A Church Dismantled--A Kingdom Restored: Recent Episodes
Conrad L. Kanagy
“Is God's Spirit dismantling the church because we have so failed God's mission?And if so, as I believe, how do we work with the Spirit rather than against the Spirit?" Prophetic or not, the idea I posited fifteen years ago of a dismantled church has only gained traction since I first posed it. The response to the podcast has been quite unexpected, now with more than 72,000 episodes downloaded in 102 countries and more than 2,700 cities. The podcast seems to particularly resonate with those on the run from the church and feel alienated or marginalized by the church. The podcast has allowed me to draw upon nearly three decades of teaching sociology, thirty-five years of sociological research, fifteen years of church and denominational consulting, twenty years of ministry, my childhood and coming of age in a conservative Mennonite/Amish community, and my diagnosis three years ago of Parkinson’s Disease. Most recently I have written the first biography of Walter Brueggemann entitled "Walter Brueggemann and the Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography" (Fortress Press, 2023). You can follow the development and release of the book, get access to my private pages, and subscribe to my blog for 4.95 annually at www.centerforpropheticimagination.org.
This insightful and stirring interview with two of the last half-century's most biblically-based prophetic voices. Pre-order Jim's new book The False White Gospel and receive an invitation to a Zoom book-talk with Jim, hosted by Conrad Kanagy. Pre-order and email kanagycl@etown.edu for the Zoom event link, scheduled for March 18 at 7 p.m. EST. If you cannot join us live you can still receive event recording if you pre-order! Below is a description of the book and a link to pre-order.
My new book, The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy was written for this critical moment. I have put everything into this one. Publishers Weekly just called it an “ardent manifesto” that “promises to be a conversation starter in church groups and beyond.” I hope and pray so. It will be published on April 2, the Tuesday after Easter, by Essentials, a part of St. Martin’s. They are putting a lot into this too, with a ten to twelve city book tour for the first weeks followed by “town meetings on faith and democracy” around the country, through the spring, early summer, and fall.
This book is much more than another critique of white Christian nationalism–which is carefully summarized at the beginning. Centrally, it reframes and refreshes iconic biblical texts with the words of Jesus to help guide us to a future of genuine multiracial democracy, ending with an undergirding vision of a new American church, which I call a remnant church.
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Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!
I am delighted to interview my editor from Fortress Press about his new book on writing. No one has done more to call out my inner voice as a writer. He will be part of a free webinar this week, February 7 with well-known reporter Mark Wingfield . An excerpt from the book is below and a podcast link to our interview.
This book seeks to awaken the inner poet. Whether it can remains to be seen. The odds certainly stacked against it, as such stirring proves a tall order. Books rarely make poets of people. Life does that. But roused, the fantastic beckons, and the ordinary never again satisfies. The mundane only triggers deeper discontent, a restlessness about what can be found over the fence. This book more likely finds an earnest welcome with writing already self-conscious, but which also suffers constant ache. The book aspires to disrupt, to prod, to encourage, to grant full permission, to fortify resolve, to bolster. At the same time the book requests forgiveness of writing much further down the path. Such writing smiles knowingly. The book begs patience, even indulgence. It holds no illusions. It knows itself. The book draws upon the innocent belief that all are poets, even and especially the noetic, and all writing is poetry—even and especially the noetic.
The book decries conformity or converts—but neither turns its back to any. All welcome. But fair warning: disappointment awaits those supposing the hunt for writing’s Muse a simple matter. Writing pairs life. Writing’s habitus mirrors life’s complexities. Both life and writing reside just beyond the grasp. But the analogical extends well beyond asymmetrical. Being a poet comes at a cost. Writing demands sacrifice. Capricious readers wooed only by writing authored in a poet’s own blood. No true poet can hide behind their words, for poets are their words. Writing’s miracle transubstantiates the merely semiotic into the fully symbiotic. Writing meddles with primal mysteries, it strikes a bargain with Fate. But to write opens wide the door of self for all to peer in—just as it is to live. Poets live to write and write to live. They put themselves in, and on, the line. There can be no other.
To register for webinar
To order The Mango Tree
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Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!
This episode begins a "reboot" of this podcast as I have published Walter Brueggemann's biography and have been named Editor of three current or forthcoming books by Brueggemann. The biography is on sale at Amazon for 15.47 and The Emancipation of God for 28.00. Study guides for both are free at http://www.achurchdismantle.org
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Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!
Despite my efforts, the Spirit just continues to keep this podcast going!
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https://www.buzzsprout.com/2169378 for new Walter Brueggemann podcast
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1923064 for Growing Old at Mid-Life podcast
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You may make a donation and receive the two books that contain this Advent series at no cost. Donate at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
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Preorder the Brueggemann biography "Walter Brueggemann's Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography" and email Dr. Conrad Kanagy who will register you for a free six hour course (on audio and live) on the life and work of Walter Brueggemann. Preorders are not charged until delivery of the book. Thank you!
You may make a donation and receive the two books that contain this Advent series at no cost. Donate at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
Would you be willing to rate this podcast?
Support the show
Purchase the pre-released biography of Walter Brueggemann entitled "Walter Brueggemann's Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography and receive a zoom link for a webinar with author Conrad Kanagy on Thursday, February 16 at 8 p.m. EST. This will be recorded for those who cannot attend. I will also provide a membership to my website www.centerforpropheticimagination (9.95 value) where I will post a short monthly video through August addressing some aspect of Brueggemann's life and work. And I welcome questions by email in advance. If you pre-order the book let me know at kanagy.conrad@gmail.com to receive zoom link and membership!
You may make a donation and receive the two books that contain this Advent series at no cost. Donate at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
Would you be willing to rate this podcast?
Support the show
You may make a donation and receive the two books that contain this Advent series at no cost. Donate at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
Would you be willing to rate this podcast?
Support the show
You may make a donation and receive the two books that contain this Advent series at no cost. Donate at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
Would you be willing to rate this podcast?
Support the show
Maybe it's time to reconsider our teaching about grace and the God of grace!
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In the words of Howard Thurman, preacher and early civil rights activist who profoundly impacted Mennonite civil rights leader Vincent Harding, Jesus came for those "whose backs were against the wall."
To hear four additional episodes this week subscribe for 2.99/month at Apple Podcasts or www.centerforpropheticimagination.org
Available for 2.99 per month with 7 day trial. Only on Apple Podcasts.
Walter Brueggemann hopes he is most remembered for his work on the psalms of lament. Why? The episode also considers a friendly conversation between the older scholar Brueggemann and a younger theologian at the time--Rolf Jacobson of Luther Seminary. And we reflect on what the Black Church long ago taught us about the power of praise and lament.
To read more about my critique of the Mennonite Church USA 2021 Membership Survey subscribe to my daily blog and website at www.centerforpropheticimagination.org.
Interested in knowing more about my forthcoming biography of Walter Brueggemann? Or more about unpublished Brueggemann materials? Or why and how the study and practice of the prophetic imagination can impact you and your religious community? Enroll for 4.95 annually at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org!
Interested in knowing more about my forthcoming biography of Walter Brueggemann? Or more about unpublished Brueggemann materials? Or why and how the study and practice of the prophetic imagination can impact you and your religious community? Enroll for 4.95 annually at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org!
Access my subscriber-only new website entitled A Center for the Study and Practice of Prophetic Imagination at www.centerforpropheticimagination.org for 4.95 annually.
Access my subscriber-only new website entitled A Center for the Study and Practice of Prophetic Imagination at www.centerforpropheticimagination.org for 4.95 annually.
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
From time to time I will offer a "cross-over" podcast that lists in both A Church Dismantled as well as Imagination Restor(i)ed. I do this as a way of acknowledging all of my listeners--both subscribed and unsubscribed--but also to let those of you who are unsubscribed to the new podcast and the Center for the Study and Practice of Prophetic Imagination aware of some of what you will find there. You can check out the new Center and subscribe for 9.95 annually at https://centerforpropheticimagination.org.
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to all future episodes for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
To subscribe to the new podcast and other resources for 9.95 annually go to https://centerforpropheticimagination.org
Many folks assume that after 50 years at Sojourners, they know what Jim Wallis will say. In this excerpt and the full version that is part of the podcast "Imagination Restor(i)ed," you will hear Jim fully identify as an Evangelical, call this a Bonhoeffer moment for a new Confessing Church, and note that we must go "neither left nor right but deeper." For the subscription to this and one full year of podcasts like this subscribe for 9.95 at https://poynt.godaddy.com/checkout/415bf8c0-3554-4af3-a592-a5934c760734/ImaginationRestoried.
Ethan Shearer has been a popular guest on this show and I have asked him to step in for me for a few weeks. Here is his first episode!
Friends, based on your feedback which I have appreciated so much I am going to take the following steps. I will continue to share these monologue blog posts for free and perioidically bundle them in both Kindle and paper back form. The most recent of these entitled "What in God's Name is Happening to the Church" is twenty-five essays from this Spring. I am going to keep the Ebook price at 1.99 and just self-published the collection in paperback for 5.99 with free prime shipping through Amazon. You can order the Kindle or paperback at this tab. I am currently working on two more for this series.
