I’m one of these who is pretty certain we’re going through a time of Reformation once again, and as Phyllis Tickle might say, it’s not just the church that’s reforming, but every aspect of human society.  Everything is being brought into question and everything is on the table.  The appeal of Emergence is evidence of this as well.  If everyone were satisfied with the state of the Church, then there wouldn’t be such a movement of new ideas, questions and challenges.  I think the Presbyterian Church (USA) is slow to change and transform.  In some ways this has served us well, but when it comes to thinking about the future, we are either stuck in the present or trying to reclaim the past.  We are tied to some methods and systems that are antiquated, and yet the traditions of our faith don’t necessarily need to be re-written.  How can we learn from the emergent community how to let go and untie ourselves from the things that bind (imprison) us rather than seeing what might bind (unite) us together in the Spirit of Christ?

The Emergent church, at the same time, is asking questions to make us all a bit uncomfortable.  In many ways I appreciate being dislodged from the “zone”, but I also wonder if we lose something of Jesus in the midst of our questioning of all things faith.  What, within our tradition, is worth preserving?  I see so many (mostly out of fear) trying to preserve a Church that simply cannot remain static any longer.  In this regard, the emergent conversation has helped a great deal.  But what the emergent church can probably gain from the PC(USA) is the idea that we are not set apart from one another, but we are willing to persevere through times of difference and disagreement.  I’m extremely saddened by the congregations who leave the denomination because they don’t want to go through the marriage counseling.  Yes, it’s hard.  Any relationship is hard.  But in the end it’s worth the effort.  It’s how Jesus draws us together, I think.  Those of us who are Presbyterian have witnessed the Spirit at work within our bodies when we disagree.  Clarity does not come quickly, or even in our time, but it does come.  We could all stand to live with a little more patience.  We could also stand to gain by listening and not talking.  Just one pastor’s opinion . . .

While I found myself a little prideful that we Presbyterians aren’t subject to a lot of the perceptual problems that our more evangelical brethren are tagged with, the book nonetheless has some things to say to us as we try to reach these generations.

I’m wondering if anyone else has read the book and what you took away from it.

After getting four teeth drilled on the other day in Charlotte, I had the only slightly greater pleasure of driving my Novocain-paralyzed face down to Columbia, South Carolina to see the infamous Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist. Dawkins, a British biologist, is part of the controversial neo-atheist movement. Neo-atheism itself is a highly vocal, if not outright shrill, atheist philosophy that seeks to argue, insult, and humiliate believers of all stripes into abandoning their faith—or at least ostracizing and ejecting them out of having any cultural influence. Dawkins’ last book and a key intellectual bulwark of this view, was politely named The God Delusion in honor of anyone moronic enough to have any belief of the divine.

I waited among thousands of students in Columbia with baited breath, for the neo-atheist circus ringleader to shock the crowd with resounding statements of intellectual superiority from his new science-oriented book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. I anticipated enough fire and brimstone to replace a Bunsen burner. I was instead stunned to hear a soft-spoken English gentleman request that ministers, priests, and pastors live up to their responsibility as community leaders by educating their flocks about the reality of evolutionary truth.

Dawkins rightly pointed out that many in clergy see no conflict between Darwinian evolution and their faith, but fail to make that clear to their congregations. Using the story of Adam and Eve as an example, Dawkins conjectured that many preachers cite the story without thinking of it as 100% literal. However, they do so without making those in the pews aware of this nuance. This in turn leads to misinformed religious parents and students resisting a science curriculum at their school in the name of their faith, even though their pastor would have no qualms about it.

In an odd sense of revelation, I felt spiritually convicted by this plea. Many of us in ministry have been unwilling to address this controversial issue because we are unwilling to expose ourselves to the potential fallout. It’s much easier to use the same words found in the opening of Genesis and allow for different meanings, especially when identifying those meanings may uproot deeply seated assumptions about the Genesis account. So let me do my part in this. I believe in Darwinian evolution—in essentially every sense that Dawkins would understand it—and I see no conflict between believing in that and believing in the inspired and authoritative Word of God. Furthermore, I am publishing a version of this article to my congregation this week.

I probably would go on longer about evolution and theology if it hadn’t been for Dawkins tangling himself in a web of strategic and philosophical contradictions the rest of the evening. Strategically, it seems highly counterproductive for him asking religious leaders to help him out in his educational crusade shortly before returning to his usual rhetoric of labeling religion as: “a kind of virus of the mind”, suggesting God is a sadist, and roundly declaring that “if someone is getting their morality from the Bible, you don’t want to be around that person!” It shouldn’t come as any surprise then that clergy are so reluctant to promote the same science that often holds hands with rabid anti-spirituality. But Dawkins can’t for the life of him figure out why.

I wonder if Dawkins replayed the tapes of his own lecture would he answer his own question?

