SHOW UP. LISTEN. TELL THE TRUTH

44 VIRGINIA SEMINARY JOURNAL Fall 2009 45

2009 Zabriskie LecturesLecture II

SHOW UP. LISTEN. TELL THE TRUTH: A Praxis Perspective on Christian Education in a Pluralistic World.

Lecturer: Elisabeth M. Kimball, Ph.D.Director of the Center for the Ministry of Teaching at Virginia Theological Seminary

and Professor of Christian Formation and Educational Leadership

Every so often the qualitative researcher in me slips and can’t help analyzing the data of my own life – looking for themes, patterns, understanding. One theme that seems to

meet the necessary quality standards of credibility, transferabil-ity, dependability, and confirmability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) is translator or “bridge-person” – a particularly appropriate meta-phor in the context of Eboo’s presentation yesterday.

• I grew up as an only child – reaching beyond my age into an adult world and often translating between two parents.• I grew up as an American living overseas. • I spent my freshman year – more accurately my Frosh year (it was 1976 and feminist language had its grip on Stanford vernacular) – living in Casa Zapata – a gringo demonstrating with the Farm Workers and being invited to all white frater- nity parties on the weekends (Note: I never had the nerve to go to one!)• As an Episcopal youth minister in my 20s I was consistently the only woman, the only non-guitar-player, and the only Episco-what? active in the local youth ministry network.• I am a passionate advocate for children and youth in church and beyond – at City Hall and in congregations – I work hard to clear the way for young people to be seen and heard.• I am a lay professional in the Church. • I am an unapologetically Christian person on a public university social work faculty. • I straddle the academy and community practice.• I work to strengthen the connections between formal and informal education.• And of course, in this setting, I am an academic with widely interdisciplinary interests.

And it is from the posture of bridge-person that I want to offer my perspective today on an Episcopal response to living in a religiously pluralistic age.

My thesis is simple: rising religious pluralism presents an oppor-tunity the Episcopal Church desperately needs – to have a reason compelling enough to re-imagine what it means to be Christian and Episcopal today. To enter the arena of interreligious dialogue and action with integrity requires having a clear religious faith to contribute. The process of nurturing mature, clear faith requires intentionality and resolve among church leaders, and an expan-sive understanding of lifelong Christian education. If we choose to focus on developing vibrant Christian faith in our congrega-tions and in our homes – building up those muscles of religious identity Eboo referred to yesterday – we will equip people of all ages with the religious confidence to engage constructively and compassionately in our multicultural and multi-faith world. If we do not focus on high quality Christian education our denomina-tion will continue to shrink, our theological preparedness for interfaith engagement will be compromised, and I believe we will have failed God as stewards of the gifts we have been given.

And there’s another serious risk. As Karen Armstrong points out in her newest book, The Case for God (2009) despite the dire projections of the late 20th century, the world is currently experi-encing a religious revival. Religion is not going to disappear but there is a very real chance that, unchallenged, it could succumb to the violent and intolerant strain of extremism. Armstrong borrows the Buddhist image of “unskillful” to describe such religious expression. I am tempted to call it evil.

I cannot think of a more urgent or filled-with-potential opportuni-ty for the Episcopal Church than to take seriously our place in the inter-religious landscape of the 21st century because it requires us to reexamine our foundations. To enter into faithful, ethical engagement with people and institutions of varied religious and no religious traditions requires us to be well prepared. We need to have a faith to bring to the interfaith table. We need to know who we are religiously. An inherited, unexamined tradition – however beautiful – is not enough. Vague ideas about Moses and Jesus

Alumni Convocation REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM VIRGINIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY


youth and one parent in over 3300 house-holds across the country, and personal in-depth interviews with a sub-sample of the surveyed youth.)

The study found that the vast majority of American teenagers are “exceedingly conventional” and the majority are content to follow the faith of their families with little questioning (Smith, 2002, p.120). Adolescent patterns of religiosity closely mirrored those of adults. The majority of 12th graders in the United States — about two-thirds — do not appear to be alien-ated from or hostile toward organized or established religion. Like adults, about

and justice won’t help. Hiding behind beautiful Elizabethan liturgies and elegant hymnody won’t work. Being open and curious and respectful of other traditions is important, but if those explorations displace or replace Christian practices as they sometimes do we become tradi-tion blenders, blur-ers, blasé, not faithful, grounded leaders. As Armstrong reminds us, religion is a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of mind and heart. We only discover the truth of religious teachings – or the lack of it – if we translate the doctrines into ritual or ethical action. Like any skill, religion requires perseverance, hard work and practice. Too much of the Episcopal Church has not been doing its practice. It has lost the knack of religion. (Armstrong, 2009, xiii and xv.)

What does this loss of knack look like demographically? As we learned from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey released

by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2008 – based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older – religious affiliation in this coun-try is very diverse and extremely fluid. More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion, or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, roughly 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to specific religious tradition altogether. The survey also found that the United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country – just 51% of Americans self-report that they are members of Protes-tant denominations – and that Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation.

Another important finding also released last year (2008) as part of the American Religious Identification Survey from Trinity College, Hartford revealed that for the first time in U.S. history, the fastest growing religion is “none.” At present an estimated 15% of the adult popula-tion self-identifies as having “no religious affiliation.” What’s particularly germane for us today is that the rapid growth of self-identified “nones” comes much more from people leaving a religious tradition, like ours, than from natural growth (that would be children emulating unbelieving parents), and the growth rate increased inversely with age. It is estimated that 22% of adults 18 to 29 identify as “none.” Interestingly, 51% of all “nones” claim to still believe in God or a higher power. According to the ARIS report authors, “[the nones] are a stew of agnostics, deists and rationalists. They sound more like Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine. Their very interesting enlightenment approach is

like the Founding Fathers’ kind: skeptical about organized religion and clerics while still holding to an idea of God.” And curi-ously, the “nones” are the only faith group that is majority male.

