Showing posts with label Diversity. Show all posts

Image by Untitled blue via FlickrI don't have enough time in my days with my wife out of town to follow all that's gone on at Rachel Held Evan's site and her "Rally To Restore Unity."  It's been a week of posts and guest posts about how we live together as Christian brothers and sisters while still disagreeing.  It's been funny.  It's been moving. And I just haven't had the time to reflect on all that I've wanted to reflect on.  (This might mean it becomes a summer series at some point so I can spend time talking about it!).

Anyway, I just read a bit by Sonny Lemmons and thought I'd share on a beautiful Saturday morning before I start facing the various tasks of the day....

There are a number if leaders (for want of a better term) in Christian ministry whom I -quite honestly - don't care for. They represent the Gospel in a way which, to me, augments hatred, intolerance, and self-importance in their interpretation of how we as believers are called to be in this world. Yet they're still family. Kind of like those strange cousins you know you have but just don't talk about all that often.

Because they're family (through blood - get it?), we often joke that we might not have to like 'em, but we do have to love 'em. However, ultimately it's a choice. We choose to love them. We choose to show them the mercy and grace they might not show others, because we choose let Christ's example guide us. It's never easy, and they may never understand or reciprocate it. But that's what love ultimately embodies.

Love may win, but in the meantime, let's at least try to act like we can tolerate each other.

Image via WikipediaOK, I admit.  I've not read Rob Bell's book.   I don't find the topic of universalism all that threatening to me or my faith...not that I'm a universalist.  But...if God were to choose to save everybody or nobody at all, I really leave that up to God.  But I've been fascinated by the discussions about Rob Bell and his book Love Wins.  I've read stuff on the left and right of the issue and I've sort of found a home somewhere in the middle.  And I'm sure that's either weak or upsetting to some folks.  But, alas, that's where I am.  I'll let God be God and trust in his grace and mercy and the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus, whose death and resurrection we remember this week.

But, again, it's the discussion about this issue that's kept me fascinated.  Is Rob Bell a false prophet?  Can God save those outside of the Christian faith?  What is hell like?  Where is it?  Who will be there?  What is the proper Christian response to false teaching...or to diverse belief?  How much diversity can we have within the faith and still keep the faith?  THIS I find interesting. 

Perhaps the big issue is not Rob Bell, but about Christianity as a whole.

Jason Boyett, who writes over at "O Me Of Little Faith" has a nice post addressing the latter issue...diversity within the church, within the faith.

He says

Right now, Christian theology is broader and more diverse than most Christians are comfortable with. In fact, over two thousand years of biblical interpretation, the Christian religion has proved to be ridiculously flexible, able to tolerate significant theological and practical differences without, you know, us having to say “farewell” to people who land on a different interpretation. Consider:

There are Christians who believe they are saved exclusively through grace, period, full stop … and Christians who believe some manner of works are involved (those “works” may be as basic as an acknowledgment of Christ’s lordship or as complex as to what extent we cared for the “least of these”).

Some Christians believe salvation is eternal. Others believe it can be lost or cast aside.

Some Christians believe the elect are predetermined by God, chosen for either salvation and damnation. Others believe God gives mankind real freedom to make his or her own choice.

Some believe salvation occurs at the moment of baptism. Others believe baptism to be an important, public confession of salvation — but only symbolic.

And he goes on, with some pretty stark differences, diversity we can find within the Christian Church.  I know, every time I lead a talk at the Walk to Emmaus spiritual retreat or even preach on Sunday morning, that there are people who are going to disagree.  Maybe they come from a different background.  Maybe they think it's unbiblical that I practice infant baptism.  Maybe they question my interpretation of Scripture.  Maybe they're offended that I talk about my female (gasp) clergy friends.

So, how do we still manage to come to the one table to eat and drink Christ's body and blood together?  How do we work together as the Body of Christ in the world?  How do we act in love, welcoming and not excluding the other?

Girdwood Chapel has been a great model of this for me because we have such great diversity in our midst.  When we stand together in a circle at the end of worship singing "On Eagle's Wings" I see it as a foretaste of heaven, when the walls that divide us come down.

