The Fringe

Back in May my friend Kim posted a piece on Kimmy Does Denver about an art exhibit she attended at the Denver Art Museum. Within each painting was embedded a cryptic message, barely visible and difficult to discern unless the viewer knew to look for it. Kim noted how these cryptic artistic messages were in some ways similar to the ways Christians speak about faith, how the message is often embedded in language exclusive to the members of the club.

Several months ago I heard a sermon in which the pastor preached passionately about the importance of loving God from your heart. It’s a topic that strikes a chord with me, as I often struggle with how to know God with my head and my heart (I’m great with the head part – reading the Bible, taking classes, "studying" God, but a little shaky in the heart). Early in the sermon, the pastor said this: “If you’re not loving, truly loving, Jesus in your heart right now, then you might as well tune out, because what I am going to talk about won’t mean anything to you.”

Sure, I understand the value of drama in good preaching. I understand that sometimes big statements are important to grab attention, to get the conversation started. But the problem here, as I see it, is that the pastor (to apply one of my favorite cliches) couldn't see the forest through the trees. In this instance the pastor was so deeply convicted, so deeply entrenched in the church, so accustomed to being surrounded by people with a similarly grounded faith, that the pastor forgot that not everyone is right there, in the same place.

About the same time I heard the sermon and read Kim's blog post, I read a memoir called Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor. At one point Taylor writes about what she calls the “center” of the church and the edge, and how she had never really understood there was any other place for a faithful person other than the center, until she stepped out of the center and suddenly found herself on the edge:

For half my life, the axis of my world had run through the altar of a church. I spent most of my time in church, with church people, engaging in the work of the church. My view of reality grew from that center. I looked at life through the windows of the church, using the language I had learned there not only to describe what I saw but also to make sense of it.

The morning I heard the sermon I wondered if there were people sitting in the pews who felt “disinvited." I think if I had heard those words even a year ago, that’s exactly how I would have felt. I would have thought, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m loving God in my heart; I don’t know if I truly feel faith it in my heart.” Yet I absolutely believe that the preacher was not intentionally trying to alienate anyone. I simply think the energy and passion of the moment won out -- that the pastor was so solidly centered in the middle, she/he forgot that there’s an edge.

I’m not criticizing this pastor or the church. I simply think it’s a telling example of how easy it is for Christians to exclude, without even realizing they are doing so, and even with the very best intentions. I’ve done it, too. When Brad read a draft of my book manuscript, he indicated several instances in which I used language that might be unfamiliar or even alienating to my audience – language like “church family,” “faith community,” “the Word.” Here I am, supposed to be writing a book that attracts the doubter, the questioner, the non-believer, and I fell into the language of exclusivity without even realizing it. Me – the girl who didn’t even believe in God a mere few years ago! It's that easy.

I think as Christians we need to make an extra effort to ensure that our words, whether they are from the pulpit, in our “church literature” or even in our everyday conversations – are inclusive. That they invite and embrace, rather than proclaim a members-only club. After all, as Barbara Brown Taylor observes, the spiritual map is a wide and varied terrain: “Both the center and the edge are essential to the spiritual landscape… faith in God has both a center and an edge, and each is necessary for the soul’s health.”

[Thanks to Kim for sparking this thought-process way back in May. Read her post on Kimmy Does Denver for more food for thought. She explains the concept much more eloquently than I did in my opening paragraph!]