Reflection – Thinking Theologically

The blog installments for this week and next week will conclude our exploration of the 10 practices of Mainline/Liberal Christian Congregations, so ably articulated by Diana Butler Bass in Christianity for the Rest of Us.

Education is a central feature of a healthy congregation, but there is a perpetual danger that education can become merely indoctrination. Some believe that Sunday School is primarily for transmitting a basic knowledge of Christianity and that Adult Education (including sermons) is primarily for acquainting people with injustices in the world and encouraging them to respond with service and generosity.

For me, the issue is this: What is the relationship between religious education as the transmission of information and religious education as training in how to think theologically?

If we are going to see ourselves as participants in a long religious tradition in which people have tried to connect their growing understanding of God with its concrete expression in human relationships and social structures, then we must get some information about that tradition. In religious education, we get that by learning about sacred texts and the history of our religion. In an attempt not to be overly fundamentalist, many liberal congregations have found themselves also neglecting to learn about their sacred scriptures and the history of their religion.

While basic scriptural and historical information is important, indoctrination into proper believing is not our goal! Instead, while the study of scripture and tradition gives us a necessary foundation, the overriding goal is for people to learn how to “think theologically” and to develop ongoing opportunities for people to gather for “theological reflection” about the personal and social issues that face them.

One of the challenges for liberal Christianity is to let the world know, in unambiguous terms, that what we offer is training in theological reflection, not indoctrination into certain ways of believing.

Diana Butler Bass makes an important point when she discusses how America Protestantism lost its liberal motivation in the middle of the 20th century. She notes that traditionally, “those mainline pilgrims linked intellectual curiosity with humility…” And then, “I began to wonder if the problem was that mid-century liberalism had lost its sense of humility, becoming overly institutionalized and politicized, and in the process sacrificed its sense of wonder.” She goes on to say, “As soon as certainty replaces humility, it leaves little room for the intellect to transport the faithful to awe.”

Religion, at its best, challenges the narrowness of our thinking. It reminds us that the divine perspective is always broader than that of any individual, institution, or any particular interpretation of scripture. Our questions can be motivated by curiosity, faith, and a sense of awe at the wonders of creation, but we need to ask the deep questions, and we need a safe place where we as supported as we ask them and struggle with them. We need a place where we can trust that our theological reflection can educate us in a way that transforms, heals, and motivates to behave in ways that promote mercy and justice.

Some people think that Christianity requires people to leave their brains outside the door in order to be faithful. Liberal Christianity, on the other hand, requires us to bring our brains and, by the way, our hearts, too, in order to be faithful. It can feel scary to open ourselves up to unpredictable transformation, but if we don’t take the risk, we can then become arrogant in our certainty; an attitude that is sometimes expressed as: “My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with the facts.”

What do you think? (Faithful inquiring minds want to know!)

Wayne Gustafson
“Our faith is 2000 years old. Our thinking isn’t.”
The United Church__of Christ

Worship – Experiencing God

I am continuing my series of blogs based on ten healthy practices in healthy liberal/mainline churches. The list of practices is based on the book, Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass.

When I was growing up, “church” was something you just “did.” In some traditions, the motivation was fear-based: “If you don’t go to church, God will be displeased, etc.” In other traditions, attendance at worship was an integral part of being a citizen/businessman. Others focused on spiritual (emotional?) experience without much regard for thinking. In my experience, it seemed that you had to make a choice between emotions and intellect in worship.

I must confess to you that when my family changed from attending a fundamentalist church to a more theologically liberal one, my reaction was mixed. I was strongly attracted to the more liberal bent in the new church, but it was still pretty boring. As I write to you now, I find myself wondering about what could have made my experience different. In all fairness, maybe I just wanted it to be more entertaining, but I don’t think so.

What troubles me is that I had no idea what to expect from worship or how to prepare for it. There was a lot of emphasis on solemnity and seriousness in worship, particularly in the preaching, but not much opportunity for transformation. Thank God for music, however. The sound of the organ, the beauty of the anthems, and even the experience of singing the hymns did something positive for me, but I still wonder if I could really call it transforming.

Against that backdrop of personal experience, I want to reflect on some of the ways that healthy liberal/mainline churches are approaching worship. I frame the question this way: “What is it about worship that makes it worth creating time for it in a busy schedule?”

Worship is a corporate activity, meaning that we do not worship as individuals, but as a congregation. It provides us an opportunity to see that we share in one another’s spiritual journeys. Still, there are some things that do happen to individuals. For one, worship helps us connect our inner and outer lives, and to the degree that we experience God in our midst, we are opened to moments filled with awe and wonder.

