"You do not belong here. But shame on you for not staying."

I use this title in reference to a blog post by Brian McLaren because I am wrestling this whole idea of leaving and staying that is a big part of the PC(USA) - my own particular denomination - and part of Christianity in general these days.  Perhaps it always has been.

As I understand it, the author of a letter to McLaren (and within that letter a letter to Father Kevin Miller in response to an article of his in Christianity Today) is stating that this is how he feels within the evangelical community - as though they do not want him, but disapprove of his desire to find a broader theology outside of the narrowness of the evangelical faith he grew up in.

I am currently serving on a Response Team that is tasked with listening to an evangelical congregation within my Presbytery that is seeking to leave the PC(USA).  Last night, along with another member of said team, I met with the leadership of that community.  While the Task Force that initiated this move is more firmly entrenched in and articulate about the decision to leave, the Elders, Deacons, and Trustees are certainly aligned with them, although perhaps less capable of arguing their position, which essentially comes down to: "we believe in the Bible and follow it and you (the PC(USA)) don't anymore."

I fundamentally disagree with that position, but that's not the point.  My team is charged with listening to and determining if the leadership and the congregation are with the Task Force in its views, not in providing a corrective to their theological position.  It greatly saddens me that this is where these people are, for they truly do appear to be people of strong faith trying to the best of their ability to live that faith out.  I disagree with it and with them - and their usage of Jesus' commandment to "Love God and neighbor" being interpreted in a way that excludes, a theological conundrum that I find it difficult to wrap my mind around - but I wonder if the PC(USA)'s desire to hold together those in unity who truly do not belong here has not been a poor decision.

I think we as a church have been on the other side of the same coin as evangelical churches who deny the full personhood of those GLBT individuals who have grown up in their churches and then chastise them for leaving.  Are we not doing the same when we tell the evangelical fundamentalists that they are wrong, but they should stay within a denomination that profoundly disagrees with them on this issue?

So it appears I am moving more and more toward acceptance of dissolution with those congregations that are not like-minded: in Yeats' words, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."  Perhaps it is time to stop trying to make them.