Opposition to Appeasment

At some point to make the church better we will have to stop ducking, dodging, evading and pacifying grown people who know how to behave better. People who take offense at the drop of a hat and yet care not that they give offense. Why is it permissible for them to say they can't relate to our topics but not permissible for me to say I cannot relate to their whining. Why is it permissible for them to oppose an effort to grow our church by reaching out to the disenfranchised and others for no stated reason. Why must we unyieldingly adhere to their Wed. schedule when most working people can't attend. Who is telling them the young people are unhappy about this? It is the same problem that went ignored in the housing situation. Just as I said then it does not go away by ignoring or appeasing it. They could offer no spiritual justification for their actions then and offer no spiritual justification for their opposition now. ( I have not forgotten our exchange of emails on the topic -- and your contention that the faith position was not to act in the confidence that God would protect us from the consequences-- but you never understood that I was aware that the church could be put at risk as I am aware that such risk is exactly what Jesus called us to. Not with the promise that we would not suffer the consequence but rather the assurance that we likely would.) You defined your heart to a large degree when you confessed your desire to preserve UBC based on your 40? years here. And like most here you want to always point to good things we do as if that somehow justifies the blackness lurking at our core. It does not matter how many good things we do if we forsake the gospel to preserve our fragile self image. I still cannot shake the picture of our church denying refuge to some and not even being willing to consider it for others because we were protecting a building. God have mercy on us all.

Preservation of any church is not our goal. Had Jesus taken the path of appeasement-there would be no Christian CHurch and we would be the unclean Gentiles exclude from the life and TEMPle of the chosen people. Can't you hear his response to complaints about our offensive topics-so much like his audacity in socializing with publicans and sinners- perhaps a simple retort -the topics are not to draw you.

The sad thing is that the leadership of this church insist on having dialogue like this one in the shadows and promotes the views of an undefined constituency. I am at all times prepared to give a defense of myself and my actions. You dare to rebuke me and when I respond asking you to earn the right to deliver that rebuke, you don't even address the issue instead lapsing into appeasment language again. The fact is that UBC will not get better until some of those older people muster the courage to stand up and look their friends in the eye and say you are just wrong and you know your position is indefensible.

Instead we continue to enable what I think and hope is a minority. Two things that did not escape me in the housing fiasco were 1)what really gave offense was taking the issue public by emailing the church after they ignored my private attempt; 2) they capitulated almost immediately when the light of day shined on them. Which tends to confirm my hope that the vast majority of the church do not agree with the shadow minority. I really wish we would just call a vote on one full Sunday Morning on the issues Sunday Night, Worship Style, Housing future evacuees. I earnestly believe in UBC and we could put all this whining and appeasing behind us and move ahead. Or if I am wrong and the darkness runs deeper then at least we would know and could go elsewhere to serve and to grieve the eventual demise of UBC.

Finally, it is not about who has more flaws. I am well aware of my many flaws-nevertheless-Jesus calls us in our imperfection. And I have an obligation to say to MY church leaders give account of yourself. Quit delaying and obstructing the gospel by appeasing those who give no account. Ask yourself why the leadership doesn't want me saying these things to the church as a whole. Why are we slinking around in the dark. What is there that Christ's church cannot look at in the light. The only answer is darkness because it cannot abide the light. So expect me to continue to call for courage from our leaders to stop appeasing naysayers. And ask yourself was the Christ you follow an appeaser of the institutional church? I think not.