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Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Who You Callin' Church?
Before I knew it, I'd stirred up a nice little debate.
Blame my friend Dennis. He's the one who got me into his local writers' group. They meet monthly face-to-face. In between, they're in touch online as often as they wish.
My e-letter of introduction quickly drew a few friendly replies. 'Most everyone had even visited my blog. Next thing I knew we were conversing about spiritual things. A pleasant surprise, since it's a secular organization.
By day two a dissenter piped up. He drew a bold line of distinction between faith and reason, declaring that appeals to supernatural causes for mysterious phenomena really "explain" nothing.
Readers know that I advocate a faith that works in the real world, that "planting your feet firmly in mid-air" is spiritually useless. So this man and I might seem like natural allies. Maybe as we get acquainted that's where we'll end up. For now, he's fired a skeptical shot across my pastoral bow, and I'm on my toes to see what's coming next.
Meanwhile, several other members have logged on with observations and testimonies about what they believe or don't.
Some write poetically. Some others sound a bit professorial. Each clearly trusts the rest to listen carefully and answer honestly. For all the seriousness, there's a lot of good humor in the air.
The whole endeavor reminds me of the church on its better days. Consider...
Christians come together from many different backgrounds, with different complexions and accents, to meet at one common point of identity. We've all learned to trust God's promises embodied in Jesus Christ. We're the family of faith, a fellowship of the forgiven.
God loves us, pure and simple. We can't do a blessed thing to change God's mind.
God knows us through and through, just the way we are. God accepts us 100% right there. God leads us towards becoming everything we're meant to be.
And, all along the way, God uses us to remind each other that that's the gospel truth.
Can we trust it enough to let it govern our lives? And trust each other enough to open up our lives a little more? Like the AlamedaWriters seem to do?
I think I'm going to like this secular church I've joined. Maybe that dividing line was only dotted after all?
posted by Jack Buckley at
10:12 AM
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