I belong to a local Christian community called First Presbyterian Church. Two years ago that community extended their trust to me. They asked if I would consider being ordained as an elder, a church office made up of men and women who provide spiritual support and leadership within the community. I was honored to be asked, and I gratefully accepted. As a part of the ordination ceremony, we were asked to answer these nine questions in the affirmative:

1. Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
2. Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God's word to you?
3. Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?
4. Will you fulfill your office in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and continually guided by our confessions?
5. Will you be governed by our Church's polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God's Word and Spirit?
6. Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?
7. Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the Church?
8. Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?
9. Will you be a faithful elder, watching over the people, providing for their worship, nurture and service? Will you share in government and discipline, serving in governing bodies of the church, and in your ministry will you try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ?

Acts 17:22-32
 

I'm a liberal. A big, blue "progressive." The kind that makes Glenn Beck cry about the state of our country, showering great, salty tears down his chalk-dusted cheeks. I'm not a moderate Democrat. I'm an ideological Democrat, and I'm teeming with all sorts of characteristically liberal beliefs about LGBT rights, progressive education, environmental protection, separation of church and state, unions, universal healthcare, religious tolerance, waging peace, amnesty, fair trade, market regulations, corporate responsibility, evolution, the United Nations, and on, and on, and on. I make phone calls and pass out stickers for Democratic politicians. I put Democratic candidates' signs on easements. I show up early to vote. I see the world through indigo-colored glasses, and I don't take these issues lightly.

Aaaand... I live in Oklahoma, "the Reddest State in the Nation" following the 2008 elections. We almost repeated our performance in the midterm elections last week, but Wyoming somehow managed to eke out a more Republican record. Barely. What's more, I am a member of largely conservative families, both the family that raised me and the family that allowed me to marry their lovely Em and has put up with me since. I am surrounded by conservatives - religious, political, social, and fiscal - which is why the next statements deserve their own space for emphasis:

I love them so much I can hardly stand it. I love the state of Oklahoma, and I love my conservative families.

This often surprises people, for some reason. Several of my fellow blue friends, even those who are somehow bound to Oklahoma by family or heritage, talk often of how they cannot wait to "escape." I understand their frustrations, and they frequently manage to speak quite eloquently about them. They want to be where they feel their voices are heard and their votes count. They don't expect everyone to agree with them, but they would like to be a part of a public conversation that isn't so one-sided.

One of my good friends, a professor at the university who happens to be a lesbian, is doing gender research in a particularly conservative part of the state. Those whom she interviews have no idea of her orientation since she neither publicizes it nor fits certain stereotypes. She regularly endures chauvinistic affronts and various insulting slurs for homosexuals from people who don't know her but feel comfortable using such vocabulary because they are certain everyone around them - including her - will tolerate it. For the sake of her research she has decided not to respond to the language, but she experiences every hateful word as deeply painful. She doesn't suffer from the delusion that there is any state or city where she could evade all potential offenses. She knows that there are misogynists and obnoxious people everywhere, but she has experienced something particular here that confounds her - that such language is common and overt. When I hear her describe these episodes I can sympathize with her and others who do not feel at home here.

I won't expand on a recent experience of a dear friend of mine who is Arab, other than to say he's had an interesting week since Oklahoma voted Yes on SQ 755. He's not Muslim, but he has had to endure the hate speech of fellow Oklahomans who interpret the color of his skin as a symbol of the caricature they have created to represent the Islamic faith.

Even our  most recent gubernatorial debates, which should have been a celebration of the advancement of women in our state, momentarily devolved into clichés about traditional women's roles when one of the candidates used her status as a "family" woman with a husband and children to distance herself from her opponent who has never been married nor had any children. Perhaps she didn't mean her remarks to be as belittling and accusatory as they were taken, but many Oklahomans who supported her candidacy seized the opportunity to rumor that her opponent was a lesbian and therefore unworthy of the position of governor. Many supporters who were unwilling to spread the lesbian fabrication were nonetheless prepared to gossip that she must be an impossible woman to love. Why else wouldn't she have a man in her life? This, too, was enough to justify the conclusion that she was unqualified for the job.


I share these recent anecdotes not because I believe they are indicative of all Oklahomans. If I thought that were the case, I would not remain here either. I share them simply to illustrate the very real frustrations of those who have had a difficult time adjusting to what has become a common discourse which is, like it or not, associated with so-called Republican, Christian, and Oklahoman perspectives. I share them to articulate the experiences of those who do not fit into the not-so-hidden privileged demographic of white, English-speaking, heterosexual, Christian, and male, all the while knowing full well that I am exactly the kind of person who is privileged in our society. My level of frustration cannot compare to theirs.


But I'm still here, and will be for a long time to come, because I know another Oklahoma. To be sure, I am quite familiar with the political and religious Oklahoma of their oft-justified fears and irritations. I voted for Jari Askins. I voted No on 755. I voted Yes on 744. I voted No on 751. Almost nothing I voted for last Tuesday went my way. Barring an improbable paradigm shift, future votes are also unlikely to make me very happy. However, the results of these questions and elections are not the only identifying marks of Oklahoma. The xenophobic, fundamentalist, and chauvinistic voices are not the only ones here. This wonderful state is also full of kind hearts, clear heads, and welcoming people who know how to disagree without alienating one another.


I mentioned my family earlier. While I disagree with them on many political matters, and a few religious ones, I have never experienced them as anything but careful with their motives and words, and ready for a thoughtful conversation about anything. This is not to say that we ever come to agreement or that we never unintentionally hurt one another's feelings. Conversations sometimes end with a comma rather than a period, and once in a while pauses for the sake of emotions, but this is indication that we are talking with each other rather than about each other. I have yet to hear anyone in my immediate family say a hateful word about someone with whom they disagree.


