A recent article in the Church Times worries that we are failing the next generation of Christians by not handing down the great ideas and ideals of Anglican spirituality in an effort to "simplify" Christianity so it can be more easily digested to those who are un-churched or de-churched. In the name of compassion and inclusion, we often fall into the trap of ignoring our distinctive ideas and practices to be more "user friendly". The truth is, if we do not preserve and transmit our distinct spiritual, theological, and ethical concepts, we will have nothing to include people into. When you tear down all the walls in an effort to remove barriers between people, you cease to have a house that can protect people during life's storms.
If we want to welcome people into the household of faith-- and I certainly do-- it requires keeping the walls and doors and windows and roof in good working order. Our liturgy, and the great theological and ethical concepts which ground the liturgy, are precisely our walls and doors and windows and roof. I firmly believe that one can have an inclusive spirituality that remains centered on the person of Jesus Christ, witnessed to in Scripture, expressed in the Liturgy, summed up in the Creeds. It is not only possible, but necessary, to be authentically Christian and genuinely inclusive. By following the Risen Lord Jesus we commit to doing the very things he did. And the things he did included welcoming all, feeding all, healing all, casting out all evil, and challenging all to become the absolute best they can become.
Yet, it seems that instead of discipleship, we try to entertain. Instead of formation, we focus on fun. Instead of catechesis, we substitute amusement. Instead of discussion, we offer diversion. In all things we cater to consumerism by worrying first about whether people like what we are doing than whether they are healed and transformed by what we are doing. We give immediate gratification and sound bytes when people desperately need extended contemplation and deep immersion. Instead of training people to be carpenters to build a house of faith that will last generations, we are giving people IKEA furniture and asking them to build it themselves. We need to open our Bibles together and interpret together. We need to open our Prayer Books together and pray together. We need to open our Hymnals together and sing together. Now, I don't care if those books are in paper, on a digital screen, or projected on a wall, as long as they are open and used for forming us in Christ. We need to step out of the Customer Service business model, and step back into the long, slow, steady work of growing Christlike people who embody the Love of Jesus. It is these kinds of people who will build a house of faith that can embrace the whole world with the healing Love of God.
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. [A Collect for Mission. BCP page 101]
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