I generally blog in the morning. Now, my church has three congregations, and the one I go to is tailored for families of school children. Our service is over by 10. This means that the children in sports teams can go to both: that families have the day together — and, since we serve breakfast, that the parents have one less meal to consider on Sunday.
But when that church is closed we visit. Yesterday, we could not find Leith Valley (which is similar) and there were good reasons not to attend Highgate’s main congregation.
So we went to Knox. Knox is liberal. Knox however, has good music, and I know about half the choir. There were about 80 people there. The sermon was about following the star and not giving into hatred from those of other faiths and beleifs, but to see their wisdom. And one of the hymns praised Mohammed.
This left son angry. He hates Mohuammed. Becuase that bastard preaches execution and slavery to the infidel, Desctruction and persecution of the body of CHrist. As Mosab Yousef says, Allah is a thug, and Islam was a religion of thugs. (Warriers if you will, but functionally the same thing). Then the session clerk praised the Occupy Wall St demonstraters and prayed that they would show us the way forward.
I was left thinking useful idiots
1I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
7But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.”
9(When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 11The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Now, we are called to keep the unity of the spirit in Love. But at the same time we disagree. Vigourously. Frequently. And when we do this, it is easy to take this personally. The distinction one has to make between beleif systems and people is important. For people are people. There are totally phoney evil people who are in out churches. And there are men and women living righteous lives who are not Christian. THere is a tag for this: Nihil ad hominem. Do not look at the person, look at the thoughts.
I have no argument with Knox caring for the poor. Knox is an elite church. The rich have a duty to be generous. (But not to lobby the government to be generous — the church is the appropriate channel for that). However, because that chruch is elite, they are infected with the culture of the elites in all its forms — from Bach to Socailism. An old saw says that the upper classes are communists, the middle classes Tory and the working class social democrat — and we are seeing this worked out here.
In fact, their broad minded empathy with people and their theological soft headedness (“God the life-bringer, love maker and pain-bearer” when the liturgy calls for “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”? Ewwww. the double entendres there… Yuk. I need some mind bleach) makes them very susceptible to the fashions of this world. They are immature. They are useful idiots.
Ideologies matter. Systematic theology matters. We can (and do) work together, and we can look at each other’s church history and the way they have worked out the meaning of Christ’s salvation… yes. But we need to do that from a position of knowledge and maturity.
Otherwise we will be right on, up to the miniute… and instantly irrelevant. My son hates that church. My love of Bach and choirs is not great enough to take us back.