Another Impassioned Post on Church

I have been feeling for a number of years a sort of subsonic rumble in the fabric of the soul, a tectonic shudder, a long low buildup toward something huge. When my spiritual emancipation began in college, as I waded through a Sargasso Sea of bickering theologies, I often felt that if I looked over my shoulder I would see...something. Something beckoning.

I didn't know what the something was, and as I left college to wade through the even more cluttered shoreline of Christian definitions of community, I often grew completely disgusted and left the beach altogether to hide in the pine barrens alone. I knew it wasn't the answer, knew it wasn't the "home" to which Something was beckoning me, but it was the only place I could find clear air and space to breathe freely.

I'd like to write a proper treatise, but I'm afraid some of the more sophisticated, research-oriented writings will have to wait for their appearance on the blog until I have internet access in my own living space; these days I mostly only have a few minutes here and there to begin assembling my thoughts, without the materials I'd like to use ready to hand.

So, in the place of something thoroughly well-drafted and beautifully thought, I'm just setting down the beginnings of the thought process -- you get the raw ore, not the finished tiara. Lucky you.

Coming down from the pine barrens was made possible by the peace I found in Catholicism. I learned, in joining the Catholic Church, that the pine barrens are indeed home, but the beach is where I must presently do my work. And the work isn't so much sorting the debris into "keep" and "discard" piles as to find how they all fit together.

In less metaphorical terms, the thing I really want to do is begin to work with others to unite the people of my hometown, starting with the churches. My hometown -- less than a square mile in the downtown area -- boasts at least a dozen churches, none of which interact for much of anything at all. Back when I attended (the public) high school, my church built itself a fine reputation for judging and condemning other churches in the area -- down with the Masons and the Rainbow Girls (and therefore down with the Presbyterians), down with the Catholics for being Catholic, down the the Methodists for being wishy-washy, etc.

Fortunately all of that took place under the old regime; with a new pastor in place, the Baptist church of my hometown is now, slowly but determinedly, taking new steps toward common ground with the other churches. And a lot of the congregation are completely on board.

I've been gone a long time, and so I'm less familiar with the positions of the other churches; but I've felt for a long time now a certain conviction that, in the words of Paul, "as far as it remains with you, be at peace with all men," and so my goal upon returning home is to try to work in two churches simultaneously -- the Catholic parish, and the Baptist church. These two breeds of church tend to disagree the most sharply, and I've been looking forward, greatly, to seeing what I can do to bring them together in whatever little ways I can.

See, as far as social justice is concerned -- and God throughout the Bible repeatedly emphasizes His own concern for social justice -- as far as social health is concerned, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who believe that the life of a society is the family, and the health of the family is the church. Not because church saves souls or anything, but because church is where families come together under one faith to strengthen and be strengthened in love and goodness in the name of God, and to create wholesome and positive change in the community. In a society where people live increasingly isolated lives, the church is one of those great places that gathers people together and bids them live alongside one another and love one another -- not vapid, saccharine love, but love that is the bedrock of all existence -- the love that is God, since God is love.

When we love other people truly, love them well -- love without conditions, love that takes into account less the feelings than the wellbeing of the other, love that yields up the self to the other, love that meets real needs in practical as well as emotional ways -- we don't just show them the love of God, we show them God. And in light of that, the separations that exist between Christians based on theological arguments seem stupid.

I'm not saying, of course, that people ought to give up their theologies; but what if, instead of seeing one church congregation as its own little "body of Christ" -- a unified group of people who live out the principles, teaching, and most of all love of Christ, with the members of that congregation serving different functions as different parts of the human body serve different functions but together make one living being -- what if, instead, we began to see different churches within a community as different parts of one body, and that, for that community, the churches are all, ultimately, one whole? Different theologies have slightly different emphases and a slightly different focus on changing the world -- why not bring all of that together and really help people in a concerted and unified way? Church A on 1st Street is big on world missions, Church B on 2nd Street is big on serving the homeless, Church C on 3rd Street is big on support groups, etc. Couldn't, instead of each church trying, and crappily, to tack on other programs and concerns to the primary concern in a doomed effort to do everything, all the churches recognize and organize themselves so that if a member of Church A likes the theology of Church A but likes the social concern of Church B, he or she can do a bit of both? Can't we channel our gifts and energies so that each church is playing to its strengths, with the support of the community's other churches?

I'm sure all of this sounds kind of pincko and crazy, wishy-washy on principles, but come on, people. Christianity is to be defined by love, not argument -- by unity, not difference. I think it's too much to ask that people chuck their different ways of thinking about their faith into the wastebasket; but surely, when it comes to bringing real love (the kind of love that meets real needs and heals real problems) to the community on all its levels, we can at least come together and agree about those very simple things?

My goal as a "Christian" is not to save souls -- that's not my job, and not in my power. My goal is not to convince people that my way of thinking is right (especially given that even Christians can't convince each other of one way of thinking). My goal is to love people, whatever love means for each person across whose path I come. To know the love of God, to be transformed by it into the person I was made to be, and to pass around that very deep, very gritty, very seeing love to everyone I meet. Of course I'm not perfect at that; oftentimes I really suck at it; but other times I'm not bad at it, and those times are the times that illuminate my life, that make me know what it means to be alive.

That goal -- to love, not save, people -- also opens up the way for me to experience that same love from others -- from people who don't even claim faith in Christ. (I'm going off on a little tangential rant here.) I can't stand being told that my friendships with "non-Christians" "are a wonderful ministry to them." When people say that to me, I think of Meg and Phillip, I think of how they have loved and supported and befriended me when no one else did, I think of how they have always accepted me for exactly who I am and loved me for the simple fact of my being, how they've encouraged me to make healthy decisions but respected me when our opinions and/or choices differ, I think of how in more ways than they will ever know they saved my life, I think of the unconditional love of God that they have taught me just by being themselves, and a rage flashes into my skull that transports me into Instant Headache, and I tell the well-meaning but horribly misguided person attempting to turn my friendship into a proselytization, "No. It's not a ministry. If anyone's ministering, they minister to me. It's not about 'ministry'; it's about love. It's a friendship, not a project. Wanna hear something else? If they never believe what I believe about God, it has no bearing on my regard for them. It has nothing to do with our friendship. I'd be overjoyed if they did, but nothing can affect my love for them; I love them too much to want to make them believe what I believe. [And if I really want to say what I'm thinking, I add what I've said a hundred times before: I wouldn't be in the least surprised, if some bizarre accident snuffed out all three of us at once, right now, to see both of them right next to me in line for those 'pearly gates.' I strongly believe that there are more ways of belonging to Christ than we might know.] And that's the same love they have for me."

Part of that is simply how I relate to people; part of that is truly a conviction that evangelism, in terms of "witnessing" (I won't go into yet another rant about how much I hate that verb in conjunction with Christianese), has a specific time and place, and "Christians" are often so desperate to "save souls" that their attempt to "share the Gospel" drowns out their ability to hear what the person to whom they're "witnessing" really needs from Jesus at that particular moment.

But hey; some of that "street evangelism," and some of those "altar calls" at big conventions work, and so they do have a time and a place, and some churches are wonderfully suited to those styles -- and some churches prefer deed over word (that's more my style), and have programs and services structured around that.

So why not channel it all? We're all freaking out over the Presidential Election just around the corner; and while it's crucially important to vote, real change in society begins in communities -- in churches, and in families.

If we want to change things, it's up to us. If we identify ourselves as Christians, we already know that we work better together than alone. And so if we want to impact others' lives in a real way, if we want to bring the love of God to a lonely and agonized world, we must redefine unity in order to come together in the love we want that world to know.