The Accidental Anglican

The Fragmented World of "Special Interest" Christianity

After reading a hilarious Beliefnet post on women's ministry from Orthodox Christian author Frederica Mathewes-Green, I couldn't help but think about how I feel about singles ministry … and, by extension, all special interest ministries.

I'm always amused when (mostly married) churchgoers exclaim when inviting me to their church: "We've got a great singles ministry!"  It’s usually the first thing out of their mouths when they know I’m not married.

Granted, it's a pretty popular concept.  Google shows 59,100 hits for the phrase "singles ministry."  Who knew the church's main duty to its single members was to arrange holy hook-ups?

Much of this obsession, I think, came out of the alarm the evangelical church sounded about cultural threats to the family.  Family ministries were created, divorce care groups sprang up, and activities for children and youth came to center stage.  Churches were rushing to fill the void.  And that was a good thing.

But this Special Interest Christian virus has begun infecting the entire church.  When I was growing up Southern Baptist, Sunday School classes were divided by age groups - first children, then adults.  Later, the “singles” vs. “married adults” classes started up.  Now, the larger the church, the more ways they find to separate parishioners by some external criteria.  Churches don’t talk to human beings anymore - they talk to demographics.

This was brought home to me recently while watching a televised sermon called "Cultivating Contentment at Home."  Despite being based on the writings of Mr. Sanctified Singleness himself, the Apostle Paul, every alliterated point was directed at "the family" (always said with a reverent hush).

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why this sermon was so specifically addressed to the family.  Since when is contentment a family-only virtue?

Meanwhile, messages addressed to singles almost always fall into three categories:

1. The "just don't do it" sermon (we all know what that one's about);
2. The "how to prepare for marriage" sermon; and
3. The "we're going to talk to all you single adults today so you don't feel left out" sermon (my personal favorite)

The biggest tragedy I've ever seen come out of this special interest mentality occurred at my father's church.  The new senior pastor, fresh off a run at youth ministry, came in all fired up about creating a "faith family" (there's that f-word again) geared toward young couples with children.  Unfortunately, anyone not fitting his template (25-40, married, 2-3 kids - in other words, just like him) didn't make the cut.  And it was a point he was not shy about making publicly, either.  Most of the senior citizens, confused and hurt by his betrayal, drifted away to another church down the street.

Don't get me wrong.  I think it's important that we identify - and attempt to meet - special needs within our congregations.  But in doing so, we should remember that, as people created in God's image, we're all a lot more alike than we are different.  We should be bringing people together, not separating them.

Not everyone buys into the "special interest Christian" zeitgeist.  Newly-married Lauren F. Winner (author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath) has written a book called Real Sex about the Christian virtue of chastity.  In it, Winner addresses the entire Christian community - single and married - and talks about chastity as a spiritual discipline for every life stage and situation. 

In other words, it's not just about no sex before marriage or not committing adultery.  It's about using sexuality - in its totality - in Christ-honoring ways in the context of Christian community.  It's a larger view than you typically get from youth group abstinence pledges and wives laying hands on their husbands' eyes and praying for male self-control (I am not making that up).

It’s refreshing to be talked to as if I'm a human being and not a statistical anomaly.  I just wish the church would do it more often.

Post-publication note (5/23/05): And now for something completely different ... just in the interest of "equal time," here's a negative review of Winner's book. At least it's an interesting opinion ...

A Season of Loss

As I write this, I am bracing myself for another loss ... one more in a series I've experienced recently.

May is turning into a month of loss for me.  I lost my mother to lupus on May 11, 1981.  I lost my father to dementia and Parkinson's 21 years later, to the day.  And now, again in May, I am losing my stepmom to cancer. 

Back in February, I entered my stepmother's home after a frantic call from one of her neighbors.  Her normally chatty personality had been replaced by a foggy, far-off voice that barely responded to even the simplest inquiries. 

I found her lying on her bed, splattered with vomit and delirious.  The rest of the evening was filled with ambulances, emergency rooms, and desperate cell phone calls to her out-of-state adult children.

The diagnosis: glioblastoma multiforme, one of the most common -- and deadliest -- brain tumors.  The prognosis: two months -- if we were lucky.

Surgery, weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, and as much hope as we could muster bought us nearly three months of time.  Time to visit, go to lunch, shop -- time to be with family and friends.  Time to say goodbye.  We were amazed by her stamina, her good cheer, so much so we were lulled into complacency.

That complacency ended abruptly on Mother's Day.  My cell phone began to vibrate during Bible Study hour that day, the urgent call coming from her daughter.  She's fallen, she's got a horrific headache, and she may have had a seizure, she said.  Can you go check on her?

Sure, I responded.  Another afternoon in an emergency room, another CT scan, some more blood tests.  After aggressive radiation and state-of-the-art chemo, the tumor was unchanged in size.  But that didn't necessarily mean anything.  GBMs are notorious for sending out malignant tentacles into surrounding brain tissue.  The tumor had progressed in spite of our efforts.

The same woman who two weeks before was shopping with her son and daughter-in-law with little fatigue is now sleeping 16 to 20 hours a day.  One side of her face is swollen grotesquely.  The one eye she can still open stares back at us with questions we can't always decipher, let alone answer.

She knows we're there and can sometimes respond.  Mostly, though, she is mute, taking everything in and keeping her own counsel.

The word "hospice" is being whispered in the hallways of her once immaculately-kept home.   Relatives are being driven or flown in.  I'm told that the next two to four weeks will be grisly.

I am reminded of what Jesus said to Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galillee: "I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." (John 21:18) 

But what is amazing is the following verse: "Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, 'Follow me!'"

And the whole thing is preceded by another command: "Feed my sheep!"

"[T]he kind of death by which Peter would glorify God" seems an odd way to view the spectre of an old man dying, not in the "dignified" way we moderns seek after, but in weakness and pain.  Even reading it through the traditional lens of Peter's martyrdom doesn't really help one escape the text.

This whole "death that glorifies God" thing will be a difficult lesson.  And I don't really expect to learn all of it this go-round.  It seems to be one of those things that takes a lifetime to understand.  What will "glorifying God" through this really mean?

I suspect, in part, it means that all of our relationships -- stepsiblings, generations, family and medical professionals -- will be sorely tested.  Compassion will surely be needed in large quantities.   So will patience.  And forgiveness.

It's all a little too big for me to wrap my brain around now.  And I'm going to have to be okay with that.