Trends

Current Events

Our modern information age is marked by the 24 hour news cycle and the seemingly infinite barrage of hot takes uploaded and posted to the proliferating plethora of social media platforms. It is difficult to keep up with all the messages, and it is hard to distinguish which things are most important. This matters because so much of our time, energy, and emotional investment can become wasted on those things that do not affect us, can’t be affected by us, or are none of our business anyway. 

One of the ways that we can be influenced is by the particular information that we do or do not see come across our feeds. The algorithm is of course trying to keep us engaged and to that end is curating the messages, posts, and videos that we see. This means that we are getting a skewed perception of reality. In truth our perception is always limited to the information and understanding that we have and is subject to inaccuracy and manipulation. We must be humble and vigilant against assuming our own conclusion or falsely attributing malicious motives to others. I like to call this having a healthy self suspension which does not forget my own frailty and flaws.

I mention these things because in this post I want to examine a couple of trends that I think I am seeing in the larger church culture, at least the American church culture. However, I want to stress that these trends are more drawn for my anecdotal perspective than from any specific scientific or demographic data.

Homeostasis

One definition of this term is that “Homeostasis is the process by which a living organism maintains a stable internal environment despite external changes.” This basically can be simplified and applied by saying that not only living organisms but organizations, government and other social structures tend to have at least a phase of their existence when the goal is to maintain stability. When this is applied to social or cultural structures this is the phase when one would expect traditions and practices to be developed and solidified into the culture for the maintenance or governance of the group or organization.

This phase in most organizations or organisms is the middle life of the entity. In the beginning time span the focus is on growth and development. There is a great need for change and flexibility as obedience, conformity, and maturity are learned and applied. Later toward the end of the existence of the entity there will be decline that cannot be avoided by focusing on either growth or stability. 

But I would like to point two trends in the American church and culture today that are not a part of maintaining the homeostasis and ask you to determine for yourself if these trends are accurate and whether they point to growth or decline.

High Church

The first trend is that there seems to be a growing interest in what has historically been called “high church” groups. By high church I simply mean those groups who, regardless of their theological positions, are marked by more formality and have a more rigid structure to their services and governing systems. Some examples would be the Roman Catholic church, Eastern/ Greek Orthodox, Anglican/ Episcopalian, as well as most Lutherians and Presbyterians. Lately there seem to be many who are expressing interest in these forms of religious observance especially in Catholicism and Orthodoxy. 

From the sources I have heard and seen, the magnetism toward these traditions is because these people have accepted the claim that these churches and their current practices and beliefs are the same as the ancient first century church in the New Testament. Both of these groups would appeal to Scripture and tradition for the apostolic authority that they claim to have. However, I must admit that neither history nor Scripture affirm these practices even though that is the claim of these groups.

Low Church

The other trend is that many people are now adopting a far less formal and traditional type of Christian meeting. What I find interesting is that it would seem that this group also desires to return to the practices of the early church. The difference is the accepted authority. These believers view the Bible to be the sole authority containing the apostles' teaching (Acts 2:42-47), apostolic tradition (2 Thessalonians 2:13-17), and the practices of the early church along with corrections by the Apostles. This effort is to understand the precepts and principles in the New Testament and then to apply those to the practices in our modern context. The assumption is that the principles of Scripture will ultimately produce better spiritual fruit than any tradition employing rules or requirements not found in the Scripture.

One Church

I would like to close this blog with a plea for humble unity. Even if we may think that a church or our church is not living up to the pattern of the New Testament whether that be because it is too high church or too low church, division is not the design of the church (Ephesians 4:1-14). We must strive to remain in genuine relational unity and love even if that means we believe that some things could be improved. I also think that we must remain hopeful for the future of the church even if convinced that some things will not change so that we may promote peace, unity, and love (1 Peter 4:8-11).

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