Sometimes we think that worship gives us a time of sanctuary – a time to be “out of the world.” One could argue, just as convincingly, that worship connects us with a world that is much more real than the world of accumulation, production, marketing, and addiction. Worship gives us opportunity to connect with what matters most. Worship is also an activity of mutuality rather than an experience (among many flavors) that we consume. In other words, our participation helps to shape the experience while at the same time facilitating our transformation into citizens of the realm of God.

The experience happens in many ways, which is another way of saying that there is no single correct form of worship. Because it is in a sense “alive,” it re-invents and re-imagines itself continuously over time. One of its finest features is that worship helps us to remain enchanted with creation.

We liberals tend to insist on bringing our intellect into worship with us, but the full experience requires that we bring our hearts, too. Sometimes our hearts can appreciate experiences that our heads cannot understand and might consider frivolous. With the assistance of music, the arts, beautifully constructed liturgies and rituals, and stimulating messages, we can experience God in our midst (even if we’re not quite sure what we mean by the term, “God.”

I would like to believe that worshiping together cannot be ignored any more than eating, sleeping, or breathing. But given the challenges of economic, social, and climate changes that life will inevitably hand us over the next few generations, maybe we really can’t ignore worship without seriously limiting our capacity to respond.

One final thought: Solitary “religious” experiences of awe and wonder in nature are real and valuable, but we also need to experience God in our relationships and communities if we are to thrive in what promises to be a difficult future.

Wayne Gustafson
“God is still speaking!”
The United Church__of Christ

Memorial Service Hiatus

Hello Friends,

Once again this week I am not publishing a regular installment.  My family and I are away to celebrate the Cape Cod version of my mother's memorial service.
She lived on The Cape for 20 years prior to her move to Michigan for her last three years.
Regular installments on Diana Butler Bass's book will resume next week, 8/9.
Thanks for your patience, and I hope you're having a good summer.

Wayne Gustafson

Justice – Engaging the Powers

Now that I am back from a week at the Chautauqua Institution, I am ready to resume my blogs based on “Christianity for the Rest of Us” by Diana Butler Bass. In this installment I will be writing about the seventh of the ten healthy Christian practices she identifies: Justice – Engaging the Powers.

Many of us grew up in a time when the American Christian Church was an integral part of the social fabric of society. From one perspective, this was good. Social acceptability of church participation caused many congregations to have full pews and healthy budgets. As with anything real, however, there is always another side to the story. Diana Butler Bass argues that even liberal/progressive congregations tended to base their activism in the secular Enlightenment values of fairness, equality, and human rights without much awareness of their spiritual dimensions. These legitimate values have existed for millennia as the backbone of Judeo-Christian faithfulness. The prophetic tradition in the Bible makes it clear that these are God’s values, and that they are based in the growing capacity of humans to enter into loving relationships and to base their morality and ethics in love.

For millennia, Judeo-Christian activists have believed that God was more interested in how societies treated their poor than how religious, obedient, or even generous people might be. Said differently, any religion that is not embedded in the social issues of justice and mercy is not worth much.

These words are easy to say, but their implications are huge – and difficult. Consider how much separation presently exists between the rich and poor in our culture. As global climate change and the world economy remains precarious, the pressures to hoard and to create enemies to fight against will be great. As fear becomes rampant, destructive reactivity will likely increase. At Chautauqua last week, Professor Ralph Williams (from U. of Mich.) referred to an idea originally put forth by Primo Levi (Italian Chemist). Levi said that once we identify some group as “strangers”, they soon are seen as enemies, and the logic of this dynamic leads eventually to death camps at the end. In other words, we tend to try to eliminate those we have identified as a threat to us.

So what is a healthy liberal Christian to do?

Bass suggests that healthy progressive ideas may not have sufficient staying power without being rooted in spiritual life and practice. Justice and Mercy then become expressions of a spiritual journey rooted in relationship with God and Neighbor. These values are the heart of most major religions. So we engage in open dialog, always seeking truth. We pray and contemplate together in order to move out of our more narrow, self-protective views. We enter into mutually supportive relationships. Justice and mercy are not simply individual perspectives. In fact, it is most difficult for us to act according to justice and mercy without the support of the community.

The challenges of the next few generations will be massive. Chances are that our governments and multinational corporations won’t be guided by divine love,

but will we be so guided?

Remember that we will not be able to work for justice and mercy without engaging “the powers.”

Time will tell.

Wayne Gustafson
“Don’t place a period where God has placed a comma.” Gracie Allen
The United Church__of Christ

PS. If you are not familiar with the Chautauqua Institution (or if you are and want more information), you can learn more at ciweb.org.
The theme of the Chautauqua lectures last week was “What Makes Us Moral? – from an Abrahamic perspective (Jewish, Christian, Islamic).”