Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 February 2009 15:28:20
Ok, was going to blog the whole lent experience with some reflections, but that has gone out of the window. At the communion service I went to this morning the reading was from Matthew 6 and all about not going public with your spiritual practices and becoming hypocrites as a result. Now I know there is an argument about "public witness" and stuff, but it made my mind up that this lentern season won't be shared in the way I'd planned.
So what do we have instead? Well, not sure probably more of the usual, starting today on my reflections about ecumenism and ritual and "stuff".
Last night I went out for a meal with a bunch of gorgeous Catholic theologian types. It was an interesting experience, as it was clear that down my "student" end of the table I was the token Protestant. As we were talking it became clear how as Christians within our own traditions there is an awful lot of assumed knowledge, that is facinating but not clear to outsiders. I was v. conscious of how v. little I knew about their tradition. I was also v. aware, yet again, how limited my own experience has been.
The self-realisation of the limitation of my own experience and how v. small really the corner of the church I have inhabited up to now is something that is becoming constantly clearer since I moved. Through my "changing" of denomination I have learnt how much things differ, even within "low" or "free" church traditions.
There are differences in language that have confuddled me. For instance a deacon in a Baptist church is well different to a deacon in a Methodist church and that differs again from what a deacon is in an Anglican church, (if I've got this right).
There are differences in resources used that can become confusing. I love using the worship book, with it's stated liturgy some of which is radically more challenging and slightly more inclusive than I am used to. I also like the formality of the shared responses but sometimes I do find it an ickle wierd to be juggling books and finding pages.
Then there are the differences in the way communion happens, and it's meaning. It emerged last night that for Catholics things like the furniture being in the right place during Communion are important. The furniture doesn't appear to be an issue in Methodism, but it is "different" to what I'm used to. The going up to take communion requires concentration on when to stand up and sit down, etc - particularly as they sometimes seem to change the way things are done in the way one would only normally expect to happen in the evenings in a Baptist church. (Some people will get what I mean there!). The Baptist way of doing it - where you basically get waiter service, which I knew and felt comfortable with, is now becoming a distant memory. What I miss a little from that is the way, with our ickle cups, we all drank together.
Today was another new experience. I'd never come across "ashing" before. We had been given advance warning that it was part of the service so I had the opportunity to ask my Catholic friends last night what it involved. They had helpfully told me in a way which reassured me, (and advised that I take some make up remover with me if I wanted to remove the ash cross before I headed off to my seminar). The ashing was something simple, but yet very symbolic which made me smile about the way this journey has broadened my experience, particularly as I realised whilst alien for me it is something that unites much of the rest of the church at this time of year.
All of this "learning" has led me to realise though, how in many ways the evangelical sub-culture is a limiting environment. Over the last six months my engagement with traditions other than my own has opened my eyes to a range of spiritual practices I knew nothing about. Spritual practices that I believe Baptists and others could really benefit from engaging with. I have come to see that whilst we might have given lip service to ecumenism over the last twenty years or so few of us have rarely really engaged in it. Going to the odd shared service which is quite generic, in order not to offend or highlight difference, is not really ecumenism. Sitting down and sharing together what we do and how we do and learning about our differences is.
In a post-denominational world I think this becomes more important. However, I believe it's also important for living in a denominational world, engaging with these discussions helps our understanding of what makes our own denominations and traditions valuable. If we know why we do things one way whilst the neighbouring denomination does it another it helps us understand our own theology and heritage more.
This is one reason I have decided to start finding out about Methodism properly. I need to find out whether in my recent move I have become proper post-denominational; whether I have moved beyond having a denomination and now "simply Christian" is the best way to describe myself, whether I am a Baptist currently camping out with the Methodists, or whether I regard myself now to be a Methodist who used to be a Baptist. Alternatives might be that I'm "free church" or just "low" church but don't refer to myself in relation to particular denominations. The answers to these type of questions aren't just excuses to indulge in gynocological reflection. The answer we give to "what are you?" is important. I have found what follows from it is not only my own self-identification in situations when I have to say "what I am" but also whether I choose to formally affiliate to the denomination I am worshipping within. If "post-denominational" is an appropriate category for somebody to put themself within this has implications on the way we do membership within our denominations and the decisions we make about who can and who can't get involved in certain tasks within our churches.