You never know what will catch you’re attention. This morning I was looking at the United Church of Christ web site (I check all the major mainline denominations every day, to see what new zaniness might be out there), and came upon a promotional video for “Our Church’s Wider Mission” (OCWM), the UCC mission offering. It’s eight minutes long, and trumpets the mission work of the UCC in what it calls “plain talk.” It’s really a remarkable presentation.
There’s a lot of talk about what the UCC does and where OCWM dollars go, about all the good works being done, the people being helped, the injustices being fought (no specifics given on that last, of course). The most amazing thing about it is that with one single exception (a reference to “God’s big church”), one would never know that God had anything to do with all the good things the UCC does. The denomination is “changing lives,” it’s “fighting injustice,” it’s helping disaster victims, it’s doing all kinds of things without God having anything to do with it, apparently. The word “church” is used repeatedly, and there’s a reference to “worship services” as one of the things done by the local church, but other than that, the video could just as easily be explaining the work of FEMA or U.S. AID or ACORN or Amnesty International or the Shriners or government social workers. Based on the evidence of this video, there’s no gospel in what OCWM does, except of the most generic humanitarianism. And yet, according to the person in charge at OCWM, this was all the rage at the recent General Synod:
“Conference ministers were stopping me every 15 minutes at Synod asking ‘When can we have that?,’” says the Rev. Jane Heckles, the UCC’s minister for OCWM. “They’re looking forward to using this video as a means to explain how giving builds partnerships across all settings of the church.”
They may be “building partnerships,” and I’m sure they’re helping folks in need. Since that’s all they’re doing, I suppose it makes sense that they don’t need God to get involved. He’d just mess up a good thing, anyway.
July 21, 2009 at 12:02 pm
God bless the UCC! They have done more to advance justice and follow Christ than any other American Christian denomination.
July 21, 2009 at 12:14 pm
They are following someone, that’s for sure. From this video, however, it would be impossible to say who.
July 21, 2009 at 3:58 pm
“They may be “building partnerships,” and I’m sure they’re helping folks in need.”
I’m pretty sure they’re causing more harm than help anyway. But both are happening.
July 21, 2009 at 6:07 pm
You may well be right. I thought I’d give them the benefit of the doubt on stuff like disaster relief, not knowing otherwise.
July 22, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Ah, right. If you don’t say the magic words, you’re not really following God.
Not only must we control people’s actions, but their thoughts and words too, eh? Good luck with that. LOL
July 22, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I wasn’t looking for a formula. I was looking for some indication that this was being done by Christians rather than people acting on generalized humanitarianism.
July 22, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Alan
Doing good works does not make you a Christian or even a good person. Christians are enjoined to do good works as an outpouring of the gifts that God gives us. The disconnect in the UCC message is a lack of recognition or thanks that God is the author of our being and that out of that sense of thankfulness comes our inspiration to do good works. Our Lord commanded us to take care of widows, orphans, prisoners and, indeed, all in our community. It would be good if a group that claims to be Christian would at least give due honour to our Lord as the source and inspiration for the acts of charity shown in the presentation.
We are called to be humbly bold in sharing our good news with the world. This means that we must not equivocate nor cloak our Christian message in order to do good in the world.
July 22, 2009 at 10:34 pm
” was looking for some indication that this was being done by Christians rather than people acting on generalized humanitarianism.”
And I suspect that, even if they’d mentioned God every other word, you’d have found something else to complain about. It’s the UCC after all.
“Doing good works does not make you a Christian ….”
Didn’t say it did. But then, neither, we are told, does shouting “Lord! Lord!”