HE IRRELEVANCE OF DENOMINATIONS [F, 6-5-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Observations of An Irrelevant Old Preacher--THE IRRELEVANCE OF DENOMINATIONS [F, 6-5-26]

 

I know you are eager to hear about the irrelevance of preachers, and I did promise that for today, but my scheduling is unreliable, and first we have to consider the irrelevance of denominations…

The original purpose of denominations was so that you knew who to avoid. You could go to any town and know that Catholics would not recognize Lutherans, and Lutherans would not recognize Baptists, and Baptists would not recognize one another in the liquor store.

I love that sort of joke, but it takes us away from the main point. There were theological differences between denominations, and people were convinced they would go to hell if they got mixed up with the wrong belief system. More importantly, there were cultural differences. Often language differences. A denominational label was a handy way of knowing who to avoid.

Gene Matthews was the preacher for a while at Forsythe Methodist, the little open-country church that nurtured me. He was a factory worker who got the call to preach in middle age. He took the courses to get a License to Preach and filled in part-time wherever he was needed.

One week, that was the Methodist Church in Darmstadt, near Evansville, where he lived. He was newly licensed and wanted to show off his preaching skills. That was back in the day when many churches had open Bibles already on the pulpit. Gene decided he would study the scripture for the day and just preach directly from the pulpit Bible. When he got there, though, he discovered that the pulpit Bible was in German! It had been a German Methodist congregation. They had given up worship services in German during WWII. But they had kept that old Bible. It was as much a part of their Methodist heritage as Wesleyan theology.

Denominations are about connections. In a denomination, congregations aren’t separate entities; they belong to something bigger, a system that works together, to establish and sustain colleges and universities and hospitals and missions and children’s homes and old folks homes.

Now, though, all those institutions have been taken over by government or rich people on boards of directors. A university or hospital might still carry the name of a denomination—Lutheran or Presbyterian or Whatever—but the church has no say about what goes on there.

I started these irrelevancy columns by saying no one wants to be a preacher. Well, that’s not true. There are plenty of folks who want to be preachers, but they don’t want to be part of a larger church, a denomination. They don’t want to go to seminary, or be vetted by peers, or know anything about comparative theology, or be questioned about whether they have the necessary “gifts and graces” to be effective pastors. They don’t need a degree or an ordination. They are “called,” and that’s all they need. They are business entrepreneurs. Denominations are irrelevant in a culture that is entrepreneurial.

Ordination is outdated. Now, whoever wants to be a preacher, they just declare themselves a preacher. They rent an empty building, give it a name that includes words like journey or harvest or new or start or, especially, community, and they’re a preacher, although they rarely call themselves that. They are the messenger or the leader or the prophet.

We don’t want to relate to other people in other congregations. We want just our own little New Start or New Life or New Hope or New News congregation, our own bunch of people self-selected to be like us, our own preacher who has no responsibility to anyone but us.

In a non-connectivity culture, indeed an anti-connectivity culture, denominations are irrelevant.

John Robert McFarland

“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is to try to please everybody.” Herbert P. Swope

 

 

 

ONE MORE THING ABOUT CHURCH IRRELEVANCY [W, 6-3-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings About Irrelevancy by an Irrelevant Old Man—ONE MORE THING ABOUT CHURCH IRRELEVANCY [W, 6-3-26]

 

“Just one more thing…” That’s what Lt. Columbo always said on the “Columbo” TV show of the 1970s. He was on his way out the door, hand on the knob. The killer looked satisfied. The police detective was leaving without learning the truth. But “Just one more thing…” was preface to the question that would befuddle and expose the murderer, every time, for ten years.

So, just one more thing about the irrelevance of the church, before we go on to the irrelevance of preachers… 

If you take a quick look at America today, it does not look like the church is irrelevant. In fact, it looks more relevant than ever. There is a strong Christian nationalism movement, from The White House on down. Indeed, surveys show that almost all the people who voted for Donald Trump are in church every Sunday, and he is the kind of president who gets whatever he wants. That’s relevance…

No, it’s not, because politics and culture are very different creatures. The church is relevant to current politics but not to culture, what people really believe and how they really live.

Politics is ephemeral and manipulatable. Elections rarely reflect how people actually live. Voters can be manipulated. Elections can be falsified. Courts can declare that the winner actually lost.

People vote on politics. Culture is not up for a vote. We think we make decisions about cultural matters, and we do, but not by vote. Culture just happens, one personal act at a time until the whole world has shifted.