Philosophically, Dawkins does more intellectual gymnastics than well, a gymnast, swinging from bold dictum to dictum without much logic connecting the points between. Comically, Dawkins states that he is not the last gasp of Enlightenment thinkers, refusing to address the evidence that indicates neo-atheists are really “hyper-modernists” tenuously held together by the internet and a zealous faith in science. Granted, that he “doesn’t follow the zeitgeist”, but does “notice the opinion polls”. He concludes “We [atheism] are winning.” Yet, even accepting the juvenile terms of “winning” and “losing”, the reality is that this is only true in the United States (1) and nowhere else in the world. In contrast to this, the Global South is exploding in religion, with Christianity at the forefront. Christianity is still steadily flourishing in spite of the state-enforced secularism of China. Even in post-Christian Europe (where atheism was assumed to have already won), we are beginning to see a dedicated Christian resurgence (e.g. Holy Trinty Brompton)

Maybe it’s just me, but winning sure looks a lot like getting your ass kicked not doing so well.

Yet, with less humor and more irony, he claims evolutionary psychology has no bearing on forming social norms between race and gender. Defending himself to one questioner, he declared “You can do whatever the hell you like…you’re free!” However, when responding to (deep breath) a secondhand straw-man question delivered by an atheist on whether a world of atheists would degenerate morally, Dawkins proclaims that an atheist society would be a good society. Not only good, but that they “would do good for the sake of being good and not out of fear from some God, some cosmic spy camera, watching your every move and knowing your every thought.” The linguistic assumptions he makes about the meaning of value-laden words are painfully evident. The very concept of “good” is relative to individual perception in a atheistic worldview, so a world full of atheists doing whatever is “good” in their own eyes could range anywhere from helping end genocide in Africa to being the one perpetuating it.

Not to mention I once heard a man once say (about ten minutes earlier) that when you’re free, “you can do whatever the hell you like”.

Richard Dawkins reminds me a bit of Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Not because they believe any of the same things. It’s actually hard to imagine two people who might disagree more. However, both share a unique commonality of being very good in one field only to find they may be overreaching into another field where they really don’t belong. Dobson has some fine thoughts on child-rearing. He has mind-blowingly dubious (my friend Amanda wouldn’t let me use the word stupid) thoughts on politics. Likewise, Dawkins is superb at explaining complex science in common vernacular. He is woefully ill-suited for engaging in real philosophy beyond preaching to an atheist pep rally.

Hopefully, his new book on evolutionary science is an indication that he intends to stay in field that God made him for.

1. Crossman, Cathy L. “People With No Religion Gain on Major Denominations.” Religion. USA Today, 22 Sept. 09. Web. .

This is, unfortunately, fairly reflective of our denomination as a whole.

It is also reflective of the emergent movement, which for all of our talk of relational faith and embracing the other, tends to be whiter than a polar bear drinking milk in a blizzard.

There’s an interesting pair of blog posts exploring the relationship between the emergent movement and the African American religious tradition put up by Rev. Byron Wade, the current vice moderator of the PC(USA) General Assembly.

He writes:

What would be the attraction/pull for African-Americans to worship in these places [emergent communities] knowing that most of us have grown up in a culture and heritage of strong black churches? Even those who are youth/young adults tend to gravitate towards congregations that are similar to what they are used to.

It’s a good question, and one he endeavors to answer in part one and part two of his post.

For those not already familiar with Second Life from various news reports, magazine articles, and other usual sources of hype, to explain would take up more space than would be wise in this blog post.  Instead, I recommend starting here. It’s eye opening reading, I promise.

When I first started exploring Second Life, I found plenty of evidence of minstry — from a United Methodist Chapel, to a Lutheran Pavillion, to a Taize Sanctuary 500 meters in the sky!  I found the Anglican Cathedral of Second Life, started two years ago by Rev. Mark Brown, which now has 800+ members and conducts five virtual services each week.   I also found a community — Koinonia Congregational Church – that can best be described as “emergent” and meets weekly in a beautiful sanctuary without walls or doors.

I searched for Presbyterians.  It was pretty bleak…but I did find one person — in real life she’s an elder at a Presbyterian Church in California — who has been keeping the proverbial light on, and started a group called (no surprise here) 1st Presbyterian Church of Second Life.  She reserved the name with the hope and a prayer that someday more Presbyterians would come along.  And now, that’s started to happen…

After several weeks of talking to people, dreaming and visioning, the number of Presbyterians in Second Life is growing — most of us are new, and probably feeling a culture shock not unlike what immigrants to the US feel (SL has a steeper learning curve than FB or twitter).  But we’re starting to connect, have conversations, explore opportunities for ministry that is uniquely Presbyterian, but also uniquely Second Life.  Just yesterday, our esteemed moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow, jumped in (his SL name is Esteban Radikal), as did Philip Lotspeich (SL: Philip Lionheart) from the office of Evangelism and Growth.

