Cutting the Cords

This morning in Sunday School we were discussing Phyllis Tickle’s analogy of religion being a cable the holds us to God. Now I have not read her books (I don’t think many in the class had) though I did find some of her talks on the internet. I looked this up because I wasn’t really following our conversation very well, getting confused about where the analogy was going. Anyway I found reading the transcription of her talk to also be confusing. She moves from one generalizations about a world trend to another (pulling theological images from Matrix, equating Martin Luther to a couple of the most liberal theologians of today, and explaining the emergence of Christian Science and Mormonism in a couple of sentences). My head was spinning just trying to figure out if the last five things she said were true so I could determine if the connection she was making made sense. Hopefully her book has a lot more detail and documentation for her claims.

Anyway back to the cable. Phyllis has religion connecting us to God like a cable made up of different strands and layers. Her idea is that when the layer is opened up, we play with the strands, rearrange them a bit and then put it back together. This is why Protestantism looks different than Catholicism and Pentecostals worship differently than Episcopalians. But we started talking about just these cables that connect us with all kinds of things - God, church music, money, sports, each other, etc. The idea was that we get so connected we have to start cutting some of these cables. So having organ music in church is a cable that was cut when we introduced guitars. And some cables (the liturgies that Journey now follows, like writing names on a rock) are worth holding onto because we like them. When we started talking about cutting away the letters of Paul in the same way we discussed not holding onto having fancy altar rails, I got a little concerned. Why not just cut all the cables (one person suggested this was the plan) and just float along the streams of our culture with no intention of a connection with God. I appreciate the questioning about holding things to be too important but something has to be important and we don’t seem to talk about them.

This got me thinking about the music at our church. They’ve got some great musicians who perform a couple of songs each week. But it’s a bit more concert than participation, no common repertoire holding us together. It’s like we have to bring in all this diversity of music but not connection and community. Phyllis’ comment is that the old organ hymns were “performance art, even by those who couldn't perform. It was not a participatory thing.” She then concludes that in emerging churches today (including Journey ?) “what the church failed to do was accommodate to that shift. It still tried to perform, and we still do.” I wish that she had stayed on this topic a bit longer but she quickly moved on to the next world trend (the Internet) without any guidance about what we are suppose to be doing. Do we just cut this cable also; unplug the guitars and let everyone have a voice in what we sing? Somehow, I doubt we’d do so nor would appreciate the cacophony that resulted.

It seems that everyone is telling the church to cut the cables (at least the ones we don’t like) but not what are connection we are suppose to be looking for.

Love and War

The Christian right and left are still at it. In the news, Proposition 8 was passed in CA defining marriage as between a man and a woman. This was filed and supported by Christians and then challenged and condemned by Christians. The Christian right look to the morality of God’s establishment of marriage. The Christian left uphold Gods love to all people. Millions (about $40 million on each side so far) were spent to argue that both sides are misrepresenting God. The rights of homosexuals to call themselves married has somehow become one of the most important religious issue in America. I wonder why the Christian right is so more concerned about homosexual marriage than the pain and misuse found in many heterosexual marriages. And why do the Christian left feel that the civil rights of homosexuals are more oppressed or important than others, say the 200,000 people forced into extremely overcrowded CA prisons. It appears to me that Christians on both sides are just responding to cultural influences and not seeking true purity and mercy from God. They are using what the culture is saying, what the culture is talking about, to support their arguments of right and wrong. Doesn’t God call us to think in a different way?

On a more personal note, I finally did receive a response from Fr. Warner, the rector at Christ Church about my removal from his church. He marked it as Confidential and did use divisive words that really should not be identified as coming from a church leader, so I will not quote directly from it. In it Cliff confirms he can make his decision to remove me without having to discuss it with me or anyone else (or to even provide a reason) and says that he did the best he could. I have since responded that I will seek reconciliation with him (seeking forgiveness not justifications), if would provide a way. I'm truly mean this from my heart but sadly I don't really expect to hear anything back from him. We have many ways to serve together but he has simply decided that I'm out.  

I feel like a scapegoat. You know, during the Day of Atonement, the goat in (a mistranslation of) Lev 16, upon whom the sins of the people are symbolically placed and is then driven away to fend for himself. Cliff has created this uncertainty at Christ Church (or is it in his own heart - I'm not able to tell) and I am a ready target on which to place the frustration this has caused. So upon me it is placed and I am asked to leave the church. Of course, I am personally in no position to atone for the sins of Christ Church or its rector. However, this does give me some empathy with other scapegoats out there.

Most notably are the homosexuals who are forced to stand in the middle of a battle within the church. If they didn’t exist then the church wouldn’t be arguing, the Anglican (Espicopal) church would be unified and the money and time spent on legal actions could be used for more fruitful purposes. What a burden for these scapegoats to bear that they are responsible for splitting a church. As much as I agree with the theology of marriage taught by the Christian right, I must also agree with the left that homosexuals are people loved by God and not scapegoats for our power struggles. My concern is in realizing that these underlying power struggles will continue - globally in the Anglican Church and locally at Christ Church - so who will become the next scapegoat? The different factions in the Anglican church are even now discussing the role of women in church and types of worship that can be used. Will these and other issues be discussed or simply mandated with the new scapegoats to carry the burden?

Joyful Sounds

Yesterday, my wife, I and a couple of friends sang at the Regency Village Care Center for about 40 minutes. Actually I played piano so the residents were really listening to the trio. We probably only had less than thirty people in the audience but they were very appreciative. I really don’t think that one can mess up a nursing home ministry; the need is so great that someone will be touched.

We practiced for a few months to make this work. It will be interesting to see where God takes this. It does take time to reach out to others even if we do have the talent to share music. I'm just offering what I have.