Tribal Church

So the Wall Street Journal has proclaimed that Emerging Church has fizzled out. Brett McCracken has declared it a hipster trend and we’re moving on, because the hipsters were never about Jesus.

I don’t really want to talk about whether it’s dead or not. I don’t know. I know a lot of intelligent people who are still involved, and I think that it will have a huge impact on American religion for many years to come. My sense is that what died was “emerging” as an evangelical re-branding effort. The evangelical movement could not control the Gen Xers, so they will declare them dead. But the people who were writing interesting things are still writing. Those reeling from the after-effects of evangelicalism have not gone away. People who struggle to respond faithfully to postmodernism have not gone away. Whatever is happening, it’s clear that a transition is occurring and there are things that we can learn right now.

I say “we” with discomfort. I have felt shut out of the “Emergent” movement. I am a pastor in a historic, intergenerational congregation with traditional liturgy. A few years ago, when I asked an Emergent writer and leader if there was room for me, if the conversation could be about both/and (both innovation and tradition), he told me clearly and emphatically, “No.” Denominations were going to die at any moment, and I was holding onto a lumbering dinosaur. I was not part of a denominational church so that I could live out the fullness of my calling in a community of faith, but in order to gain power for myself.

As someone who grew up in a church that systematically oppressed women, who was constantly told that my calling into ministry was a sin and the only reason I felt a longing to minister was because I could not accept my God-given role of submission, and I was all about power, the soundtrack sounded the same…even though the intent was different. I feared that people in the movement did not understand the difference between abusive power and spiritual empowerment. I bolted.

(And, yes, for anyone who doesn’t believe me, I’ll be happy to give anyone the name, place, date and precise time of the conversation. I will email it to you though. I won’t do it publicly. But, remember, if you keep questioning the validity of people who complain because your experience has been different, then you just might be contributing to the problem.)

Many people wonder why I often make a distinction that I am not a part of the capital “E” “Emergent” movement, even though I write about being faithful in the midst of postmodernism and cultural shifts. Not to mention the fact that I dearly love many who are in the heart of the movement. It’s because that was one of many conversations that I’ve had. In spite of this, I have found friends among the loyal radicals—those who are in the midst of denominations, understand the shifts in culture, and are working to respond faithfully to them.

The Emergent movement might be dead. Denominations might die. But God’s not dead. I guess the question is, what we can learn in all this? How can we retool? How can we keep being the hands and feet of Christ in the midst of the shifts and changes? What is God calling us to become? Here are a couple of things that I have learned from this larger conversation.

First, we need each other. We need the tradition and wisdom of the generations who have come before us. We need the Boomers and the Builders. And we need the church movements of the past. We need the wisdom that comes from church structures and we need the passion that breeds in the postevangelical movement. There is no way that we can shut out all evangelicals and all denominational Christians and expect that a movement will survive.

Second, we will need to be kind with each other when it comes to financial security. Often times, in our new church movements, we can heap shame on each other for not starting new churches, or guilt one another for not giving everything up and living with the poor. If a person receives a pension then she’s a sell-out. If he receives book royalties then he’s a sell-out. Shoot… if a person runs ads on her blog and gets a monthly check for $1.27, she’s a sell-out. If he blogs for Beliefnet, he’s a sell-out.

If we continue this sort of hardcore attitude, it may be difficult for us to sustain in the long run. Many of us have families. We have student loans and mortgage payments. We love Jesus, but our kids need backpacks to go back to school. Many of us hope that we will not be eating dog food when we retire. We will keep having difficulty planting churches and working for social justice if we don’t have some realization that sometimes we need money. Our ministries need money. That doesn’t make us greedy capitalists. That doesn’t make us all about power. It’s just reality.

Third (and I have been clumsy as I’ve talked about this in the past, but I still think there’s more to say), when people complain that they are being left out (women, LGBTs, different ethnicities), there has been an assumption in the Emergent movement that there is no power structure, so there is no way that people can be left out.

It’s important to understand when we have power. And it’s vital that we use it to empower others in their ministries. If we want a diverse conversation, we will need to make sure that it happens. There are many people who have been historically left out of church leadership. Some have been ill-treated blatantly or discreetly. As a result, they just don’t have sharp elbows. They will not push themselves up to the table and make a place with ease. Those of us who are people of privilege will need to understand this. We will need to keep making spaces and extending invitations.

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I was at a party, holding my plastic cup of beer and talking to a stranger in a crowded house. She was in thirties, like I was. “So, what do you do?” she asked. “Where to do you work?”

I smiled because this part of the conversation can become really interesting. I’m a five-foot tall woman, who’s part of a generation that considers itself “spiritual but not religious,” so people don’t usually expect my answer: “I’m a pastor.”

“Oh my God,” she responded. “I never knew why anyone would go to church. But last year, my mom got sick. She’s divorced, and I’m living hundreds of miles away from her, so I didn’t know what we were going to do. And her church totally took care of her. They brought her meals. They drove her to the doctor. They called me when anything out of the ordinary happened.”

“Yeah. That’s what the good churches do.”

