A Dirty Word in Church

 

You are probably wondering what word I’m going to drop here.  You may be disappointed, but it really is a dirty word in church.

The words is ‘but.’

We all use the word ‘but’ which literally means ‘on the contrary.’

We have all used the words, “I’m sorry,” and by themselves they are an apology.  When we say, “I’m sorry, but,” it is now a justification.  We all do this.  Check yourself the  next time you say, “I’m sorry,” and see if you add the word, ‘but’ to it.

Or, “I love you.  But.”  It really means, I don’t love you very much.

Whenever we use the word ‘but,’ we are saying, ‘on the contrary.’  “I loved the movie.”  But.

But is a dirty word in church.

“You are welcome here.”  “But.”

I sometimes wonder what the word but means in this context.  You are welcome here, but we don’t like your views on things very much.  Or your sexual orientation.  Or your political viewpoints.  Or your race, though churches are very clever in how they deal with this.  Or your economic status.  Or, you are a sinner and we church folks are not.

You are welcome here, but you need to get ‘fixed,’ to be just like us.

Which means, that you are not really welcome here.  You are welcome  here; on the contrary….

“You are welcome to have an important role in our church, but…”  This is generally aimed at women.  You are welcome to have an important role in our church but your lack of a penis means you are going to be limited in what you say, who you say it to, and what you do.  On the contrary, you are less important than we males are.

I have read and listened to a lot of the arguments about excluding women in leadership roles in churches.  They all seem to have the same premise.  We do not want women in leadership roles in churches so we are going to make things up and take history and the Bible out of context to ‘prove’ our point.  These arguments are really good.  But….  They are actually bogus.  They really are.

I have been pondering this a great deal of late.  We in the United Church of Christ don’t always recognize what we have.  When we say, “No matter who you are, you are welcome here,” we mean it.  We never add the word ‘but’ to the end of the sentence.

We are called radicals and crazy.

I think we are merely being a church of Christ.