My Ordination
Paper(s)
Back in late 2000 I wrote an ordination paper for the
Committee on Ministry of what was then the Washington North Idaho Conference of
the United Church of Christ (now the Pacific Northwest Conference).[1]
I lost it at some point. I had no hard copy, nor did I have it as a computer
file. Recently, my wife, the Rev. Jane Sorenson, was helping the Conference
office staff clean up old Conference files. She found the hard copies of my two
papers (I’ll explain why two below) that I had submitted to the Committee on
Ministry. I have now reread them, and I have to say it: They are damned good!
So I’m going to type them in here correcting just a couple of typos. I have
also put a few comments in brackets that were not in the original papers. I
later served on that Committee on Ministry for ten years. I saw two or three
ordination papers better than mine, but I sure wish I hadn’t seen so many that
weren’t nearly as good. Don’t get me started on what has happened to the UCC’s
ordination process since I left the Committee on Ministry several years ago. The
headings in this paper reflect the list of things the Committee gave candidates
for ordination to include in their ordination papers.
United
Church of Christ Ordination Paper
Thomas
C. Sorenson
September,
2000
Historical and Personal
Theological Perspectives
The Christian
faith, my faith, to which I have now committed my life and in which I find
meaning, solace, and challenge that
inform nearly every aspect of my life, is founded not in Scripture, nor in
creeds or dogma, nor in any institution. It is founded, both historically and
existentially, in an experience—the experience of the saving significance for
each person and for all of creation of the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, Whom we confess to be our Lord and Savior, our strength and comfort,
our guide and our refuge.
Historically, it
was the first disciples’ experience of God’s salvation in and through Jesus
that, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit alive among them, provided the
energy and the commitment that created the Church. They had an immediate
experience of the fact that not only was Christ’s death on the cross not the end
for Him (or for them) but that His death, and their immediate awareness of Christ’s
continuing presence among them, which they retold in the symbolic language of
Resurrection, changed everything. It changed their view of themselves and of
the world, Most importantly, it changed their relationship with God. They came to
believe, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:19, “in Christ God was reconciling the
world to [Godself].” They experienced salvation in Christ because they knew
that in Christ they were reconciled to God. They talked about this experience
in the language of forgiveness of sin, redemption, and justification. That experience
is the foundational experience of the Church, the existential truth to which
the Christian scriptures witness and testify.
Existentially,
the experience of reconciliation with God in and through Christ remains the
foundation of contemporary Christian faith and of the Church. This experience
is distinctly Christian because it focuses on Jesus as the Christ. People may
find reconciliation in other traditions, but faith is Christian only to the
extent that it finds that reconciliation in Christ. This experience is
foundational for faith and the Church because it is what gives meaning and hope
to our lives. Everything we do as Christians we do not to achieve
reconciliation for that is already given us in Christ, but in loving and
grateful response to the reconciliation that comes to us from God in Christ.
Historically, the
Church has found it very difficult to adhere consistently to this understanding
of the faith. We see it in the writings of Paul, especially although not
exclusively in the Letter to the Romans. Augustine wrote of it in the fourth
and fifth centuries. The Reformers of the sixteenth century, including
especially Luther and Calvin, recaptured it in an age when the Church had
strayed as far as it ever has into the error of believing the reconciliation,
then usually called salvation or justification, was something we must (and can)
earn through certain types of works. The Reformers called it justification by
grace through faith, the doctrine that, even in our nondoctrinal denomination,
remains the cornerstone of our Reformed theology.
Existentially,
people today still find it hard to give up the notion that we have to earn
salvation, hard to trust God’s word that says that salvation is already ours in
Christ, given to us freely because God wants us to have it and we are incapable
of earning it. In the contemporary Protestant churches including especially the
nondenominational, ‘evangelical’ churches faith itself often becomes a work
necessary for salvation. To be saved, they say, believe these things. That is not
the Good News. The Good News is that in the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ God has reconciled us to Godself, has “saved” us from our sin,
that is, from our alienation from God, others, and even ourselves.
Precisely how
God has done that is, for me, a profound mystery. The classic explanation, that
continues to hold a prominent place in the Church today, especially in the
theologically more conservative churches, is Anselm of Canterbury’s theory of
substitutional sacrificial atonement. Although many Christians today seem to
believe that this theory has always been the teaching of the Church, actually
it was first published relatively recently, in 1109 in Anselm’s book Cur
Deus Homo?, which means, why did God become human?[2]
This theory holds, by analogy to the feudal legal system of Anselm’s day, that
God’s honor had been so offended by the sin of God’s vassals, i.e., by us, that
atonement had to be made, a penalty had to be paid, so that God could forgive
us and restore us to right relationship with the Divine. Because the affront to
God that is sin is so great, because it is so incommensurate with our ability
to atone, God paid the penalty Godself by sacrificing God’s Son Jesus on the
cross. This is primarily how the Church has explained the mechanics of our
reconciliation with God in Christ for the last nine hundred years.[3]
Anselm’s theory
has great power. It has survived for centuries into a culture radically
different from the one out of which it grew. Nonetheless, it must be rejected,
and rejected forcefully. The main reason we must reject it is that is says
something utterly unacceptable about God. It says that God cannot forgive
unless someone suffers first. It says God needs vengeance before God can
forgive. Worse yet, it says that God would inflict unspeakable suffering on God’s
own innocent Son. Many feminists rightly call Anselm’s theory one of “cosmic
child abuse.” With what, then can we replace it?
For me, the
answer to that questions leads us directly to the doctrine of Incarnation. Christianity
is, above all else, an incarnational faith. We experience reconciliation with
God in Christ because it was God Godself who came (and comes) to us in Christ.
