The Journey Home: My Story, Part 1

This is the third installment of a paper I completed for my M.Div. degree at Drew Theological School. Every student had to write their own “Theology of Church and Ministry,” and what will follow in the days ahead is my version of such.

I covet the comments and suggestions of any who are brave enough to read any or part of this “tome,” since it is my goal to ultimately use it (or portions of it) to introduce new members or interested others to the Church and discipleship in Christ.

Part 1 of the Introduction can be found here, Part 2 of the Introduction is here, and future installments will be filed in the category “The Journey Home.”

The Journey Home: An Understanding of the Church and its Mission for Those on the Way

Come, my friend!
Tell me your story,
I will tell you mine.
And we’ll drink a toast
To God who loves us,
To Emmanuel, God with us.
We’ll share our story
Of a Christ who died
And lives with us,
And how we live in him.
Come, my friend! L’chaiam! [1]

Rolling Back the Curtains: How personal experiences and memories affect theology.

Roll back the curtains of memory now and then.
Show me where you brought me from,
and where I could have been.
Remember I’m human and sometimes forget,
So remind me, remind me, dear Lord.
(Words and Music by Dottie Rambo, Date ?)

The knowing and claiming of the past is crucial to a knowledgeable understanding of the present. As one author put it: “there are places we all come from — deep-rooty-common places– that make us who we are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our backs on them at the risk of self-contempt.” [2] I realize I have rebelled against much that was taught me in my formative years. But I also know that, even in rebellion, I have never been free of the past’s influence upon me. My past has brought me to where I am now, and as I enter the future I know I will always be influenced (both positively and negatively) by what I have already gone through.

At 11:35 p.m. on November 9, 1961, I was born in the King’s Daughter Hospital in Shelbyville, KY. Although I was the third child born in my family, I was the first to survive. An older brother and sister died shortly after their births. Edward lived for two days; Pamela lived for exactly sixteen seconds. My mother recalls the doctor counting off the seconds as Pamela lived her brief life. I believe this sound haunts her still, and I can recall vivid images from my childhood concerning this story.

Perhaps because of my siblings untimely deaths, and my parents strong desire to have children; I have always felt wanted. Even when my parents’ divorce shattered my illusions of family and church, I continued to know and feel my mother’s love. And this love has been central to my understanding of what family and church should be.

I grew up in Bloomfield, KY, population 1100 (Bloomfield’s only claim to fame being that it is the site of the World Championship Tobacco Spitting Contest - current record about 40 feet). Bloomfield was and is a small farming community nestled in the rolling hills of the outer bluegrass region of the state.

My family became involved in a local church about the time I entered second grade, and from then on my life became focused upon religious experiences and activities. We attended church every time the doors were opened B up to five services a week, each of which could run two or three hours in length.

My early religious development centered around my experiences in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN). This church is pentecostal, fundamentalist, and legalistic. Pentecostal churches emphasize the importance of the gifts of the Spirit, particularly speaking in tongues. Services tend toward informality and emotionalism. Fundamentalists believe in a quite rigid interpretation of scripture. The first statement in the Church of God’s Declaration of Faith is “We believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible.”

This mechanistic understanding of divine inspiration leads to a very literalistic reading of the text. Premillenialism concentrates heavily upon the interpretation of scriptures concerning the Second Coming of Christ, and much time is spent teaching people concerning the events preceding and following the Rapture event. Needless to say Biblical prophecy was stressed. The church’s teachings and doctrines were legalistic in that they were full of specific do’s and don’t’s. Certain activities (attending movies, swimming with the opposite sex, dancing, and women wearing men’s clothing - i.e. pants) were forbidden through the “Practical Teachings” of the church.

H. Richard Niebuhr in his volume Christ and Culture outlines various ways in which Christianity has understood the relationship between Christ and culture. There are two primary views; one which sees Christ and culture in oppositional terms, and one which views Christ and culture as being more or less in harmony. [3] Niebuhr further divides these two categories into five distinct views: “Christ against culture,” “The Christ of culture,” “Christ above culture,” “Christ and culture in paradox,” and “Christ the transformer of culture.” Although Niebuhr posits that none of these views contains the definitive “Christian” answer as to how Christ and culture are related [4], these views can help one interpret how various individuals and congregations see this dilemma.

Given these perspectives it is apparent that the Church of God of my youth fits into the “Christ against culture” paradigm. This view asserts the sole authority of Christ and rejects absolutely any claims culture attempts to make upon an individual. [5] This view was the position of the early church, and since the Church of God often sees itself as a back to New Testament Christianity movement, this view is it’s own as well. Sin and evil are seen as being transmitted through society and culture (hence the Church of God’s legalistic, anti-cultural “Practical Teachings), and even the church is seen as being a fallen institution (Many members of the Church of God explicitly reject the idea that other denominations - from the “mainstream churches” like the United Methodists and Presbyterians to, and especially including, the Roman Catholic Church - are “Christian.”) [6]

Another way of viewing congregations, and in particular the church of my youth, is provided by James Hopewell in Congregations. Hopewell spends a great deal of time in stressing how each individual and every congregation has their own story and world view. Basing his work upon the four forms of literature - comedy, romance, tragedy and irony, Hopewell comes up with four distinct categories of world view. [7] These categories are canonic, charismatic, gnostic and empiric. The charts in Appendix I show how these categories are differentiated.

