In the conservative evangelicalism of my youth, knowing ourselves to be in exile was encouragement to stand firm in our counter- (or sub-) cultural commitments and values, especially when we found them to be in conflict with "The World." While in college, my reflections on the relationship between faith and culture were greatly expanded and nuanced by my encounter with the paradigms of H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture, but my experience as a person of faith has not become any less an experience of exile.
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| Left: Summer Youth Mission Team c. 2001 Right: The congregation where I was raised c. ~Present Church communities and people from whom I now feel in exile in a variety of ways. |
Already committed to Christ and his way, I fell in love with the Church in college: with church history, with Presbyterians, with the beautiful way God has woven us into communities, orchestrated our gifts, and called us to participate in the divine work in the world. I've seen the glorious vision of what the Church could be, what it has been in some ways at some moments, and what it's called to be and become -- and it's absolutely stunning! My heart sings, my bones ache, and my soul comes alive to pursue achieving that reality.
But because I love the Church so much, because I know what it can and should be, sometimes I hate the Church with a fierce passion as well. I hate the way it reduces the life-giving freedom of Christ to life-constricting rules and oversimplified dogma. I hate the way we silence questions and exploration because they threaten our easy answers and comfortable customs. I hate the way we co-opt the language and image of Christ's values to hide and serve our own -- for example, through activities we name "outreach," "mission," and "evangelism," we simply seek to recruit new members to boost our ego-sustaining statistics and fund our budgets. I hate the way we believe being "nice" is the ultimate Christian virtue, so we avoid disagreement and conflict like the plague, squashing it down and ignoring it until it squeezes out in nasty passive-aggressiveness or full-out vicious warfare. I hate it!
As the Latin saying goes, corruptio optimi pessima -- "the corruption of the best is the worst." It really is. The absolute worst. Something deep within me is convinced that the Church, with its true mission and purpose, is my most beloved home. The Church I so often encounter is in many ways close to this, but sometimes it is being so close yet missing that last bit that makes it seem so far away.
How I Met Your Mother - Season 8 "Farhampton" (to 1:26)
I am not alone in feeling this way.
The conspicuous absence of my generation from the Church is a silent testimony to this fact. To a generation whose highest value is arguably authenticity, that the Church raises up such lofty and magnificent teachings, and then so horrifically fails to live them is utterly unacceptable. To those who are so deeply inspired by the message of love, grace, and hospitality, finding the Church to often be a place of rejection, judgment, and exclusion is soul-crushingly heartbreaking.
Certainly there are those who have drifted away (or never connected) because they just didn't see the point of this particular extra-curricular activity. And certainly it is not only members of my generation who have these scruples with the Church. But it is those (both from my generation and others) who looked the Church square in the face, who sat down and got to know her, who grappled with both the beauty and the pain, who did not hide from their tough questions and resisted knowing the answer beforehand -- the ones who did all these things and in the end still felt it necessary to walk away -- it is these for whom my heart most hurts. I ache for the former as well, but it is the latter I am most brokenhearted about. Because I am so nearly one of them.
But yet... But yet there is still something so breathtakingly beautiful about what I believe the Church truly is and is called to be, that I am convinced it is worth wrestling through everything else to get it, and I am committed to being a part of the process of bringing it to life.
I am confident that the Church really is a lebenslanger schicksalschatz, as the clip above from How I Met Your Mother so wonderfully puts it. But I sympathize greatly with those who are not so sure, and I understand the relief their exile from her provides.
Sometimes I wish I could leave too -- to release the mental, emotional, and spiritual agony of this seemingly futile work. But I cannot. And so, in my staying I live in a different kind of exile.
Thankfully, I am not alone in this either.
Even though 2000 years of church history has shown that the Church has never yet really gotten its act together, even though we live in a culture that is increasingly indifferent toward religious commitment, even though budgets are shrinking and the number of volunteers and amount of time they have available are diminishing, even though our denomination may be broken and deteriorating quickly, even though many of us must take on staggering debt to prepare for this work, even though we know we're entering a career path that may not exist to the time we retire (if our generation ever gets to retire), even though it seems like we are up against impossible odds and imprudent in our decision-making, there are nevertheless other people like me who are willing to say "yes" to God's call, to persist in hope, and to devote our lives to this work.
Each of us has our own particular way of describing why we do this. For me, I remember that the Church, and our denominations, are comprised of people -- we are the Church. The way I am compelled to look at it, to give up on the Church, and to give up on my denomination (the Presbyterian Church USA), is to give up on the people that comprise it. And as I consider the central message of our faith, I realize that it is the story of a God who would not give up on humanity, no matter what. Christ's incarnation, life, death, and resurrection are the very embodiment of the refusal to give up on people. So how could I?
This is not to say I believe we fight to preserve our systems and accustomed way of doing things at all costs -- people and systems are inextricably linked, but not equivalent. We must think carefully and critically about how and why we do things. But we should also be careful not to reject developed wisdom and heritage too quickly either. There are times when important work needs to be done and established systems and communities are not yet prepared to do it. At these times God may call people to respond in a new way. I know people in ministries like this, and I am encouraged and delighted by their work. But I also think the dark side of the Reformation was the permission it gave us to fracture and leave each other behind. And so I am particularly thrilled by the creative and challenging work being done by people within their denominational systems, and for the ways these structures are creating space for this work, both organizationally and by the enthusiasm of supportive individuals. I am excited to see how these develop!
"There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services but the same Lord..." (1st Corinthians 12: 4-5).
I'd love to hear about your story with the Church!
This is a 3-part series, continue reading for the rest of the story:
Finding Home in Exile - Part 1
Finding Home in Exile - Part 2
Finding Home in Exile - Part 3
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