The Death Throes of Fundamentalism in a Thinking Church

06/17/2011

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Amendment 10 A, Bob Burney, Death of PCUSA, PC(USA), homosexuality, biblical authority, church, death
“It's been a long, slow, painful death.” So, begins a widely distributed article by Bob Burney. In it, he predicts/acknowledges the death of a denomination, specifically the PCUSA. Why is it dead? Well, clearly you've not be following the religious news. It is dead because it loves homosexuals. Admittedly, even though Mr. Burney opens the article saying “the church has abandoned its denominational commitment to traditional marriage,” he does say that, “The issue here is not homosexuality. The core of the matter is the authority of scripture.” 

Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” It's a great fit for this situation; it's also not the original quote. The original quote is an even better fit: “The reports of my illness grew out of his illness, the report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Mr. Burney's article is riddled with inconsistencies, presumptions and poor logic. It also exhibits an argumentative style of a person who has little to no ground upon which to stand. It would seem that his fundamentalist point of view is going under in the PCUSA and he, and those for whom he is presumably a representative voice, are grasping at straws in the death throes of their position. 

They have resorted not only to thinly veiled ad hominem attacks on anyone who doesn't believe what they do, but also to thinly veiled threats as they hold membership numbers hostage with the argument of “play by our rules or we will take our ball and go home.” (It's what I call “the playground mentality of the frozen chosen”).
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The Church is Burning. Who Cares?

06/14/2011

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Change, trust, faith, death of the church, hypocritical, church, burning
The Church is burning down. It is a slow, smoldering burn to be sure, but it is burning down nonetheless. As it burns, those who belong have busied themselves painting over the soot stained walls, putting a new finish over the already depleted structure, in hopes that they will somehow protect the outdated construction that has strayed so far from the Architect's plan.

As the average attendance and membership of mainline protestant churches continue to slowly spiral down, we try to repaint the walls with new contemporary murals, dress up the sanctuary with artistic liturgical dressings and blast out slightly more modern music during the anthem and offertory. The hierarchical structure of the Church (both formal and informal) that sets up power dynamics which are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus? We leave them  alone. The programs, groups and events of the church (from Sunday School to various long established women's or men's groups) that have been struggling, in some cases, for decades? We don't dare change them. The hypocritical judgment of anyone who isn't either one of us or like us? We simply ignore the log in our own eye. 

We, those who have been part of the leadership of the Church, have been redecorating rather than putting out the fire. As we have done so, we have been fanning the flame. We should have been putting an end to the smoldering mess it has become and began renovating, restructuring and repurposing. We should be revisioning our future but instead we are busy decoupaging our church photo albums, not only remembering the “good old days” but insisting that we recreate the still lives we have created in our heads as way to fix the here and now.

The worst part is, we are so frightened of a new future (and the change needed to achieve it) that we continue to repeat this behavior over and over again receiving the same results every time (which is to say, receiving little to no results) and somehow, each time, we think that this time it will be different. We completely fail to realize that our system is perfectly designed to achieve the results we have – a slowly dying church. Burn baby, burn.

The good news is that no matter what happens, the Church will live. We can let it burn all the way down to the ground as we stand by watching while we embrace the memories in our photo album and the Church will go on – just without us.  
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