Myungsung Presbyterian Church (Seoul, South Korea) is the largest Presbyterian Church in the world. Image by Kang Byeong Kee. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
Reblogged from KoreaBANG:
The Center for the Study of Ministry and Society recently published a report based on extensive interviews with Congregants, finding that while the reasons vary widely, the primary issue was disappointment with the behavior of the pastor and the congregation. ‘I didn’t like the way the congregation just did the same thing over and over again, getting swept up in emotion and sobbing out loud,’ said one thirty-year-old office-worker. Another respondent said, ‘it was hard to endure the sermons filled with allegories that didn’t make any sense in our lives.’ Other interview subjects criticised the naked pursuit of material benefits within the church. ‘If you talk about how it is better for the church to make more money, to have a bigger building and fancy facilities, then what is the difference between a church and a business?’
Maria, sister of Lazarus, meets Jesus who is going to their house (1864). By Nikolai Ge. Image Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
My favorite part of our church’s mission statement is the part at the end where we declare that we are “open to all and reaching out to the world in love.” I like to remind you of those words at the beginning of worship every Sunday because they speak volumes about who we are and what we do in this community. The world at large desperately needs to hear this message about a community that is truly “open to all”. So many other groups and organizations, even churches, divide themselves from one another along ideological lines. Here in this church, it is my privilege to be a pastor to so many people from so many different political and religious backgrounds. I can testify from experience that the Spirit who binds us together is deeper and broader than any one set of ideas or opinions. This is a church that has been built from the heart up, not from the mind down.
Almost everywhere else you can go in the world, the exact opposite is true. Most people want to know if you agree with them before they enter into a relationship with you. But we are different. We’ll move over and make room for you in the pew no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you think. We’ll just keep on telling you that we love you, God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it!
Yup, we’re “open to all and reaching out to the world in love”. I want you to know this morning how rare and unique that is, especially for a church. I personally believe that this part of our identity is the key to our future as a church. This commitment to openness is what makes us different from so many other Christians, who make people pass some kind of dogma test before they’ll accept them.
Recently, I was engaged in an intense discussion with one of these “other Christians”. This person said to me, “You think it’s okay, in God’s eyes, for people to practice other religions. So then, why would anyone want to be Christian if it’s not the one and only true religion?” I thought that was a great question. Why would anyone choose to be Christian if they could also choose to be Buddhist, Jewish, or Muslim?
I was reminded of this conversation when I read this week’s gospel passage from the lectionary. It’s the story of a woman named Mary of Bethany, who knelt at Jesus’ feet, anointing them with expensive perfume and wiping them with her hair. This was an incredible act of affection and devotion toward Jesus. Mary obviously loved and cared about him very much.
That got me thinking: if I was in Mary’s place, what is it about Jesus that would make me fall down on my knees in love and devotion? What is it about Jesus that makes me want to commit my life to him? Why am I a Christian?
I think this is a question that each and every one of us should ask. Whether you’ve just started coming to church or you’ve been here your whole life, you’ve decided to be here for a reason. We owe it to ourselves and the world to know what that reason is. I can’t answer that question for you. But what I can do is tell you why I’ve decided to be a Christian. I hope that my answer to this question might help you answer it for yourself.
So here’s what Christian faith means to me. This is what has driven me, like Mary of Bethany, to kneel down before the feet of Jesus and offer him all that I have and all that I am:
For me, being a Christian is all about love. Love is what I have experienced in and through the person Jesus of Nazareth. When religious scholars quizzed Jesus about the most important part of the Bible, he told them it all comes down to love: “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”.
Jesus embodied love in the way he lived his life. He broke bread with tax collectors, Jews who sold their own people out to the Romans in order to make a quick, dishonest buck. He pardoned the sin of a woman caught in adultery when the rest of her village was ready to stone her to death. He nurtured relationships with Samaritans, the ethnic and religious rivals of the Jews, and saw the best in them. He praised the faith of a pagan Roman soldier. He reached out and touched a leper, who had been shunned and exiled from society because of his disease. Finally, he spoke words of forgiveness to his executioners as they waited for him to die. This is love.
Love, he said, is the first duty of any religious person.
When he wasn’t around, Jesus called upon his followers to love each other in his place. Any good deed rendered unto the most despised and forgotten members of society, Jesus said in Matthew 25, he would count as service rendered unto him. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,you did it to me.”
