After a substantial absence from the blogosphere, worship this morning has propelled me back into cyberspace. It would be wrong to identify the church and preacher, suffice it to say that it was a large Methodist church serving a university town. I went expecting a reasonably staid, intellectually stimulating act of worship. What I got made me feel I was in a suburban Baptist congregation: trite choruses, sung badly, hands down for coffee worshippers, preacher as continuity announcer rather than leader of worship, 20 minute sermon full of banalities and prejudices which could have been preached thirty years ago. The only upside was the chance to contribute to the Christian Aid appeal for Haiti which, incidentally, was barely mentioned, including in the prayers. I felt staying for coffee would have been excruciating with my having to make at least 75% of the effort at any conversations, so I went to Costa instead.
This experience forces me again to ask questions about my ecclesiastical identity, a posh way of asking where my spiritual home might be. This is a more complicated question than you might think, for I am pulled in three or more different directions. Theologically speaking, I am more than comfortable in the Methodist/Wesleyan stream of thought. Evangelical Arminianism makes more and more sense to me, personally, and I am only surprised that so many seem ignorant of it. I am proud of our place in the worldwide church and the spirit of mission that drives us into conversations and covenants with those who are different. Above all, it is the centrepiece of Wesleyan understandings, namely that identity is derived from connexions, that continues to inspire and compel me in my life and vocation as a Christian, a father, a pastor, preacher and teacher.
Why is it then, that I feel more and more alienated from Methodism when it gathers for worship, the place where we open ourselves up to God's word of liberation and love again that we might see transformation in our own lives and the life of the world? I know what Methodist worship has always been a bit hit-and-miss and I am not harking back to a golden age. What depresses me is how 'thin' it seems to be these days, where Wesleyan hymns are expurgated or omitted to save congregations from being exposed to meaty theology. In an increasingly complex world, our liturgical response is at best simplistic and thus unable to equip people for an adequate discipleship. Speaking for myself - and I fully accept I am probably weird - I need a worship that helps me to engage with the world around me, challenges me to reflect for myself and with others on a proper Christian response, and encourages me to an ethical life. I also need to be exposed to the beauty of poetry, music and art as it seeks to give glory to God, for that will provide me with a vehicle for self transcendence. And I want dignity and integrity throughout. So I end up with certain Catholics, as a place where I hear Charles Wesley revered more often than in my own tradition, or certain Anglicans, where I am treated as a whole person in worship, not a disembodied voice box and ears.
But I know I don't belong there, I cannot 'become' as some would wish. I am too angered by English Anglicanism, their snobbery which counts Methodists only worthy of conversation when 'the big boys' don't want to play. A snobbery based entirely it seems on the very limited experience of English ecclesiastical life where establishment maintains the fiction of an Anglican membership in the tens of millions. I just can't get beyond the intellectual dishonesty on which the Church of England is built and so must simply remain a visitor, thankful for the hospitality when it's offered. Catholicism and Orthodoxy fill me with fascination and a greater intellectual satisfaction, but there remains a gap between us. Social teaching, homophobia, misogyny, and conformity all bricks in the barrier between us, but it is culture more than doctrine that divides.
So where does that leave me? Acknowledging that struggle is normative for religious life, that Christianity is about finding travelling companions and not a guest house. So I should not respond to the criticisms I receive from others for whom Methodism has become a fixed identity rather than an inner restlessness. I should rather, when I find wells of sweet water and drink deeply, be grateful to those who supply them, whatever their label.
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