Original post at http://doroteos2.com/2013/05/17/why-is-peace-so-hard/

I am writing today from Atlanta (Georgia, in case you were wondering) at the conclusion of the three-day Ecumenical Korea Peace Conference.  This has been an amazing — and deeply educational — few days.  I know the basics on the post-WWII Korean history — told from the United States perspective.  I have been to Korea twice — once in 1994 and again in 2012.  The growth and change in that eighteen years was unbelievable.  I’ve been aware of the past couple years of “news” coming out of North Korea, and like most Americans have been deeply troubled.  The I came here and talked to a whole lot of people from both North and South Korea.  Incredible how little I actually know about anything Korean…

I have been exposed to a steady stream of partial information, mis-information, skewed information, facts and factoids, and a boatload of filtered and fabricated mythology about a country torn apart, divided, dis-integrated, and living in distress.  Families separated two generations ago that to this day cannot be reunited without unbelievable sacrifice and hardship.  My ignorance of the situation is much greater than my perceived knowledge.  I mean, I know the Koreas are still “at war” — armistice is a far cry from peace, and a peace accord has never materialized, ending the Korean War.  The need for a peace treaty is critical.  And our current sanctions against North Korea are hurting all the wrong people.  The sanctions are the most unChristian acts of a supposedly Christian country.  None of these opinions have been impacted by this conference — other than to pump up the sense of urgency.  No what I take away from this time is a clearer understanding of all the ways it has not been in our interests to end this conflict — we are making WAY too much money to actually work for peace.  The demonizing and vilification of North Korea as a media coup is even more sickening than I expected.  “Axis of Evil” anyone?  Bad judgment and ignorance gets painted as insanity and evil — a much more compelling vision that keeps the misinformed flock glued to the news channels.

Our current “foreign policy” destroys as much as it builds, and it is motivated by greed, power and control — not ethics, morals, or peace-making/mercy-loving values.  But, see, here’s the rub.  In a situation of geo-political strife and division there is no such thing as a “simple solution.”  Repeatedly, the question was raised at this conference, “why are we making this so hard?”  Well, we are and we aren’t.  The bulk of the Christian coalition gathered here to confer on peace assume a base-line of peace, patience, love, compassion, mercy, justice, kindness, healing, and foundational civility and respect.  Bad assumption.  We cannot even agree on these values within the Christian community — who are we to impose them on others?  Is there such a thing as an “imposed peace?”  If one side gets to set the terms and define the parameters, that isn’t peace.  If the only way to get along is for everyone to fall in line with one way of thinking, well, it’s no wonder we can’t find peace (let alone “make” it).

The best part of this conference time was the intentionality by which no one was labeled “good guys” or “bad guys.”  For the Korean peninsula, there is no “us/them,” just a broken all of us.  The dominant U.S. media caricaturing of “evil North/blessed South” makes any progress harder.  Guess what?  There is a “bell curve” on both sides of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) of bad-to-good.  Our penchant of comparing the bad on one side to the good on the other is simplistic, stupid, and destructive (demoralizing, volatile, violent, mean-spirited, petty…).

There are some human nature issues we never adequately address.  First, we don’t really want to love people we don’t like.  Second, we do not want anyone else gaining a greater benefit than we receive ourselves.  Third, we like feeling superior to others.  Fourth, we don’t like it when others are happier than we are.  Fifth, we are always looking for no-cost sacrifice.  Sixth, we value comfort over goodness.  Seventh, we like those most like us the best.  Eighth, we dislike anyone who inconveniences us.  Ninth, we like getting and having more than giving and doing without.  Tenth, I could do this all night — there is no end to such a list.  Face it, we only like the parts of the gospel we like — we ignore or argue with the rest.

Peace-makers may be blessed, but this is because they are so few and far between.  We place so many conditions on who we will love, accept, tolerate, include, forgive, and believe that we make unity, harmony, reconciliation, healing and peace all but impossible.  And we hold so many divergent opinions on what it means to be “Christian” that our witness is suspect at best.  Last week I spoke to a pastor who said quite sincerely that the ONLY pathway to peace required enough guns and bombs to bring our enemies into submission.  This is an unique or rare opinion.

