What's the Best Long Game in Christianity


Both of the big branches within Christianity, Protestantism and Catholicism, have their own long game strategies. The long game is this question, what will happen within the faith or to the faith after we're all dead?

The long game in Protestantism is a free enterprise, free flowing structure where new denominations/factions can and no doubt will replace old ones. The new ones will fit cultures of the future and the old ones will be forgotten. Just as today's denominations/churches believe different ideas than they did several generations ago, so future ones will be much different than ours today. Southern churches once preached that God put different races on different continents and did not intend for them in intermarry. That has slipped into the waste bin of time. 

The long game is different in the Catholic Church which believes it cannot be allowed to go out of business. It plays the long game, when we're all dead, skillfully for the most part. Success comes from its long-term experience by keeping in mind, "When we're all dead, no one will remember." Pope Benedict almost killed the church, however, by not recognizing the wisdom in "no one will remember."

Benedict believed the church would be stronger if it was made up of only those who were narrow true believers. He had no experience in leading a parish. Francis, however, must have rolled his eyes at this long-term folly. He knew from parish work that as soon as a group forms around a narrow set of beliefs, factions within the group will disagree and break off. Then, it will splinter again until there is nothing left. 

Francis knows generations not yet born will believe differently than we who are now alive. For the Catholic institution to survive, it needs to let ideas die when each generation dies so the next one can forget these old ideas and adopt their own. He knows those in the church after we are all dead may not care a twit about abortion and gay marriage. That is why he is stacking the Cardinals with men who understand the long game and he is aging out or firing those who will kill the institution. 

The long game, letting current hot issues burn while dropping old hot issues into the dust bin, is wisdom talking. Today's single issues, gay marriage and anti abortion, will be forgotten and replaced by others that fit times yet to come. 

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