Has Your Church Been Visited by a Mystery Worshipper?

On September 27 I published a column in the Free Press about a couple of church crawls—one by students at the University of Ottawa, the other by an individual in Barrie who decided to try to visit and blog about all 73 churches in that city in a year. Subsequent conversation about church visits on Facebook brought to mind this column I wrote a number of years ago about my family’s experience visiting local churches.

Has your church been visited by a Mystery Worshipper?

Never heard of it? The Mystery Worshipper project is a venture sponsored by the British Christian on-line magazine Ship of Fools. Through the project people clandestinely visit churches and then submit reviews to the magazine’s website—sort of like how mystery shoppers visit stores to help rate their staff and service. 

The aim is to “give the churches a shot in the arm by showing them how they look to outsiders.”

Anyone can be a Mystery Worshipper. All you have to do is fill out an application on the magazine's web site. Mystery Worshippers are given a 20-question survey that includes questions about the warmth of the welcome, the length of the sermon, the quality of the preaching and whether the reviewer would consider attending that church regularly.

They are also asked to indicate what part of the service was like being in heaven, and what part was "like being in . . . er . . . the other place."

The only clue that a Mystery Worshipper has visited your church is a calling card, dropped discreetly into the collection plate. The review is then published on the Ship of Fools website.

I am not an official Mystery Worshipper. But a few years ago I did a bit of mystery worshipping. Together with my family, I visited five different churches in Winnipeg. We tried to see each church through the eyes of a newcomer, with particular emphasis on hospitality—did we feel welcome as visitors?

All five churches did poorly on that count. Which is a bit of surprise, since reaching out to others is a core value for most churches. But in almost every church we were ignored.

People walked around and by us in the foyer, happily greeting each other and engaging in animated conversation. Even people sitting near us in the pews failed to offer a greeting. Only in only one church did one person stop to say hello. Otherwise, we were on our own.

Our experience was not unique. Jane Fisler Hoffman considers herself a “professional” church visitor. As a conference minister with the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ, she gets to visit a lot of different congregations.

“Nearly every church believes itself to be friendly and welcoming,” she says. “But that truth is not always readily apparent to the nervous first-time visitor who has just moved into the area or who is having a new sense of spiritual seeking.”

Ways churches can help visitors, she says, include listing the worship time on the answering machine and web site; by putting up lots of signs—regular attenders know where everything is, but visitors don’t; and having “visitor-friendly bulletins” which lists all the responses and instructions.

But the most important thing churches can do is to train some members to be on the lookout for visitors.

“The standard doorway greeters who look at you with that ‘are you a first-time visitor or an old-time member I should know?’ question in their eyes rarely do more than smile and shake a hand," she says. "Other members should be trained and, if necessary, assigned to watch actively for visitors and help them find childcare, coat racks, and so forth.”

Of course, a church is so much more than what happens in the foyer. But first impressions do matter; church growth specialist Herb Miller says that only 12 percent of first-time visitors ever return the following Sunday. 

Why do they come back? Because they are made to feel welcome, he says. 

And there’s nothing mysterious about that.

Do Rocks Have Rights?

Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki has announced what will likely be his last campaign. His goal: To enshrine clean air and water in Canada's Charter of Rights. His announcement reminded me of a column I wrote in 2007 on the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire—about whether rocks have rights.

In 1807, the British Parliament signed into law the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, the first step towards the worldwide eradication of the African slave trade.

Today, over 200 years later, it seems obvious that people should not be bought, sold and enslaved. But back then the prevailing view was that the slave trade was necessary, even if it was brutal. 

Stopping it, it was argued, would have negative economic consequences; only a very few people believed that it was morally wrong. It took 20 years of tireless work by William Wilberforce, a courageous Christian Member of Parliament, before the trade was ended.

The abolition of slavery is just one example of how humans have evolved ethically. Other examples include the civil rights movement in the U.S., the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and the extension of human rights to women, gays, people with disabilities and others.

It can be argued that the human race has often failed to live up to these ideals—shamefully, there are still parts of the world where people are enslaved, and there is still far too much discrimination. But most would agree that these are noble aims to strive for.

While progress has been made in developing rules to govern human relationships, we have not done as well when it comes to developing an ethic to guide our relationship to the earth.

True, there is a growing consensus that we need to change the way we live if humans are to survive. But real change won’t occur until we believe that it is morally wrong to pollute the planet.