Order Kindle or Paperback
Second, I will be producing a "subscription-only" series entitled "Dismantling and Restoring: 1517-2025." This series will consist of bi-weekly interviews with a theologian or historian who will address what some have called the last major dismantling that resulted in the Protestand Reformation. I am beginning with 1517 because of Luther's 95 theses and ending with 2025 when the believer's church, and particularly Anabaptists celebrate their 500th anniversary. I have become particularly interested in this period through my study of German pietism related to Walter's biography and this research has put me in touch with many scholars, pastors, and theologians in the Lutheran and Calvinist tradition. And of course, as an Anabaptist I am excited about the upcoming celebration. The focus of this series will be on the European origins but will also expand to see how these movements have impacted other parts of the world. I have been invited to a small conference of German and American pastors and scholars in July to present a paper entitled Walter Brueggemann: From the Prussian Union to Prophetic Imagination."
Subscribers to this series will receive a recorded copy of that presentation as well as other related "extras" including several live roundtable gatherings throughout the year. The series will run from August 1, 2022 through July 31, 2023 and may be renewed after that. All recordings of interviews will be distrubuted on Tuesday mornings bi-weekly. Subscribers will also receive free admission to al webinars of "A Church Dismantled." All of these events will be produced as YouTube and podcast recordings for subscribers only. Cost for the year is 150.00 and those who have subscribed to the five webinars this Fall will be automatically included without further cost. The link to subscribe by July 15 is below. Thank you friends for your encouragement and support and great ideas!
To register for 1517-2025 Series
In this interview, retired Professor of History from Goshen College, describes his new role as Director of the Anabaptist Bible Project of Menno Media. John describes the value of this project, how it is uniquely Anabaptist, how Anabaptist congregations can have a voice in this project, and how to support the project. This is an exciting initiative and John and I will check in several times over the next three years to catch up on how things are going!
I have recently created a new podcast sponsored by Mennonite Health Services, Stewardship Advisors, Landis Communities, and Garden Spot Village. The initial sessions are on storytelling as we age, and the importance of doing so. I've worked with students for thirty years on this kind of activity, and am now in the throes of telling Walter Brueggeman's marvelous, mysterious, and divine life story.
You may access the podcast at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1923064 which currently has three episodes. Over time you will begin hearing the voices of others more than mine--older folks writing and telling their stories, undergrads from Etown College relaying the stories of elderly but dearly loved grandparents, caregivers, physicians, and gerontologists. I also offer a six-week (12 hours total) workshop on storytelling that you can enroll for 100.00 at this link. The workshop will begin toward the end of July and run through December. The sessions will be audio and video recorded so if you can't attend any or all you can still purchase the recordings. The link for registering is here https://poynt.godaddy.com/checkout/415bf8c0-3554-4af3-a592-a5934c760734/agingstories,
This concludes the conversation that pastor and scholar Ethan Miller shared at our last Church Dismantled webinar. To register for the remaining five go to www.achurchdismantled.com.
To order Ethan's full presentation and provocative responses during Q and A, order the audio recording at https://poynt.godaddy.com/checkout/415bf8c0-3554-4af3-a592-a5934c760734/Wherearethekids
To register for tomorrow's webinar or order the recording that continues to reflect on the church and our youth go to https://poynt.godaddy.com/checkout/415bf8c0-3554-4af3-a592-a5934c760734/Wherearethekids
For a lot more of my thoughts about the youth in a dismantled church, register for the May 6 webinar or recording here.
To register for the May 6 webinar where Ethan will a guest along with Rev. Amy Shorner-Johnson, Chaplain of Elizabethtown College, and several students go to https://poynt.godaddy.com/checkout/415bf8c0-3554-4af3-a592-a5934c760734/Wherearethekids
A Church Dismantled—A Kingdom Restored:
An Updated and Exciting Schedule of Six Webinars for 2022!!
Webinars are scheduled for Fridays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. EST. Registration cost for all six webinars is 180.00 IF registering by May 5, and includes both video and audio recordings following the event. Registration for a single webinar is $45.00 (with recordings included). Those who wish to purchase the recordings ONLY may do so for $75.00 for all six (video and audio) or $15.00 for a single webinar. To register go to Webinars.
Each webinar has a similar format (more or less):
- A Scripture text that frames the day
- Conrad will present an overview of the topic
- Keynote presentations and/or interviews with scholars and church leaders
- Response from one or more pastors
- Substantial engagement with the audience
- An optional reading assignment to prepare for the day
May 6 “Where are the kids in A Church Dismantled?”Rev. Amy Shorner-Johnson
Chaplain and Director of Spiritual and Religious Life, Elizabethtown College
Ethan Shearer, M.Div.
Ordained United Methodist Pastor and Doctoral Student at the University of Virginia
Lauren Comley, Lucy Crug, and Pamela Pina
June 3 “Renovating the mission of God in A Church Dismantled”
Nelson Okanya, Doctoral student at Fuller Seminary
Global Missions President at Center for Serving Leadership
Others TBD
Sept. 9 “Confronting religious trauma in A Church Dismantled”
Leah Thomas, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Contextual Education, Anabaptist Biblical Seminary
Kathleen O’Connor, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Columbia Theological Seminary
Louis Stulman, Ph.D.
Professor of Religious Studies, Findlay University
Oct. 8 “Recovering evangelical pietism in A Church Dismantled”
Frederick Trost, M.Div.
Scott Holl, M.A., M.L.I.S.
Archivist, Eden Seminary
Mike Brickzin, M.Div.
Nov. 4 “Growing older and wiser in A Church Dismantled”
Christine Roy Yoder, Ph.D., J. McDowell Richards Professor of Biblical Interpretation, Columbia Theological Seminary
Team of leaders from Garden Spot Village, New Holland, PA (Steve Lindsey, Chief Exective Officer; Scott Miller, Chief Marketing Officer, Karyn Nancarvis, Chaplain, Chet Yoder, Director of Pastoral Care)
Dec. 2 “Faith Formation—and Back to the Bible--in A Church Dismantled”
Rev. Clover Reuter Beal M.Div.
Co-Pastor at Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church, Denver, CO
Rev. David Stabenfeldt
Retired Pastor, First Congregational Church, Bakersfield, CA
Ken Quiring (tentative)
Pastor, Grace Mennonite Church, Brandon, MB
And excerpt from the April 1 "Jesus in the Mainline" webinar. To purchase the four hour podcast of the event for 9.95 go to https://poynt.godaddy.com/checkout/415bf8c0-3554-4af3-a592-a5934c760734/AudioPodJesus. I will send the mp3 link upon receipt of payment. Check out the remaining webinars below and register at the same link for 180.00.
The strong response to the resourcing opportunities that I have offered over the past few months has encouraged me to move in the direction of establishing a schedule of webinars and workshops for the remainder of the year. Each is scheduled on a Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. EST. These are broadly ecumenical learning communities where I say we are “classroom and not church!”
The schedule and topics of webinars are:
May 6 “Where are the kids in A Church Dismantled?”
June 3 “Confronting religious trauma in A Church Dismantled”
August 5 “Dismantling racism in a A Church Dismantled”
September 9 “Renovating the mission of A Church Dismantled”
October 14 “Looking for leaders in A Church Dismantled”
November 4 “Growing old in A Church Dismantled”
December 2 “Forming faith in A Church Dismantled”
What do C.S. Lewis and Walter Brueggemann have in common? More than most have any idea!
This excerpt is from the April 1 webinar "Jesus in the Mainline." To order the full day long recording go to https://achurchdismantled.com/webinars-1.
Today I will begin widely publicizing the webinars for 2022 and this excerpt is from the Jesus in the Mainline webinar where I introduce my assumptions and expectations for these learning communities. The schedule and topics of webinars are:
May 6 “Where are the kids in A Church Dismantled?”
June 3 “Confronting religious trauma in A Church Dismantled”
August 5 “Dismantling racism in a A Church Dismantled”
September 9 “Renovating the mission of A Church Dismantled”
October 14 “Looking for leaders in A Church Dismantled”
November 4 “Growing old in A Church Dismantled”
December 2 “Forming faith in A Church Dismantled”
Cost of each webinar is 60.00 and registration will always include a copy of the recorded webinar. Cost of the webinar recording for those not in attendance is 45.00. Attendance at the live events are limited to 100 participants. You may reserve your space for all seven events for the cost of 250.00 if paid by April 20. This will guarantee your participation in the live event. Those who register early will also receive a free copy of my fifth and forthcoming book in the series entitled What in God’s Name is Happening to the Church? to be released in the Summer, 2022. You may register at https://achurchdismantled.com/webinars-1.
In this excerpt from a recent webinar, of which the full five hour long video recording can be purchased at www. achurchdismantled.com, Conrad responds to the question of "How long must the church be dismantled?"
