Faith, Data, and the Human Story: Navigating the World through a Christian Lens
I had been listening carefully to my spiritual directee for most of the last half hour. Let’s call her Paula.
Paula had had a lot of challenges in her adult life. Because of this, she was struggling to think of God as a Father she could trust. She felt like it was always “me, myself, and I” as she worked diligently to solve her own issues.
I finally asked her a question my own spiritual director had just asked me: “Those are all ‘channels’ and they are important. But when you put them all together, what is Life with a capital L? What’s the bottom line, or trump card, when you zoom out and look at the big picture?”
“Well,” Paula quickly replied. “I know what it’s not…” and before she could dive into a laundry list of what Life is NOT, I stopped her. “Let me push you on that, just a little. What IS it? Don’t think about what it’s not.”
Only then did she tell me the story of a father who loved her and cared about her. He had some major faults, but she had formed a secure attachment to him. Paula began to see how she could use that experience to begin to form a secure attachment to her heavenly Father as well.
In his book, How to Make the World Add Up, Tim Harford quotes Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow: “When faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.” [1]
Paula was certainly choosing to answer an easier question. And while we weren’t talking about statistics, we were definitely talking about data; the data of Paula’s life.
This conversation with Paula illustrated at least several of Harford’s “rules”:
Rule 1: Search your feelings
Paula’s heart was full of feelings, many of them based in fear, anger, and frustration. We can validate those feelings while still doing our best to turn to God to ask, “Are these feelings worth paying attention to all the time, some of the time, or not at all?” We know from the Spiritual Exercises that God speaks to us through our feelings; it can be valuable data. But our feelings are also sometimes distractions.
Rule 2: Ponder your personal experience
Paula has had experiences that have been life-giving. Those are critical data points that she needs to return to. In the Old Testament we are always told to “remember…” God shows up. We need to remember that God follows through on his promises.
Rule 5: Get the back story
Sometimes as a spiritual director it is necessary to get the back story. Again, it’s all data. It’s information that can help us determine our relationship to God, to ourselves, and to others. Paula’s back story isn’t all doom and gloom; She needed to see what life-giving elements from her past are also relevant to her current situation.
Now having shared all this, I am sure you’re saying, “But that’s not about statistics! We’re reading and writing about statistics this week.” Yes, that’s true. AND… I believe stats are important data points to consider. But there are many other data points to consider too, as we live life and grow in our relationships.
I do, however, also have comments about statistics. I follow a Substack writer named Ryan Burge who comes out with statistical analyses about church issues every week. Sometimes more often than that.
Take, for instance, his post titled, “Are Non-Denominationals Just Evangelicals Without the Institutional Baggage?” [2]
Burge points out that in a book titled, The Churching of America, “a thorough, data-driven exploration of American religious history” the term “nondenominational” doesn’t appear until page 209 and only appears four times in the entire book.
Well, like Burge, I was curious to learn more. So I read on.
He uses the General Social Survey for his data for this article and compares nondenoms to Southern Baptists (to represent the Evangelicals). He compares the two groups by demographics, religious beliefs and behaviors, and politics.
My personal experience has shown me that nondenom churches tend to have younger congregations. I’ve also noticed that they tend to be more conservative than mainline churches. I say this because our three young adult children have been struggling to find a church – any church – where women are allowed to be in positions of leadership AND the congregation has young families. They’ve all looked at both mainline churches and nondenoms. The mainline churches meet their progressive values, but don’t have very many young people attending. In the Northeast, it’s VERY hard to find a slightly more progressive church that also has younger members and attendees.
Burge’s data bears all this out.
He concludes the article by demonstrating that Southern Baptists have always voted Republican – for the most part – but the nondenoms have been swinging more and more Republican over the last couple of decades. Burge concludes,
“I could write a dozen posts about non-denominationals and only scratch the surface. To reiterate a point that I made in a prior post – they are the future of American Christianity. They are growing rapidly in every part of the United States. They will drive some of the key cultural and political changes in the country for decades to come. We need to understand them better.” [3]
On p. 282 Harford writes, “Be curious. Look deeper and ask questions.” [4] He later adds, “One thing that provokes curiosity is a sense of a gap in our knowledge to be filled”. [5] There is certainly a big gap in knowing what’s going on with young people and nondenominational churches.
