Confession: my favorite movie for many years was (and perhaps still is) Without A Paddle. I love the casting, the scenery, the snarky and sometimes crude humor, the gnarly 80's vibe, the spontaneous adventure, and the soundtrack. I dig the soundtrack. There is a song from the movie, "Hold on Loosely," that has been stuck in my head this past week. It is performed by 38 Special and played as Billy, Tom, and Dan road-trip down a backwoods Oregon highway. As I have been mulling over denominational and ecumenical divisions, the lyrics "Hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly, you'll lose control," have been on repeat in my mind. Originally sung to a lost lover, I find them particularly fitting to a lost body of Christ. As a Mennonite, I have always been proud (for a Mennonite) of my heritage of heretics, rebels, and pacifists. However, over the past century pacifism has progressed from not bearing arms to active peacemaking. This peace stance means that perhaps I should hesitate before priding myself on a history created out of division (and acknowledging that one of my favorite movies includes a battle scene between armed rednecks and waste-laden tree huggers). For the body of Christ is broken. Mennonites have a strong tradition of dividing and when those divisions don't work out, splitting again. Within the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant split, there are several thousand denominations. Not to mention our sister religions, Islam and Judaism, or the hundreds of other worldview narratives that often represent "Christian values" far better than actual Christians. Now this division is not necessarily a bad thing. Different cultural groups have adapted and adopted their understanding of the Bible (or the world) in ways that best fit their needs in the place and time in which they existed. Religious diversity-when it exists in harmony-is one of the most beautiful things in the world. At its best, it portrays humans caring for one another and caring for the earth with a purpose derived from the acknowledgment that there is something bigger than ourselves. At its worst, religious diversity has caused wars that resulted in the loss of thousands of living, breathing humans and given rise to a secularized western nation-state that thinks worshiping itself somehow makes it better than the brown people whose way of life has been labeled a religion as an excuse for said nation-state to bomb them. I digress. This type of division--the type that is divisive and violent and results in Cain killing Abel--doesn't come from religious diversity. Rather, it comes from death grips on values. As a nation, we have forgotten how to hold on loosely and we have lost control. When I think about this, it is far too easy for me to think about the "other." The Christian absolutists that believe the Bible is always right and so is their interpretation. The folks who believe that going to church, praising Jesus, and being nice to the new kid is all it means to be a Christian because looking at the human rights violations and ecocide that are a part of being a North American is just too hard. Or the ones (Mike Pence, bless his heart) whose "Christian" view of sexuality is so convoluted he can't eat lunch with a woman other than his wife but stands next to a self-declared sexual predator. Yet, I also cling too tightly. I often view the NT as political--and forget that it is also an account of people revealing who and what they perceive God to be. I place God for the world above God for the individual--at the cost of ignoring people (often people who weren't raised in a church community) whose lives drastically improved with a commitment to Jesus as Christ. I'm a fan of historical Jesus--to the point where I think of the resurrection as symbolic or the consequence of bummed out disciples tripping on some Ancient Near Eastern form of LSD because it's easier than admitting I follow a God who can restore life. I value the inconceivable mysteriousness of God so much that I use it as an excuse to end a conversation in the same way that "the Bible as the ultimate authority" is used. In short, I fall into the trap where I believe my hermeneutical interpretation and worldview shaped by academia is the solution to all the worlds problems. It's not. It's stuffy and separating and full of conversations that seemingly prevent action. It's not perfect, yet I allow it to shape me because it is valuable. It gives me the space and the opportunity to look at issues, cling to them, decide if and how I want or need to let them go, and loosen my grip. There is a beauty and necessity to sticking with our convictions. But when we cling to them so tightly they place a death grip on us or a death sentence on others we need to leave them (preferably) some years ago. Rock on. -Lizzie
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Elizabeth SchragAdventurer. Biblical and Theological Studies major. Borderline Vegan. Rebel with a cause. Archives
March 2017
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