I recorded this interview with Professor Brueggemann as part of today's (April 1) webinar entitled "Jesus in the Mainline." You may order the entire five hour webinar recording for 40.00 at https://poynt.godaddy.com/checkout/415bf8c0-3554-4af3-a592-a5934c760734/MainlineJesusWeb. The webinar also includes a recorded interview with Tripp Fuller of Homebrewed Christianity.
In this episode I challenge those who have challenged my theology of ecclesial and personal dismantling, and that the costs of not being dismantled far outweigh those of submitting to the most loving hands we will ever know.
In this episode I reflect on a recent conversation with Walter Brueggeman about his ongoing love for the church despite the mess it is.
An update about all things Church Dismantled and a reminder to subscribe for updates and blog posts at www.achurchdismantled.com, and a podcast episode about a new author I've found and quickly come to identify with. And so should the church!
With the podcast on pause while I write, I encourage you to pick up the free book entitled "What in God's Name is Happening to the Church" that gives an overview of the forthcoming four book series and that offers 14 chapters across the four books of that series. And I invite you to let a review of that book and also to subscribe to my email updates at www.achurchdismantled.com. The Kindle book is free through August 6.
This week of June 14-19 begins a six episode series that summarize much of what I have been teaching, preaching and podcasting for the last 25 years regarding race and racism in the United States. I created these episodes originally as videos that can be found on my You Tube channel along with study guides at www.achurchdismantled.com. The impetus for these episodes came out of my continued concern for the misinformation that has been spread by many in the church about the nature of racism, its continued perpetuation and impact, and my deep conviction that of all people, we who follow Jesus must be doing all we can to confront the failure of the church historically as well as its continued failures to address the multitude of ways that systemic racism continues to be manifested—from slavery to Jim Crow to housing discrimination, to mass incarceration of Black men and boys, to police brutality, and now to a fierce reaction to so-called critical race theory. These episodes were intended for those who are looking for a Biblical response to racism and a Biblical response to those who continue to sustain racism’s inequities and division. Thank you for joining for this series, and I pray that it will both enlighten, inform and give you the courage you need to be a voice in this ongoing confrontation of the principalities and powers that one day will be defeated as we continue the grand excavation project of the Spirit to lower mountains, raise valleys, make rough places a plain and crooked places straight. And don’t forget to look for further resources on my You Tube Channel as well as at www.achurchdismantled.com.
In this episode, I discuss a recent conversation with a friend who wanted to know whether I was drifting from my Christian orthodoxy. Here is an excerpt:
"As the church is dismantled, the categories and labels we created for one another are being exposed for the lunacy that they are. And as a sociologist and a church leader, I as much as any am guilty of propagating them. But they have damaged and destroyed long enough. How can we expect two categories--conservative and liberal--or any other number, to come even close to defining who one is in dismantled church where division and disunity have created hundreds of different denominational and religious groups. It would seem that the categories we hang on to are nothing more than ways of saying to everyone else that I am "'not like the other.'"
Last weekend, on PBS, I watched an interview with Yo-Yo-Ma, undoubtedly the best cellist at that trade for decades, whose fame began as early as the age of seven when he played for President John F. Kennedy. Decades later, he helped many a person through the season of COVID-19 with his beautiful album "Songs of Comfort."
But there is not an ounce of arrogance in Yo-Yo-Ma. Indeed, he is spending these latter years of his career trying to bring a divided country together and to encourage the development of musical gifts among budding young musicians. Yo-Yo-Ma bemoaned the tragedy of what he and the host described as that "cemetery of amateur musicians," where so many who began music lessons as children and even became pretty good at their trade, buried their talents and walked away from their passion. Why? Because, said Yo-Yo-Ma, "of the development of recordings." He noted that before we could record music, if we wanted to hear a piece we had to sing it or play it ourselves or spend time with other singing and playing folks. But professional recordings made us all consumers rather than players and participants. Thus the cemeteries and thus the lost gifts and so many who could have become really good at their trade.
In both of these examples I think of the church and how we move forward after the dismantling and as part of the grand excavation project of Isaiah 40. What have we been doing that has been about following the rules of supposed success, passed down to us from a past in which those rules functioned well but in this moment of dismantling are now irrational, and can we now let go of those things? What have we picked up from the modern world and other social institutions that should never have been part of what it meant to be the people of God, and can we now let go of those things? To what degree have we absorbed the cultural fog of the last 300 years of American culture with it violence, systemic racism, personal independence, individualism, a syncretic faith that mixes God with country? The sense that bigger is always better and that mega this and mega that are the metrics of success? The sense that church services must be perfected within a 45 minute window in which only the best get to sing and play and preach and teach? Where children are seen as consumers of religious products rather than collaborators and participants with us in lowering mountains, raising valleys, making rough places smooth, and crooked places straight?
Monger was born in Nebraska and lived her formative years there, until at age 19 she and her family apparently admitted defeat and returned home to the Valley. But for whatever reason, as a young woman, Monger never joined the Old Order Amish church and eventually became the homemaker for widower Joseph Renno. Eventaully they would marry and have two sons--Erie and Paul. Erie was my grandfather who in previous podcasts I have spoken of as "Pap," overseer and dearly loved minister at Locust Grove Mennonite Church within the Conservative Mennonite Conference.
I was just seven when Monger died. She and I share the same birth date though separated by nearly 80 years. I remember Monger for her molasses cookies and her sugar cookies, and her sitting on her rocking chair braiding rugs. She was one of the saints, and I also remember her for being part of the older women's "Amen" corner in our old wooden church structure, where as we sang hymns from "Life Songs" and the "Church and Sunday School Hymnal," always in acapella and without accompaniment, the voices of the older women always rose above those of the rest of us and always sounded as if they would break through the rafters into heaven itself. This was especially true when we sang those beautiful old hymns about heaven that seem to have disappeared from our worship today--Marching to Zion, Sweet Beulah Land, There is a fair and happy land...and many more. Their high voices were hauntingly beautiful, almost a screeching at times, but a beautiful screeching from many who widowed, were looking into heaven itself, And never more so when we sang "For God so Loved Us He Sent the Savior," first in English and then in German "Gott is Dei Liebe..." And in those moments all of us saw into heaven if we had any eyes at all.
I have to confess that as both a sociologist of religion and a follower of Jesus, I have long assumed that the European church--Anabaptist and otherwise--was at the tail end of the procession of the saints, disappearing into the secular culture and society of its surroundings while churches within the U.S. and the Global South were those with greater vitality. And perhaps there is some truth to that in terms of the assumption of vitality, however one can best measure that.
But after my interview with Henk Stenvers and reading his essay "Walking on Water," which later today I will place on my website at www.achurchdismantled.com, I recognize that I failed to appreciate what the Spirit was up to in the European church and the value of what this church has to teach the rest of us. For let us give this church the credit for being around longer than any other Anabaptist community (one must add the Swiss movement as well to this short list of long-haulers), and so it is somewhat arrogant for the rest of us in the global church to assume that by the time our Anabaptist communities reach their 500th birthday that we will be any different or in any better condition than our European brothers and sisters.
As I've noted this week, I am now confident that the U.S. church is much closer to the experience of our European cousins than I had thought in the past. The difference for us is that we continue to deny our dying and have found ways to do so pretty effectively. As I've noted in the past, Richard Halverson argued that once the church got to the U.S., it became an enterprise. There is good reason that sociologist talk about the American church in terms of an ecclesiological marketplace, with church shopping and church switching only making it easier to eventually bail out of church all together.
The U.S. church has continued to be able to deny its dying by creating new programs, building megachurches which like malls, only led to the death of the small community churches or "mom and pop" shops. There is no evidence that megachurches have increased church going in the U.S. and to the contrary there is evidence that they have reduced a sense of church as a community of disciples. As I've noted before, its the MacDonaldization of American religion on my terms and at my convenience and customized to my preferences. But the rapid disappearances of malls these days, now undone by Amazon and Ebay and a host of other even more efficient enterprises points to the likelihood that megachurches themselves are but a temporary form of church that is likely to meets its demise when the products of church can be purchased at an even lower price and delivered more quickly.
The U.S. church continues to crank out one new religious program after another--as with most pastors I am bombarded with emails from so-called ministries that have the next best answer for whatever happens to ail our congregation at the moment and to resuscitate our last dying breath. It is so hard to let go, especially when church as commodity and church as capitalism keeps offering hope if we will just pay enough money to obtain it.
Which brings us back to the prophetic word of Henk Stenvers, Dutch Mennonite leader whose essay "Walking on Water" I have been relying upon for this week's series of essays. For what Stenvers reveals is a Dutch church which, because of its decline, has broken the power of formal rationality and church bureaucracy, leaving only the people of God in its wake. Stenvers notes the increasing irrelevance of churchly councils both locally at the congregational level and nationally at the denominational level. There are no longer enough members to attend the meetings or to fill the required positions.
In addition, as I have been arguing for fifteen years, the professional clergy model is disappearing. Congregations cannot afford to pay professional pastors, and so they are increasingly turning to lay leaders to guide the flock. And of course, with the formal bureaucracy gone, it is a less complicated job to care for that flock--fewer meetings to decide on the color of the carpet, to decide what time Sunday School will start, to plan worship services which become less complicated, to fill positions on ballots, to design new programs, and on and on. For indeed, all that is left is the people of God, and for all intents and purposes the iron cage has become irrelevant.
