Category: For Religious Congregations

Diversity in the Church

Looking soberly at the actualities, it seems churches in the mainline denominations are not often able to achieve our desired racial, ethnic and class diversity goals.  Birds of a feather. . .  This is lamentable, because we need each other across the human spectrum.

But maybe there is another door we could try by which to effect the wider representation we want in our congregations.  It would proceed by setting an example of diversity.  How?

I would suggest that churches promote the development of a public forum or open platform within the church in which participants would come to articulate their views, their spiritualities, their personal theologies, if you will.  If such opportunities existed, individuals would come to know each other better through the kind of expression that is only possible in a public setting.  And thus the diversity of thought and experience (already) in the congregation would emerge in fuller, more explicit dimensions.

Some meetings already provide for this, such as Bible study, the book group, and the discussion group, except those tend to have a classroom feel and can be dominated by the leader.  Moreover, the purpose being of a didactic nature, dialogue is focused on a very specific object–the text–from which we wish to learn.

Suppose a question posed was more broad and the participation more general, then invite people to stand and express their thoughts.  Not on points of church business or policy, but on a spiritual topic.   And suppose speakers rose not to persuade or to opine but to declaim, as Hannah Arendt put it, in “the specifically human way of answering, talking back, and measuring up to whatever happened or was done.”  To declare without any other ulterior purpose than to make oneself known.

What if we opened the floor for worshipers to reflect publicly about the sermon?  I mean, in the worship service, following the sermon itself, not a sermon talk-back during the coffee hour.  I know a church in which, every Sunday after the sermon, the preacher sits down and remains silent while members of the congregation stand in their places either to comment on the sermon or just to share with others the movement the sermon prompted in the heart of the listener.  The preacher doesn’t respond, other than to make requested clarifications, lest the sermon continue!

Or, in Quaker fashion, let a verse of scripture be read, then hear what people are moved to respond spontaneously.

A question related to the Christian life (“Who is Christ to me?”), or to life in the city (“Why is Roxbury still Roxbury?”), or to personal life (“What is it like to age?”) will also prompt significant responses.

In any case, providing the occasion of public speech is an occasion for self-searching and for making oneself clear.  In the process, an individual reveals his or her individuality and establishes a distinct identity in the eyes of others.  It is in this sense, as Hannah Arendt claims,  that through public speech an individual attains “distinction,” meaning differentiation from one’s peers, not excelling over them but showing who you really and inexchangeably are, not the best.

It is my thought that a public forum establishes an expectation of diversity which might just lay the necessary groundwork for the kinds of diversity (racial and ethnic) that we want to attract.  It develops our appetite for difference and would counteract the appearance to the outside observer of an internal uniformity and perhaps signal that this is a safe place to be different.

What sort of events at your church has opened the congregation to each other?

 

To Welcome the Public.

A Public Church is a welcoming church.

But avoid repeating “welcome” too many times.  Aren’t we overcompensating with our welcomes?  They certainly communicate an anxiety to fill the vacant pews which are plainly evident.  Everybody sees the sign out front which says, “All are welcome.”   Take the words out.  It would be more useful, and accurate, just to say, “English spoken here.”

Accordingly, be the welcome, don’t say it.  Often, first off in the service, the pastor expresses special greetings to the visitors (regardless of whether there may be any that morning).  The welcome refers to categories of people–gay and straight, black and white, married and unmarried–and sadly only brings to mind job postings by equal-opportunity employers.

Then follows a whole inventory of spiritual states–doubt, searching, alienation–which formerly would have barred you from church but now, correctly, are the very conditions welcomed.  Yet, because  no liturgy (except Unitarian and Baha’i) is premised on multiple beliefs, such a welcome, stated in that way, is plain dishonest, unless we abandon our theological assumptions altogether.

Although expressed in good faith and in the spirit of “extravagant hospitality,” as my denomination likes to say, the welcome speech does not remove  serious impediments for the newcomer.

