Recently, two of
Benjamin L. Corey’s posts have been making the rounds of some of my
acquaintances. The more popular has been the one that makes a whipping boy out
of many of my fellow-Evangelical Christians. Frankly, I not only entirely agree
with Corey about the traits he lists, I wholeheartedly endorse my friend Preety
Dass’s addition of three others. (She wrote, “I can sooo relate to this!
Although I would add 3 more reasons: 1) racism in the evangelical circle, 2)
weird gendered theology & sermons, & 3) classism originating from the
prosperity gospel mentality (all based on personal experiences).”) For those
interested in the original lists, Corey’s concerns about his fellow “Progressive
Christians” can be found here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/5-areas-where-progressive-christian-culture-completely-loses-me/,
and “But Here’s 5 Reasons American Evangelicalism Completely Lost Me” can be
found here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/but-heres-5-reasons-why-american-evangelicalism-completely-lost-me/.
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| Pounding out our prejudices. |
Simply by seeking fellowship among fellow pastors, even more
so by openly encouraging multi-congregational cooperative ministries, I have
been “privileged” to hear a variety of justifications, rationalizations, and
fabrications for the constantly increasing territorialism, competition, and
isolation of most congregations and denominations in the body of Christ. In the
past, I have phrased this as our tendency to fragment and splinter the Church
into ever-smaller components which we presume to be incompatible with one
another, even as we proclaim that this makes our particular enclave even more compatible with following Jesus.
Recent posts by Benjamin L. Corey (see above), along with my
considerations of the living, breathing reality of an organic function of
Christ’s body, have led me to reconsider my choice of terminology. In short, “fragment”
and “splinter” portray the Church as an inanimate object, being beaten to
pieces by some external force. As I contemplated my belief about the nature of
the Church as comprising anatomical members in physiological function, another
more shocking realization intruded. Still being affected by external forces,
even by those who imagine themselves to have been internalized to that body,
the fine distinctions by which we separate from one another take on a sharper
focus. Where once I saw the blunt-force trauma of the butting and shoving sheep
of Ezekiel 34, I now see the end to which that flock and its members are
consigned: the butcher’s knife, and cleaver, and bone-saw.
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| Fire up the grill for some Galatians 5:15! |
For Corey, the primary labels are Evangelical or Progressive.
But any other adjective defines some portion of Christ’s body as somehow
separate from its other members. Each modifier we place ahead of “Christian” suggests
that we see the Church’s denominations, traditions, and doctrinal allegiances as
so many chunks of meat. We ask to pick through the piles of bones, sinews,
muscles and their lifeblood committed to the trays of a butcher’s case. We act
as though we may somehow select our preferences from among these dismembered
segments. As carefully as we may shop among the carnage, we have clearly
forgotten that each of us are called to be
members of Christ’s body. We wander the mall of ministries, or simply remain
rooted with our relatives, choosing to ally ourselves with an ecclesiological
genealogy originating with some individual or group that we come to identify as
“our kind of Christians.”
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| Let's see less of this... |
Of course, we don’t stop at severing the interrelationships
among our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our disunity among Christians
dissolves our integrity (“being of one substance”) as a Christian. Even as individual persons, we isolate our “prayer
life,” or “scripture study,” or “church attendance,” or “works of service” from
the ongoing, holistic conversation that God intends should pervade every area,
every moment of our lives.
A relationship with God through Christ comprises all parts
of our lives, just as the body of Christ comprises all parts of the Church. If
we are His, then everything we are and everything we do are part of that
conversation, either in agreement or disagreement, obedience or defiance of
what Jesus would have us to do. And if we are
His, then we are members of His Church—including all those “others” He accepts,
forgives, fills, calls, and engages in His purposes and plan.
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| ...and practice more of this. |
Whenever we begin to contemplate which adjective best modifies
our Christianity, may we prayerfully consider the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus
Christ toward God the Father in John 17.
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those
also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as
You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the
world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have
given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in
Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You
sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”
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