We can bemoan the loss of that cage these days and the fact that it just might be that the U.S. church is following the European model, or we can celebrate that we have finally been set free to be the people of God in the world that Jesus always intended for us to be--that the powers of Christendom have been broken, that the impacts of the Enlightenment minimized, and the Spirit just might break out anew as a result.
While I love hearing about the Spirit's movement in the global South, the rapid growth in churches, the new leaders being developed--quite honestly, in the cultural context within which I minister and live--I often find that news hard to relate to. For given the reality of the U.S. church and its context, it is unlikely that the Spirit will replicate what is occurring in the global South. And many of us live in such guilt and shame because our churches look so unlike those in the South.
But Henk's word makes it clear that the Spirit has not fled the European continent as we in the U.S. have sometimes been arrogantly prone to assume, and perhaps what offers us hope in Henk's word is that the the Spirit might just might be replicating that work in the U.S. as well--bringing us in barrenness to our knees and understanding once again that "though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea," there remains a "river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells." Or in the language of Judson Cornwall, though the mountains are leveled by God's Spirit, there will be a grand highway into that "holy place where the Most High dwells."
For the thing about the Spirit is that we never know where and when and how the Spirit moves and acts--and just as the European Anabaptists first led the rest of us into the radical reformation, they may also show us how to keep the flame lit when the darkness gathers round us and how to create a highway when the Spirit levels the sacred mountains.
A member of our congregation recently, with great sincerity but clearly troubled, asked me this question: "Conrad, are you suggesting that we shut down our congregation?" The answer for me is clearly "No." As I write day after day, I think often of our grandson Ezra, and how much I want for him to grow up in a community of faithful followers of Jesus and how thankful I am that his parents have chosen to be part of such a community.
My calling, as I sense it, is more descriptive of what is occurring in the church than prescriptive of what should be for any particular church. I trust the providence of the Almighty to bring to pass in his time the eschatological future that has already been prescribed in heaven.
What is so clear to me is that the church in the West/North is doing a pretty good job of shutting down itself--if one doesn't believe that, then one's eyes have to be closed. The Gallup recently reported that only 47 percent of Americans now belong to a church, mosque, or synagogue--down from 70 percent in just 1999. This figure had remained at about 70 percent for the preceding six decades.
So something is happening to the church in America. Despite twenty years of emphasis on missional church, despite forty years of Evangelical efforts to find an ally in the political right, despite being the nation with more Christian radio stations, television channels, and a host of other resources, Gallup also reports that thousands of congregations are closing yearly.
When I first left the ministry at Elizabethtown Mennonite Church in 2005, I said that what I needed was a theology of mission. And so I latched onto missional theology and the missional church movement and with Heidi came back to ministry in the same congregation in 2011. But what I have seen of the missional church movement over the past 20 years is what we in the American church are so good at doing--commodifying the Spirit's work, packaging it in fancy labels, making bold but false promises, offering expensive programs that offer celebrity speakers who are no longer engaged in mission themselves but talk a good game.
But as a recent Gallup survey has shown, across those same two decades the percentage of those who do not identify with religion has dramatically increased and now fewer than one-half of Americans are church members. And of course, this number is higher the more recent the generation. I hear from one church member and leader after another--my kids have dropped out of church. Folks, commodifying the mission of God has not brought our children home, nor our neighbors, nor our extended family members.
So it is no longer a theology of mission I am after, but a theology of dismantling--and I recently found it in a document written by Dutch Mennonite leader Henk Stenvers which he generously sent to me and gave permission to use as I wished. And so over the course of this week or so I will be drawing upon Henk's work, because after 35 years of research in American religion and 20 years of ministry and church consulting--Henk's is the best description and piece of work I have read that presents both an accurate sociological perspective of what is happening to the church in the West but also the most Biblical theological perspective that I have yet to read about how we are to respond to the Spirit's dismantling of the church in the West.
No, whether the church survives in the world, regardless of its theology and practice and beliefs otherwise, depends completely on which Jesus it takes with it into the world. And whether our children remain faithful depends on the same choice that we make. But as Dutch leader Henk Stenvers reminded us this week, there will always be a people of God regardless of whether one or another denomination survives the current storm, or whether your congregation or mine does so as well.
But we can't engage in the dismantling work of Isaiah 40 until we've been dismantled ourselves, until we've been stripped of any sense that we are the lucky ones, until we understand just how broken and crooked we are ourselves, until our hearts break for the brokenness in the world as if we were crying in pain for our own brokenness.
A listener asked me this week if I was suggesting that they shut the doors of their church and just give up--was that what I was saying? I replied that every fellowship of Jesus' followers must discern for themselves what the Spirit is saying. But I'm not sure how much of the decision is even in our hands, for the Spirit seems to be hard at work closing quite a few churches that have become narrow roads of the lucky ones rather than saints who in their love for a world that God so loved are hard at work on that multi-lane freeway that runs right into the heart of God!
Folks, I have a hunch that the Holy Spirit wants us to learn from the dismantled church in Europe, and as Henk said, to let go of the fear of disappearing. This was certainly the message of the Old Testament prophets who prophesized the devastation of God's people for reasons that now account for the church's devastation. For, said Isaiah, though only a stump remains, from that stump will grow a new shoot.
The problem for the American church that is an enterprise with Christian colleges, Christian publishers, Christian schools, Christian non-profits selling all kinds of products including Christian mission experiences, concerts, and church multiplication, Christian mission agencies, Christian television, and on and on, is that we have made our faith big business. We have commodified Jesus. We have as Halverson prophesied, made the thing an enterprise. And like so many enterprises, the thing we are selling becomes so much less important than the fact that at the end of the day we see a bottom line that is black rather than red. And surely we assume, health and wealth are evidences of God's blessing on our efforts. I'm not at all so sure these days that this is true.
Just maybe we are gaining the world and losing our souls.
What’s so interesting in this story in John 9 is the only person where their eyes open the entire time was the man who had been blind and whose social relationships and identity were being shredded and dismantled the longer the story goes. And yet, as these relationships and identity are being shredded and dismantled, a new identity is being formed in him and the only relationship that really matters anyway will also become a reality. The implications it seems to me are the same for we as individuals and for the church—despite rejection by those in the middle, the centers of influence and status and power, and though our former relationships and identity is shredded and stripped, we must keep our eyes open to the new realities that Jesus will create and build up within us, a reformed and transformed identity that he will give to us, and most of all the comfort of his own presence at just the time the bigwigs threw us out on our ear.
It is easy for we who are in the church to ignore those leaving the church in droves these days, and to point to their failures to assimilate to the church culture, their differences of agreement with our theology and practice, their pain and woundedness that kept them from forgiving and on and on. The problem is, that these are exactly the people that drew themselves to Jesus and to whom Jesus was drawn. There was a reason that wounded women so loved this man and that he loved them. While sociologists call such folks religious "nones" these days, I think of them as the diaspora whom Jesus is searching for, the sheep who he said are not yet in his fold, the children of God with his imprint upon them even if they don't know it.
I appreciate that while the friend who sent me the note above, though he was initially concerned, pushed through to hear what I had to say. For its not that I've discovered unorthodoxy regarding God's love, but rather that I've finally experienced what none other than that which the most beloved disciple described in his first epistle: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."
Or in Kanagy's paraphrase, "fear has to do with walking that fine line between obedience and grace, somehow thinking we can do so on our own." But the love that St. John describes, is that of the one who has fallen whole hog off the balance beam and is wallowing joyfully in a grace and a "love that will not let me go."
Which brings me to Henri Nouwen's thesis of the "wounded healer," and my long struggle with what I understood Nouwen to be saying--that as a leader it is important to reveal our weakness as sort of object lessons for others whom we are leading--but not completely let slip what a mess we truly are lest they sense the need to care for us and we become dependent on them for support. Which is all well and good if one can conceal one's brokenness and if one can keep the lid on the Spirit's dynamite. But what happens when the Spirit takes over? And what happens when one's weaknesses can't be covered over or concealed? What happens when in dismantling the church, the Spirit must begin by dismantling its leaders?
What I love about this hymn is, well, the wideness of God's love that it presents. Friends, I need a wide love, for I fall off the wagon way too often for anything otherwise. I hear often that the "Christian life is about walking a fine line--not getting too carried away with this grace thing and not getting caught in legalism." Friend, I walked that fine line for five decades and I can't do it anymore. In a sobriety test I've become too intoxicated with God's love to believe that I am capable of negotiating that line successfully nor do I believe that God expects me to live in such bondage.
Mercy, like grace was always described as getting what I did not deserve and justice getting what I deserved. But in an interview with Anita Garber, an emerging adult beginning a blog about adoption and African American identity, Anita asked: "Conrad, what is justice?"