Not wrong because it has negative economic consequences. Not wrong because it will negatively affect our way of life. And not even wrong because we will die if we don’t stop dumping on, paving over and polluting the environment. It’s wrong because that’s no way to treat anyone—or anything. 

Rocks, in other words, have rights, too.

It’s a radical shift in thinking. Traditionally, we have mostly thought of rights as belonging to human beings. But more and more ecologists are arguing that the earth is not to be prized because it sustains life, but because it has value in and of itself.

One of the earliest to promote this way of thinking was Aldo Leopold, considered the father of wildlife management in the U.S.

In his classic 1949 essay, The Land Ethic, Leopold suggested that the next human moral evolution would be the expansion of ethics to govern our relationship to the earth. 

Leopold proposed the following ethic for the way we deal with the environment: A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the earth. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

More recently, Wendell Berry, a Christian environmentalist, author and farmer, has added a spiritual dimension to Leopold’s idea by suggesting that there is a sacredness to the material world, and all of its nonhuman inhabitants.

Berry argues that the earth, and all its aspects, are invested with value not just because they were created by God, but because they are expressions of the divine.

Says Berry: “We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us . . . we must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”

Many people today, including many religious people, are taking the issue of earth care seriously. That's all good, but maybe the next step is to believe that it is morally, religiously, spiritually and ethically wrong to abuse the earth—that rocks, trees, flowers and all other living things have rights, too.

Attaining Moksha, or Whatever Happened to Hindu Yoga?

June 21 is International Yoga Day, which will be celebrated worldwide. My bet is that few who engage in this ancient religious practice will wonder where Yoga came from, or who owns it. Those are the questions being addressed by the “Take Back Yoga” campaign created by the Hindu American Foundation. I first wrote about it in 2012.

When it comes to yoga, there are lots of different kinds being practised by North Americans these days -- hot yoga, power yoga, prenatal yoga, Catholic yoga, restorative yoga, Christian yoga, Jewish yoga, and even naked yoga, to name just a few.

One thing you don't find is Hindu yoga. Which is strange, since yoga originated with that 6,000-year-old religion.

It's estimated about 1.4 million Canadians, and between 16 million to 20 million Americans, do yoga. North America-wide, yoga generated about $6 billion in sales in 2008, once all the yoga-related clothing and other accoutrements were included.

For most people, yoga is a way to promote physical and mental health through stretching, postures and breathing techniques. 

Attaining moksha -- the Hindu ideal of liberation from worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and rebirth -- isn't usually one of the goals. In fact, many yoga practitioners might be unaware of its ancient religious roots.

That is something the Hindu American Foundation would like to change.

In 2010, the foundation launched "Take Back Yoga," a campaign designed to help people become more aware of yoga's debt to that ancient faith.

The campaign began with an essay posted on the foundation's website that lamented how North American yoga culture, magazines and studios had divorced yoga from "the Hinduism that gave forth this immense contribution to humanity."

According to Suhag Shukla, managing director of the foundation, the campaign was started to call attention to the "commercial appropriation and misappropriation of yoga which purposefully delinks yoga from its roots in Hinduism."

While emphasizing that Hindus are glad to share yoga with anyone, she added, "we simply cannot ignore, contrary to what's done by many Western yoga practitioners, the fact that yoga is rooted in core Hindu concepts of divinity in all of existence, karma, reincarnation and moksha."

In fact, the kind of yoga practised by most people in the West today has no real basis in traditional Hindu teaching says Ian Whicher, who teaches religious and philosophical thought of India, Hinduism and the Yoga tradition at the University of Manitoba.

"There is no real evidence in the Indian tradition for the kind of health- and fitness-oriented practice that dominates the global yoga scene of the 21st century," he said in an interview in The Manitoban.

Whicher would also like to see more people understand and appreciate yoga's deep spiritual roots in Hinduism

"Yoga has a very profound philosophical understanding which links up with our psychological natures, our ethical capacities and our physiological being," he said. 

"Yoga is really about liberating our energy and attention to know more and more what life is, who [we are] and what all this universe is."

What do local Hindus think of all this?

"Yoga is a gift from Hindus to the world," says Narendra Mathur, president of the Hindu Society of Manitoba.

In fact, the Hindu Temple on St. Mary's Road is offering yoga classes to anyone who wants them -- free of charge.

"It's a service to the community," he says.

At the same time, he would be happy if people who do yoga decided to learn more about Hinduism.

"Hinduism is linked to yoga," he says. "We invite people to come to the temple to learn more about it."

