Practice vs Purity

If we consider that the Pilgrims and the Puritans came together in 1648 to form what became American Congregationalism, one of the main streams which ultimately formed the UCC, it might surprise some folks that, today, many of us who might be thought of as the "Puritan's spiritual children" are less concerned with purity in the church than we are with praxis (or practice).

Nearly every denomination large enough, or vocal enough, to demand media attention these days has been racking up plenty of airtime and column inches with stories of their internal disagreements between factions facing off---to put it very simplistically---over issues of purity vs praxis.

North American Presbyterians, United Methodists, American Baptists, and Episcopalians are awash over issues related to inclusion and biblical interpretation. The Episcopalian debate has spread to the worldwide Anglican Communion, where serious threats of schism are being heard.

No matter the particular issues today, or in the past or next centuries, we will probably continue to have debates over whether the church is the "hospital for sinners," or the "museum of saints."

I grew up in a denomination whose principal statement of faith declared that a church is "a body of regenerate, baptized believers," and who worked rather fervently to ensure that non-regenerate folk (that is unbelievers, sinners, and backsliders) did not have their names on the church roll. Yet history reveals that this was always a hope, an ideal, a goal, rather than a realized reality. In this model, one's baptism is intended to be the outward sign that, though one was once a sinner, one is a sinner no more. Yet the debates were many and intense about what cure there exists for those who "fall back into sin."

As we move toward the end of the first decade of this new century, the church is being faced with a major shift in perceptions of what "church" is and should be. Some have hastened to brand this time as a new reformation. One movement which is gaining a recognizable shape and identity is referred to as the emerging church. (The emergent church is a similar, but, so far, different movement.)

From her study of 300 healty, mainline Protestant churches, Dr. Diana Butler Bass, focusing principally on exemplary subgroups of 50 and 10 churches (composed mainly of United Methodist, UCC, Presbyterian (USA), Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran (ELCA), and Disciples of Christ congregations), discovered a number of characteristics these churches mostly share. In general:

1. they exhibit a profound spiritual vibrancy, Christian authenticity, coherent faith, passion and purpose that is open and generous, intellectual and emotive, beautiful and just, moving into the future by reengaging their best past.
2. they call their members to lives of transformative engagement with authentic Christian tradition as embodied in faith practices, and encourage them to express their transformation in new ways and directions, "rebirthing tradition" rather than maintaining or improving inherited ways.
3. they focus more on God's grace in the world than on the eternal state of their own souls.
4. their churches are sacred spaces where saints and sinners gather to hear God's word, engage practices of prayer and service, and are transformed through active participation.
5. their churches are communities formed around Christian practice rather than moral or theological purity.
6. they understand that thinking theologically does not mean "arriving at certain conclusions," that their goal is not to arrive at doctrinal certainty, but at awe-filled action.
7. they understand that, though Jesus may be the same yesterday, today, and forever, we change from moment to moment.
8. they adopt a pragmatic approach toward ideas and practices, both new and old: adopting them when they feed the spirit and shedding them when they no longer contribute to life.
9. they understand church as an adventure into creating authentic spiritual community, as a matter of transformed traditions rather than as a matter of organized structures.

These congregations have no desire or interest in "separating saints from sinners." Just as in yesterday's gospel lection from Matthew 13, they are content to let "the wheat and the weeds" grow together, trusting that God's spirit will be at work transforming lives. For my own work, I've come to embrace this parable as definitive for linking what we, here at Pilgrims', and what these other emerging congregations are becoming.

He's Baaaaaaack!

I just realized that my last post here was on May 29. Since then I've been writing, just not for this blog. Following the seminars and the reading which accompanied them, I've spent considerable time and energy writing two papers, one concerning the emerging polity of the UCC, and the other on lessons those of us in the church who've come from mostly west- and northern-Eurpoean climes and persons of other ethnic backgrounds.

The first paper traces the development of polity in the UCC from the 1957 merger which formed this denomination, from a polity with a presbyterian-accented congregationalism to a new model--still evolving--of what we've come to call "covenantal congregationalism" or "covenantal polity." Since this is still a work-in-progress, there's much more to be said and done.

The second paper examines some of the "hidden histories" of groups and movements within our predecessor denominations and the racial/ethnic groups with which they came in contact, through missionary activity and by other ways. The prayer which arises here is that we and our children not repeat the same mistakes and that we find better ways to interact with others we perceive as different.