Incarnation was not the first doctrine the Church developed. It is found, if at
all, only in the most rudimentary form in the Letters of Paul and in the
Synoptic Gospels. Its earliest and still most profound statement is in the
great Prologue to the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and Word was God….And the Word became flesh and lived among
us….From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:1, 14a,
16)
Incarnation means
that God came to us in Christ. God died for us in Christ, God rose and lives
again for us in Christ. Incarnation means that in Christ God demonstrated to
the world what it means to be God in the world.[4]
It means that on the cross God took upon Godself all of human sin and
suffering, and even death itself. It means that in the Resurrection God
overcame sin and death—for us. We do not need to understand exactly how. Faith
ceases to be faith if it does not remain a mystery. The mystery of the
Incarnation is, however, central to the mystery of reconciliation in Christ.
The Christian
Church has long struggled with how properly to understand that mystery of
Incarnation. The classic formulation of the Church’s understanding is, of
course, the Symbol of Union of the Council of Chalcedon from the year 450 CE.
According to that formulation, Christ is two “natures” in one “person” (prosopon)
and one “hypostasis.” He is “of one substance” (homoousious) with the Father
(sic) as to His divinity and of one substance with us as to His humanity.
Hundreds of millions of Christians all over the world still recite this formula
every Sunday. If we were a creedal church, we probably would too.
Yet the
conclusion is unavoidable that the “one substance” language of Chalcedon has lost
its meaning or us. I have long believed that a major task of Christian theology
today is the reformulation of the truth of Chalcedon in language that is
meaningful to contemporary people. Several years ago, in my only piece of
published theological reflection, I wrote:
The formulation of the creeds—that Christ
was both fully God and fully human—does express one of the core beliefs of
Christianity: namely, that in Christ, we see God. It also effectively reveals
the radically paradoxical nature of all profound truth. The creeds, however,
cease to have any existential meaning for modern people when they try to
explain how this paradox could occur by positing two natures in one man, by
declaring God to consist of one ousia but three prosopons, and by
declaring the Son to be homoousious with the Father, when most of us
today do not conceive of God as substance at all. The ontological category ‘substance’
relates to God’s creation, not to God, who cannot be reduced to any category of
created being. Contemporary theology must reformulate the truths that the ancient
formulations expressed in the language of their day into language that people
today can understand, and which grabs them existentially.[5]
That statement is as true for me
today as it was when I wrote it five years ago.
Here then is my understanding
of the historic Christian faith: A small group of disciples, who had followed
Jesus of Nazareth in his earthly ministry, had a powerful experience after his
death that in Jesus they were saved. They knew that in Him they were reconciled
with God in a way they never thought possible before. They had a
life-transforming experience of His continuing presence with them, so they
spoke of his Resurrection. The power of these experiences of salvation and
resurrection energized them so much that they founded the Christian faith
(probably, at first at least, without knowing that that was what they were
doing). The Church came to believe that in Jesus Christ God had been incarnate
on earth, so they spoke first of the Word made flesh and in later generations
of Jesus as possessing both divine and human natures in one person. The Church
has struggled ever since to hang onto that experience of the free, unmerited saving
grace of God in Christ and to make the idea of Incarnation, which is so central
to the Church’s experience of salvation in Christ, alive and meaningful to
people through countless generations. There is, obviously, a huge amount more
to be said about the historic Christian tradition. These points—reconciliation and
Incarnation—are for me, however, the absolute basis, the sine qua non,
of the Christian faith.
Those points are
also the irreducible basis of my Christian faith. Of course, my faith involves
much more than that. I find that the UCC Statement of Faith is as good a
statement of my personal beliefs as I have seen anywhere. It is certainly a
more concise statement than I could give on my own. Although it does not use
traditional Trinitarian language, it speaks of the actions of the Triune God
whom it rightly calls “Eternal Spirit” in the world. It speaks of God as
Creator: “You call the worlds into being, create persons in your own image….”
It speaks of God as Redeemer: “You seek in holy love to save all people from
aimlessness and sin.” It speaks wonderful words about the Incarnation and its
soteriological significance: “In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our
crucified and risen Savior, you have come to us and shared our common lot,
conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to yourself.” It speaks of
the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit among us: “You bestow upon us your
Holy Spirit….” It mentions the Church but does not dwell on it, as I believe it
should not, since the Spirit is active in the world not only in the Church, and
sometimes not in the Church at all. It speaks powerfully of our calling as
disciples: “You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of
discipleship, to be your servants in the service of others, to proclaim the
gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil….” It speaks of the hope
that comes from the life of faith: “You promise to all who trust you
forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice
peace, your presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life….” The UCC has
here formulated a wonderful statement of the Christian faith for the modern
world, quite an accomplishment for a church that proclaims as loudly as we do
that we do not require adherence to any creed.
In closing this
section of this paper, let me comment briefly on what is probably my favorite
line from the UCC Statement of Faith, namely, the claim that God calls us “to
accept the cost and joy of discipleship.” It is very easy for Christians to
focus on the joy the faith can bring and to ignore its cost. Yet if we take our
central faith story seriously, the unavoidable lesson for us is that if you are
faithful, you get crucified. It happened to the one we call Lord, and it has
happened again and again to faithful people in all ages, up to and including
our own times when, to name just one example, hundreds of faithful Christians
have been murdered for their faith in the countries of Central America. The
point is not that we should all be martyrs. Rather, the important thing is that
we remember with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that grace is costly. It requires
commitment. Because the way of life to which it requires commitment, that is,
the way of Jesus, is so countercultural, that commitment involves risk. Faith
is not just about having a warm feeling about God or about the fellowship of
friends at church although it certainly can and should include those things.
Faith, if it is genuine, changes our lives. It is both comforting and
frightening, consoling and challenging, all at the same time. As our Statement
of Faith reminds us, it is both a joy and a cost.