“Really?” She looked completely confused as she continued, “I had no idea. You should really advertise that.” I laughed, and we talked for a bit more about her career. But, her initial comments stuck with me as I snagged a rare empty space on the couch. I looked at the crowd of mingling people, and the loud music triggered my thoughts. It never occurred to me that people would not know that churches care for the sick. What had church become in the minds of most people?

I wondered as I traced the condensation drops on the side of my cup. Do people only know our faith by what they see on Fox News? Has church become synonymous with the Religious Right? Has Christianity become known as a “pull yourself up by your boostraps” kind of religion? What about our progressive congregations who are serving the poor, caring for the environment, and helping each other out? What about those who love our neighbors, even when they’re going through difficulties? Do people even know we exist? And how would we advertise that anyway? It’s not like we are an elderly care service—someplace where you can drop your parents off so that we can take care of them and you don’t have to worry. No, it’s different than that. We’re a community. Which, I suppose, can be an alien concept in itself these days.

Our society rewards autonomy. In our educational system, the most important tests are the ones we take alone. We move away from our hometowns in order to get an education or a job. Then we keep relocating for every career opportunity. People would rather rely on high-interest credit cards than borrow money from their own family. Young men and women, who are trying to enter an extremely difficult job market, are considered losers if they live with their parents while they pay off their student loans. People put off marriage and parenthood, because there is a societal expectation that we must be financially independent before we become married (which is increasingly difficult when it takes two incomes to maintain household stability). In these days of economic turmoil, the young have been hit with student loans, high housing costs, and stagnant salaries. Older people have been smacked with increased medical costs, prolonged retirement plans, and diminished savings. As we realize how threadbare our societal safety net has become, it is becoming clear how faulty our notions of financial and emotional independence are. We need each other. We need communities.

While many civic organizations have become relics of the past, faith communities still thrive in our society, as a place of solidarity in all stages in life. In our sanctuary, there is a space where CEOs and homeless people sit together in the same pew. We’re a gathering where people from diverse ethnicities work with one another. It is a setting where the young and the old support each other when we’re in spiritual, emotional, or physical need. It is a place I can go to, in times of faith or in doubt. When I’m too weak to hold any belief in God or myself, I know that a community holds it for me. And I can be strong for others, when they falter. It is a sanctuary, in a broad sense of the term, where people can question and work to make the world a better place.

I don’t mean to say that our community of faith is perfect in any sense. None of them are. We can fight over silly things, and we have expectations that far exceed our human capacities. There are some churches where people can just be downright nasty to one another. But, in the right space, it is a place to build community, with all of our human messiness. It is a place where we can struggle alongside one another, helping one another in times of strength and weakness.

In this society where we are becoming weary, anxious and depressed with our struggle for autonomy and independence, there is a place where we still gather. We take each other to the doctor. We make food for one another. We care for each other. We see each other as neighbors and we still create community.

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I was teenager, standing in front of the mirror, hating every bit of the reflection. I was born in the seventies and grew up along a beach town in Florida. It’s a place where–sometimes by necessity–people don’t wear many clothes. The beach dominated our recreation and businesses, and it was so hot that a lot of clothing didn’t make sense. Many restaurants had to instruct their customers to wear shoes and shirts in order to receive service. I never wanted to wear a bathing suit in public. I had a less than perfect body, and never got over my self-consciousness enough to venture out without full covering. And as I stared into that mirror, my body consciousness turned into shame, and then hatred began to take root, until I loathed what I saw. Every imperfection, every curve, I treated with a disgust that haunted me throughout the day. It came out in subtle ways, mostly with an eating disorder that never allowed me to consume food without guilt.

Sadly, my Christian faith didn’t help matters much. As a teen, we attended a conservative mega-church. I was a “born-again Christian,” fashioned in a tradition where I was always taught to “take up my cross” and to “die to self.” There was a dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit, they told me. As a Christian, I was caught in an internal warfare, where I was trying to contain the flesh and discipline it. This hatred of the body fit in well with the emotional and hormonal turmoil I went going through as a teenager, as I began to develop in strange and unusual ways, and I could no longer quite squeeze myself into a bathing suit. Our church constantly encouraged us to fast as a spiritual discipline. Our pastor went thirty days without food, and preached about the experience constantly. So I fasted. I learned to ignore the cravings for which my body yearned. I turned away from the hunger, pain, and stress, all in the belief that I, as a good Christian, ought to keep any cravings of my body under spiritual control.

I didn’t come into a full understanding of my folly until fifteen years later, when my body began quickly and drastically changing again. I was pregnant, and each day I would stand in front the mirror, just like before. Yet, the experience was completely different. This time, it was with pure wonder at what was happening, as each part of my body swelled. I could no longer ignore my cravings. I had to listen closely to them, because they told me exactly what my body needed—leafy greens on one day and dairy products on the next. If I shunned my hunger and skipped a meal, I would vomit. My body let me know when the stress of my job was becoming too much and I needed to slow down, or when I needed to sleep more.

