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Pastor's Corner:
Last
month, as summer got under way, I watched the goings on of our denominational
Mother of All Meetings from afar. It was time for the Presbyterian
Church (USA)'s General Assembly, which happens every other year.
What struck me, harder this year than before, is just how very much our
way of being together is a political system.
Like, say, the websites set up by folks who were running for the esteemed
position of Moderator of the General Assembly. Oh, sure, there's
not a party affiliation--not formally, not yet, thank the Maker--but they
were exactly the same sort of things you see when your state senator is
out there shaking the web for votes.
Or the wrangling on the floor and behind the scenes over procedural
issues, the sort of back room wheeling and dealing that happens whenever
human beings get together in huge groups to figure things out.
There's complicated commentary on rules, and wondering about secret
agendas, and all of the stuff that rises from the organic life of
parliaments and committees of the House of Representatives.
This all serves to remind me: in the way we structure our life together
as a denomination, we Presbyterians don't look anything like the sleekly
focused corporate hierarchies of market-based megachurch
Christianity.
Our way of being together? It's not product. It's the way of
the polis. It's political, in the same way that a
constitutional republic is political. It's just how human beings in
large groups function, when there's no King or Emperor or CEO to call
every last shot.
When I teach new member classes, or confirmation classes, I've tended to
highlight that as a strength. The foundation of our Presbyterian
constitution arose from the same heady era as the Constitution of the
United States, and that--for a very long time--was a great strength of
our...um..."brand."
Now, though, I do find myself wondering if that's one of the reasons we
struggle to connect with culture as a fellowship.
Here we have a culture that is worn out and disillusioned by the mess of
political discourse.
Politics has always been boisterous, always, but that tendency towards
rancorous hubbub has been amplified to bleeding-ear levels by 24 hour
news cycles and the roaring partisanship of our online echo chambers.
That way of life, loud and divisive and messy, can be exhausting.
It can also be rewarding, in the complex way of human
relationships, but demanding of our energy and attention. It
requires sacrifice. No one gets exactly what they want, because in
a relationship, that's an expectation that kills.
Here we have a culture, in which we live out our mess publicly and
together, that has come to expect faith to look like a product. We
want what we want, with a couple of clicks and two day shipping.
Product does not challenge us. It gives us what we want, or
we return it.
And that's a bit challenging, when it comes time to tell people about
this way of being we've found. Come join our fellowship, we
say.
It looks just like politics!
Sigh.
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