The Gospel Truth

Sometimes you have to leave church to find Church.

Last night my partner and I went to see folk artist, Susan Werner, who was debuting her latest project, The Gospel Truth. This compilation confronts the hypocrisy of the Church with a wonderfully rich bluegrass, gospel sound. Although she describes herself as a self-avowed "evangelical agnostic" her songs could (and probably ought to) be sung in churches all over. Werner blends just the right amount of honesty and camp to do the Church right.

Here's a sample of just some of the lyrics...

Forgiveness
How do you love those
Who never will love you
Who are so frightened of you
They are calling for war
How do you not hate those
Who have loaded their bibles
And armed their disciples
'cause I don’t know anymore

Heaven So Small
excuse me sir, what did you say?
when you shout so loud, it's hard to tell
you say that i must change my ways
for i am surely bound to hell

well i know you'd damn me if you could
but my friend, that's simply not your call
if god is great and god is good
why is your heaven so small

Did Trouble Me
When I closed my eyes so I would not see
My Lord did trouble me
When I let things stand that should not be
My Lord did trouble me
When I held my head too high too proud
My Lord did trouble me
When I raised my voice too little too loud
My Lord did trouble me

Doubting Thomas

“Don’t be such a doubting Thomas!” Growing up it seemed like every time I had a question about God, someone along the way would tell me to put aside my questions and just believe. Just believe…as if it were that easy to resolve my complicated inquiries into the nature of the Divine.

As I got older and became increasingly more interested in God and the church, I learned to hide my questions, to be ashamed of my uncertainties and to berate myself for the inevitable doubts and questions that I had as I encountered what it meant to be a Christian. I remember vividly one youth retreat in which I knelt at the altar for hours asking, no begging, God, to forgive me for doubting, beseeching God to strengthen my faith and disappear like magic my questions and doubts.

As much as I had tried I could not get those questions and doubts out of my head. If the Bible is the inerrant word of God, why does it say one thing in one place and something entirely different in the other? If, God is all-powerful and all-loving, why is there evil in the world? If God is a spirit, why do we call God “he?” If God is compassionate and good, why did Jesus suffer? If the Bible records history, did people really live to be hundreds of years old? If Christianity is the one way, what about people of other faith traditions? Are they wrong? Are they going to hell? If God created the world in six days, what about evolution? What does resurrection mean, really? Why do bad things happen to good people?

How could I be a faithful follower when I had so many questions? From everything I had been told, I knew I could not.

Many a sermon has been preached with Thomas as the quintessential bad guy. When the other disciples told him that Jesus was alive after his crucifixion, Thomas refused to believe. He could not take their word for it, he wanted to se for himself. The story we hear told and see played out on our Sunday School felt boards depicts Jesus returning for Thomas and rebuking him with harsh words, admonishing his doubt and calling him to believe. The moral of the story was clear -- Don’t be like Thomas! Believe! Don’t doubt!

I find more often than not people in churches don't like to talk about their fears or failures. What would people think of us? I’ve discovered all sorts of anxieties and resentments festering underneath the deceptively calm surface of many faith communities. Over the years working in a variety of ecclesial settings I have come to realize I’m not the only one who has struggled with questions. I’ve watched people struggling alone with deep questions because they were afraid of how others might react to their doubts. Doubts and uncertainty frighten us. That’s why we reject Thomas -- he dares to bring doubt into our lives of faith.

When the disciples tell Thomas they have seen Jesus, he answers, "Unless I see the mark of the nails -- in fact, until I touch those marks and put my hand in the wound in his side, I’m not going to believe." What if this is some mistake, a delusion born of desperate hope, an apparition? Thomas needs to find out for himself. Mary can’t experience the resurrected Jesus for the disciples, and the disciples can’t experience Jesus for Thomas. Thomas must know for himself. We, too, must know for ourselves.

I don't think Thomas is any more of a doubter than the other disciples or, perhaps, than most of us. But he is the only one to admit it.

Doubts are not the impious heresy of non-believers; rather doubts arise from those who seek to believe the most for they require a deep wrestling with the tough questions of life. Doubts and questions confront us with the meaning of our faith as we seek to understand what it means to be a faithful Christian.

