Tag: diversity

United Church…of Christ

by Tyler Connoley

I’m sure you’ve had this happen. Someone asks what church you belong to, and you tell them you go to Such-and-So United Church of Christ. They respond, “Church of Christ. Is that the one that doesn’t have instruments?” Then you try to explain that the United Church of Christ is different. We’re progressive and inclusive. You begin telling them about the history of the UCC, how we we trace ourselves to the Congregationalists, and the Evangelical and Reform, etc. Their eyes glaze over, and they say, “Oh look, there’s Mary, I’ve been meaning to talk to her.”

Ron Buford taught me a trick that made it so this never happens to me anymore. He said to say, “United Church” then pause and say, “of Christ.” Ron has a passion for the UCC and our uniqueness, and he said this way of saying our name emphasizes that uniqueness. (It’s also because of Ron’s influence that our current UCC logo has those two phrases stacked in different fonts.)

As I’ve learned to say United Church . . . of Christ, it’s helped me to think more deeply about our identity in the UCC. We are a united church, and we are of Christ. Both of those things are important to our identity.

As a non-credal church, we value our theological diversity. We embrace gay Christians and Christians who think gay relationships are a sin. We allow for many different ideas about the divinity of Jesus. Even our identity as a Just Peace Church is rooted in our commitment to be a United Church. When General Synod was asked to declare the UCC a pacifist denomination in the 1970s, they commissioned a study. At the end of that study, the General Synod decided that our diversity required us to acknowledge multiple theologies around responses to war. We committed ourselves to working for Peace with Justice, and allowed individual members to decide what was right and wrong for them.

Some people have difficulty with our identity as a United Church. I had a seminary colleague who was troubled by being part of a denomination that ordained clergy to serve as military chaplains. This person ended up becoming Quaker, valuing theological purity on issues of war over the UCC’s diversity.

On the other end of the spectrum, we are also “of Christ.” We celebrate lots of different ways of being Christian, but we still unite in a desire to follow Jesus. Rather than emphasize a diversity of religions, as the Unitarian Universalists do, we have chosen to stand within one particular tradition.

One of my heroes, Huston Smith, is an expert in world religions, but continues to identify as a Christian. To those who like to dabble in lots of different faith traditions, he says, “If you want to find water, stand in one place and dig as deep as you can.” That’s what being UCC is for me. I certainly find wisdom in other religions, and value my interfaith partners. However, I’ve chosen to stand in one place and dig as deep as I can, rather than dig shallow holes in several different religions.

When people ask me what the United Church of Christ is, I don’t say we’re the most-progressive Christian denomination — even though we’ve certainly led the way, on issues from ordaining women to civil rights. Instead, I tell people we’re the most-inclusive Christian denomination. We are as inclusive as one can possibly be, while still holding onto the Christian tradition. We are the United Church . . . of Christ.

Tossed Salad

by Amos Smith

The early church was about the inclusive love of Jesus that broke down walls between people! I think this was the miracle of the early church—that Jews and Gentiles, bonded and free, male and female, all worshiped under the same roof (Galatians 3:28). This was unheard of in the highly stratified society of Jesus’ time!

I have observed newcomers to Church of the Painted Hills, UCC in Tucson, Arizona, where I’m the pastor. They take one look around and get a sense of the diversity. And they either like it or they don’t.

Diversity comes in many different forms. There is diversity in politics, cultural background, length of church membership, ethnicity, economic class, type of family (traditional, blended, adoptive, et cetera), level of education, marital status, gender, age, theology, sexual orientation, musical taste, number of years in Arizona, and the list goes on…

One of the things I most appreciate about Church of the Painted Hills is our diversity. Diversity requires a higher level of maturity than homogeneity. People who genuinely tolerate diversity are comfortable enough in their own skin that they are not threatened by multiplicity. Just the other day someone came to me and disagreed with my point of view. This happens at least once a month from various people at Painted Hills and I find the candor refreshing. I prefer the tossed salad, where the tomato remains a tomato, the lettuce, lettuce, and the walnuts, walnuts. Otherwise everything blends together in a big soup. That’s much less interesting!

Let’s stay close to the tossed salad and to the inclusive love of Jesus!

Unity Within Diversity

Unity Within Diversity 1

by Amos Smith

Some authors, such as our very own John Dorhauer, have written about the colossal brush strokes of Church 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.2 These are the Pre-reformation Church, The Post-reformation Church, and today’s Emergent Church.

Church 1.0 is the pre-reformation church with its primary authority vested in the hierarchy of the priesthood. Church 2.0 is the post-reformation church, with its rallying cry: “Solo Scriptura.” This was a radical shift of authority from clerical to scriptural! Church 2.0 believed that with the help of the Holy Spirit any baptized Christian had the authority to read and interpret scripture, not just institutional church authorities (1.0 and 2.0 Churches are alive and well today). Church 3.0 is what author Cameron Trimble and others say is emerging now. In this emerging Church scripture is not the end all, be all, as it is for Church 2.0. So, what will define Church 3.0?

