Saturday, August 8, 2009

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?

One last reflection from being in Sweden last week...

There are worse places in the world to be on an August night than on the shores of the Baltic Sea. After two days of meetings with folks in Vallentuna and Uppsala, I headed to Vaxholm for dinner my last night in Sweden with an American couple and another couple with a “mixed” marriage – he’s Swedish and she’s American. Walking around Vaxholm feels a bit like walking around Grand Haven, Michigan – it’s a very popular resort destination in the Stockholm archipelago. If you aren’t familiar with it, Stockholm is part of an archipelago of thousands of islands on the Baltic Sea. The sea doesn’t look like a sea, it looks like a lake or river. Vaxholm’s many colored wooden buildings are charming, as is the boardwalk in front of all the boats in the marina. You probably wouldn’t want to be there in December, but on a summer night it was unbeatable.

In the midst of this idyllic place, lying on a little island right smack dab in the middle of the Baltic, is an impressive fort, first built in something like 1500, because Vaxholm was the place to repel invaders to Stockholm who would come by the sea – from Russia, maybe, or Finland, or worst of all, Denmark. As we walked through town we found other fortifications, including a battery of cannons that was operational from 1700 until the early 1900’s – seems like the Swedes gave up on the idea of defending themselves at about the same time that World War I broke out. They were neutral in both great wars of the last century and today they don’t have much of military because, as the Swede I ate dinner with put it, “we haven’t had a war for 200 years, so we’ve decided to spend our money on schools.” They do have a small military, and according to my Swedish friend, they are the best in the world with submarines (which ought to count for something), but really, if they were forced to, they probably couldn’t (and wouldn’t) defend their country.

Sweden’s neutrality in World War II was controversial. The Nazis were able to travel through Sweden to invade Norway, adding yet another reason to the long list of why these two countries don’t like each other. Many Swedes left home and enlisted in the armies of other allied countries. In some ways, this was the perfect solution for the government – those that want to can go fight, but officially our stance is neutrality.

It was interesting to be seeing these relics of Sweden’s military past in the context of what I was doing. I spent an afternoon in the Young Life office, going through relics of our past --dozens and dozens of files. Our staff members have been asking what to keep from the “previous administration.” Most of it needs to be recycled, but I agreed to look through it first. I pulled out a file that was labeled “churches” and on top there was a letter dated about ten years ago from a church in the US. The letter began, “Dear Missionary Family, Our church has been going through a difficult period lately and recently experienced a split in our membership. We are very sorry to inform you that we will not be able to fulfill our pledge to support your ministry this year….” What a sad letter, I thought. And I also thought, I wonder what the people who sent the letter would think if they knew all that I know about our own struggles and conflicts in Sweden. But it isn’t just Sweden - we had our struggles and conflicts in Michigan, too. I’ve been part of some really bad situations and know I’ve left some people hurt behind me, and I’ve seen other people I care about hurt deeply. I’ve seen my share of really lousy things happen to people, but I think they pale compared to the larger history of the church. I have seen people forced out of jobs they didn’t want to leave, but I’ve never seen anyone burned as a heretic.

So, I have been trying to get my mind around the church landscape in Sweden. Like every country, there have been a lot of church splits. There is of course the old State church, which is Lutheran, but there are divisions within it, and then all sorts of Mission and Free churches. And that’s just on the Protestant side. The Swedish government may have given up on the idea of fighting, but that hasn’t stopped Christians from doing it. And if you dig into the history and find why these different groups split, the answers often seem ridiculous these days. Sort of like knowing in West Michigan the Reformed and Christian Reformed split over things like whether or not to sing from the Psalter, have worship services in Dutch (what’s wrong with that, I do it every Sunday?), and allow membership in the Masonic Lodge. Those don’t seem like issues to split a denomination over in 2009. Is it just me or does it seem like so many disputes that were about a point of theology seem in retrospect just to be about the exercise of power?

Here are some other questions I am left with.

What do you think of a country that has more or less given up on the idea of being a part of a war?