I cannot change anyone else.  That’s not my job.  I can only work on myself — and work with those who share my vision of a more just and loving world.  By definition, this means I am working against others.  Each time I call for love and acceptance of gays and lesbians, I am in opposition to those who disagree.  When I talk about the hateful injustices done to many Palestinian people (actual friends and acquaintances) I find myself angering those who are incredulous at my ignorance.  My heartfelt belief that we have an obligation to care for the poor and marginalized is deeply offensive to those who cannot believe my liberal B.S.  In all these things, I can only state what I believe and work to bring my actions into alignment with my beliefs and words.  I wish we could all get along and, in those places where we disagree, seek creative third (fourth, fifth) alternatives that bring us to a place of alliance and cooperation instead of staying stuck in our passionate impasse.

So, I pray.  And I work really hard to accept people where they are and take every opportunity to speak “my truth” in love.  And even so, I must confess, I still think we could work this all out — if everyone would just think the same way I do.

Original post at http://doroteos2.com/2013/05/10/muddled-maturity/

Every once in a while I strike a chord — I have received emails daily about the past couple posts on “mature” Christian spirituality.  It seems everyone wants to use their own personal spiritual level as the definition of maturity — which is very normal and human.  If we could conceive of something better, we would be doing it.  If we are doing something a particular way, it is because we believe it is the best way to do it.  Every eight year-old in the world thinks he or she is doing eight exactly right.  It isn’t until he or she turns nine that  eight isn’t all that much.  Every person is as mature as they can be in the moment — when we see more mature ways to engage, we grow into them.  Maturity is a process, not a destination.  The terms “less mature” and “more mature” are actually better than simply “mature” and “immature.”  And maturity is not an “it” but a complex weaving of “its.”  Let me explain:

I lead a workshop called “Maturing in the Christian Life.”  One exercise we do examines the multiple lines of development that comprise the whole person.  Focusing on just seven lines, we examine the developmental process from “less mature” to “more mature” for each.  The Cognitive line is about what we know, how we learn, functional intelligence, and critical thinking.  The Affective line measures our control of emotions, reactions, responses, feelings and biases.  The Interpersonal line is all about relationships, social engagement, civility, compassion, and connection to community.  The Moral line assesses sense of right and wrong, justice, mercy, and implications of actions and behaviors.  Spiritual is about relationship with the divine, core beliefs and rituals, worldview, and metaphysical grounding.  The Physical line measures health, wellness, diet, exercise, balance and overall commitment to healing and wholeness.  The Material line focuses on our relationship to “stuff” — things we possess and things that possess us, our general stewardship of creation, and our generosity.  Obviously, each of these lines is part of every human being, and we are all in different places at different times in different ways.  Each person is a complex matrix of relationships and reactions.  An individual might be highly developed (“more mature”) cognitively and physically, yet be a narcissistic mess relationally and morally.  Some spiritual giants are physical wrecks.  Highly popular and well-adjusted people can be greedy and crass.  Just because a person is highly developed in one or two areas says nothing about the other areas.

When I lead the workshop/retreat, the point I make is that the highest form of spiritual maturing is one that includes all the lines and expects positive movement along each.  Rarely does this happen by accident.  Growing up is hard work.  Improvement is rigorous and demanding.  Discipleship requires progress in all aspects of one’s being.  Maturity is a full-time job.

And, yes, I am prescriptive.  My model demands movement, and movement equals exercise.  Exercise of mind through study and learning and a discipline of corporate reflection on new ideas and information.  Exercise of emotions and feelings in working on the fruit/discipline of self-control and becoming less reactive/volatile.  Exercise of relationships by identifying weaknesses and working to improve communication, empathy, transparency and attitude.  Exercise of moral judgement by cleaning up one’s act, abolishing double standards, acting fairly, and practicing radical and unconditional forgiveness in close relationships.  Exercise in spiritual discipline and practice through prayer, study, fasting, contemplation, worship, service, and fellowship.  Exercise of the body — by exercising, walking more, driving less, getting proper rest, eating healthier, etc.  And developing regular exercise of giving things away, doing with less, sharing more, giving more, shifting focus off of abundance/scarcity thinking to enough/sufficiency thinking.

