Good News is something you want to share with others whom you care about. The Christian faith is not an idea that you can hold privately. Keeping Good News to yourself is a selfish act. It is experienced in community as people live grace, forgiveness, love, hope, and other fruits of the spirit. As the church experiences profound changes in our time, it is important that we not lose sight of the vital importance of Christian community. We reflect on this at a time when the church has experienced a significant loss of power in the community around it.
The church historian, Robert Handy has spoken of three phases of disestablishment as Christendom has broken down in our country. The first phase was a legal disestablishment when the church lost the legal support of the state in furthering its aims. Many religious groups in coming to this country in its colonial days sought the legal power of the state in support of their beliefs. The problem became that there were so many competing groups seeking the same legal support that the only way for each group to protect its own freedom of religious practice was to insist on the same freedom for others. After considerable negotiation and struggle, we have firmly rooted in our government the principle of separation of church and state.
The second disestablishment was religious. An unspoken assumption behind the first disestablishment was that Protestant Christianity in all its variety was the presumed, if not legal, state religion. The Protestant Bible was read and Protestant prayers were said in schools and at public events. In the early twentieth century this establishment was also broken open and first Catholic, then Jewish and finally not only other religious expressions but even the right not to believe became part of our culture. No longer could we subtly spread our message through crèche scenes on the public square or Protestant baccalaureate services in public schools.
Consider what God is doing as the church experiences this loss of power. Tomorrow we will also reflect on two more stages of loss of power for the church.
