Here are a few glimpses of grace at work in faith communities.
Taking time for family
My pastor announced she and her family will be taking a 10-day vacation. I celebrate her decision to focus time on family. Too often, the pastor’s family takes a backseat during the Christmas holidays, and then the new year starts with a vengeance. Before long it’s Lent and Easter, and family is neglected once more.
Clergy can’t very well bail on Christmas, but they can put their families first in the days afterward.
Caring for the least of these
Many congregations distribute food and presents to the needy at Christmas time. Their seasonal generosity is hard to fault, though the tone of noblesse oblige can be cloying. But this year a Presbyterian congregation in Northern Virginia took caring for the “least of these” to a fresh and promising level.
They decided to sell their historic facility to a cooperative that is building affordable housing in an increasingly unaffordable area. The usual voices fought the move bitterly. But most congregants, after actually talking with their homeless and housing-challenged neighbors, decided to do the right thing.
Finding their political voice
Faith communities, especially in mainline traditions, tend to be diverse. They include people of all socioeconomic circumstances, all political persuasions, all cultural preferences, and all lifestyles. Church leaders who want to serve their larger communities have some difficult paths to walk.
It’s easier for right-wing churches, where homogeneity is highly valued and heterogeneity is seen as unhelpful. They can speak with one political voice, whereas mainline leaders need to consider their diversity. This has prevented progressive Christianity from having much of a voice in the political conflicts of recent years. Faith politics focus on charitable and advocacy efforts to help “them,” such as white progressives helping blacks living across town, but have rarely been about “us,” such as our bankers behaving like predators, our professionals enjoying extreme wealth, our parents demanding better schools for their own children. The exception has been advocacy for our constituents wanting professional breakthroughs.
The needs remain defiantly the same: the haves declaring war on the have-nots, whites fighting to retain privileged status in a diversifying society, and people wanting not only to live with their own kind, but to worship with their own kind.
I see signs that more and more church leaders are risking lost pledges by proclaiming the Gospel to constituents who have historically not wanted to hear it. The growing movement to hold wealth and power accountable for its behavior now finds echoes within the faith community. Not punitive, not harshly judgmental, and yet unmistakable in their message that bigger barns aren’t God’s way.
A stronger progressive voice is emerging. It is starting to push back against the determined and thus far successful efforts of right-wing Christians to claim the “Christian franchise.” Our nation needs a full array of voices speaking what they perceive to be God’s truth.
Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the publisher of Fresh Day online magazine, author of On a Journey and two national newspaper columns. His website is Church Wellness – Morning Walk Media
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.