I am hard to pigeon hole in the Presbyterian classification system. I don't really fit in any camp, but those who disagree with me always seem to be sure that I do. I am not comfortable with the Americanized Gospel of the Evangelical world; Jesus Christ was not a CEO, nor was He an entrepreneur. The Church is not a business; its true product is not measured in numbers. One can have a successful marriage and have no children, or one can have a successful marriage and have 20 children. But the marriage's success is not in the number of kids. It's in the quality of relationship. That quality is lost on the Evangelical church. Jesus Christ wants us to grow up into Him, into maturity as disciples. Jesus only took on twelve.
I am not comfortable with the Progressive Gospel; too often I feel like Inigo Montoya: "I do not think that word means what you think it means." Trust and Truth can be stretched, but each has a breaking point. I have never been thought of as being a Progressive Christian; I will leave whatever log I can see alone and concentrate on the beam I know so intimately in my own eye.
But this dichotomy drives the ugliness of our denominational life. Entrepreneurs tend to sneer at authority; Progressives tend to stick their nose up at the infantile stench of traditional piety. Pride confronts pride, and each engenders a fear that hardens into a hatred that has destroyed so much of the community which we inherited from those who disagreed every bit as deeply as we do, but who grew up in Christ enough to be able to keep the bonds of communion whole.
My only comment is that we are (both side of this dicotomy) expression of the greater culture we exist in. One side an expression of our business/success driven culture and the other an expression of the progressive left that thinks it knows better than everyone else and needs to legislate conformity and tolerance to its Progressive standards.
ReplyDeleteThe third way I think is found somewhere in the meekness of Jesus and the way of the cross. Most of us , if we were honest would have to admit, "but i still haven't found what I'm looking for". Jusy trying to follow...