Consider that the entire service is effectively conducted in a foreign language, in “Godspeak.”  We don’t need to apologize for that, obviously, but be aware that the over-use of “God” is an impiety making claims beyond what is biblically warranted.  Moreover, God-language manifests itself in one of many possible dialects–for example, the evangelical or the Lutheran or the Presbyterian dialect.  Liturgical words bear specific meanings to the initiates but feel like inside code to outsiders.  The public church will edit, edit, edit!

Another impediment to the welcome occurs at times when people are called upon to participate–stand, sit, pray, sing, place money in the offering plate.  They will hit newcomers as surprises.  Perhaps a brief “stage direction” that locates the ritual moment in its spiritual context would be educational to the oldtimers as well as welcoming to the visitor.

To be honest, Sunday morning has really been designed and executed for the stakeholders.  Why not accept that and devote our energies to attracting a public by creating, promoting and delivering independent public events (but not at worship time), say, four per year–TRULY public events.  It could be a Hiroshima Memorial Sunday, Earth Day,  MLK Day, or others we might create with another community organization.   We present them as a public service, at the same time that they function as bridges to the sabbath service where visitors eventually arrive and perhaps in their turn become stakeholders.

Let’s just resolve to adjust our rhetoric to the public beyond our pews in a truly public way, and become the public church.

How Public Life Is Unique

“The public life amounts to all action and speech, which are coeval and co-equal: the right words at the right moment.”

Speech is a species of action, according to Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition (1958).  Speech that is public is tantamount to an action.  Speech belongs next to action in that each makes history. And public speech, like action, is indelible–once done, impossible to take back.

“Action and speech show ‘who’ we are in contradistinction to ‘what’ we are.”

The importance of speech lies in its revelatory nature–the word spoken, the word lofted into the assembly, is a marker, identifying its author.  We climb out of the sameness of our biological existence into a life of distinction, like being born again.

“With word and deed we insert ourselves into the human world and this insertion is like a second birth. . . .”

By comparison, all interactions in the private life remain hidden in the relationships that produce them.

“Private experiences (our passions, thoughts, desires) lead a shadowy existence until transformed for public consumption through story and art.”

Speech makes us publicly available; in consequence, speech uniquely builds community.

The public life presents unparalleled opportunity for personal development, alike in religion (potentially) as in all other spheres.  But there is no public life for the religious layperson–he or she may be observant, but for the most part silently.

Is there no way to correct the privations of religious life?  Will we always remain stultified creatures before our God?  What could be changed in our religious community life to provide a public platform?

A Second Life

“Besides private life, we are given a sort of second life–the public life.”

So wrote Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition (1958), informing us of an entire world that we could inhabit, other than the private one we spend most (some people, all) of our time in.  It is omni-present, hidden in plain sight, although seldom accessed by us a we circulate perpetually in our social archipelago.

What is this world of public life?  Arendt says, it amounts to anything [or anyone] that “can be seen and heard by everybody, or at least has the widest possible publicity.”  We are likely to think first of the world of public officials, or media figures (like news commentators), or celebrities.  They do get the widest available publicity, but there are many, many other examples at levels of more limited exposure yet who still function in the authentically public way that Arendt envisions.  Any one of us steps into the public world when we rise to speak at a town meeting, take a seat at a business meeting, or attend a class.  It doesn’t occur to us often, but the sanctuary where a worship service takes place is also an example of a public setting.  We will come back to this last point.

Besides public figures, we also think of the public places where people congregate.  A public park, a public library, a restaurant or bar, the city sidewalk are “public” because anyone and everyone, the general public, can access them.  But for the most part, these are public places where we conduct private business (walking, reading, eating and socializing).  It is not until a word is addressed to all present and intentionally spoken to them that a public place becomes part of the public world. However, such public spaces demand a public manner or demeanor that bind us private individuals, anonymously, into a public creation.

The public world Arendt speaks of is perhaps best thought of as a “public moment” when people in a certain setting engage each other directly.  An apt example is Speakers Corner in London’s Hyde Park.  A huge area, freely utilized by individuals who otherwise have nothing to do with each other, suddenly arranges itself on a Sunday afternoon into a public moment, summoned by a speaker with a topic (or an axe to grind).  In such moments, we cease to be anonymous individuals.

Whenever we step into such a moment, our public life resumes, after which we retreat into the amenities of private life.

