A Word for Progressive Christians: If You Want the Church to Change then You Need to Go to Church

 I’ve spent the last few weeks reading op-eds, tributes, and other editorial takes on Pope Francis.  He was revered and mourned far beyond the Catholic church.  That is clear.  What’s less clear is the status of Pope Francis’s legacy.  That he was a voice for the marginalized is beyond dispute.  He was also a voice for the planet.  His advocacy for immigrants was pronounced.  His modesty seems to have taken Jesus’ words about material possession seriously.  But then there’s Pope Francis’s checkered past with what some consider an impotent response to clergy sexual abuse, and his complicated record on LGBTQ advocacy, which Father James Martin has detailed with great care.  

It’s this last position, his ambiguous approach to L.G.B.T.Q. rights, that I have found myself thinking about the most.  Was Pope Fancis an L.G.B.T.Q. ally?  That’s complicated.  He certainly called for a more compassionate openhearted approach to the queer community, but he did not attempt to reform Catholic positions on L.G.B.T.Q. persons with regards to Catholic sacraments, particularly marriage and ordination.  And it’s those two which have served as the linchpins of debate in protestant denominations.  Even the most conservative Evangelical churches in America have become proactive in signaling that the queer community is welcome in their churches, but if one enters one quickly discovers that that welcome is qualified by sexual abstinence and/or identity conversion.  A mere compassionate disposition towards our L.G.B.T.Q. brothers and sisters is no longer the acceptable benchmark

In a recent interview with Jason Horowitz on The Daily, Micheal Barbaro asked Horowitz why, if Pope Francis had shown resolute resistance to conservative sectors of the church on certain issues, he remained reluctant to implement real reform on some progressive issues.  Here I want to quote Horowitz at length: 

I think that the important way to see this, and the important way Francis saw this, is that the church is much bigger than Europe and the United States. The future of the church, if you look around, is in Africa. It is in Asia. And if you make these big changes, you are going to lose a lot of people.

This line of thinking is all too familiar to pastors.  I should know, I was one for fifteen years and during that time led the community I was pastoring through a discernment process that resulted in the church becoming affirming L.G.B.T.Q. persons.  Behind closed doors in elder meetings and the quiet anxiety of every pastor’s heart is the question, what will this cost us?  Affirmation is an occasion for moral fortitude, but it’s also an occasion for reviewing the budget and job descriptions with likely changes to both.  

If I sound crass I apologize, but attendance and resource decline after a contentious decision is a reality for churches and if Horowitz is right, Pope Francis’s Catholic Church is no exception.  To be clear, I’m affirming and think that every church, Catholic and otherwise, ought also to be.  

The church I pastored is located in Waco, TX, which I once heard described as the buckle of the bible belt.  With proximity to Baylor University there are enough churches in our town for a four year college student to visit a new one every week.  At least three evangelical mega churches thrive here.   The church I pastored is baptist in denominational identity, but grew out of theological affinity with the Emergent Church movement that blossomed in the early 2000s. Theological freedom and openness are institutional distinctives.  This theological posture attracted the curious, unorthodox, and one other niche group, the spiritually wounded.  Because of this we often became a last stop for folks who either left the free church tradition for the high church or those who left Christianity altogether.   Our congregation identity derived from this residue was theologically progressive.  It’s to this group that I want to issue a challenge.  If you want a church that shares your values, then you have to invest in that church, with your time, talent, and tithes, and if you’re not going to do that, then you should stop complaining about what conservative churches are doing.  

In 2019 when the church I was pastoring was moving through its discernment process I spent a substantial amount of my work week meeting with individuals to hear them out.  I recall one lunch meeting with particular salience.  I sat across from the sibling of a gay brother, whose family had loose ties to the church.  We were good friends, but his attendance was nearly non-existent.  In the middle of a fiery sentence in which he exclaimed that he had no time for churches who weren’t affirming, I retorted with, “Great, so if we become affirming, will you start coming to church?”  He became uncomfortably tongue tied before acknowledging that my question was fair.  A few months later the church voted to affirm L.G.B.T.Q. persons and I never saw him again after the Sunday we made the announcement.  

I don’t tell that story out of any kind of vitriol.  If I saw my friend today I have no doubt that our reunion would be characterized by joy and hugs.  But it lingers in my mind as paradigmatic of a sociological reality that shapes our current religious landscape.  Conservatives conserve.  Liberals liberate.  The former build, uphold, and protect institutions, even at the expense of excluding to maintain institutional identity and purity.  The latter critique, recreate, and expand institutions even at the expense of negotiating institutional identity and dissolving consensus.  

Pope Francis knew this.  He saw the writing on the wall.  Christianity’s future is in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  Those parts of the world aren’t ready for the church’s progressive theological identity.  If that frustrates you, then you should do something about it.  You should go to church on Sunday.