Some of my clergy friends who have read the sermon title outside on the sign have kidded me, “Isn’t that a little bit presumptuous to preach on ‘The Future of Christianity’? Maybe you should tone it down to something more modest, like, ‘The church’s calendar for the next three weeks.’” Well, maybe it is a bit “much.” I was thinking more in the vein of Mel Brooks’ movie, “The History of the World, Part I,” where we take a panoramic, somewhat frenetic, overview of where we are these days.

And, in part, the sermon title was promoted by this sign I have on my desk announcing a “Christianity Wrap Party,” w-r-a-p, as in “Wrap it up,” or, “That’s a wrap.” I took it off of a pub wall in Soho last March when Sally and I happened to be in London when British television’s Channel 4 was celebrating the conclusion of an eight-part series on Christianity. The final hour of the series was about the future of Christianity, and the host for that survey was Cherie Blair, who had come to Chicago and used our church as one example of good things that might lie ahead for the church – our membership reaching out to serve in the heart of the city, having a diverse staff that reflects the urban population, being inclusive in many explicit ways, adapting in order to stay true to the gospel of Jesus Christ in a rapidly changing world.

So, Sally and I were invited to the “wrap party.” We went, and I came home with this sign. So, I can tell you without contradiction, that if Christianity comes to an end in my lifetime, the wrap party will be in Soho on the third floor of a pub. And you all are invited.

Well, it is melodramatic, in a way, to talk about Christianity as if its future were at stake. After all, it has been around for 2000 years and there are millions of adherents around the world. And while the membership seems to be shrinking in the west, it is growing dramatically south of the equator. But, as it was told to me by an earnest layperson decades ago, “Christianity is always just one generation away from extinction.” That is, unless people live out their faith anchored in the ministry of Jesus Christ in public and convincing ways in this world in this day, Christianity dies. Churches may hang on for a while, organizations may linger, but the faith will be dead.

I was struck by an article written by Christopher McKnight Nichols last fall in a periodical called “Culture,” published by the University of Virginia, where he documents the rise in the number of Americans responding to polls by claiming “no religion.” The author points out that “there are more Americans professing ‘no religion’ than all Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans combined.”

Why? One major reason that he identifies is a geopolitical one. For most of us here today, from the 1930’s until 1989, the “enemies” of America, as we imagined them, were “godless:” first Germany, then Japan, and then the “godless Communism” of the Soviet Union. But, in 1989 that disappeared and a new enemy emerged that today we perceive as frighteningly “religious.” Beyond our shores it is religious extremism that gives rise to terrorism; at home within our borders it is terrorism that grows out of a Christian extremism that has given us Ruby Ridge, the gunning down of a physician in Kansas, and plots against America’s First Family.

Who today in the United States wants to be “religious” when the greatest enemy of freedom and decency is religious people? The “crazies” have taken over religion in the public mind, and we who are faithful, but not crazy, have enormous work to do. The calling of our baptism in the name of Jesus Christ is to be the Body of Christ to the world . . . life-affirming, not murderous, tolerant, not hateful, inclusive, not exclusive. We must redefine what it means to be “godly” in our generation before the future is lost.

One of the reasons I cherish the fact that our church hosts the Silk Road Theatre Project is that it completely confounds those who are un-religious. “What is a Christian church doing by providing performance space to a free-standing, not-for-profit theater that produces plays by and about people from the historic Silk Road where issues of faith are more likely to focus on Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism than Christianity?” It does not fit peoples’ stereotype of the church. For those outside looking in, it is provocative. For us inside looking out, it simply is consistent with our faith.

Nichols offers a second reason for Americans preferring to choose “no religion” over other options. It is a purely internal phenomenon: “polarization among religious outlooks.” It is my observation that the “left” virtually has disappeared in religious America. The center is not holding; that is where the Methodists have been for two centuries in this country. And the “right” has held center stage for almost three decades now. Sometimes we murmur among ourselves, “It’s hard being a United Methodist,” and it is. Trying to hang on to a core of belief and a pattern of action that is true to the scripture, respectful of the tradition, reasonable beyond ridicule, and congruent with our experience in life is a lot of work. It is easier just to capitulate to one side or another, or give up and check the box, “No religion.”

