So, THAT Happened!
- Brian E Pearson
- Jan 27, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 29, 2020
Last week I posted a blog about getting sacked as a columnist for the Niagara Anglican newspaper. My dismissal left me feeling like an outsider looking in at the church I have called home all my life. Over six hundred people read that post, many taking the time to send me personal notes, sharing similar feelings and experiences. I had touched a nerve.
As I continue to work away on my memoir of my life in the church, something now occurs to me. Whatever the literary merits of the project, it might well serve as a catalyst for the conversation many church people--both active and lapsed--want to have. Few who have left the church know precisely why they did. Many who stay don't know why they do. The church's role in our lives is up for grabs, and we want to know why.
It may be too late for the church to make the changes that would reverse the trend toward its obsolescence and coming demise. The Anglican Journal recently reported a sociological study that gives the Anglican Church of Canada twenty years. I think the study is optimistic. By then, I doubt there will be much more than a small network of surviving, mainly urban, Anglican churches spread across the country.
But the death of the church does not quench the spiritual longing of the people who used to be churchgoers. We are deeply spiritual by nature, all of us, and endlessly resourceful in finding new ways to make meaning in our lives. The death of the church does not signal the death of God. It simply means that Christ has "burst his three-day prison" and now appears, resurrected and fully present, in the midst of us.
So, how to navigate this passage from church-going faith to ... something else? Dialogue will be essential, sharing our experiences and our learnings with one another as we venture from here. To this end I pledge my own efforts: that this blog become a meeting place for finders and seekers alike; that the memoir, when it comes out, spark conversations about faith in the modern world; and that I continue to open new avenues where discoveries can be explored, like a monthly interactive podcast, to inspire us on the journey.
So, that happened. I wonder what will happen now.
Thanks for your comments, Ian. I get that public comments like the ones I made about the Christmas story are bound to ruffle the feathers of traditional Christians. I only regret that those comments couldn't have inspired a respectful conversation within the pages of the Niagara Anglican. I feel firing me was a lost opportunity to expand the dialogue about what modern Christians actually believe. Btw, your name is very familiar to me. We must have known one another when I was in Niagara. Blessings to you, and thanks again, in any case.
There are many reasons for what you site as the death of the church. One is, not keeping contemporary. The seven deadly words of any organization. "We've never done it that way before."
Had Jesus walk the Earth today the parable of the wheat and the weeds he would have included combines and corn pickers. Maybe he'd use my neighbour who's cornfield was a grow-op for cannabis back before pot was legal. It had been planted amount the stocks of corn.
It would have held the attention of the congregation better than the original story without compromising the Gospel.
BTW He harvested the corn and weed together for silage. I'm surprised it didn't show up in the milk. And…
Mr. Pearson. It is tough and somehow demoralizing to be fired. Thinking back to when I was fired, my mother's response was "Well, better men than you have been fired.". Not very consoling but it put things in a different perspective while I liked my wounds.
Let's look at why you were terminated. There are some things in the Christian faith that just can't change . It is based on one god and yet God is three persons and the deity of Christ and His virgin birth. Had you been a columnist for the distillery industry and wrote about the virtues of the Temperance movement or wrote for The Modern Tobacconist questioning moral and ethical position of an industry produc…