Who knows that the year 2024 will bring. Yet there are some issues that I see for 2024.
More of us are bowling alone
Near the end of 2019 the word COVID became a household name. COVID wasn’t just a medical issue. COVID impacted all areas of our lives. The United States, from 2019 to 2020, saw the largest spike in mortality in 100 years.1
We lost a lot of people. Have we already forgotten the daily death toll counts each night on the news? There are a lot of folks who are now either a little more alone in life or totally alone in life due to the impact of COVID. In other words there are a lot more lonely people in our communities. Yet loneliness is not just due to high death rates.
COVID highlighted something that has been going on in our culture for many years. Loneliness. In 2023 the US Surgeon General published a major report on the epidemic of loneliness in our culture. The report calls attention to the fact that Americans are not just feeling more alone they are actually alone. The facts on the ground are that many of us lack healthy social relationships and are often isolated. In other words many of us are struggling to maintain or find good friends.
The report highlights the health risks associated with a lack of human connection. Lacking social connections increases the risks of diabetes, kidney disease and heart attacks. A recent study by John Hopkins suggests that loneliness can also increase the chances of developing dementia sooner than one's peers.2
This is not the first we have heard of this. In 2000 the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam sounded the alarm of the vast amounts of loneliness and isolation in our culture. Putnam pointed out an interesting phenomena in which more people were going bowling yet not with bowling leagues, like in times past. Instead more people were actually going bowling alone. American psychologist Jean Twenge, who studies teenagers, has seen what she calls “alarming” rates of depression and loneliness surging among Gen Z (those born after 1996). See an interview she gives here talking about the increased rates of depression among Gen Z.
Point is we have a problem. More and more of us do not have meaningful friendships. More of us are isolated and alone. More of our kids and grandkids are struggling with depression and loneliness in ways that prior generations have never struggled. As we walk into 2024 we do so as a people that are a lot lonelier than ever before.
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalist cultures, according to David Brooks, exhibit three traits: certainty, ferocity and solidarity. I find that definition fiting. These traits can be found in all flavor of religious groups as well as churches and political parties no matter what label they have be it conservative, progressive or liberal.
I grew up going to church. A lot. Maybe you can or can't relate to that yet going to church was a major part of my upbring as a child. Part of that experience included being in a Christian community that seemed fairly certain that we might just be the only folks going to heaven. The Baptist were doing things all wrong. The Catholics were clearly doing it all wrong. And don't get us started on those Pentecostals who speak in tongues. There is a lot more detail to add yet one thing is for sure, certainty was a central part of my Christian community.
My childhood Christian community was certain. Certain that their view of the Bible, how they did things on Sundays mornings, what (or who) they counted as sinful was certain. They were certain that they were clear eyed when they read the Bible and walked away with the same conclusions they came to the text with. My tribe might say "We are not the only Christians but Christians only" yet our actions said differently.
This kind of certainty creates a strong bond of solidarity. The church I grew up in instilled a strong fear of society. Society, I was told, didn't really like Jesus and just like the early church suffered for Jesus we too suffer for Jesus. Our certainty about our doctrines (among other things we were certain about) gave a kind of bond to our community. We were bonded in solidarity against society at large as well as against those who viewed the Bible differently.
I am probably describing something that you might have already experienced in life. Perhaps what you already know in your bones is that fundamentalism (be it right or left leaning) is all about a particular psychology not a healthy theology.
For sure the world is a legit scary place and offering folks certainty and solidarity is a lifeline. When marriages are on the rocks it is a lifeline to be told that reading the Bible and prayer will fix things. When parents are concerned about the harmful ways of society the solidarity of a community is priceless. In a world full of uncertainty someone offering you certainty and solidarity is such a comforting thing. Certainty attempts to simplify our complex selves and world into nice neat categories and labels.
