Stephanie and Somebody

It's been almost a month now since announcing that we were going to begin searching for another church. This is the first update.

Follow up:

As far as I can tell, if you are a Christian and you work someplace that is open on Sunday, you should not hire Christians to work with you. That is because they will tell you they are unavailable to work on Sundays, and you will have to work every Sunday until you can hire some heathens to come work for you. And since Christians are morally obliged not to steal or be unkind, they can be difficult to get rid of. So it might just be awhile before you'll have a spot or two open for the sinners. This has been my experience, at least, and a big part of the reason why we have not gone to any church since "beginning" our search.

For Christian employees, working on Sunday is basically rejecting the church. Sure, some churches have begun Saturday evening services. But let's be honest--aren't they really just opening the doors during rehearsal? Maybe you wouldn't go that far, but you have to admit that Saturday evening church feels somehow inferior. Inferior in quality, in atmosphere, in the people who attend (remember: they've probably come on Saturday night because they are working on Sunday). Saturday is no substitute for Sunday, and most people will only tolerate it if they have to.

The real concern for people who refuse to work on Sunday (beyond getting to go to the good church services) seems to be keeping the Sabbath. This is a big concern among people today, probably because we are so freaking busy all the time. But are we actually keeping the Sabbath?

Well, for one, the Sabbath is actually Saturday, strictly speaking. (Better beef up that Saturday service programming.) Christians gather on Sunday, also called the Lord's Day, because it is the day Jesus rose from the dead--the first day of the week. You might say that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath (Sunday is the new Saturday), so keeping it free from work constitutes keeping the Sabbath and fulfilling that part of the Ten Commandments. I am not sure if there is biblical support for this, but it seems reasonable to the great majority of Christians (even to me, to an extent) to think this way. Today, keeping the Sabbath means, simply, going to church. Beyond that, most people hold a fairly relaxed and personal view of Sabbath keeping that amounts to, "Just set some time aside each week, and that will be your Sabbath."

That extreme is unfulfilling, I think. If your birthday were in July, you wouldn't arbitrarily celebrate it in April. There is something meaningful about celebrating and commemorating an event on the day or date that it actually occurred.

The feeling that we can celebrate the Sabbath whenever we choose, and that we can call anything a Sabbath if it appeals to us as such, is probably related to a culture saturated with choice. In this milieu, even spirituality can be on demand and a la cart. In fact, the dominance of the term 'spirituality' over 'religion' is a sign of the times, as I am sure many others are aware. Who wants religion? Not with its prescribed rituals and rules, not with its built in morality, and certainly not with its preconceived notions of who I am and how I ought to respond to God.

Spirituality, on the other hand, leaves ample room for personal accommodation and invention. Our fascination with the novel and the personal can find a comfortable home. There is no institution challenging our religious autonomy and final authority. I can become the Protestant of Protestants. Martin Luther was great, but he didn't go far enough. I can buck every religious authority and become a religion unto myself. I can decide when the Sabbath is and how I will observe it. Saturday this week, and Sunday the next--no problem.

I do not think that churches explicitly affirm this kind of religious fabrication; rather, the expansion of weekend services, peer groups, and special interest studies is a method for keeping the church attractive to potential members. The more convenient entry points there are into the church, the better able people will be to connect. The problem is that accessibility is not the same thing as hospitality, and allowing individuals to customize their community attachments according to personal preference is not the best model for Christian communion.

As for the topic at hand, could it be that the proliferation of choice within the church has eroded American Christians' commitment to keeping the Sabbath? It would be ironic indeed if we found a firm connection between decreasing church attendance among Christians and increasingly frantic efforts to accommodate their schedules.

For my part, the effort to make church more convenient places the focus on whether I will show up, rather than whether God will. If I can show up whenever I want to, and the religious experience will be the same no matter what, then suddenly the Sabbath (since it has become synonymous with going to church) becomes much less sacred. If the Sabbath can be whenever, wherever, and whatever I choose, then it is no longer necessary or even possible for it to be set apart and treated with reverance.

If the Sabbath can be anything at all, then why even have the term? The ease with which it coordinates with our weekly activities undermines its holiness because it makes the Sabbath secondary and unintrusive. It is not holy because no separation from our week is necessary--it is not set apart. But as religious observances go, the Sabbath is by nature a countervailing force that would disrupt our lives if we would let it.

Working on Sundays has kept me from being able to visit new churches, and I have become concerned about how many weeks have passed with no disruption in my routine. I am worried that the Sabbath has become just a quaint term, and Christian fellowship inconsequential. My deep hope is that this journey to find a new church would teach me about Christian community. I hope not to learn that it has become unnecessary and irrelevant.