back to "sabbath" again

This thing about the practice of sabbath as a center piece of the journey of the Christian community continues to come back center for me. Not as an ought or a should, but seeing how the erosion of the spiritual center of much of Christian church life is due to many local churches and denominations accepting the terms of the culture and particularly the business model of the culture as the way to be productive and to accomplish. Ironically, I just read a note on Facebook by another local church pastor that now the business community has caught up with the church community in facing empty coffers.

I have read both Eugene Peterson and Abraham Heschel about sabbath and have posted in the past months on their comments. I started reading yesterday morning (Sunday) before the worship service in my study the book "Sabbath Time: Understanding and Practice for Contemporary Christiasns" by Tilden Edwards. I am copying below some comments in describing the book. This and the book by Brian McLaren "Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices" about recovering our ancient worship and spiritual practices as a daily piece of our life, I think are the stream that much of the church needs to pay attention to. We still need to focus on social justice and organizational life as well as our method of education and stewardship and so on, but I think we have lost our center. Thus we have lost our identity not just as individuals, but as a church. We as the church no longer have anything to communicate or offer different from any other secular organization in our society because we try to live part of our life using the terms of the culture, and then put a spiritual veneer over it.

Well, here is the one summary of Edwards books from a book review at Spirituality Practice.

Edwards begins with a description of the sabbath as an alternative to the drivenness of contemporary 24/7 culture. In both the Jewish and Christian traditions, this holy day anchors the rhythm of time. The author discusses the sabbath as a day of rest, a commemoration of liberation, a sign of covenant, and a sign of hope. Best of all, it offers a surcease from the pressures of achievement in the work arena and the mind-numbing escapism of so much contemporary entertainment. Edwards goes on to examine some the factors that have eroded this oasis in time, specifically individualism and a devaluation of the contemplative.

Sabbath time offers a release from our normal routines and work while also delivering us into a free space where reverence, play, laughter, a celebration of the arts, relaxation, and quiet contemplation take center stage. We especially like the following passage where Edwards salutes the value of intention and the Sunday morning service: "Corporate worship, in order to be its intended self, needs to be surrounded by a protective time zone, a time of preparation and reflection, of quiet openness with nothing to do except appreciate the presence of God in the smallest random thing in and around us. If this is done, then corporate worship is more likely to become a radiant crystal whose facets catch up all of life in God's light, placed in the midst of a velvet Sabbath bed that sets it off. Without such surrounding sabbath time, worship more likely will resemble an opaque rock that reveals nothing of life's giftedness and integrity in God, only our own rushed anxiety."

In four practical chapters, Edwards outlines how Christians can deepen their experience of the sabbath, stretching from dinner on Saturday evening through sundown on Sunday evening. He covers rituals, silences, readings, and blessings. This classic resource ably demonstrates how, as Edwards puts it, "an understanding and living of sabbath time can help support a sane and holy rhythm of life for us."

(United Church of Christ, sabbath)

pastors are...what?

Check out this video from Walter Brueggemann who is my former professor of Old Testament at Eden Theological Seminary and is now retired from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. Walt in a 2 1/2 minutes video deals head on with the dilemma of being a pastor/preacher/leader of a church which functions as a business/social organization in the early 21st Century.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5nPlPMDDQ0

knowing God and doing church

I am confounded by the contrasts I find of doing church stuff from local church to denominational activities with that of knowing God. I am reading Your's Jack which is letters from C. S. Lewis. As I read Thomas Merton, Madeleine L'Engle, Will Campbell, Lesslie Newbigin, Lewis and others, I find myself separated from the spiritual reality of God, the incarnation in Jesus Christ, and the power of being crucified with and risen with Christ.

It isn't that we don't touch on the center of the mission given us in Christ, its that we are pre-occupied with so much "otherness" of our own lives. And we have laid upon or imposed upon the "church" much of our life, rather than our growing into the life of Christ. We seek to be "good" so that God will give us brownie points for the future rather than accepting we cannot accomplish the good, but only can be forgiven by this amazing love of God that redeems us both now and "then."

I am told to at times to just accept whatever small bits of progress that may happen in the name of "church", and be happy with that. To accept as inevitable that we humans cannot really become the true church, body of Christ. Its only an illusion. A false reality. That is probably true. BUT when we accept Christ fully as our life, it is no longer a future promise or an illusion. Its the reality of heaven breaking in here on earth! I am convinced of that by faith.

