For many years, the church was the center of every American community. It was the central hub, from which every spoke of daily life originated from and revolved around.
The church was not invasive, the way many modern critics like to pretend, but it was a pervasive source of strength for neighborhoods. People valued their local churches, filling them with beautiful art, attending services vigilantly and graciously, and using the physical space as a way to create emotional bonds.
The age-old traditions of bake sales, picnics, concerts, plays, pancake breakfasts, book clubs, and the like created a bridge for neighbors to come together. The church was the center of every community, and at the center of the church, was the truth of God.
The term ‘Judeo-Christian values’ gets tossed around by savants and political activists so frequently that many are numb to its meaning. Yet, these Judeo-Christian values of love, grace, service, and the like are the founding principles of our civilization. When Americans celebrate our nation, we are not exclusively celebrating the physical place that we inhabit, but also the values that make us uniquely American. It is a beautiful, optimistic ambition that people take pride in maintaining.
America, unfortunately, is broken.
If you ask most people where the central hub of their community is, you will most likely get a variety of different answers: A hot local restaurant, the weekly farmer’s market, a well-manicured park, the trendy coffee shop with craft lattes. There is nothing inherently wrong with these places, and it is a lovely sight to witness people from all walks of life coming together in these public spaces. But what lies at the center of these spaces? These spaces are gathering places where people of all different backgrounds can gather, but restaurants and shops can not fill the moral and religious hole in a secular society. The focus of these public spaces, and the interactions prompted by them, are often . They are fun places to hang out, they have delicious food or nifty crafts to purchase. These are all good things, but they are not founded on God’s truth. They are earthly pleasures.
There is no way to have this conversation without sounding like the local teetotaler, elderly neighbor who stands at their living room window and scowls at the kids playing football in the street, listening to their new-fangled rock music. It comes across as grumpy and old-fashioned. However, it is undeniable that we have become a society lacking a solid center for our civic life.
Daily priorities constantly shift. We need to send our boss an e-mail, pick up the kids from school, get an oil change, and stop by the grocery store. On the rare occasion when we indulge in fun or relaxing activities, they understandably give us a kind of satisfaction. Very quickly, we shift our priorities to capture more of these leisurely moments, sitting down for brunch with friends or strolling around the park. The consequence of this is often sacrificing time at church or in faith-centric fellowship.
The priorities shift. Who wants to sit in church, listening to Old Testament readings, when you could be picking out flowers and handmade soaps at the farmers market?
Herein lies the problem: As a society, our peace and joy are sourced from base, worldly things, not God. There’s nothing bad about the farmers market, there’s nothing bad with enjoying the beautiful things America has been blessed with. But these things are temporary; They’re part of that ‘dust-to-dust’ pipeline. We have rebuilt our society not on God’s rock, but on hollow happenings.
The modern age bears the brunt of this fallout. We see its effects in every crevice of daily life: cheap clothes, mass produced food, and heavy reliance on social media. People have placed value in what they own or find their worth by bragging about their experiences online. It is a fundamental human error that has been around for all of history, but it has been exacerbated through a detachment from religious truths. When citizens focus their lives on worldly pleasures, they find value in worldly things. However, when citizens focus their lives on God, they find value in the transcendental things such as truth, beauty, and goodness.
Churches need to be prioritized. Communities need to be founded upon eternal things.. When this shift happens, Americans will become far less interested on owning all the hottest clothes and cars, they won’t eat fast food for every meal, they won’t feel the need to post photos of everything they do. These habits corrode communities, hollowing them out until there is so little social cohesion that rioting, rage, and incompassion are commonplace.
Church events are often stereotyped as dull gatherings for boring Christians. A soup supper in a church basement isn’t necessarily Gen-Z’s idea of a good time. Yet, by avoiding these spaces, they disappear. No, a church picnic isn’t necessarily as thrilling as going to a theme park.
However, by showing up to picnics, bringing a tray of homemade brownies, and talking to some of the folks in your church, you start creating something timeless and thoughtful. At the end of the afternoon, when everyone starts to pack up their things and head home, when the Pastor says a parting prayer, you will have been a part of something meaningful.
You have begun to form relationships and community that are based upon ‘Judeo-Christian values’, which are no longer an ethereal and distant set of scholarly talking points, but which are now the smile and laugh of a fellow member of your congregation, and the reliable joy of them waving goodbye and saying “See you next Sunday!”
