wfn.org | Faith Confronting Culture: Church and culture in conversation

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 8, 1999  News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71BP{367}

NOTE:  A photograph of the Rev. Leicester R. Longden is available.

A UMNS Commentary
By the Rev. Leicester R.  Longden*

The editors have been gently reminding me that it is time to put a name on
this commentary. It's not that they want to force a label on me. They have
given me plenty of freedom. Given the conflicted character of public
discourse these days, both in the church and society at large, writers must
choose carefully the titles that will mark them. All too quickly partisans
of the contemporary culture wars label or co-opt attempts by new voices to
think out loud in public.

I have chosen to identify this column from now on as "Faith Confronting
Culture." You, the reader, deserve some explanations.

First, I freely confess that the "Faith" I intend to bear witness to is the
classically orthodox Christian faith. My writing assignment is not to make
the case for individualistic "faith experiences" or faith as a generic
religious phenomenon. Such voices are not under-represented in our culture.
Rather, I want to point to classic agreements among Christians of all
denominations that define them uniquely in distinction from other faiths or
the cultures in which they reside.

By "orthodoxy" I do not mean that caricature held by the popular modern
point of view, which sees the "orthodox" as narrow, rigid legalists who are
always oppressing courageous and creative free thinkers. Orthodoxy, in its
healthiest form, clarifies Christian identity in ways that keep us free from
the narrowing tendencies of either conservatives who would lock us into
their nostalgia for the past or progressives who would force us into their
utopia of the future.

What is often forgotten today is that there are political and cultural
orthodoxies that try to silence or privatize Christian faith. One of the
dogmas of our pluralistic culture has been the claim that to defend
Christianity is to belittle other religions -- unacceptable behavior in a
multicultural society.

I ran into this dogma at the annual conference I attended recently for
United Methodists in West Michigan. One of the topics for consideration was
racism and "the consequences of white privilege." Despite good discussion of
how local churches might confront racism, the very framework of the
conversation was undercut from the beginning. Hardly anyone noticed that the
preparation materials for the conference described and dismissed
the church's very arrival in North America as a form of theological racism.
If "evangelization" can only be conceived as a form of racial superiority by
which one culture imposes its religious beliefs on another culture, then the
Christian Gospel will be effectively silenced. It becomes a captive of
culture and reduced to private experience. 

Evangelism, that is, the sharing of the Gospel, need not be a confrontation
that oppresses the other; it can be a face-to-face meeting that transforms
the evangelist and the hearer.

Second, I want to rehabilitate the word "confrontation." It has taken on a
largely negative connotation in public discourse. Public argument and
conversation would be immensely improved if we discerned the positive and
dialogical uses of confrontation. "To confront" is to "move toward" as well
as to "stand over against." Confrontation should not be defined narrowly as
intransigent position-taking or political protest; it should envision the
encounter of the other as Other. To confront is to meet face to face, not
for the purpose of erasure or conquest but for the recognition of real
differences.

I learned the value of confrontation recently when I participated with a
group of clergy and laity in some frank discussions about the struggle to
legitimize homosexuality within the church. I "confronted" what felt like a
cultural pressure to abandon certain normative principles of Christian
ethics. After I had given a series of arguments representing what I
understood to be the church's biblical, doctrinal, and ethical assumptions,
a number of people came to me privately and said, "I've never heard these
arguments before. I may have to reconsider my position." 

What encouraged me was that my confrontation had enabled some of my
"opponents" to question the labels and cultural sound bites that had
previously captured their thinking.

By writing on "faith confronting culture," I intend to identify occasions
and issues where the Christian faith moves toward, meets face to face with,
and distinguishes itself from the surrounding culture, rather than riding
the waves of the culture or reflecting its secular face. I take this stance
because I am convinced that my denomination, in recent decades, has often
confused the role of lobbyist and shepherd. It too often congratulates
itself on transforming the world when it has, in fact, merely been captured
by the culture.

I worry about finding myself in the ranks of those clergy who pursue, as
Father Richard Neuhas once put it, career tracks in Prophetic Utterance. A
writer of a regular commentary must surely have opinions. But in this
column, I hope and pray for the ability to discern the differences that
distinguish my opinions, the faith of the church and the voices of the
surrounding culture.

# # # 

*Longden is senior pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Lansing,
Mich. He is a clergy member of the West Michigan Annual Conference of the
United Methodist Church, where he serves on the Conference Board of Ordained
Ministry.

Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.

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