For all I thought I knew about God's justice, I paused for awhile before finding myself saying: "Anita, I think justice is offering to every person what they deserve as human beings who have the imprint of God upon them. Offering every individual the dignity they deserve as one created in God's image." This was a new thought for me--that God's justice is perhaps not offering others what they deserve for "what they have done" but for "who they are" innately as God's child--whether they are aware of their being God's child or not.
Perhaps given the grand love that the Father had for his prodigal son, what he offered the son was not just "underserved favor" but what the Father simply understood that son was deserving of as his son, his child, despite what the son had done.
What I received from my father over the past two decades has helped to bring healing to the pain and torment I experienced in those tent revivals of George Brunk II. I am sure that George and others like him brought salvation to some and I have no doubt he believed he was doing God's will. But what I never experienced in those moments nor did I sense in the message or ethos of those meetings was the compassion, kindness, acceptance, protection and safety that I now find in my own father who over this year has "received me just as I am" and affirms that "this is my story and this is my song" just as it is.
And then the story Jesus' tells of the prodigal son who just as easily could be a daughter, who leaves home for hell, and with tail between their legs comes crawling back with more shame than they know what to do with, knowing they've screwed the whole thing up, only to be embraced by a Father who had never stopped looking for them, who when they finally showed up said nothing their being underserving about the massive party that the father was about to throw. No, the Father threw a party because the child he loved had finally come back home where he could be loved again. The Father threw a party because he could be a father to his son once again. The Father threw a party because his son who had been dead, he said, was now alive once again.
Friends, this if grace. Coming home again without being told what a failure I was. Being given new life without being reminded that it was I who had chosen to take that life in the first place. Being thrown a massive party in my honor simply because I am honored "just as I am, without one plea." Being loved extravagantly without a whiff of shame upon me.
Now this is good news I'd love to share.
As I face a classroom full of students who are in deep pain, who jokingly but not really, respond to "How are you doing" with "I'm dead," who more than ever struggle with anxiety and depression, and who claim gender identities not recognized in the church--I will not separate myself from them, I will not preach hell-fire and brimstone, and I will not militarize against them or their culture. For while for the last one hundred years the church could have been offering the good news of Jesus, we like Peter too often denied that we knew that Jesus. No, I will stay with my students who so much need the good news that over the past year I finally found. And if it took a pastor that many decades, why shouldn't I be patient with them. For if its not good news for them its also not good news for me.
I know that over the last year, some and perhaps many, assume I've gone soft on sin and have become lukewarm rather than hot and lost my first love. But I beg to differ. What I've rediscovered is the piety and deep love for Jesus of a grandfather's whose experience of that deep, broad, high, and lengthy love mirrored that of St. Paul the older he got.
Folks, I'm facing a horizon that I am much more aware of today than ever before. And as that horizon approaches, the hell-fire and brimstone preaching of George Brunk II and the condemning conformity of my home community, is simply receding in the light of the future glory that is coming into clearer view for me. And my goal, now more than ever, is to join the Spirit of God in excavating that Isaiah 40 highway so that as many as possible can come to experience the same love of that Spirit as I have over this past year.
The science of race became the science of eugenics, which advocated for the elimination of inferior persons or their offspring through whatever means necessary. It was the science of eugenics that Hitler and his scientists would borrow, along with its ideology, to support and implement their extermination campaign. And it is the same science that has been used at times to justify abortion in this country.
The seeds of the destruction of human life are the same--they came from the dismantling in Eden that would lead one brother to kill another. That seed continues to bear fruit in increasing volume these days, and the one thing that just might nip its bud would be the repentance and even reparations by the white church in response to the centuries of injustice experience by our Black brothers and sisters. But as long as statements like this are considered just political propaganda, the likelihood of such repentance is slim. And as long as the Sermon on the Mount is given the same short shrift, Jesus is unlikely to recognize an awful lot of we who claim to be saints on the day of his return.
Over the past year, the church had a chance in the midst of being dismantled, to gain traction with God, to be re-mantled by turning toward God's loving face from which the Psalmist says we can never, never flee.
But we turned instead to Donald Trump, to the safety of judges on the Supreme Court, to a march on Washington D.C. in Jesus' name no less (talk about taking the Almighty's name in vain), and gave our attention and allegiance to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, theories ungrounded in reality, and demands that being unmasked is our civil rights.
And in the meantime, we called those who cared for the poor, who offered hope to those in the LGBTQ community, who opened their church doors as sanctuaries for immigrant children, who defended the brutality of police officers against African American men who have been justifiably running from the police for three centuries--we called these the culturally compromised ones. Those who offered, like Jesus, a covering of wholeness and healing and forgiveness and grace and love--who offered the dismantled ones no less than a new divine mantle--were suddenly the compromised ones.
And so who can blame the lead zebra or shepherd from deciding that the cost of running for their life from lions outside the fold might be less than cost of being beaten up by the zebras or sheep in the fold. Yes, shepherds are called by Jesus to protect the sheep, but I don't believe that Jesus expected the sheep to jeopardize their own health and protection by beating up the lead zebra or shepherd. It might be healthy for the sheep to understand that without the lead zebra or shepherd, they still have themselves to deal with.
Today's evangelical youth are fleeing the church. Those who are staying are often, according to an article in this month's Christianity Today, choosing to cohabitate, engage in premarital sexual activity, and likely other behaviors that the church has historically frowned upon. The part of that article that bothered me the most was the sheer lack of understanding of the power of the culture that our youth are growing up in and how that culture, much more than the teaching of the church has now been internalized. And as Christian Smith and his colleagues point out in Lost in Transition, his excellent study of emerging adults, our kids are only acting out of the faith they got from their evangelical parents and their evangelical churches. Oh we can blame our kids, but we are the ones who taught them so well.
Slowly and over time, I began to understand that what the church had done and does so still, was to mantle the truth, to declare one thing but to be comfortable with something else, to market a product but with false advertising, to claim that the naked emperor was wearing a fine plain suit and his wife a starched bonnet, but I could see that underneath was something else altogether. It was seeing the mantles of the church that saved me from giving up on God, and I suspect I will spend the rest of my days in this church dismantling work if it means that one more person just might be set free as I have been freed over this past year--set free by the One who so dismantled the religious arrogance and edifices of his day that while it would cost his life, it would save the world from the "church" of his day.
I know I've been beating this zebra and lion meme to death--I even dreamt of a lion last night. But after my moving interview with John Sharp about the abduction and death of his son Michael, a United Nations peacekeeper in the Republic of the Congo, I can't help but think about the possibility that this little zebra had left the fold of the righteous in order to get on with the mission of God.
So if we are all wandering sheep, continually leaving the fold, why would we point fingers at that one in the meme who does so. Folks, it's this kind of message that makes the church such an unsafe place for so many people, including our children. For rather than spending so much time gawking at who is leaving the fold, we'd be better off examining our own hearts while we are in the fold. For being among a herd of zebras has never proven to insure that each zebra is walking the straight and narrow. Being in the fold is no promise that the one who comes to kill, steal and destroy won't find his way into our hearts.
I think of my faith journey. In the past decade, my faith has unraveled till barely a thread remains fluttering in the breeze.
Actor Kerry Washington said in an NPR interview with Terry Gross, "I practice acts of faith to engender faith." That seems to describe my present state. I don't know if God is there or if God cares but I continue to line up before the hoop to shoot. My shots (acts of faith) only make it a fraction of the distance. I don't hear from God. I don't "know" things of which I was formerly convinced. Still, I continue to line up and make my shots. I know this: that I love the story of Jesus even if in the end, it's just a story among many stories.
I had it so wrong. It was the prodigals who led me home, not the oldest sons or daughters. It was the prodigals who taught me that I was as broken as they were, or rather who made it safe for me to acknowledge my brokenness. It was and remains in the world so often that I see and experience the evidence of God's goodness and grace and compassion and acceptance, moreso than is sometimes true in the church.
I wonder, as I get emails and messages from so many folks these days who read and listen to what I'm writing, if some of their reasons for fleeing the church aren't in fact not that far removed from those I've just described, and if this flight for some isn't perhaps the only way to their soul's renewal and a new and likely first discovery of a God who loves them just as they are! And that they're leaving the church might be the first step towards finding their rest in the arms of that loving God whose power, presence and grace are not restricted to the church.
When I asked someone I trust why the church has retrenched and hunkered down, his response was immediate, "because evangelicals lost the Presidential election." Our local ministerium leader likes to call the progressive churches in the community the "compromised churches." And yet it was the uncompromised churches in our town that charted four buses to attend the rally that turned into an insurrection on January 6. I grieve a church that takes upon itself the task of separating the goats from the sheep by calling out compromised versus uncompromised. I'm afraid some of us are going to be very surprised when the Matthew 25 reckoning occurs--for indeed there was lots of surprise going around that day. And there's nigh a word about defending our rights or protecting our favored position for those on the right were too busy doing real Kingdom work to care about what they gained or lost:
And the last thing I would consider doing would be to show them that illustration of a lone zebra on the run from a lion. Instead I will show them the painting that Heidi has in our church office--of a Shepherd walking among a flock of sheep, holding one in his arms. That one he rescued from the lion, that one who left the church because the church didn't understand, that one whom church leaders abused, that one who those in youth group taunted, that one of color who the white sheep told "just get over it," but that one that Jesus never lost sight of and never stopped chasing down.
