Not Like Before by the Rev. Peter Jenks

      One in five American adults now have no religious affiliation, according to the report released Tuesday from the Pew Forum. This combined with news of religious fundamental-ism gaining more and more momentum around the world, from the Republican Christian fundamentalism in the United States to the Muslim brotherhood, to Hindu fundamentalism to radical Jewish settlers driving Palestinians from their land, is a sign of a major religious transformation. The presence of such a reaction reveals the power of the changes taking place, for with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The age of Constantinian Christianity, where church and state led the charge, ended in the last century with the end of the nation states and the rise of science and technology as our primary hopes for health, and knowledge. A hundred years ago it would have been unthinkable to imagine the nation state and influence of Israel; or the global effect of Buddhism – that there would be Buddhist Christians and Jews; that the majority of Muslims would be non Arab; or Hinduism as a worldwide faith and not just in India; or Europe as being barely, if at all, a Christian Continent. We are in changing times, not like a Reformation, but more like the birthing time of Christianity, or Buddhism.

What we are experiencing is nothing short of a complete rewiring of our collective soul. It is a time to be-ware of charlatans and charismatic demigods. It is a very rare time in human history when we have actually faced and understood our species as possibly becoming extinct because of the major changes we’ve inflicted upon our planet.

I have been following politics and the state of Michigan has been going through a major political transformation and upheaval. Liberals and conservatives are fighting each other for control, when it is not about either of their agendas. The state was a logging and farming state that suddenly became a major industrial center for the auto industry before the second World War. Now that industry has left and the state is being fundamentally redefined, it cannot go back to its industrial period, nor logging and farming as it once was, nor the frontier land be-fore that. It will be different from what we know and whoever is able to help the people of that state to see a positive and possible future will be the key for positive change for them. Many will try with good ideas and dreams of riches. Likewise, in religion, we cannot go backward as we move ahead, we cannot become a nation of Christian imperialism, nor a missionary venture to uncharted territories. We are moving into a different way of understanding ourselves.

Before I got married, a friend advised me; saying that whatever I thought it would be, it will not be that. This does not mean that God’s love, mercy, or forgiveness is any less than before. The structure, the institutions, the previous experience we may have known will not be the same. Redefining ourselves with new technology can be effective, but only if it is first initiated by a new experience of faith and grace. We need to receive again the vision, the connection and the oneness with the unrelenting passion and forgiveness of Christ. The Christian faith began by redefining the understanding of Judaism in a much broader, inclusive and renewed faithfulness to God.