God Unbound: On The Nontraditional Traditions

No one who knows me would ever accuse me of being a traditionalist. The Evangelical church I attend is fairly contemporary (and interestingly enough, it’s a church that the Willowcreek Association once said was the most diverse they’d ever seen, racially, gererationally, and socio-economically), but still I test the grace reserves of many. I’ve always been the questioner, the poker, the under-dog-sticker-upper-for, always asking questions and noticing the stuff other people might prefer to leave be.

I love my church with a passion that has overcome strife and the pain of broken friendships, trust, all that crap that we humans can get ourselves into. That’s God — let me tell you.

But here is how church — any church — often feels: it’s as if I have been shivering cold, lost in a desert, and have walked into a strange town, where a kind person unknown to me has thrown a large, soft, very comfortable yet ill-fitting coat around me. I am immensely grateful for the coat. I wrap its comfort and love around me, pulling it closer for its soft protection, and I bask in the kindness I find there. Yet it’s painfully obvious that I am an outsider to this coat, that the coat is not exactly mine, that it is a gift that has been bestowed upon me until I can get back home to where I really belong.

I don’t think this makes me strange. I think a lot of people feel this way, and I think it’s sort of the point of church. And it’s pretty beautiful.

In her new book, God Unbound, Elaine A. Heath seems to makes space for people like me — the lay person who might every once in a while have a good point about scripture, or might be someone God is using in a way the rest of us aren’t used to, who may be asking the questions God wants us to consider in a different way.

It’s true, I can be a thorn in the sides of some of my more traditional friends — a much loved thorn, but a thorn nonetheless. And I use the word traditional somewhat loosely. I hardly hang with a highly liturgical crowd. Still, I take my responsibility seriously, and just because I’m obnoxious, doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Of course, it doesn’t mean I’m right, either.