But I so often think it’s in the ordinary moments of our lives when the holy shows up if we have ears to hear and eyes to see it. The holy seems to hide when we build up our expectations and then sweeps us of our feet when we least expect it. Either way, the point is, as the resurrection stories show us, Jesus just keeps showing up until we’ve got to decide to open the door or put up our “closed to the divine sign” up that we’ve all got stashed somewhere in our closets.
As evangelicals these days, the mantra of "Jesus is God" has become a kind of weapon that we brandish against others and other faiths. It has been our way of crusading once again against those of lesser faiths, those who have embraced partial truths, those who have chosen other ways to heaven. I for one do not deny an ounce of Jesus' divinity, but that's not exactly what we see Jesus promoting much of the time. In fact, he was often shy about his origins. "Don't tell anyone," he said or "if you say so." But gathering a bunch of rebel rousers with Jesus flags flying and marching on the Roman Senate building was the last thing in his mind. Those who do so are from such a different kingdom than Christ's
Friends, we can never hit the mark of the law, but we can always turn our gaze back to Jesus. And when we do we will always find him smiling at us, never rebuking us because we missed that damn mark again, never criticizing us for failing to jump high enough, but always saying, "Come back into my safe and loving arms, for today and for every day hereafter, you shall be with me in paradise." And that my friends, is the truth of the Resurrection that I choose to live within!
This is Holy Saturday friends, made holy not because the news is good but indeed the opposite--the worst news possible. God is dead. And there is no promise for tomorrow. The Enemy has won. We were so close to winning the war, so close to seeing all of creation come to life in a cacophony of awakening sounds from graves, hospitals, morgues, addiction treatment facilities, prisons, half-way houses, shelters for victims of domestic violence, streets where those of color are forced to the ground crying out for life like their ancestors centuries before, those cast aside from a church that offered no hope because they couldn't keep the rules, and from the self-righteous within that church that also broke the rules but had crafted the skills of covering up their sins so well. From all of these quarters we had expected the light to break through, new songs to emerge, the promise of a new future, and justice to reign and evil to be overcome.
But the drama wasn't over yet. A crowd began to gather--folks who wanted to see Lazarus--risen from the dead, the stench of death long gone, now walking around more full of life than ever and more full of life than most of them. But while some came to gawk, others came to murder--not just Lazarus, but the very movement of the divine that had brought Lazarus back from the dead in the first place.
For the resurrection of Lazarus was a reminder to these church leaders that the power they clung to was nothing compared to that of this prophet and mystic from Nazareth, this wondering sage whom so many of those who were lost--including so many in the very churches of these leaders--"were going over to and putting their faith in [Jesus]."
What drove these leaders nuts, I suspect, was less about Jesus and Mary and Lazarus, and more about themselves and the loss of power, prestige, and privilege that lay ahead if they allowed this man from Galilee to carry on his little circus among the misfits much longer.
In a segment just for Etown alumni, Dr. Conrad Kanagy, Professor of Sociology at Etown, gives a special insider's look into the digital content he has been creating since the beginning of he pandemic including his new podcast.
Listen in on Dr. Kanagy's personal and spiritual journey, in this special presentation titled Parkinson’s, a Pandemic, Podcasting, and Prayer. This episode can also be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am-5XrTQTFY.
For just as he carried with him the scars in his hand and side, he continued and continues to carry the emotional and mental trauma that he experienced and absorbed that week. In some way, I wonder, does God have PTSD?
A friend who follows my podcast, recently noted that I certainly have absorbed the sociological perspective. My immediate response was something to the effect that "I think that it was always embedded within me--that I found sociology because I had always questioned the reality of the cultural context within which I grew up." I added, "In fact, I think that is how I survived."
Ethan is a former student of mine and alumnus of Etown College. He has a seminary degree and has served as a United Methodist pastor, now studying what ancient Christian mystics have to say about the sins of the passions and how this applies to our nation's current religious and political scene and the presence of evil within that landscape. If his words don't give you chills, then you should consider how Rwanda, Jim Crow and lynchings, and the Third Reich became realities. Ethan is one of the most articulate individuals I know on these issues. Think Bonhoeffer my friends.
I am not ashamed to say that I have struggled all of my life with this mental illness. Nor am I ashamed to say that I have sought the help of healing professionals. And most of all, I am not ashamed to say that like William Cowper, I've also found that fountain that flows not from the church, but from the One who was broken just like me, wounded just like me, busted just like me, and rejected just like me. And for this reason, he knows what it is like to be one of us--and why he will never stop seeking the sick, the lame, the cast-aways, the mentally ill.
It can be terribly disorienting to be suddenly in the dark, to move from confidence to confusion, from fellowship to fear, from lightness of heart to heaviness. And it can all happen so quickly. On a day that begins as any other. In the middle of completely ordinary and everyday circumstances. Without warning and without our awareness. And especially when everyone else seems to be walking around in the light--what is wrong with us?
Curious how living water can be so divisive, so readily discerned as living among those who've only known anything but life, but received with such bitterness, anger, and hatred by those who all their lives have been reading about that Water, have been preparing to receive that Water, are the people from the right place, and in fact believe themselves to be the right people.
Rightness too often has this way of deadening our taste to that which is living.
Suddenly the truth hurt. Suddenly the bright little kid from the temple himself appeared as darkness. Suddenly this hometown prophet knew too damn much about the hometowners--because what he knew was what damned them.
So in this Lenten season, might one of our prayers just be, that the Spirit of God would remove those stones and pebbles in our walls that have blocked us from seeing God himself as the loving and compassionate One that he is? And that have also blocked us from seeing others as deeply loved by God and created with God's imprint upon them? And can we go one step further and name what we see in those persons that perhaps no one else has ever bothered to share with them. That they are loved. That they have courage. That they are kind. That you appreciate their warm smile. That they work hard. That they persevere. That they are beautiful. That they are survivors. That you are glad that you know them. That they are not alone.
How might the story for so many of us, be different if the church reflected its Lord? What if confession rather than shame began to characterize our communities of faith? What if "Hi, I'm Conrad, and I'm broken, busted, and guilty as hell" became the way we greeted one another on Sunday mornings? And what if the response to that from others was "Then you are one of us--this is exactly where you belong."
And excerpt from the third episode in this Lenten series: "But faced with Parkinson’s Disease for years ago, I began to give myself a break finally. And why not—I began in a deeper way than ever to accept that I was weak, fragile, mortal, and my life such a fleeting thing. And in the days I have left I want to grab all of the joy that I can, the peace that I can, and the love that I can. And while those things were so foreign to me most days, I had seen just enough of that Smile to know that He had not gone anywhere, and that he was waiting for me to understand that I was loved “'just as I am, without one plea.'”
The first in a daily Lenten series that prepare our hearts, dismantled as they are, for our Lord's resurrection, and for our own. For the blog, visit www.achurchdismantled.com.
This episode considers the principles of what sociologist Max Weber called formal rationality and what contemporary theorist George Ritzer calls the McDonaldization of Society. I consider these principles and why they have contributed to the dismantling of the church and that we are better off being still than rebuilding what existed before COVID-19.
The temptation for A Dismantled Church is to look for a king, build a golden calf, or return to the managers who got them into the mess in the first place. Against these instincts, what we need is patience, stillness before God, and a willingness to allow the prophets and apostles to lead us Home. Otherwise we will remain stuck in our "iron cages" and "mechanized petrification."
In this episode we hear from two listeners with questions and comments about the podcast and my response from what feels like an increasingly marginalized space, but one from which I have always told my students we most clearly see what is real and true. For in the center, we spend most of our time protecting and preserving our position which is a difficult place from which to be quiet and to hear "what God is up to in the world, the church, your life and my life."
My grandfather, Erie "Pap" Renno knew what it was to have an intimate life with Jesus as his Savior and to follow the ethic of Jesus who was also his Lord.
- Based upon a report shared with Lancaster Mennonite Conference Bishops in 2015 that identified the substantial cultural divide in the church, which this current year has only revealed is greater than most of us had understood.
No matter who you are, we become what we worship. And what we worship other than God will ultimately come back to bite us.
Those among us who have experienced the most trauma in their lives and communities are now the ones most deeply re-traumatized by the events of last week and this year. But it is precisely because they have known trauma, that it is in listening to their voices that we must now do, and God forgive us for not doing so sooner. It is the women in our Christian communities who have known trauma but have too long been sidelined, that we must look too now to remind us of how one finds hope, how one rebuilds, and how one moves forward in a dismantled and traumatized church of offer shalom to a broken world. It is among our brothers and sisters of color, who have long found ways to declare hope and life and in the midst of oppression, who know how to build and dance and sing in the face of evil, and who have long offered shalom though shalom was the last thing anyone was offering them, that we must now turn to for guidance and help and direction.
