More Brethren Identity

My longer response to the talk by Stewart Hoover at the 300 year anniversary gathering in Pennsylvania:

I listened to the opening address by Stewart Hoover and found it interesting. Some of it is a restatement of what is familiar knowledge - we are losing denomination identity and authority; people identify with particular communities of faith and they are, as individuals, their own authority. They pick and choose pieces of this and that and put together their own meaningful spiritual identity.

I thought his insight was helpful on the way popular culture has made a commodity of Christian symbols like the cross. It was interesting to me the way he juxtaposed pop-singer Madonna and what she has done with the cross - and the non-response it has gotten - against what Irish singer Sinead did a few years ago on a SNL skit when she sang an irish protest song and then tore up a picture of the pope. Sinead was booed off the stage and then subsequently booed off the stage of her concerts until she apologized. Hoover's point: the pope was a more meaningful symbol of Christianity to young people than the cross. He was a living symbol; the cross, then, has become a "dead" symbol? Or one that has lost some of its power? In any case, it seems true that we have lost control of our symbols in popular culture.

I was less convinced by Hoover's comments at the end of his discussion about what we do as Brethren to clarify our identity - our symbol. He suggested that we, in essence, sold our soul down the river during the last 50 years by either trying to become identified with evangelicals or mainline churches. Our distinctive Brethren identity has been lost. But how do we get it back? If I heard him correctly he suggested that in the midst of the culture wars between Christians and Muslims who think we need to battle it out, the Brethren - with our memory of what it is like when religion is too closely wed to political power and with our commitment to the peace position - have a contribution to make by getting both sides of the culture war to listen and talk to each other. For those who heard the talk, is this a correct interpretation of what he said?

Assuming it is, I think there is some merit to this. He is certainly correct, I believe, that both sides of the culture war are wrong. But I am not convinced that this will help us clarify our identity vis a vis other mainline churches. As far as I can tell it is also the position of the Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, and every other mainline denomination that I can think of - and Jim Wallis too - to call for an end to the culture wars and a healthy respect for the separation of church and state. It is in my view the right place to be, but it doesn't set us apart.

What does? One thought I have is that somehow our Brethren ancestors managed to convince some radical pietists that there was merit in getting together in community. How did they do it? The spirit of the age today is radically pietist. It is intensely personal; each person is on a journey, finding the spiritual path that works for them. This can be fairly threatening to "traditional" Christianity because it invariably means today that non-Christian elements or non-orthodox Christian elements are in the mix. (And it was threatening to orthodox Christianity then too.) But this is where spiritual expression is going for now (who knows for how long) and it is where many young people are at who distrust traditional Christianity as practiced by denominations. How do we convince these modern-day pietists that there is value in getting together in community? We once figured out a way to blend those two sides of spiritual expression together and that as much as our commitment to service and peace shaped our identity. Can we do it again?