In the end, can anyone own yoga? Maybe it's become the Hindu equivalent of the Christian Christmas and Easter -- a popular but thoroughly secularized and commercialized activity divorced from its traditional religious meaning and significance. 

As Aseem Shukla, the foundation's co-founder put it: "Our issue is that yoga has thrived, but Hinduism has lost control of the brand."

As for those who practise yoga, maybe the least they can do while doing their bandha, mudra and pranayama poses is acknowledge that yoga has Hindu roots. As Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero says, yoga practitioners should "know where yoga came from and respect those origins. Then, when you chant 'om,' it will resonate not only in the room but down through the ages."

Religion and the War of 1812

The current tension between Canada and the U.S. over Donald Trump's tariffs and annexation threats got me thinking about this column, written in 2012 on the occasion of the last time the two countries went to war: The War of 1812. This war is different, of course, but it is calling out some of the same feelings among Canadians about the U.S., and also prompting thoughts about how religion plays a role in this conflict.

When it comes to war, religion is often one of the first to enlist -- or be conscripted. That was certainly true 200 years ago, during the War of 1812.

That war, which ended with both sides claiming victory, will be the focus of many commemorations, conferences, re-enactments and other events during this, its 200th anniversary.

As someone who grew up near some of the old battlefields in the Niagara region, I've read a lot about the origins, strategies, battles, heroes and outcomes of that conflict. But I can't recall ever hearing anything about the role of religion during the war. What impact did it have?

A big one, as it turns out, especially in the U.S.

In his book The Churches Militant: The War of 1812 and American Religion, William Gribbin noted the important role U.S. churches played in supporting the war.

"The pious part of the nation turned with confidence to the task of combating international infidelity and domestic godlessness," he wrote.

Many preachers welcomed the war, urging their members to take up arms against Great Britain.

"The Lord will plead our cause, and execute judgment for us," said one. "He will plead our cause in the highway of nations, on the banks of the Wabash, and before the walls of Quebec."

"Such a war God considers as his own cause, and to help in such a cause is to come to the help of the Lord," said another.

For one preacher, battling the British was almost as important as being a minister. Participation in the war, he said, "was second only to preaching the Gospel."

Although American churches were split along various theological lines, Gribbin writes many Christians were united in their hatred of Great Britain. 

"The heat and pressure of war fused religious sanction to national success," he stated, adding the War of 1812 contributed to America's ongoing sense of patriotism and divine purpose.

The war, he wrote, fuelled a "vision of the United States as a chosen nation with a special destiny to establish a secularized version of God's kingdom on Earth."

In Canada, Anglican Bishop John Strachan played a notable role in the conflict. Described by Pierre Berton, in his book, The Invasion of Canada, "as perhaps the most significant and influential Canadian of his time," Strachan used his pulpit and position to promote patriotism and support for the troops.

But not all churches were pro-war. Two of the groups opposed to the conflict were the Quakers and Mennonites on both sides of the border. Their peaceful witness in Canada is being marked this year by the 1812 Bicentennial Peace Committee, an Ontario organization that plans to hold events, post information on the web and place historical markers in the region about the role of peacemakers during the war.

One of the most interesting anti-war stories involved Duncan McColl, a Canadian Methodist minister in the Maritimes.

When war was declared, McColl -- who had parishioners living on both sides of the border in New Brunswick and Maine -- called together the men from Canada and the U.S. in his parish and persuaded them to declare they wouldn't fight each other.

According to one account, McColl said: "I've baptized you and married you. And I don't believe you want to fight each other." They agreed they did not.

Later, he personally confronted both American and British soldiers who came to the area, sending them elsewhere to do their fighting.

One consequence of the war was the disruption it caused within denominations that had members in both the U.S. and Canada. 

For Baptists in the Maritimes, the war severed a number of important cross-border relationships with their counterparts in the U.S. Once the war was over, the ties were immediately renewed.

The fighting also impacted Methodists in what is now Ontario. Not only did the war prevent itinerant Methodist preachers from visiting Methodist churches in Canada, it raised deep questions about how Canadian members of that denomination could support efforts to preserve their country, but at the same time preserve Christian unity with Methodists in the U.S.

In his bibliography of writing about Canadian churches and war, Gordon L. Heath of McMaster University notes "there is very limited research on the churches and the War of 1812." 

Maybe this anniversary is a good time to examine the role religion in Canada played in that war, and also in some of this county's other wars -- including recent ones like the first Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan.