It’s an old phrase now, but I was impressed when I first heard it, 56 years ago, from James Spalding, the Dean of The University of Iowa School of Religion, when I was his graduate student assistant: The axe man of The French Revolution was exceedingly proud of the sharpness of his blade. They put a poor bloke on the chopping block before him. He swung mightily. The man laughed. “Ha! You missed me! I didn’t feel a thing.” “Just wait ‘til you sneeze,” the axe man said.

Political ascendency periods are very short. Usually no more than ten or twelve years. Even the Christian nationalist churches are already irrelevant. They just haven’t sneezed yet.

Yes, of course, there will always be a church. The Body of Christ will always be resurrected. But not in the ways that require preachers to lead them. So, next column, the irrelevancy of preachers…

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

STICK A FORK IN THE CHURCH [M, 6-1-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Mutterings of An Irrelevant Old Man About Irrelevance—STICK A FORK IN THE CHURCH [M, 6-1-26]

 

The annual meeting of my United Methodist Conference starts tomorrow. The Illinois Great Rivers Conference comprises 2/3 of the state of Illinois, everything below Interstate 80. There are 646 churches in that Conference. When representatives from those churches meet in solemn assembly this week, there will not be even one new pastor ordained.

For several years now, in most United Methodist Conferences, retirements have outnumbered ordinations about ten to one. Now it’s gotten to be ten to zero. Yes, we have a pastoral crisis. Not just in the UMC, but in any denomination: nobody wants to be a preacher.

At least, nobody wants to be a preacher in a denomination, where there are folks who are checking to be sure you’re not mixing up any kool-aid.

Why are there no new preachers? Four reasons: The Church is irrelevant. Denominations are irrelevant. Preachers are irrelevant. Campus ministry is non-existent.

Today: The irrelevance of the church. I’ll talk about the irrelevancy of denominations and preachers and campus ministry in subsequent columns. [If that doesn’t discourage you from reading, nothing will. There’s nothing as deadly as a preacher who starts a sermon with “This is the first in a series of…”]

THE IRRELEVANCE OF THE CHURCH

Society has evolved, especially in sexual mores and morals, and the church has not. The church still holds to a sexual ethic of no sex except in marriage. The current cultural sex ethic is no sex until you’ve known someone for two minutes. The current church could not possibly be any more irrelevant to the current society.

Nobody worries about going to hell. The church was important when people worried about going to hell when they died. Going to church now was insurance against going to hell then. Now most folks think there might be some sort of afterlife, but no one believes in a physical heaven up there and a physical hell down there. Certainly church attendance, and the disciplines of personal holiness, have nothing to do with what will happen to you in some unknown future, so why go to church and do churchly stuff?

The church is all about personal fellowship. Each of us is a part of the Body of Christ, and we need the other parts of the Body. John Wesley even had his Methodist class members confess their sins to one another. The only way that could be done now is via text or Facebook. We live in a society that has no personal connections. Who needs them when you have a cell phone and “social” media? We are never alone, and incredibly lonely.

 

The church used to have enough hold on government that it could dictate cultural and business schedules. No business or school activities on Sundays. Or Wednesday night [prayer meeting]. When we stopped worrying about going to hell, we had to have a different God, and a different form of relating to one another. If you live only for now… Enter money. Enter making money. Enter 24/7/364 shopping and gambling hours. Enter feeling good, right now, via alcohol and drugs and sex. If going to church doesn’t make you feel good, again, why bother?

Nobody likes to be irrelevant. Nobody wants to be associated with irrelevant losers. People don’t want to be part of an irrelevant institution like the church, so they spend their time and money and energy in relevant activities, like sex and golf, and relevant institutions, like shopping malls and bars and sports arenas and casinos.

Stick a fork in the church: it’s done.

John Robert McFarland

Okay, the next two columns might be irrelevant to you. And boring. Because you’re probably old enough that you are irrelevant, too. If you don’t want more of the same screeds, you might want to wait for the column of June 9, when I talk about the irrelevance of learning to build a hay load with a pitchfork.

 

THE SECRET OF A LONG MARRIAGE [Sat, 5-30-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Man—THE SECRET OF A LONG MARRIAGE [Sat, 5-30-26]

 

It was time for our every-five-years high school class reunion. I think it was the one for 35 years. I say “our” reunion, even though it was only I, not Helen, who had been part of that class. Even though she had been valedictorian of her large high school class in Gary, IN, she didn’t really feel a part of it, didn’t identify with it. And she had been to so many of my class reunions, and was so totally accepted by and popular with my classmates, that she said, “If anyone asked me where I went to high school, I’d probably say, ‘Oakland City, Indiana, Class of 1955.’”

