Why Church?

Our Northwest Setting:

In the Pacific Northwest, the vast majority of people are “Spiritual but not religious.”  Nearly 65% of the population here does not attend any kind of faith community. But most Northwest spiritual but not religious people (SBNR’s) don’t know this, and assume that an overwhelming Christian majority surrounds and oppresses them. While many Northwest SBNR’s do not trust the media to tell the whole truth of a subject, many seem to believe all too readily the view that most Christians are authoritarian: that is to believe there is only one view (theirs), that everyone should have this same view and those who don’t they are rejected by God and so can be bullied or excluded.

Media Matters recently produced a report in which the following results were found:

• Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.

• On television news — the three major television networks, the three major cable new channels, and PBS — conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.

• In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.

Despite the fact most religious Americans are moderate or progressive, in the news media it is overwhelmingly conservative leaders who are presented as the voice of religion. This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts.

Many people have been emotionally wounded by those who approach faith (and many other parts of life) in an authoritarian way. Many of those in our congregations have experienced the same pain.

Not a Jousting Club

This leads many to think of Christianity as a middle ages jousting club – dangerous and irrelevant.

There are many churches, however, who are not authoritarian in nature. Within the churches of the cluster we engage one another with support, conversation, and questions. We engage those who have lived before our time through the scripture, tradition, and worship. We see both our faith community and our tradition as partners in a open conversation about what it means to be human and to be a part of humanity.

But we have found another way to see Jesus in these congregations: we have found another Christianity.

Just as the scripture contains many different thoughts, feelings and opinions, so we are free to think for ourselves even while we think together. Your thinking differently won’t bother us, in fact we would be really interested.

We do, however, engage one another and the tradition in a deep an sustained way and so there are some places we just can’t go: for instance, we would not interested in proclaiming something like a neo-nazi perspective!  But we would maintain that God still loves the neo-nazi. Nor are we afraid to share a different view with our authoritarian sisters and brothers. As do this sharing, we try to be respectful both of the other person and our own deep tradition.

Why?  Because this deep engagement and respect for others is a vital and necessary part of life and learning to live out love as Jesus loved.

Posted in