Spiritual Perspectives
Where Have all the Christians Gone?

By Jerry Cronin
Special to The Independent

"Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distress. He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Oh that men would give thanks for isS goodness."

Psalm 1-7:19-21.

It's the beginning of a new year and time to think about resolving old problems and making resolutions to change some things in our personal lives we believe we need to change. I would like to propose two things for consideration.

One of the biggest dilemmas facing Christian churches today is that many people don't prefer to attend any sort of Christian service. This begs the question for the rest of us: Why don't many people want to attend Christian churches? Should we smugly assume that the people who regularly attend church services are the very ones that should be there, and we don't need to bother with the ones who aren't there?

I don't believe Christ would agree with this approach.

Some trends seem to prevail in most Christian churches. We see elderly people and very young people attending services regularly, but we are losing a lot of the working parents and teenagers starting around the age of 16 up to about 35-year-old folks in the middle. Others attend at the high services around Christmas and Easter but often not in between. Yet others will attend baptisms, funerals and weddings but won't attend regular weekly services.

Many excuses are given for not attending church: "I'm too busy to go to church" or "I don't want to go because the services are too long and boring." The Masses/services are so long we call them "agony mass" or "nap time."

Many of us are looked at by our neighbors as hypocrites because we only attend a weekly service and then don't live by those principles the rest of the week. We are the "fair weather" Christians who do everything that everybody else does in the world for six days and then put on a show at church for the holy day.

I challenge all of us to "Live in the Lord" this 2007!

For those of you who do not feel that you belong in a particular Christian sect, please consider what moral values you are teaching your children. I invite you to look around the community for a church that meets your needs.

For those of us who should be better role models by imitating Christ's life, I would suggest we need to be vigilant and make better choices this year.

Consider how much King David lost when he disobeyed God and broke his commandments for the lustful desire of a woman. Also consider the elders in the Susanna story at the beginning of the Book of Daniel (in the Douay version only) made famous by the Wallace Stevens poem "Peter Quince at the Clavier."

Both stories demonstrate how quickly a family and society can slip into civil war and unrest when leaders don't follow the dictates of God.

If the problem is that you don't enjoy noisy church services and would rather sit quietly and contemplate the awesome presence of the Holy Spirit, then I invite you to consider an alternative. It is when we are totally silent that we can listen to God.

At the un-programmed Quaker meeting, you won't find any clergy or anybody else serving as intermediaries to the Holy Spirit, just some "good-men and good-women" in silent contemplation waiting for the Divinely-inspired, "inner voice" to inspire us directly.

You can reach Friend Jerry Cronin at jspcronin@yahoo.com or (505) 863-4796 if you have any questions about the un-programmed Quaker meeting. We meet at noon every Sunday for First Day services at the Red Mesa Center, located next door and to the east of the Octavia Fellin Library.

This column is the result of a desire by community members, representing different faith communities, to share their ideas about bringing a spiritual perspective into our daily lives and community issues.

For information about contributing a guest column, contact Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola at the Independent: (505) 863-8611, ext. 218 or lizreligion01@yahoo.com.