And, no, I don’t effectively practice what I preach — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true, good, honest counsel.  I am on the same journey as everyone else, and while I am “more mature” in a few places, I am “less mature” in many others.  One last observation I would make (and this blog addresses about six of the emails I received this week) is that our culture has inadvertently, but effectively dis-integrated these lines from a unity into discrete silos.  Physical health and beauty exists as a whole industry unto itself.  Education and learning are separated from emotional development.  Spirituality is dealt with at church.  Materialism has nothing to do with local or global relationships.  The fundamental interconnectedness of the various expressions of human growth and development have become compartmentalized.  Where can we find reintegration and wholeness?  It is my belief that the church is the ideal setting for such activity.  Our gospel and our ecclesial history make a strong case for health and wellness of body, mind, soul and spirit.  Maybe we could think in terms of…, oh, I don’t know…, moving on to perfection?

Original post at http://doroteos2.com/2013/05/08/growth-imperative/

The Christian faith is about growth and maturing.  In recent posts, I’ve talked about “mature” faith, and the response has been interesting.  Many frame the term “mature” as judgmental, exclusive, and unkind — when compared to “less mature” or “immature.”  But developmental and qualitative growth — improvement, strengthening, seasoning, evolving — is best described in terms of maturing.  Indeed, there is a value judgment in assessing one behavior as mature against another as immature.  Yet, we are all aware of the differences between a mature and an immature response to disappointment, failure, pain, or loss.  The more mature response is generally very clear.  It doesn’t mean an immature response is bad, it is simply… less mature.

And spiritual maturity is essential for a healthy spiritual relationship — with God, in Christian community, and with those we seek to serve and love.  I have yet to find a congregation torn apart by maturity.  The most toxic and destructive behaviors come from the least mature spiritually.  Where a process for maturing is not provided, the less mature rule.  And when the less mature call all the shots, it is amazing how “the mature” often respond — more often than not, like the spiritually immature.  It seems that immaturity exerts a greater influence on maturity than maturity exerts in reverse.  But this actually make sense — there are way more less mature than mature.

Maturity has little to do with age or tenure.  My grandfather, a lifelong Christian, was a selfish, pushy, demanding, caustic, pouting elder in his Presbyterian church until the day he died.  In the last church I served, a twenty-five year old woman was one of the most spiritually mature, theologically grounded, and philosophically balanced people I have ever had the privilege to know — much more mature than either of her parents, both who held key leadership positions in the congregation.  Her maturity was often ignored or dismissed because she was chronologically young.  Pity.

Part of this dilemma is cultural.  Loosely borrowing from a variety of developmental theorists, I believe we all pass through four developmental phases:  dependence to independence to local interdependence to global/universal interdependence.  Babies are totally dependent on others for their survival, comfort, care and safety.  From birth — and radical dependence — we all move through stages of independence: pulling away, pushing limits, breaking rules, developing personal tastes, preferences, beliefs, desires, habits, etc.  We become individuals — unique, autonomous, self-actualized.  To grow, it sometimes has to be “all about us” as individuals.  But heaven help us if we get stuck here.  As we are declaring our own independence, the world demands we play nice with others.  We learn to share, to compromise, to negotiate, and to accommodate.  We develop coping mechanisms that allow our self to engage with other selves.  Now, some do this from an awakening that together we are greater than the sum of our parts, while others learn nothing more than there’s a sucker born every minute.  Emerging from the independence phase we divide into two basic orientations — givers and takers.  Givers see relationships as opportunities for mutual benefit, strength, comfort and security.  Takers live by one guiding principle: “what’s in it for me?”  Local interdependence occurs when people forge relationships.  And this is where the clearest distinctions of maturing emerge.  The less mature are still governed by the guiding values of independence — they seek to get their own way, they value their own opinions above those of others, they frame most encounters in “win-lose” terms, and they tend to take everything personally.  The more mature are guided by a value of “the common good” — what is best for everyone is more important than what is best for me.  Maturity shifts the focus from “me” to “we,” from “I” to “us.”  Maturity at the local interdependent level moves us from “me and mine” thinking to “us and ours.”

