while we fully recognize the necessity of the church’s adhering to the principles and practices of the gospel, we also recognize the prudential power of the church to a certain extent to adapt . . . to render it efficient in accomplishing its mission both in opposing evil and in promoting whatever is good. So while the church is conservative, having no authority to change the principles or practices of its founders, it is also progressive, and it should avail itself of whatever means and agencies that are afforded it from time to time, and which did not conflict with its holy character and laws.
Brethren Society, page 131

As you might guess from the quote, Quinter was a Dunker moderate, concerned with moving forward on things but doing so judiciously.   The issues of contention have differed over the years, but there have always been leaders who sought creative solutions to what seemed unsolvable.

Their grounding in an “uncritical” reading of scripture, particularly the New Testament, has led them to take positions over the years that are upsetting not only to Brethren progressives — such as their unwavering opposition to acceptance of homosexuality — but also to evangelical conservatives — such as their sponsorship of an Insight Session on nonresistance (with David Rittenhouse as speaker) in the immediate aftermath of 9/11/2001, and Harold Martin’s thoughtful 2005 article, the “New Testament Doctrine of Nonresistance.”

In the words of Jim Myer, BRF leader and former Annual Conference Moderator, the BRF has intentionally sought to respond to “the spirit of nationalism and military response [that] has been running high in some parts of the denomination.”  As prophets of peace, one could argue, the older BRF leadership has been as influential (if not more so) than many Brethren moderates and progressives who have struggled to find ways to speak clearly on such matters.  This older leadership also understood that “loyal concern” within the denomination meant the coupling of persistance and organization with a willingness to listen and the manifestation of a gentle spirit, a spirit different than the spirit of stridency and aggressive opposition that plays out in politics and in the larger culture.

But a new breed of Brethren conservatives has emerged, one that falls increasingly silent on the “spirit of nationalism and military response” within the church. Unfortunately, the passing of the baton to this new generation of BRF leaders may be bringing the “loyal concern movement” to a tipping point — away from “Brethren,” away from balance, away from a gentleness of spirit, and toward the very culture that the BRF has historically sought to avoid.  Although this (thankfully) is not so evident on the BRF website, one has only to turn to the Dunker Journal website of the BRF Chairman to witness the storm clouds of a different brand of conservatism within the denomination.

Here are some examples:

1. Brethren who, out of their understanding of Christian love, conscientiously support allowing gays to be gay within the church are told online by the BRF Chairman that their religion is “nothing more than an emotion-driven sham.”

2. The BRF Chairman, in his “Dunker Journal” often associates his presentation of the “Brethren part of the Church of the Brethren” with the larger cultural polarization in the United States.  Implicit in many of his posts is the idea that “Christian” lies not beyond both the “red” and “blue” of popular culture — as the older generation of BRF leaders might have contended — but on one side of this polarity, the red side. Recently, for example, we find him disseminating a ranking of “freedom in the 50 states,” in which the US mapping of “more free” versus “less free” states essentially parallels the maps we’ve all seen of red versus blue.  The map, of course, is not the work of the BRF Chair, but its dissemination to Brethren is.

3. Relatedly, the BRF chairman aligns “the Brethren part of the Church of the Brethren” with antagonism toward the environmental movement.  In one recent post, concern about climate change is termed “simply madness,” a bogeyman. The “Dunker” Journal suggests that our environment is cleaner than at any time since industrialization, “not because we live simply, but because we pursued economic growth and accumulated the wealth and expertise to mend our problems.”

4. The gentle, Brethren style of being in constructive dialogue on the issues that divide us is reflected in the BRF Chair’s posting that “Sodomite marriage has been defeated in Maine.”

5. The BRF chair finds the national influence of Jim Wallis of the Christian Sojourners community “disturbing.” He also informs us that the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer is “a politically correct mash-up.”

6. The BRF chairman falls prey to the mainstream conservative rhetoric of “Obamacare,” calling it one of the biggest anti-choice schemes around.

