Cut Loose? - My dad took us out of the Lutheran Church when I was 11, and we joined the Presbyterian church. I always figured it was because my dad, a speech teacher, was bored stiff by the Lutheran minister's somnolent speaking style, and was interested by Reverend King's engaging, intellectually-satisfying sermons. The church was a big influence on me as a child and teenager; Reverend King, the pastor that confirmed me, had a huge impact on me, and the church's youth group influenced me greatly; one of the leaders, Mick Burns (now Reverend Burns) gave me more background on living a moral life than anyone I'd ever met. Another - Jim Jacobson (also a pastor, the last I heard) taught me how to play the blues on guitar. I learned that it was possible to enjoy being a musician, even a rocker, without turning my back on what I believed.

Faith was an important thing to me.

When I was in college, I made a considered effort to answer the question "What do I believe about G-d and religion? For starters, do I believe? If so, what? And in what sort of community, if any, do I want to practice any faith I have?"

The first parts were fairly easy. I've never found a reason not to believe in the divine. My faith has had its dips and swoops over the past twenty-odd years, but I have no doubt that G-d is out there and is watching over us. The evidence is in every corner of my daily life, even at this outwardly-lousy time of my life.

The second question? Well, it was fairly easy. I examined quite a few different religions, but never really seriously considered anything but Christianity. Buddhism - the refuge of many theologically-disjointed Americans - struck me as deeply nihilistic, selfish and hopeless (and most of its American, as opposed to Asian and Indian, practicioners as solipsistic and theologically lazy). Islam was never a choice - there was nothing about the post-Judaic theology that made any sense to me, and there's the little matter of exclusivity; all existence is sorted into the State of War or the State of Islam - with War covering everything or everyone that's not yet Moslem, that needs to be converted or otherwise dealt with. I looked at Judaism - and but everything that made sense to me about Judaism made more sense in Christianity. Atheism was never an option - I've never found any part of atheism either intellectually or morally tenable, nor personally reasonable.

Once I knew that (and it didn't take that long), the problem was finding a denomination (or deciding not to) in which to practice this faith. I ruled out some denominations fairly quickly. I think predestination removes all genuine reason for faith, so I rejected it (then and now) and all denominations that believe in it. And I've never found much common ground with denominations that focus on spirituality to the exclusion of all else - those that forget about the Father and the Son while awash in the Spirit. I had a number of friends who believed that the only faith that truly mattered was the loud, charismatic, spirit-focused faith; that a more internal, thoughful faith that balanced spirit with intellect was somehow a lesser thing. My ex-nephew-in-law, a sometimes Assemblies of G-d minister, said it in a sermon I once attended: "We see people who [don't speak in tongues], and we feel sorry for them; their faith is cold and dead". Which countervenes the Bible, of course; somewhere in Romans (I'm not going to look it up now), Christ notes that G-d calls people to faith, and gives people gifts in the faith appropriate to their calling. Some speak in tongues. Some find it in other ways - mentally, musically, through the work they do.

In the end, I settled in the Presbyterian Church, for mostly theological reasons. The core of Presbyterian theology is extremely basic; it's a shame "fundamentalist" has such a bad connotation in our society, because the big attraction for me was exactly the focus on the fundamentals of Christianity, without the extra, man-made dogma added on.

And for years, I was happy with the choice. But it's not so easy now.

While some American Catholics have for decades flirted with abandoning Roman control and softening their stance toward gays, abortion, divorce, annulment and married priests, it's the Episcopals that have taken the most visible, national plunge into either social egalitarianism or theological suicide, depending on who you ask.

But my own Presbyterian Church has been only a degree or two behind the more flamboyantly liberal churches - and probably more consistent about its political and social liberalism.

This is nothing new, of course. When my old pastor, Reverend Bill King, left North Dakota, he took over a congregation in Madison, Wisconsin, and got it heavily involved in the Sanctuary Movement back in the eighties (I used to call him and taunt him by saying I'd grown up to be a conservative talk show host - because of his teaching! It mortified him). Over the years, other ministers would use their sermons as an excuse to slip in bon mots of social liberalism (or sometimes great chunks of it). My current church sports an assistant pastor whose every sermon last winter included a ringing condemnation of the liberation of Iraq, and who continuously blames the US for the famine in North Korea.

But I've stayed the course with the Presbyterian Church - because I've long believed that John Knox' robust, simple approach to Christian theology was the one that provided the best framework for a group of different people to meet and worship.

Still, I'm starting to wonder. The latest news from the PCUSA:

The General Assembly on Friday deflected an overture that would have required the 173 presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to vote for a third time in six years on whether to delete the so-called “fidelity and chastity” provision from the Book of Order.

The Assembly’s Committee on Church Orders and Ministry had recommended that the Assembly again ask the denomination to delete the controversial section — G-6.0106b, which says candidates for ordination to church office must be “faithful in the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chaste in singleness.”

And extensive discussion about a paper that:

...documents the changing structure of family life in the United States — which now includes, for example, single-parent households, families in which children are raised by grandparents or other non-parent relatives, and domestic partnerships other than marriage. It discusses how families of a wide diversity of forms can raise children faithfully and responsibly.

The ACSWP report, compiled in response to directives from General Assemblies in 1997 and 1998, asks the church to commit itself to being an inclusive and caring community of faith in which many forms of family are valued, including “families with members of homosexual orientation.”
“I think the point was to describe all the various family forms that we have,” said Mount, “and then to say, ‘What makes one of these good or bad is the quality of the love, of the care and the mutuality and the nurturing and so on that occurs there.’”

As I've said many times in this forum, I think there is a legal case to be made for gay marriage. Maybe.

I don't believe there is a theological case for it, though.

The causes of famine in North Korea, or the morality of deposing Saddam Hussein, are things on which reasonable people can disagree. Sort of.

But tinkering with the definition of "family"? It's not an academic exercise anymore. There is a lot on the line right now. The Presbyterians, and some of the more liberal Lutheran synods, are flirting with following the Episcopals. The Presbyterians even cryptically note an insurrection on this issue:

The 215th General Assembly chose to gently remind synods, presbyteries and congregations of their obligations to correct governing bodies in their jurisdictions that ordain gays and lesbians in defiance of the Presbyterian Church (USA) constitution.

So - twenty years after I thought I'd finished my search, I'm looking at the possibility of starting again.

UPDATE: As a side note - reading the reports from the PCUSA's General Assembly for this posting, I've been heartened - and surprised, just a bit - by the extent of the conservative backlash even within the relatively liberal Presbyterian Church. I don't see much of it in the congregations I've attended lately, but perhaps there's hope...
posted by Mitch Berg 8/11/2003 10:47:44 AM