A rchive Date
[ 20-08-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Religion ]
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[Resurrection the whole point
Divinity of Jesus can't be optional for Christians
By LICIA CORBELLA
Calgary Sun
August 20, 2000
About seven years ago now, my husband Stephen and I joined my inlaws at their United Church in Toronto for a "special" Christmas service.
This was the church my husband grew up in, the church where his mother sang in the choir and where his father helped out in a variety of capacities.
We entered that service joyfully and left depressed.
The service was called something like: "Celebration of Christmas," but there was nothing celebratory about it at all and certainly nothing very Christmasy, let alone Christian about it -- unless you count the potted poinsettias and other decorations.
The congregation actually had to hire somebody from outside the church to read a cute little story about an aboriginal man who, one Christmas, gives his snowshoes to a visiting friend during a bad storm and who, on a following Christmas, borrows them back to get through another storm.
It was a nice enough story, and was loosely based on Christmas since it took place on two Christmas Eves, but it made no mention whatever about what Christmas really is all about and that is the birth of Jesus Christ.
But that wasn't all. Not one Christmas carol was sung that night. Not one hymn. Not one prayer was uttered the entire evening. It was an utterly secular event -- held inside an almost entirely secular church.
It was also utterly joyless.
In short, the whole thing was a complete waste of time.
What's more, despite the beautiful building and the candles, it was frosty. Since then, Stephen and I describe similar dying places of worship as "a church of the deep freeze."
Stephen and I wondered how and why those people get motivated to even show up for church?
Why bother going, we wondered, if the gospel is not uttered, no worship takes place and Christ's name is never mentioned.
On top of it all, there's no joy, no fun and no warmth.
These churches of the deep freeze are usually only one-quarter filled -- if that -- with the blue-rinse set, sitting in the same pew they have been sitting in for 40 or 50 years simply out of habit and perhaps a Protestant sense of duty.
I received a lot of calls last week by United Church members who were offended by a column I wrote in the Calgary Sun about the United Church. In it I wondered if the executive of the church, which was in the process of picking a new moderator last weekend, would just cut to the chase and pick an avowed atheist this time around.
After all, it wouldn't be such a leap of logic since its outgoing moderator, Calgary Rev. Bill Phipps, admits he does not believe that Christ is divine or that He rose from the dead.
Kind of an odd belief to hold for the leader of a large but ever dwindling church.
The people who called said they were deeply offended. They told me of United Church ministers they know who do believe in the resurrection and do preach the gospel.
Well Hallelujah to that, was my reply.
Surely, just surely, that should be the most important prerequisite of anyone leading a congregation, let alone an entire church organization.
On Monday, Rev. Dr. Marion Pardy of Gower Street United Church in St. John's, Nfld., was elected by the 400 commissioners to the 37th General Council meeting in Toronto. As of yet, there is no information forthcoming about Pardy's beliefs.
The offended callers said that many people who attend United Churches do in fact still believe in the resurrection and that I shouldn't have tarred them with the same brush as their moderator.
I had to agree with them there.
I should have made it more clear that I was criticizing only the executive of the church -- not necessarily the rank-and-file pastors and parishioners.
But I also asked them if they ever picked up the phone or put pen to paper to protest the election of Phipps as their past moderator. They all said no. So these people are offended by a little column criticizing their leadership but they're not offended when their Lord is blasphemed? Curious isn't it?
Many also argued that their church was not losing members. Well, according to numbers obtained from the national office of the United Church, membership isn't just slowly bleeding away, it's hemorrhaging.
In 1979, there were 907,222 members of the United Church. In 1999, even though Canada's population has increased in the past 20 years by some 5 million people, there are just 668,549 members.
These disgruntled callers told me that I know nothing of the United Church and have no emotional ties to it. Wrong, again.
My mother-in-law was the daughter of United Church missionaries. She was born in Angola, Africa. Despite her blue eyes and pale skin, her first language was Umbundu (Bantu) and her first pet, a monkey.
Her two brothers are United Church ministers. My husband grew up in the United Church. We have a lot of emotional ties to it -- more than most people.
So when Rev. Phipps came out and proudly announced that he didn't believe in Christ's resurrection, my mother and father-in-law were heart broken. After spending almost 80 years in the United Church, they decided it was time to leave.
Even though they were the biggest financial contributors to their congregation and despite their deep involvement, no official in the church has even bothered to call them to even see if they are OK. Sounds loving and caring, doesn't it?
But they did the right thing.
As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church: "If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty ... and futile."
In other words, unless your church believes in the resurrection, don't bother.
It would appear that a quarter of a million United Church members over the past 20 years are heeding Paul's words.
Licia Corbella, editor of the Calgary Sun, can be reached at 403-250-4129 or by e-mail at licia.corbella@cal.sunpub.com. Her columns appear Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
 World Fact Book (CIA]
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