Several weeks after my shameful weeping at the youth retreat, I was sitting out on the front porch of my of my friend’s house. We were staring up at the night sky, wondering at the beauty of the world around us and somewhere in our conversation we began to talk about God. Now, this friend, was considered both to be academically brilliant and spiritually “perfect,” a tried and true believer. In our conversation, I felt dishonest about my questions in the face of her belief and so finally confessed that I had questions. I had doubts. I expected to hear her admonish me for my lack of faith and urge me to just believe, but instead she looked at me with a look of pure compassion and told me that if I never doubted, I could never truly believe.

You see, she explained that summer night, doubt and faith are inextricably intertwined. Doubt moves us to belief by helping us to wrestle with the big questions of life. If we never doubt, if we never question, how can we ever expect to understand what it is our faith tradition really says and means? Doubters take seriously the inevitable questions that are part of human life and in that way take seriously the answers that arise from our faith traditions. If we “just believe” without thoughtful reflection, what type of faith is that in the end?

Doubts, questions and uncertainties scare us for they lead us into the unknown and threaten to expose what we fear to be the underlying meaningless of our experience. Yet, far from being our enemies, our doubts and questions carry us through this abyss of chaos to the other side in which we discover how deep our faith has really been all along. It is only through this process of deep questioning and wrestling with the Divine that we find we can ever honestly proclaim our faith.

Methodists in the News

The following article appeared across the nation in newspapers, journals and online zines. The story it depicts of the battles for authority and control in our mainline denominations rings true to our experience. Yet, there is, I believe, a danger in polarizing the debate by pitting one minority against the other. All too often the battle for control in our denominations is framed as either being a global church or being an inclusive church (and here, inclusive is code word for full acceptance of GLBT persons). While finding a solution will not be easy, I believe there is another way...a way to embody the true catholicity or radical inclusivity of the Gospel where folks from around the world can sit at Christ's table together and embrace one another as God's Beloved children, lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender, questioning and straight alike.

Boom in Christianity Reshapes Methodists

The United Methodist Church is the latest Protestant group caught in the shifting currents of world Christianity. While the American denomination is shrinking at home, its congregations in the developing world are growing explosively.

Over the last decade, the number of United Methodists outside the U.S. more than tripled. The denomination's largest district is now in the West African nation of Ivory Coast. At the next national church assembly, the 2008 General Conference in Texas, overseas delegates will have more say than ever in the church's future - as many as 30 percent could come from abroad.

"Trends suggest that Christianity is going to continue to grow as a global phenomenon, and denominations that have thought of themselves as being predominantly North American in character are going to have to get over that," said William Lawrence, dean of the Perkins School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in Dallas.

Nearly 8 million United Methodists are now in the U.S., with another 3.5 million church members overseas. The denomination is the third-largest in the nation behind Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists, and middle-class worshippers mostly fill the pews of its American churches.

But if current patterns continue, within decades the typical United Methodist will be from Africa. While international congregations expand, the denomination's U.S. ranks have decreased by 19 percent since the 1970s.

In a sign of the times, the United Methodist high court, called the Judicial Council, will hold a session in the Philippines on Wednesday. It will be the first gathering outside the U.S.

Many in the mission-minded church see the new overseas ties as a gift. Yet as the experience of other Protestant groups indicates, there also is conflict ahead. Christians overseas have been deeply influenced by the zeal of the missionaries who brought them the faith. In the developing world, traditional Bible teachings aren't questioned - they're accepted.

As United Methodists debate how they should interpret Scripture on issues from salvation to sexual orientation, delegates from overseas will be a steadfast conservative voice in the fight.

"You definitely see among the African delegations a much more conservative perspective on issues of homosexuality," said retired United Methodist Bishop C. Dale White, a liberal who oversaw publication of the book "United Methodism at Risk: A Wake-Up Call," which contends that conservative groups are trying to take control of the denomination.

"In the past two General Conferences, we've seen a readiness of conservative American delegates to make common cause with the African delegates who very sincerely believe that in their context, if the United Methodist Church is open to ordaining gay and lesbian people, that it will hurt their outreach there," White said.

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