But I decline to be depressed and I have decided to look ahead to 2005 with excitement and anticipation. The Gospel,
you know, had never been in favor—not even during Christendom, when the institutional church was extremely powerful
and influential. In fact, Luther believed the Gospel is never more submerged, is never more traversed, than when the institutional
church becomes powerful. Christianity is not about the powerful and the righteous. It is a religion for the weak and the sinner.
It is meant to be a safe house in a hostile world.
So I have decided to do what I have always tried to do: be myself and speak the truth as I see it. I hope you will do
the same and will tell me when you think I’m wrong. That’s when it gets to be interesting. That’s when it
gets to be fun.
Charles Ives was an avant garde American composer at the turn of the 20th century. He wrote really crazy music that
I just love. It is difficult music (like life), very American, full of American cacophony. During his lifetime he heard very
little of it actually performed. It was not popular. He came into his own after his death. Today he is considered to be an
American master. He once said “If you want something played, write something you wouldn’t want played.”
Eventually, he stopped composing; he would rather not compose than write music he didn’t believe in.
Well, I’m not going to stop preaching and teaching just because the progressive or liberal
reading of the Gospel is out of favor. It is at times like this that our dissent is most needed. Gay people, for example,
are being sent a strong message that they should not expect to be treated as equals in our land and in most churches. That
makes our decision to be a welcoming place more crucial than ever before. Christianity is being portrayed in the media as
equivalent to fundamentalism. That makes it more crucial than ever before that we be a place where an alternative to hard,
unbending versions of Christianity is made available. Xenophobia is a real issue for America today, but at CTS, we welcome the stranger.
I think a healthy church and a healthy country needs a healthy, vibrant, intelligent dissent.
I’ve had a lot of practice. CTS is somewhat like Charles Ives’s music. A place for people who march to their own
drummer, people who raise questions, people who disagree, not only with the dominant message, but with each other—joyfully,
lovingly disagree. Here conservatives, moderates, and raging liberals come together. We argue about everything except the
fact that we believe in a God, revealed to us through Jesus of Nazareth, who shows us how to trump our disagreements with
his love. Our ultimate faith is that we are one family in Jesus Christ. Families fight and yet remain families. That is the
Good News. In a divided nation and a divided church, we are an important statement. 2005 could be a lot of fun!
Happy New Year,
—Pastor Bastien
Taken from Footnotes, January 2005