During this second time of profound physical change, I no longer had the same spiritual teachers. My theology had also evolved radically, as I read more feminists in my tradition, and the voices of those women reminded me that I needed to love my neighbor and I needed to love myself. They lifted up the fact that God said creation is good, and we need to take care of it. As I looked down at my enlarged flesh, I realized that I was not only a part of creation, but I was a partner in creation. As my body morphed into new shapes, my faith took on a new form as well, as I read theologians who shunned the idea that every sin begins with pride, while lifting up the fact that often people live with the violation of self-hatred. When I looked into the mirror, my new teachers whispered to me that I must great respect for that reflection. Because what I was looking at was imago dei–I was made in the image of God.

Feeling those first kicks made me experience my spirituality much differently. So much of what I had been taught had been focused on death, especially Jesus’ death on the cross, and that act of human cruelty had become central to my faith in unhealthy ways.  And yet, through those nine months, and the years that followed, I began to see my spirituality through the lens of birth and life. I became “born again,” as I understood that the Spirit was giving birth to me anew. God was using me in the act of creation, and I learned the importance of deeply-loved flesh.

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This is the second half of my last post that got way too long. I love speaking. I especially love the reports two years later, when a congregation has studied Tribal Church, and then they started doing new ministries as a result. But when I talk to friends, I don’t think I have the hunger for public speaking that many people do. It’s hard work. It’s not like a rockstar glam life. There are times when you’re stranded without transportation or left without meals. Oftentimes people see it as part of my church ministry, and they don’t know why I should be paid. In short, it’s a calling that I love, but it’s hard work. I prepare, write, and think a lot before the presentation. Just know that, and I’ll let you know how I got started.

Prepare your CV. After you’ve produced some work, you will want to get a CV. The CV should not be your last pastor resume, but something up-to-date that highlights your recent accomplishments and writings.

Get a photo taken. I’m really bad about this, but it must be done. Don’t edit your last family vacation photo, or have your 8-year-old take a mug shot against a white wall. Your picture should be high resolution and professional, or as close to professional as you can get. A professional photo says… well… that you’re a professional. I don’t know why Evangelicals are so much better at glossy photos than Mainliners are, but there is a huge cultural difference there. Break the stodgy photo mold. (Yeah.. I’m not as cool as these people either, but you get the point. You actually want to spend some time with these speakers after seeing those pictures.) Give the organizers something that they are going to be proud to put on a conference brochure. If you are a person of color, a woman, pierced, tattoed, or young—then definitely send a good photo. We all know who populates these conferences speaker slots, and any decent organizer is going to be looking for someone who can bring a bit of diversity to the mix.

Write a description of what you’re going to present. You will want a long description (I still write a script, but I don’t read it), and a short 3-5 sentence description. The long one is for you and the 3-5 sentence one is for the organizer. In your presentation, you want to include

• A chance for people to get to know one another. I’m not talking about a youth group mixer. I mean, ask a question that will help create community in the space and get people thinking about the material.
• Present substantive information. You can do this with Power Point, but I don’t usually use PP, unless I know that the conference organizers are really into it (sometimes it’s disappointing if they’ve spent a lot of time setting up PP and I don’t use it). I don’t like it as much, because I’m less focused on people and more on slides when I use it.
• Something that allows people to imagine the information in their own context and gives them something substantive to do.

Set up presentations. Again, as I said about publishing, start at the bottom. Ask your friends if you can lead a church retreat or Wednesday night Bible study for them (actually, it’s not really the “bottom.” I still love doing church retreats as much as big conferences. You get more accomplished having so many lay people on board.) Ask if you can lead something at your clergy group. Do church basement gigs. Ask your local governing body if you can lead a workshop for area churches. You may not get paid much for these, but it will build your resume and give you an opportunity to get comfortable with your material in a small setting.

Pitch to conference organizers. My calendar usually goes out about one to two years in advance. So, if there’s an annual conference, you can start contacting the organizers right after the last event. Include a query email, introduce yourself, say a word about your accomplishments, tell them what you would like to speak about and why, indicate that you know someone involved in the organization, say why you would like to speak at the conference (this is where you can tell them that you like the work that the organization is doing), and let them know what else is on your schedule. It helps if you have a catchy workshop title and enticing description. Usually, this should be a page. Attach a photo, your CV, a short bio and a short conference description (photo, bio and description can be on one page, so they only have to open two attachments).

Figure out your honorarium. As an author, I was looking at conferences as a way to do some good work, sell my book, and get my name out there, so I have been laissez-faire about honorariums. But… after a couple of years, I realized that I needed to start getting more serious. I was paying travel expenses and not getting reimbursed until months later. I would show up at a conference and realize that an older guy was getting paid two to three times more that I was, even though I was more accomplished. Or, that a much less qualified younger guy was getting paid two to three times more than I was…. Anyways, just like many areas in life, I had to come to the realization that I’m a thirty-something, five-foot-tall nice Southern woman, who is very accessible and may not look like she deserves as much as that other guy. Injustice is everywhere, and I don’t need to be perpetuating it just because I’m afraid to be seen as a Diva who’s a bit too big for my britches…

I needed to have a set payment and a contract. I don’t need to be presenting workshops at conferences where the keynote is much less qualified than I am. I have, in the past, gone down on my honorarium, but I sometimes resent the indelicate way it is presented and have gotten a lot better at saying “no” when it is handled poorly. (Basically, if you’re an organizer, don’t try to humiliate the speaker into thinking she is charging too much. It’s not a flea market, and that’s just tacky.) My time away from my family is becoming far too precious for me, so I’ve had to become a thirty-something, five-foot-tall Southern woman with a backbone.

