Conversion is just as important as Inclusion

Fortunately, my parish is blessed with priests who have values and have experienced in some way the transforming power of the Gospel. Sure I quibble and tease about little ritual issues, but in truth I really respect them. However, in my sojourn across many so called "inclusive" churches, there appears to be a liberal inquisition afoot (thank you Eric for this little phrase). This includes some Episcopal Churches unfortunately. The Liberal Inquisition is all about getting people through the door, into the Church and getting them to be part of their ministry. In striving to provide a spiritual home for marginalized people, we often forget the task of spiritually feeding them and inviting them to experience the transformative and redeeming power of the Gospel.

In these places they tolerate every new wind of doctrine and heresy. In these churches, it is not uncommon for priests and other leaders to deny the divinity of Christ, or perhaps to reject the authority of scripture. Sermons are not evangelical, not life-changing, just boring discourses about arcane theology or the newest rage in New Age. I may not agree with some folks interpretations of the so called "clobber" scriptures against homosexuality, but I haven't thrown my Bible into the garbage. Folks like John Crossan and Shelby Spong often relegate Jesus to be some kind of benign Bolshevik revolutionary: hardly scriptural, hardly historical, hardly reality. They relegate Paul to the position of irrelevant obsolete teacher of Christianity and revile him for some of the very hard things he says. This is hardly life-changing stuff.

In our desire to include and accept everyone, we forget that Christianity also has a teaching mission. We take people where they are and we're supposed to make them better disciples, not leave them in the pig trough. It's a great thing to share the love of God, don't get me wrong. It's a great thing that we want to provide a spiritual home for gays and lesbians who can't find a home elsewhere. However it's also our responsibility as we adopt these wayward children who have been cast off by other Christian communities, to form them in scripture and the ways of discipleship, because they will be our future. If we fail, our Church will die. If we neglect this task, our Church will die. As I wrote previously: either the Episcopal Church shows its relevance for today's society or it is time to simply let it pass into the mores of history.