wfn.org | Katie Offers Canon For "Survival in Polluted Environment"

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15-June-1998 
GA98030 
 
 
    Katie Offers  Canon For  "Survival in  Polluted Environment" 
 
    by Midge Mack 
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- Voices of Sophia, nearly 400 strong, attended a sold-out 
breakfast Monday to hear the Rev. Katie Cannon, theologian, author and 
associate professor of religion at Temple University talk about "Faithful 
Living in the Public Domain." 
      Canon, the first African-American woman to be ordained to the 
Presbyterian ministry (in 1974) titled her message "Faithful Living in the 
Public Domain."   But what she was really talking about was commitment to 
radical Christianity in an increasingly secular age. 
       "We used to ask people "why don't  you go to church?"  she reminded 
her audience. "Now, it's why do you go to church?  She pointed out that 
this question brought on too much silence and that  while  many share time, 
money, and talent with a church,  few  make honest, serious  commitment. 
      Cannon likened  secularized  society to a polluted environment.   "In 
polluted  environments, all life forms adapt `downward' to survive," she 
said.    Pollution,  or weakened morality,  she likened to the spoils the 
Israelites took from  Jericho and mixed with their own possessions, (Joshua 
7).   "Just like the Israelites,  too many Christians today are messin' 
with the wrong stuff,"  she said.    "More and more  Christians are 
traumatized by such pollution as escalating uncertainties in the religious 
`wars' fought around us and within us," she added.   "So instead of heeding 
Christian truth and wisdom,  we are like the three monkeys:  we hear 
nothing, see nothing, and speak nothing." 
     Cannon's final canon was to raise again  the Great Commandment,  in 
prayer  that  Presbyterian  Christians will seek to take it seriously, 
honestly and truthfully. 
       Following Cannon's presentation the women's ensemble from the gospel 
choir of the C.N. Jenkins Memorial Church, Charlotte, of which her brother 
is pastor,  sang "Hold On" and "In the Presence of Jehovah." 

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