I Joined a Church on Sunday

I Joined a Church on Sunday I joined a church on Sunday, shortly after completing the SUNDAY IN THE HOUSE broadcast to my de-churched congregation.  How’s that for dissonance of some sort! I counted fifteen different churches I have joined in the 66 years since I went all the way under and came up dripping wet.  Seven states and two countries. The most basic question people ask themselves when visiting a church is some version of this: can I be friends with these people? To put it in an expanded form: we do have enough in common, especially on the things that matter, for us to pray together, serve together, and travel together through life? But three other questions have risen to the fore as I sought to answer some version of the questions above. And those three questions are shaped by the three rules of church life growing up in the South.  Not rules about liquor, or sex, or swearing.  But the unwritten rules that kept blacks in the balcony, women in the pews, and gays in the closet. Churches black and white are still pretty much segregated. Colored folk in the pews are mostly from other countries around the world rather than communities on the other side of the tracks in our county.  And white churches which feature a smattering of black folk rarely have black clergy leading the worship. Which is sad, as the white Protestant churches, especially in the South, surely need what black folk bring to the table—communion table, that is. But my three questions are these: are the women still in the pews? Are the gays still in the closet? And is Trump still the man to make America great again? I decided to join on Sunday when the pastor announced to the congregation that he would not be preaching today, that he wanted to introduce the morning preacher with her new title, voted by the congregation just this past month: Pastor of Music and Worship. What a wonderful way to respond to the macho men of the Southern Baptist Convention who voted in June to excommunicate any church who did precisely what this church just did.  Good for us! And sometime over the last year, in discussions that did not involve me, this congregation also addressed the matter of LGBTQ Christians and came out of those talks widening their circle of welcome even while watching at least a quarter of their congregation walk away.  “I’m taking a walk,” John Prine famously sang for all those folk who want to welcome saints and sinners, unless they are gay. Then comes the MAGA issue?  Can any church be a good gospel church and vote en masse for Donald Trump? Is it possible to be a “soaring” church (to use the language preferred by a friend of mine) while standing beside the policies, the principles, and the personal behavior of The Donald? I’ve been in those churches before. I’ve even served in those churches before. And I don’t want to do it again. I want to be with people who not only know my name and are glad that I came (to quote the television ditty of another generation), but who also hear the voice of God in the words of a woman, who extend the hospitality of Jesus to every category of LGBTQ (and especially the T), and who are certain that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is as embarrassed by the Trump man as are many of us.  Whatever religion he espouses and embodies, it is not mine. Not now.  Not ever. A friend posted a testimony about their new church: “a Christ-centered community rooted in historic faith and liturgical worship” or so their website asserts; and this: “a gospel movement that fosters personal conversion and authentic community where every person is known and valued.” It all reads wonderfully, compellingly. But what I want to know is this: where are the women, still in the pews? Where are the gays, still in the closet? And where is the loyalty, still to the Donald? No, the preferred answers to these questions do not solve all the problems; in fact, they might actually create problems. But those problems might just be the sort of problems that churches need to have: struggling to broaden and deepen our understanding of who is welcome, whose word is heard, and whose leader need to be followed. Dwight A. Moody