Enough examples. My point is not that the BRF chairman should hold or espouse different political convictions; each of us has the right to formulate our own views on such matters. Nor is it my intent to revive the Old Brethren view of politics, which was to maintain the detached attitude of a pilgrim vis-a-vis political matters. My point is that it is imprudent to present conservative Christian politics of the mainstream American variety as a “Dunker Journal” from “the Brethren part of the Church of the Brethren,” when many blog postings reflect the spirit of political battle more than the spirit of the Brethren faith.  Many old-time Dunkers that I have read, studied, and known personally would be appalled.

To be fair, the Dunker Journal also posts notices of revivals, news about mission activities, statements about Brethren heritage and conviction, and other things more in line with its billing as a “Dunker Journal.”  But still there is evidence of a tipping away from a Brethren approach to being a New Testament faith community, and toward something much more reflective of the popular culture.

This shift is tone is doubly grievous because it is influential. Other Brethren conservatives pick up on it, becoming even more strident in their politization of church issues. They speak of “swelling the ranks” of the truly Biblical at Annual Conference, provide counsel on how to respond to liberal “talking points,” suggest strategies for dealing with the “gay agenda,” distribute e-petitions, call for silencing discussion on homosexuality after the 2011 Annual Conference, contemplate legal moves that ensure the independence and insulation of their local congregations from Annual Conference actions should they lose, and note, of all things, that “gay activists” demonstrate their true stripes by “attacking Chick-Fil-A’s.”  (A fair number of progressives too strategize, calculate, jockey for position, and make plans for “if things don’t go their way” at Annual Conference, but here I am focused upon conservatives.)

My point in all of this is to engage in the time-honored Brethren practice of admonishment, admonishing Brethren conservatives in this case to be Brethren conservatives. And admonishing coming generations of BRF leadership not to abandon the B, leaving only the RF.  I’d hate to see the remnants of the BRF a decade from now standing out in Right Field, having forgotten both their New Testament anchor and Brethren moorings, buffeted by American cultural-political winds that overpower their gentle witness to nonresistance, yieldedness, a pilgrim attitude, nonconformity to the (both liberal and conservative) world, and thereby losing the power of their distinctive witness.

I would also love to see the BRF Chairman’s Dunker Journal blog sharpen its New Testiment testimony against what Jim Myer has called the “spirit of nationalism and military response” and abandon the political posturing on Obamacare and “freedom states,” which have nothing to do with the “Brethren Part of the Church of the Brethren,” as proclaimed in the blog’s masthead.  Of course another option would be to drop the “Dunker journal” and “Brethren part of…” rhetoric altogether, presenting the forum transparently as a religiously interested political blog of the American conservative variety.

During the 1980s, I asked a well known BRF minister how his congregation dealt with members who enlisted in the military.  Smiling, he said, “We don’t tell them they’re going to hell; we just tell them to go to the church down the street.”  It was that type of consistent, Biblically-motivated binding and loosing — distinct from progressive/conservative alignments of the larger culture — that lent them my respect even when I disagreed on particular issues.

The younger generation of conservative leadership, by comparison, seem both less consistent and less Brethren. Above all, the Gospel of sexuality seems sometimes to trump the Gospel of peace.   And the ancient virtues of waiting, patience, listening, yielding, and taking care not to offend — all are waiting patiently to be summoned from the sidelines.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration,
Carl Bowman

Let me turn finally to marriage to show that though it can be, as with the Taliban, an obsolete tyranny, it can still, if properly understood, be affirmed as a sacred institution. In the traditional view of marriage, husband and wife become one flesh. Indeed, Genesis 2:24 says: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” … When people said that man and wife become one flesh, whose flesh did they have in mind? In the passage in Genesis, the man cleaves to his wife, so we might imagine that it is her flesh that he becomes. But that has not been the conventional interpretation. Fair enough. If position control … [has] been used to affirm gender inequality, and who could deny that it has, why not jettison the whole idea of one flesh?  Because gender inequality is not all that that ancient symbolism affirms. And because we, children of criticism, can reaffirm the institution of marriage critically, disavowing the inequality while affirming the solidarity.

