church shopping

Most of this post is copied from an email I wrote to some friends a few weeks ago. Just now I started to write a post about my new church in Oxford, but realized I should first include the description of my first visit there.

I went church shopping this morning (I’m normally against calling it church shopping, but I really think it is the appropriate term for what happened.) See, one of my friends had the brilliant idea that rather than wasting a month visiting every church in town, I could consolidate and try to hit more than one a day, which is extraordinarily easy in oxford (remember I’m living in a faulkner novel or short story, I haven’t decided yet, I guess it depends on how funny vs. tragic this whole experience ends up being). Anyhow it’s easy to church shop in Oxford because we have a town square ~ with the courthouse and important restaurants, bars, stores, etc. ~ then one block off the square is what I am going to affectionately refer to as the church district, because I kid you not, the main baptist, methodist, episcopal, catholic, and presbyterian churches are all located side by side, and have been since 1837. So my plan this morning was to hit up the presbyterian 8:30 service, then depending on how it went stay for sunday school or duck into a nearby bakery for coffee and the morning paper, then make it to the methodist church for the 11 oclock service.
 
The presbyterian church was a disaster. The sanctuary was built in 1881, and unlike some buildings that are old, this one was not pretty. It was clearly the best efforts of a community recovering from losing a civil war. They have repainted it a few times on the inside and installed carpet, etc. but it had that musty smell that you normally encounter in small log cabins at historic sites like Lincoln’s birthplace. And that is just not a smell i’m looking for in a lively “God is real to us” kind of congregation. Now I’m not just judging on the smell, but it didn’t bode well. It also had that awkward light blue painted ceiling that i think was really popular in churches in 1967. Anyhow the sermon was about as deep as the devotionals i was leading as a 5th grader and there were no young people in sight. It just felt like a random room of middle-aged to old-people going through some obligatory sunday morning ritual just like their coffee and poop on every other day. And maybe I caught it on a bad day, but still.
 
So needless to say, I jumped off of their church property at the first opportunity, which wasn’t easy because I had to walk 30 yards across their cobblestone courtyard to reach the gate and I was in heels, not fun. Anyhow I opted for the bakery for the next hour. which was amazing. They had good coffee and pastries (really i only had a small jam filled shortbread thing, but everything else looked good). It wasn’t the normal bakery feel, in fact the closest atmosphere i could compare it to would be Common Grounds in Waco, but not so “college-indie-rock-i-only-use-macs.” Anyhow i sat at the bar and read and made friends with a girl named Tamera, who was there reading and drinking tea (because she was sick) she was a bit of talker, but still nice.
 
Moving on, the methodist church was good. not “pinch myself is this real” the way Calvary was the first day i walked in and heard Julie preach, but it was still nice.
       a) gorgeous building, which doesn’t really matter, but if I get bored in sermons I find that if I’m in a pretty building (and stainedglass is a key to this) that I still spend the time focusing on god, so in a way the building really is important for me personally in a sunday worship environment. (obviously that wasn’t the case in Waco, but i do love Calvary’s stained glass over the baptistry).
       b) the choir was wearing kick-ass robes, kind of like monk robes instead of choir robes, this is similar to the beauty in first point but I still wanted to mention it.
       c) the preacher, who was an associate pastor so he probably doesn’t preach everyweek – which means I still need to hear the main guy to make any big decisions – anyhow the preacher started off with, “may the words of my heart . . .” which although I associate with Calvary, I also associate with college because we said it in unison at the end of every chapel.
       d) the sermon was good, completely different from Julie’s style, a bit more dry and academicy as you would expect at a methodist church, but it was good. bringing in new ideas, quoting multiple sources, discussing options for how to approach the scripture. completely blew away the presbyterian sermon.
       e) the song of response was “O Sacred Head”, done acapella. which is one of my favorites.

Since the Sunday described above I have been going to the methodist church on a regular basis, I’ve even been to sunday school a few times. So at some point in the next few weeks I’ll write more about the journey of learning about and becoming a part of a new church.

Oh and I’ve decided that the picture at the top of the blog is going to change somewhat randomly, at times it will tie in with the recent posts (such as today with a post about church the picture is of people standing outside of my great-grandparents’ church in the 1960s), but other times it will just be something pretty.

free press or free religion?

