Is our biology contributing to Church segregation?

Invisibilia is a podcast that explores the "invisible" forces that affect life. In a recent episode the reporters explore "The Power of Categories" and second half of the episode talks about a retirement community. 

If you don't want to take time to listen to the episode, or at least the second half, here is the setup. 

Man from India (Iggy) sets up a retirement community (Shantiniketan) that feels more like his native country. Other retiring people from India are attracted to  being a part of a community where they are no longer an outsider. While the community does not turn non-India people away it is still a community that can feel rather exclusive. The original founder does not want his children to live in a community like this - too insular - but he also feels that people are like salmon and as we get closer to death we desire to return back to what is most comfortable or familiar. And according to Jeff Greenburn, a psychology professor at the University of Arizona, humans get just a little bit more racist as we move closer to death. Here is the transcript from this point:

GREENBERG: I am a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona.

MILLER: And for the last 30 years, he's been studying how we behave when death is on the mind.

GREENBERG: That realization that, someday, we're not going to exist.

MILLER: And Iggy is absolutely right. If you raise the specter of death in a person's mind, which you can do experimentally, by the way, by simply asking a question like...

GREENBERG: ...What do you think happens to you as you physically die and once you're dead?

MILLER: People like people in their own group way better than they do when they're not thinking about death.

GREENBERG: So we had them rate them on, you know, traits like, you know, honesty, kindness, intelligence.

MILLER: Christians like Christians better. Italians like Italians better. And Germans, who most of the time are actually pretty lukewarm on other Germans...

GREENBERG: I think it's still - it's lingering, you know, guilt.

MILLER: ...If you get them to contemplate their own mortality, suddenly they really like Germans.

GREENBERG: So if you interview Germans near funeral home, they're much more nationalistic.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: But it's not just that we like our own more. Its reverse imprint is also true. We like people outside of our group much, much less.

GREENBERG: People become more negative toward other cultures.

MILLER: So why? Why might we do this?

GREENBERG: Well, because death haunts us as it does. We have to do something about it.

MILLER: Greenberg thinks it's this strange way that we try to fend off death. His thinking goes that people who are not like you, who do not share your language or your values or your beliefs, well, in some very primal way, it's like they can't see you.

GREENBERG: And so to manage the terror that we're just these transient creatures...

MILLER: ...We shoo those people who make us disappear away.

GREENBERG: Right.

MILLER: That is, when you dive deep into your own category, what you're actually getting is the illusion...

GREENBERG: ...That we're significant and we're enduringly significant.

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And so if it is true that human individuals become more concerned with surrounding themselves with their own when they are thinking about their own death, is is also true that human institutions become more concerned with surrounding themselves with their own when the institution is thinking about it's death? Does the chatter of the "death of the Church" and the Church's inability to draw in new Christians create a feedback loop where the Church is only able (or willing) to drawn in others who look/act/feel like us?

What Colbert, Stewart and Chase Can Teach "The Church"

One of the great journalist/NBA coach exchanges.  

Journalist are an interesting bunch. We have all sorts of respect for the journalist who tries to get the Truth or expose the darkness in the world. We trust the journalist that asks the tough questions and finds a humble way to do so in the process We feel betrayed when we think a journalist is lying or not accurate. We have high standards for journalists. 

At the same time we seem to also have a distrust of the "Media". We know that journalists work for "The Media" but when we say "The Media" is bias or all garbage, we generally are talking about some amorphous idea we label "The Media". We can dismiss "The Media" if we don't like what it says, we can ignore "The Media" by tuning it out, we can discredit "The Media" by offering up different information. 

In many respects this is also true for clergy and "The Church". Many people, religious or not, meet clergy and trust clergy. There is a level of appreciation that clergy are trying to do the right things and do them with humility. It is also true that people have high standards of clergy which is why when clergy do things that violate those standards there is a sense of betrayal and anger. 

Similarly, just as there is distrust toward "The Media" there is also a growing distrust of "The Church". "The Church" is what has caused deep wounds in people's lives and it is "The Church" that is responsible for some of the crazy hate language. We can dismiss "The Church" if we don't like what it says, we can ignore "The Church" by tuning it out, we can discredit "The Church" by offering up different information. 

Perhaps this is why so many of us Christians are apprehensive to talk about our church - people might hear us and confuse our church with "The Church". "Oh, my church is not like those on T.V." "My church is very open and affirming." "My church teaches about love not about judgement." It take so much work to qualify when we talk about our church that I can see why many of us choose to talk about something else. 

If Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart before him (or Chevy Chase before him) have taught us anything it is that in order to change "The Media" we have to talk more about the media. In order to change the perception of "The Church" we have to be willing to talk more (not less) about our church. 

Green Eggs and Ham and the Spiritual Practices

I have read Dr. Seuss' classic allegory titled Green Eggs and Ham a few dozen times in my life and each time I have read it I assume the reason that Sam-I-am refuses to eat green eggs and ham is because it is new. We talk about how we do not like new things and even how the plate looks a little odd to try green eggs and green ham. (I confess I am not sure if 'green' also modifies ham in addition to eggs.) Who like to try new things? Especially food. 

Then I began to listen to my Church tradition, United Methodism, and I began to consider that perhaps green eggs and ham was not a new dish at all. Perhaps green eggs and ham was a dish that has long been around but Sam-I-am is resistant to the past, not the unknown future. 

It makes me think about the green eggs and ham of the Church are not limited to the "new" ways of doing things but very much a resistance to try the recipes of the past. 

When was the last time you sat in silence? Fasted? Contemplated on one thing for longer than 15 seconds? Journaled your thoughts? Engaged in Bible Study that challenged you rather than just affirm you? Divested of your material possessions? Practiced simplicity? Consider worship as something that is offered rather than something to be judged and assessed? Allowed the Scripture to read you rather than you read the Scripture? 

I wonder if we in the Church might be the Sam-I-Am's not by turning our nose up at the "new" but at the very ancient?