An Observation From My Recent Worship Wanderings

These past few months I have been ‘visiting’ many different churches, thanks to virtual or YouTube’s worship services and the requirement of not gathering because of COVID. I must confess that I like visiting various Churches of different denominations and experiencing their worship styles. This ‘visiting’ practice has greatly enlarged my sense of worship. I have never considered myself a great preacher or even a student of great preaching. Nevertheless, there is one thing that I have noticed in my recent worship wanderings. It is difficult to find sermons that have a primary focus on national, social, or cultural concerns or what I would call the peace and justice issues. Things like our anxieties of the gay and transgendered issue; cultural or systemic racial prejudices; our anxieties about the foreigner or immigration policies; etc. The sermons that I have found seem primarily focused with personal or individual issues such as: hope, peace, forgiveness, redemption, joy, etc. There is nothing wrong with these issues. Who does not want these qualities? However, these qualities are also related to our larger world; not just me, my family, and our well-being. We are connected to each other. When one of us is hurting, all of us are hurting. The answer to the Biblical question, “Am I my brother’s (and sister’s) keeper?”, is “Yes.” Unfortunately, I have not yet found much of this from my recent ‘worship wanderings.’ I think it may have been William Sloane Coffin, former Pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, who said that he would stop preaching about social issues when politicians stopped making laws that affected God’s children. I believe in the separation of Church and partisan politics but not a hard separation of Church and State because we are in this world together.

Right To Life, cont'd

I am also a right-to-life believer when I think of the environment. We are killing ourselves and each other when we ignore the destruction of the environment which holds life in a delicate balance created by God. We must respect that delicate balance and not destroy the environment for the gain of cheaper oil/gas and lumber so that greater profits can be made for the large companies and our stock market portfolio and/or so that we can drive very large, gas-guzzling automobiles and live-in larger houses. I am a right-to-life believer in that I do not support the death penalty. The government does not have the right to take a life any more than to think a government can create a life. I am a right-to-life believer as I believe every person needs a salary from honest work that permits them to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which includes adequate food, clothing, and shelter. When large companies pay millions to their leaders who then say the company can only pay $11 per hour for those who help make them their millions, something is wrong and, I believe it is at right-to-life issue. My desire is that we are consistent when we use the phrase “right-to-life” and not make it a bumper sticker for only one issue, however important that one issue may be.

Right To Life

I believe in ‘right-to-life.’ I do not think abortions are to be used as birth control. Nevertheless, I do think that abortion is to be available to women and their families for those situations when to continue the pregnancy is a risk to the mother’s life; the fetus cannot live outside of the womb; the pregnancy is the result of rape and/or incest. I think such abortions are to be done in hospitals with Physician’s surgical assistance. I am a right-to-life believer if the mother chooses to carry to birth a child who is handicapped then the ‘government,’ and that means all of us, are to provide the necessary support, including financial, as that child and family develops.