Gospel Today, a nationally circulated Christian magazine, recently featured five prominent female senior pastors on its cover. Lifeway bookstores, which are owned and operated by the Southern  Baptist Convention, pulled the magazines from the shelves and placed them behind the counter, forcing patrons to request them as if they were porn (wouldn’t it be funny if you really could buy porn at Lifeway, like there was this whole industry of Christian porn, that was really just unmarried couples getting to second base?) Anyhow a Lifeway representative said that the magazine was pulled because “it was contrary to what we believe.”

This morning I ran across this CNN commentary piece in which the author berates Lifeway for restricting free press. I personally disagree with Lifeway’s stance on the issue of women in ministry and I disagree with the choice to pull things which don’t line up exactly with your theology. (I mean why not leave the magazines out and encourage customers to talk about the SBC debate surrounding women in ministry?) Anyhow my disagreements aside, I don’t think Lifeway is infringing on the freedom of the press by pulling the magazines, in fact I think they are exercising their freedom of religion. They did not restrict Gospel Today from publishing the story, and they didn’t even refuse to sell it – so I’m not sure how the press argument can actually take form. But even if they refused to sell it, they are a privately owned retail company that gets to choose what merchandise to carry. And by choosing to condemn this magazine they were honestly exercising their freedom to display their religion as they see fit.

prayer

My Sunday school class is doing a series on the Psalms. Naturally that leads us to discussions on prayer.

I have three nephews, one is possibly the most well behaved baby ever, one has more spunk than he knows what to do with (he could be a genius), and one is objectively the cutest kid ever. The one with the spunk is two and has recently started helping with saying a prayer before dinner. His prayers go like this, “Dear God. Amen.”

I think he’s on to something here. 

“it bears the marks”

note: I beg forgiveness for the fact that complex elements of Baptist history are smoothed over here with the caress of a linebacker learning to waltz

My own Baptist identity is a little checkered. I grew up Methodist, part of a oddly powerful Methodist congregation in the heart of Southern Baptist territory. Through middle and high school I began to have a serious courtship with a few SBC churches, and took the bait – hook, line and sinker. I went to college considering myself much more in-line with the Baptist churches’ theology. However in college as I began to question several elements of that, I had no real knowledge that there was another Baptist option beyond SBC, I had never heard the SBC churches mention exactly what the “Southern” in the title was defining itself in opposition to. So by my junior year I had clearly defined myself as not Baptist (thinking SBC and Baptist were one in the same). I had no idea what I was replacing that with, but I was not Baptist.

Imagine my shock when I moved to grad school, to Waco and learned that being Baptist does not mean SBC. Through a combination of a new church and a U.S. religious history masters curriculum I began to redefine “Baptist” in my head. I learned what happened to the rest of the Baptist tradition when the SBC broke off in favor of slavery in the 1840s. I learned that the SBC of my lifetime (I was born in 1984) was drastically different from its historical identity due to a major shift

irresponsible theology

One of my roommates is working a disciple now this weekend with a youth group that she is not a regular presence at. The problem arises in the curriculum she has been asked to teach. It has a name that involves words like passion, morals, purity. And is basically an off-brand of True Love Waits. And while I am all for good real conversations with youth about sex, this falls shy of such. In fact it is simply irresponsible theology that we are handing to our youth. The book lays out a strict interpretation of sexuality, which is fine, and they back it up by scripture, nicely leaving out things they deem cultural such as polygamy. But it is still a list of “do not”s, with little real discussion behind it, just examples of how their lives will fall apart mentally, emotionally, physically if they stray from this list. We all know there is no way to scare teenagers away from sex, why not be honest? Why not say, yes it is a great physical pleasure unlike anything else we have, and God created us to enjoy it? Why not talk about how not everyone is going to feel a sense of guilt immediately upon engaging in sex? Maybe if we are honest with their natural curiosity we can be more honest with our answers. I see no reason to go on giving them this irresponsible theology, especially since there have been several books recently that deal with this from a biblical standpoint (Sex God by Rob Bell, Real Sex by Lauren Winner) 

One example of where this curriculum falls short is an object lesson which has four guys with fairly hairy legs at the front of the classroom. The teacher takes a strip of duct tape and attaches it to guy #1’s leg, and then rips it off. Moves on to guy#2 does the same thing with the same piece of tape. This continues down the line. Then turns to the crowd and ask what happens. The common consensus is that by guy#4 the tape had lost its ability to bond. Then the teacher is suppose to transition into a discussion