The love that shone through Jesus came to have a profound impact on his followers. The apostle Paul declared that, if it wasn’t for love, all his words, knowledge, and faith would be meaningless. John the Beloved went so far as to let Jesus’ example of love redefine his idea of God: “God is love,” he said, “and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
What I learned through Jesus is that God is not some angry judge, sitting high up on a cloud, hurling down lightning bolts at people he doesn’t like. No, God is that dynamic energy of love that flows out from within us. God works through persuasion, not coercion. This divine love takes on an infinite variety of forms, depending on the person and the situation. As we open ourselves up to this love more and more, we are continually filled with God’s Spirit, and we begin to resemble Jesus. Love, then, is the measure of our faith, not religious dogma.
Through Jesus, I learn how to love and I learn that I am loved. Jesus didn’t just teach people about love, he didn’t just point to love. No, Jesus embodied love in his very being and person. Love shone through his every word and deed. That’s what I mean when I praise Jesus as the Son of God and the Incarnation of God: Jesus is the embodiment of divine love who invites me to do and be the same, in whatever imperfect and limited way that I am able.
This is what takes my breath away when it comes to Jesus. This is why I want to fall down at his feet and offer everything I have and all that I am, so that I might be part of that love too. This is the kind of God that I can believe in.
For me it is no contradiction to believe that the dynamic God of love I discovered in Jesus can be active in the lives of people from every time, place, culture, and religion. I hear the voice of this God whispering to me in the pages of the Bible and singing to me in the clouds at sunset. Jesus has opened my eyes, ears, mind, and heart to experience the presence of God in all things. For this, I am amazed and give thanks. What else can I do but collapse to my knees before Jesus and worship?
That is why I am a Christian. It has nothing to do with creeds, dogmas, or being the one and only true religion. It has everything to do with love. I hope and pray that the people around me will experience through me, in some degree, the love I have received through Jesus (whether they recognize it by that name or not).
How about you? Why are you here in church today? If you call yourself a Christian, why do you choose that label for yourself? I want to encourage each and every one of you to answer that question for yourself today. Something has brought you here. You are not sitting in this church by accident. It is therefore incumbent upon you to ask yourself: Why?
In your imagination, put yourself in Mary of Bethany’s place: kneeling at the feet of Jesus, offering the very best of what you have and who you are. What has brought you here? Even as you acknowledge and respect the faith of others who are different, something about this faith and this person, Jesus, has captured your attention. What is it?
Answer that question for yourself and don’t be afraid or ashamed to share your answer with the world. There are people out there who need to hear what you have to say. Go out there today and tell them.
“Preach the gospel always… use words when necessary.”
May your words and your deeds say to the people of this world: “I love you, God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
This is a reblog from my friend and colleague in the Utica Presbytery, Rev. Herb Swanson. Herb is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lowville, NY. He previously spent 25 years working in Thailand where he was fostering greater understanding and dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism.
Here is an excerpt:
That’s worth thinking about—being a follower of Jesus but not a Christian. That’s what Paul was. Peter and the other disciples all died before there was a Christian religion. They followed Jesus while remaining devout, practicing Jews. One of the things that seems to be happening in our increasingly secular society is that small groups of followers of Jesus are reinventing the church in ways that make more sense in the 21st century than do traditional churches. Maybe something we should be aiming for is to be more Christ-like and less Christian. Worth a thought.
Vida Dutton Scudder. Image is in the public domain.
Vida Dutton Scudder (1861-1954) was a professor at Wellesly College, a member of the Socialist party, and a prominent activist in the Episcopal Church. She was involved in the Social Gospel movement, the campaign for labor rights, the equality of women, and (eventually) pacifism. She helped to organize the Women’s Trade Union League, the Episcopal Church Socialist League, and joined the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross. Vida and her partner, Florence Converse, lived together for 35 years, from 1919 until Vida’s death in 1954. She is celebrated in the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints: her feast day is on October 10.
Earlier today, as I was reading Diana Butler Bass’s book A People’s History of Christianity, I came across an amazing prediction of Scudder’s that Butler Bass took from Scudder’s 1912 book Socialism and Character. In this passage, Scudder prophesies the advent of mainline church decline, which eventually started to happen in the latter half of the 20th century. I was amazed at how closely Scudder’s views resemble my own, except that she was writing a full century before I started thinking about it. Listen to what Scudder has to say:
One certitude is forced on us : it is unlikely that Christianity will retain so nominally exclusive a sway as it has hitherto done in western Europe. In all probability, the day of its conventional social control is passing and will soon be forgotten. The time will come when the Christian faith will have to fight for right of way among crowding antagonists as vigorously as in the times of Athanasius and Augustine.