So, in true Presbyterian fashion (maybe a bad thing, mabye not?) we’ve acquired some land, threw up a building (both were WAY easier and cheaper than in real life) and will be gathering on Saturday nights 9pm CST / 7pm SLT for fellowship, conversation, and perhaps eventually something like worship, too.  Tomorrow night will be our very first gathering of Presbyterians in Second Life, and anyone is welcome to drop in. May God’s Spirit breathe through the bits and the bytes into a new context (for us, at least)!

• To find our meeting place in Second Life, click here. If you don’t have an account yet, you’ll have to create one.
• If you’d like to get involved with what we’re doing in Second Life, contact Neal Locke via twitter, facebook, or email neal at mrlocke dot net.
• If you created an account in Second Life but are utterly confused and lost, use the search engine to find me: I’m Neill Loxingly in Second Life. Add me as a friend, and I’ll come to your rescue, or send another SL Presbyterian to help

Peace.

On Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment: A Comment – Andrew Tatusko

Grace and Peace to You All,

Election 2008 has finally come to an end. For those of us who have been suffering from election fatigue these past few weeks, it’s a welcome relief, to tell you the truth.

But now, after months and months of being made aware of all the ways Americans seem to be divided, we will begin to hear (and quite rightly) that we must come together. In president-elect Obama’s victory speech last night he spoke directly to this when he quoted Abraham Lincoln, who also presided over a divided nation. “We are not enemies but friends,” Lincoln said after the Civil War, “though passion may have strained…it must not break our bonds of affection.” These are fine words. We can’t escape the sense of history in that they were spoken by an African-American who has been elected President of the United States in Lincoln’s home state, and in Chicago, the very city where Lincoln won the nomination for President. They are fine words, and historic. But the road to unity is going to be difficult, and there are many among us who are anxious and fearful of what lies ahead.

As the Church, the Body of Christ, we need to lead the way in the healing that must begin after such a long and contentious political season. How can we do this? We can first recognize that as the Church we are called to “unity in diversity,” through the power of the Spirit of Christ in us and all around us. The Body of Christ is diverse. There are people in our own church—the First Presbyterian Church of Eustis—who probably voted for different candidates. There are members and friends of our congregation who gather together each Sunday for worship, sing together in the choir and serve side by side in mission and ministry, who may not agree at all when it comes to politics. I know that today I am the pastor of a church where some of my flock are rejoicing over the victory of president-elect Barack Obama, and some are not.

But the Body of Christ is also unified. Paul referred to this in Galatians when he wrote, “There is no longer any Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, for all are made one in Christ.” In Philippians Paul exhorted the early church to be “One in spirit and in purpose.” The culture that Paul was speaking into was no different from our own in that it sought to divide people by race, background, political leanings, faith, gender, and so much more. But though the world will try to divide us, and cause us to strive against one another on the world’s terms, as Christians we are called to One-ness. I use the word “One-ness” because we are drawn together by the One who gave everything so that we might have life, and “life more abundantly.”

I have many Christian friends all over the country who are despondent today. Many of them have expressed their anxiety over an Obama presidency in fairly apocalyptic terms—end of the world kind of language. I have other Christian friends who are unbelievably excited and hopeful—triumphant, if you will—that a new day has dawned. I am quick to remind them all that four years ago, the tables were turned. Those who are rejoicing today were predicting the end of civilization then, and those who are despondent today were on top of the world. As Christians we need to understand that if our outlook of the future is determined by the outcome of an election, and not by the hope we say we have in Jesus Christ—-then our priorities need adjusting.

To that end—and this is the second way the Church can lead in healing division—we need to look to what unifies us as brothers and sisters in Christ, and live into that hope on a daily basis. What the world needs to see from the Church is not angry rhetoric or bitterness and fear. The world does not need to see a Church divided by politics, but united in the love of Christ and for the purpose of being salt and light. Jesus prayed that his disciples would live out this hope and that they would be a witness,
“My prayer is not for [my disciples] alone,” Jesus prayed in John 17. “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. In them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unit to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

And so, my beloved congregation…
If you are filled with joy at the outcome of the election, remember the very words that president-elect Obama used last night to frame his victory. He said that he saw the victory as a challenge to show the kind of “humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.” Your joy today should bring with it a measure of humility and grace, and a sense of duty to heal wounds, find common ground and point to Christ in all that you do.

If you are filled with anxiety and dread on this day, be at peace. We serve a risen Savior, who is at work in and among us in the world. We believe in a Sovereign God, who sets up kings and kingdoms and takes them down. We are heirs of a hope that is not found in politicians nor the outcome of elections. Live into that hope in a spirit of unity with your brothers and sisters in Christ who perhaps voted differently than you did yesterday, and above all show love and demonstrate the kind of grace that you yourselves have been given.

You are loved and prayed for daily.