I continue to seek those who seek to be in that deeply entrenched faith community. Nothing else matters. I know that from scripture...and from revelations of that message from many I have known and been with over the years. As I go back and re-read notes I took over 30 years ago in seminary, I realize that I was being prepared to lead in the church in faith by that reality. For years I have been tried to be convinced by others, often in the "church", to give it up and just accept things the way they are. "Give it your best shot, but don't take it to heart that much!"

I have greatly reinforced in this faith by conversation with John Gossett from my congregation who is reading at my suggestion Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity by Eugene Peterson. John continue to comment to me how much he is realizing what ministry is from reading this book, and how demanding it is to be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a culture that has done a bait and switch by convincing folks that the gospel is really not that demanding and that it is more about us than it is about Jesus Christ.

I am presently in a denomination that advertises itself rather than simply proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not that they intend to, but they come close to sounding like the Church of Christ or the Mormons as though the reality of Jesus is mainly known in our nation through the United Church of Christ. The reality of Jesus Christ is known where God wills it. In humility we seek to be ready for God to use us as God wills. But it is never about us. We are to be the light of God to the world. The UCC as well as Fairlawn West UCC will die with Christ, so that we may proclaim that we will all be raised with him. But these days many in the UCC stop short of saying that...because they think it is "aniquated" thinking. We spend more time promoting social issues and our own right thinking in the present, and we cherry pick our own historical strands to present how we were on the right side of history. Conveniently ignoring much of our own history that promoted the values and actions that today we condemn in others. We distinguish ourselves by our ideology, but our methodology is similar to that of those we condemn.

May Christ save us all!

recovery and transformation personally and as a church

I just posted the following comment on the UCC Local Church Transformation listserve or email discussion group. I thought afterwards it was something I should post here. It is in response to two other pastors expressing their lostness in how to lead their congregations to listen and discern God's will for them and their own frustration and desire to cut and run because of all the resistance and sabotage they experience as pastors at the churches they are serving:

The first thing that helped me was 17 years ago beginning working a 12 step recovery program and learning in practical ways what it meant to have a spiritual relationship with God. After years of "talking about God and Jesus" and focusing on the "social justice agenda", 12 step led me to see the necessity of and what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had avoided the latter for years because the fundamentalists only talked about that seemingly all the time in my opinion to avoid the question of social justice. But I began to realize I was cutting off my nose to spite my face. And that it was my way of keeping large pieces of my life from God's control or believing that I was. I kept calling it "responsibility" as if by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and trusting God with my whole life I was somehow becoming a numbed out idiot who would never again act responsibly in the world if I "turned my whole life over to God." What I found was that I began to act more responsibly! And that my life was changing in ways I never imagined. And that listening, and prayer and Bible reflection and meditation became daily practices in my life. I couldn't live without them now. It is the only way I can preach God's Word because I know God and God's beloved Jesus Christ...rather than knowing about them.

Thus, when 10 years ago we began to look at "transformation" here at Fairlawn West...or when I began to and when I began to hear from Bruce Cole and Bill Easum and Tom Bandy and others the hard work that would lie ahead...I trusted that word because I trusted God. I shifted from being a local church service manager to being a spiritual leader. I just kept modeling personally and as the pastoral leader that role. Its what my ordination vows and my installation covenant called for anyway! Not everyone liked that. They wanted me to be more their personal social worker, to be the church manager, to be their personal "prayer", to take all the responsibility for the spiritual life of the church. I would not except that but continued to model my own personal and church pastor spiritual life. I had to trust it myself or I could never help them to see the power of trusting in their lives. So...transformation has to begin with us...personally!!!!!....first!!!!! Focus on your spiritual life. Take the time. Give your life over to the commandments! For me the 4th...honor the sabbath and keep it holy...is preeminent. Not talking about Sunday per se, but an every 7 day sabbath which is the beginning of my doing what God does. My life through sabbath observance begins to be in line with God's "weekly" practice from Genesis 1. And then...all things will follow. I need fewer if any "retreats" to monasteries or church camps, because sabbath is part of my life. If you ask our congregation now...they will tell you that the practice of prayer, Bible reflection and listening to God are much, much more clear for us. Whereas even up to 10 years ago for me it was still something "out there" I was struggling to do let alone understand it now was becoming something naturally part of our whole life...it was a recovery or a transformation...by the grace of God. Our corporate life is focused first spiritually...and the justice work multiplied at least 4x when our spiritual life became a core value and a bedrock belief of our congregational life. But it took Bruce many years ago in an email on the Easum Bandy leadership listserv when we were just starting and I was ready to throw in the towel, saying the word "persevere" that I decided to keep at.