We need to approach these discussions with, probably, more humility than we want to.  Jason Boyett closes his post wonderfully...with such humility...and a lot of perspective.

Though we base our beliefs on the same source (the Bible and the last couple thousand years of tradition), we Christians are a fantastically diverse people. Some of our core beliefs are not just very different from another, but frequently at odds with one another.

Most of us think we’re right. But we can’t all be right about everything.

Which is to say: almost all of us are wrong about something. Regardless of what we believe, there are Christians somewhere in the world who think you are dead wrong. Dangerously wrong. Maybe even a heretic. Why? Because you are on the wrong side of what they consider a core belief.

For all our talk about narrow roads, Christianity has become a broad, gushing stream. Acknowledging that, with humility, ought to give us pause before we start all the in-fighting and name-calling. I need to remember that the next time I decide Rob Bell is wrong…or John Piper is wrong…or I am right.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/omeoflittlefaith/2011/04/flexibility-heretics-and-love-wins.html#ixzz1JovRLsYd

Image by Hot Flash Photography via FlickrThe United Methodist Church is a "connectional" church.  We are connected together into some semblance of a "whole"--even with all of the known differences that divide us into factions and competing interests.  We're divided theologically.  We're divided racially.  We're divided nationally.  We're divided regionally.  And, really, that's to be expected.  Our various perspectives shape who it is that we are and what it is that we believe and, therefore, what our vision is for this thing we call "The United Methodist Church"--our peculiar embodiment of Christ in the world.

In the Western Jurisdiction, that spreads from Colorado and Wyoming, down to Arizona then to the coast and all the way up to Alaska, we have a reputation of being one of the more liberal segments of the whole body of the United Methodist Church.  That comes, mostly, from our vocal support of gay and immigrant rights.  Let me be clear, we're not all of one mind here and it's hard to speak with one voice.  Just like, politically, there really are no "red" or "blue" states but really just a bunch of purple states.  So, too, in the West, we have to deal with a bunch of diversity among our members.

I'm just came back from San Francisco where I met with other leaders from our Western Jurisdiction to talk about issues relating to hospitality and episcopal support and youth and Korean congregations and Volunteers in Mission…a whole lot of stuff.  And, while our task was somewhat unclear (which, in itself is an "unclear" statement) we could hear perspectives bubble up to the surface trying to define what it is that we believe about the saving message of Christ and what it is that the Western Jurisdiction has to offer the WHOLE CHURCH. 

Sometimes it's hard to look at a system when you're standing right inside of it.  Sometimes it's hard to have any sense of perspective when your eyes already see that which you have around you.  And so it is as we look and pray and discern what it is that we have to say and how it is that we need to say it and do it in the world.

So what is it that we have to offer. 

We can offer our diversity.  The West is, perhaps, the most diverse of our Jurisdictional Conferences…at least in the US.  And that diversity can shape how it is that we work alongside our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world where the United Methodist Church…as we become more diverse as an entire denomination.

We can offer our hospitality.  There are many within our Jurisdiction that wish we would be more hospitable to homosexuals.  That's the big issue that comes up concerning hospitality and welcoming.  But, we need to be aware that we can offer a perspective that, outside of homosexuality, is welcoming of persons of differing perspectives.  Even among our clergy, we are not of one mind.  That's a good thing.

We an offer experience and guidance on some social issues that may affect the West more than other areas.  In particular, we can offer leadership and guidance on what ministries to and with immigrants looks like.  I know that our point of view, which, as The United Methodist Church in the West, is probably more welcoming and "liberal" than many would like.  However, there is a value to this that I think we need to offer.

We can offer a more obvious post-Christian or secular environment. Hey, we're not the Bible Belt over here. And some of the issues that we face are really growing edges for other Jurisdictions. We are are on the cutting edge of what Christian ministry looks likes when our primary method of introduction is not "Where do you go to church?" 

We can offer a lot of creativity.  We're used to doing things differently and, perhaps, have fewer organizational "sacred cows."

Then again, it's hard to look at our own system when we're standing right in the middle of it.   But, in part, that's just what we've done. Here we have persons in the West saying what the West has to offer.

Another good one from AbsoJesus