What do you think the church would look like if we took that stance?

What is really worth dividing over?

What sort of witness to the world do we have when a country can live at peace for 200 years and we can’t seem to make it through a day in peace?

And finally, to quote Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?”

These aren't just rhetorical questions - if anyone outside my immediate family is reading this, I would love to know what you think. (And it's okay for members of my immediate family to respond, too.)

5 comments:

  1. Jeff,

    Excellent! Not only was your piece poingnant, but the questions are excellent. I wish more could wrestle with these very questions.

    This applies to SO much.

    The Church is littered with a sad history, along with much good. However, we can't ignore the history; it needs to be reckoned with in order to avoid the mistakes/sin of the past. We've learned from some of our past, e.g. we don't burn "heretics" (the quotation marks are intentional) at the stake. But, there are still ways we don't live the way of Jesus- loving neighbor and eneemy- and it comes out in other hurtful, divisive and creul ways.

    Is it just me or does it seem like so many disputes that were about a point of theology seem in retrospect just to be about the exercise of power?

    Your question I just copied... My response: No; it is not just you who think this.

    Thanks. Good words.

    Appreciative,
    Phil Ebersole

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  3. Had a nice dinner with the Firlik family tonight, who sounded very excited about your blog. Chris says her favorite post so far is "Cliche Corner", and looking forward to one such picture at least once every month :)

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  4. One interesting thing to observe about the Church today is the decline in denominational differences (check out my article in October's issue of "Perspectives" to read about this and its relation to young adults).

    Growing up, I seem to remember at lot of older folks talking about the importance of staying faithful to a denomination, or cracking CRC/RCA jokes. But the majority of people my age I talk to don't strictly classify themselves as one denom or another, partly because they have been exposed to so many varied Christian experiences, partly (I think) because a lot falls under the bland veil of Christian (pop) culture unique to the USA, and partly because they lack the sort of fierce fidelity to denomination that their parents or grand parents had.

    When you look historically at the old Catholic or main-line Protestant churches in America, you actually see a common meeting place for an ethnic community - Dutch, Polish, Swedish people that needed a stronghold where they were assured of their own identity, and could meet people that believed and lived like them. I wonder if the tie between church and ethnic identity is part of what made fidelity to church and creed to important (In America, in the last hundred years or so).

    Phyllis Tickle's book "The Great Emergence" posits that we are beginning to see the end of denominational differentiation as we know it. People have found that they need and benefit from the way that other folks in the Church do things. (Orthodox and Evangelicals are getting together; Catholics and Mennonites,too). Causes me to wonder if it has in some part to do with the fact that church-goers are no longer immigrants or first-generation Americans, but third or fourth or fifth. I'm not sure if we can all just "get along", but I second Tickle, and I think you're right -- the differences that separated us in the first place no longer hold their significance today. In a way, maybe this is a push toward us all "getting along".

    Your comment on power by the way, I also found very good.

    Thanks for this!

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  5. To respond to Amanda, I have found it very interesting to come to the Midwest and attend church/experience the great differences in the churches and denominations, as it was not that way where I lived in Calif. There wasn't the vast sense of "differentness" or divison that I see here; I'm not sure whether it has to do with ethnic identity, but it makes sense based on what I've seen here in this area, but to me, it all goes along with the same kind of prejudice I see, not only with regard to race, but creed, color, sexuality, and even job title/status. People live much more segregated lives here than I ever saw in Ca. In terms of the splits in churches, I think power is one of the biggest reasons, as well as politics and differing agendas, which could all still boil down to exercise of power and who has it vs. who doesn't. I also think it has to do with people becoming Pharisaical, wanting to split hairs over "little" things, rather than actually dealing with the "real", maybe harder heart issue involved. I think the solution comes down to what Jesus said: 36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew. If we all really loved our neighbor as ourselves, I think we'd have a lot more people "playing nice" or getting along with each other. Also, to me, forgiveness is what will ultimately heal the splits. Anywhere they exist, whether in families,church, culture,country, or world. Great food for thought, Jeff.

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