My family took a deep wound during that time. I hit a severe depression for 6 mos in 2002. I was looking for a way to get out of here, but I couldn't find anywhere else that was as "far down the road" as we were!!!!! I would have to start over with this process at any church I read and knew about on "UCC Employment Opportunities." PLUS, my family said they weren't moving from Akron. It was home to them. The latter is what forced me to stay even when I was responding in the early part of this decade to Fairlawn West the way you and xxxx are to your congregations. I began to trust God...and the rest is history...or God's salvation history (oh, that good ole heilsgechichte)!

Love,
David

media and truth

I remember over 30 years ago hearing Marshall Rosenberg talk about not accepting the truth as coming from the "mind-numbing media." I wonder if we have expected too much from it in the recent life of the United Church of Christ. And now we feel betrayed by it with the brouhaha over Barack Obama and the former pastor of his home church (Trinity UCC in Chicago), Jeremiah Wright. I think the media is what it is. It numbs the mind into expecting it will get it right or get it the way we want it to be. Its almost if we live by the "sword" we will be attacked by the sword.

I was struck on this past Thursday which was Maundy Thursday of Holy Week the reading from the Gospel of John of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples in the lowest rung of the social ladder role of a servant, on the night of his betrayal. And then telling them there is a new Great Commandment. The 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule don't even measure up any more to this singular great one - to love one another as HE has loved us. I wonder how the UCC would be perceived if all of us who claim its identity would have spent the last few weeks washing the feet (or similar action) of other people around us?

Back on Jeremiah Wright - he is being portrayed as a inflammatory demagogue. Even aside from whatever is the reality of decades of his sermons, let along pastoral leadership, I was struck by his successor, whom he personally selected and mentored at Trinity for the past few years - Otis Moss III. I heard Moss on "All Things Considered" of National Public Radio this week. He is a very measured and thoughtful man. He spoke with a good listening of the interviewer AND he conveyed the Gospel in the midst of it. He talked about his wish that out of this whole thing people would know the living Christ and the saving grace of God. Powerful! And the wild-eyed Wright got him as his successor. hmm. Crafty as a fox he is!

what I like about the United Church of Christ/UCC #4

There was in liberation theology what was called the action-reflection model. Action for the poor, often in a political/social context, would take place and that would be followed by an intentional time of reflection on what had happened with prayer and scripture as part of the ingredients of that time and space. I experienced it here in the US but saw it powerfully used in Christian base communities (neighborhoods Bible reflection and action groups) in parishes in Nicaragua in 1987 when I was there. Focus was on action rather than simply ivory-towered academic theological equations on truth and justice.

Today, we need to recover the reflection part of that model. And one such place that helps that in the United Church of Christ is the web site of the congregation I serve. Particularly our "spiritual life" page. There are links for settings such a Renovare and Shalem as well as SOAPing which has become a central piece for our congregation in its spiritual life. This has enabled us to grow in reaching out to others with a confidence of spirit that we have not known before.

what I like about the United Church of Christ/UCC #3

One of the treasures of the United Church of Christ in present time is Gabe Fackre. I have mainly gotten to know Gabe online via various listserv conversations. I had heard of him for years before. First as prof at the UCC related Lancaster Theological Seminary and then at UCC related Andover Newton Theological Seminary from which he is now retired.

Here is a link for Gabe and his wife Dottie's web site. Gabe continues to lift up in such a gracious spirit in the continuing stream of what has been at the heart of the United Church of Christ tradition in the present and long before there was a body known as the UCC. There are some today who are trying to divorce the present day UCC from its gifts and history before the merger that led to the UCC in 1957 (and it would seem even put a major spin on the first 2 to 3 decades of the UCC history itself). Gabe continues to assert without rancor what has been the ecumenical and justice heart of Christ in that which became the United Church of Christ.

I consider Gabe to be a true progressive. Because progressives can only be such if they know and honor the past in its fullness. And they have to know the past to be able to argue with it. Gabe is one who does this.