The price of giving up the symbolism of one flesh altogether is high. If we do that, we are tempted to believe that leaving a marriage is no different from entering one. We can speak of a “starter marriage” or a marriage with “term limits” — humorously, of course, but there is a lot of truth in humor. But, upon reflection, if we really want to get married, and the great majority of Americans still do (even many gays who are not allowed to), then we may not really like the implications of the idea of marriage as an easily broken contract. It was Hegel who said, “Marriage is not a contractual relationship. One the contrary, though marriage begins in contract, it is precisely a contract to transcend the standpoint of contract.” In other words, Hegel is saying marriage is a contract to enter a noncontractual relationship. I am not saying, and neither is Hegel, that divorce is never justified, but that it is a last resort, because marriage is a solidarity so central, not only to the couple but also to their children and everyone around them, that it is not lightly to be tossed aside. As [Mary] Douglas has pointed out, strong social solidarity is almost always symbolized by body images. That husband and wife become one flesh is not too strong an image for what marriage really is….

But there is another basis for marriage that, I believe, has equal dignity with the fact that married couples can have children: the kind of love and support in a committed relationship that is hard to find anywhere else. The book of Ecclesiastes in its wonderful prose makes my case, even when the reference is not explicitly to marriage:
“It is better that you should be together than one; for they have the advantage of their society. If one fall he shall be supported by the other. Woe to him that is alone, for when he falleth he hath none to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they are warm; but how can one be warm alone? (4:9-11)”

Anyone in a long marriage, when the children have left home years ago, knows that “the advantage of society,” as Ecclesiastes puts it, is at the heart of marriage, important though children (and grandchildren) are.
Excerpted from Bellah’s “Marriage in the Matrix of Habit and History,” pp. 29-31.

It is interesting that Bellah places what I will call the “consolation of togetherness” at the very heart of the marriage institution.

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“If we are following Biblical Authority, then we have the absolute centrality that:  Jesus is Lord!  Without that, we have nothing….
To function together as a united church, shouldn’t we have what I’m going to call a ‘minimal orthodoxy?’”

Brother David’s search for “minimal orthodoxy” led him to these convictions from the 1923 Brethren Card. The Church of the Brethren:

1- firmly accepts and teaches the fundamental evangelical doctrines of the inspiration of the Bible,
2-  the personality of the Holy Spirit,
3- the virgin birth,
4 – the deity of Christ,
5 – the sin-pardoning value of His atonement,
6- His resurrection from the tomb,
7 – ascension and personal and visible return,
8 – and the resurrection both of the just and the unjust.

In Portrait of a People, I have described the bulk of today’s Brethren as theologically conservative; that much is irrefutable in the BMP data.  Even so, a singular focus upon the dominant pattern begs the question, What exists at the theological margins, beyond the Brethren conservatism?

My recent observation that an estimated 18,000 members “have doubts” about God’s existence led me to wonder how many Brethren depart from the other tenets of the “minimal orthodoxy” presented above. Point by point, here are the results from the BMP data expressed as the estimated number of members with particular dissenting views. (Somehow it is easier to disregard “5% of the membership” than “6,500 members” even though they are the same figure in a denomination of approximately 130,000. )

1. Approximately 12,000 Brethren reject the position that the Bible is God’s Word, viewing it instead as an ancient book of stories or as having no relevance for today.  Another 58,000 members believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but say that not everything in it should be taken literally.

2. The BMP contains nothing on the “personality” of the Holy Spirit, but does suggest that about 7,000 Brethren never seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance.  Broadening the category a bit, over 25,000 Brethren (more than a fifth of the membership) say they seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance once a month or less.  What is more, about 31,000 Brethren (over a quarter of the membership) believe the “charismatic gifts” of the Spirit such as healing, prophesying, and speaking in tongues are more human than divine in origin, reflecting human emotion more than God’s Spirit.  A smaller number — about 10,000 — go so far as to say the “Holy Spirit” is just another name for “human insight or inspiration.”

