What do you do when you respond with a comment that is longer than most of the posts you write? I’m opting to post it here. With a link to the original comment, so you know what I’m on about.
Celebrim,
I’m not sure where to start. Exactly what “stream of invectives and rage” are you talking about? Apart from Rev. Wright I’m not sure of any UCC Pastor whose words could be even willfully misconstrued in that way. I think there is a knee jerk reaction that has developed among conservatives where they read personal, judgmental language into everything the religious left says. I suspect, frankly, that this is due to guilt on the right. Your leadership stopped loving their neighbors and worshiping God a long time ago — opting instead to snuggle up to the powerful, preach a gospel of greed (the Prosperity Gospel), and as had been said, substitute a weird sort of sexual prurience for for a fully developed morality (an obsession with homosexuality and abortion to the exclusion of virtually any other moral stance).
As the religious right reaps what it has sewn in the form of a younger generation which is abandoning conservative churches in droves, finding the theology there “intolerant,” myopic and unsatisfying, their voices have become shrill with denial. They search desperately these days for evidence that their theology is not as warped and distorted as it is. Prophets are never loved in their own countries for a simple reason, no one likes to be told that what they are doing is wrong. Far from forgetting about going and sinning no more UCC congregations have clearly stated that war is sinful, that hatred of gays is sinful, that preaching politics from the pulpit is sinful (Wright didn’t get that message, but then Rev. Wright speaks only for himself in the UCC), that greed is sinful, that ignoring the destruction of God’s creation is sinful, that judging others is sinful, and excluding women from the ministry is sinful. And yes, we have solid Biblical grounding for every one of those positions. And yes, Celebrim, to the extent that you are doing any of those things you are living in sin, as am I, as are we all. God still loves us, and you and I are still going to heaven — Christ’s sacrifice redeemed us all, nothing more is required — but if we loved God we wouldn’t sin, or want to sin, so much.
The religious right’s reaction to the left is born of unconscious guilt. Deep in your heart you believe, correctly, that Jesus came to save us, not to tell us he loved us and then condemn almost everyone to an eternity of hell and torture. People who torture small weaker beings are serial killers, not God. God said the two great commandments were to love God above all else, and your neighbor as yourself. Not to obey absolutely, not submit unquestioningly to God’s power, but to love.
Because I love you (or am trying in my own imperfect way to) I will tell you this: Deep in your heart I suspect that you know the deep truth of love. You probably learned it from the Bible, but years of listening to the craziness of the religious right has confused you. Fortunately for you nothing on Earth can separate you from God’s love, but it would be a nice way to repay God for the gift of life if you woke up and stopped sinning.
To your questions. Is the UCC less political than the religious right? Of course. Tell me, when was the last time you saw a UCC Pastor do this? Wright is shrill and obnoxious of late. Wright certainly doesn’t speak for the church– UCC ecclesiology ensures that only the membership can do that. Obama did the right thing by disowning him. Will McCain someday disavow his problematic Pastors. He did actively seek the support of a man who said hurricane Katrinia was God’s response to an upcoming gay parade. Do you think that’s true?
Is the UCC more tolerant than Pat Robertson and other leaders on the religious right? Of course. Currently we are far more tolerant to gays and lesbians, not to mention women. Heck, we welcome them and everyone else into the pews, just as Jesus offered hope to all. Historically, and arguably presently, our theology has not condemned the poor, transsexuals, minorities, atheists or anyone.
Your arguments, Celebrim, are passionate, but like many made by right wing Christians, they are not factual. They’re more of an impassioned expression of how you hope things are or think they should be than a factual account of what is real.
Having said all that to a question implied by you: has the UCC lost its way theologically? Absolutely. Many churches on the left (UCC, UU, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and others) got embarrassed by their theology a while back. Not wanting to be associated with Christianity as the much louder and more active conservative churches (then represented by the SBC), they turned their attention away from the Bible and focused on doing good in the world. What we forgot, in the case of the UCC, is that our theology is deeply grounded in Calvin, Paul, Jesus, and the Bible. The left stopped talking about God and owning up to their own theology. While they stayed silent the right carved Jesus up like a pumpkin, filled his remains with money, power and Republican ballots, then paraded his corpse around while claiming that Jesus was their guy, much more their guy than the guy of, say, the UCC. “They worship ideas,” it was (and is) said of the left), “We worship a person.”
But Jesus wasn’t just a person, he was the son of God, and his teachings should not be discarded or ignored.
