Will Campbell and the church

One of my heroes is Will Campbell. He is a preacher up there with Frederick Buechner and Madeleine L'Engle. Yet, he can't stand the church! He has been involved in some of the most courageous stuff around civil rights and the struggle for peace in the world, and yet he can't stand politics.

I find myself at the same point on both counts. I love the body of Christ, but my experience of church seems to be running away from trusting God and accepting our identity in Christ. Folks feel like I am badgering them to be the "church." Maybe its time I just found a church and then let that experience of church/bodiness speak for itself.

I fear we have "compromised"* the church to death! Fortunately, we don't save ourselves!

*fudged, lied, short-cut, been so codependent to others,

I find conservatives and liberals have done this. We have "cherry-picked" scripture to support our own pre-concieved ideologies. Campbell was ostracized by the civil rights community because he believed we needed to be consistent in sharing love as he went to meet members of the KKK in North Carolina to see what of the Gospel they needed in their personal lives.

Will Campbell, David Loar, Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron, OH

Valentines Day

I once heard that Valentines was started by a guy named Valentine who as his personal mission would leave a card at the door of prison cells so the prisoners would know that at least one person was thinking of them. Romantic, huh?

But then, Mother's Day was started by Juliet Ward Howe (who wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") as a way for mothers to protest their sons being taken off to war and used as fodder by people in power. Sentimental, huh?

But then, Easter was started...eggs and bunnies right? Cute, huh?
David Loar Fairlawn West United Church of Christ Akron, Ohio Valentines Mother's Day Easter

money

There's a lot of turmoil in the US and the world right now about money. Especially among those who have been use to having sufficient if not more than sufficient funds to enjoy life as they are accustom to.

Truth be told, money has been an issue for at least 2/3's of the world for most of the 20th Century. We accepted in the US a level of around 5% unemployment as ok. We thought we could never get everyone employed. But we never developed the infrastructure of an economic system or governmental system that would truly help those who were part of the permanently unemployed. In fact, we played as more of a moral issue "they are lazy...they could find work if they tried." Yet, many of those of us who made those comments weren't in ongoing relationships with any if a majority of those folks who made up that "5%."

Well now, we are way up over 5%. And the welfare system works! Hallelujah! Folks who were leaders of companies who have tanked or been folded in to other companies in many cases received their millions in bonuses. Even when those bonuses came from federal bail out money.

Now, I don't think any of those are lazy. In fact, I suspect most of them worked hard. But I also don't think that any of the permanently unemployed folks are any more lazy than these newly unemployed or underemployed.

I think the best form of a bailout is to feed the funds to local yokel folks who have credit card debt and are behind on mortgages. Allow them to pay down their debt, which increases their opportunity to be more avid consumers again, and that then feeds the money to the banks and financial service businesses who hold those cards and mortgages. "Trickle down" has had its day since the Reagan era. Let's try "trickle up" for a while. It can't be any worse.

David Loar
United Church of Christ
money
Akron Ohio

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.