bEaster 2 ~ April 23, 2006 ~ A homily preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT
Acts 3.12a, 13-15, 17-26; Psalm 111; 1 John 5.1-6; John 20.19-31
In February I traveled to San Diego to participate in Start Up/Start Over, a program sponsored by the Episcopal Church Building Fund. One of the presenters at the conference was Rev. Eric Elnes, Senior Pastor of Scottsdale Congregational United Church of Christ. He holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Princeton Theological Seminary and is extremely well known as a author, speaker, teacher, and preacher.
Eric is a dynamic and deeply faithful Christian. At the conference, he spoke about how to grow a church, something he has done with tremendous success. He nourished a small family-sized church into a large congregation through the use of engaging preaching, enterprising involvement of parishioners, and the use of multi-media presentations at his modern Scottsdale church.
Although I was captivated by his experience and his presentation, a lot of it just wouldn’t work at Old St. Andrew’s. However, in the course of hearing Eric and speaking to him briefly, I learned about CrossWalk America which he co-founded.
In the past twenty-five years my commitment to following Jesus as a Christian has led me from my farm in Maine to working at Kent School to Berkeley Divinity School at Yale to Old St. Andrew’s Church. My hope has always been personally to live a God centered, practical spiritual life, and to try to teach to others what it might mean for them to follow Jesus as committed Christians today.
I have overwhelming confidence in the Jesus story. It is inspirational and, I believe, clearly calls us to be open and inclusive in our thoughts and actions, loving our neighbors as ourselves. My greatest hope is that we express the love of Christ—God’s love—in our prayers, in the liturgy we share weekly, the breaking of bread together, in corporate and individual forms of outreach, in our teaching and learning, in the financial generosity we offer this church, and in fellowship. I often stress Jesus’ essential message of forgiveness, compassion, justice, and love because, it seems to me, that these are at the heart of Christianity.
Paralleling my journey these twenty-five years has been a steady rise of what is widely called “radical fundamentalism” in the great Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. As an Episcopalian-flavored Christian, I am horrified and saddened that “the public face of Christianity in America today bears little connection to the historic faith of our ancestors.”1 That public face of Christianity is something I cannot and do not recognize as Christian, because, in my judgment, it is often contrary to the Good News of Jesus Christ that I was taught and that I continue to study as a priest of the church.
The origins of radical 21st century Christian fundamentalism can be traced to the response of some to the theory of evolution introduced by Charles Darwin in the 19th century. (For an extremely comprehensive examination of the advent of fundamentalism in all three religions, see Karen Armstrong’s seminal book The Battle for God.) In 1925, the Scopes Monkey Trial pitted science against religion. The outcome forced fundamentalists under ground for several decades, only to have them reemerge in the 1970s and ’80s as the so-called Moral Majority.
Now, in America, the fundamentalist Christianization of politics and community life is in full bloom. The once clear separation of church and state is becoming quite fuzzy. Morality is being legislated and expressed in high court opinions. Individual human rights are threatened because of agendas that are all too often associated with vocal fundamentalist Christian religious groups. The country is becoming more and more polarized, often based on the catch-all expressions “Christian values” or “family values”.
An obvious question at this moment is: “What do I mean by fundamentalist Christianity?” It’s a fair question. Let me answer it, however, by discussing the vital importance of non-fundamentalist Christianity today.
For the next couple of weeks I want to speak about CrossWalk America, the organization Eric Elnes helped start. CrossWalk America is speaking out on behalf of moderate and progressive American Christians in an effort to reclaim Christianity from the clutches of single-issue fundamentalists.
The take-over of “Christianity” brand, if you will, by a vocal minority is disturbing, at least to me. I have known there must be like-minded folks who share my distress that the Church and the Gospel are being misrepresented, indeed hijacked or, to paraphrase Bruce Bauer, that Jesus has been stolen.
So, let me share with you some of what CrossWalk America says about its purpose. “CrossWalk America embraces no particular political ideology, and seeks to explore and articulate the theological principles behind both faith and politics from a distinctly moderate/progressive Christian perspective. While our organization is joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we welcome the participation of Christians and non-Christians alike, from all walks of life.”
In 1998, an ecumenical group of Phoenix, Arizona clergy met in a coffeehouse because they were “concerned about the increasing marginalization of moderate and progressive voices within the public sphere of Christianity.”2
The ministers’ original vision was to speak on a wide variety of topics, offering an alternative voice to that of radical fundamentalism. They also felt it would be important to include lay people in their membership. However, at the time, there was so much controversy over gay and lesbian issues, largely propagated by Christian ministers, they decided to focus on that single set of issues for the time being, and to do so specifically as Christian clergy in support of gay rights.
As a result, the ministers wrote “The Phoenix Declaration, a document that, among other things, points out that…the essence of Christian life is not focused on sexual orientation, but how one lives in relationship with God with compassion toward humanity. Over 160 clergy in Arizona signed this document.” 3
Last year, they returned to their original, broad vision and CrossWalk America was born. “The purpose of CrossWalk America is to articulate and act upon a set of twelve theological principles called The Phoenix Affirmations. These affirmations articulate what it means to live as a Christian seeking to embody Jesus’ great commandments to love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.”4
Continuing, here is more of what they say on their website, “The basic assumption…is that moderate and progressive Christians have been overly content to remain silent as fundamentalism has gradually eroded mainstream Christianity in the public sphere. We believe it is time to ‘stand up and be counted,’ calling the church to be church, in voice and action.”
I am convinced that we need constantly to reexamine ourselves and the faith we proclaim. We are called to pray, study and discuss the Jesus we find in the Gospels and to be open to new understandings and teachings. The church, as the Body of Christ, must nurture itself and protect itself.
I conclude today the same way CrossWalk America concludes its introduction, with a quote by Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984): “When they came for the communists, I was silent, because I was not a communist; When they came for the socialists, I was silent, because I was not a socialist; When they came for the trade unionists, I did not protest, because I was not a trade unionist; When they came for the Jews, I did not protest, because I was not a Jew; When they came for me, there was no one left to protest on my behalf.”
Amen.
1 CrossWalk America (www.crosswalkamerica.org)
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
Copyright © 2006. Erl G. Purnell
All rights reserved.