I completely get that. There are days when I feel like I need to hear the call every five minutes just to assure me that I am doing what I am supposed to do with my life. Even when people tell me things that should reassure me, I struggle to believe that God would actually want to use someone like me for such an important task. I once heard that the great reformer, Martin Luther, used to feel as though the earth was going to open up and swallow him whole each time he rose to say the Mass. That comforts me a bit, really. If Martin Luther felt himself to be unworthy of his call, then at least I am in good company. Martin Luther also swore like a sailor and loved beer, which is also pretty comforting.

For the past few years I have felt a longing in me that has been difficult to define and impossible to quench. You see, God, in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy, has seen fit for me to serve in the Presbyterian Church (USA)–a Christian denomination that has been (like most mainline Protestant denominations) in decline for decades. My more conservative colleagues from not-mainline denominations gleefully point this out at every available opportunity—God love ‘em. Once I had a fellow pastor from a conservative, evangelical church inform me over lunch that in his opinion the real moment when the PC(USA) fell into ruin was when it began ordaining women.

“That’s where it all started,” he told me in sage-like fashion. “And now look what’s happening… you’re ordaining them.” I asked what he meant by “them” and he replied, “You know…homosexuals.”

He hissed the word “homosexuals” like a snake, like it hurt him to say it. I started to explain the intricacies of Presbyterian polity, and that we didn’t in fact ordain lots of different people for lots of different reasons, but that didn’t mean that they were evil, bad, horrible, hellbound sorts. The thought of explaining all of this, however, made me tired. Instead I decided to take the high road and asked him if he had any pictures of himself in his Klan robes and hood, and how many people came to his last cross burning. Lunch sort of went downhill after that.

I shouldn’t let things like that bother me, but I realize that the reason it does is pretty simple: I worry that the critics of my [supposedly] dying, mainline denomination might be right. What if they were? Would it really change the way I feel about things? I have looked into the eyes of Legalism and Fundamentalism within the Christian community and know it to be something altogether apart from God. But here I am–a self-described emergent church leader—bursting with ideas and dreams of reforming and transforming the small corner of the Body of Christ to which I have been assigned to shepherd. Here I am in a mainline denomination, serving an historic, traditional church. It feels like I am the smallest, puniest most insignificant tugboat in the fleet trying to push the grandest and most gargantuan ocean liner away from the rocks.

I spent most of my day today in meetings talking about budgets, and extremely important things like who really should have a key to the closet in the church kitchen where the good silver is kept, and why it’s important to have a church sign that matches the outside decor of the church building. Today I felt about as emergent, innovative and transformative as an old shoe. It’s days like this that try my soul, and make me wonder if I am somehow being punished for all of the misdeeds of my youth…and there were many.

The thing is, I have had these other moments when I feel so called to be a pastor that it literally makes me ache. And even further, that God—for some reason unknown to me—seems to want me to take my place in the ocean among so many others who are paddling like mad, and trying desperately to turn this big ship we call the Church around.

George Herbert is this seventeenth-century poet that I admire a great deal. I have his picture on the wall of my office. It’s more of an engraving, really—or rather, a picture of an engraving that I printed off of the Internet and then put in a gilded frame to make it look respectable. At any rate, a rendering of George Herbert sits on my wall. Once I attended a talk by Eugene Peterson, the man who created The Message–a translation of the Bible into everyday language–and about a million other books about faith and life. He said that one day he just starting replacing all of his diplomas, accolades and awards that were hanging on his office wall with pictures of people he admired and who had influenced him. He cited George Herbert as one of his heroes, along with a bunch of dead, German theologians that I was ashamed to say I had never heard of before. I went home and did the same thing. My wall contains C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, George Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, Eugene Peterson and Bono. The picture of Bono is a good one. He’s got on shades and a cowboy hat. I got if off the Internet, too.

I’m sorry…this story really should have begun on the streets of San Diego, which is a pretty darn nice place for any story to begin considering the weather and all. Anyway, I found myself walking in downtown San Diego on a bright February afternoon in search of a bookstore. My mission was to buy a book of George Herbert’s poems. You see, it was in San Diego that I heard Eugene Peterson’s talk–the one where he mentioned his office and the picture of George Herbert that hung there. It had been the second time in a month that I had heard the name of George Herbert, and I decided that it was the type of sign that at the very least necessitated the purchase of a book of his poetry.

A few weeks earlier, I happened to be sitting at a worship service in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London England. Yes, I realize that I just wrote that I “happened” to be in England. Well, I was. I was on “holiday,” to coin an English colloquialism, with my wife. We were celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. We were attending a Sunday night worship service on the Third Sunday of Epiphany at one of the most famous cathedrals in the world. I’m not bragging or trying to sound pretentious (well, maybe a little), but you have to admit that’s pretty cool. But this is even better… We were there five years almost to the day when we first attended a worship service in that grand cathedral. And on that day, five years before, God had spoken to me in an audible voice and told me that I needed to become a pastor. I’d been fighting the the call, you see, and I guess that God decided enough was enough. The voice that God used that day was the voice of the Reverend Canon Patience Purchas, Associate Director of Ordinands, Diocese of St. Albans. I didn’t know what it meant either. I found out her job title in plain English was more like, “The Pastor in Charge of Everyone in Southern England Who is Trying to Become a Pastor.” Her sermon that evening was essentially about how to recognize God’s will for you life. I don’t remember much of it all, but I do remember that at one point she said something like, “I feel as though there is someone here, who is struggling with God’s call to pursue a life in ministry.”

