Richer, Not Dumber! The Key to Participation

RICHARD FABIAN AND SCOTT KING

Fabian: Christ is risen!
The American sociologist of religion Peter Berger distinguishes modern societies from traditional societies by a shift from givenness to rational choice about customs and what they mean. His example: at Ujamaa villages, the Tanzanian government has collected into cooperative villages tribes too small to thrive alone. The village councils like to choose days for the various tribes to dance their dances for each other as a way of fostering mutual understanding among people who may not share the same language. Here Berger finds all the elements of modernness. Earlier people had danced their dances because these simply had to be danced (when the moon rose, when the crops came in); now they are danced for a reason chosen by the village council—people could conceivably choose not to dance at all. Earlier the people danced with no audience, except perhaps the gods; now performers dance for an audience of their fellow villagers to watch and learn. Berger concludes: "dancing then and dancing now are two drastically different activities."¹

In San Francisco, St. Gregory Nyssen Episcopal Church dances now, both metaphorically and literally. We are getting famous for dancing, and for the many other choices we make; and we hope other churches will join in these choices—we hope your churches will join in. Many of you have seen our video or our website or our publications or compact disks; and seminary professors tell me these stir up discussion whenever they show them.

Let me sketch the context of our choices at St. Gregory's. Sociologists say that Americans have kept roughly the same ratio of church attendance —sixty percent—since colonial times. Until recently most Americans knew what kind of Christian they were, and what denomination to look for when they moved to a new city. But since World War II at least, San Francisco and the west half of Washington state have scored the nation's lowest percentage: less than ten percent of our public tell census takers they have any religious affiliation at all. That includes folks who say, "I'm an Episcopalian/Catholic/Lutheran, but haven't been to church in years," and the ex-Catholics, ex-Jews, and ex-Episcopalians who now support Zen and other traditions. Our Bay Area is a wonderfully open, creative, and lively place, where people dine out on a different ethnic cuisine every night—and ninety percent of our public cannot even spell Episcopalian. In this context every choice we make comes under fresh judgment. And resources from the whole ecumenical world properly belong to our mission, much the way restaurants from every place feed one city.

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