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Albany

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I’m a guest on HuffPost Live, join in

UPDATE: If you missed the discussion, you can see it its entirety here.  

huffpostlive

I’ll be a guest on HuffPost Live talking about Jason Collins, faith, and sports today.

HuffPost Live’s segment is billed as

Jason Collins is 34, black, and gay—and religious. Collins’ coming out presents an intersection of LGBT rights, religious freedom, and professional sports. What role does faith play for athletes and what it means to be gay in the NBA?

  • Rev. Paul Raushenbush, HuffPost Senior Religion Editor, New York, NY
  • Rev. Alan Rudnick, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Ballston Spa, Albany, NY
  • Esera Tuaolo, Former NFL Football Player; Author of ‘Alone In the Trenches,’ Minneapolis, MN
  • Paul Shirley, Former NBA Basketball Player; Author of ‘Can I Keep My Jersey?’ Los Angeles, CA
  • Tom Krattenmaker, Author of ‘Onward Christian Athletes’ and ‘The Evangelicals You Don’t Know,’ Portland, OR

Some have suggested that because Collins identifies as a Christian he cannot be a Christian because he is gay.

Join in on the chat, watch the live interview, and comment. Everything starts today, Thursday at 2:30 EST.

religion

Religion scholar: Nothing wrong with Nazi assignment

Here in Albany, the story about the school teacher who assigned a “think-like-a-Nazi” essay brought the region into a collective gasp. In turn, the school district  issued an apology and put the teacher on leave. However, the story suddenly turned national as the USA Today and Washington Post picked up the story.

Just about everyone who read the story thought the assignment was a bad idea. However, Boston University religion scholar, Stephen Prothero thinks that no harm was done when the teacher gave the Nazi related assigned. He writes:

I think it’s Greenfield [New York City Councilman] who is lacking in common sense here. And it’s the superintendent who is being illogical.

I suppose it is possible that the teacher is a closet Nazi attempting to reconstruct the Third Reich in Albany. But isn’t it more likely that he or she is trying to teach students about the dangers of propaganda and the horrors of the Holocaust?

Consider the student who felt “horrible” about doing this assignment. Is that really a bad thing? How are high school students today supposed to feel about Nazism and the Holocaust?

Apparently, what they are supposed to feel (and think) is nothing, because the lesson high school teachers are going to take away from this fiasco is to avoid this topic at all costs, lest they risk losing their jobs.

When I was an assistant professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, I used to teach Nazi theology. My students read sermons by Nazi theologians arguing that Jews were evil and were responsible for killing Jesus. They also read a book called “Theologians Under Hitler” by Robert P. Erickson, who tried to explain how and why Christian thinkers could come to believe that exterminating Jews was somehow Christ-like.

What do you think? Is Prothero on target here?

Culture

When religious isn’t religious


As I started my daily read of newspapers, I was shocked (well, disappointed) to learn that our region was one of the least religious regions in America. A new Gallup poll found that, “Only 26 percent of those surveyed in this area say they are very religious, which puts the Albany-Schenectady-Troy region in ninth place among the least religious of the 189 areas polled.” Is this a situation when ‘religious’ isn’t religious?

What is frustrating about this statistic is that as you ride through the Albany region is that there are four to six churches per town. In my town, Ballston Spa, New York  there are six churches in a one mile radius. That is a tight area with a lot of churches. Those churches represent a range of Christian sects: Baptist, Presbyterian, non-denominational, Methodist, Episcopal, and Catholic. That doesn’t even count smaller non-Christian groups.

With so many churches in this area, you’d think that if you build it, people will come. That was true 50 years ago when returning men from War World II were looking to join a civic community were church attendance was expected.

The trouble with using a term ‘religious’ in a poll is that the word “religious” is seen as a pejorative term. As another Times Union article points out, that if the poll used the word “spiritual” the results may have been different. And, using both terms of “spiritual” and “religious” would most likely yield a higher religious or spiritual affiliations. Case in point, a Rasmussen poll found that 54% of American adults feel at least “somewhat connected” to their local church. In addition, 34% said they are “very connected.” The poll did not ask respondent’s religious affiliation. Church connection is another way to measure religious affiliation.

In 2013, ‘religious’ isn’t religious any more. More accurately, the term ‘religious’ carries many negative connotations. Even the term “religious conservatives” carries a reactive wince to many. How many times do we hear the term, “religious liberals”? Almost never. Many would see that term a contradiction but it is not. Most in the media just drop ‘religious’ .

The word religious is not inherently negative, but we Christians and religious folk alike must turn the tide of the negative sediment. In addition, news outlets and polling groups need to understand that they are using outdated and inaccurate terminology. We continue to be a “religious” nation without using the word “religious”.

afeature, Church Leadership

Should a dying church be repurposed?

It seems that I’m stuck on thinking about dying or dead churches. Why so grim, Alan? That is a good question. It seems that folks are interested in talking about this topic. For some odd reason, I’ve been thinking about struggling churches lately. Perhaps it is because I’m writing a second book on a related topic. I’m blessed with a growing and fruitful congregation to lead, but other pastors find themselves in a different situation.