3. Over 12,000 Brethren cannot quite accept the idea that Jesus was born of a virgin. Instead, they say either that they “don’t believe” in the virgin birth or that they are “not sure” what they believe.  These 12,000 members represent about 10% of the total membership.

4. About 6,000 members (5% of the membership) don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus. Relatedly, about 17,000 members reject the idea that Jesus is the clearest revelation of God, saying instead that Jesus is but “one of many ways” to God or that Jesus was a great prophet and teacher, but “not more than that.”

5. The BMP included no questions about “the sin-pardoning value of Jesus’ atonement,” but did ask whether Brethren considered themselves “saved.” Nearly two-thirds of the membership (63%) said, “yes, I know I am saved,” but this leaves many who gave other answers.  About 34,000 Brethren (26%), for example, respond, “I can’t say for sure; only God knows if I am saved.” Another 7,000 admit that “being saved is not central to my faith,” and 3,500 say the “people who know them best” can answer that question better than they can. All told, nearly 50,000 members give some response other than “yes, I know I am saved.”

6. Ninety percent of Brethren say they believe Jesus “physically arose from the dead,” but this leaves 10% — about 13,000 church members — who say either that they aren’t sure, don’t believe it, or decline to answer the question.

7. Over 25,000 members, when asked whether they believe Jesus will physically return to earth, respond with something other than a definite “yes.” Most of the 25,000 say they aren’t sure what they believe about Jesus’ return, but 5,000 reject the idea.

8. When asked whether they believe in life after death, 15,000 Brethren equivocate, responding with something other than “yes.” Even more vacillate on, or reject outright, the idea of hell as a place of eternal punishment — over 30,000 to be precise.  The majority of Brethren do believe in hell, but it is notable that a quarter of today’s Brethren question the notion of eternal punishment.

In social surveys such as the Brethren Member Profile, the story of variability — departure from the norm — is often buried by a narrative of averages and dominant patterns. This is unfortunate because the full “portrait of a people” is comprised of both prevailing patterns and departures.  What happens at the margins is noteworthy and shouldn’t be treated as if it weren’t part of the fuller portrait.

Beyond the percentages, manufacturers, publishers, etc. pay great attention to the absolute number of purchasers and subscribers.  About 8% of the Brethren membership, for example, subscribe to The Messenger.  Doesn’t sound like much.  But 8% is over 10,000 subscribers — a smaller number than the publishers would wish, but an important base of readers. A survey researcher might write such a small percentage off as inconsequential, yet if 10,000 subscribers are married to 10,000 partners, we may be looking at closer to 20,000 readers. And depending upon their social relationships, these 20,000 may impact a much broader network.

All of the figures in points 1 through 8 above should be digested with that in mind.  Small percentages reflect larger numbers of real members — members who may be broadly influential because of their social networks, or members who may be fading to the margins and the memory of the Brethren world — disenchanted at the disjuncture between their own views and those of the majority.

Dana interprets your point as, “What I hear in Josh’s statement is a very basic question: what makes us the Church? It isn’t Love Feast, it isn’t our German cultural heritage, it isn’t “community” or a particular peace stance, or a way of talking about personal relationship with the Divine – though all those things do set us apart and define us as a particular group of believers. If we’re going to be the Church, it won’t be because of cultural and anthropological markers. It will be because the Holy Spirit breathes breath into our life together. And if people are discerning whether or not to join in or head out, the question for them ought … to be, “do you feel the Spirit moving here? Don’t you want to join in?”

And Josh writes in his blog,

“It is quite common to meet someone who claims a religious culture as a personal identifier while hedging that the beliefs of that tradition are not part of who they are. So we find persons who are American first and Christian second, or who are Jewish by birth but atheist by choice, or just marginally Catholic.
Brethren have not been immune to such combinations. For some children of Brethren families these cultural hybrids sound pretty familiar. It is not uncommon to find Brethren young people who champion their Brethren roots or preferences while at the same time outright rejecting the faith which the culture seeks to proclaim.
This is extremely problematic for a tradition which emphasizes personal decision as part of its faith tradition….
…So to rely on our gene pool, last name, vision of peace or a familiar community of people to give us some identifiable category without growing in belief or practice is to invoke the name in vain. In essence it is to tell a lie. It is to not name our true home or our true culture. That is why I say that, in a religious culture which assumes a personal conviction and assent to a way of life and belief, being a Cultural Brethren is a non-sequitur.”