Now, I’ve seen enough charlatan preachers in my church-going career to know that old trick. I’ve witnessed a number of these performers, who, at the critical moment in the sermon—usually around the time of the altar call—will stretch out their hand in dramatic fashion and say, “I sense that there’s someone out there…someone out there who is far from God…” or something to that effect. There’s nothing particularly spiritual about this 9 times out of 10. It’s called playing the odss, and people do it all the time in casinos, riverboats and smoky rooms above meat markets.

But at that moment, in that place, I knew that it wasn’t anything like that. God was working through this very proper Englishwoman in her rather stiff Anglican robes, who had no way of knowing that in that small crowd of visitors and downtown Londoners that there was indeed someone who was struggling with God’s call in his life. I began to weep uncontrollably, overwhelmed with the knowledge that God had found me 6,000 miles from home, where I had run like Jonah from a destiny I was afraid to embrace. Six months later, my wife and I were driving a huge truck filled with our earthly belongings from Florida to Chicago. We’d sold our house, a car, my lawn mower and deep fryer—nearly everything that wouldn’t fit in a downtown apartment, and headed for the midwest so I could attend seminary. That Third Sunday of Epiphany changed my life.

So there I sat, five years later in roughly the same spot where I had heard God speaking to me through the Rev. Canon Patience Purchas, and I was expecting more of the same. I know that lightning doesn’t strike twice and all of that happy horse-poo, but there I was. I wanted to hear God’s voice tell me what I was going to do next, what the next five years would bring. The truth was, I was kind of at a crossroads–at least in my own mind. I’d been feeling antsy, wondering when God might be ready to promote me to something bigger, better and hipper. I knew that I was ready to lead my own church, or to engage in a larger ministry than the one to which I had been called. I also knew that I wasn’t getting any younger, and that time was soon going to be working against me. If I wanted to be bright, young reformer I only had a few more years to make that happen. In the business world there is a window for upward mobility and when you get to a certain age, the window becomes more and more narrow until it finally closes. I just knew that God had something in mind for me, because that’s how it works, right? That’s the kind of thing that happens to preachers and other people who go chasing after God-dreams—they hear voices, they get visions, they have epiphanies while sitting in the middle of a centuries-old cathedral with the smell of incense and candles in the air. And then success finds them. By success I mean that they are granted entry into the most hallowed halls of Christendom—halls that are reserved for people with big book deals, television shows, and really big churches. I knew this was coming because the story of my life that was being written needed something dramatic to put in the introduction.

Then I looked at my worship bulletin.

“Prominence & Obscurity: The Poetry of George Herbert,” it read. I remembered reading Herbert in a Renaissance poetry class that I took in college. The only thing I could remember about him was that he’d written a poem about Easter that was in the shape of an angel. That was the extent of my Herbert knowledge. When I realized that the entire worship service was going to be one big Herbert love-fest, I was devastated. I had come to experience a life-changing worship service, and I was going to be treated instead to some sort of glorified poetry reading. Still, I was in St. Paul’s–in London. I was resigned that although it was the Third Sunday of Epiphany, there would be no epiphany for me that day. I decided to be content with just being there.
At one point in the service, one of the liturgists read from Herbert’s poem The Priesthood, which exemplifies in so many ways what Herbert was all about. He had tasted success and had tasted power and chose in the end to dedicate his life to serving God. I remember hearing these words being read:

Blest Order, which in power dost so excel/That with th’ one hand thou liftest to the sky/And with the other throwest down to hell…I am both foul and brittle; much unfit/To deal in holy Writ…Wherefore I dare not, I, put forth my hand/To hold the Ark, although it seem to shake/Through th’ old sins and new doctrines of our land/Only, since God doth often vessels make/Of lowly matter for high uses meet/I throw at his feet…

I realize to a lot of folks that last bit sounds pretty much like seventeenth-century poetry would sound: formal, stuffy, old… But to me, on that day as I sat there in that ageless place I felt like time had been stripped away and the words of Herbert found me sitting there and wrung out my heart. I thought of him, this poet, this would-be wealthy and powerful up-and-coming scholar and politician, who flung it all away to become the pastor of an obscure parish, and I was ashamed. As my wife and I walked out of the church that night and on to the busy London streets, it began to rain. I let it pelt me in the face. It felt like baptism. And the London rain soon mingled with the tears that began to fall because I am just like that–a big baby… at least when it comes to the important things in life. Nothing, in the end, is more important than doing what you are called by God to do.