So understanding these churches means getting curious about them. Why do they attract the people they do? And what happens to young people, like our three children and daughter-in-law, who reject such conservative values, but still long for community? Where do they go? Do they find other ways of surviving and thriving as Christians?
In his book Seek; How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World, Scott Shigeoka writes,
“As far back as African hominids two million years ago, curiosity has been the tool that has assisted us with staying alive. It helped us explore uncharted territories, find new food sources, and discover the best methods to communicate with each other. In these ways, curiosity became a critical skill for our survival, something that’s been passed down to us by our ancestors that is now encoded into our brain’s architecture. Today, we are all born curious, and scientists learned this by pulling back the curtain and examining what’s actually going on in our brains” [5].
Shigeoka then explains how curiosity triggers the release of dopamine. “This means that, at a chemical level, we’re being rewarded for our exploration and information-seeking behavior. Researchers generally believe this is because it reduces uncertainty.” [6]
I am very curious about what causes young people to continue to attend churches where women – and the LGBTQ+ community – are not permitted to be in positions of leadership. I am concerned that they are not curious enough themselves, to ask the questions that would lead to their own explorations of this topic. Such questions as,
- How did Jesus demonstrate his view of women and others who were considered “on the margins” of life?
- How do you account for Deborah being a prophetess in the Old Testament? Or Anna in the new Testament? And several of the other leading women in the early Church?
- How do you reconcile the perfect relationship between male and female as described in Genesis 2 before the Fall, with the broken, sinful version of male and female relationships we see after the Fall?
Why are young people – the future of the Church and, according to Burge, the future of American Christianity – not curious about these discrepancies?
(My daughter says it’s because the churches “hide” this issue while they welcome young people and don’t mention it on their websites. Once young people make friends and get connected, if they find out, it’s “too late”; that’s where their community is and they don’t want to leave. I’m then curious about why a group of them don’t all leave together and start attending a mainline church that is more in alignment with their values, and which desperately wants young people…)
To bring this all full circle, let me revisit the conversation with my directee, Paula. We can see some of Harford’s Rules within a Christian context. Although she and I weren’t talking about statistics, we were talking about data. We are always gathering information – of all sorts – to make sense of our world and our relationships. Human feelings and experiences are invaluable sources of information and data, even – and especially – as we partner with the Holy Spirit in our ongoing spiritual formation.
Ryan Burge’s statistical data helps inform our understanding of societal trends within the context of Christianity. Harford’s rules help us navigate complex issues with an open mind – both personal, like Paula’s, and more generally, as Burge describes. How do we reconcile tradition, contemporary society, and honest conservative and progressive views? What sorts of evolving dynamics come into play as we explore these questions?
In addition to curiosity, we can’t forget how important humility is when looking at data. We have to remember that every data point represents a human story, just like Paula’s. As I’ve heard author and speaker Trevor Hudson say, “Every person is sitting next to their own pool of tears.” As God’s love on earth, we owe it to our fellow world travelers to get curious about their stories, and remain humble about our own.
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[1] Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up (London: The Bridge Street Press, 2020), 61.
[2] Ryan Burge, “Are Non-Denominationals Just Evangelicals Without the Institutional Baggage?” Graphs About Religion (blog), Feb. 1, 2024. https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/are-non-denominationals-just-evangelicals.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Harford, 282.
[5] Ibid., 288.
[6] Ibid., 18.
About the Author
Debbie Owen
Deborah C. Owen is an experienced spiritual director, Neuro-based Enneagram executive and life coach, disciple maker, professional writer, senior librarian, and long-time church Music Director and lay leader. She has earned the award of National Board Certification for teaching excellence, and a podcasting award, and is pursuing a Doctor of Leadership degree through Portland Seminary at George Fox University. She lives in the backwoods of Maine with her husband and flat-coated retriever. She spends as much time as she can with their 3 grown children, daughter-in-law, and 2 small grandchildren. Find her online at InsideOutMinistries.info.10 responses to “Faith, Data, and the Human Story: Navigating the World through a Christian Lens”
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Thanks for your post Debbie! This was a really interesting post as a pastor in the northwest of a church that does have women in leadership AND young people. I’m always fascinated by how regional differences and complexities exist when we look at them but how we tend to get overlooked in national data and averages like some of Burge’s data.
