Memorization a path to church membership?

In today's (August 22, 2013) meditation on the Forward Movement Day by Day web site the  author choose the gospel for the day Mark 12:28-34 as the basis for the meditation. In the meditation he remembers the strict testing and menorization process needed before one could be confirmed in the Episcopal Church. The one thing that he retains now is the lesson about what is often referred to as the Greatest Commandment. When asked by his teacher what its meaning was he said, “If I obey the commandment, some day after I die, I will be allowed to get into the kingdom?” His teacher's replied, “Close, but a little off. ... Live the commandment, she said, and live in the kingdom.” (The complete meditation can be read here: http://prayer.forwardmovement.org/forward_day_by_day.php?d=22&m=8&y=2013).

Although the author does not expand on why, that one part of the lessons stayed with the him. I think that it is illustrative of something that several other Christian authors have been saying recently about why people seem to be leaving the church (read that as all churches). In her book Christianity Beyond Religion Diana Butler Bass says, in the chapter Belief, that " 'Belief' is the intellectual content of faith. Typically belief entails some sort of list - a rehearsal of ideas about God, Jesus, salvation, and the church." (107) She goes on to say later in the chapter, "It is not only the case that the Western world has grown weary of doctrine, but that Christianity itself is changing - shifting away from being a belief-centered religion toward an experiential faith." (108 - 109)  In the meditation that is exactly what the teacher was saying when she said, " ... Live the commandment ... and live in the kingdom." And this seems to be, according to a variety of authors (Diana Butler Bass, Phyllis Tickle and others) what people are looking for in Christian churches today and are not finding. They want to experience the faith and live it, but not be told what and who to condemn. In other words as Jesus is being quoted as saying in Mark as he answered a scribe who questioned him about, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, " 'Hear, O Israel the lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength' and the second is this; ' You must love your neighbor as yourself.'  No other commandment is greater than these." (Mark 12: 28 b - 31 REB)  In a Belief Net blog from CNN Rachel Held Evans says that Evangelicals (and I think others) want a place to ask tough questions and wrestle with doubt. (1)  With Jesus' prescription to love God and love neighbor people are able to "question and wrestle" because they must find out, in a variety of situations, how to best love (i.e.. what constitutes loving in this instance?). Questions provide the opertunity to strengthen ones beliefs and can be more affirming than simply blindly accepting dogma. This may indeed be close to what Bonhoeffer was suggesting with his idea of Contextual Ethics. The teacher in the meditation at the beginning of this post seemed to understand that.

(1) http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/