My thoughts…

Your extended blog entry amply clarifies your point.  To frame your point in a way that you might not, you are distinguishing between those, on the one hand, who are “appropriately culturally-Brethren” (with certain faith convictions as core commitments), and others who are “only culturally-Brethren” (meaning they share certain cultural convictions, but not the ones essential for membership-with-integrity in the group).  To lift a word from your blog, the latter are the “lying” Brethren while the former, we must suppose, are the “truthful Brethren,” those who embrace the cultural (or belief) conviction defined as foundational.

Assuming I am interpreting you correctly, albeit extending the rhetoric to more sharply draw the point, where does this leave us?  I will ruminate a bit.

Well, by extension, since Judaism is a historic religion in which a clear belief in God, God’s role in creation, and covenants with God are “core,” Jews whose cosmology is agnostic or atheist are also “lying Jews.”  But you might object that their tradition doesn’t emphasize “personal decision” as a point of entry, so the Jews are different, defined as much by lineage as by faith.  Hmmm….

But the Brethren also described themselves as “a people,” albeit a people who accepted the “Word of the New Testament as a message from heaven and taught it in full.” The remainder of the core beliefs on the 1900 Card were actually practices — things the Brethren did and didn’t do.  They did state that at baptism they asked for the gift of God’s Spirit upon each member, but didn’t say everyone necessarily received it.  We all know that the baptismal questions were questions of faith conviction, but the baptismal promises — without which you could not join — were nonresistance (the rejection of violence against humans), nonconformity, and nonswearing.  So it seems all of these were “core,” or core enough at least to define who really belonged and who didn’t.

In that light, it is interesting that you relegate the “vision of peace” to a tier that is secondary to the belief or personal conviction that a person holds.  Couldn’t nonresistance also be considered central to the Christ-confession itself?  If so, do those with radically different visions of Christ (or of what it means to become “Christian”) not make different faith confessions even though they seem superficially the same?  A Brethren pastor, who once held the position of Annual Conference Moderator, preached a couple of years ago, “I am a Christian…   I am a pacifist…   And frankly, I don’t see how you can be one without being the other.”  One of our college Presidents recently expressed gratitude that Brethren believe in a different Christ than the Christ confessed by American Christian culture.  Some who confess Christ confess nothing more than adherence to a certain symbol system and the ethical priorities and principles enshrined therein.  Are they truly “lying Brethren” or is it just another way of framing Christian belief?  Many confess a relationship with a living Christ, yet many Brethren ministers over the years would have admitted in a private setting that they have no idea what that means or feels like.  I have known more than one minister who considered themselves Christian and Brethren who also confessed that their belief system is agnostic.  Yet they faithfully served and ministered to the church that they considered their own.

Your blog references Mack and company — What is left of their written records suggests that eighteenth century Brethren would have considered the form of communion, refusal to carry the “carnal sword,” the practice of excommunication, and other practices of the primitive church (that now might be dismissed as “only cultural”) as part and parcel of the very faith conviction they were calling members to make. They distinguished between bands of real Christians, nonregenerate “Christians,” nominal “Christians,” and professing “Christians” who wouldn’t be recognized as such by their Lord.  Mack and company were as concerned about dilluted faith-practice polluting the gemeinde as about incorrect belief. Eighteenth century Brethren called believers to join a disciplined faith community, not just another band of confessing believers.  Membership had as much to do with an understanding of the church (rejected by nearly all Brethren today) as with personal faith commitment, which is not to downplay the latter.  Belief in eternal damnation or Christ’s atonement or other particulars of formal theology were less tied to Brethren membership than whom one married (someone Brethren versus someone outside the church). Bethany Theological Seminary during the 1940s taught young ministers that Jesus didn’t have to die — that his life itself was the revelation of God’s image on earth.   All of this is to say that “belief in Christ” or “acceptance of Christ as Lord” is, and has been, highly variegated in our Church (with all sorts of cultural flavors).  I know Brethren adult Sunday School classes that pride themselves on their Universalist theology, and I know others that consider those views completely heretical.  No one talks very openly about these things.

