Spiritual But Not Religious?

If you’ve been around Evangelicals at all you know that they speak often about persecution in the West, and maybe not enough about persecution of Christians around the world. Sometimes church folks can be almost embarrassing in the way they complain about difficulties in the workplace or at school as if they are on par with the persecution faced by Middle Eastern Christian believers for example, who have lost homes, limbs and even loved ones.

But there is a growing sense of ‘soft’ persecution, of the type that is not physically hostile, but it is ideologically so. It is the institutional removal of Evangelicals from participation in the public square. It is a sort of a Western, secular-branded policy similar to the one in Muslim countries called, dhimmitude. Minorities such as Christians must pay extra tax, and be excluded from various aspects of civil society. Now it seems that Christians may be treated that way in the liberal West.

Having fundamentals of human identity as male and female cast off by the whims of state legislators is one institutional way of marginalizing Christians. It’s a soft persecution.

Now take the state of the Evangelical church right now in Canada. Many have described the practice of the ‘circulation of the sheep’. That is the idea of people who claim to follow Jesus yet are disconnected from a local church, circulating from one church to the next. Their spirituality is a private thing, and they see little need for committing to other Christians in any lasting and meaningful way.

So there is this phenomenon of the “Lone Ranger Christians”. It’s a Christianese term for professing Jesus followers who don’t get along with the church. Any church. Now I don’t like the term Lone Ranger Christian because it’s bad press for the Lone Ranger who was a great guy. But the problem with the Lone Ranger Christian is that they have already given the game away before a hint of soft persecution has touched them. Their faith is only a notion, not a confession. They follow Jesus only in convenience, not conscience. And the summons of Jesus to ‘take up the cross and follow me’ is viewed as a conditional suggestion not a command.

For years now, well-attended Evangelical churches have catered to the Lone Ranger Christian by softening the commands of Jesus, and amplifying the creature comforts of attendees. When asked, a person will say that one of the mega-churches is ‘their church’, but they are on the margins of its fluid communal life, slipping in and out like one more latte stop.

Thankfully, there has been a renewal happening in Canadian churches that sees historic Christianity as offering something more. The Christian gospel has stability in a world of flux as well as a sense of the supernatural in a society of cold-pressed materialism. What is noteworthy about this renewal is that many young people are proving to be the surprising examples of maturity for some in the older crowd. It is a strange juxtaposition to see a Millennial modelling ‘churchmanship’ for a Boomer.

Although it is unwelcome, there is no need to fear persecution. Even the soft stuff, though difficult, will have a purpose. As Christians are institutionally shamed and economically or politically marginalized, one thing is certain, nobody will be a Lone Ranger Christian anymore. There will only be the solid, identifiable church confessors, and the former Evangelicals who capitulate faster than you can say, “Hi Yo Silver, Away!”

Millenia-old definitions of human identity are tumbling like the price of so much unwanted crude.

Now, thanks to new legislation announced from NDP minister David Eggen, schools in Alberta must permit young boys and girls to self-identify in any way they prefer, and to go to any washroom or change room their heart desires.

Confusion reigns as boys will have access to the privacy of girls and vice versa. This goes for washrooms or locker rooms. This is government mandated voyeurism in Alberta schools.  

The irony of the situation is that if a child is uncomfortable with the new intermixed activities of boys and girls (and those self-identifying in a personally preferred way), they don’t have a right to have the activity changed to ‘boys’ or ‘girls’. They are shunned away with the lonely option of ‘independent study’.

So the sexual confusion of a child now binds all other children (and educators) to accommodate. But the concern of another young child for their own privacy and safety, is marginalized to the segregated ‘non-gendered’ washrooms and separate study halls. Though many say it is all about human rights, it is clear that for the NDP government, some emotional damage is more equal than others.

So Alberta takes a further step in joining what theologian Albert Mohler has called “the vast high-velocity moral revolution.” Make no mistake, Alberta is far from being a Bible-belt.

Looking at this issue from a Christian perspective, the Alberta government is attempting to calibrate policies in denial of biblical and biological realities. God created human beings as male and female according to Christian Scripture. The inherent and physiological differences of the sexes have been recognized for ages, being the subject of sonnets and sitcoms.  All of that is overthrown easily by legislators today.

Yet,in a fallen world, affected by sin (another bit from the bible), it is to be expected that gender identity would become confused at times. The early Christian apostle Paul knew this, yet offered the prospect of clarity through restored gender identity. This hope is the message of deliverance which Jesus was all about.

Students in a confused world will experience all of the angst and difficulties of growing up. Some will wrestle with how to interpret their feelings. But it does not assist students struggling with gender questions to dismantle the obvious binary nature of the sexes.

In the NDP government’s pursuit of protection for self-identifying transgender students, it instituted a policy of perpetual instability in schools, even potential voyeurism. If it is all about preferences, then why don’t the kids simply pick the Pink Floyd Option, ‘We don’t need no education/ we don’t need no thought control’?

As Albertans watch the price of oil crash, they are also seeing nothing less than the collapse of what it means to be human.