Set a schedule. If business picks up, then you might want to decide how much travel you and your family can handle. Since I have a full-time pastorate that doesn’t recognize my writing or travel time as part of the job, I have to limit myself to two (and sometimes three) speaking engagements a month. I also try to take a couple of months where I have no engagements.

But I have not been on the organizing side of things.  Organizers and other speakers, what advice would you add?

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Recently, I’ve had a lot of people picking my brain about how they can become a writer/speaker. Here’s what I tell them… or what I wish I would have told them, depending on the situation.

1) Have something to say. Yeah, I know it seems obvious, but there are a lot of charismatic people out there who… well… don’t have much to say. You don’t want to be one of those.

How do you figure out your message? Well, pray about it. If you listen to someone else speak, and you get really, really angry, figure out why. Is it because they are not saying it the way that you would? How would you say it? Listen to your own petty jealousies, because they just might be directing you. Think about what gifts that you bring to the ministry. Do you have a unique perspective because of your religious background, age, ethnicity, technological skills? Have you done some interesting activism? Is your church growing? Do you have artistic, poetic, or musical skills? What do you have to say that the church is dying to hear? Be certain that you’re passionate about the subject, because you may be speaking about it for a long time to come.

2) Produce work. When you know what the topic is, then begin to read everything you can on the subject. Don’t just limit your reading to church books. Reach outside of our field and find out what other experts are saying as well, because sometimes the most interesting work is done when a religious leader takes cutting edge research and then reflects on it within his or her context. Then, start to write. Blogs have lost a bit of steam, but they are still an excellent way to get started when you don’t have another platform. Writing a blog can get you into the discipline of working every day. You can rework blog posts for magazine articles. And, for a while, more people knew me from my blog than my published works.

While you’re at it, begin to use Twitter as a public figure. Yes, Twitter matters. Talk to people. Unlock your privacy settings. Put your real name, position, and blog on your bio. If you’re used to being semi-anonymous on Twitter, it may take some of the fun out of it, but it’s also a powerful tool in making publishing connections. I have a wonderful friend who randomly Twittered his book idea, and a publisher contacted him. I have been contacted three times by publishers who are interested in my work because of Twitter.

3) Get published. Once you have your blog up and running, look for other places you can be published. We all think we know more than Elizabeth Gilbert, and we want to be the ones with the New York Times bestseller and big movie deal, but we may not be able to get a contract with Penguin right away. But there are places you can get published. There is a ladder. It’s not that hard to climb, but you may have to start on the bottom rung. Look at your denomination’s weekly newsletters. Are there respected religious blogs that you can write for? Often if a publication is not paying its writers and/or it has to publish often, then they’re always looking for good stories or book reviews.

Publishing (like so many things) is in a strange transition at the moment. Most publishers are having a hard time figuring out their strategies during this Internet age. This makes them very wary to publish authors who don’t sell, but it may also be helping them take a chance on newcomers. At least that’s how it seems. I don’t know… what’s your sense of this?

4) Don’t back-stab (i.e., I just changed “we all know more than Elizabeth Gilbert” to “we all think we know more than Elizabeth Gilbert”). And certainly don’t backstab in public. I said to be aware of your petty jealousies, but don’t blog about how much you hate another author. (Just to be clear: I love you, Elizabeth Gilbert). You might only have six people reading your blog, but one of them is the person who set up the blog alert to find out the feedback on his book. The religious writing world is very, very tiny. If you want to write, then you may have to be careful with your snarky comments. Of course, you can write something like this sweet homage.

Don’t write a nasty review of an author’s book on Shefari, and then turn around and ask her for a contribution to your blog. She read your review. And she might be your editor one day. Even if she’s not your editor, she may be making editorial decisions about you. (Publishers–large and small–contact me regularly to ask me what I think about certain authors or book ideas. And I’m just a small fish. I know I’ve advised against authors who have been rude to me. Not out of pettiness or vengeance, but the experience left a bad taste in my mouth when it came to their work.) You may criticize in broad terms, you might have a constructive dialogue, but don’t throw your hope-to-be colleagues under the bus. It might give you a short-term audience, but it makes you untrustworthy and it might destroy you in the long run.

5) Help and ask for help. You have a great amount of power in this new era of publishing. You can write a good Amazon review. You can Twitter when you’re enjoying a book. If you want to be a published author, help to promote the authors you enjoy. Some authors might ignore it when you do (authors often ignore me), but the smart ones will pay attention. I have scored big interviews for God Complex, because I’ve helped the author promote his or her book. I’ve made great friends this way too.

