Yesterday I ran into the junior pastor of my old church and had quite a lengthy conversation with him about why I left so abruptly. Of course he wanted to know where I was going now, if I was going at all, and was rather dismayed to find out I've gone over to the Dark Side (Unitarian-Universalism), though he was tactful enough not to put it in those terms.
Anyway, I outlined the three biggest issues I had with his church, namely, Creationism, Total Depravity of Humankind, and the third, not allowing women to have leadership positions within the church simply because they are women. The last, he said, was not strictly true. Women are not allowed to become elders or pastors, for Scriptural reasons. But they can hold other leadership positions.
I said, the New Testament also forbids divorced people from remarrying, but I don't see anyone (other than the Catholics) enforcing that. Isn't that kind of hypocritical? He looked kind of stung by that, and said something about some Scriptures are easier to follow than others, meaning that if they started telling divorced people they could not remarry, or if they remarried, to live as brother and sister (again, as the Catholics do), they would have an empty church in short order. Whereas, not too many people are likely to walk out just because women can't be elders or pastors (especially if that fact is not well-known). What Pope Francis intends to say or do on the divorce/remarriage issue remains to be seen, but in my opinion that is probably the number one reason why many Catholics leave the church each year, because their marriages have failed and they don't care to live the rest of their lives in celibacy. It is indirectly one of the reasons I left. Because with a divorce rate somewhere around 50 percent, that means the older I get the less likely I am to find someone who has never married or is widowed. Throw in no premarital sex and the pool of potential applicants becomes all that much smaller. The Church knows this, its leaders are no fools, but it feels its hands are tied in the matter. It, however, can still afford to hemorrhage members. This little church cannot. (For the record, I am not against divorced people remarrying.)
Well, he said, we (the male leadership) are looking into the matter and seeing if this is something that we can change and still remain faithful to what God's Word says. Now this is a surprise. I wonder what brought about that change of heart? Could it have something to do with the fact that they are now indebted to a bank? Did a wealthy potential member learn about this policy and decide, nope, going elsewhere? A few months earlier, before I left, they made a startling announcement that they would no longer require baptism for new members. For a Baptist-derived congregation to make this announcement is like an Orthodox rabbi telling his congregation that he's searched the Tanakh and nope, it's not a requirement to circumcise your baby boys. I don't know what New Testament they are reading (actually I do, it's the English Standard Version) but baptism has been THE major initiation ritual from Day 1 of the Christian religion; the churches may disagree on when, to whom, and how, but they all pretty much insist on members being baptized. So this is no small step, and I wonder what lay behind that. Money again? Though I can't see anyone really being opposed to being baptized, unless it was someone who was previously baptized (like myself) whose baptism doesn't count in their eyes. And baptism was the least of my objections. So something is going on.
Anyway, being the mischief-maker that I am, and seeing that transgender issues are very much in the news right now, I asked him what they would do in the unlikely event that a female-to-male transgendered person walked through that door. If nobody knew that they were transgendered, and they said and did all the right things, would they qualify for eldership? Is this something that would show up on a background check or would HIPAA (the patient privacy act) apply? I mean, after all, they are legally male, they appear to be male, there's no reason to suspect that they were otherwise--they just happen to lack a Y chromosome. Is this enough to disbar them once this fact came out?
There is an urban legend that after a woman was elected Pope, the cardinals all got together and each new elected Pope has to undergo a genital check to make sure he is indeed male. I don't believe it because that's a little late in the game to be doing that sort of thing, don't you think? But it does make you think. If you have a church that insists that males and females have separate gender roles, how do you make sure that males are indeed males and females are indeed females? Chromosome test, anyone?
I think I shook him up a little with that.
Anyway, I outlined the three biggest issues I had with his church, namely, Creationism, Total Depravity of Humankind, and the third, not allowing women to have leadership positions within the church simply because they are women. The last, he said, was not strictly true. Women are not allowed to become elders or pastors, for Scriptural reasons. But they can hold other leadership positions.
I said, the New Testament also forbids divorced people from remarrying, but I don't see anyone (other than the Catholics) enforcing that. Isn't that kind of hypocritical? He looked kind of stung by that, and said something about some Scriptures are easier to follow than others, meaning that if they started telling divorced people they could not remarry, or if they remarried, to live as brother and sister (again, as the Catholics do), they would have an empty church in short order. Whereas, not too many people are likely to walk out just because women can't be elders or pastors (especially if that fact is not well-known). What Pope Francis intends to say or do on the divorce/remarriage issue remains to be seen, but in my opinion that is probably the number one reason why many Catholics leave the church each year, because their marriages have failed and they don't care to live the rest of their lives in celibacy. It is indirectly one of the reasons I left. Because with a divorce rate somewhere around 50 percent, that means the older I get the less likely I am to find someone who has never married or is widowed. Throw in no premarital sex and the pool of potential applicants becomes all that much smaller. The Church knows this, its leaders are no fools, but it feels its hands are tied in the matter. It, however, can still afford to hemorrhage members. This little church cannot. (For the record, I am not against divorced people remarrying.)
Well, he said, we (the male leadership) are looking into the matter and seeing if this is something that we can change and still remain faithful to what God's Word says. Now this is a surprise. I wonder what brought about that change of heart? Could it have something to do with the fact that they are now indebted to a bank? Did a wealthy potential member learn about this policy and decide, nope, going elsewhere? A few months earlier, before I left, they made a startling announcement that they would no longer require baptism for new members. For a Baptist-derived congregation to make this announcement is like an Orthodox rabbi telling his congregation that he's searched the Tanakh and nope, it's not a requirement to circumcise your baby boys. I don't know what New Testament they are reading (actually I do, it's the English Standard Version) but baptism has been THE major initiation ritual from Day 1 of the Christian religion; the churches may disagree on when, to whom, and how, but they all pretty much insist on members being baptized. So this is no small step, and I wonder what lay behind that. Money again? Though I can't see anyone really being opposed to being baptized, unless it was someone who was previously baptized (like myself) whose baptism doesn't count in their eyes. And baptism was the least of my objections. So something is going on.
Anyway, being the mischief-maker that I am, and seeing that transgender issues are very much in the news right now, I asked him what they would do in the unlikely event that a female-to-male transgendered person walked through that door. If nobody knew that they were transgendered, and they said and did all the right things, would they qualify for eldership? Is this something that would show up on a background check or would HIPAA (the patient privacy act) apply? I mean, after all, they are legally male, they appear to be male, there's no reason to suspect that they were otherwise--they just happen to lack a Y chromosome. Is this enough to disbar them once this fact came out?
There is an urban legend that after a woman was elected Pope, the cardinals all got together and each new elected Pope has to undergo a genital check to make sure he is indeed male. I don't believe it because that's a little late in the game to be doing that sort of thing, don't you think? But it does make you think. If you have a church that insists that males and females have separate gender roles, how do you make sure that males are indeed males and females are indeed females? Chromosome test, anyone?
I think I shook him up a little with that.
