Building the Irresistible Community
Published Sunday, April 15, 2012
John Linscheid's Words from the Princeton Seminary Presentation on April 12th. John was the last to speak, after Randy Spaulding and Amy Yoder McGloughlin.
There is a tradition among the old, old, traditional Mennonites. The first elder gets up to preach. Then the second gets up and "testifies." It's supposed to confirm the previous proclamation, but it's usually really another sermon. Then the third elder gets up to do the same and on down the bench.
Well, by the time they get to the third elder, I'm sure folks are supposed to be listening intently, but . . .
People need spiritual community--well, at least I think most people do. Church has tended to define spiritual community ethnically, theologically, ethically. But now it seems our task is to build the beloved community in ways that cross those boundaries.
Germantown Church has always been a little odd. Although we are the oldest Mennonite congregation in the Western Hemisphere, we've generally been on the margins, and often not entirely orthodox Mennos. GMC an odd collection. From moderate to quietly atheist. From radically pacifist to just-war advocates.
And that's pretty true today. We have everything from quiet atheists to off-the-deep-end nutcases, like me, who have "seen Jesus." And we range from radical pacifics to staunch just-war theorists--although the former predominate and I'm not sure we've always treated the latter very well.
Anyway, before Germantown Mennonite Church every decided to become “inclusive” it had a reputation. Back in 1984, when Ken and I still lived in Kansas, we made scouting trips to places we might want to live. During a trip to Philadelphia, Don Winters encouraged us to move to Philly and "come to Germantown" which he assured us would welcome us. Openly gay Don had famously asked the Germantown congregation, “could I become a member.”
And his question got taken seriously.
The ensuing advances and retreats are too complicated to summarize in a few
minutes, but the bottom line was that in all the deliberations and negotiations, on the congregational level, gay and lesbian people participated as equals. It was a process we engaged in together—not one of straight people deciding about gay and lesbian people. In my experience it was always "us" decided about "us." That was something that the conference and denomination never got—I’m not sure they get it now. They still conceive of the church as a straight entity entitled to decide what to do about LGBT people.
Bottom line, the culture at GMC seems to be to strive to take one another seriously, care for each other, and treat each other as equals. We mess up. We fail to achieve the goal. But we keep holding that as our norm and striving to live up to it.
Germantown strives to build the beloved community. Not in a soupy, hyper-pietistic way—but just in that striving-to-take-each-other-seriously-and-care-for-each-other way.
Old gay people like me have a tendency to tell war stories. I'm not sure how relevant those stories are anymore. Young people come out in high school now. Gay marriage is legal in many states. Of course a hard swing to the right and we could see it all go backward.
But even if all goes well, people still need spiritual community.
I think the experiment we at Germantown are engaged in (and who knows how it will turn out) is to build the beloved community for people who do not fit the old tribal, ideological, and ethical constraints. Spirituality is diverse. To build a beloved community. in which members take each other seriously and strive to care for and respect each other, in the face of even wider contexts of diversity, is a great challenge.
It is not easy task. But I think it can be joyful and exciting. To build it as an irresistible community. To counter fear with a risky embrace of difference. To conquer shame about deviant experience with irrepressible joy of spiritual and ethical discovery. To become an irresistible and infectious community.
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