I don't consider my day complete without a visit to The Onion, that wonderful satirical website of news and current events, always funny and often brilliant. Anyone without a sense of personal irony is fair game, from politicians and cat-lovers to video gamers and football players. But if I had to pick a favorite it would be one hitting closest to home: "Historians Politely Remind Nation to Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions". []The article outlines an exciting new strategy called "Look Back Before You Act."
"It's actually pretty simple," one historian explains. "Did the thing we're thinking of doing make people upset? Did it start a war? If it did, then we might want to think about not doing it."
Good satire makes us laugh, but it also points out truth. People rarely if ever consult historians about big decisions, no matter how loudly (or politely) we might insist. And the reason for that is not just public indifference or willful ignorance: the past is easy to ignore because it's just very, very complicated.
Last week I had a phone call from a pastor looking for some help with his congregation's plans for renovating their sanctuary. The conversation would have been very short if he had wanted to know anything about church architecture — I leave that one to the trained experts — but we got to talking because, as it turned out, the real issue was being faithful to the building's past. This was something more than the proper shape of window frames, or whether the sanctuary could be painted light pink; it was about how the past was authoritative in his congregation, how the vision of the founders should guide the actions of their descendants.
What a can of worms! If we were really intent on getting down to basics, all Congregational churches today would be windowless meetinghouses with thatched roofs. The beautiful white structures we now associate with Puritan rigor and pristine Congregational practice were actually creations of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, when tastes had changed and churches had a bit more discretionary income. But even those began to disappear in the mid-nineteenth century, as our nearer ancestors began dressing those dull and plain old buildings in Victorian Gothic, instituting all those features that many people now associate with a standard church building: arched stained glass windows, a central aisle, a nave and a choir loft, and even a few crosses hanging on the walls or decorating the communion table.
And thus we find ourselves at the bottom of that wriggling can of worms. The average Congregational church today earnestly replicates the Anglican cathedrals that the tradition's Puritan founders fought so fiercely, enduring exile and in some cases death for the right not to have a central aisle, an altar rail, and a choir. If John Winthrop or Richard Mather walked in to one of them they would, well, plotz.
I'm not advocating a return to the seventeenth century — in fact we might even wish the founders had been able to lighten up a little on a few things, for the sake of their descendants. But you see the problem: "the past" is a long time and it is not just one thing. It is changing constantly. Do we pick one time that was somehow more authentic than another? Some religious traditions find a style of architecture they like and stick to it, but even their buildings take on different meanings as centuries pass.
In a broad sense, being faithful to the past means understanding and carrying on a founding vision. These are often fairly easy to identify, not as a simple set of rules but as a challenge so compelling and powerful that it maintains its power across time and distance. We are talking about that particular genius, that complex but obvious idea, that keeps people talking and arguing and thinking generation after generation. For the original Puritans the idea was simplicity and immediacy, a faith free of distractions from the single purpose of godly living — whether the "smells and bells" of Anglican worship or the pull of selfishness, anger, and pride. And so, one could argue, churches claiming Congregational roots should follow that principle in their design. That doesn't necessarily mean getting rid of crosses and choir lofts but it does mean creating some visual expression of the spiritual clarity the Puritans hoped to achieve.
I heard in a sermon recently that some of our most forward-looking church leaders believe that old denominational differences are headed to extinction, that one day in the not-too-distant future Congregationalists and Episcopalians, for example, will happily meld together into a larger movement of progressive Protestant churches, a new iteration presumably better suited to meet the issues of the age. On one level the idea is not all that surprising or new — enthusiasts have been saying the same thing about American Protestantism since denominations were born (at least as formal structures) two hundred years ago. As far as I know it hasn't happened yet.
But in other ways, I find the dream of removing denominational distinctives in the name of a greater unified good profoundly depressing. Yes, we can be impatient with all of the external apparatus that gets in the way of doing good; it is probably OK to paint a sanctuary light pink.
But not at the expense of founding visions. Like it or not, anyone claiming a religious identity in the present carries a historical burden, a set of obligations to their spiritual ancestors. Often we express this in patriarchal terms, as a debt to our "forefathers" and "foremothers" — who would not find this unwieldy and irritating? In fact, we are equals and fellow believers, part of the same very long and unfinished story.
At their best religious "dialogue" and ecumenical efforts allow each faith community to honor its commitments. For in fact, every pastor, priest, rabbi or church leader carries an obligation to invisible people. The flock is not just the living sitting before them in the pews (and filling the offering plate) but the entire "communion of saints" who once occupied those same places. Just because someone is dead does not mean we have permission to patronize or dismiss them like so much extra baggage.
If there's any hope for a new progressive movement out there in the future, one with staying power and imagination, I think it's going to be one with a lively sense of history, a relationship with the ancestors that is so complicated and fraught that we will never feel the need to stop debating, challenging them — and allowing them to challenge us.
-Peggy
image courtesy of The Onion, issue 47-39