There is a big market these days for books by the “new atheists;” Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and the like. As far as I can read, there is not much new about their atheism, and much of what they despise about the Church you and I do, too. But the polarization of the Christian faith in our culture, and the loss of nerve in the middle, has turned them into best-sellers.

When the faithful abandon reason we leave the field wide open for others to claim that it is unreasonable to be faithful. When we dismiss geological discoveries as heretical, turn our backs on environmental measurements, disregard medical advances, and ridicule thinkers with new thoughts because they challenge old prejudices, we simply confirm the worst conclusions of the “no religion, not for me,” growing population.

Can we, the people of the center, live in a way that convincingly shows that Jesus Christ is at the center of our lives? If we are people of Jesus, of the Christ and therefore call ourselves “Christians,” with our baptism being the sign of our identification with the one who is baptized by the Holy Spirit and consecrated as the “Son of God,” can we, then, live fully and consistently as Christians? I mean that our Christian faith is not just one of many descriptors of who we are. Not, “I am a lawyer, I am also a Rotarian, I practice yoga, I subscribe to the opera, and I am a Christian.” But rather, “I am a Christian. I am a Christian who practices law, serves through a civic organization, takes care of myself, and appreciates the arts. But, first and impacting all else, I am a Christian.” That is what our baptism in the name of Jesus Christ means. Evil enters in when we refuse to believe that we are who God says we are.

Nichols names several other factors in the “no religion” preference. One is the rise of the distinction people some make, a questionable one, I think, when they say, “I am not religious, but I am spiritual.” People say to me, “Reverend, I don’t need to go to church because I get close to God when I am out in my garden.” And I want to say, “Gardening is wonderfully renewing. How was it last Thursday when the snow was swirling and the wind was gusting? How was it kneeling out there in God’s vegetable plot, tending to the withered twigs of last fall’s produce?”

Being religious is not seasonal; gardening is. Some people try to make faith seasonal. They come to worship only at Christmas and maybe Easter, “C and E” Christians they are called. So, I could imagine someone coming to the Christmas Eve service a few weeks ago who had not been here since last Christmas Eve. We start singing, “Silent Night,” and he says, “O no, not again!” The tribulations of a seasonal Christian.

No, what is needed is a consistency on the part of the Christian community that is relevant to human needs in season and out of season. That is what is required of this generation of faithful people so that there will be a Christian faith available for the next generation to accept or reject.

Jesus begins his ministry in the synagogue on the Sabbath by reading from the Book of Isaiah that he has come to fulfill the prophesy – to bring hope to the poor, to bring freedom to the captives, to open the eyes of those who cannot see the way, and to unburden the oppressed.

What could be clearer? We do not feed the hungry on Saturdays, deliver coats and hats and gloves and scarves to them, recycle running shoes, provide bus passes, and invite people into the sanctuary to warm up on these brutally cold days just because we are nice people. No, we do it because we are the people of Jesus baptized with the Holy Spirit who bear the name of Christ. It is what we do, and the future of Christianity depends entirely upon us doing it.

When we tutor the children, when we comfort the grieving, when we visit the imprisoned, when we buy an “ark” for the Heifer Project so that people have the means to sustain themselves, when we paint the hallways of Marcy-Newberry, when we challenge the people across the street and downstate to make good decisions for the benefit of all of the people, when we take medicine to the Philippines and build pews and desks in Chile, when we pray quietly at a Taize service and rejoice with the gospel choir, when we pour the water of baptism and share the holy meal of Communion, we simply are living up to our calling to be Christians.

How do we combat extremism? How do we overcome polarization? How do we avoid irrelevancy? By doing the work of Christ. When we do that, there is a chance that Christianity has a future.

The key is that we be fully Christian, not just Christian as one aspect along with several other things. John Wesley put it into stark words in a prayer that he wrote for the early Methodists to use as they recommitted themselves at the beginning of the new year. He was not content with resolutions; he sought a complete giving of oneself to the faith.

Please turn to #607 in the hymnal, “A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition.” We are going to pray this together as a promise not only to God but also to the future generations for whom we want their to be an inclusive, reasonable, relevant Christian faith to embrace.

I am no longer my own, but thine.
      Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
      Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
      Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
      exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
      Let me be full, let me be empty.
      Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
      I freely and heartily yield all things
      to thy pleasure and disposal.
      And now, O glorious and blessed God,
      Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
      Thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
      And the covenant which I have made on earth,
      let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.