Hovey and Sally Hedges had invited Helen and me to spend the week-end with them. Sally said, “Everybody in the class gets so excited when they know you are coming, because you’re not divorced. All the rest of us are divorced, so we know forever vows aren’t forever. But you show that they can be.”

It seems a bit strange, now that we have been married 67 years, that our friends were impressed back then, when we had been married only about half this time.

Sally was Hovey’s third wife, but she always introduced herself as “Hovey’s last wife.” Even put that on her name tag at the reunion banquet. Alas, she was not.

For many folks, once the divorce bowl starts rolling, it’s hard to stop it.

Helen and I are probably among the last long-term marriages, 67 years tomorrow. Marriages are shorter now, not just because of the prevalence of divorce, but also because folks get married later. The birth control pill makes it possible to have sex without marriage, so why rush things?

The biggest reason, though, for divorce and later-life marriage, is this new-fangled idea that both people should be involved in choosing how to decorate a house. Helen says, “I like the old method, where I just did whatever I wanted and you didn’t notice.”

See? Marriage today doesn’t have to be more complicated, even if it’s shorter. The secret to a long marriage is staying out of each other’s way.

John Robert McFarland

“You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond of them. You have to be fond of them to love them. Otherwise, they’re simply unbearable.” Marguerite Duras.

 

 

PIZZA JOINT MEDITATIONS [R, 5-28-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Pizza from an Old Pepperoni Sort of Guy—PIZZA JOINT MEDITATIONS [R, 5-28-26]

 

To me, the purpose of meditation is to get in touch with God, and with your own true self. Most people usually define meditation along those lines.

Generally, folks like to do that “getting in touch” sort of meditation in quiet settings—a worship building, nature, listening to a guided-prayer tape, the patio first thing in the morning, the bath room when guests are in your house… A quiet oasis away from the hustle and bustle of the every-day world.

I like all those ways, but I’m not very successful in trying to meditate in quiet and sacred places. I do some of my best meditating in pizza joints.

Well, one pizza joint in particular.

It’s just a mile from our house. We could have them deliver. Or I could call them with our order and go get it 15 minutes later. But I like to drive down there, and park in the place that the whole town reserves for me, and walk in, and be greeted happily by an overly efficient college student, and state my order, then sit on one of only three high backless stools at the narrow counter overlooking the strip mall parking lot, and stop thinking.

My eyes are open, but I’m not observing. My ears are open, but I’m not listening. My nose is open, but… well, yes, the aromas are part of the meditation. I don’t try to make sense of the sights and sounds and smells. I’m not processing them, to feel certain emotions, or to gain any life lessons, or to understand Kant’s “categorical imperative.” I just let them take me into the presence of God.

I meditate well enough that the college students don’t call my name from the counter anymore when my pizza is ready. They bring the pizza box to where I’m sitting and quietly stand there until I notice them.

Frankly, I’m not a good meditator. I’m not even a good pray-er, except for intercessory prayer. I can pray for others all day. Usually do. But praying to get in touch with God…no, within 30 seconds my mind is off wanting to do something.

After many failed attempts at practicing “the spiritual disciplines,” I finally accepted my limitations. I’m just not a very spiritual person. I’m a religious person. A church person. But not really a spiritual person, a meditating person. No use fighting it. especially not in old age. Too old a dog to learn new ways.

Until Helen got tired of cooking one day, and I began to go to the pizza joint. Not very often. Only every two or three weeks. But if you’re having trouble meditating, waiting for a large pepperoni is just the right amount of time to get in touch with God.

John Robert McFarland

 

  

OUTLASTING THE DEMONS [T, 5-26-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter… OUTLASTING THE DEMONS [T, 5-26-26]

 

I suppose there is a literature in fundamentalist circles of how the author used to be an open-minded “liberal,” tolerant Christian or Muslim, but had an encounter with the true God and now knows that the only correct way of serving God is the narrow way, that not only shuns those who are not true believers but actively works against them, either to convert them or to subvert them.

I don’t know those books/testimonies, but I suspect they are there, because I know their opposite.

Their opposite is the former fundamentalist who had an encounter with the true God and now knows the only correct way of serving God is the open way of tolerance and acceptance and love, working to allow into the fold those who are shunned and vilified by their former fundamentalist brethren. Folks like Frankie Schaeffer and Brian McLaren and Philip Yancey come to mind.

And many other people I have known personally, who have told me their personal stories. That includes one friend who is skeptical about our new pastor, because he occasionally asks for an Amen as he preaches. She shudders as she says, “It reminds me too much of the church I grew up in.”

