The Rev. John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, had some difficult but truthful words this weekend for those seeking to undermine the congregations that make up the UCC in light of our General Synod’s decision to support gay marriage. United Church News reports:
“Groups like the Evangelical Association of Reformed, Christian and Congregational Churches and the Biblical Witness Fellowship are increasingly being exposed even as they are increasingly aggressive,” Thomas said. “Their relationship to the right-wing Institute for Religion and Democracy and its long-term agenda of silencing a progressive religious voice while enlisting the church in an unholy alliance with right-wing politics is now longer deniable. … United Church of Christ folk like to be ‘nice,’ to be hospitable. But, to play with a verse of scripture just a bit, we doves innocently entertain these serpents in our midst at our own peril.”
Take a look at the Evangelical Association of Reformed, Christian and Congregational Churches and note their all nearly all white and all male leadership and remember the praise recently given to IRD by the Klu Klux Klan.
Thomas made the comments after reporting that donations to the national denomination are down in 2005 and that “estimated 15 to 20 churches have voted to sever ties with the denomination, even though he indicated that several non-UCC churches have made overtures about joining.”
The groups named by Thomas have worked actively to sow division in UCC congregations and in other national mainline churches. IRD, for example, is funded by extremists such as Richard Mellon Scaife and staffed by Republican Party activists and has a stated goal of “reforming” all mainline churches. Biblical Witness Fellowship is a group affiliated with IRD. Their aim is to silence the prophetic voice of mainline churches on issues such as war and peace and economic justice for the least of these. These groups confuse partisan political activity in support of the Republican Party with living out the Gospel message.
There is clearly wide spread support in the UCC for the social justice work undertaken by the denomination since it was first established. That does not mean there isn’t also division. Our congregations are not forced to tow a party line like Southern Baptist churches are and that means we have great diversity of theologies at work in our churches. That is a source of strength for us. Biblical Witness Fellowship and IRD – along with groups like the Evangelical Association of Reformed, Christian and Congregational Churches – want the UCC to be more like the Southern Baptists and that will not happen.
But Thomas saw something more at work in the difficulties we face as a denomination than just attacks from outside political groups:
Challenging the “older brother in our midst,” the Rev. John H. Thomas told the 80-member UCC Executive Council on Oct. 14 that, during the three months since the General Synod voted overwhelmingly to affirm a same-gender marriage equality resolution, he has seen ample evidence of “the older brother who resents the celebration of his brother’s restoration to home.”
“There is in each of our souls, and in the soul of the United Church of Christ, an older brother who undermines our faithfulness as surely as the storm surge overwhelmed New Orleans’ levees,” said Thomas, the UCC’s general minister and president since 1999.
“It is the older brother who long ago dismissed the prodigal brother, who never stands eagerly waiting with his father, eyeing with hope the far horizon,” he said. “It is the older brother who would never dream of going in search of that brother for fear of being tainted by the impurities of that alien and ambiguous far off place…..”
“We know there are those in our church who struggle out of their own sense of biblical integrity over the church’s welcome and affirmation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,” he said. “But when I receive emails and letters from UCC members railing against such a welcome, angry that God’s gracious love is lavished on the unworthy, bitter that the church’s attention is being directed to the lost rather than to those who have faithfully tended the farm, then I sense the voice of the older brother in our midst.”
These are challenging times for all churches. As I have mentioned before, Marcus Borg has written that this conflict in interpretation is “the single greatest issue facing Christians today.”
The conflict about the Bible is most publicly visible in discussion of three issues.
First, in some Christian circles, ‘creation versus evolution’ is the primary litmus test of loyalty to the Bible.
The second issue is homosexuality: May practicing gays and lesbians be full members of the church? May the unions of gays and lesbian couples be blessed? May gays and lesbians be ordained? This debate is often cast in the form of accepting or rejecting biblical authority.
A third lightning rod for the conflict is contemporary historical Jesus scholarship. For the least decade, the quest for the historical Jesus has attracted widespread media attention and public interest, especially among mainline Christians. But it has generated a strong negative reaction among fundamentalist and conservative-evangelical Christians. From their point of view, questioning the historical factuality of the gospels strikes at the very founds of Christianity.
To be true to our faith progressive Christians have to be willing to navigate the stormy waters ahead and hold true to our faith in a just and loving God. It won’t be easy work. But that is part of the call of this generation of Christians.