I am thankful for the “cultural-only Brethren.” Contrary to your “we” statement at the top of this posting, they are not here because they find a spiritual home among the Brethren.  They are here (like many Jews are Jewish) because it is their people — generations of Brethren ancestors and a legacy of Brethren ways of being in the world have been bequeathed to them.  Commitments to peace, service, community, nonconformity, and liturgical expressions such as the Love Feast are their natural rituals, the centerpiece of their world of meaning.  Their distress is in discovering that a beloved church that once felt like a “spiritual home” no longer does. And the reason it no longer does is because the range of acceptable faith confessions and spiritual expressions, all of which are cultural, has constricted over the last quarter century.

Even if no one ever suggests it in print, in their hearts they feel more like “lying Brethren” or “alien Brethren” than they once did.  And it’s not that their beliefs have changed or that they believe any differently than their “good Brethren” parents who felt perfectly at home in the church.  It’s that their church home, which once relied more heavily upon shared practices and family ties to bind itself together, now leans more heavily upon common beliefs or spiritual experience.  It is a sinking feeling indeed for those who still want to live peacefully, simply, and together with their Brethren but are uncomfortable raising their hands in praise.  It is not that their “true religion” in a Durkheimian sense lies outside the church; it is that it genuinely laid inside a Church of the Brethren that has moved away.

Among the Amish, the dynamic is reversed.  Those who become evangelically aroused and full of the spirit tend to leave, writing the culture-faith of their ancestors off as not “Christian.” The New Conference of the Old German Baptist Brethren quietly (and not so quietly) harbor some of the same feelings about the Old German Baptist Brethren, who they believe were trying to make them sign on to a culturally bound book of minutes rather than to a more spirit-filled Gospel of Jesus.  Henry Holsinger and his followers (who became the Brethren Church) leveled the same accusations against the German Baptist Brethren (which became the Church of the Brethren) during late 1870s and 1880s.  We then kicked them and their more evangelical lot out of the church, preferring our culture-religion of plain dress, unpaid ministers, no Sunday Schools or musical instruments, etc. Early in the twentieth century, the faithful old Pennsylvania elders were accused of being “Jewish” in their adherence to Brethren minute book “laws.”   So many “cultural Brethren.”

Now it is the “only cultural Brethren” — the “lying Brethren” — who stand accused, while those with the right faith confession can feel comfortably Brethren as they live unpeacefully, unsimply, and with a circumscribed feeling of togetherness.

I don’t know whether I’ve said anything meaningful and I’m exhausted, but I thank you Josh for causing me to reflect upon these things.  Even if some of your points were sharpened beyond the way you would express them, I hope that I was responding to their potential implications.  I know I was meandering.   I thought you’d like to know that I was reading and listening.

Carl

Leaving aside for a moment the dubious assertion that we are a theological tradition based on “No Force in Religion” (the Brethren myth with an eternal afterlife, no matter how effectively killed by Brethren historians), how shall we respond to Brockway’s suggestion that there is no room in the COB for “cultural Brethren”?

As a sociologist, I would ask him, “Who among us is not (in some sense) a cultural Brethren?” Did we invent the Love Feast in our age?  Is the New Testament itself not part of a cultural tradition?  Are Brethren today less “nonresistant” than generations ago because new light from on high — somewhere outside of culture — teaches them that peacefulness of spirit and action is less vital to the Gospel?  Do some of us emphasize Biblical positions like opposition to homosexuality, the virgin birth, the rapture, and the literal authority of scripture; or progressive revelation, spiritual freedom, openness and inclusivity, a “personal relationship” with Christ, naked Anabaptism, and (sigh) no force in religion …  entirely because of spiritual revelation from above?  I think not.