In these cases, and in any other where a person has changed her mind [i.e., I used to be a Bears fan but now I love the Packers], the assumption, at least by the one making the testimony, and by their admirers, is that the latter position is the correct one precisely because it is the latter, the one changed TO instead of FROM. We are a future-loving people. If we have changed from something of the past, the newer position has to be better.

There is a whole culture of Christians who lived dissolute lives and then were saved so now know how important salvation is, and we should believe what they say because of the difference. Folks laughingly refer to the dissolute life part as building a testimony. “I was just doing bad stuff so I could be a witness later to how much better it is to be sober and saved.”

I appreciate folks like Anne Lamott because they write well, and because they don’t sugar-coat the present [the demons are still with them, but so are the angels], and because they help others to realize it is okay to come out of the darkness into the light, where they can get help.

I also envy people like Lamott. They are able to get such good testimonies from their dissolute pasts and ragged presents. I envy them, yea, even get angry at them at times, because I can’t get the sort of accolades they do, because I don’t have an adequately sordid past to live down.

Or maybe I’m just not willing to acknowledge my demons, the way the “I’m better now” folks do. Through sixty years of listening to people talk privately about their demons, I’ve learned that not everyone is possessed by demons, like with the life-change testimony people, but almost everyone is beset by demons. Many people would have great testimonies about their former addictions and dissolutions, but they can’t talk about them openly, because of the damage they would cause, not just to themselves, but to others.

I am sure that being open about your demons is a good and health-giving thing. I admire people who can do that. but some cannot. If you’re one of those folks, don’t worry about it overmuch. One of the great things about getting old and decrepit is that your demons are puny and feeble, too. Another thing I’ve learned from sixty years of pastoring is that demons get tired. Your demons are as fed up with you as you are with them. Just walk away. Shake the demon dust off your feet. They’re too tired to run after you.

“I bored my demons into giving up” is a good testimony, too.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WELL, IT WAS A QUIET WEEK IN… {Sun, 5-24-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Radio Listener—WELL, IT WAS A QUIET WEEK IN… {Sun, 5-24-26]

 

“Well, it was NOT a quiet week in the Bible…” That’s the way I began sermons back in the halcyon days of the Prairie Home Companion radio show [PHC].

In the 1980s, when Prairie Home Companion went national--so that folks outside the range of Minnesota Public Radio could listen--like many other people, I became fascinated with Lake Wobegon, “out there on the edge of the prairie, the little town that time forgot.” Garrison Kaillor’s “News from Lake Wobegon” became must-hear radio at our house. I insisted that everyone in the house observe “radio silence.”

That happened in a lot of other houses in our church, too. PHC was on the radio on Saturday night, so it was still in our minds come Sunday morning. That’s when I began to introduce my sermons with, “Well, it was not a quiet week in the Bible…”

Not “a quiet week,” as it always was in Lake Wobegon, because the happenings in the Bible were rarely quiet.

Keillor always started his monologue with, “Well, it was a quiet week in Lake Wobegon…” Yes, it was quiet, except the happenings there were quietly hilarious.

We knew from the goings-on there that Lake Wobegon was the same town in which we had grown up, and probably where we still lived. One of my members claimed that he knew all the people in Lake Wobegon, and he had grown up in Chicago! More than one of our members would give their addresses on the Sunday morning attendance sheet simply as “Lake Wobegon.” That was the appeal of Lake Wobegon. We all belonged there.

So I began to try to get my congregation folks to see the Bible as their Lake Wobegon, the place where we all belong.

Today is Pentecost, and today’s lectionary readings are Acts 2:1-21, John 20:19-23, and I Corinthians 12:3-13.

So, if I were preaching today, I would start by saying, “Well, it was not a quiet week in the Bible. The disciples of Jesus were just sitting around, wondering what was going to happen next, now that Jesus has gone off to heaven, when their heads got really hot, and this big wind hit them, and they all began to preach the Gospel in languages they hadn’t even gone on Duolingo for. That started a big argument in the church about whose language was best, so Rev. Paul, of the First Methodist Church of Corinth, had to remind folks that no one’s way of talking was any better than anyone else’s…”

People liked it, but my next appointment was to a church where folks didn’t listen to the radio, at least not Public radio, and they didn’t know about Lake Wobegon, so that particular attempt at biblical interpretation faded away.

I still read the lectionary scriptures each week, though, and I always think, “Well, it was an interesting week in the Bible…” If you’d like to see what an interesting week it was in the Bible, just do a search for “common lectionary.” Or go to: https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/faq/downloads/2025-2026/Year%20A%202025-2026.pdf

John Robert McFarland