My lament is that Gabe has been shuffled aside these days almost to a side show in the wider tent of the UCC. That is to our own demise! But, with a voice and heart of God such that he has, what he points to will continue to be lifted up...the reality of Jesus Christ as God's gift to the world that becomes the resurrection to life from the death of this world.

things I like about the United Church of Christ/UCC #2

If you read over my blog in the past, I have offered a lot of criticism of parts of the United Church of Christ that I think have run away from the tradition and the vision of what is at the core of this denomination. I got tired of hearing myself complain so I decided to start this "series" on the parts of the United Church of Christ that I appreciate.

Today in part 2, I have really come to appreciate the vision and mission of Scottsdale Congregational Church UCC outside of Phoenix, AZ. Eric Elnes is the pastoral leader. They have done a lot in worship expression in visual, artistic and music. The church has also focused on ways to help folks connect with God in their spiritual journey through things that are already part of their life...instead of having to add something totally new and different. And with Eric's leadership they have made a witness in walking across this country to share their experience of Jesus Christ as one who brings justice into the world rather than condemning and shaming folks. CrossWalk America

They reflect for me what has been the enduring witness of that which we call today and for the last 50 years the United Church of Christ, but also the roots that go back to the Protestant Reformation and beyond. They witness not for a particular identity or denomination but for Christ in reaching out to those who seek to know the love of God.

things I like about the United Church of Christ/UCC #1

I decided to start writing about those things that I like about the United Church of Christ also known as the UCC, a Christian denomination out of the Reformed tradition of the Protestant church.

#1 was easy - Northland College in Ashland, WI.

This is a UCC related college. I got to know of it while we lived in the far northwoods of Wisconsin when I served Community UCC in St. Germain, WI in the early 1990's. I have continued to support Northland financially ever since (more than my alma maters of Hanover College and Eden Theological Seminary). And last year at the college fair at Firestone High School I offered to represent Northland and did so.

Northland is consistent with what it says it is...their ethos is clearly respect for the God's creation. The school has an ethic of earth stewardship. Of any college info magazine I have gotten, Northland's I continually look forward to. I dream and am so hopeful every time I read it.

I wish the UCC relied on Northland more and lifted it up. I think in the present when the UCC is living a lot off of its storied prophetic past, Northland is one of the most consistent settings in the present of creating a prophetic future!

United Church of Christ headlines

I get news headlines and blog headlines related to a variety of topics. One of those is "United Church of Christ." The variety under that title is interesting. I get a lot of obits from churches in Wisconsin...doesn't seem that UCC churches in other states or funeral services are that newsworthy. A lot of bazaars and swiss steak dinner announcements from all over. A lot of blog entries on Barak Obama and gay & lesbian folks in the UCC.

Now that's just a quick recollection from over a year of getting these daily notices. I wonder what the techno archaeologists in the future will discern from these.

time with Erwin McManus

I just spent a great 2 days with Erwin McManus in Charlotte, NC at Origins. I am continually focused on the mission of the church when I hear and read Erwin. Jack Michael was with me who is an Eden Sem grad and is awaiting ordination in the United Church of Christ pending a call to ministry.

Some of my notes (but I mainly just lisentened):

The best way to take care of immorality and heresy is mission. (He was seeing this from scripture. Erwin thinks too much of the church is focused on "rules" couched in the context of "morality.")

The church now in the US needs to shift from institution to movement.

Instead of "joining" a church you rather should be commissioned as a missionary.

Obedience to God is about a posture of the human heart.

The ethos of the culture of the church is more important than its rules.

We need to seek to change more what people care about than than what they "believe."

The following leadership actions shape ethos - language, choosing which battles to fight, telling the stories of your life and the world around you, communicating through the person you are (authenticity, sincerity)

The tension today in the church is not trying to understand the Bible but being obedient to it.

There is a difference between loving ourselves (love your neighbor as yourself) and being in love with ourselves (self-centered).

Love is an unendless resource of unlimited power.

God created us to be in relationship with God.

The ethos of the church is servanthood which is the model of Jesus.

Gerardo Marti spoke who was a member of Mosaic LA and now in Mosaic Charlotte, who is a prof of sociology at Davidson College:

Every aspect of church structure today is borrowed from pagan life.
The denominations are a creation of the late 19th and early 20th century Western focus on organizational efficiency through bureaucracy. That model no longer serves or reaches the culture we are in.
The cathedral/sanctuary model is based on the original Roman basilica.
19th Century Protestant churches were modeled on the Victorian home of having a fellowship area and and an entrance area beyond what the Puritans had of simply a 4 walled sanctuary.
The sanctuary became more theater like in early 20th Century to enable better sound projection.

