Liberal Religion Scholar Hopes for a "Religion-less Christianity"
Liberal Religion Scholar Hopes for a "Religion-less Christianity"
by Kristin Rudolph
http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=2334&erid=1464459&trid=cd769c01-d59f-4e68-b4ff-f6d7528b45f3
March 15, 2012
Diana Bass foretold the further rejection of organized hierarchical religion. (Photo credit: Lake Junaluska)
"Unmediated experience of God without an institution telling you how you're supposed to interpret it or how you're supposed to encounter God," is the future of Christianity, according to Diana Butler Bass, author of the newly released book, Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. In an NPR radio interview on March 1, 2012, Bass explained how "the pews are emptying. But it's not all that terrible [because] people are asking for different things." These "different things," according to Bass, are leading people to "[reorganize] their faith lives around principles of experience and connection" rather than "institutional religion." Bass is an independent scholar, writer, and speaker on religion in America, and a member of the Episcopal Church.
Although "there are declines across the board in America's three largest sort of Christian bodies; Roman Catholic, Mainline Protestant, and Evangelical Protestant," Bass does not see a decline in faith but merely a "new reformation." What Bass describes is not exactly a "reformation," though, but a complete elimination of tradition, structure, and authority. She discussed how this "reformation," or "spiritual awakening" is about "people of faith ... [recognizing] the patterns of human beauty and human flourishing that are present in non-theistic and post-theistic communities."
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
by Kristin Rudolph
http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=2334&erid=1464459&trid=cd769c01-d59f-4e68-b4ff-f6d7528b45f3
March 15, 2012
"Unmediated experience of God without an institution telling you how you're supposed to interpret it or how you're supposed to encounter God," is the future of Christianity, according to Diana Butler Bass, author of the newly released book, Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. In an NPR radio interview on March 1, 2012, Bass explained how "the pews are emptying. But it's not all that terrible [because] people are asking for different things." These "different things," according to Bass, are leading people to "[reorganize] their faith lives around principles of experience and connection" rather than "institutional religion." Bass is an independent scholar, writer, and speaker on religion in America, and a member of the Episcopal Church.
Although "there are declines across the board in America's three largest sort of Christian bodies; Roman Catholic, Mainline Protestant, and Evangelical Protestant," Bass does not see a decline in faith but merely a "new reformation." What Bass describes is not exactly a "reformation," though, but a complete elimination of tradition, structure, and authority. She discussed how this "reformation," or "spiritual awakening" is about "people of faith ... [recognizing] the patterns of human beauty and human flourishing that are present in non-theistic and post-theistic communities."
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
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