The United
Church of Christ
The United Church
of Christ is and always has been my church home. Actually, I am older than the
denomination, so I am a “cradle Congregationalist” rather than a lifelong
member of the UCC. The basic facts about the denomination are well known. It
was formed on June 25, 1957, by a merger of the General Council of the
Congregational Christian Churches of the United States and the Evangelical and
Reformed Church.[6]
Each of those denominations was, in turn, the result of earlier mergers between
the Congregational Churches and the Christian Church on the one hand and
between the Reformed Church in the United States and the Evangelical Church on
the other. The historical roots of the UCC are, in the first instance, the
historical and theological roots of those predecessor denominations.
The Reformed
Church in the United States was a church primarily of people of German ancestry
located squarely in the Reformed, that is, the Calvinist, side of the larger
Protestant tradition. The Evangelical Church was also a church primarily of
German people. Its roots go back to 18th century Prussia, where the
state engineered a union between the Reformed and the Lutheran churches of the
kingdom. Thus, the churches of our Evangelical predecessor, our so-called “E”
churches, have historical and theological roots in both of the major Protestant
families—Calvinism and Lutheranism. Save for the Lutheran side of the
Evangelical church heritage, the UCC would be completely Calvinist in its
roots. Both of these predecessor churches [the Reformed Church and the
Evangelical Church] had non-congregational polities that they sacrificed to
become part of the UCC. They have a very strong theological heritage. The
Niebuhr brothers and Walter Brueggemann, for example, all come out of the E and
R tradition.
The Christian
Church was a rather small denomination located principally in the South and the
Ohio Valley regions of country that was part of the Holiness tradition that
produced, among other denominations, the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), to which our Christian Church predecessor was closely related (as the
UCC is today). This tradition stressed the freedom of the individual believer
in a radical way, perhaps even more so than our Congregationalist forebears.
The
Congregational Churches are our largest predecessor denomination, and it is
this denomination that has placed the clearest stamp on the character of the
UCC, at least in this part of the country where a large majority of our
churches are former Congregational churches.[7]
The Congregational Church is the church of the New England Pilgrims and
Puritans. As such, it arose out of a movement to “purify” the Church of
England, that is, to make it more Calvinist. The New England Congregational
churches, over time, developed a radically congregational polity that remains
the polity, for better and for worse, of the UCC today. The Congregational
Church also became the premier social justice church in America. Many leading
Abolitionists were Congregationalists. The Amistad Incident is to a large
extent an event in the history of the Congregational Church, although
apparently no one told Stephen Spielberg that fact before he made his movie a
few years ago. A Congregational Church ordained the first woman pastor in this
country [or anywhere else] in the 1840s. The social justice tradition of the
Congregationalists (and also of the other predecessor denominations) continues
in the UCC today. We remain, for example, the only mainline denomination that
ordains openly gay and lesbian people on the same terms as other candidates.[8]
Congregational
polity is one of the defining characteristics of the UCC. While it is our most
cherished institutions, it is also one of the most problematic. It is the
source of great strength but also the source of considerable confusion about
just what the UCC is. Article 18 of the UCC Constitution makes congregational
autonomy inviolable. It states:
The autonomy of the Local Church is inherent
and modifiable only by its own actions. Nothing in this Constitution and Bylaws
of the United Church of Christ shall destroy or limit the right of each Local
Church to continue to operate in the way customary to it; nor shall be
construed as giving to the General Synod or to any Conference or Association
now, or at any future time, the power to abridge or impair the autonomy of any
Local Church in the management of its own affairs, which affairs include, but
are not limited to, the right to retain or adopt its own methods of
organization, worship, and education; to retain or secure its own charter and
name; to adopt its own constitution and bylaws; to formulate its own covenants
and confessions of faith; to admit members in its own way and to provide for
their discipline or dismissal; to call or dismiss its pastor or pastors by such
procedure as it shall determine; to acquire, own, manage and dispose of
property and funds; to control its own benevolences; and to withdraw by its own
decision from the United Church of Christ at any time without forfeiture of
ownership or control of any real or personal property owned by it.[9]
It might as well have said: “Congregational
autonomy is our most sacred of sacred cows, and nothing shall change it. Ever.
Don’t even think about it.”[10]
This provision has always been followed by another paragraph (now Paragraph 19,
formerly Paragraph 16) which reads: “Actions by, or decisions or advice
emanating from, the General Synod, a Conference or an Association, should be
held in the highest regard by every Local Church.” That statement, however, is
merely a pious hope. Paragraph 18 has legal teeth.
Because of our
heavy emphasis on congregational autonomy, we truly have the courage to let the
people be the church, to let the Holy Spirit move among all the people and not
just a chosen few who make all the decisions as in so many other denominations.
That is our great strength. Because of it, our people have had the freedom and
the courage to undertake bold new initiatives in the field of social justice,
including in particular the Open and Affirming movement. However, the shadow
side of that freedom is that it is nearly impossible for the UCC to speak with
one voice on any issue. The General Synod proclaims the Open and Affirming
movement, but only something like two percent of our churches are actually Open
and Affirming.[11]
We have those Open and Affirming churches, but we also have churches that
belong to the Biblical Witness Fellowship, an officially recognized special
interest group that strongly opposes the inclusion of gay and lesbian people in
the life of the church. General Synod takes progressive stands on issues of
world poverty and the exploitation of women and children, and most of our local
churches take no stand at all. We are so fragmented by local church autonomy that
our ecumenical partners often wonder just to whom they are talking when they
are talking to the UCC.[12]
This fragmentation has led to a cottage industry of wailing and gnashing of teeth
in the UCC over just who we really are.
[In the summer of
1999], General Synod took a major step toward addressing this issue. It adopted
a new Article III to the Constitution entitled “Covenantal Relationship.” It
reads:
Within the United Church of Christ, the
various expressions of the church relate to each other in a covenantal manner.