I think the most authentic strains of Church 3.0 will rally around two words: Jesus and Justice. If I were persuaded to summarize the Hebrew Scriptures with one word I would say “Justice.” If I were swayed to summarize the New Testament with one word I would say “Jesus.” The words of the Hebrew Scriptures, above all else, point to Justice. The words of the New Testament, above all else, point to Jesus. These are the root words of Judeo-Christian Tradition. If the church loses these two words it has ceased to be the church and should call itself something else, perhaps Unitarian, perhaps Bahai.3

Some progressive churches know how to spell justice! They are missional churches through and through. And this is wonderful. This is the dream of church realized! Yet, many of these churches have sidelined Jesus or dispensed with Jesus all together. A prime example is a church I visited in Berkeley where I was told, “We don’t use the J word here. Too many people have been burned by it.” “Christ” is the root of the word “Christian.” So, this statement baffles me.

The other extreme are churches who know how to spell Jesus with precision and vigor. Yet, they have not caught on to justice. These churches are about a mere belief system. Yet, Christianity is not primarily a belief system! It is a life to be lived, an idea to be worked out, a task to be done! In other words, Christianity is about following Jesus onto the path of justice! These churches also tend to be insular and dying. A vital church cannot be about an exclusive theology of Jesus. For one thing, this is not true to the Gospel witness. For another, this prevents full-on engagement in justice missions outside church walls, which is the point of church from the beginning.

My book, Healing the Divide, addresses churches who emphasize Jesus to the exclusion of justice and vice versa. It outlines a theology of Jesus that is broad enough for Church 3.0 and for our postmodern world!

Just as the full faced portrait photo doesn’t contradict the profile photo, so to Jesus and Justice don’t contradict! Far from it! They complement one another!

People ask me, “What’s the essence to which the scriptures point?” People ask me, “What do you think the emergent church is all about?” When they do, I don’t hesitate. It’s about Jesus and Justice! Jesus is synonymous with spiritual healing, wholeness, and inclusive love! And justice is synonymous with communal fire in the belly, aliveness, and mission!

The prophetic legacy leading up to Jesus is the finger pointing to the moon and justice is the moon. We need both!

Jesus is the Church’s inclusive compassionate heart, which jumps off the pages of the Gospels. And justice is the church’s business. Both are essential for historical integrity and vitality!

Justice and Jesus are the two wings of the butterfly of emergent Christianity!

In Church 3.0 there will be numerous forms of justice work: social justice, economic justice, death penalty abolishment, racial justice, nonviolence witness, gender justice, LGBT justice, mental illness awareness, ecological justice, nuclear disarmament, immigrant justice, homeless justice, microloan justice, Palestinian justice, food justice, prison reform, et cetera.

Depending on the community, Church 3.0 will also emphasize numerous Jesuses. There will be the Roman Catholic Jesus (culled from Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Merton), the Eastern Orthodox Jesus (filtered for the West through Tolstoy and Dostoevsky), the Nonviolent Jesus (gleaned from The historic Peace Churches,4 Jesus’ Third Way, and French Philosopher, Renee Girard), the Jesus of the oppressed (from liberation theologians like James Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez) the liberal Protestant Jesus (from historical Jesus scholars like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan), the neo-feminist Jesus (culled from Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza and the multitude of feminist theologians since), and the Jesus of the mystics (The Jesus Paradox/Miaphysite in Greek) as interpreted by the Alexandrian Elders and the Oriental Orthodox Church. And the list goes on…

My particular calling is to Jesus as interpreted by the Alexandrian Mystics and to the healing arts of Contemplative Christianity. Yet, I celebrate that Christianity is a vast body with many members (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). I celebrate all the different angles on Jesus and Justice! May the members of the body, in all their diversity, invest in the essential vision: Jesus and Justice!

The seventeenth century theologian Rupertus Meldenius once wrote in a tract: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity.”

The essential rallying cry of Church 3.0: “Solo Christos et Jus!”

1 This essay is inspired by a sermon that United Church of Christ Pastor, Evette Flunder, gave at the General Synod of the United Church of Christ when it convened in Minneapolis in 2005.

2 See Dorhauer, John. Beyond Resistance: The Institutional Church Meets the Postmodern World, pg.38-43.

3 I have been influenced by the work of Family Systems theorists, Murray Bowen, Edwin Friedman, Roberta Gilbert, and Peter Steinke, who consistently affirm healthy boundaries. A healthy cell has a membrane that differentiates it from other cells. So too, healthy relationships, communities, and religious traditions have healthy boundaries (flexible and at times porous, not rigid), which differentiate them from one another. The Dali Lama has often said that the differences between religions are as important as the similarities. Healthy interfaith dialogue respects both.

4 The historic Peace Churches are the Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker (FGC).

Amos Smith is the pastor at Church of the Painted Hills in Tucson, and author of  Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity’s Mystic Roots.