But beyond conversations, I love the Oklahoma that I've written about before here. It's the Oklahoma of my collected experiences. It's Good News Club in grandma's living room, shucking corn on grandad's tailgate, playing the piano in church, shooting baskets in the driveway, sharing a room with my generous brother, watching my sister become an artist, falling in love with my wife, listening to my dad quote his favorite poems, hearing my mom pray for her family, enjoying nieces and nephews, going back to college, strengthening my marriage. It's the Oklahoma of neighbors and hay stacks, Friday night football and county fairs, small towns and volunteer fire departments. I'm always surprised by the one or two glimpses of painted buntings each year, and I'm blown away by the November perse of Winged Elms. I'm a sucker for the gradual transition from Ozark foothills to tallgrass prairie. I love those stretches of road that allow for a miles-long gaze in every direction, eyes moving over fields of corn and fresh cut alfalfa. I have to catch my breath every time I see a pasture full of buffalo. This is my home.


My hopes for Oklahoma have little to do with coming to a political agreement. (Though, if it were to become blue, or at least a little purple, relatively soon I wouldn't mind.) Rather, my hopes are that everyone would experience the same welcome, neighborliness, beauty and simplicity that I have been given all of my life. It doesn't seem impossible to imagine an Oklahoma where my Arab friends, as well as my friends who are actually Muslim, feel perfectly at ease. Nor is it difficult to imagine an Oklahoma where prejudiced epithets of any sort are not tolerated in public or behind closed doors. This isn't about apocalyptic visions of lions and lambs laying down or beating our swords into plowshares. This is something much less complicated. This is about an Oklahoma that is already alive and well but seems to be hidden from view at times.


I'm here for the long haul. This is my place. I hope we will be hospitable to any and all who cast their lot with us, regardless of our differences.

I'm a member of a church that locates itself within the Reformed tradition. We belong to a lineage of protesters and activists. The early Protest-ants in Europe spoke forcefully against what they understood to be abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. Powerful religio-political interests were abusing their medieval authority in order to fill the coffers of kings and bishops alike by "selling" forgiveness in the form of indulgences, which were Pope-approved remissions of the due punishment in purgatory that remained even after receiving absolution. One could purchase an indulgence for one's self, a loved one, or even someone already deceased and in purgatory. Needless to say, in a time of such uncritical acceptance of the Church's teaching and unquestioned loyalty to the Church's prerogative, the sale of indulgences was an easy way to rob the masses. It was primarily in response to the sale of indulgences that Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenburg Church. He was attempting to reform the practices of Catholicism, but was instead excommunicated from the Church he so loved. Other magisterial reformers like Philipp Melanchthon, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wycliffe, and Ulrich Zwingli, as well as those who belonged to the radical reformation like Sebastian Franck, Menno Simons, and John of Leiden sought to re-form or re-imagine the Church in response to issues related to worship, matters of church and state relations, doctrine, and various abuses of power. These men, along with many women like Katharina von Bora (a nun who married Martin Luther), Elisabeth Cruciger, Elisabether von Brandenburg, Walpurga Bugenhagen, and countless nameless others, actively opposed the religious abuses of their day.

(It is important to note here that the Protestant Reformation certainly had its own troubles and abuses of power. Michael Servetus, for instance, was a participant in the Reformation but after developing a non-trinitarian Christology was burned at the stake in Geneva by order of a Protestant governing council and in cooperation with John Calvin. Indeed, the Reformation, like all historical religious movements, was a reflection of the flaws of the human heart as much as it was an attempt to rise to that same heart's highest ideals.)

What is unfortunate is that many denominations are content to describe themselves as Reformed in the past tense, as if all of the re-creative work has been done and nothing is left to re-form. It is common for churches, as well as individual Christians, to define their present identity exclusively in terms of past experiences. The many churches whose ancestors risked their lives in challenging the status quo often become perpetuators of the same, defending socio-religious constructions of "normal" for the sake of superficial forms of solidarity, respect of custom, or even commitment to a particular accepted interpretation of creed or scripture. Within this context, they may promote a willingness to change certain fashions - accepting state-of-the-art technology, adapting to new musical tastes or preferences, or updating religious jargon to include changes in modern vocabulary and usage. But these general shifts with the times are hardly tributes to an activist religious tradition which seeks to read theological texts subversively, to engage culture critically, to speak truth to privileged interests, and to give voice to those marginalized by imprudent devotion to established practices.

A church that is Reforming, rather than Reformed, will not only define itself by what it is against (Protest-ant) but will also actively dedicate itself to what it is for. The Church for far too long has been known only as an antagonistic organization rather than as a fiercely reconciling and redeeming organism. Have you ever seen the way a tree will grow around barbed-wire? It overcomes the barrier, incorporates the danger, transcends and includes the restraint and makes the barbs its own. This is what a Reforming religion does. It continues to grow, to expand, to mature beyond any obstacle. Rather than remaining static, or retreating to a safer, more familiar state, it continually transforms (re-forms) itself and everything it contacts. What if the Church became know for - in deed as well as in word - the promotion of human rights, just economic standards, equitable treatment of marginalized people, peace, scientific discovery, a moral standard that begins and ends with the Golden Rule, and a theological standard which reflects the essence of the same?

Neither Reformed churches who retreat into ritualism nor those churches who proudly abandon tradition as if it were the plague succeed in honoring our shared story and the Gospel of the Kingdom. A Re-forming Church will humbly embrace its own history and traditions and will also critically advance into the future with passion and enthusiasm, always seeking first the ways in which the Kingdom of God is re-creating earthly empires, including the empires of Religion.