As we grow in our maturing, our circle of “us” expands.  Our worldview opens beyond family, friends, and tribe to community to state to nation to planet to cosmos.  Local interdependence can sometimes look like nothing more than collective independence — communal selfishness, irrational patriotism, geographic parochialism, or fanatical factionalism (think school cliques, sports allegiances, any given civil war…).  Global/universal interdependence gets us close to the vision that Jesus and Paul offer in Christian scripture.  Dividing walls are knocked down, hostilities abate, distinctions between male/female, slave/free, Greek/Jew, rich/poor, etc. disappear.  We become “one,” not just with those who agree with us or whom we like, but with all creation.  The fruits of maturity in the Spirit are evident in the way we love, in how kind and forgiving we are, in how patient and considerate we are, in the basic joy, hope and grace with which we live our daily lives.  By its fruits, maturity will be known.

Selfishness, hostility, bullying, arguing, derision, contempt, slander, gossip — no one ever makes a case for these as evidence of maturity.  Christian discipleship is a movement away from such characteristics and practices toward compassion, grace, mercy, unconditional love and healing.  Is there a value judgment here?  Certainly.  Love is better than hate; mercy is greater than vengeance; kindness is preferable to violence; and sharing is superior to selfishness.  Were maturity not of greater value than immaturity there would be no reason to be Christian — bad enough would be good enough.

It is time for the church to lift a high standard and hold each and every person to it.  If we are no better than the rest of the world, then we dishonor Christ and disgrace the gospel.  If we allow immature, toxic, selfish behavior to flourish and thrive in Christian community, then our witness to the world is that Jesus was wrong and the Holy Spirit has no power.  It is not enough to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” if we refuse to define a disciple as one who “must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love (Ephesians 4:15b-16).  There is no such thing as an independent Christian — if we’re not interdependent (think: body of Christ) then we are merely deluded.

Original post at http://doroteos2.com/2013/05/03/fickle-fairyland-faith/

I won’t share the convoluted audit trail that leads to this post, but a series of unrelated incidents all point me back to this particular story.  When I was in Nashville, I related to a young, well-meaning Christian who went from ultra-committed and ultra-pious to uber-atheist in the blink of an eye.  When I was going through my own divorce, he invited me to lunch to try to talk me out of it.  He patiently informed me that this was the most heinous of sins, I would never be forgiven nor forgive myself, that I was tempting God and risking eternal damnation.  I honestly believe he was doing this from a deep well of concern and a weird form of kindness.  He held a very clear and simple vision of Christian faith — do what is right and God will bless you; do what is wrong, and watch out!

It was not a full six months later that we sat together in reversed roles.  He and his wife lost two children in a very short period of time — one to illness, one to depression and suicide — and the strain was too much for their marriage.  They were engaged in a sad separation on their way to divorce.  My young friend spat out his anger and frustration: “The IS NO God.  If there were a loving God, He wouldn’t be doing this to me!”  I tried to temper his responses, but it was no good.  He was through with God, because God wasn’t treating him fairly.  His life, when placid, calm and stable meant God was blessing him.  His life turned upside down and filled with tragedy, pain and suffering meant there could be no God.  There was nothing I could say that he wanted to hear.  His myth of the fairyland called “faith” had been destroyed.

Faith as commodity exchange or a Skinnerian psychology experiment has never made sense to me.  Cries of “why is God doing this to me?” or “why does God allow this to happen,” simply make me feel like the people uttering such feelings haven’t really been paying attention (and they have certainly never read and reflected on the Book of Job…).  Certainly, we have always witnessed a simplistic and less mature faith of direct intercession, meddling and manipulation on the part of a slightly sinister grandpa-God in the sky, but that is caricature not Creator.  It is part of the human reality that the human brain attempts to simplify complexity in order to make things easier to understand and accept, but reducing God to a divine entity responding to each and every whim of the human race is nothing more than ignorant hubris.  It says much more about us that it does about God.