We come together on Sundays to be alone with God.   We come to church, typically, as Americans raised in generally pietistic channels, for private communion with God.   Church life needs its complement of the public life.  As practiced, worship doesn’t presently qualify as public, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary (“All Are Welcome” on every front lawn).  Neither does the coffee hour nor many other church activities, with the exception of the council and committee meetings.

What would make worship a public event?  That is, an event to which a stranger to the proceedings would feel inclined to participate?  Or is Christian worship intrinsically the occult proceeding of a secret society?  A rally of the institution’s stakeholders?

Might we explore the number of different voices heard in the hour and to whom they belong, as an index of how public an event it is?

 

 

 

“A cultivated ignorance of all things public.”

Forgetting the unforgettable–an American trait.  So wrote James Baldwin in 1967 about Americans’ habit of forgetting what is unforgettable–racial history.  What we cannot bear to look at, we do not look at.  If we don’t see it, it didn’t happen.  Like, the lynchings.  The red lining.  Inner city schools.  Mass incarceration.  Any reference in public to these historical events prompts panic, denial, amnesia, discounting.  In private, it’s expletives.  It seems that we just can’t have this talk.

Could a good movie start some serious conversation?   Any one of at least a dozen movies on race in the last five years could do the job.  Collectively, they absolutely should do the job.

A Niagara of films by and about African-Americans has cascaded forth: 12 Years a Slave, Selma, The Birth of a Nation, 13th, I Am Not Your Negro, Fences, Hidden Figures.  Now Mudbound.  These are  not all “slave movies” whose violence people (understandably) have to avoid.  But the emotional violence is (understandably) unavoidable, and we just have to face it.

Simultaneously in the print media, Ta-Nahisi Coates addressed us from The Atlantic, and we have heard from Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow), and Bryan Stephenson (Just Mercy), Michael Eric Dyson (Tears We Cannot Stop).  Add to that the contribution of one white scholar, Jennifer Harvey (Dear White Christians).  This year a revised and updated edition of Beverly Daniel’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? appeared, with a new 79 page introduction.

An astonishing outpouring of heart to the country!

Can’t we connect with it??

Let’s at least connect with each other, shall we?  Tell me if you have seen these movies, or read these books, and what they mean to you.

I’m going to do the same at my church, and I’ll get back to you with the results soon.  Maybe I can start a study group dedicated to discussing these titles.

 

Missing the Public Mark

“Churches die that don’t ask “Why.”

Yes?  No.

The importance of asking the “Why” question was one of the premises of a denominational workshop I attended recently.   Meaning, for congregations to survive and thrive, they need to ask what their most fundamental reason for being was.  A reasonable assertion with which I agree, but I believe that it is out of proper sequence.

That question has already been answered for the mainline Protestant churches, in our history, in our creeds, in the lives of our saints (Luther, Calvin, Knox, Bradford, Anne Hutchinson, Mother Ann Lee, John Woolman, Roger Williams, Jonathan Edwards, Martin Luther King, Jr.).  Their answer: we live for Christ.

So we really do not need to ask the “Why” question at this juncture, other than to be reminded of the established answer.  Long overdue for consideration is another, equally fundamental question: are the churches private or public institutions?

My answer: we behave like private institutions, but we really should be thinking of ourselves as public institutions.  For lack of asking and answering that question, congregations of the mainline have been slipping off the religious maps for fifty years, even though we may have always had the answer to the “Why” question.

But who has ever posed that question to them?  Has any church ever encountered such a question?  Likely not.  The operating assumptions of American Protestant churches grow out of a pietistic history focused on our individual salvations.  “Forgive us our sins.”  The communion table is an exculpation event to wipe out, blot out (in the Biblical phrase), our sins.  As prayed, congregants usually mean My sins.  That transaction in the sky between God and Christ takes place for our private benefit.  Such is the nature of Protestant piety as our congregations celebrate God’s gift to the people, for the people, of the people.

Do our congregations ever think of ourselves against the backdrop of the cultures around us–political, artistic, natural–other than to oppose them?  When we receive communion, or when we approach the communion rail, do we come as a citizen of the body politic?  And does a congregation ever conceive of itself as a citizen in the aggregate?

