7/15/18 “Doubting Believers” by Bernie Cochran

Pullen member Bernie Cochran delivered this sermon.
Text: Matthew 22: 34 – 39

Nancy has encouraged the congregation to take time to enjoy the beauty of the stained-glass windows–the two new splendid, side additions, as well.

Roger Williams, the minister of the first Baptist church in America, in Providence, Rhode Island, is portrayed in the east windows. Actually, he was only a Baptist for nine months or so. He concluded that Baptists were closer to the truth than anyone else but not close enough and became, essentially, a seeker.

Best known for his contribution to the principle of religious liberty, he arrived at that position by somewhat strange logic. In colonial New England, Congregationalists forced all citizens to attend church. Williams was a rigid Calvinist predestinarian–God elects persons to be saved. Williams concluded: If free will be true–which God knows it isn’t–forced worship might make sense; An unwilling worshipper might hear the gospel and be converted. However, forced worship can have no effect on the non-elect and should be opposed. Bizarre theology helped give rise to a magnificent principle–religious liberty.

Baptists in America–some whipped, jailed, and fined for being dissenters–contributed to the struggle for religious liberty when they were in the minority. You would think that Southern Baptists, now that they are in the majority, would champion religious liberty for Muslims and be outraged at the recent Supreme Court decision which discriminates against Muslims. Think again.

Religious liberty–a historic Baptist principle and a major Pullen characteristic. There are many.

Some time ago, Pastor Jack McKinney–while leading an infant dedication service–stumbled slightly while carrying the infant up the aisle. Fearing it was falling, the infant instinctively threw its arms in the air. Some of you might remember Jack’s response to the child: “We’re really not that kind of church!” Both Nancy and Cathy, along with the congregation, have invested quite some time in examining just what kind of congregation Pullen really is.

Last Fall, a courageous young woman, Amber Cantorna, spoke in the chapel and signed copies of her book, Refocusing My Family, describing her troubled childhood–which might resonate with some of you. She grew up in an ultraconservative family, her father a top executive in the fundamentalist organization, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. Unable to acknowledge it, nonetheless, Amber became increasingly aware that she was a lesbian. Near-suicidal, she discovered a Pullen-type church–Highlands Church in Denver. Their website welcoming statement astonished her.

“Married, divorced, and single here, it’s one family that mingles here.

Conservative and liberal here, we’ve all gotta give a little here.

Big and small here, there’s room for us all here.

Doubt and believe here, we can all receive here. LGBTQ and straight here, there’s no hate here.

Woman and man here, everyone can stand here.

Whatever your race here, for all of us grace here.

In imitation of the ridiculous love that almighty God has for each of us and all of us, we choose to live and love without labels.”

Composed by the straight minister of Highlands Church, it saved her life–literally. Refocusing My Family describes her being abandoned, disowned by her parents and their disapproval and non-attendance at her marriage celebration with her wife.

If Pullen decides it needs to revise its more formal home-page welcoming statement, I informed the Deacon Council that a committee is a necessary evil and I offer this rough draft for the committee:

All sorts of families are we: two loving mothers or two loving fathers or one of each or only one or childless, you see.

Single, married, divorced, or just partners, possibly.

From conservative to liberal–a broad spectrum are we.

Doubting believers–ponderers in our hearts, open to inquiry,

Straights, gays, lesbians and trans persons, with no apology for whom you be.

Not just accepting but celebrating all personhood are we.

Rejecting the slogan: “We are the chosen few,” interfaith affirmers, inclusive are we.

Different colors, backgrounds, and cultures–a multi-branched tree.

Pursuing justice, truth, and love–with no boundaries are we.

If this is who we are–could I hear somebody say AMEN?

I wish to concentrate on one Pullen characteristic–doubting believers. Robert McMillan, a Pullen member longer than anyone, has stated that what he treasures most is that Pullen has never specified what he must believe–or not believe.

John Bunyan, a remarkable English Baptist, was imprisoned for being a dissenter against Anglicanism and, while there, wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. The jail is long gone but the jail-house door has been preserved in the Bunyan Museum in Bedford. He described the life of faith as being a pilgrimage, a journey. We are possibly, theologically, at somewhat different places–not just by reason of age, but pondering, sorting out the truth claims of the Christian faith–a broad spectrum.

All of us believe many things today that we never did years ago–gay-, black-, female-, and trans- equality, interfaith cooperation and love, and many others. There are also other beliefs many of us have discarded. I have reduced the number of things for which one will be condemned straight to hell from 39–I was taught–to only one: disagreement with me; And I’m working very hard on that one.

