Bright
Light
“Why
blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the
light isn't as bright as it could be.”
Rob Bell
(Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith)
At the lake, I am part of
a group of six women. Two are married to one another, and two have
lived together for a long time. I am a straight woman who loves them
as I did my flesh and blood sisters. They are the pack that helped me
raise my sons after my husband moved out. Two of them gave me a job
when I desperately needed one, and we have remained close for two and
a half decades. Three of them are members of a Southern Baptist
Church that stepped outside the bounds of the denomination's laws and
called a woman to be Senior Pastor. They are far more religious than
I, and I would say that they are “better Christians.” They tutor
disadvantaged children in a public housing project, not now and then,
when it's convenient for them, but every week, and they have for many
years. One of them volunteers in a hospice, and sits weekly in a
Centering Prayer group. And, even so, much of the church, at least in
Alabama, has condemned and rejected them simply because of their
sexual orientation.
Politicians in Alabama
fought tooth-and-nail against the Marriage Equality Act. The Chief
Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who once had a two-ton monument
of the Ten Commandments hauled into the rotunda of the Department of
Justice, was removed from office for telling his Probate Judges to
defy the Supreme Court of the United States by refusing to issue
marriage licenses to same-sex couples. He, and others like him,
describe themselves in all their campaign literature as “God
fearing Christians,” but I have a feeling that their Lord, Jesus,
would stand with the folks whose rights have been denied, just as He
always did.
If Christian Churches are
dying, it is not because of the darkness all around them. It is
because their light has become dim—I don't think Jesus would be
able to see it or recognize it as His own. Our youth, the millennial
generation, have given up even trying to see it, and have forged
their own version of spirituality that burns bright and openhearted.
They embrace the stranger, they do not judge, they do not live for
money, or stand tall in the temples waiting for the praise of others.
They are in the streets protesting injustice in all its forms, even
if they themselves are not the victims of it. They take seriously
stewardship of the earth, and protection of the precious ecosystems
of this planet. I want to belong to their church—its light is
brilliant.
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment