Tipping Point: “The point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.”
Friends, I believe we are at a tipping point and that God is up to something new. Status Quo Christians, we hear you. How could we not? You have been the loudest voice for a very long time. Your voice dominates the airwaves. Your views are considered by many to be the cultural norm. We have let you dominate the Church. We love you and we understand that you are created in God’s image and you are involved in mission and ministry and you are speaking out of your deeply held convictions. You strongly believe that the Bible says it, and that settles is when it comes to all sorts of issues. Your voice (of it’s time) has justified slavery, you’ve interwoven nationalism into Christianity and you’ve tried to keep women and people of color out of leadership in the Church. Enough is enough. I am reminded of Bishop Leonard Fairley and one of his stories about his Grandma Gladys who said that when people have gotten their bellies full, it will be time for them to work towards a change. I think that many of us have our bellies full. We are tired of sitting back quietly and passively and allowing your voice to be the primary one heard in our churches and communities and beyond. Your interpretation of the Bible is not the only faithful one. People who disagree with you are not ignoring what the Bible says; in fact we take the Word of God just as seriously as you do. We are willing to approach it with humility; understanding that there is a lot of mystery contained in it, and we recognize that it is a living Word and we must approach the study of it with reverence. We look at it using a Historical Critical perspective. We also view all of scripture through the eyes of Jesus who says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about homosexuality, but he had a lot to say about loving our neighbors. As Rev. Jeremy Troxler shared in his excellent and thought provoking post “A Million Reasons” he said that:
“…after years of deep study of the Scriptures related to homosexuality, and after reading sustained theological engagements with these questions by writers from all over the map (such as Richard Hays, Robert Gagnon, Wesley Smith, Justin Lee, Adam Hamilton, and Matthew Vines), I have come to believe that the Scriptural case against same gender marriage is far weaker than many believe. I have learned that out of over 31,000 verses in the Bible, only about as many as 20 or so explicitly mention homosexuality. That’s not even 1%, it’s 0.04%. I believe that the story of Sodom in Genesis is a story about prison-style gang-rape as a show of dominance, and not a story about sexual orientation or sinful desire: unless a person believes that every male in the city of Sodom was gay. I am persuaded by Matthew Vines’ argument in God and the Gay Christian that when Paul writes against Gentile gay and lesbian promiscuity in Romans 1, he is primarily referring to those who seek to gratify their sexual desires in more and more extreme ways, or about exploitive or abusive same-gender sexual relationships, rather to two loving individuals who desire to enter into a life-long committed covenant. I have also wondered about how I Corinthians 7 might apply to these issues, when Paul tells Christians that the best way to tame and discipline their sexual desires is to marry. He writes, “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.”
I believe we are in the midst of what the late Phyllis Tickle called The Great Emergence, “a time of dizzying upheaval and hopeful promise during which various sectors of today’s church swirl into a great confluence at the center”. This Great Emergence is a time of transition in our society, including the church. She claims that about every 500 years, the Church cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale where we clean out the old forms of spirituality and replace it with new ones that include returning to the practices of the early church. She reminds us of Constantine in the late 4th century, early 5th, the Great Schism of the 11th century, the Reformation in the 16th century, and now the Postmodern area that we are currently in. The church as we know it is changing, and a new form of Christianity is emerging. If the church is going to continue to exist, I believe that some of the following things need to happen:
1. We need to repent of the hurt that we have caused one another.
2-We need to recognize a long list of isms that have run rampant in the church. As Pamela Lightsey said in her blog , “Let us get at our own continued challenges with white supremacy, white fragility, classism, ableism, sexism, ageism, xenophobia, and transphobia. These are real problems in our movement.”
Some practical ways that we can do this are to participate in activities to help us understand our implicit biases, to increase our cultural competency and to work towards a goal of cultural humility. We need to intentionally develop relationships with people with different cultural identities and backgrounds and help one another along in this journey towards better understanding one another.
3. We need to engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation, generosity, fasting, fellowship, journaling, lectio divina, simplicity, solitude, regular worship with the Eucharist and more.
4. We need to engage in Spiritual Direction where we place ourselves in a posture of listening to God and in trying to discern how God is calling us to respond with a spiritual companion who can help us.
This list is not exhaustive, but it’s a start. If you don’t know where to begin, I will be glad to point you towards resources that can help.
Let us remember the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
Peace y’all,