Then where do these beliefs and practices come from?  A voice speaks to me from somewhere, “from culture, silly.”  (I glance to see who it was, but they are gone, leaving me puzzled at the words.)

Okay, I concede … it is true that our faith tradition once invoked a rhetoric of “the Brethren’s order” much more than a “personal relationship” with God or Jesus.  It is also true that eighteenth century Brethren texts spoke little of either “personal relationships” with Christ or “spiritual directors.”  In those days, “unity with Christ” or the “inner ear” or “conscience toward God” or “regeneration” more typically described the experiential dimension of faith.  Was that precisely the same as having a “relationship with Jesus”? I think not; they are related but not the same — similar in focusing upon inner experience but different in their framing and conceptualization of that experience. Whether experience can be considered the same when thought of in radically different ways is something to contemplate. Just as whether being “Christian” is the same when conceived in radically different ways is something to chew on.

I’ve been influenced enough by the disciplines of anthropology and sociology in my thinking about religious experience to think that all particular theological positions, religious beliefs, faith experiences and practice, and further afield, all national identities and even anthropological and sociological writings — all of all of them are culturally bound and molded.

So who among us, I ask, is not a “cultural Brethren”?  Some Brethren cultural variants emphasize Divine order, authority, atonement and tradition.  Others emphasize spirituality, enchantment, poetics, expressiveness, spiritual relationship and relatedness. Others emphasize peoplehood, justice, faith praxis, and the alleviation of human suffering. Some pray without ceasing; some cease to pray. Some hold a completely different idea of what it means to pray than others, and some prefer meditation.  Which of these is not cultural? Whatever else may impel our thinking, feelings, and relationships, it is all cultural in ways many of us never consider.

So if Brockway is right — there is no room for cultural Brethren — I wonder who among us will be the first to feel we must leave.  If all genuinely “cultural Brethren” leave, the Church of the Brethren may have no one left.  And I’m not sure I would want to remain among those who somehow think they are less culturally infused than those who walked away.

Thank you for igniting another post, Josh.  My intent is to offer it in a positive spirit.  I welcome any and all responders, from whatever Brethren culture you hail.

Is marriage a sacred institution? Then why should the state be required to ratify it?  Faith fellowships of any stripe should be free to marry individuals in a manner consistent with their understanding of the sacred.  This is the freedom of faith and conscience embraced by the early Brethren, an unfettered  freedom of discernment for faith communities.

Is marriage a legal relationship entered into voluntarily by citizens? Then why should church people object to the extension of equal rights to all?  If marriage is a civil status, then justice compels us to reject anything short of its universal application.  The days of justifying slavery, denying women the vote, denying employment to persons with disabilities, and other class-based conceptions of civic life are long past.

The mixing of the two — marriage as legal status and sacred ordinance — is like mixing oil and water.  We wind up attempting to impose our own conception of the sacred upon others in the public sphere.   Like the Volstead Act’s vision of a dry America, and conscription laws with no provision for conscientious objection, this is a bad idea.  If marriage is really sacred, then our Brethren heritage calls us to grant others the same freedom of conscience that we sought for ourselves when our understanding of “Christ-like” departed from the cultural norm.  Whether we do so within our own faith fellowship is an open question, but we should always grant others the right to conscientiously practice their faith within their fellowship.  (Being in communion with someone is different than respecting their freedom of conscience.)

I’m inclined to think that “legally married” is a bad idea.  Let’s have “domestic partnerships” or “civil unions” for all in the legal sphere so that civil rights may be universally applied.  Then “marriage” (who marries whom and under what circumstances) will be a matter for religious communities to decide.  Or let’s acknowledge that in this society “marriage” is a legal rather than a sacred designation and therefore cannot be circumscribed by one group’s understanding of the sacred.

As a heterosexual in a covenant relationship, I resent the fact that the state’s blessing is required to formalize my marriage. I also resent the fact that the state selectively grants this blessing to a favored class of citizens while denying others.  That isn’t the kind of religious freedom that the Brethren and others sought in the Americas.  It seems as un-American to me as segregated schools and swimming pools.

Anyone?