Each expression of the church has responsibilities and rights in relation to
the others, to the end that the whole church will seek God’s will and be
faithful to God’s mission. Decisions are made in consultation and collaboration
among the various parts of the structure. As members of the Body of Christ,
each expression of the church is called to honor and respect the work and
ministry of each other part. Each expression of the church listens, hears, and
carefully considers the advice, counsel, and requests of others. In this covenant,
the various expressions of the United Church of Christ seek to walk together in
all of God’s ways.
This new provision does not
formally alter congregational autonomy. It does, however, create a framework
within which the different bodies of the church may work more closely together.
It speaks in the present tense of a situation that actually is still more hope
than reality. Nonetheless, it states very well the ideal of covenant that has
always lain behind our congregational polity and that creates at least some
cohesion out of all of our cherished autonomy.
Ministry and
Pilgrimage
This ordination
paper brings me to the latest stage of a long pilgrimage toward what I hope and
pray will be a new career in ordained ministry in the United Church of Christ.
My journey toward ordained ministry (Let it be, Lord!) began with a passion not
for ministry but for theology. The journey took me through a time of spiritual
trial marked by severe burnout in my profession as attorney and a significant
bout with depression. I now believe that that is what it took to force me to
wake up and recognize what God was really calling me to do. At Seattle
University, my passion for theology blossomed into a passion for ministry. The
most significant part of my experience at SU was the two years of field work in
parish internships. From September, 1998, to June, 1999, I served as pastoral
intern at Prospect UCC on Capitol Hill in Seattle, under the supervision of
Rev. Patricia Knorpp. At Prospect, I preached once a month and led adult education
groups for most of the time I was there.
I also did some pastoral care work, although Rev. Knorpp always wanted me to do
more than I was ever able to manage. I have long had a sense of calling to be a
preacher, and that sense was strongly confirmed at Prospect. I loved preaching
there, and my preaching was very well received. In my adult education work, I
learned the joy of seeing education not as the transmission of information but
as walking with people as they engage in transformative exploration of our
faith tradition. Yet the most satisfying work I did was in the pastoral care
area. I had profound experiences of working with a couple as the wife underwent
cancer surgery. I worked with a woman facing multiple crises in her life, with
her ability to cope with those crises compromised by feelings of shame and
isolation. With Rev. Knorpp’s help as well as mine this woman came a long way
toward getting her life back in order. When I left Prospect, somewhat to Rev.
Knorpp’s surprise, I identified my work with this parishioner as the single
most satisfying thing I had done during my time there.
From September,
1999, to April 2000 I served as seminary intern at Northminster Presbyterian
Church in Ballard. I went to Northminster to work with [the late] Rev. Dr.
Dennis Hughes, their pastor, who [was] a long-time friend, mentor, and role
model of mine. (Dennis was the interim minister at Richmond Beach
Congregational UCC the year I was moderator of that congregation about seven
years ago.) Specifically, I wanted to study liturgy with Dennis, who [was] a
nationally recognized expert on liturgy in his denomination, the PCUSA (with
which we are now in full communion). I also wanted to see first hand how Dennis
[combined] a passion for theology that [was] similar to mine with pastoral
ministry. At Northminster, I preached much less than I did a Prospect, but I
learned solid Christian liturgy in I way I could not have anywhere else that I
know of. I also did adult education and a bit of pastoral care work. As at
Prospect, my sense of call to ordained ministry was strongly confirmed by my
experience at Northminster.
I now define
ministry for myself as the practice of the presence of God. We know God
primarily as a presence—the presence of the Divine in our lives and in the
world. The task of the minister, ordained or lay, is to embody that presence
for and with others. Our most powerful experience of ministry, and the greatest
gift we have to offer as ministers, is the simple (or rather, the apparently
simply, since it can in fact be very difficult) act of being present to, with,
and for another. That presence can take many forms. Preaching, teaching,
community building, and administering the sacraments are all forms of presence,
but we practice the presence of God in its purest form when we are simply there
for another. Sitting by the bedside of a dying person and saying nothing,
simply being there for that person and her or his loved ones, is as profound a
ministry as giving the greatest sermon could ever be. That ministry of presence
in all its forms is the ministry to which God is calling me.
Although doing
ministry does not require ordination, I believe that God’s call to me is to
ordained ministry in the UCC. The UCC Constitution defines ordination as
The rite whereby the United Church off Christ through an
Association [or in our case a Conference acting as an Association] (sic), in
cooperation with the person and a local church of the United Church of Christ,
recognizes and authorizes that member whom God has called to ordained ministry,
and sets that person apart by prayer and the laying of hands.[13]
An ordained minister of the UCC is
a member of the church “who has been called by God and ordained to preach and
teach the gospel, to administer the sacraments and rites of the Church, and to
exercise pastoral care and leadership.”[14]
After what now
has been a years long process of discernment and formation, I believe that I have
the gifts for ordained ministry. I am already a very good preacher and teacher.
I know I can grow in my skills of pastoral ministry. I feel particularly called
to sacramental ministry as well as to ministry of the Word. The Eucharist is
the most profound spiritual experience in my life, and I know that I am called
to be God’s instrument in providing that sacrament to God’s people. I feel the
presence of God in the Eucharist far more powerfully than in individual prayer,
although I have felt it there too.[15]
This Sacrament is a mainstay of my personal faith and spirituality, and I look
forward to administering the sacrament as one of the highest privileges and
gravest responsibilities of ordained ministry. I believe strongly in an open
table. I know that historically the Eucharist was restricted to baptized believers
and that many denominations restrict the table to their own members. I respect
these traditions, but for me the table does not belong to us.[16]
It belongs to the Lord. It is His table, and it is not for us to say who may
eat at it. The sacrament is a means of grace. It may be a person’ entryway into
a life of faith as well as an expression of faith already found.
