Q & R: Scandalous for focusing on love?
Here’s the Q:
I was a teacher at a large suburban Baptist church until about a year ago. After the class grew to 70 or so people, I requested some help in teaching. The church staffer that stepped in to help had quite a different philosophy and teaching style so in fairly short order I stepped out completely. I have always taught by being provocative and challenging people to think, pray, and love. After all, Christ died to take away our sins, not our minds. Recently, I have been using Facebook in a similar provocative way with the goal of being open and loving, and of being the light to others that Christ calls us to be. Since I have both Christian and non-Christian friends, I hoped this would be a good forum for open dialogue. APPARENTLY I WAS WRONG! Most things that I post, as innocuous as I may feel they are, (Your articles, articles from Sojourners) are now certain to receive criticism and a thinly veiled undertone of “he was a teacher and now he’s a………Heretic!!!” Somehow I have become scandalous for focusing on love. We have stepped back from regular church attendance for this and other reasons, but we love the people at the church we attended. I long to be active in teaching again but I feel I may not be welcome to teach. The church is near us and has great youth programs for our three kids, I don’t want to deprive them of involvement because of my theological angst. Any suggestions?
Here’s the R:
There are a lot of churches that would welcome your gifts and service … my hope is that you’d find one of them, settle in, make some friends, and when you feel at home and ready, offer to help in some appropriate way. It might involve switching denominations – or at least finding a more cooperative and less fractious group in your current denomination.
One other thing: I’d recommend that you lower your expectations of your religious friends.
My friend Richard Rohr says, “An expectation is just a resentment waiting to happen.”
People are people, whatever their religious labels, and as people ourselves (!), we know how frail and fallible people are!