c. 2006 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) With a defiant look backward, Chrysler has unveiled a 10-cylinder, 510-horsepower pickup truck that costs $57,000 and guzzles fuel as if gasoline still costs 25 cents a gallon. Toyota, meanwhile, is adapting its product line to the reality of $3-plus gasoline.
With a defiant look backward to the 1950s, North Carolina legislators now compel every child to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in class. It seems they think compulsory recitation will instill national pride and not feel like, well, compulsory recitation. The kids know better, of course. They also know what that sneaky “moment of silence” preceding the Pledge is all about.
With a defiant look backward to halcyon days when they owned Sunday morning and could count on a crowd no matter what they did, some churches have accelerated their self-indulgent obsessions with sexuality, property ownership, and whether women are allowed to teach men. Meanwhile, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that religion’s influence in America is waning.
Some people just don’t get it.
On the other hand, some clearly do. Ministries like Habitat for Humanity, which simply go about doing good (a job description applied to Jesus) and leave the bickering and posturing to others, get it.
So do young Episcopalians from Virginia who worked this summer on a housing project in the Dominican Republic while churches in their area were engaged in dueling bishops.
So does Toyota. And the local history teacher who heard students grumbling about “Big Brother” and initiated an in-depth study of patriotism.
In the world of religion, what does “getting it” look like? No one thing, of course, but here are some signs:
The wise congregation ignores denominational politics and instead engages the world in which its people live and its future will unfold. Later this fall, an expanding group of Episcopal congregations _ operating outside the denominational apparatus _ will convene a third Going Forward Together conference, where the focus will be on being effective, not on being right.
The wise church sends people, not money, on missions and then allows their in-the-field discoveries to change life back home, including attitudes toward money. Missionaries from my church who went to El Salvador this summer are struggling to re-enter their worlds, as well they should.
The wise church doesn’t worry about Sunday morning worship style, but listens to the questions its people are asking and the songs playing in their hearts.
The “getting it” congregation invests in a serious Web site that a young adult might actually visit. It sees the young as they are, not as today’s middle-agers used to be. On everything it does, from Web site to Wednesday supper, the wise congregation measures results, not good intentions.
A wise congregation knows that people matter more than doctrine. A “big brother” faith won’t sell any better than a “big brother” Pledge of Allegiance. People need to think, not to parrot.
A wise congregation doesn’t let yesterday rule today. Nothing in inherited tradition is as vital as a faithful person seeking and serving God today. If that means changing a long-held conviction, so be it. Life changes. So does God.
A wise congregation doesn’t worry about questions and doubts. It doesn’t promise false certainty just because people are frightened. A wise church offers a tough faith, not easy piety.
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)
KRE/LF END EHRICH
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