I have
always believed in Christian Education as being the center of what I do. I have always seen the job of a rector is to
help people come to know their faith.
But the world has changed since I started out. It isn’t a matter that it is changing; it has
already changed. And I have been slow to
realize it. Part of that comes from
working in small towns. Small
communities tend to be slower to pick up the most recent trends. Congregations
tend to be small and more intimate. But
at the same time, small towns tend to preserve the simplicity of practice and
faith when the city experience has migrated to more complex ways of being
followers of Jesus. I am not condemning or
lauding either location. I am just recognizing
that there is a difference—and it is still a matter of ‘different strokes for
different folks.’
In each
parish I served I always instituted a class called: “What you always wanted to
know about the Episcopal Church but have been coming too long to ask.” It was a good way to get to know what the
parish knew and bring some new ideas into the community. But this is not the kind of adult education
that needs to go on in the city parishes here along the Trinity River. The primary thing that suburban folk want of
their church is a sense of belonging. This
belonging is not like having a membership in a club or an organization that
does things. It is a matter of belonging
to a body that holds a reverence for the Holy, the Ineffable, the Source of all
things.
Reading Diana
Butler Bass’ Christianity After Religion,
I am beginning to understand just how much the world has tipped to this new way
of understanding faith. In our book study, I asked why we were all here. There were many different ways of expressing
it, but all of the class members understood that they participated in Church
because they knew that they were a part of something beyond themselves. Yet not one of them spoke of God or Christ or
the Spirit. It wasn’t because they didn’t
claim faith in God. It was merely that
the way that they knew of the Holy was through the community of faith.
Some talked
about having grown up in church; some spoke of finding a home there. Some spoke of the parish; some spoke of the
denomination and some spoke of faith in something greater. But everyone’s faith was marked by the
community in which they lived out their faith.
I came to
know Christ through the influence of a community of nuns. It was through their witness to and within a
faith-based form of living that I began to understand God’s love for me. They held all things in common; they prayed
together several times a day. They even
meditated in the same chapel in silence and the bonds grew without word in that
silent intimacy that none of us would have acknowledged then. We were afraid of ‘intimacy’ because that
could undermine the commonness of the whole.
However, the intimacy that developed was never physical or social; it
was spiritual.
As Bass
opens her book, she finds the “spiritual but not religious’ mantra that is
being bantered about is one that we cannot ignore. While more and more are leaving our parishes,
we are finding through polls that 92% of Americans are admitting to some kind
of experience of the Holy/God/Spirit/Higher Power. As a retired pastor/rector/priest, I could
toss up my hands and say, “How did I fail to teach the love for Christ Jesus to
those who came to my church?” I could
take the blame for dips in attendance like many naysayers both in and out of
the church would like me to. But I would
be missing the point.
In the 1950’s
a new breeze began to be blown in the Christian communities in the world. For me it was symbolized with Vatican II in
the early 1960’s which opened the world of faith to a relationship not just to
the Church, but to Christ, to God, to All that is beyond us. The world sat up and took notice to the
bringing of scientific research to faith.
Biblical study had already begun in the mid-19th century. But now archeology, philology, linguistics,
higher criticism were all brought to bear on all things religious. It was a heady half-century for academia. But Christian Adult Education didn’t keep up. People began to read more about faith in the
likes of Time and Newsweek than Christian Century or The
Episcopalian or Episcopal Life.
We had the
Church Teaching series, but for some reason it was perceived as all head work
rather than teaching folk how to encounter the Holy within them. Episcopalians could often quote the catechism
on the definitions of the signs of faith, the Sacraments, but were often
unaware of what was happening to them as they participated in the liturgical
symbols of the faith. With the ’79 prayer
book’s attention to Baptism and Eucharist as the vortex of their encounter with
God with less and less participation in the daily order of prayer in Morning
and Evening Prayer, faith became a matter of participation in the Sacraments
rather than a lived-out relationship with the Divine or a conversation with the
Holy.
Like
Christians all over we invited newcomers to come and KNOW what we knew. We passed on to them the how to’s and the what for’s
of faith but seldom talked of the relationship with the One who was the Source
of our lives. In the 70’s too, a wave of
spirit-filled worship caught us Episcopalians off guard and people began to ‘feel’
what it meant to love and beloved by God.
Staid and polished, we found that lifting our hands to praise God was
remarkably satisfying. And there was
music that moved us out of the 18th century and allowed us to
embrace God deeply within our souls where song moves the heart more powerfully
than even actions. Americans have
wakened to a Divinity that touches them more profoundly than our ‘religious
services’.
As a
purveyor of those ‘religious services’ part of me wants to hang on for those
who “know” their meaning, who have been nurtured in their signs and
symbols. But I do believe that this is a
kind of esoteric Gnosticism. The
mysteries of the Church have become arcane rituals which take so much energy to
explain that those who come to Faith without a history of them are wondering ‘what’s
the fuss?’ Much like the post-Vatican II Catholic, I too would like to see a
way to know holiness without having to have a degree in Church History to enjoy
them.
So I am
going to offer not a Confirmation Class this year. I am going to offer a class in Community: How do we come to share this experience of
the wholly Other/wholly Within? How can
we trust in that Deity that takes our breath away and share that with one
another? I hope to pair the new to faith
with someone who has been coming for some time and perhaps their enthusiasms
will rub off on one another. This does
not mean that we will change the name of the parish. We will still be unashamedly Episcopalians,
but hopefully we will be able to hear what those who come to us are
saying. And perhaps they will find among
us a way to practice that relationship with Christ that we walk in. We won’t be changing the prayer book services
or ignore what is going on in TEC or the Anglican Communion. But hopefully we will be able to rejoice in a
faith that is broader than we once thought and more open to the joy of living
in relationship with all that is Holy.
2 comments:
How exciting!
I'm feeling pretty good b/c I am seeing that some seeds of this come from some conversations we have been having...
I just came from a conference conversation that centered on exactly this-- and your idea of a class in Community really resonates. I am not a visionary, and I am wholly grateful for friends like you who are.
Can you say more about what you envision? I'd not ask that you disclose the details or the conversations of your group, of course; but I would be grateful to learn more about the framework, and (for lack of less formal words at the moment) the curriculum & plan that you use.
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