Saturday, November 14, 1998

Worship practices can put off outsiders

By Michael O'Connor

We came home from church one day, and I began channel surfing, looking for some golf to watch.

Instead I became fascinated by a televised camp meeting. The preacher was screaming into his microphone, congregants were dancing in the aisles, and ushers were throwing plastic whistles into the audience. Most everyone with a whistle appeared to be blowing his or hers, and I did pick out of the screaming something about the preacher having blessed the whistles, so they would bring a blessing to whoever blew them.

A young man wandered down toward the stage, and a couple of large men in dark suits took station on either side. The preacher moved his way and began yelling about seeking the blessing, whereupon the man threw his hands upward. The preacher placed his palm on the man's head, and he began to twitch and fall backward -- a phenomenon known as being "slain in the spirit." The burly men caught him and let him down to the ground.

The atmosphere was one of general chaos -- at least to viewers unfamiliar with this sort of religious expression. I thought about Paul's admonition to the Corinthians to be sure their worship was conducted in such a way that outsiders would be able to respond to the call of God and not be put off by the congregations behavior.

But then the preacher began to calm down a bit and become more intelligible. The message of the day was apparently about the jubilee -- an Old Testament provision that called for the cancellation of debts, release of slaves and return of property under certain conditions. God, the preacher told the assembly was going to supernaturally cancel their debts in 2000. He urged them to sign some kind of card and bring it to the stage, where numerous cards already lay. As he walked back and forth across the stage, he occasionally walked over these offerings.

The program was interrupted briefly by an announcer who explained to viewers how they could obtain one of the cards and where they could send it. Oh, and by the way, if we wanted to make a donation to the ministry, we were encouraged to do so, even making those contributions by credit card.

Now it seems to me that encouraging people to use their credit cards to support that ministry is irresponsible. Sure, if God is going to just wipe out their debts in about a year, then the ministry benefits, the people who donate have nothing to worry about, and the only one who might suffer would be the credit card companies, though presumably God will take care of them as well.

The Old Testament is clear in its view of what we now call credit. Being in debt is a form of slavery, putting the one who owes in the power of the one who lends. Times may require money be loaned to another, but doing so requires the lender to be fair with interest charges, and he cannot refuse a loan on the basis that it might not be repaid because the jubilee year is near.

The New Testament contains one clear admonition on the subject: Owe no one anything except the debt of love. Of course, most of us don't live by these principles. But I thought about these things as I watched the spectacle on my set.

Were I not familiar with a wide variety of Christian expressions, I probably would have been repulsed by this program. As it is, I'm not much attracted to this expression of faith. This is my privilege, but I wonder sometimes if we shouldn't give more thought to what our worship practices look like to outsiders.

Somewhere between the outlandish antics I witnessed that Sunday and the arcane, and sometimes boring, rituals that make up worship in traditional churches lies that true worship in spirit and in truth that will attract, not repel, those outside the faith. And before you write to tell me how much some style of worship is personally meaningful, remember that the worship that truly gives God glory lies not in what we do on Sunday morning, but how we show our faith the rest of week.

Michael O'Connor is news editor of the Abilene Reporter-News and is an ordained United Methodist minister. You can reach him at oconnorm@abinews.com.