A picture of what could be

In reading about George Washington, his decision not to seek a third term as President, and his Farewell Address to the American people as he prepared to step out of the spotlight, one characteristic of Washington’s stood out to me. Washington painted a picture of what could be for America. I am prone to point out the problems with where we are as a church, but I doubt I have ever presented a compelling vision of where we could be one day. In Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph Ellis had this to say about Washington’s Farewell Address:

“Throughout the Farewell Address Washington had been exhorting Americans to think of themselves as a collective unit with a common destiny. To our ears, it sounds so obvious because we occupy the future location that Washington envisioned. But his exhortations toward national unity were less descriptions than anticipations, less reminders of the way we were than predictions of what could become. Indeed, the act of exhorting was designed to enhance the prospect by talking about it as if it were a foregone conclusion, which Washington most assuredly knew it was not. In the end, the Farewell Address was primarily a great prophecy, accompanied by advice about how to make it come true.”

Ellis is basically saying that Washington used his Farewell Address to paint a picture of an America that he believed in, not the America that actually existed. Washington’s portrait of the future of America drew people into a vision of what could be for our country. The America of Washington’s day faced many obstacles, and while we often look back and assume that America could have taken no other shape, the future of America hung in the balance at numerous points in our country’s infancy. What the country needed perhaps more than a thorough analysis of all the obstacles in her way was a compelling vision of what she could become.

We all know that the church in America faces a laundry list of pitfalls and obstacles. We can all rant and rave about the problems in the church, and I have probably done my far share of ranting. And while we need prophetic voices to tell us where we fall short, our more desperate need just might be a vision of what we could become. One of my many shortcomings as a pastor has been spending too much time on the problems and not enough time on the vision of what we can be. We hurt ourselves when we ignore the problems, but we also damage ourselves when we only focus on the problems and never look at the wonderful future that could become a reality. May God give us a vision of how beautiful Christ’s Bride can be, and may we hold up that vision until people really begin to believe that God can make that promise come true.

I’d rather be the Quakers

In Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph Ellis discusses the state of slavery in the early years after the formation of the American nation. It seems that in 1790, slavery had become “the memorable family secret, or the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room.” Southern states were dependent on slavery for economic reasons, while some Northern states were already making slavery illegal. As a nation, the states had compromised on the issue of slavery, essentially agreeing to put off any debate on slavery until a later date, pretending like the problem did not exist. But the lack of discussion about slavery by no stretch of the imagination meant the country was unified on the issue.

In 1790, however, a few Quakers brought the slavery debate onto the floor of Congress. Representatives from the Southern states were incensed that the slavery question was even being discussed. They threatened that the abolition of slavery would lead to the dissolution of the new American nation, that they would secede from the Union. Many from the Northern states were content to allow the continuation of slavery for the sake of peace and unity. But some, including these Quakers, were not content to allow the continued compromise of slavery.

History tells us that the stance of the Quakers in 1790 was futile. While, as Ellis says, slavery violated the promise of freedom for all inherent in the American Revolution, the slavery debate would not be settled in America for over 70 years, and then only through a bloody Civil War. The Quakers of 1790 would not be around to see the end of slavery in this country or the reward for their efforts. Ultimately the abolitionist efforts of the Quakers would be thwarted, and Americans would agree to do nothing about the problem of slavery in 1790 for fear of ripping apart the fledging union between the states.

I by no means want to compare the problems in the church today to the evils of slavery, but I think some churches today have settled for a “happy” compromise, a silent agreement not to talk about the problems we are facing. We know we are not unified, but we think that if we just don’t bring the issues to the table, then we will find the unity we are seeking. And so we don’t talk about issues like worship style, we ignore the fact that we are not making disciples of all nations, and we often simply pretend like the problems in our churches don’t exist. We feel that by refusing to address the problems head on, we will keep the church unified, avoid fights, and keep long time members from leaving our churches, just as putting off the slavery debate in 1790 would keep Southern states from seceding from the Union.

While this analogy might be strained at points, certain parallels do exist. By not facing the problem of slavery in 1790, and by compromising on what we now see as a moral evil, the union was kept in tact. It’s just that the country really wasn’t unified. When the slavery issue finally came up again, it would take a massive Civil War to settle the issue once for all, followed by many years of racial tensions and violence. Pushing the debate off the table and a compromising on slavery in 1790 really didn’t solve the problem, and perhaps created even bigger problems for future generations to face.

The end of slavery in America was a long and painful process. Change often is. The change needed in many churches today will also likely come only as a result of a long, perhaps painful, process. But here’s the thing. I’d rather be the Quakers. I’d rather be the one pushing the debate forward. It might mean that I lose, that I never get to see the results of the process in my time, whether in my lifetime or in my term of service at a church. But unless we have those Quakers pushing the debate forward, we’ll likely never get where we need to be. We can always settle for compromise and the façade of unity, but failing to address the issues in front of us will likely only create bigger problems in the future.