When you’ve been working hard on proposal, ask for help. And women, I’m talking to you. For some reason, it seems that men contact me for help often, and women rarely do. I mean, really close friends will send off a proposal without asking for my help. What can a seasoned author do for you? He can look at the query and proposal and tell you where your mistakes are. Often, he can make a contact with the publishers and put in a good word for you. Of course, you need to build a relationship with the author before he or she will do this. And some authors don’t have the time. There have been situations when I can’t get back to someone with advice, because I’m swamped. If I’m one of fifty people copied on an email, I’ll ignore the request. I can give advice as one person, but I don’t have time to be part of a survey. If you don’t hear back from an author, don’t take it as a failure, it’s just the nature of writing. The workload is often feast or famine, and when it’s feasting time, then the writer has to concentrate hard on prioritizing. He may not get back to you, but that’s probably not because your work sucks. It’s probably just because the writer has put it on the back-burner and forgotten. Or they don’t have the time to help new authors.

And… that’s my advice for publishing, but I’ve gone on too long and haven’t gotten to speaking. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. So, what would you add?

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Text: Matthew 6:9-15

The rainbow scarves fascinated Libby Shannon. Throughout the Assembly, she saw them, hanging proudly over the necks of men, women, and teenagers. People over the age of seventy wore them, as well as those in their twenties, as a witness to their support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender men and women in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Libby was attending the 219^th General Assembly of the PC(USA) in Minneapolis, a biennial gathering of pastors and lay people, who make decisions on behalf of our two million-member church, which took place a couple of weeks ago. They pray and study together, seeking guidance for their work together and making declarations about social justice issues that will focus our energy and mission.

I also noticed the scarves, even though I was not in Minneapolis. I first saw them hanging from the crochet needles in our Wednesday night dinner and coffee time, as Jean Ackor and other women knitted them at our church. Then I saw them at the General Assembly. I was in my living room, watching the Assembly as it was livestreamed over the Internet. There were many issues discussed and brought before the gathering—motions on gun violence, discussions on Israel and Palestine, initiatives on the environment, and changes to our church government. In all of this, the ones that always garner great attention are around the inclusion of LGBT people. Would our insurance begin to cover gay or lesbian partners? Would we redefine marriage from “a man and a woman” to “two people”? Would the church allow people who are open about their same-gender relationships become ordained?

Our denomination works a bit differently than other denominations. We do not have powerful bishops who decide the will of God and the people. It’s a much more democratic system, with laypeople and clergy represented in our decisions. At the heart of many of these decisions, we would be pointing to a deep cultural shift, one that not only acknowledges same-gender relationships but says that God blesses them.

It ended up that the Assembly approved the insurance coverage of same-gender spouses. They tabled the discussion to redefining marriage. And they removed an amendment to our constitution that would restrict gays and lesbians from being ordained. But since the last action was a change to our church constitution, it needs to be voted on by the Presbyteries (our local bodies) before it becomes ratified. And so the struggle begins again. The amendment will go out to the Presbyteries, and the Presbyteries will vote. In the last years, the vote has failed when it’s gone to the Presbyteries. But every year, LGBT advocates gain a few more Presbyteries than we did the round before.

Libby Shannon is a student who graduated from seminary. She’s young, she’s in her twenties, and she believes strongly that LGBT people should be ordained and that they should be able to marry. Many studies have been done on the religious habits of people in their twenties and thirties, and a lot of us have difficulty filling out the religion section on our Facebook page. There are not many who are committed to a denominational church. So I asked Libby, if we’re people who believe in inclusion of LGBT people, why do we stick around? Why don’t we just leave?

In response, Libby pointed in two directions. She directed my attention backwards and reminded me of all of the women and men who fought this very same battle so that women could be ordained. “What would I be saying to the legacy of those women, if I just gave up? What would I be saying to them, if I didn’t fight for what I thought was right in our church, and just took the easy way out?”

And then she pointed the other direction. She looked to the future and told me about the about the youth group that she worked with. “I’m doing it for them. I’m doing this so that they can have a church that loves everyone, no matter what his or her sexual orientation might be.” I was inspired by Libby’s words. She knew that we are imperfect, earthbound people, but she still had a longing for the ideal and a hope for something better.

I do not want to characterize the struggle in our denomination in terms that are too simplistic (especially since my views are clearly on one side). But to quickly explain what is happening, I will say that there are those in our denomination who point to the six passages in Scripture that condemn same-sex relationships, and see those passages as so important that they feel as if we back off from them, then we are no longer seeing the Bible as a guide for our lives. It is very important for them.

Then there are those, like me, who read about love, marriage, and sex in the Scriptures and we see that relationships have evolved dramatically with culture. As a woman, I cannot point to the authority of the Bible when it comes to marital relationships. I cannot look at the Scriptures and say “Ahhh. That is what marriage ought to be like.” Because when I read about marriage from a women’s perspective (frankly) it’s filled with horror stories. Women are bought and sold like property. There are many wives for every husband. Men have sex with their slaves if they cannot bear children with their wives. Marriages are arranged for political alliances. Kings keep harems of women. There does seem to be one loving relationship in the Song of Songs, but the lovers are sneaking around in that book, and they’re clearly not married. And so, as someone who takes the Bible very seriously, I can’t see it as an ideal authority on love and marriage, between one man and one woman, because I just don’t see it in the Scriptures.