I should return to the San Diego part of the story, which is where this all came together in a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook up way. I was attending the National Pastor’s convention (where Eugene Peterson was one of the keynote speakers). I was probably one of twelve Presbyterians who attended out of probably a few thousand or so other pastors, most of whom were Southern Baptists or “non-denominational,” which is the same thing as being a Southern Baptist—only more profitable and with a more casual dress code. I walked around the convention feeling more than a little out of place. Nearly all of the pastors I encountered were older, had higher hair and introduced themselves and their wives by saying, We pastor a church in [insert southern city here].” I have never really been fooled by that use of “we” to be perfectly honest. It’s patronizing, especially coming from people who often do not believe that women have the gifts for ordained ministry. If my wife wanted to, she would make an awesome pastor, and we happen to belong to a denomination, which (despite the fact that it is “dying”) would affirm that call. There are many things that don’t feel very emergent about my denomination (remember the silver closet?), but the fact that we believe Scripture upholds the fact that God calls whom God calls is about the foremost “emergent” quality we Presbyterians (the USA kind) possess.

Anyway, I decided to take a break from the convention so that I could take the trolley into downtown San Diego. I figured that I would wander around the Gaslamp district for a bit and hopefully find a bookstore that would miraculously contain a book of George Herbert’s poems. Besides, I just really wanted to get away from Christians for a while. I put on my Johnny Cash t-shirt, and put in all of my earrings (all three) because I feel safe enough to wear them when I am not anywhere near my own church. Figuring that I looked suitably un-pastor-like, I walked to the trolley stop and got on. After a brief interlude to eat at In-And-Out Burger—only the best burger place in the world–I boarded the Blue Line trolley into downtown San Diego.

I noticed that this guy got on at the same I did, and he was–shall we say–a little wobbly on his feet. He was barefooted, carrying his worldly belongings in a clear plastic trash bag and reeking of alcohol. I glanced at him when he wasn’t looking and noticed that he was dirty and wearing a battered, filthy baseball cap that was slightly askew on his head. He had on a pair of reflective, wrap-around shades. When the train lurched forward he almost fell. I saw him take a look at the young man standing next to him–a guy who was well-dressed, well-groomed and looking like he was on his way to a job interview. They couldn’t have been more un-alike. The dirty guy gave his neighbor the once-over.

“How’s it going, man?” he asked him.

“Cool, man. How about you?”

“Just chillin’ man, you know. Just chillin’,” the dirty guy responded.

“Outstanding,” his neighbor said. Then the dirty guy went to sit down. Every time he would do something differently he would announce his intentions. So when he went to sit down, he told everyone, “I’m going to sit down, okay?” then he did it.

I put on my own shades for no other reason than I wanted to watch him a bit longer, but didn’t want to make eye contact. I had learned from my three years living in Chicago that if you made eye contact with every dirty, drunken fellow on the train, you would spend every ride listening to their tales of woe, and would most assuredly end up getting solicited for money. This wasn’t always the case, but it was the case enough of the time for me to form a preconceived notion about making eye contact with dirty, drunken guys on the train. Still, I wanted to the see the complexities of the human drama unfold, so I put on my shades to stare.

The Guy, as I will call him henceforth, was trying to make conversation with everyone, who was seated next to him. “I’m trying to get downtown,” he proclaimed. No one responded. “Man, I need to find a liquor store,” he said. No one said anything, nor acted surprised, for that matter. All of a sudden he looked at me and got up from his seat. “I’m going over here,” he told everyone.
I immediately looked away, out the window, at my seat, but to no avail. He sat down in front of me and looked right in my face.

“Hey man, give this ticket to someone who wants to take a round trip back. I don’t need it.” He stuck out his blackened hand and handed me a crumpled round-trip trolley ticket. “Find someone who needs it,” he added. “I’m going to stand over here,” he told me, and stood up by the door of the trolley and peered at the route map that was above it. I didn’t know what to say.

“Cool, man. Thanks.” I put the ticket into the book I’d been reading.

“Hey man,” he said to me again. “Does this go downtown?”

“Yeah, it goes downtown, dude.”

“Oh yeah? Well which stops are for downtown?”

I looked at the map above the door. For a moment I thought to say that I didn’t live in San Diego and didn’t know anything about which stops were which, but that would have been a lie. I had taken the same trolley two days before, and knew where it was going. Besides, over time I have skillfully used public transportation in lots of major cities: New York, London, Paris, Rome, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Miami… yeah, that’s it. I figured that I could handle giving directions to a dirty, drunken, ex-hippie. On the map there was an area that was outlined in grey and labeled, “downtown loop” or something like that.

“Do you see that grey area?” I asked him.

“No,” he said.

“Well, that’s the downtown area. Pretty much every stop will put you downtown somewhere.”

“Cool man,” he said, after a long pause. We rode in silence for a bit. “Hey man, what do you play?” he asked me in a stage whisper.

“What?”

“What instrument do you play, man?”

“I don’t…play an instrument,” I said with a nervous laugh.

