I’ll have one more poem up tomorrow, but this is my last post of 2005. Hugo will be on hiatus until the first week in January. This means I won’t be returning my emails after tonight. A joyous Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and college bowl season to all!
Sometimes, the gulf between progressive and conservative churches is a vast one. Check out this piece in Christianity Today: "Broken Trust". It’s a short story about what happens in an evangelical high school youth group when a leader "falls short" of the mark. Here’s how it starts:
Thad gripped the Bible on his lap as he sat on the couch, staring blankly at the twinkling Christmas lights on the bushes across the street. Usually he loved the lights, but Pastor Griffin’s words at the emergency meeting last night had completely sapped his holiday spirit. Jason, the youth pastor who had totally energized their youth group over the past two and a half years, had resigned. His fiancée, Courtney, was pregnant.
The news stunned Thad. As youth group president, he’d spent a lot of time with Jason, and he thought Jason was practically the perfect Christian. He had whole chapters of Scripture memorized, led amazing worship times, and preached better than Pastor Griffin. Youth group membership had tripled since he arrived. Courtney helped out with the group, too, leading a Bible study for the girls. They seemed so solid, so faithful. Thad couldn’t be more disappointed and hurt.
I’m always careful not to poke fun at my more conservative brothers and sisters in Christ. I’ve worshiped with them, worked with them, prayed with them. I have tremendous respect for the commitment that so many folks have to traditional sexual morality, a morality that so many of them believe to be the only one congruent with the bible message.
At the same time, I read this and rolled my eyes. I tried to imagine what would happen at All Saints if we learned that one of our youth leaders was pregnant "out of wedlock." Would any of our All Saints kids be disappointed? I doubt it. After all, they already know that most of their adult youth leaders didn’t "wait" until marriage, and they know that we don’t preach abstinence either. I know many of the parents of our kids, and I can’t imagine many of them being shocked and saddened.
I know full well that even at liberal churches, youth ministers (both volunteer and professional) are up on pedestals. Our teens watch us carefully; we do serve as role models. That’s a sacred thing to those of us who serve the All Saints youth. We know that we could easily disappoint and hurt our kids by breaking our commitments and violating their faith in us. You see, that’s the issue that strikes me in the CT story. To my mind, "Thad" isn’t disappointed and hurt because Jason and Courtney are pregnant. Thad is disappointed because Jason and Courtney preached one thing and then did another.
Kids take honesty with deadly seriousness. To most young people, hypocrisy is the most grievous of sins. In some sense, that makes the task of those of us in liberal churches much easier! We aren’t expected to live up to a standard of abstinence before marriage. Of course, we are expected to be faithful in marriage, and if it came out that a youth leader had been unfaithful to his or her partner, that would prove quite hurtful to many of our kids. More than anything else, teens want to know that those who care for them match their language to their lives. And whether liberal or conservative on issues of sexual morality, all youth groups can be devastated by a sudden and obvious revelation about a leader’s "real" life.
So as I reread the little story, I realized that All Saints Pasadena isn’t all that far from Thad’s fictional evangelical church. Yes, we have a different understanding of sexual morality. But on other issues, we are just as likely to place our pastors and our youth leaders on pedestals, and just as likely to be communally shocked when one of them falls off.
A few years ago, I was happily active in another church. I was asked to step down from leadership when certain facts became known about my living arrangements. I did so politely and without rancor, but knew that I could not be part of a community that had such a narrow understanding of what constituted holiness and right action. But the fact that I didn’t like that particular standard does not mean that I reject all standards for those in Christian leadership. And if the highest standard is to live as an instrument of Christ’s love, the second highest standard is to match what we say with what we think and what we do. If we can prayerfully embody His radical love, and tell the truth while doing so, we are fulfilling the very special "great commission" given to those who work with youth.
Roll your eyes all you like. Such sin can indeed be very painful for all concerned. Believe me, I know. Just because you’ve surrendered horse, foot and artillery to the culture and re-invented sexual morality doesn’t mean other people can’t be shocked and saddened by failure. That said, honesty is always best. You’re quite right.
By the way, Merry Christmas. :-)
A very Merry Christmas to you and yours, John.
Hugo,
“To my mind, ‘Thad’ isn’t disappointed and hurt because Jason and Courtney are pregnant. Thad is disappointed because Jason and Courtney preached one thing and then did another.”
I’m glad that you can relate to the latter issue, Hugo, but what if Thad is disappointed over BOTH options? It seems to me that you’re missing out on a key issue here: When Christian leaders in evangelical churches fall, for many people, the deepest issue is, “Could it be me as well?” And we are reminded that we all only stand by the grace of God and are subject to incredible temptations, whatever form they take.