Richard Holloway, retired Bishop of Edinburgh, in his recent work, Waiting for the Last Bus, observes: “It’s hard to change an ancient prejudice, if you have been taught that God commanded it.”

Pullen is widely known as a radical, unorthodox congregation for challenging such prejudices, masked as commandments. The term orthodoxy–correct belief–assumes that religion is like mathematics–there can be only one correct answer. The Bible contains history but not all the Bible is historical fact. Most of us have a problem with the fundamentalist assertion that every biblical statement is literally, scientifically and historically accurate–without error–the facts are as inspired as much as its ethical teachings. This is the reason Christian schools–with tax funds–teach biology out of the Book of Genesis. Jesus walking on the water, feeding five thousand with only a few loaves and fishes creates honest doubt.

Why is John the only gospel which records that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead? Wouldn’t that incident have become well-known–and reported by the earlier, other three? Mark, John, and Paul, telling us everything they know about the life of Jesus, never mention the Virgin Birth. A belief developed later, possibly?

Did God assign the land of Canaan to the Jews? Since the Canaanites were reluctant to leave, God caused the sun to stand still in order to give Joshua more daylight to butcher more Canaanites, Amorites, Jebusites. You don’t need permission to join me in rejecting biblical astronomy and this morally unacceptable narrative.

Is the following biographical summary historical fact? When he was conceived, an angelic visitor informed his mother that his birth and his person were divine. He had an unusual, gifted childhood. As an adult he gathered a group of followers around him and began teaching, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Later, in trouble with the authorities he was executed but rose from the dead and entered heaven–then returned to his followers to convince them that he was still alive. Some of his followers later preserved his teachings, recorded in several writings about him, which still exist. Historical facts? No. This is a summary of the life of Appolonius of Tyana–a late first-century philosopher/teacher.

Paul Tillich, in a slender volume, Dynamics of Faith, declared that accepting every biblical statement as historical fact should not be confused with faith. He stated: “It is a disastrous distortion of the meaning of faith to identify it with belief in the historical validity of the biblical stories.” Faith, Tillich declared, “is the state of being ultimately concerned,” not to be confused with legitimate concerns such as money, food, shelter, or success.

When the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus answered: “You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” All, all, all, the definition of Ultimate Concern. The symbol for the object of that Ultimate Concern is God. If justice, God is just; if love, God is love. Faith is commitment to what is characterized as Ultimate–not a willingness to accept all biblical statements, especially the contradictory ones.

Conversely, if one takes an elementary, normal concern and elevates it to ultimacy, that is the definition of idolatry. Money–gotta have it because the mortgage company knows where I live. But if I need all the symbols of wealth–perhaps a tower with my name on it. . . .? Just a thought–you understand.

If faith is understood as belief that something is true, then doubt would seem to be the enemy of faith. Many of us grew up on that gospel hymn: “If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out . . .” However, Tillich reminds us that doubt is a necessary ingredient in the dynamics of faith.

The minister most in the national news these days is, perhaps, former Bishop Carlton Pearson of the Pentacostal Holiness Church, former soul-mate of Oral Roberts–a gifted, black, nationally prominent preacher of hell-fire and damnation. However, the hotter he turned the temperature of hell, the more troubling to him it became. He was dismayed by the news of the slaughter of perhaps a million Tutsis in Rwanda–massacred, then immediately delivered to hell because they were not Christians–his theology declared. However, Bishop Pearson began to ponder, doubt, share his doubts with his congregation in Tulsa. “If we proclaim God is love, forgiving, reclaiming, redeeming, how can we accept the belief that he happily sends millions to eternal, flaming torment?”

Soon his megachurch dwindled from 6,000 attending to less than 200–followed by a mortgage foreclosure on the church. Branded a heretic by his denomination, he later became a Unitarian-Universalist minister–moving from extreme right-wing fundamentalism to left-wing liberalism–the usual direction.

A movie of his becoming a doubting believer was completed in April; his sermon, “To Hell With Hell,” is on the internet and his recent book, “ The Gospel of Inclusion,” is available also. Doubt, a necessary ingredient in the dynamics of faith.

Doubting believers, yes, but surely atheists are unacceptable. If the existence of God–as commonly understood–is denied–but please keep the grey beard–a symbol of wisdom. If the existence of God is denied in the pursuit of truth, welcome doubting believer, committed to truth, which will bear the weight of Ultimate Concern.

So, it’s O. K. if we are not all at exactly the same place theologically–only that we be committed to the process of being ultimately concerned, to be persons of faith, as we all sort out the complexity of the meaning of life. AMEN.