COPC "Handing Down the Faith" Christian Smith pg 73

Christian Smith Chapter 3 page 73

Christians smiths Thesis is

“Our thesis is this: The centrality of parents in intergenerational religious transmission indicates a long-term transformation of the character of the mainstream American religious field vis-à-vis its sociocultural context. There are many ways to try to describe this transformation. But here we offer a model involving an extended shift from religion lived as a “communal solidarity project” to religion as a “personal identity accessory.” Immediately we acknowledge that our model greatly simplifies a complex process; flirts with old, simplistic sociological dichotomies; and could (wrongly) be read as a “good old days” lament. But all models simplify by nature, and good ones do so helpfully. Sometimes dichotomies are good starting points of insight. And we mean nothing of the following as a nostalgic lament, but rather as straightforward description and analysis. Our models should be read not as capturing an exact narration of historical change but as two “ideal types” (in the sense advocated by Max Weber) that seek to capture the broad features and essential spirits of religious modes of being in major eras of American history.”

Smith, Christian; Adamczyk, Amy. Handing Down the Faith (p. 73). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

This is a good quote from the book.

“In religion as a communal solidarity project, the practical purpose of religion is to promote and sustain right living grounded in true beliefs and right practices. Religion exists to shape people’s view of what is good and desirable, and to help govern their behaviors.”

Smith, Christian; Adamczyk, Amy. Handing Down the Faith (p. 74). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

And the is one thing God does do with the Scriptures

John 14:21 “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.””

The Ten Commandments

John 17:17–26 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Christian Smith makes this point which if it is true in any believers mind.

If you think like this then your thinking is not grounded in the Word of God

Congregations are no longer centers of local community life but rather more like supportive associational resources aiding members in pursuing their authentic life concerns, coping with life, and making good choices. Membership is not determined by a mix of ascription and chosen association conditioned heavily by geographic and social limits, as with the communal solidarity project. Membership is instead a matter of personal preference dependent on how well the various options on offer meet one’s felt needs. Community solidarity is replaced by consumer selection.

Smith, Christian; Adamczyk, Amy. Handing Down the Faith (p. 75). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Membership in the church is founded on true beliefs found in the Scriptures.

The Scriptures are what are to frame our thinking about the church the world and who we are.

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Christian Smith goes on to say regarding why he believes the home and not the church is where people develop more of their beliefs in our current society according to his research.

Home and family, however, are no longer institutions that support the community. They become instead something like “incubators of possibilities.” The private sphere of family is where identities are most profoundly formed, where authentic life concerns are worked

Smith, Christian; Adamczyk, Amy. Handing Down the Faith (pp. 75-76). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

This may be happening

And this may be the case in America.

But as the Lord instructs us we are to be cultivating the Faith in both the family and the church.

Through attendance of the worship servcie on the Lords Day the 4th Commandment.

And Gods instructions to Fathers and Mothers to teach the scriptures to their children when they rise and when they walk and when they lie down at night.

Deuteronomy 6:7 “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Exodus 20:8–11 ““Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Smith goes on to say

“Finally, people and religions develop not through participation, solidarity, and the engagement of communal practices, but through self-reflexivity, self-growth, and self-expression.”

Smith, Christian; Adamczyk, Amy. Handing Down the Faith (p. 76). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

So what is he saying here. that your beliefs are what you do, what you practice and not just what you do in public.

James 2:18 “But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

Smith also comments on Marriage as once being the so called institutional Norm. He says

“The new emphasis on choice means, for example, that those who want a “traditional” marriage and family must now make an intentional decision to do that and so “have tradition” rather than simply by default be traditional.”

Smith, Christian; Adamczyk, Amy. Handing Down the Faith (p. 77). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Some of the social changes during the twentieth century that helped cause the broad shift from religion as a communal solidarity project to being a personal identity accessory include the mass production of and popular access to automobiles in the early century; the massive expansion of advertising-driven, mass-consumer capitalism; rapid postwar suburbanization; the triumph of therapeutic culture; the decline in religious denominational loyalties; the cultural mainstreaming of American Catholicism since the 1960s; the growing distrust by Americans of all formal social institutions since the 1960s; the rapid rise of two-income households since the 1970s (that is, the decline of the midcentury ideal of one male breadwinner + a stay-at-home housewife); the decline and emptying of town and city downtown commercial and community areas since the 1970s resulting from the rise of shopping centers, malls, and big box store commerce; the increase in work hours and decrease in leisure time in the late twentieth century; the digital revolution and rise of social media since the 1990s; and the diffuse cultural influence of postmodern suspicion, skepticism, and identity fluidity since the 1990s, among other influences.24

Smith, Christian; Adamczyk, Amy. Handing Down the Faith (p. 80). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.