I keep wishing I could write a good book about religion with broad appeal, especially to those without a religion, but I think there are some fundamental walls I will run into no matter what:
- a. Most people are set in their habits.
- b. Most of those people who are willing to change their habits aren't that interested in theology.
- c. Given the focus on this-worldly justice that most non-religious people have, I think they'd make better Jews than Christians.
I keep thinking that if we could only find the right appeal to the unchurched, we could start an "Awakening" with the fullness of our sacramental life. We could be more than these chatty parishes of 100 or so people, one or two per city. I imagine myself as some kind of bridge between the world of unaffiliated ethical reasonableness and sacramental Christianity, but really, I'm just part of a small group that wanted to make this kind of change, and did.
And then, we Orthodox find other people who have come in this way, and we think we're witnessing a trend. It's a significant portion of those joining the church, but an insignificant portion of America.
In summary, this book is going to take a lot longer to write than I thought it would.
