Volume 4, Issue 5, March 1996

THE UNCOMFORTABLE PEW AND THEUNCOMFORTABLE PULPIT

Many churches find themselves today in a crisis of definition. How are they to understand the mission of the church in this day and age? Can the church survive as a bland island of serenity or is it meant to be a vanguard of God's people carrying Jesus' words of love and justice into the controversial life of the community? If it is the latter, can they continue to exist with their present definitions of the roles of clergy and laity? Can the gap between the pulpit and the pew be bridged? Can the current activities within the church building be regarded as a worthwhile substitute for active engagement in the world?

To those who will debate such issues there may emerge a new and vital definition of the church and its mission.

It is a question whether the church can untangle itself from the process of institutionalization which has so complicated and corrupted its true mission to be the people of God living Jesus' gospel.

Does the church have to die before it can be revived?

For one thing, the church today must consider people's needs for genuine religious opportunity to collectively perform good things. One should be supported in recognizing all persons as children of God, entitled to equal opportunity regardless of material differences as race, gender, wealth and standing. There should be support and enabling to allow those who would be protagonists to work. Creativeness often comes out of controversy, and the church today must not be afraid of debate and dispute. St. Paul left this blunt record of conflict with Peter over the freedom of gentile Christians from Jewish practices: "I had to oppose him publicly, for he was plainly in the wrong" (Galatians 2:11, Phillips). The church today is surrounded by issues serious enough to involve controversy, but little effort is made to deal with them.

Many people will not take a stand on the unjust social issues that confront us as a society, yet no one can escape the responsibility to do what they can to better the situation. By remaining silent one may think they are not lining up on either side of an issue, but, in actual effect, their silence is helping to maintain the status quo.

There is a poem which says: "We are the choice, elected few;/ Let all the rest be damned./ There's room enough in hell for you,/ We won't have heaven crammed."

Recently I was invited to address a worship service in which the children and youth took part. I was instructed to speak on the youth justice system. Afterwards a well-dressed woman followed me out to my car in the parking lot. She came to my car window and asked how they might attract the "street kids" and youth in general to their services. How can we make them feel at home, she asked? I asked her in turn if she would be willing to come to church in her old clothes and sneakers and sit in the back pew with some of them? Like the rich young ruler she turned sorrowfully away.

We live in a time of equivocation because unalloyed faith has become rare among us. Faith means commitment, the positive answer to life. It is the essence of faith to be affirmative. It sees beyond problems to possible solutions, beyond questions to answers, beyond confusion to dedication of ourselves.

Perhaps Christianity's first protest was the march on Jerusalem on what we celebrate as Palm Sunday. There have been others since. There are not many today. I have wondered if hot drinks and sympathy might be shown to our striking public servants, but in Brantford some citizens complained to the authorities about a by-law being broken when the strikers, their fellow citizens, put small fires in steel barrels to warm their hands. Even the Salvation Army is strangely silent and inactive.

To be a Christian is to be a professional protester. They examine the cause critically and accept it provisionally. They don't march because they want to, but because they know they must. The call of the realm of God will not leave us to be uninvolved.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.