically it is faced with a choice between suicide and adoration.” BIOLOGICALLY!! True and sustainable ethics needs to be planted and rooted in something deeper, in a spirituality, a faith, a set of ultimate commitments about the meaning and purpose of life.
I am a secular Christian, a big believer in the separation of Church and State–but not so that there can be no religion, but so that religion can flourish in all its manifold forms. I love the fact that Montgomery County is a hothouse of religion. We live and rub elbows with Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Agnostics, Atheists, Religious Humanists, Secular Humanists, Mormons, and all kinds of New Agers. Mixing us all together brews a wonderful stew that keeps me thinking and growing as a Christian.
So during December, this Progressive, secular Christian will come to church on Wednesday evenings to observe Advent, and come on Sundays to get ready for the Great Coming, and then come again on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to adore a baby in a stable. I do it because the alternative is suicide, albeit a long, lingering death of spiritual boredom and vacuity. This Child, the holy One, says to me that life can be incarnation, that life can be the joy of Love come down, of possibility giving birth to newness of life. Adoration of this Child takes me outside of myself so that I can really see myself.
On Epiphany, the cantor will “proclaim the date of Easter” as well as the major festivals of the Church for the coming year. At CTS, we work hard to give you access to a full celebration of the Christian Kalender. Why do we do all that extra liturgical work, one of very few parishes that bother with so much worship? Teilhard knows. Adoration is essential to our humanity, it is the way we grow outside of self and thus become a real self. As we sing at Christmastide: Oh come let us adore him!
Have a most blessed holiday season.
–Pastor Bastien
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