When I point out how oppressive and abusive marriage is for women in the Bible, people can be quick to defend. They say, “Those were cultural practices, so we cannot take modern our view of marriage and superimpose it on an ancient view.”

And I agree. Our cultural definition of marriage has changed since biblical times. So if we cannot take our view of marriage and expect for biblical marriages to live up to our standards, then we should not be taking the biblical standards and imposing them on our culture. Culturally, we believe that loving relationships are between two people who commit themselves to one another. We know that no marriage is perfect, people are earth-bound, but we still hope for the ideal. We know how the world is, but we long for the world as it ought to be.

The struggle reminds me of the time I was reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a story that took place in Savannah, Georgia. In the book, they were going to trial and they were trying to weed out those who might be prejudice against a gay man, and so they asked a series of questions, trying to detect any homophobia. And the last question they asked–the very last litmus test that they pulled out was to ask if they would you mind if their pastor was gay. The lawyer determined that if they said no to that question, then the final barrier was removed.

I wonder if that’s true. And if it is, it puts this struggle into a bit more perspective. Are we trying to remove the last barrier for the next generation? I know that gays and lesbians face discrimination all over our culture. I’m not saying that the struggle is over when LGBT people can be ordained. But I wonder, is that the reason we stay in this historic denomination, even when we know it’s not right? Is it because we know that people are earth-bound, but we still dream and strive for the ideal, the heavenly?

In a strange way, Libby’s words reminded me of Jesus’ prayer, the one that we say every Sunday morning. We read the context for it this morning. Jesus is teaching the disciples how to pray, and he gave them these words. And I always pause at that bit about “On Earth as it is in Heaven,” because I do not know what heaven is like. None of us do. We have ideas of it from the Bible, but really, we don’t even have that many of those. And the authors never experienced it, except through visions. I believe in heaven, and not just because it gives people incredible comfort when their loved ones come to the end of their lives. I believe that in our birth we emanated from God’s love, and in our death we return to God’s love. And there is a very real sense in which heaven is what we wish for and long for, where suffering will melt away.

And so I wonder, as disciples of Jesus, when Jesus invites us to pray, “On earth as it is in heaven,” if we are not being invited to dream a bit. It is as if we are being told, “pray for the perfect world. Even when what is surrounding you is far from perfect, keep hoping and keep dreaming for a world that is.”

Prayer is an incredibly powerful exercise. And one of the most important parts of prayer, is that we verbalize what we want. If you are like me, this doesn’t always come naturally. You know, often times we are taught to be happy with what we have, rather than dreaming of what we want. And it is extremely important to be satisfied with the things that we have, but in the last few years, I have just discovered how important it is to imagine what I want. It is important that we write it down carefully, and ask God for it.

A business is typically not going to be successful if that business does not have a plan. A non-profit organization may not be effective if they do not have a vision statement. A church will flounder if the congregation does not have a mission. As citizens, we will need keep imagining what a just society looks like, and work for that end. And as humans, we may never understand what our purpose is in this life, if we never ask ourselves what we want out of it. Some people have no problem with this at all, but there are many, many people in this world who do not know what they want, especially those who have been historically oppressed. They might feel as if they are at the mercy of everyone else’s desires, and they don’t know how to fight for their own vision of what might be good and right.

This may seem like a completely selfish venture, and it can be. Often it is. I mean, the “prosperity gospel” is unique in our country and history, and it is often born out of selfishness and greed. And I don’t think that the American prosperity gospel is what Jesus had in mind… but it is a wonderful thing to imagine, “What if earth was like heaven? What would that look like? What would a just society look like? What would the world look like if every barrier to God’s love was lifted?” We can imagine it on a global scale and a local scale, and even in a personal sense. What would the ideal state of things, where there is no separation from God’s love, look like? It reminds me of the words of Walter Rauschenbusch, a wonderful pastor and writer from the turn of the twentieth century, who worked with the poor in New York City. He said that our struggles as Christians is “a great revolutionary moment, pledged to change the world as-it-is into the world as-it-ought-to-be.”

The world as-it-is into the world as-it-ought-to-be.

On earth as it is in heaven.

I wonder if that is what keep Libby from giving up on our historic denomination, not content with allowing it to look anything less than God’s unbounded love. I wonder if “on earth as it is in heaven” is the prayer that worked through each stitch, as women and men crocheted rainbow scarves, in the hopes that the next generation will have a church and country that is free from discrimination. Even though they know what the world is, they will continue to work and hope for a world as it ought to be. They will continue to be a witness to Gods love.

It is a prayer of great power, when we begin to pray it. There can be a great humility if we ask God to bless our hopes. Let us go out, with that prayer on our lips. To the glory of God our Creator, God our Sustainer, and God our Liberator. Amen.