I also find
baptism to be a powerful spiritual experience. The UCC, of course, baptizes
both infants and adults. Infant baptism, while not truly Biblical, is, in our
tradition, a sign and seal of God’s presence with us even in infancy and is the
sacrament by which we are made members of the Body of Christ. Like any
sacrament it is an outward sign of an inward grace that is always with us, even
in infancy. Adult baptism is, if anything, an even more powerful experience,
although since we are a tradition that practices infant baptism I have
witnessed adult baptism far less often than infant baptism. In adult baptism a
child of God makes a conscious decision to devote her or his life to Christ and
to be a member of the Christian family. It is not necessary for salvation, but
it is both a powerful confession of faith and a powerful instrument of God’s
grace in the life of the person baptized as well as in the life of the faith
community into which the person is baptized.
My call to
ordained ministry is in particular a call to ordained ministry in the UCC. As I
said above, the UCC is my church home and always has been. I cherish the
freedom it gives people to explore and live their faith in ways that are
meaningful to them rather than in ways dictated to them. I cherish our
tradition of social justice ministry. The UCC is in fact the only denomination
in which I would accept ordination because it is [it was at the time] the only
mainline denomination in which my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are not
automatically excluded from ordination.[17]
I love our tradition of free and open inquiry into matters of faith, including
critical study of the Bible. I love our Reformed sacramental theology, which
allows the real presence of God to shine through free from all superstitious
elements. I believe that the church is the people not its hierarchy. Therefore,
congregational polity is the most truly Christian polity for me.
That being said,
we know that every good thing has a shadow side. The shadow side of the UCC is,
for me, the lack of order that so characterizes us, together with what I perceive to be a certain lack of seriousness
about theological and liturgical matters. We can be too loose about things. Our
commitment to individual freedom of conscience sometimes becomes a king of laissez
faire attitude that treats all beliefs as equally valid simply because someone
holds them. We so cherish individual freedom that we rarely challenge our
people to examine their beliefs in depth and to change them when they are shown
to be superficial or even in error from an orthodox Christian perspective. We
sit too lightly to the Christian tradition. That tradition, tainted as it
obviously is by misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and a multitude of other
sins, nonetheless contains great wisdom, especially in the area of liturgy. We would
be well advised to pay more attention to that wisdom.
Clergy Ethics
I understand
clergy ethics from the perspective of professional boundaries and power taught
me (and many others) by Rev. Marie Fortune. As a professional, and as one
attempting to practice the presence of God with God’s people, a minister is
held to the highest ethical standards. Those standards are first of all a
matter of boundaries. A pastor must always act within the boundaries of the
role of pastor. This means that the development of any relationship other than
that of pastor with any member of one’s congregation is improper. The most
obvious case of a boundary violation, though by no means the only one, is of
course any kind of sexual contact with a parishioner. All such contact is
out of bounds in every situation. It is never an appropriate part of a
pastoral relationship, which is the only proper relationship a pastor may have
with a congregant.
In addition to
being a boundary violation, any sexual contact, or the development of any other
improper relationship between a pastor and a parishioner, is, in every
instance, an abuse of power by the minister. Ministers don’t often think of
themselves as having power We often feel rather that we are at the mercy of our
congregation, especially in a radically congregational polity like ours where
there is no bishop or other higher human authority to protect us. Nonetheless,
we have power that comes from our possessing resources within the church that
our parishioners do not have. We have knowledge in a wide range of areas that
they do not have. Most importantly, we have the power that comes from holding a
position of respect and trust. Our people give us power because they see us as
authorities in matters of faith and church administration.[18]
That power is a sacred trust. As ministers, we must always use that power not
for our own benefit but for the benefit of our people and for the mission of
the church.
Confidentiality
is essential to the pastor-parishioner relationship. The law recognizes that
need for confidentiality by creating a pastor-parishioner privilege.[19]
People come to their pastors in times of crisis seeking aid. They come when
they have done wrong seeking comfort and absolution. They tell us their inmost
secrets. Receiving those secrets is a legal trust, but more importantly it is a
sacred trust. Failing to keep what a parishioner tells us confidential is a
betrayal of the highest magnitude, not only of the parishioner but of the sacred
trust placed in us. I have been a lawyer for the last nineteen years. As a
lawyer, I know all about client confidences. The attorney-client privilege is
probably the most powerful privilege known to the law, and I have never
violated a client confidence. For me, the pastor-parishioner privilege is
equally powerful. I have a great deal of experience as a lawyer in keeping
client confidences that, I believe, will serve me well in ordained ministry in
keeping the confidences of my parishioners.
Inclusive
Language
I am, and for a
long time have been, strongly committed to the use of inclusive language in my
ministry. I believe it is a matter of utmost importance because the language we
use about God really matters The wonderful Catholic feminist theologian
Elizabeth A. Johnson, from whom I had the great good fortune to take a class at
Seattle University, puts it this way:
What is the right way to speak about God?
This is a question of unsurpassed importance, for speech to and about the
mystery that surrounds human lives and the universe itself is a key activity of
a community of faith. In that speech the symbol of God functions as the primary
symbol of the whole religious system, the ultimate point of reference for
understanding experience, life, and the world. Hence the way in which a faith
community shapes language about God implicitly represents what it takes to be
the highest good, the profoundest truth, and most appealing beauty. Such
speaking, in turn, powerfully molds the corporate identity of the community and
directs its praxis.
Speech about God shapes the life orientation
not only of the corporate faith community but…guides its individual members as
well….As the focus of absolute trust, one to whom you can give yourself without
fear of betrayal, the holy mystery of God undergirds and implicitly gives
direction to all a believing person’s enterprises….The symbol of God functions.