But before I get too carried away with “what everybody knows or should know” let me pull it back to what I believe and have experienced.  A deep and mature faith, in my experience, does not allow the believer to invoke magic powers and miraculous results, but gives the believer inner conviction and strength.  The prayers of those with a deep faith are less about having God perform to their satisfaction and more about preparing and equipping them to deal with whatever might come.  It isn’t that God magically removes the negative from their lives, but that they develop a faith-based worldview that allows them to rise above everything they face.  I have known people “miraculously” healed of cancer, and I have known deeply faithful and faith-filled people who died from cancer.  For me, the true miracle are those I have known with cancer who died with grace and acceptance, who witnessed to the real power of faith in the face of adversity.

I listened to a conversation in the next booth of a diner that made me both smile and feel a bit bad.  Two women were chatting, and one mentioned that she felt very guilty because she has been praying for rain to end our drought, and now we were having flooding and more rain is on the way.  Her friend told her that she should be more careful, and she asked if her friend had been very specific about how much rain she wanted.  The first woman burst into tears and confessed that, no, she just prayed for rain every day, and now she was afraid that she was responsible for terrible problems.  Her friend was at a loss for words, then said, “Well, maybe we should pray for the rain to stop.”  Quickly, the first woman responded, “But how will we know it won’t make things worse?”

These two women believe in the power of prayer, but it is a stunted and immature belief.  Prayer is a holy work-order, delivered from the lips of the believer to the ear of God — with a sense that God is a severe literalist, never employing common sense but acting like the magic in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, delivering much more of what is asked for than is healthy.  What kind of God would do this?  Does God keep a running tally sheet of all those who pray for rain versus those who pray for clear skies, granting the wish of the majority?  Does God really wait to hear the prayers of some in the path of a tornado in order to know the very best place to turn it to smite the sinners?

So many people base their faith or lack of same on how well God does what they tell them.  “God let my wife die, therefore there is no God.”  “There is so much suffering in the world, that proves there is no God.”  “If there were a God, the world would be a more loving place.”  “If you really loved me you’d let me eat candy for breakfast.”  Oh, no, that last one is a petulant 3 year old…

We live in a world that I believe God created.  In this creation are many marvelous things.  The natural order and all the governing laws of nature are phenomenal.  The complexity and intricacy of the created order is astounding.  And for it all to exist, some of it is fragile, and some of it is dangerous, and some of it is corrupted, and some of it can be easily manipulated to turn good into evil.  The creative potential of the human mind is not value neutral — some intentionally use what they have been given for good, some for bad.  Some choose to heal, some choose to injure.  There are some who see others and would never, under any circumstances, seek to do them harm.  There are still others who will take their creativity to make a bomb, and if they cannot make a bomb, they will buy a gun, and if they cannot get a gun, they will find a knife, a stick, a rock, or they will simply turn their own hands into a weapon.  Some exist to create; others to destroy.  Faith doesn’t change this.  Belief in God doesn’t make any of this less true.  What an authentic faith provides is a way to navigate the good and the bad, the holy and the evil, the positive and the negative.  It internalizes the Spirit so that we become less reactive.  We are able to stand firm and believe no matter what happens around us.  The ground of our faith allows us to NOT be tossed too and fro by the vagaries and chaos, but instead to stay strong.  Bad things will happen in life, even to the best among us.  Thanks be to God for a faith that immunizes us and allows us ultimately to proclaim “Thanks be to God.”

Original post at http://doroteos2.com/2013/04/22/lego-church/

Forgive the annoying “back when I was a boy…” beginning to this reflection, but, back when I was a boy a Lego kit consisted of a box of white, black, yellow, blue and red bricks that came in eight different sizes.  You could make anything your imagination could conceive of, as long as it had sharp, square corners.  The directions consisted of three cartoons that showed how the round part on top of one brick stuck to the opening on the bottom of another brick.  Simplicity itself.  Just the other week, I came across Lego Architecture sets recommended for ages 16+ that are scale replicas of famous structures from around the world.  Intricately colored and crafted, these sets allow for no improvisation — each piece is carefully crafted to fit its appropriate mates.  This is the Lego equivalent of the old paint-by-number kits — deviate from the directions at your own peril!  Creativity be damned — there is ONE RIGHT WAY to do it.