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So those of you who follow Bruce Reyes-Chow, the Presbyterian Moderator, on Twitter, know that he has been talking about certain conferences, and prodding us, wondering about our Mainline interest or disinterest in them.

And those of you who follow both of us know that I have been rather old-school, angry, and vehement in my responses to such conferences. (Old-school, meaning I’ve been taking a black-and-white, us-versus-them, my-way-or-the-highway approach.)

It actually kind of shocked me. I have a lot of opinions–there’s no doubt about that–but usually I can appreciate the viewpoints of Evangelical colleagues, even though I think that they’re wrong about many things. I have learned to embrace my heritage, as something that is an important part of me. If I hate it, then I hate myself. (Of course, there’s a fine line here. I do hate the sin that was inherent in my Evangelical formation, and confess it, and change….)

But, for some reason, my reaction to the Catalyst Conferences overwhelmed me. And I wondered why that was.

Was it jealousy? There are as many Mainliners as there are Evangelicals (and I realize that there is a lot of cross-over in terms here), but Evangelicals almost completely drive the religious book market, the religious media, and politics, because of the fantastic ability that Evangelicals have to organize huge events, and to find unity in vital causes. Authors and musicians who get invited to these sorts of conferences do really, really well. I was warned constantly when I wrote Tribal Church to make it an Evangelical book, or it would never sell.

But, I don’t think jealousy was fueling my frustration. I think the main character in the driver’s seat was fear. As you can see from the line-up, there were very few women involved in The Nines, and (I think) only one ordained woman. I’m afraid of going backwards. It’s irrational, I know. But the fear and anger are still there.

It was very difficult growing up in a religious tradition that saw me as sinful because of my growing call into ordained ministry. It was painful watching many of the women in my family, who had the same calling, not be able to pursue theirs. It’s difficult to think of all the Bible school students in my “message preparation for women course” (we were not allowed to call it preaching), where I heard some of the best sermons in my life, who pursued their M-R-S in the hopes of being a pastor’s wife, because that was the very closest that they could come to being a pastor themselves.

I understand the religious viewpoint that women should not be ordained. I know that an Evangelical conference will have a handful of women, and we should not expect more that that. But I also understand the deep sorrow and frustration that church can cause from the sexism that bleeds from generation to generation. And when I’m faced with it, then I bark, in anger and pain, as if I’m facing a dog that previously bit me.

The denominational church, even with all of the ordination difficulties, even with its less-than-flashy conferences, and its inability to unite across denominational lines to become a stronger voice in publishing and politics, has been an unbelievable font of grace for me. Welcoming my gifts, encouraging them, and allowing a place for them to flourish. And even though there have been bumps along the way, there is a way for someone like me. And I am filled with overwhelming gratitude to be a part of it.

I left the Evangelical Church, because the Mainline church—with its strong commitment to social justice, gender equality, spiritual disciplines, and intergenerational community—seemed much more relevant. And yet, now that I’m inside, I find many Mainliners wishing that we were like Evangelicals, so that we might gain relevancy.

I just wish we, the Mainliners, could see what gifts we have, celebrate them, and I guess along the way… I wish that we could learn to organize a little better.

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We interviewed Jeff Sharlet, the author of The Family, on God Complex Radio yesterday (as usual, you can click on the right to hear the interview). It was pretty fascinating. He was a part of Ivanwald, a home for men, who are the chosen ones. They were men from affluent households, who were being groomed, through hard work, close mentorships, and prayer meetings for leadership. Ivanwald also has a connection to C Street, a home for congressmen who are connected to the Family and have been highlighted in a number of scandals lately. The Family is a secretive, and extremely powerful fundamentalist group.

It was actually a pretty emotional experience for me, reading the book. I don’t want to over-play my relationship to the Religious Right—I left it before I turned twenty-one. But it answered a lot of questions for me.

It also reminded me of many of the differences between my Conservative roots and my Progressive present. Most of the shifts are wonderful, and I embrace them, but reading this haunting history reminded me that there are some things that we can… well… I’m groping for words here… learn from Conservatives? Things that I’m thankful for?

One of the most shocking realizations as I read this book is the lack of mentoring that happens in Progressive circles. I always hear people who lived through the 60s, decrying the fact that there are no good young leaders. We have a leadership vacuum. There is no respected, loud and clear voice, speaking out for progressive values.

It always confused me, because I’m surrounded by smart, young progressive leaders. To me, it seemed like they were speaking clearly, but no one was listening.

Yet, as I work more and more within our progressive faith tradition, I realize that there is almost an undercurrent of hostility toward the young. I feel it often. Working with generational issues, all across the country, I am always hitting on some raw wound. It often comes up when I point out sociological research that says that Generation X is the most innovative generation in our country’s history. We have more entrepreneurs, we’ve started more companies, fueled the tech boom, etc.

People often get furious.

And let me be clear. I brought up Gen X because their span still includes people in their 20s. But I’m not talking about people like me. I’m not so young any more. I’m talking about those who are younger than me. For instance, I have also been startled by attitudes toward Campus Ministry.

