On Denominations

There was a somewhat lengthy post on denominations, and why they matter to me, but it seems to have vanished into the space between backpacks, pockets, desk, and floor. That doesn't happen often these days, so I can't complain when it happens to a blog post inked in rough, since it used to be important term papers that would go missing. But here, let's see what I remember...

In a recent email exchange, someone mentioned that they'd never seen the point in different denominations - what was the difference, after all, between one large church on a street, and two small ones? I explained in brief what I meant, before the topic moved elsewhere, but it is something I think about, so I figure it's about time I talk here. As with most theological subjects, the subject of denominational splits has been addressed at length elsewhere by wiser and Godlier folk than I, but as with most subjects, that's hardly going to stop me putting my oar in.

Regardless of whether our church is doing Morning Prayer or Eucharist in service, the creed we recite after the Thanksgivings closes with some affirmation of "one holy catholic Church." Curious, in the first or second week after I started attending service, I looked up the word "catholic," to find out what it meant outside of the Roman Catholic church (or maybe I asked our rector; I don't recall). Basically, it means the entire communion of Christians - we are one people. Sort of. It's complicated.

But that brings up the question, of course, in the afore-mentioned email. If we are all one church, why go to separate buildings to worship? Why allow the divisions? Why remain a people divided - are we not all God's children?

So, let me go through my own background here. I was raised in a Baptist church - and I mean the conservative, Southern-in-the-North, Jesus-drank-grape-juice, my-wife's-hair-is-longer-than-your-wife's, kind of church, where "ah-men" versus "ey-men" is a serious theological concern. The kind of Baptist that all but deifies the Mennonites. I joke that my parents thought the problem with the Puritans were that they just weren't uptight enough - but I'm only half joking. So there's one denomination - the Baptists. They run the spectrum, of course - my best beloved attended a far saner Baptist church, but "...*head shake*, Baptists." is still a joke between us.

Later on in life, after a messy, painful set of traumas, my family wound up at a Pentecostal church. Still fairly conservative, but also quite entrenched in the Charismatic style of worship. After being told all my life that "speaking in tongues" was of the devil, a misunderstood reading of the Pentecost and certainly not something Christians should stand for, it was... unsettling, to suddenly be yanked into that tradition, and told that no, this is what we believe now, this is right, this is godly, this is a Gift that should be celebrated. That, and despite being fairly conservative (especially for the Northeast), the people were still far, far left of my parents' former stances. Women sometimes wore pants! And everyone was okay with this! Modern slang was frequent, and they used a modern translation, which absolutely confused the hell out of me (no pun intended).

It was not the safe, secure, home that I was used to. In hindsight, it was probably necessary for my spiritual development to be pulled out of the womb-like environment of my first childhood home, but at the time, it was extraordinarily upsetting. But here, I'm getting off-track - let me fast-forward, through the years I spent researching syncretistic Christianity, and Shamanism, and the discovery of walking as meditation, as prayer, and the rediscovery of being honest with God in prayer, painful and angry and disillusioned at night by the running stream, past the single time I tried to return to the Church by way of the Congregationalists, was quickly fed up with the watered-down, suburban-normalcy-morals, lack of theology, or the time, many years later, that I tried to return to the Baptists, and nearly broke down in the face of the hostile, defensive, angry theology that very carefully excluded all me and mine from their Holy Community.

Last summer, I dallied on the doorstep of an Episcopal church - not a grand cathedral, but a little wooden building, one large window, opaque, on the eastern side, by the side door (frequently mistaken for, and used more often than, the front door). I could hear an organ start, inside, and I took a hesitant step, and stopped, remembering the pain of rejection, the anger at God and man, feeling more turmoil than I could remember in years. Organ music? This place is fancy - and I'm late. I should probably - should I go around to the other door? A woman got out of her car, behind me, and took a moment to pull her cane out. She greeted me cheerfully, saying she was often late to services, and I walked down the path with her and held the door. She whispered me through the liturgy, which confused, terrified, and exhilarated me. I walked up with her to the altar for Communion, not sure what to do, and crossed my arms, terrified of opening myself to that sacrament.

The homily, though, is what I remember. I have been through the Prayers of the People, sung the Doxology, grinned joyfully through the Birthday Prayer, and called in unison, "And also with you!" enough that I do not remember stumbling through them, though stumble I surely did, that first day. What I remember is sitting up, paying attention, as our rector talked about evils, modern evils, and paused, at one point, to say, "The evils of today are different than the evils they had back then." (I'm not going to remember his exact words.) I nearly wept, feeling my shoulders slump in preparation for the inevitable condemnation: Women who speak out, abortions, homosexuality, transgender people, boys who defile their souls, and girls who defile their bodies. I'd heard it so, so many times. Why did I bother coming here, to open my heart to this hurt one more time?

And then he continued, "Homelessness. Drug addiction. Poverty. The ever-widening gap between the very rich, and the poor..." and my heart about stopped.

Fast-forward through the next week, wherein I faced one of the worst suicidal episodes of my life and found myself nearly broken in two in his office, carrying a burden of pain and guilt and shame and hurt and fear, and being told, for the first time in my life, that guilt was no reason to keep living, that I should not carry on because death would be a waste of the gifts of God (though it would), but that I should choose life because to go on living, to serve the Lord with the gifts I have been given, would be a delight. To be told that he had stood where I was standing, young and queer and full of pain and fear, and survived; that I could choose light.

I'm getting off-topic again. This is not a story about why I am Episcopalian - but it is. Because in the theological book study this priest organized this past winter, there is a woman who attends who is a Unitarian Universalist minister, a staunch atheist. She has very, very good reasons for having left the church. Because there is a girl who attended one service, the friend (or girlfriend, I think) of our cantor and organist, who could barely make it through the liturgy, because she had been so badly hurt by the Episcopal church in the past. Because there is a group of Methodist folks on campus here who meet weekly, and sing modern contemporary songs of praise, and sit in a circle and share worship, and although they are all very lovely, very loving, very kind and wonderful people, my heart panics in that setting with the buried pain of old services like that.

Marcus Borg writes about "thin places," the places where the line that separates us from the Divine is thinner, somehow. For me, the liturgies of the Episcopal church are such places. The Sacrament of Eucharist is - as it should be, I imagine - a thin place. My heart sings, for the antiphon and the communion hymn and the Prayers of the People. But there are people for whom all that is empty ritual, rote, dry, repetitive nonsense. There are people for whom a call-and-response service, a charismatic church, speaking in tongues, are all ways to God, and organ music puts them to sleep. There are people who cannot bear to be in the walls of a church - any church - who meditate in temples and on mountains. And they can worship down the street from the Episcopal church, and I will meet them in the street and call them brethren, and I do believe that we are part of this one holy catholic Church, regardless of how we worship...

...but that doesn't make those differences any less important for those of us who follow them.