“Dude, come on. I know you play an instrument. It’s cool.”

“No, I don’t.”

“What do you do then?” he asked.

“I’m a pastor,” I told him. “Like a pastor of a church… you know?” I finished lamely.

“What?”

“A pastor,” I said in a kind of stage whisper of my own.

The Guy sat there for a moment staring at the floor. Then all of a sudden he brightened.

“I get it! You’re going incognito. That’s cool, man.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about but, but cool,” I said at last.

The Guy grinned at me, and said, “I know that Bob’s in town, man. Yeah, Bob’s in town, man. House of Blues. You’ll be kicking it with the band, right?”

“Bob?”

“Yeah, right. I get you man. You’re concealing.”

Since I had no idea what he was talking about, and couldn’t convince him that I wasn’t a musician and did not know Bob, I figured he was making some sort of drug reference.

“No man, I’m not concealing,” I said hoarsely.

“Do you play bass, man?”

“No, I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”

“Cool.”

The trolley came to a stop and he asked if it was a downtown stop. I told him that it was.

“Dude, I have to find a liquor store?” he said.

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

He stumbled to his feet and tried to go out the door before it closed, and didn’t make it. The trolley door shut in his face. He cursed. I started to tell him that all he had to do was push the button by the door and it would open for him, but he sat down again.

“Guess I won’t be getting off here,” he muttered.

“Try the next one,” I told him. Luckily for both of us, the “next one” came almost immediately. He rose unsteadily to his feet and headed for the door.

“Later man,” he said to me. “I’ll see you up on the stage.” With that, he exited the trolley. I saw him immediately approach a black man with a shopping cart and begin asking directions. I gave a short laugh and looked around at the other passengers.

“I don’t think the liquor store would be a good idea.” I said. A few of them laughed. I noticed that they were all looking at me strangely. I began to wonder if maybe they actually believed the Guy, and thought I was the bassist in Bob’s band, whoever Bob was. I got up and prepared to exit the trolley, feeling their eyes on me. When the trolley stopped and the doors opened, I bolted out of the car as quickly as I could.

The street where I exited happened to be the very same street where the House of Blues was located. I looked up at the marquee. “Bob Weir & Ratdog – Feb. 9″ it read in big red letters. I looked around and saw that the entire street was flooded with disheveled, filthy young people. Most of them had dreadlocks. All of them were carrying backpacks or rucksacks of some kind. They were gathered in small groups around the House of Blues waiting to be let inside. It all came to me in a rush. Bob Weir had been in the Grateful Dead. “Bob Weir & Ratdog” was the band he had formed and was apparently touring with that month. Suddenly what the Guy had been saying to me made sense—sort of. These were modern day Deadheads–the people who used to follow the Grateful Dead around the country, attending all of their concerts and living in an endless haze of pot smoke and tie-dyed shirts.

I began to weave my way through the crowd of Deadheads that were waiting for the concert. More than a few of them had dogs that growled at me menacingly. The hippies themselves were not friendly. They stared at the rest of us as we passed through their gauntlet of body odor and pit bulls. I felt decidedly unauthentic as I went. Here I was, trying to be incognito, trying to be cool with my Johnny Cash t-shirt and my earrings. I had my iPod going by now and was listening to a “Gospel & Christian” playlist. The song that was playing was David Crowder’s “Rescue is Coming.” I turned it up so that I wouldn’t have to hear if the Deadheads were saying things about me, indicting me, calling me out, commenting on my fashionably ripped jeans and my hip Pony walking shoes. I felt as though they knew that despite my efforts to conceal who I was….they could spot my phoniness, my denial. And if they couldn’t then the pit bulls sure as hell could.

David Crowder sang in my ear There’s nothing wrong with me/It’s just that I believe/Things could get better/And there’s nothing wrong with love/I think it’s just enough to believe… I wondered if it was just enough to believe. I believed once that I was called. I believed that God had a task in mind—thissemper reformanda kind of task. Semper Reformanda is that wondrous Reformation-era phrase that seems to be bandied about so much these days. Everyone seems to want the church to reform, but no one seems to understand how to do it, or where to even begin. As I walked the streets of San Diego feeling the accusing stares of the nuevo-Deadheads, I felt my shoulders slump and my heart grow weary. Who was I kidding? I didn’t even feel like a pastor, much less some sort of church leader, much less a part of the emerging church conversation—even less like a reformer.

After wandering around in the Gaslamp District for a while, I finally found a Borders bookstore and went inside. Moments later I was standing in front of the Poetry section staring at a copy of “George Herbert: The Complete English Poems.” It was the only Herbert book on the shelf. I opened it. There was a poem on the page called The Offering. The first two lines read, Come, bring thy gift. If blessings were as slow/As men’s returns, what would become of fools? My eyes filled with tears. Come, bring thy gift.

At the cash register, the young woman who rang up my sale commented on my purchase.