For students and scholars, that field is wide open. According to Heath, nothing yet has been published about the role of religion in Canada in those two conflicts.

Image above: The death of General Isaac Brock during the Battle of Queenston Heights.

Church, State and Taxes

Much has been made of how the CRA required Oxfam Canada to change its charitable purpose from the "prevention" of poverty to "relieving" poverty. Most people don't know that there are only four charitable purposes that allow groups to issue tax receipts: The relief of poverty, the advancement of religion, the advancement of education and for community good. Some people are wondering why, in a secular country like Canada, the advancement of religion is still considered a charitable purpose, as I wrote in 2013.

Every Sunday at my church, we take an offering. Every week, people give. That's a good thing. But should we get a tax receipt for it?

That's a question being raised by the Canadian Secular Alliance, a national organization dedicated to promoting church-state separation and the neutrality of government in matters of religion.

According to the Canada Revenue Agency, charities can issue a tax receipt to donors if they are involved in alleviating poverty, advancing education, advancing religion or providing other benefits for the community. 

Of those four categories, the Alliance wonders why -- in our increasingly secular society -- religion is still listed as a charitable purpose.

In a 2012 submission to the standing committee on finance, the Alliance called on the government to remove advancing religion as an eligible charitable activity.

"We recognize many religious charities perform activities of public benefit like poverty alleviation," said Alliance president Greg Oliver in a statement on the organization's website.

"Any organization performing genuine charitable acts should be granted tax incentives for those -- but only those -- activities."

Following its submission, the Alliance received a letter from the Minister of finance. 

In the letter, the Minister stated the Canadian government's position is that "providing charitable status for the advancement of religion is based on the presumption that religion provides people with a moral and ethical framework for living and plays an important role in building social cohesion."

Phew! People of faith can breathe easier, knowing they will continue to receive a deduction for donations to religious groups. Or can they?

No. This issue isn't going away. 

As Canada grows more secular, more people will wonder why some should get tax receipts for giving to pay for a pastor's salary, repairs to the church roof, educating about religion or --  especially contentious in a pluralistic society -- for efforts by one group to convert people to another faith.

Then there's the matter of property taxes; some groups, like the Victoria, B.C. Secular Humanist Association, wonder why places of worship should be exempt.

Only those groups that can "justify these exemptions through their local charitable work," should benefit from the property tax exemption, the Association states on its website.

Places of worship that only offer "weekly assembly to their memberships" should not be exempt, it states.

For John Pellowe, CEO of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, an umbrella group representing 3,200 faith-based charities, religious groups need to take these challenges seriously.

For decades, it was "assumed that religious groups provide a public benefit," he says. But that assumption is increasingly being challenged by those who argue "religion has no place in a secular society."

Today, he says, religious groups need to make a persuasive case for why society benefits from their existence. "They can no longer take it for granted."

One thing religious groups can point to, Pellowe says, is how religious people serve all of society through their giving.

Pellowe points to a report about giving from Statistics Canada showing people who are more religiously active give more than those who aren't to all charities -- not just to religious groups -- and that the just over 16 per cent who attend worship services gave 41 per cent of the total donated to charity in 2010.

Advancing religion produces "engaged and unselfish citizens," he says, adding that by granting religious groups the ability to give tax receipts, the government "isn't supporting religion, but the good that religion does."

In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that the key concept of public benefit when it came to charitable activity would be subject to society's "current social, moral and economic context." 

As that context changes, religious groups need to pay attention; as Don Hutchinson of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada noted in a column in Faith Today: 

"The matter of public benefit is now assessed more outside the walls of the church than within. To demonstrate religious bodies provide public benefit will require more than worship services and Sunday schools."

Religion and Mental Health

It's been a year since Winnipeg mother Lisa Gibson killed her two children and herself due to postpartum depression. Following the tragedy, I wondered if religion could have made a difference for Lisa, and for others facing mental health challenges.

The tragic story of the death of Winnipeg mother Lisa Gibson—who killed her children and herself a year ago due as a result of postpartum depression—was covered by almost every angle by the media: Legal, criminal, mental health, gender, medical, political.

But one angle that didn’t get any attention from reporters was religion.

It’s not surprising in one sense; religion usually only makes the news when there’s a scandal or a new pope is elected. But it is surprising in another; numerous studies have linked being part of a faith community with positive mental health outcome, including dealing with suicide and postpartum depression.

