Friday, March 25, 2011

Rest in Peace Sue Creed

Every Wednesday she came over and soul collaged with me. One day she was flipping through magazines and pulled out this poem. She loved it. When I was looking over the funeral file she left for us, I found the poem tucked into one of her collages. It reminds me of a Spring day, last year, when she still had zest and vitality in her body, when she could talk shit and laugh out loud. It reminds me of her Spirit that is now free...

So to her, I launch this poem, in the love of freedom and life.

Of Yield and Abandon

A muscular, thick-pelted woodchuck,
created in yield, in abandon, lifts onto his haunches. 
Behind him, abundance of ferns, a rocks wall's 
coldness, never in sun, a few noisy grackles.
Our eyes find shining beautiful
because it reminds us of water. To say this
does not make fewer the rooms of the house
or lessen its zinc-ceilinged hallways.
There is something that waits inside us,
a nearness that fissures, that fishes. Leaf shine
and stone shine edging the tail of the woodchuck silver,
splashing the legs of chickens and clouds. 
In Russian, the translator told me,
there is no word for "thirsty"--a sentence,
as always, impossible to translate.
But what is the point of preserving the bell
if to do so it must be filled with concrete or wax? 
A body prepared for travel but not for singing? 

--Jane Hirshfield

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Separation of Church and State


The Congregationalist
First Congregational Church, Battle Creek
Rev. Emily Joye McGaughy

People always try to make sense of God based on their encounters with the world and make sense of the world based on their encounters with God. In the late nineteenth century a protestant movement known as “the social gospel” took root in America in response to the Industrial Revolution’s impact on the world. Josiah Strong, Horace Bushnell and Walter Rauschenbusch were some of the pioneer theologians of the social gospel and they were all pastors firmly rooted in communities of faith. Members of the United Church of Christ today can trace denominational ties to all three of these men and their churches.

Economics (production, consumption, working conditions, immigration labor, and wage standards) and diversity (abolitionist, suffragist and child labor movements) were the worldly issues provoking new ideas about God at the time of the social gospel movement. As unbound freedoms and sufferings began impacting various sectors of society simultaneously, social gospel theologians took note and took to the pen. Some of their writings are the most brilliant theological texts of all time. The main thrust of social gospel theology—what separated it from the dominant theology of its day—is that life is not primarily individual, but rather social. From this claim, social gospel theologians constructed theology about God that focused on the social nature of sin and salvation with Jesus’ teachings about “the kingdom of God” as their moral compass. Their theology, if taken seriously, had direct political implications.   

Much of what began with New York Pastor Walter Rauschenbusch (the father of social gospel theology in America) at the turn of the century was carried forth by 20th century figures known as liberation theologians who were responding to The Great Depression, WW I&II, and the Civil Rights Movement/s. Again, social conditions of freedom and oppression were the worldly phenomena that provoked American liberation theologians such as James Cone, Mary Daly, Kelly Brown Douglas and Kwok Pui Lan (just to name a select few!) to envision God in creative ways that led to political momentum. In Latin America, Africa and especially Nazi-occupied Germany very similar content emerged from 20th century theologians trying to take God and the world seriously without minimizing one’s impact upon the other.  

I quit believing in God as a teenager. It wasn’t until college, when I stumbled upon the writings of social gospel and liberation theologians that I even began to consider returning to religion. What inspired me so much about these movements within Christianity is how unabashedly thorough and relentless they were in addressing the question of power: both God’s power and the power/principalities on Earth. The church of my childhood was hesitant to address that question and it drove me nuts…eventually drove me out the door. I don’t think my experience is unique for many young people. My sense is that most young people are spiritually hungry, but their search for spiritual truth is woven into everyday realities of freedom and liberation, realities that are tied up in power dynamics and are therefore political in nature. Therefore if we want to be a faith community that is attractive to the post-boomer generation, we must grapple with issues of power in our society. That means we cannot shy away from the political realities of our day.  

Rev. Thomas Ryberg recently spoke at a political rally in town and some folk questioned his pastoral authority, wondering if he was doing an ethical job of observing the separation of church and state. Some questioned if he was speaking on behalf of the church or if he was speaking on behalf of himself. These are totally important questions for folk both in and outside of our congregation to be wrestling with on a regular basis. Communities must keep clergy accountable to oaths of ordination. And clergy must keep communities accountable to the truths of God. If any pastor allows political movements that are oppressive to wash over her community unchallenged, she is not doing her job of truth-telling. The separation of church and state does not bind politicians to silence on religious issues, nor religious clerics to silence on political issues. In fact, the separation of church and state provides the necessary space between political and religious entities for healthy accountability to be reached on both sides. We inherit this necessary space from the constitutional framers of our country and social gospel/liberation theologians of our tradition.

May we always occupy that inherited space with respect and courage for we are all citizens of this country and seekers of the truth of God simultaneously. Let us continue taking both our God and this world seriously, without minimizing the impact of one upon the other. Amen.