Neither abstract in content nor neutral in its effect speaking about God sums
up, unifies, and expresses a faith community’s ultimate sense of mystery, the
world view and expectation of order devolving from this, and the concomitant
orientation of human life and devotion.[20]
Because the
symbol of God functions, that is, because it makes a real difference in the way
people think and act, the church’s traditionally exclusively male language
about God functions to exclude women and to reinforce a system of patriarchal
rule and androcentric values that diminishes the humanity of women and robs the
church of the manifold gives freed and emancipated women have to offer it.
Johnson puts the effect of exclusively male God talk this way:
The women’s movement in civil society and the church has shed
a bright light on the pervasive exclusion of women from the realm of public
symbol formation and decision making, and women’s consequent, strongly enforced
subordination to the imagination and needs of a world designed chiefly by men.
In the church this exclusion has been effective virtually everywhere: in
ecclesial creeds, doctrines prayers, theological systems, liturgical worship,
patterns of spirituality, visions of mission, church order, leadership and
discipline. It [exclusively male God talk] has been stunningly effective
speech. While officially it is rightly and consistently said that God is spirit
and so beyond identification with either male or female sex yet the daily
language of preaching, worship, catechesis, and instruction conveys a different
message: God is male, or at least more like a man than a woman, or at least
more fittingly addressed as male than as female. The symbol of God functions.
Upon examination it becomes clear that this exclusive speech about God serves
in manifold ways to support an imaginative and structural world that excludes
or subordinates woman. Wittingly or not, it undermines women’s human dignity as
equally created in the image of God.[21]
I agree completely with Johnson
that exclusively male God talk is an instrument of oppression. It functions,
whether we are conscious of it or not, to perpetuate male hegemony in society
and in the church. It denies what God has done in creating men and women,
namely, to make them each, equally, in the divine image (Genesis 1:27). It is,
therefore, profoundly sinful. I will use male images for God, but I will not do
so exclusively. God is at the same time both male and female and neither male
nor female. Feminine images are as capable of being symbols for God as are male
images. We need to use them both.
This is where
my ordination paper ended. I had an ordination interview with the Committee on
Ministry of the Washington-North Idaho Conference. The committee approved me
for ordination, but it also said it wanted me to write something else on “connecting
head to heart.” They didn’t think I showed enough heart in my paper. They were
wrong about that. There is more heart in this paper than the committee gave me
credit for. But the committee wanted more, so I wrote more. Here’s what I wrote:
Connecting
Head to Heart
Reflections
Upon My Personal Faith Journey
(Requested
by the Churches and Clergy Committee, November 2, 2000)
Thomas
C. Sorenson
November
3, 2000
My spiritual
journey, which is a journey from the church, out of the church, and back into a
much more profound faith and commitment to the church, is a long one. It is a
journey that began in my head and led to my heart. Connecting my head to my
heart has been the task of the recent years of my life. I believe that I have
done that in a profound and life-changing way.
Although I grew
up in the First Congregational Church of Eugene, Oregon, where my parents are
still members, I was not a religious man for most of my life.[22]
I left the church when I was in high school, and I did not return until I was
in my late twenties. My return to the church and to the faith began when I was
in graduate school at the University of Washington in the 1970s studying
Russian history. That original career choice reflects my love of academics
which continues to this day. I had by that time married my wife Francie, and we
had had our first child, Matt. My Ph.D. advisor, Dr. Donald Treadgold, was a
man of deep Christian faith. He combined religious faith with sophisticated
scholarship and profound intellect in a way I had never experienced before. I
was impressed, and Don’s example opened a door for me that I had thought was
closed.
I began to walk
through that door in the 1975-76 academic year, when Francie, Matt (who turned
2 during that year) and I lived in what was then the Soviet Union while I did
research on my dissertation. The bleakness and sterility of Soviet public life,
and the longing for community with other Americans in that very foreign land,
led us to become active in the Anglo-American church, the Protestant/Anglican
church attached to the American and British embassies in Moscow. The sharp
contrast between the warmth and joy of that church community and the coldness
and hostility of Soviet public life made a profound impression on me. I began
to feel as well as think that Christian faith was indeed something of value. My
heart was beginning to be stirred.
When we returned
to Seattle, Francie and I joined Pilgrim Congregational Church on Capital Hill.
My involvement in the church was, however, intermittent, and my personal faith
was, I would now say, superficial and relatively unimportant to me for the next
fifteen years. Francie and I were church members for most (although not all) of
that time. By 1989 or we were not active in any church. Then our daughter Mary,
who had been born after our return from Russia and who was then in middle
school, decided she wanted to join a church youth group. So we joined Richmond
Beach Congregational UCC, the UCC church nearest to our home at the time. The
years that followed saw a deepening both of my involvement in the church and of
my personal faith.
I got drawn into
active church work through the Open and Affirming movement. I came to see that
movement as the most profound contemporary expression of the church’s prophetic
mission. For the first time, I felt what I believe to have been a genuine call
of the Spirit, a call to work for justice in society and in the church for God’s
gay and lesbian sons and daughters. The sensation I had wasn’t a thought. It
wasn’t intellectual. It was a gut feeling, a conviction at the core of my being
that God was calling me personally to do something. It was a stirring of the
heart which my head did not understand but to which it had to respond. I had
never before experienced the reality of God in my life so personally or so
profoundly. For the first time I knew God to be a personal reality in my life
and not merely an idea to which I could give intellectual assent. That experience,
I think, changed everything for me when, a few years later, I entered into that
period of spiritual and emotional crisis that I mentioned in my ordination
paper.
