Posted 209 days ago

What Will Shape Our Spirituality in the Coming Decade?

Christine Sine

There is no doubt in our minds that we live in a rapidly changing world. What most of us are less aware of is that this rapid change impacts both the way we do theology and how we practice our faith. Change forces us to ask new questions and seek new answers to old questions. In the last decade post modernity opened our eyes to rediscover the wonder and mystery of ancient expressions of faith, birthing new monastic movements and revitalizing ancient prayer traditions. It encouraged us to see that we do not know the answers to life’s deepest questions and gave us permission to admit that we journey primarily not as teachers but as learners.

Looking ahead, I am aware of many new challenges that will shape our faith and encourage us to ask new questions. They present us with exciting opportunities to enable individuals and communities to fashion faith practices that engage these challenges and weave together divine and human stories into a single fabric. As Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley express in their important book Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals

“… even our most treasured rites are not simply inherited and repeated; rather they are always in the process of being created.  In fact they need to be recreated.  Each succeeding generation with its new stories and fresh challenges must weave together recent tales with those of its ancestors.  Furthermore, believers of each age must reckon with ritual newness that is born of the intersection of the ever-changing human narrative as it encounters the divine narrative.

Three major global trends I believe will shape the way we do theology and spiritual practices in the Western world in the next decade are:

• The growing time pressures of the 24/7 work week and media immersion.
• The shifting center of Christianity to Africa, Asia and Latin America and emergence of new theological voices.

• Increasing religious pluralism of Western societies and the need to engage in dialogue with those of other faiths.
  
  The Tyranny of Busy
  In the last decade, as the global economy placed more value on efficiency, it forced many of us to work harder and longer. This created the 24/7 work week, dramatically increasing our busyness and blurring the boundaries between work and personal life. Now we are transitioning from media consumption to media immersion. In the April Seed Sampler we will discuss how this shapes our values, but it also has implications for our spiritual practices. More time at work, online and on screen means less time for church, mission and spiritual disciplines. Church is increasingly reduced to a small compartment that has little relevance to everyday life.
  
  There are other implications too. In a recent Wall Street Journal article titled, Not So fast, John Freeman states:
  
  The speed at which we do something—anything—changes our experience of it. Words and communication are not immune to this fundamental truth. The faster we talk and chat and type over tools such as email and text messages, the more our communication will resemble traveling at great speed. Bumped and jostled, queasy from the constant ocular and muscular adjustments our body must make to keep up, we will live in a constant state of digital jet lag.

Living in a state of digital jet lag is not good for our faith. It takes away our time to listen, to think and to process. It also encourages us to live from moment to moment without regular spiritual disciplines that anchor our lives in God’s story. Spiritual formation in the coming decade will need to equip followers of Jesus to be better stewards of their time and enable them to develop rhythms of life that flow out of their faith rather than the secular culture. We will also need to create sacred listening spaces away from media and technology that reconnect us to God and God’s creation. There will be growing need over this decade to create alternative communities that re-order life in the immersive presence of God.

A Family From Every Nation
In the last 100 years Christianity experienced an amazing shift in its geographical centre of gravity. In 1900 80% of all Christians lived in Europe and North America, but by 2005 that had dropped to under 40% and by 2050 will probably fall below 30%.¹

This trend has profound implications for theology and spiritual practices as voices from Latin America, Africa and Asia contribute their perspectives to a discussion that has been dominated by Western thought for a thousand years. What many of us in Western cultures are oblivious to is that much of our theology has been shaped by a Eurocentric worldview that arises from the place of power and privilege that our cultures have held.  It does not have universal validity and is often shaped more by our positions of privilege than by the gospel message.  

In a post colonial, post Eurocentric Christian world, those of us from European backgrounds should become listeners and learners. We need to listen to voices from other cultures. We must allow their theological perspectives to shape our theology and spiritual practices, humbly seeking forgiveness for the wrongs of the past and working for reconciliation and justice. Western theology will no longer be able to dominate our interpretation of the Biblical story. Christianity is increasingly at home in many cultures and will not be confined by a single culture.

In Foolishness to the Greeks, Lesslie Newbigin states: “The fact that Jesus is much more than, much greater than, our culture-bound vision of him can only come home to us through the witness of those who see him through other eyes.” To fully understand Jesus and embrace the entire gospel story we need to reinvent discipleship so that it compels us to give up our positions of power and invites us into a journey together with sisters and brothers from around the world. It should encompass our need to learn from believers in different cultures who emphasize distinct aspects of the gospel message based on questions that have arisen within their history and context. Often their theologies have been shaped by the pain and suffering inflicted by Western colonialism and domination. Liberation theology, for example, grew out of a culture of oppression. It places high value not just on not individual repentance but on creation of a new community with structures that promise justice and wholeness for all. In Africa and Asia there is strong emphasis on issues of poverty and racism, and Australian aboriginal theology grapples with concerns about displacement from their native lands.

As Revelation 7:9 reminds us, God’s family is drawn from every culture and tribe and nation. In this coming decade we will need to recognize that all of us are on a journey together, learning to walk in partnership with our sisters and brothers from around the world. When we know we are all part of God’s family, we will willingly seek to understand, be reconciled and share life so that together we can become all that God intends us to be.

One World, Many Faiths
Muslims in Europe, Sikhs in the US, Christians in Africa. It is not just the geographic centre of Christianity that is changing. So is the geographical centre of all religions. In the last four years, the Muslim population in Britain multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, increasing from 500,000 to 2.4 million. In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million.² There are now an estimated 1.5 million Hindus in the United States, most prevalent in Texas, New Jersey, and Ohio. Worldwide Islam, Bahai, Sikhism, and Hinduism are all growing faster than Christianity.³

Interfaith dialogue will become increasingly important in the future as we grapple with both the gifts and conflicts of our changing world religious profile. This, of course, is not new for followers of Christ in India, Indonesia, the Middle East and many other parts of the world where Christianity has always been one faith amongst many.

We will see a growing recognition amongst some Christians that God is to be found outside the boundaries of Christian faith as well as inside. However, it could also result in growing conflict and misunderstanding as fundamentalists in all religions retreat behind the barriers of what feels safe and secure. According to the rabbis of old, one of the ways the creation continues is through spirited conversations in which we are in a disagreement – the highest form of discourse.⁴ Discipleship and spiritual practices in the future will need to help us rediscover this art, teaching us to listen to the voices of those who believe very differently from us.

I think that this trend will also challenge us to be more authentic in the way we live out our faith. We need to help all followers of Christ develop strong foundations that draw them closer to the God revealed in Jesus Christ while at the same time helping them to identify where the spirit of God is at work outside as well as inside faith communities. We need Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and others to stretch and remold our understanding of God and of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Conclusion
We live in an exciting time in which our faith and theology is being reshaped and remolded. All of these challenges provide incredible opportunities to develop new faith practices that strengthen and enrich our understanding of God and God’s purposes. God’s spirit is at work in new and challenging ways, moving us towards wholeness and unveiling a vision of God and of God’s future that is far more incredible than any of us ever imagined.

* How are you preparing today for the coming influences on our Christian lives?

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1. Christianity in Global Context: Trends and Statistics: Todd M Johnson http://pewforum.org/events/051805/global-christianity.pdf
2. Muslim Population rising 10 times faster than rest of society: Richard Kerbaj The Times Jan 30, 2009; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5621482.ece
3. The List: The World’s Fastest Growing Religions, Foreign Policy http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3835
4. Its Really All About God; Samir Selmanovic, Jossey Bass, 2009, p175

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