Judgement or salvation
I slithered away from my normal routine on Sunday morning and decided to worship in a big evangelical church that is getting bigger by the minute.
The congregation has just opened a new worship facility that holds about 1,600 people and in the first three weeks, they've had standing-room-only at three services. So, they will add another 500 chairs or so and when that part of the building fills up they'll probably figure out how to use more of their building space for worship.
The church is called Woodland Hills and it's on the East Side of St. Paul in a middle class neighborhood. It's located in a part of St. Paul where the congregation could make a solid connection to the people who live around the church. By the way, the church building is a beautifully renovated former discount department store that closed about five years ago. It's a huge facility with half the building dedicated to worship and half for programming and offices.
One of the draws is a marvelous band that drives about a half-hour of worship music and warms the congregation for the big, big show. That would be, Greg Boyd, a Ph.D. in theology, an author of five or six respected books, and a husband and father.
Boyd is a wonderful theologian and teaches classes at Bethel Theological Seminary in New Brighton. He is also a clear communicator and a guy with a truckload of energy. He was an ultra-marathoner, running beyond the traditional marathon distance. So, in Greg Boyd, we've got a high achiever, a good writer, a clear thinker, and a hard worker -- most of the stuff that we wish for in our clergy.
But he has another dimension -- honesty. He talks about himself: early experimentation with drugs, physical abuse as a child, a wild drive to excel, his foray into Pentecostalism and encounters with Jesus Christ. He is a totally transparent human while still being a respected pastor and scholar. Why does this intrigue me?
He fascinates me, because for so many years mainline church clergy have done their best to keep all of their past encounters with life a secret. Clergy have made secrecy an art form. People look at them in the pulpit and think that man or that woman must be perfect. There is never any talk of falling in love with the wrong person, no confessions of stealing or lying or coveting. This pulpit person, we think, must have the perfect record, a slate that is slick and clean for God. Here, in this pulpit, we have the model Christian.
Yet, I know so many of my best friends are just the opposite kind of person. They are people who harbor anger, who wonder about past loves, who covet houses, cars, travel, who sometimes swear against God, who say hurtful things and who have not always honored their elders.
I remember a young fellow who came to me one day and told me a story. When he was a college student, there came a sunny, spring day after a long winter. He and a car full of other male students went for a crazy ride -- laughing, singing and not paying much attention to the road. He was driving and at an intersection his car struck and killed an older man. The young fellow had been thinking about going into the ministry. But he feared this incident ruined his chances of ever being accepted by a congregation. I told him if that was the case, we might just as well shut down the entire Christian enterprise. Because faith rests on forgiveness, total complete forgiveness. That's where it all starts.
I also told him the only way to escape from that terrible incident was to be brutally honest about it for the rest of his life. Just tell people what happened and they will accept you. Try to keep it a secret and you will be tortured for the rest of your life.
I have had conversations with clergy who tried to keep these things a secret and it ruined them. But when the record of sin became known, then forgiveness was possible.
I've heard it all, confessions of broken brothers and sisters who don't know where to begin the long search for forgiveness. Certainly we can run away from our past but we will always be running. And eventually, it catches us unaware and beaten. I wonder what it would be like if clergy bowed their heads at the beginning of a sermon and simply made a tiny confession. What if they just leaned on their elbows and said, "This is really the kind of person who stands in your pulpit every Sunday." Then it would be up to the people, to reject or accept, to forgive or condemn.
And that would become the test of the faith. What do we have in this religion, judgment or salvation?
Clark D. Morphew
3-17-01