And in thoughts like these all genuine Christians must rejoice. Without the call to high adventure, the faith has never flourished.
Thanks to a post I published over a month ago, I’ve managed to build some good will and credibility capital with my evangelical brothers and sisters, especially those in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Today, I want to “cash in” on some of that capital.
We’re all well aware of the renewed heat underlying the debate about same-sex marriage that expands far beyond the boundaries of our own denomination. In recent weeks, North Carolina passed Amendment One and President Obama publicly endorsed marriage equality.
Most of the evangelical Christians I know are intelligent, compassionate, and dedicated people who despise the use of verbal or physical violence against any group of people. I wish that more of them understood the nature of systemic violence that forms the backbone of oppression and heterosexism, but I’m willing to accept that most of them are not conscious homophobes or bigots.
Over the last 25 years or so, evangelicals have evolved in their understanding of and fight against HIV/AIDS. In the early 1980s, it was more common for well-known preachers to deem the virus a plague of God’s wrath against the LGBT community. Since then, the majority of mainstream evangelicals have come to realize that this is a global health issue. Evangelical churches like Central Presbyterian Church in Baltimore have started outreach programs like Hope Springs to treat and prevent HIV/AIDS in their own communities. Like President Obama’s views on marriage, it’s fair to say that the mainstream evangelical perspective on the HIV/AIDS crisis has “evolved”.
Today, I would encourage evangelicals toward a similar “evolution” in the fight against homophobia. I repeat that most evangelicals are not homophobes. The vast majority of the ones I know are sickened by stories of physical violence levied against people because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
This country needs a widespread call from evangelical pulpits that takes a firm stance against homophobia as a sin against God. This is not to say that such churches should immediately alter their views on marriage or interpretations of scripture. Keep those as they are for now.
But evangelicals should take seriously the ends and means that they already espouse. Their endgame is to lead the whole world toward greater wholeness through a relationship with Christ. They passionately believe in preaching the Christian gospel in word and deed wherever they go. They affirm that friendship is the single best method of evangelism.
What would it do for their witness to Christ if there was a large movement of traditional and orthodox evangelicals who, while maintaining their views on marriage, called for an end to homophobia and violence? What would happen if they, as entire churches, consciously nurtured personal relationships with folks in the LGBT community? What kind of gospel credibility would be built if evangelical pastors made a sustained effort at condemning homophobia from their pulpits?
Let me offer you a picture of the other side. This is a sample of what folks in the LGBT community are hearing from evangelicals:
The first video is Rev. Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church, the second is Rev. Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church.
Most evangelicals I know detest this kind of talk. They would agree that it does nothing but damage the entire church’s witness to Christ. However, the voices of these bigots are much louder than the voices of evangelicals I know. The message that folks in the LGBT community are hearing is not the one that says “Jesus loves you.” The voices being heard are the ones that say, “You’re disgusting. You’re an abomination. You don’t matter in this country. We wish you didn’t exist.”
It’s up to evangelical Christians to change all this, if they want to be effective witnesses for Christ. Even those evangelicals who limit their understanding of marriage to heterosexual couples need to stand up and add their voices to the fight against homophobia. Pastors, don’t keep silent out of fear of what your congregation will think. Your silence implies agreement with bigots and hate-mongers. What’s more important to you as evangelicals: not appearing “soft on homosexuality” to your congregants or effectively witnessing to the love of Jesus?
You don’t have to change your views on marriage or re-interpret your Bible, just be faithful to what you already believe the Bible is telling you.
Take a stand against violence and homophobia. Preach the gospel. Be the gospel.
Here is a link to an excellent annotated bibliography of several popular-level primers on Liberal (a.k.a. ‘Progressive’) Christianity. For those who wonder what we’re all about, I’d say this is a good place to start. If your looking for one book to begin with, I’d recommend the one at the very top: Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity. It’s concise and well-written for folks on a non-academic level.
