Saturday, August 30, 1997

Our beliefs should be less patchwork

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR / Abilene Reporter-News

While driving to meet my daughter for a game of racquetball, I passed a church that proclaimed itself to be the "Collage View" church. The other side of the sign read "College View," indicating the sign maker had probably run low on vowels.

But I remember thinking that the sign would be appropriate in front of most Methodist churches I am familiar with. We are a diverse denomination, about which some have said: "You can believe anything and be a Methodist."

The diversity of our theology disturbs me from time to time. I took my concerns to my college pastor and his reply was, "The greatest strength of our denomination is that I am allowed to hold my own beliefs; it is also our greatest weakness.

He had once been a minister in another denomination but found the theology to be too rigid and its acceptance of preachers who disagreed with that theology to be minimal. So he left for the more tolerant climes of United Methodism.

Because our theology spans such a large spectrum, and because we shift our pastors around so much, our membership has been exposed to a wide variety of beliefs. Some of those beliefs are comfortable and readily accepted. Others are so wild they are rejected immediately.

Added to the mix are the beliefs and practices congregants pick up as they visit friends and family in other locales and other denominations. I can't count the number of times a member visited another congregation and wanted to incorporate some practice they witnessed in worship into the service at the church I was serving.

This theological pastiche has produced a membership whose beliefs are a collage -- a bunch of disjointed parts put together to make a theological picture that is sometimes quite attractive and at other times is downright ugly.

In one sense I don't mind being part of a collage-view church. My own beliefs are drawn from a wide variety of sources, many of which do not trace their roots back to Methodism. But these beliefs have been carefully hammered into shape through years of reading, reflection and debate with other theologically literate sojourners.

What bothers me about the collage theology of many of the Methodists I know is that their views are uninformed. A worship style or theological belief is accepted because they happen to like it. Little thought has been given to the implications of the belief, how it fits into the broad scope of Christian history or the denominations own stated foundations.

I have had discussion with members who were explaining some belief to my and calmly told them that what they were saying had been declared heresy at some point in history. This provided a chance to discuss the why behind the belief and often resulted in a change of belief.

But collages are difficult to rebuild. Pieces have been cut to fit, and a new piece may require the restructuring of several other pieces to make the whole picture work. The result is usually worth the work, but we too often decide we don't care to put that much effort into restructuring our beliefs.

Next time you encounter a belief or practice you find attractive, investigate it in light of your denominational beliefs and those of the wider Christian community. We're not striving for a rigid orthodoxy that must be upheld at all costs. But our collage-view theologies might be transformed into mosaics that present a truer picture of Christ to the world around us.

Michael O'Connor is Online Editor for the Abilene Reporter-News and is and ordained United Methodist minister. He can be reached online at religion@abinews.com.