A Response to the Comment by "Jas"

Jas:  Thank you for taking the time to post a comment in response to my piece on the UCC as a non-creedal Christian church.  I recognize that what I suggest will strike a lot of UCC people as wrong.  As I said in the piece, I struggle with these things myself.  I intend my remarks to be a starting place for discussion not the final word, as indeed I said in those remarks.  Let me say just a few more things in response to your comment. 

First, let me say that a larger concern than the specific issue I discusses in my post that I have about the UCC is that we tend to be insufficiently critical of our own stated identity and the claims we make about that identity.  We tend to throw words and phrases around, including the phrase non-creedal Christian church, without having sufficiently thought through what they mean and what their implications might be.  I truly don't expect everyone to agree with me.  If the things I write can get some UCC folk thinking more critically and clearly about the denomination and the claims it makes I will have accomplished what I hope to accomplish even if, or perhaps especially if, that more critical thinking leads to conclusions other than the ones I have suggested. 

As to your specific comments:  First, I intended to say that agreement with me on core beliefs is absolutely not what I'm suggesting.  As I said, there are many different ways of understanding the core beliefs of Protestant Christianity that fit within that tradition.  I said that valuing individual freedom of conscience within that tradition is a core value that we must defend and preserve.  I sincerely believe that to be true.  But neither is Christianity a blank slate on which one can write anything one wants and call it Christian.  I’m looking not for agreement with me.  I’m looking for something that is meaningfully Christian, especially from those who seek authorization for ministry from the UCC.

Second, I apologize if  my suggestion that the considerations are different for those seeking authorization for ministry from the denomination seemed to you either unhealthy or patronizing. I certainly did not intend it to be.  I did not mean to, and I do not, disparage the role of the lay members of the church.  I said in my piece that they in a meaningful sense are the church and that the virtue of UCC polity is that it dares to let the people be the church.   The distinction I make between lay members and those seeking authorization for ministry from the denomination simply recognizes what the UCC has always said about ordination or other authorization for ministry.  The UCC’s understanding of ordination is that God calls some people to fill different roles and to perform different functions within the life of the church that require authorization by the larger church.  Those roles and functions are not superior to other roles, but neither are they identical to them.  They are different, and those different roles and functions entail a different relationship to the larger church precisely because it is the larger church that grants the authorization for a person to fill those roles and perform those functions. The UCC has relatively lax (and unclear) standards for the specific faith of candidates for ordination, among the laxest of any major Christian denomination.  Closely related denominations including the ELCA Lutherans and the PCUSA Presbyterians are much more rigorous with regard to a candidate’s personal faith than we are.  Are you suggesting that the denomination has no interest in the nature of a person's faith when that person seeks authorization for ministry from the denomination?  If that is the case, then I suggest that we simply eliminate all discussion of a person's personal faith position in the course of the ordination process.  I don't think that would be healthy for the church, I honestly don’t see how any church could do it, it would be inconsistent with the UCC Manual on Ministry (which our Conference as adopted as its official guide on matters of ordination) and it would be inconsistent with the theology and traditions of the United Church of Christ.  Yet if that is the direction in which the UCC wants to go, so be it.  One consequence would be to leave any assessment of a candidate’s personal faith up to the search committee of a local church from which the person is seeking a call with no gate-keeping function from the larger church.. That is not our tradition, but it is a possible position.

Third, I hear a suggestion in what you say that what I said is not "liberal" and is inconsistent with the liberal view that I have of Christianity.  I can understand how what I said may sound ill-liberal because liberals are always uncomfortable with restrictions of any kind on individual liberty or freedom of conscience, as I said in my piece that I am; but I don't think that what I said is inconsistent with the view of Christianity that I preach every week.  I am a liberal, or a progressive (a term I prefer to liberal), but I am precisely a liberal or progressive Christian; and I minister in a Christian denomination.  Christianity is my way.  I never say it is the only way.  Indeed in my piece on non-creedalism I say that it is not the only way; but it is my way and, much more importantly in the current context, it is the UCC’s way.  Christianity is not a set piece, a fixed set of beliefs that one must either take or leave whole as so many Christians contend today.  It should be clear that my relationship to the larger Christian tradition is anything but uncritical.  My book is nothing but a critical approach to the Christian tradition.  A critical approach to Christianity does not, however, mean that either I or the denomination in which I serve cannot have standards for the faith of those who seek the status of authorized representatives of the denomination.  My piece suggests one such standard.  As I said in the piece, I am open to further discussion that may develop some other standard that is more appropriate.  I will be pleased if it does.

I can't tell from your comment who you are, but I would be very happy to discuss these matters with you further in person.