Maybe you’ve noticed that the Sacramento News & Review has begun a new, regular page called “Higher Ground”, which features interviews with three faith community leaders each week.  The editors ask tough, real-life questions about ethical issues, and the religious “experts” offer opinions that the Review prints.  I really appreciate this community service, and effort to make inside-the-church thinking and culture more accessible to the wider community. 

I participated in one of the first weeks of this series, and the question the Review chose to publish our answers to was, “What advice would you give President Bush on the war in Iraq?”…so you can see, they’re not just letting the clergy participants off easy.  (You can find this interview in the June 28 issue of SN&R).  The later installments of this series have included equally thorny issues.  But the underlying editorial tone accompanying a number of these pieces has been that we clergy are sometimes reluctant to express strong opinions or positions that express a solid moral compass.  And if I’m reading that tone correctly, I think it’s fair criticism.  Because the Church has so long been associated with judgment and condemnation, many of the clergy I know (and I include myself in this statement) are reluctant to say anything that might sound judgmental or offensive. 

James Forbes, the recently-retired Senior Minister from Riverside Church in New York City, recently spoke to pastors at a conference in Nashville, Tennessee.  He asked them to turn to the people sitting next to them and to talk for a few minutes about what they believed God was mad about in our world.  I wasn’t there, but I have read that the auditorium was thunderous for several minutes; no one there had any trouble thinking of things that God might be unhappy with in our world.  When the audience’s attention was called back to the front, Forbes asked “Then why aren’t you talking with your congregations about those things?” 

And his assumption is right.  Mostly we don’t talk in the Church about even the things that we’re sure are making God furious, or are breaking God’s heart, because they’re things we know people in our congregations have different opinions about.  And the truth is, we clergy are often more worried about offending people than we are about disappointing God. 

Learning to talk with one another about the things we feel deeply and differently about, without breaking our relationships, would be a very good thing.  But it will take practice, which—by definition—includes lots of mistakes, lots of stepping on one another’s toes, lots of effort, and lots of forgiveness. 

But wouldn’t it be good to be able to talk honestly about the things that we think are breaking God’s heart?