This is a compelling metaphor for approaches to new church starts as viewed by United Methodists.  I look at some of the most compelling and innovative ministries across the country, and I am impressed by their “simple Lego” feel.  They take what they have, figure out ways to put the pieces together, and they come up with something creative and functional.  Then I go attend a workshop on “new church starts” and am dismayed by the cookie-cutter, do-this-exactly-as-I-tell-you (“I’ve been doing this for x years — I know what I am talking about…), don’t deviate from the directions, formulaic and reductionist approaches being offered.  I sat through a presentation on how each context is unique where the presenter ironically proceeded to lay out the ten things everyone should do in every situation.  We were reminded regularly NOT to cut steps or adapt any of the instructions.

I’ve noted before a wonderful paradox in The United Methodist Church — those who teach prescriptive formulas for church growth and church planting are the first to confess that they didn’t follow a prescription to get where they are now.  In fact, they will proudly state that there is NO WAY they could have achieved their success by copying what someone else already did.  (But, buy our book and you too can be as great as we are!!!)  Unique context and chemistry are too powerful to ignore.  The variables are more influential than the constants.  Yet, we still look for an expert to tell us what to do.

The sophisticated Lego sets (Star Wars, Ninjago, Lord of the Rings, etc.) are very cool and enjoyable — in the same way a jigsaw puzzle is enjoyable — but they eliminate one of the greatest values from the experience: creativity.  There is a power to the simplicity of the “basic” Lego set.  Watching nieces and nephews play with both kinds of Legos, I notice that with the sophisticated sets, they put them together once, but with the simple sets, they play with them again and again.  It is almost as if the “dedicated” kits can’t be used any other way.  It reminds me of two church visits I made in the Buffalo/Rochester, New York area in the late 1990s.  Both were smaller program sized churches — about 500 members with 350 active each week.  What was striking about the two churches was the difference in energy.  One church was vibrant and joyous.  The people present were all connected and engaged.  They had many ministries and programs, big and small, new and long-standing, and everyone was excited about something.  The contrast was the church that was taking things very seriously and was pursuing church growth.  Their leadership had its ministry plan all laid out, and they had been to Willow Creek and Church of the Resurrection to learn “how to do it.”  The people present seemed anxious, confused and disengaged.  Lots of programs were aimed AT them, and everyone was supposedly attached to a “small group,” but the energy was anything but joyous.  One church unleashed the energy, the other tried to constrain it through careful prescription.

Don’t get me wrong — you can put together some pretty cool Lego kits that allow zero creativity.  You can copy someone else’s successful church plant and get a reasonable facsimile.  But, I want to question, is this really what we want?  More churches is a guiding value of the modern UMC.  And more healthy churches is even better.  But derivative copies rarely rise to the level of the original.  Every community of faith is unique.  Each “church kit” is an odd jumble of different shapes and sizes (gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, vision, interests, aspirations, talents, aptitudes, proficiencies, resources…) that can fit together in a million different ways.  Jamming the uniqueness of one group into the uniformity of another boggles the mind.  In what way does this honor God?  I continue to be more impressed by the messy churches with a bunch of rough edges than I am the American-Idolesque wannabes that many church growth experts are trying to foist off on us.  If the best we can do is “paint-by-number” mindlessness, then we cannot be surprised when the world fails to flock to us in droves.  If  all we can offer is more of what they’ve seen a thousand times before, then we will be thought of as a cheap knock-off.  If we want to send a message that we are gifted people using what we’ve got to do a new and creative thing, people might be inspired to join us — and who knows, they might just be the brick we need to do something brilliant.

