Brian McLaren and the Episcopal Church

I'm sitting in my office trying to catch up from being away on vacation for the last two weeks and so have been trying to read up on what has been happening at General Convention (the ultimate governing body of the Episcopal Church). Apparently, lots has been happening and I thought this was going to be a quiet year--seems I was wrong. For starts, it appears that we've made some definitive steps towards endorsing same-sex blessings (marriages where possible) and towards allowing gay bishops to be consecrated. While these things please me, I also find myself wondering where that will take us in regards to our relationship with the rest of the Communion and with those who are currently sitting in our pews who may not be so pleased. I often preach that as Christians, we aren't called to be right, but to be faithful; meaning that I see our mission to be the embodiment and living out the reconciliation that Christ exemplified for and offers to, us. I like emphasizing faithfulness because I feel it nuances the difficulties that come in life and in the choices we make. It hints that there may be a price to pay for our being faithful--as there was for Christ. It may be that we do pay a great price for making these choices. In our doing what we feel is right, we may fail to be faithful to our brothers and sisters who feel we aren't and so fall short of reconciliation on this end. Obviously, a less than perfect solution. Yet in acting as we have, we retain our integrity as people of faith and our identity as such. In spite of what some (indeed many) may say, I feel the full inclusion of the GLBT community is a faithful Christian response to questions of human sexuality. And it certainly will be seen as such by the individuals, couples and families who find themselves within this community.

And yet it isn't enough.

No, I'm not advocating for a more progressive agenda. I'm pressing for a more evangelical agenda. Enter Brian McLaren. Anglicans love Brian McLaren, and he us. But I'm not sure we're listening just yet. Especially the Episcopalians. He spoke twice at General Convention, with one of those talks being a sermon he offered last Thursday. In it he talked about how the E word (Evangelism) should no longer be a dirty word for the Episcopal Church. Because, lets face it, it is. And in truth that word has lots of baggage. But the way McLaren defined it should give us pause and help us reconsider what it means to be evangelical:

And we can start with today’s reading from 2 Corinthians. There we see evangelism as
our call to demonstrate and proclaim a new creation in Christ. We see our call to live and
invite others into a new way of life. We see evangelism as recruiting early adopters to be
part of a radical new beginning for the human race – which Paul calls the new creation in
Christ.

This world and its empires are living by an old script, Paul would say. Politics of
domination and exploitation, economies of consumption, sociologies of exclusion and
prejudice, and psychologies of shame and self-justification all flow from the old
destructive narrative that is passing away. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ
meant for Paul, among many other things, that it is time for a new politics of service and
the common good, for new economies of sustainability and regeneration, for new
sociologies of reconciliation and love, and for new psychologies rooted in grace and faith
. . . in short, in Christ, all things are made new, and evangelism means recruiting and
training people to defect from the old order and throw themselves wholeheartedly into the
new way.

Wow. I think this is something we could all get behind. Especially in the midst of our institutional crisis. And in terms of such a crisis, he goes on to point out that in order to save our institution, we might have to be willing to let go of it. To let it change. Because if we don't-if we try to save the institution we will in fact lose it. If this is the first you've heard that the Episcopal church, like many churches, is struggling--welcome.

So, for all my fellow Episcopalians, and to myself, I ask: what are we willing to give up? What can we let go of? As I have been for the last two years learning to dive into the world of evangelism, these are the questions I have kept asking as it was becoming more and more apparent to me that people aren't interested in being invited to something. I think they are more interested in being invited into something. Something dynamic and alive and not into a particular denomination. Our institution is a tool, it is not the end. I am ok with this--but it took some time. While we boldly declare that same-sex couples can have full inclusion in our church, we dare not invite someone to church, or make our worship more inclusive, or even share our faith with someone outside of the church because that might be seen as scary, dirty, fundy, evangelism. It is the very same faithfulness that we exemplify in our inclusivity, in our support of the MDG's and in our service that is required in evangelism, but we get in the way of it. I love the Episcopal church for all that it is and all that it loves. I have no intention of leaving it. Yet I am willing to let go and be rid of anything that stands in the way of our being a faithful and missional church. We have so much to offer, so much that is life-giving and wonderful. Let's take advantage of all of that and use it to its full potential and become evangelists and in doing so become better disciples ourselves.