Why does religion promote positive mental health? Without discounting the supernatural, a main reason is that being part of a faith community provides a network of caring people who look out for each other.

According to someone close to the family, the Gibsons did not belong to a faith community. But if they had, I wonder: How would local congregations have responded? I contacted some Winnipeg clergy to find out.

“In the context of regular involvement in church and small groups, people support one another in whatever life throws at them, whether that is an issue of mental health, physical health, child rearing, financial need or anything else,” says Marvin Dyck, pastor of Crossroads Mennonite Brethren Church .

“We become to one another a part of the village that raises the child, or otherwise carries someone along through the inevitable crises of life,” he says.

Allan Robison, President of the Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, says that caring for families is a high priority for Mormons.

“After the birth of a child we come to the home and bring meals for the family until the mother gets on her feet,” he says, adding that church members continue to make regular visits to see how parents are doing.

If professional help is needed, he says, the church is quick to connect people with other resources, he says. If necessary, they will pay for it. 

“I don't know if any of that could prevent what happened [to Lisa],” he says, “but we do love and care for each other, and that usually seems to keep our members feeling loved and cared for.”

Michael Wilson, pastor of Charleswood United Church, notes that being part of a faith community is no “guarantee that this tragedy might have ended any differently." But, he says, "I think being part of a faith community does matter. One hopes that a faith community is a safe place to tell others what you are experiencing and then shares it [that experience] with you.”

For women with post-partum depression, “we would hope that a faith community offers the prospect of being directed to the appropriate help by removing the stigma of naming our problems. Finally, we hope that companionship is a central element of being in a faith community and we try to connect people with others who have been through a similar struggle.”

Belonging to a faith community is no guarantee that people won’t face mental health challenges or crises. But it seems that being part of a congregation can make a difference when it comes to coping with them.

Photo from The Guardian. Credit Chris Rout. Read more about Lisa Gibson on the CBC Manitoba website.

One Giant Leap of Faith for Mankind

The anniversary of July 20, 1969 moonwalk reminded me of a column I wrote following the 2012 death of astronaut Neil Armstrong. Everyone knows that Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon. Less well known is that is also the date when the first communion, or celebration of the eucharist, took place on the moon.

Everyone knows that Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon. Less well known is the first communion on the moon.

It happened on July 20, 1969, the day that Armstrong and fellow Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

Aldrin, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, performed the short communion ceremony, also called The Lord’s Supper.

"This is the pilot," Aldrin said into his microphone, ”I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way."

Aldrin then served himself communion, using a kit provided by the pastor of Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas.

In 1970, Aldrin wrote of the experience. “I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me.

“In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.'

"I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements."

According to a 2009 story in the Washington Post, Aldrin had hoped that NASA would broadcast the service worldwide. But the space agency decided against it because of a lawsuit filed (and later dismissed) by atheist Madelyn Murray O'Hare after Apollo 8 astronauts read from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas.

In his 2009 book, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon, Aldrin wrote: "If I had it to do over again, I would not choose to celebrate communion. Although it was a deeply meaningful experience for me, it was a Christian sacrament, and we had come to the moon in the name of all mankind—be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, agnostics, or atheists.”

At the time, however, “I could think of no better way to acknowledge the enormity of the Apollo 11 experience than by giving thanks to God.”

The small chalice Aldrin used for the wine went back to Webster Church. Each year on the Sunday closest to July 20, the congregation celebrates what it calls Lunar Communion.

Aldrin isn’t the only person to have gone to space who have had religious experiences.

Frank Borman, who read from the book of Genesis while orbiting the earth, later said “I had an enormous feeling that there had to be a power greater than any of us—that there was a God, that there was indeed a beginning.”

James Irwin, who walked on the moon in 1971, described the lunar mission as a revelation. “I felt the power of God as I’d never felt it before,” he said.

John Glenn—the first American in space—said about his view from his spaceship: “To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible.”

Glenn’s comments might have been made in response to the purported comment from the first man in space—Soviet Yuri Gagarin.

It was widely reported that Gagarin, who died in 1968, stated during his flight that he didn’t see God in space. However, no record of those comments back to earth exist, and his friend, Valentin Petrov, stated that the quote originated from a speech by Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev.

In fact, says Petrov, Gagarin was a baptized member of the Orthodox Church and reportedly told his friend that nobody can go to space and “not have God in his mind and his heart.’"

As for Armstrong himself, in keeping with the way he maintained a steadfast private life, it's not known if he was religious. But he did once say that "mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.”