In about a month (Sept. 8-9), a national conference will take place in Raleigh, North Carolina, called Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming The Church. In the spirit of setting up revival tents to see where the Spirit is moving, this conference is gathering voices together to explore what it means to be the body of Christ – all of us under one big tent. And yes, I’ll be perfectly honest, there are a lot of Christian voices not represented (or woefully underrepresented) at this conference. I hope that at the conference the fact that not everyone is included under the big tent is humbly acknowledged. But the conversation is important nonetheless and holds the potential for helping the church as a whole embrace our diversity and differences.
This post is part of a Synchroblog meant to jumpstart the conversation regarding what this “big tent Christianity” looks like. Participants in this synchroblog were asked to reflect on – “what does “big tent Christianity” mean to you? What does it look like in your context? What are your hopes and dreams for the Church?” There are dozens of different ways I can think of to respond to those questions, but what really resonates the most with me is the idea that big tent Christianity holds no place for fear.
In Psalm 23, when David speaks of how God guides, protects, and comforts him, he mentions that God prepares a table for him in the presence of his enemies. This isn’t some twisted comfort through schadenfraude or mockery of others – this is being able to sit at a table with one’s enemies and share a meal in peace. This is an image of what it will be like in the New Heaven and the New Earth when the entire body of Christ sits down at the banquet table of the lamb. Unitarians and Baptists. Catholics and Fundamentalists. Emergents and Neo-reformed. We will all eventually sit next to each other in peace.
I don’t say that to imply that our differences are insignificant or our theologies unimportant, but to affirm that we have no reason to fear the presence of the other. We can exist under this tent together.
But all too often we avoid even listening to the voices of others for fear that they might corrupt us, or (worse) confuse us. We want to hold on so tightly to our little piece of the truth that we demonize everyone else and inoculate ourselves against their influence. So there are college students who are told (usually by their youth pastors) to stay far away from Bible and religion classes in college for fear that all that historical criticism will affect their faith. They fear any knowledge that might force them to change. Or there are the pastors who get fired from their church for having a book by an emergenty author on their shelves. Fear of new ideas creeping in shuts down the pursuit of knowledge or the ability to question. At our old church, we were taken to task for exposing the youth there to different Christian traditions because it might cause them to choose to be something other than Baptist. There was fear of anything but the known. And many fear listening to the voices of postcolonial, or liberation, or feminist theologians for fear these voices of the margins might challenge the way things have always been (as defined by one’s particular western tradition).
Instead of learning from each other and admitting that we all follow our own particular and highly imperfect cobbled-together streams of Christian tradition, we demonize each other out of fear. We make up words like heresy or syncretism to avoid having to actually listen to those around us. We have lost the ability to value what we value and yet still sit and break bread with those with whom we disagree. This Christianity looks like a bunch of small tents scattered across a plain, each trying to keep its distance from the other and to defend its territory at all costs.
So that’s why I love the idea of a big tent Christianity. It represents the place where we can come as we are (with beliefs fully intact yet held humbly) into a place where fear is banished and we can sit in peace with even our so-called enemies at the table of the Lord. It’s where we can be the body of Christ.