Maybe I'm Just Old Fashioned

I have been thinking recently about the idea of sanctity and marriage. Not so much with gender issues but around the role and nature of the person officiating and when it is appropriate to declare a marriage sacred (thus the sanctity of marriage).

            I have officiated a number of marriages for people who are not a part of this church community and I always ask the couple why they want a minister and/or to have their wedding in a church. Invariably it is because of a sense that God is a part of their relationship and they want to acknowledge God’s presence. I cannot promise the presence of God, but when I officiate I am aware that I represent a sense of Christianity, the idea of the church, and an awareness of the activity and presence of God. When God is brought into the ritual we are made aware that there is something deep, something significant and sacramental about the commitment they are making. The bride and groom are claiming the presence and activity of the holy and sacred about their marriage (or they are just trying to please the parents/grandparents). This is an example of a sacred ritual and sanctity in marriage.

            While I cannot judge the intentions of people getting married, when using a Justice of the Peace (JP) I cannot say with certainty that there is an awareness of something holy or sacred happening in that relationship. Instead it seems to me to be more of a legal, contractual agreement between two parties. Maybe I am missing something, but a JP represents the courts and the legal system thus driving my assumptions that the ritual is not sacred but civic. While I would not describe the marriage as invalid or the commitment less than one made in a religious context, I wonder if there is a sense of sanctity in that relationship.

            What I find most egregious are the online ordination services. Places like the Universal Life Church Monastery claim that they want to make ordination available for all who feel called by God. On their website is a short video of Conan O’Brien getting ordained; I think they are missing the satire. What the Universal Life Church offers, in the name of tolerance and equality, is a quick, easy, and shallow way for someone to claim to be a minister for the sake of officiating a wedding. Yet there is no relationship with a spiritual community, no depth towards a sense of calling, and no endorsement by a spiritual/religious community. Putting all of that aside, what does it say when someone gains the electronic ordination for the sake of officiating a marriage ceremony? Can we say that this individual truly brings an awareness of the divine to the ceremony? Does the couple have a sense of sanctity of their relationship when there is no true connection to a church community? Again I cannot judge the intentions of people, but a simple observation of the practices suggest much less then an awareness of the holiness of the relationship (to say nothing of the offensive idea that a five minute ordeal equals the years of training and work of one ordained through a “traditional” church community). I wonder if a marriage officiated by an online minister can be considered sacred.

            I am not saying that all weddings need to occur in a Christian church to be consider holy, or have to have a minister. Nor can I suggest that God’s presence is restricted to marriages run by clergy. What I am suggesting is that it is hard to consider any sense of sanctity in a marriage that occurs void of any faith community. There is nothing wrong with a marriage done with a Justice of the Peace or an online minister. I’m not saying the love shared between the two is any greater or less then others. I only question if we can consider those relationships holy, blessed, or maintaining a sacramental nature. After all, that is what sanctity means, to have a holy, or sacramental nature.

            The term, “sanctity of marriage” has been bandied about recently. Let’s really consider this term and ask if it is a value of our society (common practice would suggest that it is not), and what it means to us as a people of faith. I hope you enjoyed my rant and sorry I did not get into many other aspects of this topic. I’ll let you work on everything else pertaining to marriage; let me know what you think.

RIP Walter Wink

RIP Wink, you no longer have to work to engage the powers, live in the victory of Christ.

He was a true prophet - I'll write more later

Come Back Shane!

A whole bunch of people seemed to be all worked up about gay marriage, marriage rights, homosexuality, and stuff. I should jump on the bandwagon and add my two cents, but why go with the flow? I don’t think it would improve my readership so I won’t make the effort.

Instead I want to talk about the church and church stuff (gasp). Another blogging Baptist and budding scholar wrote an interesting bitin his blog about leaving the church (do I get a prize for alliteration?). He makes a very good and impassioned argument about leaving the church when it is necessary to do so, specifically when one is put down, insulted, hurt, and made to feel worthless. I agree with my friend but in a nuanced way – that’s how I roll.

What gets me is the way he refers to “the church” in a universal kind of way as if it is an experience of everyone. I know he is not making such a claim, but I read the subtext in such a way. It may be because I hear in his comments a kind of hip, po-mo jargon that we need to be beyond the church and into the “new” (or nu) Christianity. Picture the beard adorning person saying:

We don’t do church, we are beyond church, we are beyond religion, we are only about Christ.

So because I “do” church am I not about Christ? Perhaps that isn’t fair, but such is the nature of discourse. You can't control the way I read things (but I can control the way you read things... muwhahahah). I suggest we look at the terms in a different way.

My friend is describing churches that oppress, that discriminate, that tell certain kinds of people that they are not welcome, and that use scripture to bully people, and these churches exist in great number. These are churches that have become so human, so devoid of the spirituality of faith and the presence of the Holy Spirit that it can lead one to a grief. Here is what I suggest: these places aren’t churches any more. These gatherings, worship centers, multipurpose preaching factories, praise producing places of anger, fear, and manipulation have left the church (in a universal sense). So instead of leaving the church, leave those institutions and return to the/a church where Christ can be known and experienced. I guess I like the approach of embrace over rejection.

This isn’t to say that everyone in those fiendish institutions are not Christians, but the nature and ecclesiology of those institutions fall into a place that is so foreign to the Gospel that I would argue that they are no longer churches.

I know my friend would agree that there are many real, authentic churches in the US and the world. I don’t think he would deny that for a minute. I would cede that every church will have its own brokenness, will not be perfect, and will be as Augustine suggested, a mixture of sinners and saints. I’m not even really arguing with him, just doing the snob thing and offering a nuance. If I want to really be dic*ish I would write:

“What you meant to say was…”

How about this for an image:

There is that little boy or girl who grew up in the oppressive communities, or who sees the humanity reality of the brokenness of the church and watches the institution go further and further into the distance, into the horizon. That little boy or girl watches these institutions get farther away and yells with all innocence, “come back church! Church, come back!”