All by Mark Wingfield
Several weeks earlier — before the surgery that cured my first problem but unexpectedly created the spinal cord injury — when I was living with unbearable nerve pain that seemed to have no cure, my friend Jakob called me one afternoon to ask a brave question: “As your friend, I need to ask you: ‘Are you considering taking your own life?’” My answer formed slowly: “No, but I now understand how people get to that point. And if I get there, I promise to call you.”
Our congregation went through 18 months of intense study, prayer and dialogue about LGBTQ inclusion, and we have the scars to show for it. And we would have had scars regardless of which way the decision went. But we are better for choosing the good over the easy.
Anyone who’s been paying attention shouldn’t be surprised by the motion adopted at the Kentucky Baptist Convention annual meeting Nov. 14 to consider expelling all churches in dual alignment with the state convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. What’s surprising, in fact, is that the issue of dual alignment hasn’t been forced in more places already.
This is the column in which a Baptist pastor will wax eloquent about a play that involves pot-smoking, cursing, sex, anti-war protests and nudity. Now that I have your attention ….
For many Christians, there’s so much to be outraged about that it’s hard to narrow the list: Fears for women, fears for immigrants, threats against religious liberty, threats against dissenters, fear about this, fear about that. All while a large swath of the evangelical Christian population acts as though God’s will is finally being done to address their years of outrage.
Kids don’t show up at school and suddenly say racist things to their classmates because of who won a presidential election; most often they repeat what they’ve heard at home. College students don’t suddenly start yelling racial epithets on a Baptist campus out of the blue; they’ve heard these threats go unchallenged somewhere else before. Adults don’t just show up at church and behave differently than they do other places; often they reveal themselves in times of stress or opportunity.
I’ve reminded myself that as a young professional I had to learn the hard way that not every joke a guy might want to tell is actually funny. For example, it’s wise to avoid any joke that mentions PMS and livestock in the same sentence. I was 26. And boy, did I learn a lesson that day — one that has stuck with me for nearly 30 years.
What would happen if someone voted based on what would benefit his neighbor more than what would benefit himself? What would happen if someone watched the stock market with concern about what was happening to vulnerable people more than what would benefit her own portfolio? What would happen if someone used their platform of privilege to speak out on behalf of those who cannot be heard rather than demanding more rights for his own tribe?
I’d like to make a case for “promoting” in adult Sunday school once again.
But to do so, first I need to explain some antiquated terms. “Sunday school” is a weekly small-group Bible study that’s not just for children in our Baptist tradition. It typically happens on Sunday mornings either before or after worship. You may know this today as a “small group” or “cell group” or “life group.”
And “promoting” is what we Baptists used to do every year on Promotion Sunday, when adults as well as children moved to new classes based on age.
Here’s the problem with saying we must never talk about politics at church: We immediately cede to politicians the right to define what is political and what is theological. And then the church loses its voice on theology because important biblical concepts have been wrongly labeled “politics” and therefore off limits.
“Does God still love me?”
That is one of the most painful questions I have been asked in the past two weeks after writing a commentary that went viral and made me a most unlikely spokesperson for the transgender community and their families. As a result of that post being read by more than 1 million people either online or in print, I have heard the personal stories of people from all over the country. In two weeks’ time, I have exchanged personal correspondence with more than 400 people.
With the help of a pediatrician friend and a geneticist friend, I’m listening and trying to learn. This is hard, though, because understanding the transgender experience seems so far outside what I have ever contemplated before. And the more I learn, the more theological questions I face as well. This is hard, even for a pastor.
“Miracles” aren’t limited to the parting of the sea or turning fives loaves and two fishes into a meal for thousands. Sometimes, miracles are smaller, more personal things. Sometimes, miracles involve the healing of relationships. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a pastor, it’s that there are a lot of ruptured relationships out there, many of them wrapped up tighter than a Christmas package. A few years ago, a Christmas Eve gathering at our home turned out to be the place of annunciation for one such miracle
