The cross before me the world behind

I was born and raised in a devout Christian family. Not the type of family that is unrealistically conservative in their Bible thumping, but to parents that are global Christian leaders. They are educators: teaching at seminaries all over the globe, equipping future Christian leaders. They are pastors, preaching the gospel in every church and fellowship that they meet. They are missionaries, they supervise and create large missions in the third world that educate, clothe and feed orphans who otherwise would not know the love of Christ. They are mentors who lead forums, advise pastors, mediate seminars and present workshops on issues that our faith comes in contact with.

It amazes me that wherever we are, whatever the culture, context or zip code, we are always approached with the "Dr. Arles, I have read your book and….," or "Dr. Arles, please speak at our forum on the church's response to the 4-14 window."

For the past week, I have been my Dad's driver. We have been invited to the offices of various presidents and pastors from all realms of ministry, missions, seminaries and churches throughout Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

I'm currently sitting in the library of dad’s alma mater, Asbury Theological Seminary, in Wilmore Kentucky. Chapel today was inspirational. The worship was powerful and echoed through the halls of Estis Chapel. The message on the call to global missions by their new president, Dr. Timothy Tennent (who of course, knows my Dad), was thought-provoking. Then there was the lunch forum that featured a panel of President Tennent, Terry C. Muck - a former editor of Christianity Today, a scholar who is an expert on Sufism, and Dr. Arles. They tackled a plethora of questions on the topic of Christianity and Islam and the increasing concerns of Islam's growth in America.

It’s encouraging to hear outcry’s from these learned Christian communities about how perhaps we focus too much on going outside our borders to baptize the third world. Perhaps we are neglecting our own blatant struggles in our local Christian families. Perhaps we are ignoring the terrible division in our communities. Perhaps we have taken this beautiful Eastern-born religion, westernized it out of our own capabilities, and are now struggling to find our real identity. It’s clear for everyone to see that institutionalized religion has a horrible knack of corruption, exploitation, hatred and hurt. For centuries, our communities have struggled with it.

I don’t know what the purpose of this post is. My mind has just been buzzing with all these issues and my own thoughts and perspective on the church and its role.

By no means is my life a reflection of my parent’s piety. By no means am I to judge, or is anyone other than Yahweh to judge. I do not want to enter a seminary, and I constantly struggle with living up to Jesus’ standards. But I do have an opportunity to sift through my thoughts and express my feelings.

One thing I do believe in, is unity. One thing I love to witness, is unity in diversity. The beauty of my religion is that it is personalized. To my faith, it is a phenomenon in itself that Jesus is a unique being and different to a six-year old country boy on a Texas ranch, as he is to a 68 year old Nepalese lesbian.

But yet, despite that unique concept of Christianity, we have so much division. So much contradiction in our subjective perspectives on the Bible’s teachings seem to corrupt our faith. This was a concept that I have heard over and over. The repetitive call for a united front is old news.

Here in the Bible belt, this division is obvious. It’s common to stop at an intersection which has a church on each corner, each hailing from different denominations. The sad reality is that each church is struggling with numbers and with raising the funds to sustain it and yet the thought of unifying into one large church is deemed impossible.

Is that not madness? As you can tell, I struggle with this.