Seneca Presbyterian Church is doing something new and very meaningful this weekend. We are honoring Veterans. Not just by saying a quick thank you and moving on with the business of the day.  Our Outreach Committee has planned a program and reception. It will take place in our Pastors’ Hall on Sunday afternoon (November 10) at 3:00 p.m. Charlie – a member of our congregation who is president of Patriot’s Hall, a war museum dedicated to veterans of Oconee County – will be our speaker.

            It’s natural that a congregation of primarily retirees would take time to recognize this day and say thank you. But I also find it surprising. You see, in over thirty years of ministry, this reception marks the first time a church I was currently serving marked the day. It is long overdue.

            I invited Charlie to join our Wednesday evening Bible study group. That’s the group that helps me live into the text and sermon for the following Sunday. Charlie brought Del with him – another member of Seneca Presbyterian and Marine Corps vet with 20 years of service. I felt honored to be in their presence and to listen to stories of their active duty service along with their ongoing service to veterans in our area.

            I needed their help this week. I had discovered a fascinating and also disturbing topic: moral injury. It is defined as “perpetrating, failing to prevent, or being witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.” (See “Soul Repair” in Presbyterians Today, Vol. 103, No. 8, September 2013) I needed to hear from Charlie – and thanks to Charlie, also Del – that the topic was real and open for discussion.

            Moral injury happens when we find ourselves caught up in a situation where we are forced to act in ways contrary to our moral code of conduct. We may do the right thing in the right moment – like killing the enemy in the moment of combat. But when we no longer live and function in that moment; when other moral codes take over; when a soldier comes home from war, the memory of those actions can create a living hell - even when the action was entirely justified and even when it was the “right thing to do.”

            It seems, some would say, that human beings have an instinct against killing. That’s hard to believe, isn’t it? When we think of Columbine and Virginia Tech and Newtown, we wonder if the opposite comes closer to the truth. Yet it has been said that we have to be taught to hate. What if we have to be taught to kill? And when we must kill, it leaves a giant moral injury in the human soul. Perhaps that is something of why our grandfathers and fathers and brothers and sisters don’t talk about war.

            But we cannot heal the deep wounds of the soul without talking about them. The Church can offer a unique and powerful place for that talking. For in the Church we also talk about forgiveness and about a God who loved us so much that He took on the sin of the world in order to redeem it. 

            We’ll talk about that this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church. Join us if you can. 

Have You Ever Tried the Mainline?

I stumbled upon this response to a blog post one recent Saturday. I do not remember the issue that prompted the response – but I am drawn to the story reflected in it. Listen:

I’m a former Christian myself. When I followed the Bible, I was a bigot, because I was following it, down to the letter. When I tried being “Spiritual,” I became a liar, because I was no longer following the Bible. When I finally realized how screwed up the Bible really is, I became an Atheist, and I was no longer a bigot nor a liar, but indeed, I became my authentic self – someone worthy of other peoples’ trust. The irony is, I was always who I am , but I used to be buried under so many layers of religio-Biblical nonsense that it was hard to know who I was at all. Now I know. So does everyone else. I’ve never been more free and happy in my entire life than I am now. Just some food for thought.

It is a story of someone’s life and how it was harmed by “being Christian.” The writer seems to presume that the only options for faith are to be a “bigot” or a “liar.” It may be an authentic experience for our times, but at its heart it sorrows me because faith – the Christian faith – is so much more. I want to ask the writer – have you ever tried the Mainline?

Mainline Protestants are those particular branches of Christianity that have been around since the 16^th century. We were born out of a desire to “reform” the abuses we saw in the practice of faith in our time. Yes – to our shame – we have divided and divided and divided again and again. Much of that is human sin, but some of that is the belief that even though God does not change, our understanding of God deepens and grows over time.  We have learned that the Church was wrong about slavery – justifying it with scripture; divorce – condemning it unequivocally; and wrong about the role of women in Church leadership – thinking it knew better than God whom God has called and gifted to serve God’s Church.

As a Presbyterian, I am part of that great heritage that includes Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, the United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and even some Baptists. We used to be the steeple in the center square of every town that united the community. We still are in many places. But we are dwindling. Maybe we became too comfortable with our place in the community. We fussed among ourselves too much. We held too strongly to dying traditions and let the fire of our faith become barely burning embers. We didn’t change when we needed to – and we didn’t see the changes that were happening all around us. Many of us are now – and we want the world to know that there is an option for faith that is not bigotry or falsehood.  We affirm these truths…

• There is a God who is actively re-creating the world – this world. That God loves justice and kindness, not wealth and power.
• That God took on human flesh and walked among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The power of his life, his death, and his resurrection embodies a love so great we can barely catch a glimpse of it, but it can forgive any sin and redeem any darkness.
• There is no human voice who speaks the entire truth about God.
• We work better when we work together.
• Salvation is not primarily a ticket out of this world and into a better one. It is healing, wholeness, reconciliation, and peace with God and the world God loves here and now.

We “main-liners” aren’t perfect; we’re human. But I hope we seek to provide a community where we can become our “authentic” selves: children of God redeemed for love and service. That is at least what we strive for at Seneca Presbyterian Church. So – have you ever tried the Mainline?