(82) Homogeneous

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Homogeneous, originally shared on January 18, 2021. It was the eighty-second video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Being a homogeneous Church is not the opposite of being a polarized Church. They are the same. Today we’re going to talk about the path toward unity.

   Today is The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Not Martin Luther day. There’s a difference and, believe it or not, I’ve encountered people who didn’t know that. Martin Luther King exercised moral leadership. Remember that? He was a public theologian. Remember that?

   There is little of either today and we’re all on edge.

   Partly because of the pandemic, especially here in LA County, the most infected urban area in the country, where we are seeing some hope in slightly lower number of new cases and deaths, but lots of confusion with regard to who, when and where questions about the availability of the various vaccines.

   And, or course, because of our national crisis in the remain hours before the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

   It’s been said that the first to strike is the first to have run out of ideas.

   Please ponder that for a moment.

   I saw video of one of the thugs, or whatever they were, who stormed the Capitol on January 6^th, The Day of The Epiphany, screaming from the podium on the floor of the senate, “Jesus Christ! We invoke your name!”

   Let me be clear about something. That wasn’t a statement of faith. It was a statement of its opposite: superstition. Saying things in the name of Jesus, or in the name of God, or even in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit doesn’t make things happen. It’s not like in Harry Potter, where you say something in Latin and wave a stick and it happens.

   To say something, or call for something to be done, in the name of God, as in the Bible, means to say something that is in accord with God’s reality, God’s self. It means that what is about to be done is in accord with God’s will. As Pastor Rick Warren said, our prayers are not to ask God to bless what we are doing, they are to ask that we might do what God is blessing.”

   Do you think that those who violently and destructively entered our nation’s Capitol building without legitimate reason or authority from the American people, who injured those who were duly charged with protecting our nation’s legislative center, who destroyed and stole property, who searched for people to kill were acting in accord with the reality or will of God? I don’t.

   Nevertheless, I think it’s appropriate that we ask how we got to this place, and how we can get out of it.

   Almost 70 million people voted for Donald Trump. I do not believe that it is because they are all Christian White nationalists, or because they are Nazi’s or fascists, or because they are rich people who want to protect their privileged place in the world, or right-wingers looking to settle old scores.

   I do believe that many were and are exactly that, but not most. I think that most Trump supporters are people who felt they had no voice in the direction of our nation, that change had left them out, and that their values were be disregarded and disrespected. Much of Washington D.C. is built on reclaimed swamp land, hence the chants of the Trump campaign to, “drain the swamp.” Radical elements and thugs twisted and built on this discontent and took the movement over the cliff, but the mainstream discontent remains.

   People’s discontent doesn’t go away because they lose an election, not when what is at stake isn’t a piece of legislation but a worldview.

   How have the mainline, or oldline churches, like Lutherans, my denomination, responded? Many of them with the same disregard for the meaning of the 8^th commandment as the mainstream media. Did you ever listen to an entire speech of President Trump and then listen to how the mainstream media covered it? Why didn’t the Church speak out about that?

   Let me be clear about my feeling about President Trump. I think that he ran for office expecting to build his brand. When he actually won, he was in way over his head and that he was possibly the worst president in the history of the United States, but that it’s too soon to tell. Time and historians will have to make that determination.

   But I do think that he well may be the worst human being to ever have been president, that he placed himself above party and nation, and that his administration was heading toward the destruction of our democracy. I’m not sure that he was a fascist, though I think some of his followers were. I don’t think he was organized and singular in political purpose enough for that. I think he was more of a royalist. I don’t think he wanted to be a dictator; I think he wanted to be a king.

   I don’t think he was loyal to anyone but Donald Trump, and I don’t think that any of his followers, including the radicals, realized that until it was too late.

   So, now there are a lot of wounded, bitter, and confused Trump followers out there. The radicals will behave like any hurt and cornered creatures with few options and no clear path forward. They will be dangerous.

   But what about the rest, the mainstream followers who are our fellow citizens and, more importantly, our brothers and sisters in Christ? Do we want to be the voice of the voiceless, or only the voiceless who are currently in vogue?

   What voice is it that we want to raise?

   If we are the Democratic party at prayer, then not too much. Churches who are political and social service agencies using religious language and ritual, then not too much either.

   I believe that a church that focuses on being the Church, on changed lives, on the creedal beliefs that unite us first is a church that can demonstrate a way toward unity.

   The unity I am speaking of does not require uniformity. It does require an absence of my way or the highway approach, of my politics or you’re a Nazi or you’re a socialist approach. It requires a unity in a common relationship with the one true living God in which we can find common purpose in the midst of political and social and racial diversity.

   How do we reach people, all people, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

   The Church Growth movement was a popular approach to church development in the mid-80’s to late 90’s. It focused on people-groups, rather than on individuals, and promoted the idea that evangelism must begin by understanding the culture of the people we are trying to reach and then communicate the Gospel in culturally appropriate ways.

   One of its most promoted and controversial elements from its earliest days was a concept called the Homogeneous Unit Principle. That principle, simply put, was “Birds of a feather flock together”.

   That is, people feel most comfortable with people most like themselves. People who are uncomfortable with one another will not flock together. People who are comfortable, will.

   This principle was opposed by those who said it was too success-oriented, its compromise with culture made it nearly indistinguishable (just using different language), not inclusive, and that its pandering focus on young adults weakened more traditional multi-generational churches. All of this was, and is, true in my opinion. Yet, in practice we have embraced it wholeheartedly, just pandering to different people, and resisted all attacks to it in such a way that I think has been a contributing factor to the formation of our current divisions, both within the Church and our nation, both with regard to flattening the coronavirus curve and our national political crisis.

   And, ironically, it contains a clue to how we can move forward toward being a more united Church and nation.

   In fact, it’s found in something we already have, no…something we already are. We are the Body of Christ. We are one body, with many members.

*I Corinthians 12:12-27

   What do we have to offer? Bias confirmation of your political and social beliefs, and the conviction that our political and social beliefs are confirmed by God? “Come and be like us because we are like you.” That's the church growth homogeneous unit principle. That is, even people who proclaim that they are completely inclusive are people who have an organizing principle that excludes people who don’t share their vision, or their political or social opinions.

  How do we focus on something that transcends those things? By building on a solid foundation.

   This is not a time to support anything but our core beliefs are common beliefs as children of God. Do you know who your brothers and sisters are? They are many kinds of members, parts of the Body of Christ. They are children of God. Do you know why you didn't know that? Because you don't know who you are. You are children of God, and therefore brothers and sisters of each other. You are the Body of Christ, one body with many members.
Do you want to focus on white supremacy, on fake news, Christian nationalism, voter intimidation, election fraud? Fine, but let’s start at a point of agreement, and show each other how our faith has led us to our practice. Let’s show us how we are acting in the name of God, and why and how we got there. And, most importantly, show us in a spirit of love for one another.

   There are lots of political parties and social service agencies. There is only one Church.

   There's only one Church with a capital “C”. The Body of Christ. Let’s be the paradoxical Body of Christ: many members who are also homogeneous because Christ is the head of the Body. Let’s focus on that alone, moving forward, one in Christ.