I’d appreciate your thoughts on two questions regarding progressive Christian views:
*”Holiness” seems to have a different definition to progressives than orthodox folk. “Holiness” to progressives seems to mean “wholeness,” the lack of dichotomy between the public self and the private self (as you elaborate upon in this article). Of course, that’s one factor of holiness to those who are orthodox, but we see God’s command to be holy impacting a lot more private spheres of morality than progressives do.
*Why do you rarely, if ever, hear the word “obedience” in progressive circles? Of course, you’ll hear a lot of Jesus’ summary of the law and its relevance to today’s Christians, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever read anything written by a progressive with the word “obedience” or “obey” in it.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Chip
Chip, that last question is a doozy, and well worth the sort of post I don’t have time for now. January, I promise!
From what I recall of the Old Testament, premarital sex was seen as a fairly minor transgression, as long as none of the parties involved were betrothed. You either got married, or the man had to pay her dowry. Yes, they may have sinned (by the standards of the church), but seeing as they are already engaged, is there such a great need for publicly shaming them, and stripping them of their leadership roles?
“but seeing as they are already engaged, is there such a great need for publicly shaming them, and stripping them of their leadership roles? ”
Apparently.
I like that they point to David in the comments at the end of the story.
Thanks Hugo. Interesting. Chip, your questions are great: I’ve put together a post about holiness and obedience from my own thoughts, Obedience to God.
(I’ve been trying to get trackback ping to work but it didn’t appear to, yet.)
Okay and now of course the trackback went through twice. Sigh. Still - success.
The Dilemma: How do you have someone speak to upholding moral standards, when they themselves do not follow them? Even though the ad hominem tu quoque argument is a fallacy, it is still frequently invoked as an excuse to dismiss what such people say.
Traditionalist Answer: Remove those who go against the morality they preach, as they are no longer effective in disseminating it.
Progressive Answer: Ditch the morality.
My take: If I’m going to ditch the morality, I can ditch the whole church and save me a bundle of hours each week.
Why is it an either/or question? Let’s assume (although I don’t necessarily) that the youth leader has transgressed, then why must he be removed if he is willing to own up and seek forgiveness? “You’re bad, you’re gone” appears to me to miss the Gospel message entirely.
I don’t know if it matters to anyone, but the article is clearly marked as a fictional account. However much you can sympathize with ‘Thad,’ the description is intended to provide one perspective of this sort of situation. They purposefully leave no room for forgiveness or even repentance, focusing on the fallout and disappointment instead of dealing with the issue itself.
Whatever your sexual standards, that isn’t a very ethical way to “deal with the issue” fictionally.
It “must be” because a violation of trust and standards has to have consequences; otherwise it’s just cheap grace.
Speaking as someone who is more of agnostic than Christian, I take offense to the idea that progressives don’t have morality, or that they “ditched” them, gonzman. Hugo was talking about lying and hypocrisy are wrong, that speaks of morality to me.
Have a plesant and reflective Solstice!
You know, John, I would really and genuinely like to know what “sexual morality” was before modern culture arrived.
And I warn you - the history of marriage and statistics regarding out-of-wedlock pregnancies from about the 10th century onwards is a hobby of mine…
From which you can probably conclude that facts do not support any fantasy of a blissful past where people got married first and had children later.
Still - maybe you know something that I don’t.
And of course - Merry Christmas indeed.
Well, as an agnostic, I don’t know why you’d be offended, since I obviously wasn’t talking about you, now, was I?
Now, let’s say I was to begin preaching against Demon Tobacco, waving my cigarette in the air. Or talking about the virtues of temperance, occasionally sipping from my 20 year old Scotch. Or preaching the virtues of diversity and racioal tolerance while my own employees were as lily white as a local branch of the Ku Klux Klan. But then again, why bring Al Franken into this?
I would get smirks, rolling of eyes, mutters of “yeah, right” and outright demands of “Who the heck are you to talk about that?” I would not be an effective spokesman for that POV. Because I would be a HYPOCRITE. Preach one thing. Practice the other.
Now, unless I missed something, fornication is still a sin (That’s the whole sex outside of marriage thing). If you have a church which preaches chastity, and the youth pastor is found to be engaging in unchastity - fornication - well, you do the math.
If, however, they aren’t preaching it, then it is right and correct that they shouldn’t dismiss them for practicing it, since they have, well, “ditched” that segment of morality and made it optional. Q.E.D.
I suppose I could dress it up in PC euphemisms if it would make you happy, but it would be a case of the proverbial “lipstick on a pig” no matter how many semantic gymnastics I went through.
Hi!
>>To my mind, “Thad” isn’t disappointed and hurt because Jason and Courtney are pregnant. Thad is disappointed because Jason and Courtney preached one thing and then did another.