For the rational, clean, predictable, professional world built by those in the center, those with power, is tottering, leaning, and unlikely to lead us toward the new heaven and the new earth. For good reason our Lord promised that "the first will be last and the last will be first."
In this episode I address the division that Jesus himself declares that he brings--so why should we be surprised that the church is more divided today than perhaps at any time since the Civil War? The Gospel is clarifying in these times, but clearer seeing also brings a clearer sense of the need for differentiation. There are times like these when one realizes that the Gospel's Truth cannot be nuanced or debated--one chooses or rejects...the cross or one's self-preservation.
This episode is available as a blog post at achurchdismantled.com and describes why I am more thankful than ever that I live in the shadow of martyrs and serve One who gave up his life for the world's restoration and redemption rather than defend it for the sake of religious freedom. And why the shadow of the martyrs that created terror for me as a child now brings me comfort and peace and courage.
A surprising find while dismantling our Christmas tree and a much needed remember in this dismantling of all things.
This is the third episode of Season 2--revisiting what I missed in yesterday's episode but grateful for a God who knows when I miss when I have no idea.
A podcast based on yesterday's events in Washington D.C. and a church webinar I had registered for and was watching alongside the insurrection at the Capital.
This is the first episode of the second season of "A Church Dismantled--A Kingdom Restored." The transcript can be found at www.achurchdismantled.com as a blog post for January 5. Thank you for listening again this year!
This is the last substantive episode of the podcast "A Church Dismantled--A Kingdom Restored" for 2020. I will record one more that points toward the direction the podcast will take in 2021. But this final episode does reflect a new podcast that I will be developing in later 2021 and for which Elizabethtown College has awarded me a sabbatical in the Fall of next year. That podcast will address issues of aging, chronic disease, regeneration, and spirituality that is related to the focus of a course I developed this year and taught along with my colleague Dr. Tamera Humbert (Occupational Therapy). This podcast will be a two year project and I am pleased that Landis Communities of Lancaster, PA and Stewardship Advisors of Lancaster, PA have joined as sponsors of the podcast. If you would be interested in helping to sponsor this significant project, please contact me at conradkanagy@achurchdismantled.com. Thank you!
This is the last episode of the "podcast within a podcast" entitled "A Light Still Shines--Reflections in Advent 2020." If you have enjoyed this series, I invite you to offer a review of the episodes in Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and other podcast platforms that provide that opportunity. Tomorrow I anticipate recording the last episode of 2020 for the broader podcast entitled "A Church Dismantled--A Kingdom Restored" in which I will offer a window into plans for the podcast as well as new ones in 2021. Thank you for your support and encouragement and may you know you are loved and not ever alone!
In this final episode with Don Kraybill, we discover that those drawn to the message of the dismantled church are the same folks who embrace the Jesus of the upside down kingdom. Don also reflects candidly on the puzzling question of how American evangelicals can be comfortable with the corruption of Trumpism: namely, they would have to give up their power and embrace the Jesus who gave his so freely away.
This is the second episode from my interview with Don Kraybill last week, in which Don discusses the usefulness of a sociological perspective for fulfilling God's mission to the world and how congregation's can assist the Spirit in dismantling useless structures and programs getting in the way of that mission.
The first of three or four episodes with Don Kraybill, author of The Upside Down Kingdom and scholar of dozens of books and articles about the Old Order Amish and other Anabaptist groups. You will enjoy these episodes with Don who is so good at bringing together and interpreting disparate themes we have been addressing since May on this podcast!
An interview with terrific insights into the current and future church in the U.S. from the perspective of the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Daniel Harrell, of Christianity Today. Questions ranged from is the church being dismantled? Will the church recover after being smacked by COVID-19? Will people return to the pews? Will pastors survive? These and more will make this listen more than worth your time!
A rich conversation with President Philip Ryken of Wheaton College about the state of the church, the contribution of Christian higher education to the church and the world, and the unique qualities of a Wheaton College experience in forming students to live a life for Christ and His Kingdom.
This is the fifth episode and a consideration of Elie Wiesel's painful and tragic story, Night, and a caution too from Scottish poet George MacDonald.
This is Episode 4 of the new podcast "A Light Still Shines--Reflections in Advent 2020."
The third in this daily advent series of 2020 with a look at the life and writing of James Wendell Johnson.
This is the second episode of the podcast "A light still shines--Reflections in Advent 2020." I will be releasing an episode each day through Christmas.
Pastors (and anyone else for that matter), you won't want to miss this interview with Spiritual Director Eldon Fry as he answers questions about what he is hearing from pastors about the challenges of leading in this season. Eldon Fry, D. Min. is Founder and Director of Open Hands. This is rich conversation for which I was blessed to be on the receiving end!
The final episode with Professor David Downing and the secret sauce to any saint's sainthood--life with God!
This episode again features Dr. David Downing, discussing C.S. Lewis' perspective on church vs Kingdom.
How might C.S. Lewis see the political engagement and polarization of today's evangelical church?
What would C.S. Lewis say to the American evangelical church today? This episode introduces the themes of the next three episodes--one of which will be released each of the next three days--and that are based upon my interview last week with C.S Lewis scholar David Downing of Wheaton College (IL). I think you are in for a treat this week!
Announcing an upcoming webinar...a C.S. Lewis scholar as guest...and a bonus episode for this week...hope you all are keeping your eyes on the One who is most important in all of this craziness that one day will appear as no more than mist and even mist long dissipated...
Whatever our leadership position--whether parent, pastor, or president, preparing for the day of our assassination serves everyone well--including the leader. But failing to do so leaves both leader and those he/she leads in a bloody awful mess!
An effort at an answer to a question that has long bothered both Mike and me...and I suspect many of us.
Mike shares his heart and his perspective on what it means to be subjected to 70 years of proselytization by well-meaning Christians--his is a gracious and insightful word for the church and should remind us of how Jesus shared the Good News!
Welcome to Episode 107! This is the fourth and final upload due to technical difficulties and mistakes I made on the previous three. I do apologize and will check in with my tech team (me :)) as to what went wrong. In any event this episode is well worth listening to! And if you have enjoyed Mike, you can check out his Facebook page for much more of his thinking and reflections over the years!
This is the second in a four part series with Mike "the Bike Guy Schwartz." Episode 105 with Mike was one of this podcast's most popular in terms of number of first day downloads. But I'm not surprised--Mike is so articulate in explaining how society and religion (the church in particular) have gotten to where we are. This episode addresses one of the key arguments of this podcast--that the rationalization of society over the past century in large part accounts for why God's Spirit just might be up to the dismantling of the church. At the end of the episode Mike also leaves us with a teaser that is clearly understated--that it just might be the Protestant Reformation that has left us with the mess we are in. I suspect Max Weber is muttering "Amen" somewhere wherever he is!
This afternoon, October 26, 2020 I had the rich opportunity to catch up with Mike Schwartz, a great friend but also perhaps the best sociological theorist and thinker I've ever known, and whose sociological and human wisdom I've been graced by God to engage with for the last 15 years after reconnecting from a previous working relationship at Penn State a decade earlier.
Mike does not profess a religious identity or practice a particular faith, but grew up Protestant in a suburban Washington D.C. neighborhood where he experienced cultural and social marginality that led him early on to begin practicing the sociological perspective. It is safe to say that I have never met anyone who is so able to listen as Mike, and his doing so has enabled me to learn more from Mike about the church than perhaps anyone else.
Mike is my neighbor now and can regularly be seen riding his bike around campus and through town, already logging more than 7000 miles this year alone. Humble, insightful, and magnanimous--you will enjoy this interview with Mike and several more to come this week!
This longer episode is part of a presentation that I gave in September, 2019 and articulates my concerns about the "professionalization of the clergy" that I have referred to in passing in previous episodes. A listener reached out and asked for clarity--so here it is!
An episode about the way sociologists (at least this one!!) sees the world, highlighting the qualities of humility, listening, and eyes wide open, arguing that this perspective--even when it reveals the bad news--is always better than living in the ignorance of deceptive "good news." This was written and recorded for my students in Sociological Theory and I thought you might appreciate it--given the dismantling of so much of what we have assumed was solid and real and right and true in the world these days. Of all people, those of us who follow the One who said "I am with you always, even to the end of the world" should have the courage to keep our eyes wide open. For that same One warned us that if we closed them, we just might miss our ride to the new heaven and new earth!
For those who hear "Black lives matter as a threat" it just might be that we should hear it as a cry for freedom that we who are white should grieve that this cry is still so necessary 400 years after the slave trade began and 200 years after the efforts of white evangelicals like William Wilberforce and Jonathan Blanchard.
In times of dismantling, preaching becomes risky business. But then, the author of Ecclesiastes warned us of that unexpected times of evil would come. But in the end, as Luther reminds us, One little world will "fell" all the powers of darkness grim!
In 1985 I lived among the Quichua of Chimborazo Province, Ecuador, and observed the freedom they experienced in the dismantling of the Roman Catholic Church. In 2008-10 I conducted a study of Anabaptists in the Global South, and along with Richard Showalter and Telahun Beyene, described the dismantling of the church in North America and Europe and the possible blessing this dismantling might be to the Global South. This episode reflects on these questions and includes an excerpt from our book The Winds of the Spirit (Herald Press, 2012).
