They offered a service of lament tonight, and while most of it was fine, part held an implicit message that our systems were oppressive and that not listening to our brothers and sisters in pain was sinful. The details were obscure. (What was omitted was curious too--I thought our church had pretty firm convictions about abortion.)
I tried to pray for the things left out.
When there's a problem and the noisy folk misdiagnose (including lying) and demand that if you're not part of their solution you're part of the problem, I'm strongly inclined to wash my hands of the whole business and go elsewhere. And yet the problem is still there, and if I walk away I answer to God. Perhaps I give up too readily. Not that there's anything I know how to do or would be allowed to do, but my heart is more horrified by their lies than hurt by their pain.
UPDATE: The service was a first try at such a thing, and the lead pastor says they tried to cover far too much--and that some things were squeezed out and others forgotten in the press of time. Followups are promised to be more focussed.
We are in a denomination in which the clergy tends to that theology, the laity less so but perhaps increasing. The denominational college, which is right next to headquarters in Chicago, is solidly liberal. As it was originally a Swedish denomination, this is not entirely new.
ReplyDeleteIt is not only the leaving things out, though as you note, that is a truncation of the gospel. But it is also the growing reliance on people's feelings that they are oppressed or that oppression is happening to others, when the evidence is nowhere near what they think it is, and is conveniently unmeasured, so that we can't tell if we are making progress. The morality of feelings is very dangerous.
"[W]e can't tell if we are making progress."
ReplyDeleteAnd they don't have to bother with moving the goalposts if they can simply flood the field with pea soup fog.