It’s an article on the website Spirituality & Practice, which I found by hanging around at Abundance Trek, which is just one of the blogs kept up by my friend, John Wilde. There are many people in this world who strive to be unique individuals who defy all conventional categories; John is one of the very few souls who actually accomplishes it. How like Jesus…
It’s been an interesting year for me as I’ve consciously completed a theological shift that began almost a decade ago. In many ways, it feels a lot like a return to a trajectory I was on before I immersed myself in the subculture of fundamentalism during high school and college. As I’ve stated elsewhere, the years I spent in that subculture pretty much ruined me for evangelicalism, even in its more moderate, intelligent, and compassionate expressions. This blog represents one attempt on my part to think out loud and publicly about the theological implications of my current trajectory.
The past few weeks have presented me with an unbelievable diversity of reactions from folks in the evangelical camp. At one point, things got so bad that my wife asked me if I was “a lightning rod for angry fundamentalists.” At another point, I was being thanked for my words by evangelical members of my own denomination.
[Side note: Before I continue, it bears noting that I do not use the related terms evangelical and fundamentalist synonymously. All (Protestant) fundamentalists are evangelical, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. I would once again recommend the many fine books of folks like Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, N.T. Wright, and Tony Campolo. I would describe all of the above authors as non-fundamentalist evangelicals. And this list is by no means exhaustive. Most of my evangelical friends tend to identify themselves with Martin Luther and John Wesley rather than William Jennings Bryan and John Gresham Machen. End side note.]
With all of this activity going on, it seems like a good time for me to list the things that I value from my evangelical upbringing. These are the gifts of this tradition that I hope to carry with me and use to “brighten the [theological] corner” where I now find myself. There are three such gifts, which I will label as follows: Spirituality, Bible, and Mission. The first two I came up with through my own reflection but later found in Jack Rogers’ book, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality (WJK: 2006). The third gift is one that Rogers listed and I missed in my initial assessment. These gifts are not unique to evangelicalism, but represent distinct theological emphases that the movement has embodied and enacted in a particularly effective way. I will discuss each of these gifts in separate blog posts.
Spirituality
“God has no grandchildren.”
This particular turn of phrase came to me from my mother and I love it. To me, it speaks of taking personal ownership of one’s spirituality. In an effort to respect diversity in church, liberal Christians have too often shied away from being very public about their personal relationship with God. Such reticence has led many unsympathetic outsiders to presume that we don’t have one (which is not true). We tend to do such a bad job at this that our own children can grow up in our churches and leave without coming to an awareness of the spiritual depth that is there. A few of them find their way to evangelical churches but most simply abandon church altogether.
The necessity for taking personal ownership of one’s spirituality is one thing that evangelicals do extremely well. They intentionally provide an access portal to the divine that allows their adherents to engage with faith and grow in a way that is energetic and dynamic. While I hate it when people bash the term religion (a beautiful word that needs rescuing these days), I can appreciate what evangelicals mean when they say that, for them, Christianity is “a relationship, not a religion.”
I think it’s high time that liberal Christians got more vocal about our personal relationship with God. We need to build one another up with the stories of our encounters with the divine. We need to let our children (and the world) know that there is a vast and deep reservoir of power and love in which we live, move, and have our being. This reservoir is available to any and all who desire to drink from its living waters. Respecting diversity does not mean watering down our spirituality to the lowest common denominator. Consciously embracing the life of the spirit does not necessarily make us into fanatics. In fact, it has the effect of empowering us in our ministries of compassion and justice. Too often, I’ve seen well-meaning activists burn out and lose hope in the struggle for justice. They have a desperate need for enthusiasm in its most literal sense (“God-full-ness“).
I am reminded of Martin Luther King’s famous “kitchen table” experience where he found himself exhausted and at the end of his rope late one night after a threatening phone call. He sat with a cup of coffee at his kitchen table and contemplated giving up the fight for justice and equality. In prayer, he confessed his weakness and asked for help. And, just then, he felt like he heard an inner voice saying to him (I paraphrase), “Stand up for righteousness and I will be with you.”
Liberal Christians need to start sharing stories like this one with one another. Too many folks inside and outside our churches assume that, because we don’t talk about our relationship with God, we don’t have one. Many (unfairly and erroneously) call us “dead churches.” It’s time to show them how wrong they are. Gone are they days when speaking openly about spirituality was taboo. Provided that we maintain respect for those whose spiritual experience is different from our own, we carry within ourselves the capacity to feed ourselves and one another with our stories. The light that is within us can help to illumine the path for those around us. Let’s not hide that light under a bushel! Liberal Christians, let it shine!
