A liturgy of humility
I taught a church Bible study on human sexuality back in 2018. It felt safer to talk about important issues inside the church six years ago. We started each class with a liturgy of humility, with all of us—conservatives, liberals, and moderates—saying together in unison, “I might be wrong! I might be wrong! I might be wrong!” At our best, Covenanters have tried to find a way to disagree without being disagreeable. Philipp Jakob Spener’s “pious desire” to approach religious disputes with humility and love has seemed to become more difficult to realize as church people have stopped talking with each other face-to-face.
On the first night, I posed this question: “How do we make tough ethical decisions?” I taught the class about John Wesley, whose heart was warmed during his encounter with Pietists to launch the Methodist movement. The Bible was the highest authority for Wesley, but he also emphasized the importance of religious experience, Christian tradition, and human reason. Scripture, experience, reason, and tradition are often referred to as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.
I suggested to the class that the early Covenanters considered the Bible and personal experience with Jesus to be their highest authorities. Can we call scripture and religious experience the Covenant Bilateral? Rather than writing a creed or statement of faith, the Covenanters asked two pious questions. Var står det skrivet, or “Where [in the Bible] is it written?,” and Hur går din vandring, or “How goes your walk [with the Lord]?” These Covenant questions have been sturdy enough boundaries for the past 137 years. Have the divisions between us grown so vast that they are no longer enough to keep us in Christian unity?
First we asked, “Where is it written?” We opened up the Bible together to examine the references to same-sex relationships. We looked at the so-called “clobber passages” in scripture: Genesis 19:1-9; Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; and 1 Timothy 1:9-11. We read portions of biblical commentaries to put the Word in context. We read selections from theologians and ethicists to apply the Word to the present moment. We did not all interpret the Bible the same way, but no one wanted to break apart our community over that disagreement.
Second we asked, “How goes your walk?” We all committed to read Preston Sprinkle’s book, People to Be Loved. Not everyone was convinced by Sprinkle’s biblical interpretation, but the group seemed to approve of the author’s honesty and fair-mindedness. I think we all were convicted by the ways the Christian Church has failed the LGBT community. While we couldn’t all agree on biblical interpretation, we did find a common mission to love the LGBT community in the Spirit of Jesus. What could be more Covenant than to join with people who read the Bible differently in order to share the common mission of Christ?
A lot has happened over the past six years. I don’t know if the conversation we had in 2018 would work quite as well today. Several members and elected leaders left the congregation over conversations about racism in our country, our obedience to statewide mandates during the pandemic, and dissatisfaction with online worship services. I felt burned out and left that congregation exhausted from conflict. One of the great tragedies of the past few years is that Covenanters struggled to get up close and personal to ask their church family members, “Where is it written?” and “How goes your walk with the Lord?”
My prayer is that Covenanters will once again gather in home groups and Sunday school classes to talk about the issues that divide the larger culture. We need to dig deeper into the Bible and into the lives of our friends. It’s hard to be a high-trust denomination when we don’t actually do life together. That means having hard conversations with people with different points of view. We can trust the Holy Spirit to unite us into community, but only if we are honest and humble.
I also pray that Covenant Church leaders will trust the Bible and the Holy Spirit enough to allow further conversation on human sexuality. We have avoided debating human sexuality on the floor of the Annual Meeting for decades. This strategy of dodging conflict has left us unprepared to talk about other important biblical matters such as racism and caring for creation. I propose we begin the conversation with the liturgy of humility that our class employed: “I might be wrong! I might be wrong! I might be wrong!” God only knows how we might rediscover Christian unity in the church by putting on the humility and gentleness of Christ.
We might begin with a moratorium on removing Covenant pastors and churches until after we have a vigorous public debate on both the biblical and relational side of the issue. Covenanters used to be fond of the expression, “We are better together.” Are we really better off removing churches and pastors that disagree with the Covenant’s official position on human sexuality? Maybe Christian humility helps us find that elusive “third way” between the conservative motivation to rigorously follow scripture and the progressive motivation to generously love one’s neighbor.