For two years in a row, during Easter time, I thought I recognised in Easter Homilies and Easter messages the traces of conversations I've had with the priests who delivered them. So tonight the conversation with H. went along those lines:
D. Hey H., that guy from your diocese is pretty hooked on Liberationist theology, see all this talk of preferential option, of alternative community, that's amazing coming from him, in his freaking Easter message!
H. I'm sure he did not write it.
D. Yeah well, he signed it. And I like whoever wrote it.
I'm excited because that's what I'm on about right? I tell anyone who will listen about the stuff. And I'm enthusiastic enough to make the stuff pretty intriguing. I witness folks picking it up and, in no time, they start talking around like they've spent the last five years in Guatemala. Oh well, Liberation theology IS intriguing, it's pretty compelling and I think it's got a healthy dose of sheer TRUTH to it, so let the people rejoice!
"There goes my little Chardonnay Socialist", H says. H is not getting into any theory and it's not for lack of trying on my part. He's in the business of keeping the church alive and solvent in his diocese, and of getting drunk with guys who never thought they'd catch themselves liking a priest. And that's it thank you very much.
He says his first mission is to be who he is, and to be openly Christian. That's what he's done even before getting ordained, he was "the one that went to church on sundays". I tried that too. With the result of having friends ask me if I'd go to church with them. I said no way, repent or go to hell, that's what I said, but I did it lovingly :-).
I don't know why I'm not keen on people taking up the liberationist agenda (and this includes me) and then racking their brains about what they can do for "the poor" when the answer is often not much. Sure, we can give more time and money, we can individually and collectively be more welcoming of others. We can choose to be located in a spot where we will meet a lot less privilege than we are used to encountering.
But once we're there and we're doing that, the recipe is the same as elsewhere. Keep the rumour of God present among God's people, get in the way of oppression and abuse when you can, love everyone the best you can and hope for the resurrection. There's a time for getting all hyped up with theory, and there's a time when theory -while still painfully relevant- becomes the paradigmatic background of what you do, not the foreground.
2 comments:
I wonder... if H. isn't too into 'liberationist' stuff then perhaps instead of 'keeping the church alive' all he is doing is maintaining the simulacrum of life in a church that has long since died.
But, then again, that's just a theory.
Oh boy, I really need to send you an e-mail, you'll never guess who the guy that published that Easter message was, how it came about, and what else he did with those inflamatory ideas (or if you CAN guess, then let's keep it quiet for anonymity purposes).
So do you advocate killing the "long dead" church any further? I for one am the product of such a long dead church, and I also see how very receptive it can get to expressing real solidarity when offered a chance.
We had one worshipper who set out to personnally go dig a well in Tanzania so the folks there could have clean water. He raised tons of money for that purpose, from an altogether tiny parish. I'd worked so hard on H. that he was the one to suggest that we should really support this guy.
That parish welcomes anyone well enough, even when they're annoying as hell, and, to our own surprise it's pretty class-mixed, unlike some of the more hype congregations in town. (Especially the progressives, shall I add. The liberal progressives almost all have master's degrees, and I know what I'm talking about because they're my natural affinity bunch).
The pew bulletin has volunteering opportunities nearly every week, a the prison, at the refugee centre, in local schools. Okay, so the folks haven't really left the midle class to go serve soup in Cambodia, but have we?
Is there really such a divide as in: "old anglican in pretty English town = dead" and "idealistic new thing in the inner city = alive". For my part I think it's more of a continuum.
The more I talk with H, the more I realise we're fighting different battles. His arch-enemy is secularisation, while mine is Western apathy. I don't know yet how these two battles can be the one and the same, but I think they can be.
The real question is, now that people don't feel they have to go to church because otherwise God will strike them dead and send them to hell, we have to be able to explain why they should go. And in my opinion, that's a damn good question.
When we stop sending up a prayer to God in times of danger (i.e. getting on a plane or trying to get God to stop Earthquakes), but call on God for the tasks of living. God is for living life, not for keeping bad things away from us. But what "life" are we talking about? And what's the role of the church in it?
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