I heard another one of the stories yesterday. A church in a property dispute. Yes, the resolution was one in which there was some reconciliation at the end, it was story of the surprising power of God showing up in an unexpected place.
But the story was still there. A congregation shut down from above. A building confiscated in the courts. Mounds of money spent on litigation. Oh yeah–and (sarcasm alert) all this happened so as to put the gospel on display for the Christian people of San Francisco who clearly don’t need a beautiful witness since they flock to church in droves every Sunday.
Court.
Court was the last straw in my decision not to join a church affiliated with a mainline denomination when we moved out to San Francisco 18 months ago.
I was having a conversation with a woman who wanted to appeal a decision of the local Presbytery. Fair enough. I get that.
And so she got together a cadre of like-minded wealthy churches who were going to help spring for the $100,000+ in legal bills the fight would cost.
Ok, I don’t get that anymore. And maybe I shouldn’t have gotten it in the first place.
I’ve been blogging this week about Sam Wells’ Improvisation, a book full of hope that a people deeply entrenched in their drama will be able to improvise faithfully in their ecclesial settings. The problem is, we can’t even play the story right when we’ve got the script right in front of us.
In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul chides the Corinthians for taking each other to court. The beginning of the chapter outlines a series of ways in which such action undermines the narrative of the gospel: the saints will participate in the final judgment, can’t we then judge matters of this world without taking it before the secular courts? we’re going to judge angels, how about matters of this life?
Actually, says Paul, how to deal with the lawsuits is secondary: it’s already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Cor 6:7).
But no the story of the American dream is too powerful for our denominations. I have a right to stuff. Even if I didn’t put any money into it, it’s mine. Even if I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, it’s mine and I’ll take it.
I confess, that for all my delight in narrative theology, and resonance with Wells’ narrativally derived improvisational ethics, I often find it difficult to believe that much of it is true–because the church so rarely becomes a living witness to the story it claims as its own.
We believe in a God who’s main modus operandi is to pursue smackdowns and bring “aha, gotcha!” suits against his own created beings wherever possible…so of course we want to be just like Dad.
Well done.
Paul also tells the Corinthians it would be better if they didn’t get married. Two millennia later, ethics looks a little different, eh?
This post doesn’t give enough detail about the particular church fight to know whether a lawsuit was justified, but in any case I think your slam on the Reformed tendency to work within social structures is poorly reasoned in this case. It comes across as a cheap shot.
I’d say that the running theme of this blog is the argument for my case against suing over church property, Chris. The final phrase in 1 Cor 6 that I highlighted, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?” undercuts, in my estimation, appeals to legitimacy in cases of property disputes in the courts. The cruciform narrative of the gospel that we’re called to embody as Christian communities is one that lays aside our own good, our own life, for the sake of the other.
Now, what I didn’t do in the post that I should have done was to turn the tables back on the congregation. It takes two, in these cases, to get to court. I think there is an equal and opposite calling from the side of the church to try to outdo the denomination in the self-giving love of Christ.
In the end, I think that a Christian picture of such separations, when necessary, is that each is going to every length possible to see to it that the other gets the property. If my readers can follow this jump: Jesus washed Judas’ feet, too.
I was not aware that that was a running theme (let alone *the* running theme) here, and since I don’t know all the backstory (and don’t have a horse in the race) I won’t push it further.
Maybe you’re completely right, but who can tell from this post? If you’re going to tell a story that is supposed to be meaningful, you should give some idea of what it’s about: a link? a hint?
Here’s a church that got it right: http://www.modbee.com/featured/story/743617.html
Wow. Good for them. I’d contribute to their next capital campaign.
When I first heard about the court’s rulings on similar cases, I was so frustrated that people were fighting over church property like that… it’s so refreshing to see people let go and move on. While I think it would have been “fair” for the denom to leave the building to the local church, I’m pleased with this local church’s priorities. Good for them! Thanks for posting the link, Isaac.
Your post made me think about some words from William Dixon Gray concerning church fights:
No one can command anyone’s faith. No one can do anything against the truth. No one can say what the Spirit will be saying to the sons of the covenant as Providence moves everything and everybody into unknown tomorrows. If someone wants the church give it to him. Fill his arms, his pockets, his mouth, his ears, his hands; be it unto him according to his lusts and illusions, and ley him cry out for his soul. Give him everything he wants and it will completely frustrate him. His struggle for power is his eating his own frustrations , and when he has swallowed the last one he will have lost desire for more. Then his frustrations will be complete and he will ask only for wisdom.
But why not wisdom at the beginning? Why rape and destroy before learning that one’s humanity is not fulfilled through hostility, competition and fear, but through charity and as men serve one another in truth? The church is called to prove that but first it must prove it to itself. (circa 1970)
In thinking about the idea of “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?”; I have to think there is an appropriate time to ask for outside/legal help. Throughout history, men and the Church have done horrible things and claimed they behaved at the direction of the scripture and in God’s will. I agree, current property disputes could frequently be avoided if both sides behaved in accordance with scripture properly applied, but ultimately, God does not call us to be door mats. Even Jesus became angry in the temple and turned over the money changers tables. Both sides, the church leaders and their congregations, are made up of men. We fail, we sin, we are disruptive and hurtful. I think the truly tragic part of christian in-fighting is that it is such a horrible reflection on our faith and savior. If we can’t even get along well enough to settle our own disputes, we cannot possibly be focusing on the work Christ has called the Church to do. The needs of the lost, lonely, hopeless, and abused will never be met in a church that is in the midst of one of these court battles. Most parties in legal battles come out on the other side battered and bruised and rarely does either side feel they’ve gotten justice; whatever that may have meant to them when they started.
There’s a lot of wisdom here, Kara.
One of the reasons the story of $100,000+ for in-house litigation was so maddening to me was that I couldn’t imagine Jesus being happy with his money being spent like that. How much good could we do with the millions we spend to make sure we can hoard the millions we own?
On the issue of “doing other things we should be doing,” I have a slightly different take, and that is that one of the things we should be doing is creating in our church communities living narrations of the gospel. I believe that this is our communal calling. So it’s not just that other things are being left undone, but our first thing is being left undone: we are to be little Christs in our relationships with each other, a body defined no just by “love” generally, but the self-giving love of Jesus.
In Rom 15 Paul calls us to be like Jesus who can say, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” We need to become the kind of people who are willing to die so that others might live. That’s why I see this whole issue as a display of anti-gospel.