The other side of the fence

As public policy and the media would have you believe, there are two factions of Christianity. One follows closely with scripture, and is in general socially conservative. The other does not take the Bible literally, and is in general socially liberal. Or if we wanted to put it in crudely generalized terms, one group lines up for Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ and the other will line up for The Da Vinci Code once it comes out.

The division is difficult for many people who do not fit with one assumption or the other. The vast array of beliefs, let me rephrase that, the vast network of beliefs is far too complicated to be put in the same two-camp terms to which our political system is restricted. There are far to many factors involved when talking about religion and faith. There is traditional and orthodox liturgy, versus contemporary liturgy. There is a literal approach to scripture, an interpretive approach, a historical approach and there's even the lets-just-not-approach-it-at-all method of which many of us have at one time or another dabbled. A system of beliefs is as complicated and diverse as individual personalities, to view these things as partisan, or polarized in any way is largely destructive to communities of faith.

My wife, Megan, is in a masters program for education. Part of her program involves a diversity encounter in which students study and expose themselves to groups with which they are not necessarily familiar or comfortable. Megan's group chose conservative Christians, which I think was incredibly wise considering her desire to be a science teacher, and the issues of religion that relate. So with that we headed off to a local Four Square Church.

I must confess that my liberal, scripturally interpretive, fundamentalist fearing, historical Jesus studying and traditionally liturgical, smells and bells Anglican background was terrified. Here I was heading into what I expected to be a fundamentalist, altar calling, pop song singing, Jesus Christ praising, arms in the air waving four Square Church (oh yeah, and a partridge in a pear tree). My mind swam with all types of assumptions and predictions. Would they do an altar call? Would someone invite me to let Jesus into my heart? Would this church be full of teenagers like that movie, Saved and would someone look at my and know psychically that I was obviously a heathen and needed to intervene on my soul's behalf?

With that we head into the church. And on a few of the above-mentioned points, I was right. The church was all about the J-man, and many of them waved their arms in the air. They did sing pop songs, in fact they had a full pop band, drums and all (man we never had drums at the Episcopal church!). But they didn't do an altar call, nor did anyone look at me with suspicious eyes, and there was most definitely no assumption that I was a heathen.

The sermon, I must confess, was ok. I had expected a lot of talk about putting your faith in Jesus, and how Jesus would make everything ok, and while there was a small element of that, the sermon was largely about being satisfied. The guest preacher talked about Americans, and how we eat until we are full, over full in fact, we eat until we can't eat anymore, but the French, as a chef explained to him, eat until they are satisfied, and no more. It's a sermon that, minus the discussion of God and Jesus, could have been plopped into any political discussion about globalization and America as a superpower without anyone flinching.

We are, sadly, a world at war. And being a world at war there is the constant assumption of two sides: the allies, and the enemy. I have found that this spreads throughout society, and is not limited to the two countries in battle. The right versus the left, the church versus the state, the religious versus the non-religious, democrats and republicans, and I could go on and on and on. But when it gets down to it, most people don't lie on one side or the other, but lie where their heart is most content. Despite the extremist groups that take the media microphone, most people are just plain folks trying to get by in the world. What I learned at this Four Square Church is that although it's not my style, and our beliefs seem very different, I believe strongly that we are all more alike than we are different.