That crisis was
above all else a crisis of vocation. To say the least, I lost my enthusiasm for
law, the career I had chosen (without anything close, I now realize, to an
adequate discernment process) when there were no jobs available in my academic
field after I received my Ph.D. in 1977. I began to sense in the depths of my
soul that I was not doing with my life what God intended that I do. As my
vocational crisis deepened into a kind of psychological paralysis, I descended
into what the doctors called “moderate clinical depression.” At the same time,
(and I now believe not coincidentally), I developed a passionate interest in
Christian theology, and my involvement in the church became greater than it had
been. I found in my work in the church and in my study of theology life and joy
while in my attempts to practice law I was finding only spiritual and emotional
death. As I studied theology I came to believe and experience what I was
learning—that Christ represents the Incarnation of God and power of God in the
world, that faith in Christ can lift us, lift me, out of despair and into a
realm of peace and hope. The learning of my head was starting to connect to the
longings of my heart.
However, I also
learned that the faith does these great things for us, or at least can do them
for me, in the most profound ways only if we are willing to accept the demands
that faith makes on us. The faith as I began to experience it in these years
was not something that was going to leave me where I was in life. It started
making profound demands on me. At first I thought that the demand was that I
pursue another academic career in systematic theology, but soon the possibility
of ordained ministry in the church began to force its way, inexorably and
irresistibly, into my consciousness. My sense of call became undeniable. I
resisted it with all of my strength. My head was still fighting my heart. I was
too old, I said. I couldn’t afford it, I said. I had to make the practice of
law work because I had family responsibilities etc. etc. The harder I fought,
the deeper my despair became.
Over time, with
the help of Rev. Kimbrough Besheer, my therapist/spiritual director, who is an
Episcopal priest and a Jungian analyst, I found the courage to admit the
legitimacy of my sense of call. Kimbrough helped me to realize that God was not
going to leave me alone about this call until I recognized that for the sake of
God, my family, and myself I had to become who I am, who God is calling me to
be, that is, an ordained Christian minister. At least, I had to follow that
call and see where it led me. I had to follow those longings of my heart that
my head was so strongly resisting. So, in September, 1997, having closed my law
office one month earlier, I took a half time legal services position providing
free legal services to the poor (a position I still hold and which I consider
to be a kind of ministry itself) and entered the M.Div. program at Seattle
University, the availability of which I consider to be truly Providential for
me.
Early in my time
at Seattle University I wrote a fable to use in a session I led at University
Congregational on faith and vocation that, I think, captures both this journey
and the effect on me of finally following God’s call better than any straight
narrative account can. It expresses the connection I was finally making between
my head and my heart. It goes:
There was a man who was considered a success in the eyes of
the world, for he was a lawyer. He had many possessions. Some people considered
him wise, for he had many letters after his name. He thought of himself as a
man of faith. In his mind he believed the teachings of his faith, and he tried
to live according to his understanding of the faith. He was a leader in his
church, and he did many (or at least a few) good works. Yet as time went by the
man became sorely troubled, for he knew in his soul that his success was all
dust and ashes. And the Spirit of the Lord came to him and said: “You are not
meant for this. Put aside the things of the law and come, follow me.” But the
man did not trust the word of the Spirit and clung to his old ways, trusting
his life to his own efforts and abilities. The man made excuses, saying to the
Spirit when it called him: “I cannot, for I have many responsibilities, and I
cannot leave these things and follow you.” And again he said: “I cannot, for I
am advanced in years, and I cannot leave all this and begin a new life at my
age,” but the Spirit would not leave him alone. It drove him into the
wilderness, where he was tormented by demons and became depressed. Yet still he
refused to follow the call of the Spirit. He continued trying to trust in
himself and not in God. But the Spirit would not leave him. It drove him deeper
and deeper into the wilderness, so that it became impossible for him to
continue to live as he had. All his efforts to trust in himself were of no
avail and led only to despair. And at last he said to the Spirit: “Amen. Let it
be with me as you will.” Finally, he trusted himself to God. He put aside the
things of the law and followed the Spirit into a new life of service to God’s
people. When he did, he found a joy and a freedom he had never known before.
Which brings me
to the present. As I said in my ordination paper, God for me is a Presence, in
my life and in the world. There are times when that Presence seems much more an
absence of course. In those times, my memory of the times when the Presence has
seemed more real sustains me. As I said in my interview, the Divine Presence in
my life is most powerfully apparent to me in the Eucharist, but I experience it
elsewhere as well. I know God as a power that sustains me in times of trial and
gives me hope for the future. I know God as the presence of unconditional love
that accepts me despite my weakness and sinfulness. It is hard for me to
express in writing what this Presence means to me. It is consoling and
challenging. It lifts me up. It condemns my sin and affirms my being. It
surrounds me with a love I feel but do not understand. It humbles me and gives
me strength. It is, as Brian Wren’s great hymn “Bring Many Names” says, “joyful
darkness are beyond [my] (sic) seeing, closer yet than breathing.” It is in
short the Divine Mystery of the universe paradoxically present even with me.
My journey to
this profound existential experience of the presence of God in my life, one
that eventually changed the entire course of my life, began with theology. Even
now, studying theology is a profoundly spiritual experience for me. I do not
separate theology and spirituality. They are for me closely linked as one way
in which faith becomes real in my life. I am, as the students of psychological
types say, a very head oriented person. I do not reject that part of who I am.
I embrace it as part of my personal pathway to God, even though I recognize it
as being only one of many. It is a large part of who I am, and it has helped me
become the man of faith that I believe I have become. But the greatest
compliment I have received in my time at Seattle University has been the
comment, made by several different people who know me there, that I have
finally made the connection between my head and my heart. I have turned a
passion for theology into a passion for ministry with God’s people. That
ministry is heart work. It is informed by intellect, but it is grounded not in
thought but in feeling. I bring to it not only considerable theological
sophistication (which people tell me I have) but also those profound,
existential experiences of the presence of God in my life, of God calling to me
and sustaining me on the journey. Thanks be to God!