“I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone buy a book of Herbert’s poetry. Well done.”
I smiled a small smile, and wished that I could convey to her the journey that I had undertaken
to stand before here with my money in one hand and Herbert in the other.

“What do you do?” she asked me. “Are you a student, or an English teacher?”

I took my receipt and paused a moment before starting for the door.

“No,” I said. “I’m a pastor.” I pushed the door open and stepped out into the street. The trolley
went by across the street, turned a corner and headed away. A young man wearing a tie-dye shirt
and dirty pants passed me on his way toward the House of Blues. I nodded at him and smiled.

He smiled back.

So first, before you read my response, head on over to his blog and read his original post.

Back already? Ok, here are my thoughts: While I think Rhett’s points are all spot on, I walk away from them with a little more hope for the PC(USA).

I did my undergraduate work at Oral Roberts University, a mecca of Evangelical Christianity. And as top-down-hierarchical as mainline denominations are, I know firsthand that non-denoms are often far worse. Usually there’s a pastor, and he IS the unquestioned authority. The heirarchy then flows down from him (and yes, I did intentionally say “him”). Contrast that with the PC(USA) which, as Rhett points out, so often functions as a top-down hierarchy. But within that hierarchy is a framework that is also surprisingly peer to peer, bottom up self organizing. Think of the autonomy of local churches and sessions, and the democratic values inherent in the Presbyterian system. That will have appeal to millenials also, especially those raised in Evangelical churches looking for an expression of faith that more closely reflects their own values.

The gay issue is certainly dividing our church, but at least we’re talking about it — millennials made up their minds long ago on this issue, but so did Evangelical conservatives, and their decision was to exclude. Period. End of discussion. Because there is still a discussion in our denomination, I believe there is still hope that we will emerge on the inclusive side of this one.

Rhett points out that there is no gender divide among millennials — so I think those millennial women who feel called to ministry are going to be far more likely to find a home in a denomination that has embraced and empowered them for a long time now. And finding a home, or a tribe, a “brand” or a community — these are things that are also important for millennials of either gender. And since they’re two to one more liberal than gen X’ers or boomers, some might argue that the PC(USA) is the obvious home for them anyhow. Certainly for a generation focused on social justice, our denomination has a rich history and tradition of to offer them. True, sometimes we forget about it and focus on other things, but our church has often in the past stood up for issues of equality, justice, and globalism.

And speaking of rich history and tradition, Rhett notes that “Millenials do not like to desert their elders — even when they do crazy things” Or when they live by crazy books of order, perhaps? Where non-denom and Evangelical mega-churches often have little history and tradition, the PC(USA) does, and I think that’s something millennials are finding their way back to.

I think the greater danger with this generation is them leaving “the church” altogether, especially in its less-tolerant, ultra-conservative incarnations. But that’s why I think it’s such an important time for those denominations (like the PCUSA) who have something to offer to this generation. Remember that the church, at the end of the day, is people. I have hope and faith that a Presbyterian church of millenial people will look a lot different than a Presbyterian church of boomers. And if we hang on to our crazy elders for a little while longer (and maybe even learn from them and work alongside of them), I think we can bridge that divide and bring the PC(USA) into the next generation, if not the next era. Maybe that’s what presbymergent is all about anyhow.

So…that’s my response. Would love to hear yours, but I’m going to turn off comments on this post, and direct you back to Rhett’s post to carry on the conversation there.

UPDATE: Tyler and Drew have joined the conversation with posts of their own, plus some interesting conversation back on Rhett’s original post.  And now Bruce Reyes-Chow has also responded on his Moderator Blog.

But we’re a small group, and off and on we wonder what the American Buddhist future will look like. What’s going to happen when our teachers — part of the generation that launched the spiritual tradition in the ’60s and ’70s — grow too old to teach and we don’t yet have a new crop ready to take their place? And while I eventually felt more comfortable with Buddhism — now, the rituals and the chanting in my practice seem necessary, not foreign — what if some people who might connect with the teachings feel too intimidated by the window dressing to walk through the door?

Ah yes…the seeker-sensitive Buddhist movement And then the Emerging Buddhists quickly follow…

Walk into many American Buddhist meditation centers, and you’ll see a majority of white, middle-aged faces. That’s not the case with a Dharma Punx gathering. On a Tuesday night meeting last fall, Korda sported a trucker’s cap, long plaid shorts, a bowling shirt and massive Buddhist tattoos. After a 20-minute guided meditation, many in the audience — arty hipster types in their 20s, 30s and early 40s — sprawled casually across the cushions while Korda and his co-teacher, Craig Swogger, gave a classic Buddhist teaching on the origin of suffering (using the word “stress” instead of “suffering,” though, and punctuating their points with a few expletives).

Wow.  They even cuss.  And did I mention they’re really into social justice, too? Anyhow, it’s a neat article, and a good reminder that we’re pretty connected as human beings in our struggles to find deeper meaning and spirituality in a post-modern, hyper-consumer age. The full text is here.