On Monday I will fly to the American southwest to visit a retreat centre in New Mexico called Ghost Ranch. The course I will participate in is offered by an Anglican priest now living in Britain but Canadian by birth. Go figure.
I must fly through Denver on my way to Santa Fe, so I will stop for a couple of days with friends who live near the mile-high city. Colorado is the heartland of right-wing Christianity in the States and there are huge, modern and ugly churches all over the place.
This weekend the New York Times has a lengthy magazine article on the shift in evangelicalism in the US. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Evangelicals-t.htmlSome Christians feel burned by the almost blind support of President Bush which resulted in the fiasco of Iraq. Others have grown weary of the unrelenting emphasis on a few issues such as abortion and homosexuality while the environment and world poverty are ignored. An increasing number of evangelical church leaders are inviting their people to broaden their horizons and take a new look at the gospel.
The United Church is a very left-leaning denomination and we pride ourselves in our liberal views and not being fundamentalists. But at times I grow frustrated with our focus on just a few issues at the other end of the spectrum, as important as some of them they may be. What about sharing the gospel with others and figuring out how to be Christ-centred in a pluralistic world? We do this poorly and we appear to be paying the price.
Neither left nor right holds all the answers and we need to be willing to regularly reassess what it means to be the people of abundant life in Christ. The body of Christ must be animated by the Spirit or it will wither and die, at least in some of its expressions. But what wonderful possibilities if we are able to be faithful to the gospel.
Here are the places I will visit and the speaker for my time away.
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