I have been struggling for some time, as many of you know or have gleaned, with the way the secular society continues to portray and see the "Church." The often one-sided misrepresentation of religious folks has led to a lot of ignorance of what it means to be Christian and has also led to a lot of barriers between religious folks and the general population. My blog has been set up as my way of trying to set the record straight for my corner of the world.
But this year especially, I have been bombarded with examples of Christians living into the very image that the secular world has - which according to a study is that we are: bigots, narrow minded and ignorant. And for every step I try to make in changing peoples minds, I feel like I am pushed by the wind backwards three.
A perfect example of this was the most recent PC (USA) general assembly meeting. This meeting which happens once every two years is a council meeting in which lay elders and clergy work together to bring polity and mission issues back to the local churches. Things that happen at this meeting are not by any stretch of the imagination final however, words and actions that were spread there are.
First, in full disclosure I would like to state that I did not attend - although I watch much of it on live stream. But second, I was struck with how large the margin was between the young adult delegates / seminary delegates "votes" and the actual votes. You see, we poll our young adult and seminary delegates, asking for their advice / thoughts and yet we rarely vote with them - the future of our church. In our largest and most heated debate we discussed at length the changing of the definition of marriage within our polity.
The definition of marriage has already changed within the secular world - like it or not. And like it or not we need to have these conversations. But I just can't believe how these conversations end up going down. (and they do go down!) For these young people who our congregations sent with pride to the GA meeting, excited that someone in high school or early college cared enough about their church / faith, we did a huge injustice.
For no matter what, after witnessing those debates and seeing the flaws that we, as all humans, have - yes even ordained and lay elders - their view of the church is forever changed. The secular world, perhaps even their friends and family, was proven right; for in our debating our Christianity was lost. Our self-righteous need to be right was taken over and our drive to "win" at any cost put Christ right back up on the cross.
The sad part is, we are trying to encouraging young people in an unchurched / post-denominational time to come to church. We are trying to help those who are lost find the divine that is within them. We are trying to help our society, our communities and our families have the same type of relationship with the Redeemer that we have: lively, filled and amazing. And yet, despite this drive of good intentions, we are driving people away from our buildings, away from the house of God and away from the relationship that they seek.
I have read some arguments that it was good for these young people to witness this and that it will inspire them to strive for change - perhaps even ignite them to continue to want to push for the much needed change within our denomination. and to that I say - I hope so; but I fear that is not what happened. You see if the margins were the same; but the debate was done with compassion, with love, with Christ then I would agree. They would have witnessed something empowering and would want to strive to be a part of it, even if they don't agree with it. But when they witness something so difficult filled with tension and hateful undertones; filled with anger not passion, filled with people unwilling to actually communicate and instead just talk at - the question that is left to ask: why would I want to be a part of that?
Why do any of us want to be a part of that? I can't imagine that anyone who left last weeks meeting, no matter your "side" felt good about the debate (I dare not say conversation). Let alone looks forward to further discussion of this within their presbytery or churches.
I just continue to pray for our churches but most of all those young people who are trying to understand their own role in a denomination that for now feeds into everything the secular world proclaims is "wrong" with the churches.