Original post at http://doroteos2.com/2013/04/10/ecumenically-challenged/

There are few things I hate worse than being sick on the road.  My wife and I are in Columbus, Ohio and I determined that now would be the ideal time to get a four-alarm sinus infection.  I can’t focus, I can’t breathe, I have a splitting headache… and I am trying to engage in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue with energy and conviction.  Not an easy task.  I am hearing through congested filters.  When I feel bad, I tend to be a bit more prickly and terse, so take my reflections with a grain of salt.

So many of the presentations and conversations feel like they have a “yes, but…” undertone.  The words are about unity and collaboration, but the undercurrent feels polemical and a bit competitive.  I listened to a Catholic priest explain how ecumenical dialogue never meant anything until after Vatican II, because without the Catholics in the conversation it could never go anywhere.  I have been patiently told that the Roman Catholic church isn’t part of the World Council of Churches because it “doesn’t want to take over.”  I have had nine conversations where it has been explained to me what “full communion” isn’t — not once have we settled on what it actually IS.  Too often, our best intended introductions devolve to explanations of what we are not, instead of what we are.  Our crowing achievements are Thanksgiving services and pantries — things we can do together with no real cost or compromise.  I’ve broached the subject of “one body in Christ,” and both times the people I have been speaking to turned the conversation to “different parts.”  Unity is the abstraction that brings us together, but not the reality towards which we choose to work.

The polemical nature of this gathering is perhaps the most distressing aspect.  Everyone is gathered to celebrate our oneness in Christ, but almost every serious discussion devolves into a focus on differences, and how until this or that group makes concessions, nothing much will change.  And power and privilege do matter.  After a couple of days, I am left with the impression that ecumenism is defined by what the Roman Catholic church will allow and accept.  Everyone else is part of the category “other.”  Which is not to say that the movement of the Catholic church has not been monumental in creating inter-Christian (a term I learned here) cooperation.  The reality is: unless the Catholics participate, not much changes.

What is great and wonderful and powerful about a meeting like this is that it happens.  But the fact that it happens is viewed as exceptional is problematic.  This should be normal.  This should have 50,000 participants, not a couple hundred.  This should be a jumping-off points for thousands of conversations, projects, unions, and partnerships.  This should define us in a newer, better way.  But my fear is that we will all return to our provincial, inward-focused denominational enclaves and merely smile and nod when we pass in our ecclesial hallways.  Nothing much will really change.  Our “full communions” will remain partial and sporadic at best.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but my own United Methodist Church pays well-intentioned lip service to ecumenism, but in the arena of “church” we are competitive, not collaborative.  When we invite people to “ReThink Church,” we don’t mean the universal Church of Jesus Christ — we mean the UMC.  The sub-line of Igniting Ministries, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors,” was not “The Whole People of God,” but “The People of The United Methodist Church.”  When we spout off about “vital congregations,” we don’t mean Baptist or Presbyterian or Lutheran.  Our OCD about “new faith for new people in new places” doesn’t extend beyond a neo-Wesleyan not-so-united Methodism, let alone anything ecumenical.  Oh, I know I will hear from some people about isolated and exceptional cases — and they are isolated and exceptional (which is my point).  The fact is, we want to be bigger, and we really can’t be bothered with the health and well-being of other denominations — after all, their gain is our loss, right?

I got in trouble the last church I served — as I visited door to door in my community, I invited people to the church of their choice, not just to the church I served.  My trustees were furious with me when they found out.  Other pastors were put out with me, because they thought I was trying to make them look bad.  My sole intent was that it is better for each person to go somewhere rather than nowhere.  I got in trouble in Nashville for partnering with the Hindus.  Working with them, learning with them, laughing with them, and listening to them was criticized as agreeing with them (and, somehow, cheapening Christianity by extending the loving grace of God to all…).

We are so far from a universal grace and an unconditional love.  Oneness in Christ is a mere abstraction.  Serious transformation is a long way off, because so few people truly want it.  We like our “home teams.”  We are defined by our differences.  We revel in our “flavor.”  We don’t want to be something else — otherwise we would be.  I wonder what God wants?  I wonder how all of our factionalism and fracture is viewed from on high?  I wonder how the Christ, who “broke down” the dividing walls feels about what we have done to his church?  We will one day find out — and at that point, we will truly all be in the same boat.