Let the reader understand there are all kinds of problems with offering people this kind of theological certainty. For one thing this kind of theological certainty has little to offer folks in a world that often does not come at us in black and white but in shades of grey. It also creates all kinds of other issues like what happens when you pray with your spouse and yet your marriage still fails. Is that God's fault or your failure to not have enough faith in God? What happens when you "“train up a child in the way he should go" (Pro. 22:6) and yet when they are older they depart from it?
Regrettably what fundamentalism also offers is a lot of harm. You know you are dealing with a fundamentalist mindset when asking questions is deemed a threat. There have been books, podcasts, blogs, videos and social media posts from all kinds of people young and old alike who have bravely told their hurt filled story when dealing with fundamentalist cultures. One of the reasons that many people are choosing to describe themselves as a "None" is because they are turned off by churches that can't handle some honest questions.
Mix the fundamentalist mindset with the effects of the Big Sort and we have a society that has an inability to have meaningful conversations about things that matter.
“Whatever your identity, background, or political ideology, you will be happier, healthier, stronger, and more likely to succeed in pursuing your own goals if you do the opposite of what Misoponos advised. That means seeking out challenges (rather than eliminating or avoiding everything that “feels unsafe”), freeing yourself from cognitive distortions (rather than always trusting your initial feelings), and taking a generous view of other people, and looking for nuance (rather than assuming the worst about people within a simplistic us-versus-them morality).” ― Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
Gordon Ramsay has a point
Have ever watched the show Kitchen Nightmares featuring the famous British chef Gordon Ramsay? My wife and I like to watch the show. Each episode follows the same pattern. Gordon is invited to help a struggling restaurant. He then evaluates the food and habits of those working at the restaurant. What Gordon often finds is that the restaurant is struggling for a host of reasons. The food is bland and not cooked well. There are bad habits that are being ignoring which is causing all kind of problems.
There is typically all kinds of drama. There is lots of yelling and cursing. Family members are often at odds with other family members. Spoiled gross food is often discovered in the walk-in refrigerator. Gordon challenges the bad habits and dysfunctional systems that are the root causes of all the dysfunction.
The last bit of the show is all about Gordon offering the restaurateurs a new vision for what could be. Gordon often creates a new menu and updates the restaurant with some new interior decorations. If the restaurateurs keep up with their new habits, healthy systems and new menu the restaurant will no longer be a nightmare. Instead it can thrive and become something life giving.
While there is much about Gordon's approach (yelling, belittling, scapegoating to name a few) that I find unhelpful he does have a point. The point is bad habits, dysfunction and toxic relationships needed to be named instead of denied.
A while back there seemed to be a lot of ministers, church leaders and some Christian college professors that I knew that all started using the same little phrase. It was often said loudly and went something like . . . I love the bride of Christ so stop dumping on the church. This sentiment was making the rounds years before the term deconstruction or nones started to pop up.
The point was that folks needed to be a bit kinder and more graceful to the church. The phrase also is meant as a kind of warning. It was meant to remind you that when you are critical of the church you were picking on the bride of Christ. Do you really want to do that? How happy do you think it makes Jesus when your critical of his bride?
My fear is that there are a lot of bad habits, dysfunction and toxicity that are being denied in too many churches. Keep in kind Jesus himself offered up his critique of a few churches. He named what was being denied. Just read the opening chapters of the Book of Revelation. Here are a few of my Gordon Ramsay style critiques.
Simplify the Menu
Clean your kitchen
1. Shannon Sabo and Sandra Johnson, “Pandemic Disrupted Historical Mortality Patterns, Caused Largest Jump in Deaths in 100 Years,” Census.gov, April 13, 2022, https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/united-states-deaths-spiked-as-covid-19-continued.html#:~:text=Although%202021%20monthly%20data%20were,impact%20of%20the%20Delta%20variant.
2. Alison R. Huang PHD et al., “Social Isolation and 9‐year Dementia Risk in ... - Wiley Online Library,” Social isolation and 9-year dementia risk in community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries in the United States, March 2023, https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.18140.
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