Might the sins we confess before receiving Holy Communion be different ones under that perspective?

Your story, and the big story.

Your life is a story trying to be told.  You are trying to tell it.

Every day you come home and tell the day’s story to a mate or a friend.  On your way home, on the bus or subway, or stopping at a neighborhood bar, you will hear others telling their story, too.  Day after day, many life stories are being told, piece meal.

At night, you dream the day into another kind of story, some of the pieces mixed up randomly with others, always so crazy.

But your life just has to make its way into a story.  What’s inside you has to get outside, for some reason, as a story.

So it is that we have so many invitations to put the pieces together in a more complete way–classes on journaling, on writing a novel, on writing a memoir.  We are invited to an evening at MOTH.  We are invited to try our hand at conveying our story in a Six-Word Memoir.

Even if we do not ever intend to write, we still think of our story every day in its as yet unfinished completion, the history of me.

Whenever we go to a movie, a play, or attend worship, we get to put our story next to a bigger story, the story of a super heroine, a man-god, some paragon whose light throws our story into meaningful perspective.  And we are moved and understand ourselves anew.

We have to go to public space for such experience.  Public space exists to put ourselves in a larger perspective.  Do you create such public space for your charges?

Sorrowful Sunday, August 13

On Sunday, August 13, 2017, churches welcomed to Sabbath services sorrowful congregations looking for any wailing wall upon which to grieve the Charlottesville cataclysm. Another moral implosion in America’s pock-marked landscape!  While we wait for national leadership, in the meantime we look to our local religious leaders.  Fortunately, there are sanctuaries nearby to be found on the morning after the night before, somewhere to go for solace, insight and healing.  Bless those who lead our prayers and preach the sermons on such a difficult morning.

If we weren’t public churches before, we will become such now with the public issues pouring in through our doors this last year.  We are being asked to speak out.  Will we do more than host a vigil?  Do we know how to address a public event explicitly?  Or have decades of nervousness about keeping politics out of the church interfere?  Can we learn how to distinguish between partisan politics and the great politics of citizenship?  Can churches seize the role of “citizen in the aggregate” and become leaders in our communities?  Will we cultivate the vocabulary that properly belongs to the moral, not partisan, critique of our national behavior?  How can we become proactive rather than reactive and find ways for us to raise the local public’s consciousness?  And how can laypeople participate actively in this new habit of mind?

The public arena awaits our arrival.

How “Public” are your premises?

Look around the whole place.  What meets the visitors’ eyes?  Will they feel invited into our ministry in the larger world?

The pictures on the wall, for instance.  At my home church,  13 of the 17 framed photos hanging in the vestibule and the hallways and the fellowship room are of the building or sanctuary at one point or other in our history.  The message here could be, not that we worship in this space, but that we worship the space!

The dominant picture in our fellowship hall is an oversize version of Warner Sallman’s well-coiffed and placid Head of Christ (1940), a living-room-style portrait loved by many a white congregation of yesteryear. Because so many grew up with this now out-dated image, its popularity forbids replacement by something more representative of Jesus as we have come to know him, “as if for the first time,” in the gospels.

What else meets the eye of the visitor? Ah, the bulletin board.  Often overcrowded with dog-eared notices, maybe you have someone who keeps close watch over it and keeps it tidy and up to date, so that our work in the world beckons to others.

And signage?  I see that we are doing much better these days on posting clear identifiers of space and directions to other spaces.  Nothing worse for a visitor than to be lost in a strange place, unless it’s also to get the impression that anyway the members here are familiar with their private club.

Look around with the eyes of a non-member, and see what message you get.

GO PUBLIC!

“What is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops.”

So instructs Jesus to his disciples.  So are we to take insights granted to us by God and make them heard abroad.  We are exhorted to transfer our private epiphanies to a public arena.  How do we do this?

That is where “Go Public!” comes in.  Learn here how to take that small step and leap into the air.

Depending on where you belong, follow the link from “Congregations” or from “Colleges and Universities.”  See there strategies to get you out of the sanctuary or the office onto the platform.  For,

“all  the  world  is  a  [religious]  stage.”