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A Church Beyond Belief

Surrendering the Past

10/23/2014

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Two sisters have not spoken to one another for decades. It’s awkward for their friends because the sisters live in the same apartment complex. They encounter each other but avoid speaking. One sister will shun a friend who seems congenial with the other sister. Alienation has spread into the community.

Neighbors have tried to intervene without success, and efforts to get to the bottom of the spat have stumbled. Long ago there was a childhood argument about who should receive a blue dress. The details are shrouded in years of hurt. There is no access to what really happened, but would it matter? Unpacking the past rarely produces results.

Many people believe that reconciliation means reviving and reliving the past. For the sisters this would mean reclaiming life before the blue dress, which is impossible. Yet we often base reconciliation on such a step. We dissect conflict and rehash the past in search of primordial bliss.

Churches are notorious for this assumption. Reconciliation is equated with reviving an imagined past, and the early church holds powerful sway. If we all follow Jesus and his disciples won’t we all get along? Less ancient pasts also creep in. The pictures on church walls feed our fantasies. Smiling leaders, new members, and the church softball team. Surely there once was conviction and consensus. Surely we must recover it.

Reconciliation doesn’t mean reanimating the past. Reconciliation means surrendering the past. We must relinquish the myth of unity and uniformity that never was there. We must learn from the past without enslaving ourselves to it.

Even if the blue dress was significant, it is gone now. What matters is going forward together. Only letting go allows a different future to emerge. Coming together in a better way becomes possible. A future together matters more than a blue dress.

William L. Sachs 


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Church Would Be Great If It Weren’t for the People!

10/18/2014

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To identify as “spiritual but not religious” is a way to communicate we are disenfranchised with religious community. Lillian Daniel thinks “a lot of those who can’t tolerate organized religion are really just frustrated by other people.”
 
Daniel continues, “It takes a certain maturity to find God in the person sitting next to you who not only voted for the wrong political party but has a baby who is crying while you’re trying to listen to the sermon. Community is where the religious rubber meets the road. People challenge us, ask hard questions, disagree, need things from us, require our forgiveness. It’s where we get to practice all the things we preach.”

How church leaders address this is difficult, particularly because churches haven’t always been models of what community can and should be (see “Why They’re Leaving”).  However, the reality is that being part of a community is hard work.

It’s interesting to me that when the church gets a little messy, people often harken back to the early church and wish we could be more like they were. Obviously this hope doesn’t arise from a close reading of Scripture. The early church had its share of differences of opinion, conflict, and strained relationships, and so goes the trajectory of church history. Yet in the end, even with all this messiness, millennia of experience have shown that the journey of faith needs to be shared.

I think Daniel is right in believing that some think if we “could just kick all of the flawed human beings out of the church, we could really do this Jesus thing.” The truth is that many of us have had that thought, until we realize we be kicked out too! The bane and beauty of the church is the call to share life and faith together. 



Michael S. Bos

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Maher, Muslims & Misunderstanding

10/11/2014

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Building on our “Religious Trend of the Week,” we turn to Bill Maher and his recent rant against Islam. Maher, flanked by Sam Harris, has fanned the flames of those who condemn Islam in its entirety. However, there is a deep-seated problem with the basis of his argument.

It’s not that there isn’t a problem with religious violence in the name of Islam. In Qatar, a “Doha Debate” revealed that Muslims believe they need to do more to combat extremism within Islam. And it’s not that there is a lack of knowledge about Islam--though there is probably more misinformation about Islam than any other world religion. The problem is with what people do with this knowledge.

Maher, and others like him, take what knowledge they have and make it prescriptive. That is, if the Quran says it, then all Muslims must believe it or do it. This simply isn’t how religion works.

Religions are communities of interpretation where culture shapes our understanding of what faith inspires and requires of us. As Reza Aslan said in response to Maher, “It is a fallacy to believe that people of faith derive their values primarily from their Scriptures. The opposite is true. People of faith insert their values into their Scriptures.” (We must acknowledge that people from within some faith traditions do not necessarily view it this way.)

The fact is that we will not know what values Muslims, Christians, Hindus, or those of any religion, hold until we get to know them. Until we allow people to speak for themselves, rather than prescribing what we think they must believe, our misunderstandings will persist.

It is not enough to listen to one voice. One can never represent all. There are many ways to embrace and embody the religions of the world. So in the end, if one wants to understand Islam, put down the Quran and go meet Muslims. 


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The Real World

10/3/2014

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Growing up, I was tired of “the real world.” Every authority figure in my life cited “the real world.” Teachers told me I needed to be ready for the real world. Scoutmasters wanted to teach me real world skills. Clergy declared I needed to be prepared for the real world.

Of course family members constantly invoked “the real world” with specific instructions. I was expected to complete an education and get a job. My own family would take shape and I would “settle down.” Settling down was even more vague, but clearly it meant giving up much I valued as a child. “The real world” became a threat. Childish things were to be dismantled so I could become real.

It didn’t require the warnings of authority figures. The “real world” intruded upon my life soon enough. I was forced to admit that I could not become the great athlete I had imagined. I also couldn’t do math and that narrowed options further. I was terribly shy and hardly the life of the party, and that meant working harder socially as well as academically.

In short, “the real world” at first meant that there were limits, and that many of my childish imaginations were no more than that. Much that fired the imagination went no farther. I could not do anything I wanted to do, or be anything I wanted to be. That was myth.

But “the real world” also brought unimagined opportunities. Above all I discovered other people who had bumped into their own individual limits. Together we found we could do things we could not do alone. We shaped both confidence and skill. Community became real, faith took shape. “The real world” proved better than I imagined.

William L. Sachs 


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    William L. Sachs
    Michael S. Bos

    Rethinking the place of belonging and belief 

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