I have been working with college students, in one way or another, ever since I became a pastor, because it’s important. I know that we are overshadowed by the phenomenal success of Campus Crusade for Christ (which always makes me wonder… what college student wants to be a part of a “crusade”? What organization would embrace that name? The crusades were a dark and terrible blot for Christians…), Intervarsity, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Even on George Washington University’s campus, where most of the students are politically progressive, why would CCC’s ministry be so robust?

Well, I’m not sure how many full-time staff that CCC has on George Washington University campus, but I know it’s at least two. At least 80 hours a week dedicated to developing young Christian leaders. In comparison, I work ten hours a week, and I am in a constant struggle for funding to hold on to the ten hours.

Most of our Campus Ministers, in Mainline Denominations across the country, spend most of their time trying to justify their jobs, and trying to fundraise in the midst of denominations who question our existence. Denominational funding has been slashed, governing bodies don’t understand the point, the local church feels to strapped to reach out. There is always something more pressing than Campus Ministry.

There would never be a question in a conservative church. Never. If the ministry was struggling, they would fire the person and put someone effective in. Why? Because they are just much more focused on young leadership. They don’t wait for young leaders to kick down the doors, they open the doors for young leaders. And if there is no door to open, they build a door for them.

It seems that we have lost our vision in Mainline Christianity for mentoring, challenging, developing, and loving young leadership. There are exceptions (thank God) to this overarching theme. Will Willimon spoke about his frustrations on this issue quite clearly. But, it still remains as the most startling difference between the two cultures.

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Good morning! I’ll check in later today, but this morning, I need to prep for our conversation with Bishop Will Willimon on God Complex Radio. I’m sure that I’ll have a lot to reflect on when I’m done….

The show is going really well. We’re learning a lot, and it’s been wonderful to work with the staff, talk to Bruce Reyes-Chow and interview some amazing people, like Frank Schaefer, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Margaret Sartor. Our audience is growing, mostly with people who download. And interest is expanding as well… including funding/sponsorship interest. So, I’ll have more details later, but for now, it’s an exciting time of transition for us.

I get a lot of questions about how to listen to it. It’s pretty easy. You don’t have to listen to it live. If you use iTunes, you can download it from there (just search for God Complex Radio in podcasts), or you can go to the Blog Talk Radio Site, look for the episode you want, and press play. Or, of course, you can always listen to the last few episodes by pressing on the one you want on the Blog Talk Radio widget on the right column of this blog.

It’s not too difficult, and if you need help, just let me know (teammerritt at mac dot com).

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It may sound strange, but I’m just now learning about WASP culture. I am a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and I would often hear the term batted about. But, either because I was in the midst of it and could not identify it or because it had been so diluted by the time I was growing up in the 70s, I didn’t understand its significance.

In my lifetime, if you said WASP to me, immediately, Polo Ralph Lauren ads would flash in my mind. And I would have a nauseated feeling of being somewhere elite, a country club, where the only people of color were serving the WASPs. If I were to place myself in the scene, I would be one of the servants.

Why? Well, maybe it’s because I was from a largely uneducated Southern family.

Or because most of my time that I’ve spent in elite scenes, that’s where I’ve been: a coat-checker, a caterer, etc. I was the woman in the “tuxedo,” making sure that all of the napkins were in a straight line. I was the woman trying to make sure that the drunk man was not making a scene when his glass was not refilled quickly enough.

Or maybe it’s because I felt so terribly out of place among the New England elite, where people spent their time among the DAR, tracing their ancestry back to the “original settlers.” Where people talked about their John Updike sightings years after the fact.

I’ve been reading Bobo’s in Paradise (BRC’s recommended reading), which has been fascinating. Bobo’s are the Bohemian Bourgeois, the new elite. And, yes, I feel much more at home in this description. But it also explained how important and central WASP culture was. Other things have led me to this strange exploration: rereading Fitzgerald and understanding him on another level (I missed so much in high school), and last month’s Atlantic Monthly.

All of this makes me see the demise of the mainline in a different light. We have (of course) a lot of difficulty with it. It’s hard to adjust to decades of diminishing attendance and power in a society. But I’m also beginning to have some uncomfortable self-awareness as well. Our denominations often long for the fifties, and our congregations were often formed in the mid-twentieth century culture. So, we often yearn to go back to a time when our churches were growing, in the center of town.

I have often been annoyed with this. But now I’m wondering if we need to be more than annoyed. WASP culture was oppressive to minorities of all sorts. What does it mean for a church that grew up in the midst of that? What does it mean for a church that gained great power and influence in and through WASP culture? What does it mean for a church that was a central part of it? We look at that time with longing, but have we done enough to confess our sins? To grieve the harm that was done? Was the repentance also something I missed? 

(I can almost feel my Boomer readers rolling their eyes. I know. Many of you had first-hand knowledge of the cultural shift, and I’m sure you’re way beyond this… and we have been talking about it rigorously in our academies. But what about in the church? I still can’t help but think we have more work to do…)

And, the most important question, can we find relevance now that WASP culture is dead?

Photo by h.andras_xms

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