[todaysdate]
By Martin Elfert
Do you have a question about life, love, or faith? Submit it 
online, fill out the form below or email it to [email protected].
Hey Rev!
Has the church lost its way?
– Lorne
Dear Lorne:
This past Saturday evening, I glanced at the little window that hangs out on the right side of my Facebook wall. And I was surprised to see that the Washington National Cathedral was “trending” (i.e., a whole lot of folks on social media were talking about it). As you may know, the National Cathedral is part of the Episcopal Church. And Episcopalians — well, we trend about as often as stamp collecting.
I clicked on the link and learned that the Cathedral was on folks’ minds because it had just hosted its first-ever Muslim prayer service. I suppose that it is evidence of my naïveté that I expected that the reaction to this news would be enthusiastic and positive: what an exciting and an encouraging example of interfaith friendship. But a lot of the reaction was seriously negative. And a fair bit of that negative reaction contained the declarative version of the very phrase that makes up your question, Lorne. It’s a phrase that I have heard a lot over the last number of years: “The Episcopalians have lost their way.” Indeed, I don’t think I had even officially become an Episcopalian (or, as we call this tradition back in Canada, an Anglican) when I first learned that I was attending a thoroughly lost church.
Now, I realize that when folks announce that the Episcopal (or the Lutheran or the Presbyterian or the Roman Catholic or whatever) church is lost, they generally intend these words as a critique. But what if? What if, in the adventure that is life and faith, getting lost is sometimes necessary, sometimes important, sometimes good?
Three thoughts on losing your way.
First, losing your way in the wilderness. One of the persistent questions of Scripture goes like this: is the part of our lives that we spend in the wilderness the best of times or the worst of times? And as near as I can figure, the answer that the Bible offers is, “Yes.” Whether it be the Israelites after Egypt or Elijah after the fire and the wind, or Jesus after his baptism, the time spent out in the wild – the time when we aren’t sure where home is, the time when we aren’t sure where our path is leading – is hard and joyous and necessary. Somehow, getting lost is part of the way that we open our hearts, part of the way that we learn about ourselves, part of the way that we learn about God. Somehow, getting lost is part of the way that we get free and get found.
Second, losing your way as evangelism. When I was first wondering about coming to faith, a lot of things drew me to Vancouver’s Christ Church Cathedral: glorious music, a rich liturgy, a tradition of service, a fun coffee hour. And I was also really attracted to a parish that was willing to risk uncertainty, that was willing to risk being wrong, that was willing to risk getting lost. The Cathedral – and the wider Diocese of New Westminster of which it is a part – wandered out past the tree line when it declared that British Columbia’s referendum on Native rights was immoral, that GLBTQ folks deserved a full place in church, that there is revelation in non-Christian traditions, that there are theological questions (How precisely is Jesus present in the Eucharist? What is heaven like? How did the mechanics of the resurrection work?) to which reverent agnosticism is both a good and a faithful response. I admired the Cathedral for sometimes getting lost. Its lostness is part of what invited me in.
Third, losing your way as a means of building friendship. A little over 20 years ago, the Canadian band Blue Rodeo released their now classic ballad, the chorus of which goes, “And if we’re lost, then we are lost together.” I don’t imagine that Blue Rodeo intended that song to be about church. But it kind of is anyway. The lostness of church over the last few decades and centuries – over how women are called to leadership, over how science and faith argue with or complement one another, over the very authority of Scripture, the list goes on – has challenged church to deepen its curiosity and its flexibility and its humility, it has brought church into conversation with other traditions. I’m grateful for that. Grateful to be spending some time lost with other Christians, with Muslims, with Jews, with Buddhists, with atheists – with everybody who is peering at their maps and looking for what some of us call truth and others of us call love and others of us call God.
Has the church lost its way, Lorne? Sometimes, yes. And maybe that’s just fine.