At the appropriate moment in the meeting — after prayers for discerning the Spirit’s leading — the elders retreated to an area adjacent to the main meeting room.  Then, without ballot to guide them, all members filed through the adjoining room, whispering into the ear of an elder the name of the young man they believed should be “raised” to the ministry. After all members had given their “voice” — which Brethren distinguished from a ballot- or motion-driven vote — the elders conferred among themselves to discern where the Holy Spirit, through the voice of the congregation, was directing them.  Sometimes, when too many names were “voiced” and no pattern was discernible, they announced that no one had been called to the ministry.  At other times they might discern that one or even more persons had been called.  When my Grandfather was called, the voice settled upon two names, both of whom heard and received the call.

Whether one had designs on the ministry wasn’t an issue; when the congregation called, you were supposed to accept.  To decline was to reject the Word of the Holy Spirit to the body.  In some cases, eagerness to become a minister was actually viewed as a disqualification.  Other members interpreted a strongly expressed personal interest as unwillingness to wait for the body, as trying to rush, in one’s own haste and self-interest, the work of the Lord.

In all candor, I’m not sure why I’m writing this today.  It’s just that the spirit of patience, quiet waiting, flexibility of outcome, trust in church elders, and rejection of votes and self-interested campaigning, seem so distant from our decision-making processes today.  It was a private question from a reader that sent my mind drifting back to conversations with my Grandfather.

He wrote,
Isn’t it interesting that in the current denominational process, people are critical of the storytelling piece and rush to a simple vote?  One of the problems in today’s church is that we do not have a story-teller.  Is it fair to say that Annual Conference was the storyteller for the church and with the loss of engagement and/or respect for Annual Conference, the local congregation or special interest group is the one to form the narrative of the church and to project it upon the entire denomination?

The Brother raises good questions. How would you answer him?

My own take is that the relationship between age and views of homosexuality is more complex than that. While the pattern he describes is fairly pronounced in the broader society, generational differences within the Church of the Brethren are less clearly drawn.  When I duplicate the congregational analysis from the other day, for instance, substituting “average age” for “typical educational level,” the pattern is as follows:

The fitted curve is fairly flat, ticking up on both ends of the age spectrum. Congregations with an average age of 65 differ little in their acceptance of homosexuality from congregations with an average age of 45. This contrasts dramatically with the clear association between a congregation’s average educational level and its view of homosexuality.

Yet plotting average ages for congregations fails to isolate the views of the under-30 crowd mentioned by the contributor. What does the Brethren Member Profile reveal about them?

For one thing, the survey suggests that the statement, “members under 30 don’t have the same problems with sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular as their parents’ and grandparents’ generations,” over-reaches somewhat. In fact, 70% of Younger Brethren (ages 18 through 29) disagree with the statement that “homosexual couples should have the right to marry; nearly two-thirds (64%) of Younger Brethren disagree that “homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt children; and 58% of Younger Brethren say that homosexual relations between consenting adults are always wrong. Clearly, many Brethren in their twenties share the opposition of their parents and grandparents.

And yet it is also true that opposition to homosexuality is less resolute among Younger Brethren, softened somewhat in comparison with those only a decade or two older. Fifty-seven percent of Brethren twenty-somethings, for example, “completely disagree” with the idea of gay marriage compared to 70% of Brethren in their thirties and forties. Forty-seven percent of Younger Brethren completely reject the notion of adoption by gay couples compared with over 60% of Brethren between 30 and 50. Fifty-eight percent of Younger Brethren say that homosexual relations are always wrong, but 73% of Brethren in their thirties and forties say the same. And Younger Brethren are more than 50% more likely than Brethren a decade or two older to say that homosexuality is “an acceptable alternate lifestyle.”

So while the association of youth with acceptance of homosexuality is less dramatic than in the broader society, and while the picture remains complicated, we can conclude that Younger Brethren — those in their teens and twenties — are more accepting of homosexuality on average than Brethren who are thirty and older. And Younger Brethren who oppose gay marriage, gay adoption, and the like are more equivocal in their opposition.