I also appreciate your perspective on Paula and work with her that you do.
I’m curious for you, what is Life with a capital L for you?
Ryan, if you know how to combine women in leadership at a thriving church that has plenty of young people, please come to New England! I have no idea why there might be such regional differences…
To answer your question: I wrestled with the answer during my spiritual direction session (literally right before I directed Paula). There are a few nuances, and I was asking the question – or rather, my director was asking the question of me – for a specific reason, but the bottom line is this: The big picture of Life is that I want to serve God with the gifts, talents, abilities, and interests with which he has given me.
The thing I’m struggling with is where and how to make that mission manifest at this time.
Debbie,
Thanks for the post and thought provoking ideas about the churches and the generations that make them up. I do think it is a complex question. I agree with your assessment as I look at a variety of the churches her in Southern Minnesota. The one point I do see differently though is that you tied women in leadership with LGBTQ+. Honestly, I think they are two distinctly different issues within the church. I think that the biblical basis for support (or disagreement) comes from different aspects of Scripture. From my perspective, it seems that one of the dilemmas for young Christians and conservative churches is the marrying of these two issues.
Adam, I have no idea why young people are – apparently, at least in some places – flocking to nondenominational churches where leadership is restricted and not a partnership. It baffles me.
This was an intriguing article and I am enjoying the conversations in the comments, too, Debbie.
As someone who has stayed in a conservative church, knowing I will be restricted in leadership as a female, I agree with Adam. Women in leadership & the LGBTQ+ are two separate issues, but when choosing a church options seem to be both or none. Personally, I chose the “none” option with the hope that through trust and my own leadership skills, I will be able to bring change (even if only some seeds of doubt) concerning women in leadership.
You mentioned a few times in the comments about young people attending churches where leadership is restricted. I’m curious how many of those young people are planning or seeking to lead? In my peer group, the majority are content to attend and receive, not even entertaining that they could be future leaders in the church. That leads to another question, what can the Church do to develop curious thinkers and leaders?
Hi Debbie, I agree with Ryan’s question: what is Life to you?
I’m also curious about the regional differences between the northeast, the pacific northeast, and the south.
I’m also curious if the lack of young people in mainline churches has anything to do with the lack of young people altogether (rather than just in mainline churches)? American Bible Society puts out stats every year called the State of the Bible, and there has been a general reduction in the health of the church in the US, which probably isn’t a surprise to you.
Christy, thanks for asking. I answered Ryan’s question about Life above. 😉
Also in response to your thought that perhaps there are fewer young people in general, the answer is YES. Ryan Burge’s article here talks about that: https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/why-its-really-hard-to-be-optimistic?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
But that’s not the whole issue. I just wonder why so many young people who decide to attend church do so where leadership is restricted.
Thank you for your thoughts in this post, Debbie. I, too, am intrigued by how hard it is to find a church. Nancy and I have been looking for a long time now, but once we look at the all-male staff (white for the most part) and what they believe, we move on most of the time,
I agree with your thoughts about them not being curious enough, and I feel there is a lot of truth to that statement. What came to mind as I was reading that part is the statement that I loathe “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it,”
How do you think churches could foster more open dialogue and exploration of faith without alienating certain members?
Chris, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? Lol!
I think it comes down to a perception of the authority of scripture. It’s something I’m still very much learning about, but I think when people find out how many authors there are of the documents included, as well as the “battles” regarding what would – or would not – be included, and a host of other “issues” with what’s been written… it causes people to back away from believing what’s there.
Either that, or they become rigid in their beliefs because they are afraid to let in a new idea (or it might shake the foundation of all their beliefs).
But the Bible is only one part of how we know God and grow in faith. Founder of the Methodist church, John Wesley, thought that the heart of the Christian faith was shown in the Bible, supported by tradition, brought to life in personal experience, and backed by reason. I think he’s right and perhaps if we all started there, our dialogues might be more civil, productive, and beautiful.
Hi Debbie! You employed Harford’s writing to your directee and opened up some threshold concepts for her to ponder. I enjoyed your assessment given to nondenoms and there is certainly a lot to unpack in those statistics and analysis. Looking at the nondenom challenge and what was being presented what questions do you think were left unanswered in their analysis?