[1] At
the time it was called the Churches and Clergy Committee. It later changed its name
to Committee on Ministry.
[2] It
may sound strange to call something written in 1109 ‘relatively recent’ but
consider this: 1109 is 200 years closer to us than it is to the time of Christ.
In terms of the Christian tradition that makes it relatively recent.
[3] There
were other theories before this one, and there have been other theories since.
Paul’s soteriology focuses on Christ paying a price for us in a different
sense, in the sense of someone paying a redemption amount to free someone else
from another to whom she or he is in bondage, as when one buys a slave’s
freedom for her. The Christus Victory theory holds that Christ, in the
Resurrection, conquered both sin and death the way a champion defeats an enemy.
Nonetheless Anselm’s theory of substitutionary sacrificial atonement remains
the most important theory for the Church today, not because it is correct
(which, as I will explain in the text momentarily, I do not believe it to be)
but because it remains the dominant theory in American Christianity today.
[4]
Peter Abelard, a younger contemporary of Anselm of Canterbury, developed a
demonstration soteriology almost 900 years ago. For Abelard, Christ’s sacrifice
on the cross was above all a demonstration to us ot God’s love. It was an
example we are meant to follow. Although Abelard’s soteriology is not entirely
satisfactory because it leaves too much to our own initiative in following
Christ’s example and places insufficient emphasis on the objective effect of
Christ’s death and resurrection, my own understanding of soteriology,
incomplete as it is, has been strongly influenced by Abelard.
[5]
Sorenson, Thomas C., “Reader Response,” Prism. A theological Forum for the
United Church of Christ, Vol. 10,
No. 2, Fall, 1995 p. 141.
[6] The
Constitution of the United Church of Christ, Preamble, Paragraph 1.
[7] It
would come as a surprise to many of them that they are “former” Congregational
churches. Most of them still use the word Congregational in their names and,
unfortunately, think of themselves as Congregational before they think of
themselves as UCC. The fact of the matter, however is that since 1957 the
Congregational denomination to which these churches once belonged has not
existed. They are therefore UCC churches and, I believe, should call themselves
that.
[8] At
least, most of the UCC does. Ordination, of course is handled at the Conference
or Association level in conjunction with the local calling bodies. Some of our
Conferences and Associations still refuse to ordain gay and lesbian people or
to take them in care as seminarians. Although the General Synod has strongly
supported the ordination of gays and lesbians, our congregational polity means
that no national body has the authority to order the Conferences and
Associations to do so. [This footnote was true when I wrote it in 2000. I thank
God that since then ordination of gay and lesbian people has become far more
common in the mainline Protestant denominations than it was in 2000.]
[9] This
provision was originally Paragraph 15 of the Constitution. When the General
Synod amended the Constitution last summer its number was changed, but its
provisions were not.
[10]
[I have also on occasion put this point this way: Congregational autonomy is
our most sacred of sacred cows, and thou shalt not even think of changing in
upon threat of eternal damnation,” not that I or most UCC people believe in
eternal damnation.]
[11] [That
percentage is much higher today than it was in 2000, thank God.]
[12]
[The late] Rev. Dr. Dennis Hughes, [formerly] the pastor of Northminster
Presbyterian Church in Seattle, has told me that concern about unorthodox
practice in some local churches was a major concern of the Presbyterian Church
(USA), the Reformed Church in America, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America in the talks that led to the recent agreement [recent in 2000] on full fellowship
and recognition of ministries among those three denominations and the UCC.
Somehow those concerns were sufficiently allayed, but our polity certainly
makes them legitimate.
[13]
UCC Constitution, Paragraph 10 (before the 2000 amendments), as quoted in the
United Church of Christ Manual on Ministry, Office for Church Life and Leadership,
United Church of Christ, 1986, p. 48.
[14] Id.,
quoting Paragraph 20 of the UCC Constitution.
[15]
[This statement was true when I made it in 2000. I’ve lived a lot of life since
then, and I would no longer describe my most powerful experience of the
presence of God this way. Nonetheless, the Eucharist is still very important to
me and presiding at it feeds my spiritually more than anything else I’ve done in
ministry.]
[16]
[I respect those traditions a lot less today than I did in 2000. I find closing
the table to anyone to be a theologically and pastoral outrage.]
[17] I
know that there are openly gay pastors in both the Episcopal and the American
Baptist denominations. However, unlike the UCC (or, as I said above, most of it
in any event), neither of those denominations [had at the time] formally
removed the barrier of sexual orientation from the ordination process. Equal
ministerial standing for gay and lesbian people is such a justice issue for me
that I could not accept in another denomination that my gay and lesbian
colleagues would never be offered ordination regardless of their qualifications.
[Today I would add my transgender and other minority gender brothers and
sisters in this statement as well.]
[18] [This
statement sounds very naïve to me after quite a few years of pastoral ministry.
Religion is one area in which people rarely assign power to anyone else, least
of all power to suggest the content of a parishioner’s faith.]
[19] In
Washington, that privilege is created by a statute this is actually very
narrowly drawn. On its face it appears to apply only to the Catholic
confessional. However, the Washington courts have broadened that privilege to
include any communication between a pastor and a parishioner.
[20]
Johnson, Elizabeth Al, She Who Is, The Mystery of God in Feminist
Theological Discourse, Crossroads, New York, 1986, pp. 3-4. [I didn’t
mention it in this paper but Beth Johnson’s phrase “the mystery that surrounds
human lives and the universe itself” has become one of my favorite ways of
speaking about God.]
[21] Id.
pp. 4-5.
[22] [My
parents were alive and members of that church when I wrote this paper more than
24 years ago. They have both since passed away.]
