Some have been following my travelogue of a road trip from Iowa to Alaska, delivering my buddy to his new home. We finished
the trip quickly, and so ate with some of the Camp staff on Saturday, and visited the local Glacierview Bible Church on Sunday. Oh dear.
My overwhelming sense, there (at the church in particular, maybe at the Bible Camp too; not sure) was that "these are not my people". That's a new, and slightly disarming experience for me.
There's a sense in which one recognises any Christians as brothers and sisters, fellow travellers. But as an Evangelical, I guess I have felt a particular affinity with those who would describe themselves similarly, use phrases like "bible-believing" and soforth. I've even tended to give those of a fundemantalist persuasion the benefit of the doubt, and see them as over-enthusiastic members of the tribe.
There were always Christians who seemed somewhat beyond the pale - the Catholics, typically. But right now, I fear that I have at least as much in common with the Catholics as with the the strident Evangelicals (I don't have a word for these people; I don't think I'd describe them as fundemantalists). These are not my people.
It wasn't just the 4x4 in the carpark, festooned with bumper stickers along the lines of "Vote Democrat: it beats working for a lving", and "Warning: the driver of this vehicle carries only $20 ... worth of amunition", and a couple about lenient judges, whose texts I sadly forget.
It wasn't just the catchy song from the kids time "Hey, hey we're not monkeys", which carried the immortal line "Darwin's bloney" [creation and evolution will the the subject of a forthcoming blog], though that one sent me into a deep contemplation which lasted for the whole rest of the service: I took no further part in what happened [more on that later, too].
It wasn't just one of the leading members (or friends; not sure which) sounding off about the iniquity of giving benefits to poor Mexican immigrants.
Somehow it's in the air. I've moved somewhere else. These aren't my people anymore. Part of me feels really unsettled by that. Part of me feels like I've rejoined the rest of the human race :-).
4 comments:
Hi Andrew
Catching up on some blog reading and have just read this one.
I can certainly understand your concerns when confronted with people who don't believe in a lot of things you do.
However, it's a big tent this church of ours. Lots of people from different ethnic, cultural, socio-economic, political, emotional backgrounds to fit in.
The result is, these are your people - whether you want them or not.
Part of the story of the early church is how a range of different peoples came together to worship one God. We now have so many options of where, how and with whom we do church that we don't often have to get on with people who are different to us.
I fear we may be all be the poorer for it.
Hi Martin,
Yes. Well, sort of. I have to kind-of agree, otherwise my most recent blog post would be contradictory.
So I guess what I was talking about as "my people" aren't all the people in the tent, so much as looking at all the overlapping mats which make up the tent's floor, the people on the same mat as me.
I'm not talking about building walls, nor moving my mat so that it doesn't touch theirs. I'm just expressing surprise at how little I seem to have in common with those people.
Perhaps the ideal would be that we just had one big mat - that seems to be what Jesus prayed for - but the fact is, we don't.
Well, we most certainly do not have one big mat.
I guess I see the local church in the West being far too homogenous. Indeed, you have to be to 'succeed', if you read church growth literature.
I, of course, don't know what to do about it. But one of my issues with the Emergers who go with a house church sort of set-up is that they seem to me to retreat further within their demographic.
In a way, it seems they are moving their mat so it doesn't touch the mats of others.
Yes, the church growth literature (not that I've read much of it) does seem calculated to McDonalds-ize the local church.
And I'd have to agree with an assessment that much of the emerging thought is from white middle-class 30-somethings, who seem thereby to detach themselves (probably inadvertently) all the more from wider expressions of faith. How much "much" is, I don't know, of course. Nor do I know if that's a transitional thing (but I fear it's in danger of becoming embedded). Nor do I know if that perception is right: it comes from literature only, rather than from direct experience.
I'm not sure if they are moving their own mat, so much as making a patchwork by taking bits of other people's mats, and then setting it down in a corner somewhere, away from the others... :-)
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