Denominational Identity Angst

I am in the midst of a quest for a church internship, and even the process itself has raised some alternately thought-provoking and/or frustrating concerns. I wanted to do an internship at the church I have been attending for the past two years. The pastor wanted me there; many of the congregation wanted me there. But there is a leadership transition process going on that makes the timing bad, so I will have to seek elsewhere. [insert whine here]. This has been not a little bit frustrating for multiple reasons. Most of the time, churches seem to struggle with motivating people to be committed and involved members who do more than attend on Sunday mornings and mildew in the pews. How ironic that I want to be (and have been) committed to this church and have to go elsewhere and start afresh at a church were I am basically starting from scratch.

So, after working through that frustration somewhat, I have begun making calls to other churches who have posted for internships. I had one otherwise delightful conversation with a pastor who immediately became wary of me when I mentioned that I wanted to pursue PhD studies. Now, to be fair, she probably didn't want me to just be "jumping through hoops" and apathetically getting an internship "over with" at her church. But I also continually get extremely exasperated with the anti-intellectualism/distrust of academia that is endemic to many churches. I've worked in or served in churches for eight years, including an inner-city church plant, and I'm interested in helping people reflect about what it means to worship God. And this is incompatible with church ministry how? Simply because I'm not following an ordination track and want to teach people about this in a variety of ways?

Then there's the denomination thing. I've wanted to be able to embrace one tradition, despite the flaws that all of them have, and just be committed to it. But circumstantially, this just ain't happening, and I'm still in the midst of a denominational identity crisis. I'm looking into an internship at an Episcopal church that I'm excited about because of what they offer liturgically. The priest seems to be interested in me despite my current non-Episcopalian status (although we'll see once we come to the interview).

This has got me thinking about the fact that committing to a denomination requires you to make theological committments; buy into an overarching theological ethos, if you will. Most of the time, I've experienced a lot of uneasiness about that. I like the PCUSA's centralized governance--despite some of the cumbersome committee structures--and their support for women in ministry. But I can't quite embrace the predestination/Calvinist thing. Now I'll need to see what the Episcopal "theological package" has to offer. I can say that the Episcopal church is way more welcoming to artists and intellectuals from what I can gather. I have inadvertently found that many of my favorite authors--Madeleine L'Engle, Susan Howatch, to name a few--are Episcopalian, and the striking element that has stood out to me is that they are not squeamish about exploring the messiness of life vis a vis a life of discipleship. When I read these folks, I feel much more comfortable with the fact that, in the words of Brennan Manning, I am a disciple "whose cheese is falling off my cracker."
How this translates into a more well-articulated Episcopalian theology I don't know, it's been something that I've intuited more than seen actually articulated.

But all this exploring leads to the conclusion that when it comes to church, I still really don't know who I am. 85% of the way through my MDiv, that's a very disconcerting realization. I'm not sure what to do about it.

Stories and Reconciliation

One of the most formative times of my life was being a student at USC during the Los Angeles Riots in 1992. I can remember the feeling of the air literally pulsing around me with the sound of what must have been twenty helicopters, and the perennial sound of hundreds of fire truck and ambulance sirens. This event propelled me and many of my friends to try to understand the sources of racial hatred, conflict, and misunderstanding together, and I have tried to be someone who both appreciates racial and cultural differences and who demonstrates willingness to move across them as well.

I had an experience this past Sunday that really gave me a new perspective on what racial reconciliation means. I attend a predominately Japanese American church, many of whose members either experienced WWII interment camps themselves or had parents/other family members who did. The WWII era is very much a living and often painful memory for many. However, there are others in the church of other ethnicities who also have painful memories of the WWII era, and these stories have often not been heard. Last Sunday, a friend of mine stood and shared about his own struggles in the church because of his own family history of oppression by the Japanese in the South Pacific during this same time period. This was a painful story for him to tell, and he was unable to speak in the midst of it because of his tears. After a few minutes where he tried to get a hold of his emotions, a Japanese man in our congregation came alongside him at the podium up front and began to read the rest of the difficult story.

I've thought a lot about racial reconcilation, and struggled alongside friends of different ethnicities as we have sought to understand and love each other. But this shed new light on a few things for me. Reconciliation begins when we are able to tell each others' stories and feel the pain as if it was our own. Reconciliation involves standing in a place of pain that someone else has experienced because of something my own race has done. And our stories are the beginning point of this. Perhaps if all of us connected with the pain and joy in each others' stories better, we would less readily slander each other, stereotype each other, and kill each other.