Here in Albany, there are a number of congregations (mostly Catholic) who are closing their doors or selling property. According to the Albany diocese, 20% of churches will be closed. One church in particular, St. Patrick’s, is facing a flight from a group to stop the razing of the church. Some want to turn the church into a brewery or consider another purpose instead of a site for a supermarket.

Overit Media in Albany is housed in a former church.

Churches that closed are often bought as private homes, turned into a business, or sometimes bought by another church. I’m sure the members of a closed or closing church don’t want their structure turned into a pub or demolished to make way for a parking lot. Overit Media in Albany is one example of a church building turned business building.

Instead of closing or tearing down a church completely, is there another way?

A recent article from the Economist brought forward an idea that is growing. Since 1980, the Church of England has closed over 1,000 churches. That’s a lot of congregations and people. What can be done to reverse the trend? The idea goes something like this: keep the church building operating and functional, but repurposed the building so that services can be held while housing. The article sites some successful examples:

But there is a new mood in the Church of England… The plan is to turn the church into a community centre that will continue to hold religious services. This has worked elsewhere: Michaelhouse café in Cambridge… serves cappuccinos during the week but the building reverts to its original use as St Michael’s church on Sundays. In Hereford, Bath and York, working churches double as coffee shops, crèches and stores.

Could repurposing a church revive a church and help spawn new life through becoming a center for religious and cultural life? Doubling as a coffee shop and a church? Doubling as a library and a church? Doubling as a cultural center and a church? It is an exciting idea, but it is not a new one. Early church monastic communities featured gardens, centers of learning, and made money by selling goods that monks made.

But, how far could this concept go? Is it making a marketplace out of God’s house of worship or it is following where God is calling us to “be” the presence of Christ?

Read. Respond. Render.

Israel Trip

Israel Day 1: The Travel

IMAG0322

I started on my trip to Israel on Sunday night, which for a time, it was uncertain that I would even get to Israel. If you have not read about the nature of my Israel trip, please read here.

At Albany Airport, there was mass confusion concerning the flights that were going to Newark, NJ. One flight was the 11:00 AM flight and the other was my flight at 5:50 PM. Both flights were showing delayed on the board but the gate agent couldn’t give a forward answer why there was a delay. Long story short, my flight was delayed an hour but that wasn’t a big deal to me as I had a 3 hour lay over.

I arrived in Newark without any problems. Newark is a busy and crowded airport so I headed to the United club with a free pass I acquired. After relaxing for a bit, I started to my gate. Amazingly, after going through Albany security, we had to go through gate security. Our passports were checked and our bags searched. Then, we all had to again go to the gate agent to have our passport looked at again. We loaded plane and started our journey.

Continue Reading…

blog

Going to #smAlbany

Today I’m attending smAlbany, which is Albany small business, social media, tech, and (fill in the blank trendy industry). This year the gathering is sponsored by Google. I hope to pick up on some trends for social media, tips, and info for promoting churches on social media. Look for updates on twitter: .

Albany

A Pastor Goes to smAlbany…

No, it is not the start to a lame joke, but I served as a panelist at smAlbany.  smAlbany is a yearly small business gathering put on by Liberteks.com.  This year was the 5th Annual smAlbany Small Business Expo.  smAlbany focuses on the technology aspect of networking, business, and career development.  I quickly discovered that smAlbany is a pejorative term for Albany, NY – “small-bany”  The urban dictionary even has an entry for it.

So how did a pastor end up on a panel for a business expo?  Good question.  In addition to my blog here, I also blog for the Times Union Newspaper as their protestant religion blogger.  Michael Huber, the online content manger, thought it would be a great idea to have me as a panelist on the subject of, “Local Social Media and Your Customers.”  In addition to myself, the panel consisted of

As you can see, it is a very eclectic mix of people and professions.  I would say the seminar was well attended and provided people loads of information on social media. Alright, enough with the background.  You are probably thinking, “What did they talk about?”

Continue Reading…

blog, Tony Campolo

Tony Campolo Coming to Albany

Tony looks pretty “hip” here.

2010 Come Alive and Thrive PDF

Session 1, 2: May 21, 2010 Session 3: May 22, 2010.  First Church Albany, NY

Click here to register.

Tony Campolo was a professor at Eastern University (it was a college when I matriculated) when I was a student and I attended many of lectures and talks.  He taught in my sociology class the final year of full time service to the college.  That year, he retired from teaching full time and became a professor emeritus at Eastern.  From time to time, I would bump into him walking on campus, in the gym playing basketball (with his grandson), at the seminary, or in the hallways and he would always entertain a little conversation with me.

Tony was the reason why I went to Eastern.  I heard him speak at a District of Columbia Baptist Convention meeting in November of 1995 and said to myself, “I want to be at the school he teaches!”  After talking with him after the meeting, he encouraged me to come to Eastern. (James Dunn made a similar proposal that night for Wake Forest University, but I turned him down. Sorry James.)

You can anticipate hearing his unique perspective on what the church may look like in the coming decade and how it can address issues of the modern world while remaining faithful to core values and beliefs. How can the church remain relevant, energized, pro-active and connected? How can the church thrive and be significant in an ecumenical and diverse world?

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