In C.S. Lewis’s novel That Hideous Strength, a corrupt and controlling bureaucracy is founded by the government which intends to take over British society in the name of scientific planning. It calls itself the N.I.C.E. (National Institute for Coordinated Experiments), but while it may bill itself as “nice,” it is as nasty as they come. All kinds of scientists are invited to join, along with various crackpots and what we would today call progressive busy-bodies. The only real, big-name scientist who responds to the invitation to come and see what it’s all about, though, leaves the same night. His reason for leaving is simple: “I thought it had something to do with science,” he says. It obviously is merely using the respect given to science for non-scientific social objectives. He is murdered by thugs sent by the N.I.C.E. that night on the road. Anyway, his verdict – the verdict of a real scientist – on the pseudo-scientific police state being hatched is telling. “I thought it had something to do with science.” But it didn’t. Real science is something quite other. Lots of people come wandering into our churches, too, looking for God. Or at least, religion. They’re not sure what that will be like, but they know this is the place where God and religion are supposed to be found. And they stay for a while. But many of them don’t stay very long. They soon wander off. The reason is, they thought what we were doing had something to do with God or Christianity. But what they found was social identity, progressive politics, tribal feuds, whatnot. The God of the creeds is never presented. Jesus, when he is mentioned at all, doesn’t seem very important. No one bothers much with explaining things, or listening to the tale of what the newcomer was looking for. No one seems to understand the hunger in the soul that can bring a person to the church door. Even when the seeker finds a church with a pastor who recognizes the need in the newcomer, the rest of the church – the whole denominational package, if not the local congregation – doesn’t get it. I’ve seen ‘em come, and I’ve seen ‘em go. It’s disheartening. Right now, progressives and centrists in The UMC are bad-mouthing traditionalists who are leaving to join the GMC. They accuse the traditionalists of saying that the UMC is going to change its official standards of doctrine and practice. They point out that the official standards of UM doctrine and practice are thoroughly orthodox. Indeed they are; but few of the leadership actually believe them or teach them. And once enough trads are gone, the progs will merrily tell you that they don’t believe we should be beholden to such old-fashioned standards. You see, for the progs, Christianity is whatever Christians do. And if all the progressive Christians decide that some new idea or practice is better than the old ones, well, then the march of progress should not be held back by narrow-minded people. So the official standards will remain, but they will gather dust. What the people who come will find when they come in the door won’t be what was advertised. The newcomers will be disappointed. Some will give up their search for God. Some will keep looking somewhere else. But they won’t stay. And if you were to ask them why they left, they would probably say of that church, “I thought it had something to do with God.” But the God they were looking for was nowhere in evidence, the promised transforming encounter with him never delivered. There were just the hustlers and time-servers who have their own purposes and who don’t worry about what such old-fashioned things as the Bible or the Creeds have to say.