Diana Butler Bass
Harper Collins, 2006

“Many people think mainline Protestantism is dying, that is going the way of the dodo in favour of a more lively form of conservative Christianity found in suburban evangelical megachurches. I do not deny that mainline Protestantism is in trouble. Some of its institutions, unresponsive to change, are probably beyond hope of recovery or repair. I also believe, however, that lively faith is not  located in buildings, programs, organisations and structures. Rather, spiritual vitality lives in human beings; it is located in the heart of God’s people and the communities they form. At the edges of mainline institutional decay, some remarkable congregations are finding new ways of being faithful – ways that offer hope to those Americans who want to be Christians but are wary of the religion found in those suburban mega churches.” Pg 6

Reading this book was like an aqua ocean on a clear summer’s day: refreshing, uplifting and inspiring.  And it invoked in me a longing, a curiosity for the deeper, darker, murkier waters where one gets more than just their feet wet.  As I read, I found myself wanting to know more about the congregations, what they did, how they did it, the effects of what they did.  To cover all that in depth  would have been a whole different book.  The focus of this book was on a breadth of research: a three year study, involving 50 congregations, from six denominations,  across seven different regions in the USA, with ten flourishing medium sized mainline Protestant congregations  identified as the core research sites.   

All ten of these congregations found new vitality through an intentional and transformative  engagement with traditional Christian practices of faith.   Butler Bass’ research focuses on ‘ten signposts of renewal’: hospitality, discernment, healing, contemplation, testimony, diversity, justice, worship, reflection and beauty.  These practices where not engaged with as  ‘gimmicky innovation in search of cultural relevance’ , nor as ‘market tinkering’ – changing the product to improve its appeal.  Rather, the congregations, in their adoption of these practices were willing to undergo major change – deep transformation.  Whatever their initial motivations, each congregation had asked two questions that served to spark deep change: “Who are we? What is God calling us to do?”  Change is viewed as a process of ongoing transformation. Congregants speak about ‘becoming’.  Anxieties about change are overcome by a genuine spiritual hunger to hear and respond to God’s call. While many of the congregations re-connected with tradition, they found fresh ways to be faithful to it.

I wondered about the wisdom of the dichotomy clearly eluded to in the title and developed further in the text – who is the ‘us’ and who are the ‘other’ Christians? Does the ‘us’ and ‘them’ distinction alienate some readers who could well be equally interested in practices of renewal? ‘Us’ are the people in mainline denominations who see themselves as ‘theologically centrist  or liberal-progressive’, and who feel isolated in the current American religious culture. They are the “quiet ones, the ones you don’t hear about in the media”.  Butler Bass states frankly in her introduction, “The religious right seems to have hijacked American Christianity, and I can barely stand to read the news about religion and politics.”   While she is just as frank in her description of the decline in many Protestant churches (the ‘frozen chosen’ ‘sitting in the dark with their eyes closed’), it helps to understand that the author’s own spiritual journey has taken her from the fundamentalist/evangelical side of the church to now live as a theologically liberal/progressive Episcopalian.  Clearly though, the emphasis of her search has been more about community and what people do rather than what they believe. She writes: ”I have little patience for spirituality that seems self absorbed and isolating. Most of my life has been a search for authentic spiritual community, a church with its eyes wide open to the world, nothing phony or contrived.”

Diana Butler Bass’s focus on the congregation as a community – and particularly as a community of practice was one of the elements I most appreciated about this book.  Other writings about Christian practices frequently focus on what an individual might do to grow spiritually.  “If you become a pilgrim, you cannot live in isolation from others; you cannot purposefully separate from others on the journey. As part of personal transformation, you become a member of a community” (pg 233 – my emphasis).  The inference is that the two go together; are interdependent.

Much of the content of the book is anecdotal stories.  Theory is well grounded in practice and practical examples of such.  The breadth of interpretation and the reframing of some of the signposts of renewal, those ten practices, gave the book vitality and freshness.

Writing about the difference between modernist and post-modernist world views, or frames, Butler Bass wrote in a blog post:   “In an era riddled with division, fear, anger and invective – when people are wandering like spiritual nomads across the land – religious leaders must tell new stories. And, before we start telling our stories, we must discover some new frames. We need to learn how to be archaeologists of hope – how to carefully and patiently recover what lies under the debris, how to sift through the tell of faith and reconstruct our story. After all, if we have no story, or let someone else tell our story for us, why even bother with church?”  “Christianity for the Rest of Us” is a very good example of a new frame through which we can tell our story.  I loved Butler Bass’s point about people being willing to ‘act as if’ and how that so frequently leads to what we become.   In the uncertainty that characterizes those who live with postmodernist world views an invitation to participate, to practice, is one that is generous and inclusive. It may also be transformative. 

Louise Johnson
January 2009