People today begin to choose to use their based on feelings rather than obligation or loyalty.

It is not simply what we say these days, but how people hear us. (I made add more notes from Gerardo in the future...as I write these they don't seem that strong, but I remember how excited I was as I was listening to him...very helpful).

Back to Erwin:

Creativity = freedom from constraint & development of new capacities

Acts 17:16ff - is the church trying to reach Peter and Martha or Dionysius and Damaris? an apostolic church is focused on the latter 2.

the inverted bell curve of the Diffusion of Innovations has across it: innovators, early adapters, early majority, late majority, late adapters, laggards(nostalgics). Most of the church today is focused on the last two groups and they have lost the first three. Right now the institutional church is trying to hold on to or recapture the late majority. A sign of its lost focus of mission in our culture.

When we fall in love with Jesus we will really grow.

This is only a brief synopsis of what was communicated. Great rock/blues band from Mosaic Charlotte. Visited a very creative neighborhood art gallery called Area 15 which is a group of Christians reaching out to a recovering neighborhood in Charlotte.

time away

I've been "away" obviously for a few weeks. Been doing some vacation. Some reading. Some reflecting.

We are starting to consider a primary mission of our church to be an urban sabbath/retreat center. We are in the midst of a very hectic portion of the city of Akron. We are on the major east/west thoroughfare beyond the expressway. The lives of many of the "partners in ministry" of Fairlawn West Church are hectic. I am reading the book "Urban Iona". We had been talking about this for a few years, but reading this book is helping me to feel clear about this mission. I think of so many people who are urban poor who have no places for, and probably no sense of "going on retreat", let alone the vacations so many of us desparately yearn for. (yet, when we come back from them we crash back into the hetic world we so desparately wanted a respite from...see below*)

It is vital that we not see ourselves simply as a place "to get away from." Because we are also a place "to go out from." We as a community of faith and our bldg in particular are not a destination, but a staging area for the next movements of the spirit in going out to the world around us.

The line that is important for all of our church leaders to answer (at least), "What is it about your experience of Jesus Christ that the world around you needs to know?" is part of this. So is the mission statement I have shared for the past three weeks "Reaching up and Reaching Out." Reaching up to God and Reaching out to Others.

We at Fairlawn West are at another time/point of having to look inward to see if we are losing our call outward. It feels that way to me. We have found our comfort zone/our nest, and we are now starting to focus more on arranging the nest rather than in getting out of the nest to soar among those others who are looking for a home/nest. The role of Jesus' disciples to get out of the nest to help others find their home...in God's kingdom.

*When I served the small village, northwoods of Wisconsin, resort area community of St. Germain as a pastor in the early '90's, every May the church folks would get anxious. Now, we were dependent on the summer tourists for the center piece of our economic life, but we also dreaded them when they would come up north with all their craziness in driving and demands that we provide "service" for them...and right now!!! I would preach an annual sermon the last three of my four years there about how those folks were coming up to our place to try to catch some of the way of life and peace and serenity that we knew year round in the northwoods. They couldn't help themselves. They brought with them the craziness even as they came up to get away from it or to get rid of it. We didn't need to mistrust the serenity of our way of life that God had provided in the natural world around us, not just for us, but for all to share in. We needed to "let go and let God" and not catch the "anxious virus" that those folks from "down below" (we also called them "flatlanders") brought with them.

I am at my in-laws' home on the Cumberland Plateau (2000 ft up with mountains around) in east Tennessee on a lake with beautiful trees, and a wonderful gazebo in which to relax and read and chat and watch sunsets and just be. I have done this for 18 years. And my in-laws share their great gift of hospitality with us. The last few days I have been reminded of those years in the northwoods as I have read about the urban Iona, thought about Fairlawn West as a sabbath retreat in the city, and about the crazy hectiness that I am part of "down below." Yes, I see in myself the crazy anxiousness that those tourists would bring up north with them each year to Wisconsin. Can we at Fairlawn West be a setting and a staging point in the city as St. Germain was as a village and my in-laws place is? I think we will need to change our culture and our sense of mission, use of bldg and self-governance to do this. Are we willing to face that? Is God calling us to this now?