The Charismatic world view is the category which best describes the church of my youth. As seen in the charts, this view places an emphasis upon the Spirit (Baptism of the Holy Ghost a third step in the salvation process), recognition of God’s blessings (seen through the gifts of the Spirit), a theology which includes a demonology (I have attended a service where demons have been “cast out.”), and premillenialism. Hopewell quotes two people who are typical of this world view. The first person stated that she “wanted Jesus to be my Lord and not just my Savior.” Going on she said:

Salvation is wonderful, but there was just something missing. I wanted very earnestly to do God’s will. I wanted to glorify him. I realized that there was a deeper depth where I could get into the Lord. I hungered and thirsted for this. [8]

This woman illustrates the feeling many charismatic or pentecostal people have. That is, they look for something more than what the ordinary church has to offer. Very often this “something” is categorized as being “deeper,” and it often entails emotional experiences. This view will often lead to a kind of elitism where other churches are condemned or seen as not being holistic in their ministry. Hopewell quotes Oral Roberts, who, like many in this world view, look upon conventional Christianity with disdain:

Words, words, words, we’re sick of words. We’ve
heard your theologies. We’ve listened to your
sermons. Will you please now give us a demonstra-
tion? We want to see. Show us. p>[9]

Hopewell’s and Niebuhr’s categories have helped me to objectively see my early faith development in the context of other viewpoints. The two categories I have mentioned do a fairly good job of summarizing the religious views and beliefs of the church of my childhood and adolescence. Naturally, these beliefs and views made their marks upon my religious and faith development. Early on I saw God as being a God of law, of demands, and I felt the Christian life should be concerned only with issues of scriptural and personal pietism. I was very much sheltered from the world during my formative years. To say that I was in a shell is an understatement. I was not allowed to participate in any extra-curricular activities, and it seems most of my time outside of school was taken up by church. I did not resent this at the time because I sincerely enjoyed the church. I excelled in the activities there, and I was involved in almost every aspect of church activity at one time or another. This involvement was only heightened when my father felt the calling to be a minister and subsequently worked as an evangelist and local pastor.

The first and most dramatic challenge to my faith came when my father committed adultery with a woman in the church, left the ministry, and divorced my mother and by extension my brother and myself. The very foundations of my belief were shaken. After all, I wondered, how can anyone be a Christian if my father, my role model and guide, failed in his attempt to be one. I came to see the church as being populated with hypocrites only out to make themselves look better.

My mother, brother and myself moved back to Bloomfield and started to pick up the pieces. For the longest time it was as if my father had died - he did not visit, write or call, and I mourned his passing with my brother. After my parent’s divorce my activity in the church declined over time to the point that when I went away to college it was at a zero level. I still had certain beliefs and ideas about God, but I could no longer bring myself to attend church. I can recall long theological discussions with friends, but these did not bring me to a realization of the need to be in a community of faith.

It was not until my Junior year of college that I began to realize the emptiness and loneliness I felt inside my soul. I came to see that there was a void in my life that only God could fill, and so I renewed my religious journey. I began by looking at different expressions of faith (from Mormonism to to the para-church campus groups like Crusade for Christ and The Navigators), but I did not find at first a place I could call home.

It was during this time that I was introduced to and began attending the Newman Center (the Roman Catholic Church on university campuses) with a friend. In the beginning I thought I had found a home. I studied and worshiped and grew in faith, in no small part due to Father Paul Prabell and Sister Clara Fehringer (the directors of the Center). But I found myself, in the end, dissatisfied with many of the teachings and views of the Catholic Church. After two years at the Newman Center I was no closer to a home than when I began.

It was only after I became involved at the Wesley Foundation that I began to feel I had found a place to call home. My work there gradually increased, I became more and more involved in the life of the Center, and I spent a great deal of time working through the doctrinal standards and teachings of the church. The United Methodist Church seemed to encompass the best of both my experiences and the beliefs of the Church of God and the Roman Catholic Church.

^{^[1]} Ralph Milton, Alive Now, November/December 1981, p. 5.

^{^[2]} Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, New York: Villard Books, 1989, p. 28.

^{^[3]} H. Richard Niebhur, Christ and Culture, (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1951), pp. 40-41.

^{^[4]} Neibuhr, p. 231.

^{^[5]} Niebuhr, p. 45.

^{^[6]} Niebuhr, p. 61.

^{^[7]} James F. Hopewell, Congregations, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 58-61.

^{^[8]} Hopewell, p. 76.

^{^[9]} Hopewell, pp. 76-77.

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