In Bellevue, Washington, students at Eastside Catholic School responded to the dismissal of their beloved teacher and coach by pouring en masse into the street outside the school, where they chanted, “Change the church!” Students at other Catholic schools responded with tweets and solidarity sit-ins. Those students who stood in the cold chanting “Change the Church” can be seen as naïve idealists who don’t understand how religion works and why. Alternately, they can be seen as people whose eyes aren’t clouded by the veil of history, who are free to trust their own sense of compassion and fairness and draw hope from the future rather than from some idealized past.
But changing the Church is easier said than done. Religion, by its very nature, is change-averse. Each religion explains and sanctifies a specific set of cultural values; a worldview that is snapshot of human history. Most of today’s largest religions emerged during what is called the Axial Age- a time in which male superiority was taken for granted, the wheelbarrow was yet to be invented, nobody knew about the other side of the planet. But why do churches so often have to be forced to admit what has become obvious on the outside: that slavery is wrong, that no skin color or bloodline is spiritually superior, that women and children are people and not merchandise, that the pleasure and pain of other species matter and so on... Christians see themselves as a light shining on a hill, meaning a moral beacon to the world; and the faithful love to say that they have taken the lead in humanity’s moral growth: in the abolition of slavery, for example. Indeed many great abolitionists were inspired, in part, by their faith though reality is that Christian texts and teachings had been used for centuries to justify slavery and the Christian abolition movement emerged only in concert with broader cultural and economic changes. A perusal of history reveals that moral and spiritual changes occur independent of any religion to which religions later lend voice, organizational structure and moral authority while claiming for the entire credit. Thanks.
But changing the Church is easier said than done. Religion, by its very nature, is change-averse. Each religion explains and sanctifies a specific set of cultural values; a worldview that is snapshot of human history. Most of today’s largest religions emerged during what is called the Axial Age- a time in which male superiority was taken for granted, the wheelbarrow was yet to be invented, nobody knew about the other side of the planet. But why do churches so often have to be forced to admit what has become obvious on the outside: that slavery is wrong, that no skin color or bloodline is spiritually superior, that women and children are people and not merchandise, that the pleasure and pain of other species matter and so on... Christians see themselves as a light shining on a hill, meaning a moral beacon to the world; and the faithful love to say that they have taken the lead in humanity’s moral growth: in the abolition of slavery, for example. Indeed many great abolitionists were inspired, in part, by their faith though reality is that Christian texts and teachings had been used for centuries to justify slavery and the Christian abolition movement emerged only in concert with broader cultural and economic changes. A perusal of history reveals that moral and spiritual changes occur independent of any religion to which religions later lend voice, organizational structure and moral authority while claiming for the entire credit. Thanks.
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