UCC, United Church of Christ General Synod

I don't think the world cares much about what goes on at the United Church of Christ General Synod and that what goes on there makes much difference in the world. Thus, it doesn't really edify the mission of the body of Christ. It rather uses a lot of money, time and energy for folks to act out self-centered, self-importance power politics play acting.

Synod always seems to draw the addicts who obsess over the intensity of the Synod atmosphere, the illusion that all its issues are making a major difference in the world, and who get high from the whole shebang.

There are better ways to steward the gifts of God than this!

United Church of Christ views from the sides

I shared my post below from June 20th on the 50 year vision of the UCC on another UCC minister's web site chuckcurrie. That led to some give and take, which I am posting below:

That's a really depressing perspective on the UCC. I think the UCC is staged for growth in the next 50 years. My congregation is extremely vibrant -- in fact we've added more new members this month then we did all of last year. Also David, why do you think that our ministers paid more of a price with their prophetic leadership in the 1960s than they do now? I think our pastors are doing some very fine work indeed and I'm proud of all the many beautiful things the UCC is doing.

Posted by: David | Friday, June 22, 2007 at 15:40

Mr. Loar, with all due respect, you offer a dark vision of our church that I cannot in my experience and knowledge of both our history and present agree with.

Posted by: Rev. Chuck Currie | Friday, June 22, 2007 at 22:07

David and Chuck, appreciate the comments...and Chuck, the respect! :-) My context, 58 years(lifetime) in the E&R/UCC, 32 yrs local UCC church ministry, (and also an Eden grad), while at Eden worked for the American Friends Service Committee as a staff member in the Midwest to inform church folks about the Vietnam War and to encourage actions for peace in Southeast Asia and internationally, the first UCC Peace Intern in 1972, involved with the former Office for Church Society in many veins on domestic and internatial justice and peace issues, including human rights delegation to E Germany & Hungary in 1986, in Nicaragua during the US contra war in 1987, UCC representative on the most amazing ecumenical economic and community development ministry ever -CORA/Commission on Religion in Appalachia in the 1980's. Attended 7 General Synods. Former conf staff associate minister. Two of my former congregations were within the top five highest per capita giving OCWM churches in the denomination. The present congregation I am serving has gone through major transformation in the past 7 yrs and is growing spiritually and numerically, but also is reaching out to a vast array of hurting people through social change and social service. At the heart of our journey though is a faith in the life changing grace of Jesus Christ. The motto of our church is "Its not about us." Thus, we do not focus on the story of Fairlawn West or the story of the UCC. Rather, we focus on the living Christ who is changing us all from death to life. We (myself, Fairlawn West UCC, the UCC and so on) will die. My read is we (UCC and the US church as we have known it in the 20th Century) are at points of great disintegration which is why we are trying more and more to project ourselves into the public arena. In the "old days" when justice action was done via the UCC we did not build up that it was the "UCC" doing this. Rather, Christ was doing it through we servants.

Posted by: David Loar | Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 07:58

David Loar,

God bless you for all the wonderful work you have done. Christ is still working through his congregations -- whether they are UCC or not. We have been forced to project ourselves into the public arena due to the rise of the Religious Right in our country. To not respond in kind would eventually lead to our silence. How else could the church have responded?

Posted by: David | Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 09:53

You say we need to respond "in kind" to the Christian right. Didn't Jesus choose a different way to respond the principalities and powers? Instead of responding in like fashion, he offered a way that to the world seemed weak and vulnerable, to death. And yet,.... I think we have as Pogo said "we have met the enemy and he is us." In adopting in response in like fashion, we have allowed the so-called "religious" right to set the terms. Like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and temple elite of Jesus' time, they sought to set the terms for even those who opposed them. I think we have done the same. That was the genius of ones like M L King, Gandhi, Dorothy Day and others. In the fashion of Jesus of Nazareth they were more creative and found a "higher" way in which to respond...but then it wasn't really a response. It was the mission from the beginning.

Posted by: David Loar | Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 11:31

Brueggemann on the UCC shrillness

from the web discussion site UCCtruths.com (a site run by a more conservative critic of a lot of stuff labeled as "UCC" but still a fair voice in and of himself, and the overall discussion board has a variety to it), written by Don Niederfrank (Don and I were the two long haired hippies in our early years at Eden Seminary), who is clearly not a conservative, but has sought for years to bring the ideologs of the UCC into acknowledging a common center FIRST in their identity in Jesus Christ:

Probably the best, though not necessarily inspiring words were from
Walter Bruggeman who was applauded at Christ Church when at the end of
his talk--which was typical Bruggeman--profound and sound--he said that
the UCC needed to remember that God did not start speaking after the
comma. (applause) And that we--I'm pretty sure he said 'we'--need to
confess our unneighborliness toward those among us who do not choose to
follow the progressive agenda. (applause and amen's).

