Back in Church...for an hour and a half

The hot, supportive hairdresser wife and I were back in church Sunday. Our good friend Jon Middendorf, also known affectionately as El Jefe Grande, was installed as the senior pastor of Oklahoma City First Church of the Nazarene. The coronation service went well. I was disappointed that no knaves or fools were pilloried, but what can you expect from folks who think drinking is a bad idea? How do you get a crowd worked up enough to pillory knaves if you don't make them drink? Even George Washington had the good sense to get people liquored up prior to an election. (No, I'm not making that up. His household books reveal that he distributed quarts per person prior to elections. That's quarts.) Also, no one was fired, no scepter was conferred, and no one was mocked publicly. If these Nazarenes want to put on a show, they're going to have to do better.

Anyway, the hottie and I were well-received for the most part. People were friendly and gracious. One young man told me he was "glad to see that I love God." (He's a friend, so he can say that.) I replied, "I love Jon." I did discover that I don't want to be in a church service again. Ever. I can't believe I sat through so many. I love some of those people, but I'll see them away from bad music, long prayers, teetotalers (often dry drunks), and fundamentalists. I know, a community is made up of all kinds of different people, and that's part of what being a Christian is all about. First, I'm not a Christian, and second, no one should be asked to endure legalists and fundamentalists for the sake of community. By their nature, those two types are poisonous to healthy community.

I think it was a relief to discover that I no longer feel the need to be involved in the dog and pony show. It's also nice to know that I can maintain friendships with people without that weekly shindig being central to our relationship. Now if Christians can just learn that, maybe we can do away with worship services all together and make our way to the bloody mary bar at Pearl's for Sunday brunch.

Comments

[Leighton]

First, I'm not a Christian, and second, no one should be asked to endure legalists and fundamentalists for the sake of community. By their nature, those two types are poisonous to healthy community.

Months (years?) ago on an earlier thread, someone objected to a similar use of "fundamentalist," on the basis of not everyone who subscribes to the 19th century fundamentals is a total asshole. I never felt like my response to that was as clear as I wanted it to be, but after a couple weeks of working through some of Suzette Haden Elgin's writing, I think I can give it a better shot.

Fundamentalists are usually demonized for (1) believing strange or counterfactual things and (2) insisting that said beliefs are fundamentally (heh) important to everyone everywhere in all possible circumstances, but I don't think this is why their reputation is so bad.

Fundamentalists who find themselves in social hot water almost always do so as a consequence of their false belief that words are the only thing that matter in communication. This is how they claim to read the text, after all--"The Bible says X, therefore X is true." (Principle here is more important than practice; that errors and nuances in English translations are irrelevant for passages on homosexuality but vitally important for verses about wine is beside the point.) It doesn't matter whether the text is a song or a poem or an account of history or a letter to a specific group of people--only the physical words actually written are supposed to matter.

This may be strange, but every subculture has its quirks. The real problem arises when this belief bleeds over into their person-to-person communication, and suddenly spoken words, which in practice comprise about 10% of a communication's meaning (the other 90% is tone of voice, gestures and body positioning, conversational history and social context, all of which contribute to a simultaneous conversation about the relationship between the speakers and listeners), are elevated to the only possible source of meaning in a conversation. There's no sensitivity to the fact that the subtext of "I believe that the Bible clearly condemns behavior X", depending on context and tone of voice, can--with exactly the same words--range from "I respect you and your opinions--thank you for sharing them, and here is my thought on the matter" to "You'd better shape up, mister, before God gets as pissed with you as I am." And calling them on the subtext is viewed as an attack--"Where did you get the idea that I'm trying to control the conversation or abuse you? I only said something about my personal views! Why are you prejudiced against Christians sharing their beliefs?"

I don't know whether there's any subculture speaking any language that masters the full range of interpersonal communication (though Buddhist monasteries come close), but I do know that people with a hell of a lot more experience in various cultures than I have are consistently appalled at the poor quality of communication in American churches. People with a little experience in linguistics have no trouble understanding American Xn fundamentalist unpopularity when the subtext of even the nicely-phrased outreach efforts is "I'm concerned and offended by the fact that you non-[right kind of]-Christians exist." It's not the best way to get to know people.

Sorry my posts lately have been on the long side. I should go get a job, eh?

[Jim]

Something that kind of confuses me about you, Greg, is how you're big on friendship and community, but you seem to be doing the very same things that are poisonous to friendship and community that your purport the fundamentalists and legalists to be doing.

How can you maintain your friendships with so many people at the church when you're constantly railing against the things that they participate in, and probably enjoy participating in?

It reads to me like this: "I love you, Jon, but almost everything you're doing right now makes me want to vomit. Want to hang out?"

Just an outsider's perspective. Carry on.

[greg]

Jim,

That's probably a fair assessment. My wife was irritated by this post. She thought it was too snide. I wasn't really trying to be snide, but it does read that way. I'm pretty sure though that being irritated by what my friends participate in doesn't mean that we can't be friends, just as I'm sure they are irritated by many things I do, including snide posts, and love me in spite of that.

[sepherim]

In a former life, I wrote a chapter on fundamentalism in a yet to be (and probably never to be) published dissertation. My conclusion was that the term is usually appropriate for describing one's attitude about their beliefs but seldom applicable for accurately describing someone's belief system. In other words, someone is a fundamentalist, no matter what they believe, if they want to smash your face, either literally or figuratively, for not believing the way they do.

Historically, fundamentalist groups nearly always end up tearing themselves apart because they can always find more to disagree about than they can agree on.

Personally, I think they are more closely related to the fundament than they are to the fundamentals, but not all of the are assholes.

[brenda]

I was planning on coming but ended up watching Dogma until morning. Thanks for the recap! Sounds like I didn't miss much.

[Alice Clay]

Being in a church is equal to being in a relationship. And for a relationship to be viable, you have to be getting what you need from it. I believe alot of people forgo church simply because they're not getting what they need from it. Who needs the boredom of the same old song & dance when they can be at Starbucks fulfilling their need for a double tall-no whip-soy mocha??

re fundamentalism: I find that I get irritated in the rigidity of belief. While I may not agree with the beliefs of most fundamentalists, my biggest issue with them comes from their insistence that *everyone* live according to their set of rules. If fundamentalists believe that drinking is wrong, then by god no one should drink. ever. If you have a set of beliefs, fine by me, live according to them, but leave me out of it.

[Leighton]

Yeah, I think my description was too narrow; it seems to apply only to those fundamentalists on the edge, who alternate between realizing that privacy and boundaries are a good thing, and really putting their foot in it. Those are the folks who will probably break away eventually.

Back to the drawing board...