RONALD J. SIDER and BEN LOWE. The Future of Our Faith: An Intergenerational Conversation on Critical Issues Facing the Church. Brazos Press, 2016. Pp. 240. $12 (US)
Ron Sider and Ben Lowe demonstrate their admirable ambition for the life of the church throughout The Future of our Faith,the latest of Sider’s more than 30 books. When some of us read it, we may feel pale in comparison as they marshal their experiences, drop names, and demonstrate their points with great acumen. Ron, especially, has amassed a wealth of knowledge and connections during his stimulating intellectual, ecumenical, and literary life. He’s had quite a journey out of a little Brethren in Christ church in southern Ontario! The Future of Our Faith is an extravagant title but don’t let it intimidate you. It is really about two caring people who deserve attention by demonstrating the kind of dialogue that might stem the American church’s decline as it meets the next generation.
When I (Rod) was asked to write this review, I immediately thought it would be good to write it with Jonny Rashid. The book is trying to bridge differences between young and old and is interested in crossing over the divides that societal labels reinforce. Ron appreciates the multicultural Oxford Circle Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, where we live. Ben’s church, the Wheaton Chinese Church, is consciously working at a multicultural oneness. Jonny and I also represent the ambition, the age difference, and the discipline of connecting people in the love of Jesus who might normally be at odds.
This book gravitates toward getting involved in the bigger issues on which both men have been concentrating. Both authors engage their concerns primarily through parachurch organizations, driven largely by their personal energy. Jonny and I have been concentrating on the same issues in our community context, relying on our mutuality to take us where we need to go. I think we are the church they are looking for when they keep pointing out how lost the evangelical church has been since it first started hearing from Ron in the 1970s.
Ron Sider is concerned about evangelism surviving as millennials embrace social action and post-modern understandings of truth. He wonders about the survival of marriage where its foundations are deteriorating, while having a gracious debate on the many contemporary questions about sexual identity. Ben Lowe is concerned about lifestyles that reflect faith, good political engagement, reconciling divisions in the church, and caring for creation. There is little disagreement between them. Ron sounds like an engaging and aware 70-something who will die trying to make a difference. Ben sounds like an orthodox, been-burned 30-something who likes to push the boundaries of his background in order to do good.
Jonny and I do not disagree with each other much either, if at all. We agree to agree. But our agreement is forged in the fires of dialogue, which is mostly missing in our church. The Brethren in Christ Church has spent a decade eradicating meaningful dialogue from their General and Regional Conferences (now more accurately labeled “assemblies”) as well as in general principle and practice. If this book has any wisdom to share, it is that such a move is entirely the wrong direction for the future of our faith.
Jonny and I have modeled the structure of the book, each choosing a point to share and then responding to what the other said.
Rod on the authors’ assumptions: This book might be a bit hard to read for people less aware of evangelical organizations; the authors are steeped in the subculture and in evangelical academia. But they are good writers who break it down well. They want to talk about key issues and they succeed in doing that.
I see the problem in their approach within their assumptions. They are right about an intergenerational tension in the family of God over what it means to be faithful today, and how we need to find a better way to sort these things out. But evangelicals (and church people in general) can’t stop talking about ourselves. This book assumes people can talk to each other in the church about the intergenerational tension, when one generation is quickly exiting the building.
Robert P. Jones’ The End of White Christian Americasummarizes what Sider and Lowe are combatting. According to Jones, the proportion of Americans who are white mainline Protestants and white evangelicals today is 32 percent, down from 51 percent in 1993. The reason for this change? More and more Americans are leaving organized religion, with 20 percent today considering themselves religiously unaffiliated. Many of the unaffiliated are young adults, who are less than half as likely as seniors to identify with a church. This rejection of organized religion by youth, Jones says, is a ‘major force of change in the religious landscape.’
At Circle of Hope, we started working on this crisis of faith 20 years ago and most of our church members are millennials. It is not easy to evangelize among them when the vast majority of what is left of the evangelicals vote for President Trump, who epitomizes what Lowe laments as faith without lifestyle. And Vice President Pence represents the narrow agenda of the religious right while climate change action is rolled back and people who are minorities are targeted for police action. Sider and Lowe may be talking to a church that ceased to exist 10 years ago.
Jonny: I also do not find much issue with the text and I am grateful for Ron and Ben’s contribution. I think it will be good for those who need to read it. I agree with Rod that their assumptions are too vague. I’m not sure the audience of the text is listed specifically enough, and at times I think the strokes the authors paint with are too broad.
Jonny’s thoughts on priorities: As a 31-year-old pastor, I found it very interesting to hear Sider and Lowe speak to me about my priorities. As it turns out, Sider wasn’t far from the truth when he listed what my generation thinks is important, but across race, class, and regions, young Christians have a myriad of priorities. The generalizations the authors made about millennials might be germane to a city-dwelling transplant in the Northeast U.S., but they would likely not translate well to black people, suburban folks, or even millennials I know in the Midwest and the South. Since Jason Fileta wrote a sidebar in the text, I will note that millennial Egyptian immigrants like him and me would likely “side” with Ron on many of his issues, and might need to learn something from Ben’s chapters.
Rod and I have had many robust discussions over the years in which I was on the side of the “older” generation and he the “younger.” Many millennials I know are not interested in politics, race, or the environment. At the same time, many of my older acquaintances are progressive on issues like gay marriage, steeped in postmodernism, and on the front lines of our political witness. Bifurcating the audience may cement them in their stereotyped places (or create more conflict between the groups).
As a millennial, the main thing that develops my faith is being taken seriously by my elders, especially in the congregation I helped to plant six and a half years ago at age 24! When older leaders took me seriously, I took them seriously too. Our divisions, if any existed, were erased by working toward a common vision.
Still, I think this book does a service to the church by undoing many of the stereotypes unbelievers from every generation have about it. Like Rod noted, the loudest Christians in our country are making it hard for us to share the gospel and preach the truth, as well as to debunk misunderstandings about how Christians see the environment and U.S. race relations.
Rod: Jonny points out what might be a flaw in the book’s premise and in evangelical thinking. That being said, it is good to know that Ben Lowe is working hard at bridging the divisions. He even ran for Congress as a pro-life Democrat! His book Doing Good Without Giving Upreminds us, as C. S. Lewis put it, that we don’t get second things by placing them first; we get second things by keeping first things first. Ron Sider also has an impressive history of not giving up –even writing this book in his 70s! Ben Lowe is similarly inspirational (as is Jonny Rashid!)
Jonny and Rod: We are glad to share with the authors an inspiring conclusion: “We come from different contexts and perspectives, and often struggle to understand or relate to one another. Overcoming this involves intentionally reaching out, opening up, and being vulnerable. It takes humility, patience, and sacrificial love. It may often be hard, and sometimes we’ll get hurt. But it’s still both possible and worthwhile. We all have weaknesses, prejudices and blind spots, both as individuals and as generations, often it’s our differences that help draw these out into the light where we can deal with and grow from them….The reality is that what separates us is far less significant than what binds us together. Or rather, whobinds us together” (215).