After taking an entire semester with a conservative professor, a new way of thinking of myself has emerged. For this, let me lay the groundwork.
My placement is in an older church in downtown Saginaw, Michigan. It is a relatively urban/suburban mixed environment that is racially diverse and has a big manufacturing and logging history. My church is across the street from Jimmy John's sandwich shop, and I often walk there for lunch. Traditionally, the impact of reading something religious in public has left me wondering what kind of religious zealot freak I must appear to be; however, after hearing all semester about our overly-secularist society and the elimination of any bonds of affection between church and state, a different feeling has overtaken me: I may not be religious freaky enough for people here.!I was reading Anglican Identities by Archbishop Rowan Williams, and as I sat there, it occurred to me that to some, I must be a barely-Christian heathen.
In reality, I don't think that my professor is inherently wrong about the church and society, but instead inherently flawed—religious people today are only thinking theologically and are choosing to not be biblically and historically literate, let alone astute. Because the source of antagonism is not a secular society suppressing a theologically rich Christianity, but is a cabal of zealous fundamentalists against the mainline protestant churches for the soul of the Church. Secular humanists and atheists don't even realize that they are no longer even part of the equation!
The call to the priesthood isn't simply a call to liturgical action, but true leadership. If we are to believe this is the case, then we have decades of weak leadership to overcome. Shh! Don't tell anybody I said that!
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