During the q&a he criticized the progressive church for devaluing
the 'Text' by its elevation of Biblical criticism.

He also said that part of the responsibility for the stridency of the
conservatives is the shrillness of liberals and that he finds himself
using the word 'shrill' with 'liberal' more and more these days.

Be hopeful.

Don N.
=================
Walt Brueggemann was my Old Test prof at Eden Seminary. He is one of the most prolific writers and speakers on OT theology, biblical theology more widely, and even more so on what it means to be faithful in times like these. He is no shrinking violet either in calling out the need for social justice in our world as the prophets are written about Biblically.

UCC history

I am concerned that a grandiose and prideful history of the United Church of Christ is being paraded around which only tells the part of our story we want to tell...the victors tell their version of history?

We post all over the place that we ordained the first woman minister in the US in 1857. The Congregational churches allowed her some privileges to preach, but would not ordain her. Antoinette Brown went on to do ministry in the Unitarian Church.

Puritan/Congregationalists in New England in the 1600's established a state church with taxation that if you didn't attend or pay, you went to jail e.g. Roger Williams.

In the first half of the 1900's up into the time of the merger of the UCC in 1957 southern Congregational Christian conferences were segregated.

We forget the many local church pastors especially who in the 30's. 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's provided deep prophetic leadership at a far higher cost than many face today, but we live off today of their legacy and try to reap an institutional/denominational reward off of their sacrifice with our advertising.

We are forgetting good Reformed theology that has shaped who we are especially in the tradition of the social change work and political leadership and theology that grew out of daily life of John Calvin and his community/church in Geneva.

Many claim UCC identity but want to waffle on the lordship of Jesus Christ...when 50 years ago in the merger of this denomination "Christ" was intentionally put into our identifying name at sacrifice of breaking with the historic names of Evangelical & Reformed and Congregational Christian.

Barbara Brown Zikmund some years ago gifted us with the "Hidden Histories of the UCC". Today, what was the core history of the UCC back then, is now ignored or forgotten or revised to fit with the image folks want the rest of the world to believe who we are. In Alcoholics Anonymous this is called "terminal uniquness" and "image management" both of which lead to dying from our addictions.

50 year vision for the United Church of Christ

I just found the blog for the 2030 Clergy Network of the UCC which is clergy of the UCC in their 20's and 30's. As I read their statement http://www.myblurredvision.com/blurred_vision_god_music_/2007/06/2030_clergy_net.html
it sounded very much like what I wrote below on May 19th under the title "yea for our club."

As a clergy of age 58 and 32 years in ministry, what was my 50th anniversary vision of the UCC? Not what we have. My vision really developed more 40 years ago of a church that focused on helping those who were part of it to be able to seek God's will in the midst of the world rather than telling them what God's will is. My vision was a church that helped to nurture its sisters and brothers in the Reformed tradition of the scriptures (which we have allowed the funadmentalists to co-opt that title of "Reformed tradition), rather than dissecting scripture to make it fit for us ideologically and intellectually. My vision was a church passionate for justice and so it had become more institutionally vulnerable and less presumptuous about itself rather than a church that lifts up its denominational name in advertising more than it does inviting people into the transforming experience of Jesus Christ.

I am reading McGrath's biography of John Calvin. We have so much to learn from this ancestor of our church tradition who led at a time that massive cultural, political, social and theological change was taking place. We spend too much time on the trees of Calvin rather than the forest of Calvin...in similar fashion that I see happening with the Apostle Paul. We make them into static historical figures and fail to learn from their experience of reaching out and changing at critical times in the journey of God's people.

Ironically, in the diversity of the UCC, I do not find a place in which to abide these days. And yet our local church is one of the most transforming, justice communities around...but we are more focused on the longer ancient tradition in shaping us rather than the more recent 25 years that are being honored at the UCC General Synod. The historical identity being honored in the UCC these days is called 50 years, but it is more so a 25 year history. As one who helped shaped the prophetic voice of this denomination, I hear and see more revisionist short term history than a long term honoring of our ancestors who have gone through more than we have.