Using the past as a guide to the here and now

Those who lead churches are well advised to remember something. In the main, people want their needs met; when they are not met, they vote with their feet. They go elsewhere or they drop out.

Today is Epiphany Sunday, the day Christians recall the visit by Wise Men to Bethlehem.

Today also marks the second anniversary of the birth of the Missionary Church of Kopimism in Sweden. On this date in 2012, Sweden officially recognized the Kopimist Church as a legitimate religion -- entitled to protection under law and presumably not-for-profit and untaxed status. The Kopimists are part of what is called New Age religion -- religion based not on historical events and contexts (as is Christianity) but entirely on perceived needs. When I read about the Kopimists, it seemed a hoax. Who, I wondered, would fall for a faith like that?

The Missionary Church of Kopimism is a 21st-century phenomenon, a creation of the computer age -- a community of file sharers who believe that copying information is a sacred virtue. I'm not kidding here.

Contrast a Christian wedding with a Kopimist wedding. My wife and I attended nuptials a week ago Saturday in Jackson. Wedding attendees were invited to sing two congregational hymns, including an old standard by Charles Wesley, "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling." As I looked around the nave at St. Paul Lutheran Church, I noticed that quite a few people did not pick up a hymnbook and were not singing. The music, it appeared, was unrecognized. It was striking to see how many people stood uncomfortably as the verses were sung. We are reminded by church futurists that we are living in a post-Christian world, in an American culture more and more out of step with the assumed traditions of our ancestors. I'm persuaded so many weren't singing at St. Paul because they'd simply never heard the song before.

At a recent Kopimist wedding in Serbia, there was no hymnsinging and no quoting from ancient texts. The officiating Kopimist minister said: "We are very happy today. Love is all about sharing. A married couple shares everything with each other. Hopefully, they will copy and remix some DNA-cells and create a new human being. That is the spirit of Kopimism. Feel the love and share that information. Copy all of its holiness." If what you've just read does not sound warning bells in your mind, better stop perusing this column right now. For others, including myself, who believe there is something more going on in life than can be found in a Gutenberg press or an HP Laserjet printer, then pardon me while I put a finger down my throat in an attempt to stimulate the gag reflex.

We may not know a hymn, but we know how to copy a file onto our computers and send it along to others. Kopimism has raised basic computer functioning to the level of the divine. Look at your computer keyboard sometime. The CTRL-C and CTRL-V keys, for "copy" and "paste," are regarded as sacred Kopimist symbols.

What church traditions must face, it seems to me, is what encourages an awfully large group of people to seek out a community of faith is familiarity, relevance and usefulness. Tradition is fine, so is historical context, so is the ancient book, the Bible. Vital and necessary. But a church that is seen to meet human need in the here and now will grow. Those who emphasize the past, without leveraging the past as a guide to what to do in the present, will decline.

Sometimes it is important to cater to the cosmetic. To wit: the last time I preached a sermon, which was last Sunday, I read the text from my Android phone rather than from a hardcover Bible. My sacred symbol is still the cross, not the "copy" and "paste" keys on a keyboard -- but if we want to be a part of what God is doing today, we'd better start behaving as if we know our way around the culture. Excuse me while I hit "save" on my keyboard.

Dr. Jeff Long is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation and teaches religion at SEMO.