The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.
OPPRESSION (part 3 of 3)
Political power seems to corrupt religions, corroding them from within... A new book, Southern Cross: The Beginning of the Bible Belt, provides a glimpse into the history of the Baptist and Methodist churches at a critical time when a choice was made between marginalization and acceptance into the mainstream. The rabble-rousing...preachers who roamed the American South in the eighteenth century were radical not only in their desire to save "Worldlings" from the evils of dancing, drinking, and gambling. They also had a vision of the church as a place where the distinctions of race, gender, and class were all but obliterated by the Holy Spirit... By the early nineteenth century, however, these socially unpopular positions had provoked considerable tension and even scandal within Southern culture, and the churches faced a drop in membership.... "they would not rest content with a religion that was the faith of women, children, and slaves.
It is unfortunate that as the Church, in many of its forms across the world, grows within a specific culture there is a movement to "fit in" - whatever that means. In one of my first years serving a congregation in Detroit, a friend took a call to a growing area up north in the state. One of the first things he was told to do was join the "Rotary" or "Kiwanis" clubs as a way to get know and make contacts. He was also told to use the standard Lutheran Book of Worship so as to "attract" people. Twenty years later, we are told to use anything but the LBW to "attract" the population that does not want the standard. "Fitting in" to what is known or liked or accepted is a pattern of life within the Church that has kept the institution (even small institutions that claim to be "free" of "denominational" stuff) afloat. But in what are we floating!?! From worship forms to the faces in the pews, the church can become corrupt very easily when we are seduced into going along with what is. That is why money becomes such a powerful instrument in shaping the churches within our culture. We have a tendency to listen to the "power of the pocketbook" ...we tend to want to be oppressed rather than live within the amazing grace of what is still called the "Good News."
Connection: You are a gift in the name of our God. You are sent out this day to thrive within the life that is handed to us as God's beloved. You are invited to live as though the only power worth anything at all is God's love for you and your neighbor and the life that comes when we jump into the clear baptismal water of that promise where all the saints of God thrive together.
You along Lord God are the bright morning star that lifts us up to new life and opens our hearts that our lives may become brimful with your love. Praise be to you. Amen.
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