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Some people profess to be cradle Lutherans. Others are
cradle Episcopalians, Methodists, or Catholics. I’m a
cradle church-hopper.
My mother is a practicing Roman Catholic and my father
was raised in a Free Will Baptist family. It was
important to my mom that her children grow up Roman
Catholic, and so my younger sister and I received the
sacraments in a small parish church down the street
where we attended Mass each weekend.
Dad, though, has been a professional singer for many
years and has served various churches, wherever friends
have asked him to sing.
Eager to hear him
sing whenever possible, I often went to church with him,
too, even though that meant also going to Mass on
Saturday evening or very early on Sunday.
With Dad,
I often went to Methodist, Presbyterian,
Lutheran, Congregational, and other churches.
Particularly memorable were the days at his parents’
Baptist church, where he would sing hymn after hymn
alongside his brothers and father, and I would dance
around and eat the delectable food my grandma and her
friends had prepared.
I
felt love, joy, and peace — God’s presence — in each of
these places. But at the same time, each place felt very
different from the others. I spent most of my growing-up
years intensely pondering these distinctions, especially
between the Catholic and Baptist congregations, those
represented by each side of my family. If God is in each
of these churches, then really, what is the difference?
Is the Roman Catholic God different from the American
Baptist God? Or does the one God behave differently in
each place? Does each church simply show a different
side of this one God? Do our Jewish, Muslim, and
Buddhist friends share parts of God, too?
There is an ancient fable about a group of blind men who
encounter an elephant. Unsure what creature they have
just met, each man touches the elephant and proceeds to
describe it very differently. The blind man who happens
to touch the elephant’s side declares that the elephant
is very smooth; the man who touches the elephant’s tusk
says that the elephant is very sharp; and amazingly
enough, the man who touches the tail describes the
elephant as very thin. Each man thought he alone was
right, and so naturally, an argument ensued about the
nature of the elephant. However, the king, who had
witnessed the entire scene, explained that, above all,
the elephant is very big. They had each touched only one
part, and that to really know what the elephant is, they
would need to put their experiences together.
This fable is often used to describe the coexistence of
many faiths, of which Christianity is but one. But we
also can apply the fable to the mosaic of denominations
that is the Christian church today. Who is the
elephant we’re all trying to figure out? Well, we might
all agree that God is Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. But in any one church, can we experience all
there is to know about God? Does any one denomination
own the complete and correct definition and experience
of God? I don’t think so.
Some disagree with me. But because it is part of the
condition of the church today, all of us Christians need
to confront the reality of the varying perspectives of
our denominations and find ways to deal with those
differences. At the very least, thinking about it will
help us to decide where to go to church!
On the first day of my Introduction to New Testament
class this fall, each of us students took a turn to
introduce ourselves. About half the class introduced
themselves as life-long Methodists, which was not
surprising at a Methodist seminary. But the other half
came from a variety of backgrounds — largely, but not
exclusively, Christian traditions. One woman described
herself as “non-denominational.” When the professor
pressed for more details, she said, “I’m just
non-denominational. I don’t do denominations.”
Many people and some churches describe themselves as
non-denominational. The concern is, of course, that the
“non-denominational” group becomes in effect a
denomination.
Another approach is to try to merge denominations. The
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler, in Chicago, embodies
this approach in an interesting way. As described in its
vision
statement, it seeks to
proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ while living
together as one body of Christians that come mainly from
and in connection with the Episcopal Church, the
American Baptist Churches, and the Evangelical Covenant
Church. They seek to recognize the differences while
celebrating the unity of the church of Christ.
Reconciler, as it is called for short, envisions itself
as “a proclamation of the universal body of Christ — the
one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church as a concrete
spiritual reality” and “wants to be an example of how we
can be reconciled to one another not just as individuals
but also as institutions.” The folks at Reconciler
proclaim that the source of their reconciliation is not
themselves or righteous works, but only Jesus Christ.
They “hope to draw those who find Christ hidden by the
disunity of Christians and our various claims to be
church, that all may find reconciliation offered them in
Christ Jesus.”
Many of us can identify with that statement. I
have found worshiping at Reconciler very fulfilling, and
though I love the people, I now feel called to pick a
denomination, stick to it, and grow in it. As Scotty
McLennan mentions in his book Finding Your Religion,
exploration is good. I would add that it is vigorously
healthy. But at some point, I think, we need to find “a
place to lay our head,” that is, a home.
I
have attended many different churches with many
different people for many different reasons. I have
spent good times with friends from a wide variety of
other traditions and considered how their outlooks and
practices might jive with my own.
My intense seeking, begun at birth, has deepened my
hunger for one spiritual home, and as a child of a
Baptist/Catholic marriage, perhaps it is no surprise
that I feel more and more at home in the Episcopal
Church, a professed via media, a middle way that
embraces tension.
Just as we tend to appreciate our own homes much more
when we’ve just returned from a long journey, so do I
cherish my many experiences growing up and the
church-hopping I’ve done since then. In all of my hops,
though, I’ve realized that God is navigating my course
and has particular places for each of us at particular
times. Sometimes our time in those places is fleeting
and we wonder why we even stopped there in the first
place. But I trust that God always has some reason. I
think of my church-hopping as a big adventure with God.
And that’s the part that is most important: no matter
where, why, or how often we go to church, being a
Christian is never boring. God always has something
queued up, whether it’s the itch to try out another
tradition or the urge to settle into one for awhile. If
we’re up for it, following Christ can be the greatest
adventure imaginable.
Emily Williams lives in Evanston, Il. She is
finishing a master’s degree in music ministry from
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and is
discerning a call to the Episcopal priesthood.
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