This is another interview with a community leader whose efforts to bring transformation and restoration to folks caught in addiction, are having an impact beyond our borough.
Even as we continue our series on the dismantling of racism in a dismantled church this week, we will also begin a new series of four or five episodes that reflects upon the experiences of early Anabaptists, the Quichua of Chimborazo Province, Ecuador, the Kanagy uncles I discussed in previous episodes, and the long march toward racial justice in this country.
This is the first of several interviews with Mennonite church leaders who are experiencing particular pain in light of the recent wave of police killings of African Americans that reflect a long history of brutality against black men in the United States. These leaders, however, also reflect hope in the midst of the dismantling of the church--because this dismantling has created a possible moment for the dismantling of systemic racism that is present in every social institution in the U.S. including in the church. In other words, consistent with the theme of this podcast, restoration is often and perhaps always possible only after the devastation of what is--even if that what is happens to be the church!
Thirty years of secret I've heard from our youth that I have not shared with their parents but always wanted to do.
This is the first episode written for my fellow pastors or for those of you who are concerned about the well being of your pastor in this covid-19 crisis, or perhaps are not concerned you should be!
When confronted by a saint concerned with the content of my podcast, Inhad to take a moment to figure out why just eight weeks ago I had begun to tell my story and sing my song, and why in the world it had taken so long for me to do so.
In memory of my good friend Mark who helped correct my stereotypes about who "needs Jesus."
This episode is adapted from reflections that I shared in 2016 at the Mennonite Central Committee staff devotions.
This episode marks a turning point or a resetting of this podcast with a change in design and in title that both reflect my confidence then in all of the devastation that the world in the church are experiencing, God is still at work at restoring, redeeming, and bringing forth" his kingdom. In the words of the old hymn, "+this is my story and this is my song, praising My Savior all the day long." This is my testimony and the testimony that Heidi and I have for our lives and our marriage and our ministry, that God is good and God is faithful and God is loving. Most of the episodes in this podcast reflect some turn towards hope and I wanted that reflected in the design and the title of the podcast. Out of about 60 designs, Heidi and I chose this one because of its work of rebuilding that is occurring in the scene and our experience that God is always at work as we understand it and have experienced it to restore and to make whole in the midst of devastation and desolation. I hope you enjoy this episode and are enjoying the podcast, I've heard from many of you who are both challenged, offended, and encouraged. But what matters most to me at the end of the day is that Heidi and I are doing what God has called us to do and being faithful in the ministry that he's called us to. This podcast is reflective in many ways of Heidi's influence in my life for more than 30 years of marriage and keeping me in the scripture and praying for me before I preach and of course from day-to-day. Those prayers have accumulated and continue to be effectual in my life, and I give God praise for her and am grateful for our life and Ministry together which is so much the foundation of these episodes.
This episode considers reasons why a political lens has become the primary one through which interpret just about everything and why so few of us seem to care about "what would Jesus do."
This episode compares a morning with professional photographer, Eric Willet, whose incredible nature photograph can be found at his Facebook page, with the posture and skills needed to tune ourselves to hard God's voice.
This episode is about the way that we as God's people have so much difficulty understanding and staying within the deep love of God, and about a preacher whose vision of the future new heaven and earth often led to misunderstanding but whose vision I now deeply appreciate!
This episode challenges that evangelical mantra that "God doesn't care how good we are" or that "our goodness doesn't matter." While I do not quibble with the Gospel message grounded in the truth found in Christ alone, I do challenge the way we have looked with disdain on those around us who do not own our faith but are still remarkable, kind and compassionate people made in the image of God and with God's imprint upon their lives.
Soon after my diagnosis with Parkinson's Disease in the Spring, 2017, Heidi and I took a trip to the West coast. These are a few things I learned.
This episode touches on Heidi's diagnosis of ovarian cancer in 2008 and what we learned about the way God uses brokeness to connect us with folks just waiting to connect with us, but until we slow down and share our brokeness with them, they may well just keep waiting for someone to love them.
At some point in history, God seems to have disappeared from his church. Why and where he went is anybody's guess. This episode considers the factors behind his disappearance. If you see Him, please send me an email.
For far too long we have considered Humpty Dumpty the loser--this episode considers the possibility that in the end, falling off the wall is precisely what God needs and where we will find our freedom and humanity. And that in the end, it is the king and his men we should most pity.
I may lose my ministry for this post (though the Board tells me not :), at least I would go down being honest--something we in the church are honestly not known for much of the time.
When crisis brings conversion
I regularly tell my students that suffering is our best teacher—if we allow it to be. The most transformative moments of my life have been during the deepest crises of my life—the more than two years that Heidi and I were separated, two separate bouts with cancer—both thyroid in 2000 and salivary gland in 2014, Heidi’s experience with ovarian cancer, my diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease, and a number of church crises that some days I thought would take me under.
I regularly pray and have done so for years, “Lord, do in my life whatever it is that you want to do to make me who you created me to be.” With the list of crises I’ve just noted, sometimes I think I must be a very hard-headed saint. And yet, and yet…every one of these crises has been a moment of conversion for me, a moment when I was forced perhaps to go deeper in my life with God because as I so often say, “What alternative do we have?” We either go deeper with God or we choose death—which always comes when we abandon God because in abandoning God we are abandoning the only Life there is.
And perhaps that is what the old tent revivals with George Brunk II and others were an effort to do—to bring us to a crisis in our lives and to push us to decide between life and death. And while this message may have been effective for some, the problem for me as a kid was that I was already aware that of the crisis I was and that I was in, and didn’t need to be reminded of any others. What I needed in the midst of my torment, doubts, fears, and insecurities was the experience of a God who was just waiting to save me, of a God who really did accept me “Just as I am,” of a God who was running toward me, of a God who offered me hope every morning when I awoke. But that God alluded me.
The world is full of crises, as much today as in the 1970s when George was hot on the trail of the saints. But what we need today is not a reminder that our lives are a crisis—as David says in Psalm 51 “my sins are always before me”—but of a God who has the answer to every mess we face when we awake each day and whose loving care and grace are going to be enough.
But getting to a point in my life were I am more aware than ever of this loving God, has required crises, has required those moments when the world that I took for granted to be the true, real and best world was broken open by some divine earthquake and everything I took for granted was up for grabs: Would our marriage ever be restored? At 35 years of age and diagnosed with cancer, would I live to see our little boy grow up, would Heidi live beyond five years with a cancer that is so often a death sentence, would I survive one more church crisis? And now, what will my end be like with Parkinson’s Disease and how where am I in this journey? How long will my health hold out? Will I end up with dementia? And on and on. For it is in the moments when life’s answers are most out of reach that some of us finally reach for God.
For myself, coming to know God has required being in a place of needing God. To come to know God I have had to be in crises where the questions overwhelmed any easy answers that so many of the saints wanted to offer. To come to know God I had to walk with God into and through the pain and uncertainty. I had to learn, as did Job of the Old Testament and as we all do well to learn, that there are few readily available answers to why bad things happen, and knowing would be unlikely to give us peace anyway. What brings peace is knowing not the answers but the One who has them even if he won’t share them with us when we most think we need them. Knowing God and knowing all of the answers I think I need are two very different things. We will worship one or the other but we can’t worship both at the same time.
I’ve long loved a prayer by Peter Marshall, former chaplain to the U.S. Senate who thanks God for every need that keeps him cl
A Biblical response to the public lynching of George Floyd--from a sermon by Conrad L. Kanagy on Pentecost, May 31, 2020.This will also be the first in a new podcast entitled A Kingdom Restored: Now and Then that I will begin this week, Lord willing. This new podcast will consider the God's invitation to join the great excavation project of Isaiah 40--to lower mountains, raise valleys, make rough places a plain, and crooked places straight so that God is revealed to a world that "God so loved" and so loves still."
The Holy Spirit is not a different species from Jesus nor in competition with Jesus. Jesus brought both salvation and the Spirit.
The raging of so-called Christians these days that we better get back to church and back to things normal, sounds an awful lot like the cry of God's people to go back to Egypt!
Why its time to take off our masks just as we are being told to put them on--as if we need to be told!
The reality is that most of us have abandoned the Spirit, leaving us as orphans and very vulnerable to the enemy of our souls.
From being prohibited from attending the Memorial Day parade to being the star of the show!
The desperation to get "back to church" suggests a spiritual awakening in this country--but not really!
Blame the pastors for the problems the church is in. Problem is, they are victims of the same reality as their members.
Thrown into exile for the failure to care for the marginalized, God's people today may be facing the same dilemma as God's people in Judah in the 6th century B.C.
What to do when there is no "balm in Gilead." Blame God or thank him for sending the snakes?
Why the death of modernity will not be kind to those built on its sands--churches, malls or perhaps even MacDonalds.
Why we prefer to ask the CDC, the President, the Governor, or just about anyone else except the Lord. This is an age-old problem of God's people.