It could be argued that movement between religious traditions and denominations, and even beyond them, is a good thing reflecting positive dimensions of human development - the intentional pursuit of ultimate meaning and truth – if there was evidence of overall deepening commit-ment or growth. Sadly, that’s not what the research shows. In his provocative and popular book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know and Doesn’t (2007), Stephen Prothero (Professor of Religion at Boston Univer-sity) makes it very clear that while the United States may be one of the most religious countries in the world it is also a nation of “shocking religious illiteracy.” He argues convincingly that “faith without understanding is the standard” and “reli-gious ignorance is bliss” – we’re back to those blasés! Nearly two-thirds of Ameri-cans believe the Bible holds the answers to all or most of life’s basic questions, yet only half of American adults can name even one of the four Gospels and most Americans cannot name the first book of the Bible. (Prothero, 2007.) Look around, this room today is full of outliers!

If Prothero is right, and I believe he is, well intentioned but largely religiously illiterate adults are rearing today’s youth and passing on their “loss of religious knack” quite effectively. The Wave 1 findings from Christian Smith’s National Study of Youth and Religion confirm this, and two are particularly important for our discussion today.

(Background: In 2002, Smith and his colleagues embarked on an ambitious longitudinal Lilly-funded study to research the shape and influence of religion and spirituality in the lives of American youth. Their research design unites the best in quantitative and qualitative methods including a randomized telephone survey that was successfully administered to one

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism or MTD for short. As Smith (2002) puts it, “the creed of this religion, as codified from what emerged from our interviews, sounds something like this:

1. A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.5. Good people go to heaven when they die (p. 162-3.)

Not only is the “New American Religion” infused with complacency and individual-ism but by inculcating a moralistic ap-proach to life, it teaches that central to liv-ing a good and happy life is being a good, moral person – that religion therefore should be centered in being “nice” – a pos-ture many believe is directly violated by assertions of strong theological conviction (Mohler, 2006.) Most importantly, MTD is not a religion of spiritual disciplines … it is exceedingly tolerant and radically undemanding … a dominant civil religion … polite and relatively innocuous.

Smith and Denton (2002) argue that Christianity in the United States is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different faith, “We have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually [only] tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but is rather substantially morphed into Christi-anity’s misbegotten step-cousin, Christian MTD” (p.171.)

As the Christian Post columnist and presi-dent of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. R. Albert Mohler, points out, “Teenagers have been listening

“Like any skill, religion requires perseverance, hard work and practice. Too much of the Episcopal Church has not been doing its practice. It has lost the knack of religion.”

15 percent appear to be alienated from religion, while another 15 percent of U.S. teens appear to be simply disengaged, neither warm nor cold, toward organized religion (2004, NYSR Report 6.)

Perhaps in part because conventional-ity very easily lends itself to routine and inertia, and because American youth, like American adults, were found to be profoundly individualistic, assuming individual self-direction to be a universal norm and life goal, the belief structures of American teenagers suggest a comfort-able, verging on “whatever!” form of “New American Religion.” Smith and his colleagues cautiously suggested that the de facto dominant religion among con-temporary U.S. teenagers could be called,



carefully … observing their parents in the larger culture with diligence and insight. They understand just how little their parents really believe and just how much many of their churches and Christian in-stitutions have accommodated themselves to the dominant culture. They sense the degree to which theological conviction has been sacrificed on the altar of individual-ism and a relativistic understanding of truth. They have learned from their elders that self-improvement is the one great moral imperative to which all are account-able, and have observed the fact that the highest aspiration of those who shape this culture is to find happiness, security, and meaning in life” (Mohler, 2005.)

Sadly, the Episcopal Church is not un-touched by these statistics or theological vagaries. In fact, the Episcopal Church has often been accused of being the standard bearer among Protestant denomi-nations for such doctrinal slippage and cultural accommodation. Whether or not our denomination leads the way is unim-portant. And certainly, I want to be clear that I am not advocating for a theological posture Niebuhr (1951) coined, “Christ AGAINST culture.” What matters to me is that we admit the extent to which our congregations are in fact filled with well- intentioned people with frail understand-ings of what they actually believe who are often deeply wedded to the status quo. Those same congregations sit in neighbor-hoods and communities surrounded by people of all ages and backgrounds who find it more honest to believe in God but choose “none” on a religious identification survey, than claim a religious identity they no longer value and perhaps never truly understood.

I propose that the religious diversity of our time and the complex social patterns asso-ciated with religious practice in our global, consumer age, are presenting us, the Church, with a profound invitation: focus on the basics. Read the Bible. Challenge the skeptics. Learn our history. Claim our unique identity in Christ. Adapting a phrase from Dean Markham yesterday, live as though we actually trust Jesus is

our epistemology. Know who we are – individually and collectively. Emphasize lifelong Christian education. Make wise, faithful disciples.

We have an opportunity – to become better Christians – to shift our focus from the distraction of the contested, theologi-cal and political perimeter of our institu-tion toward the orthodox center of our body, that sacred space where we live and breathe the mission of the Church “to re-store all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” And in the process, I trust we will become better global citizens and more competent, constructive reli-gious pluralists as Eboo defined that term yesterday: “individuals building a society where people from different backgrounds live in equal dignity and mutual loyalty” … not theological relativists!

Given that religion “is the most volatile constituent of culture” and, unfortunately, often “one of the greatest forces for evil” (Knitter, 1996; Prothero, 2007) do we not have a moral obligation as faculty, clergy and lay leaders of the Church to educate and prepare our membership (of any denomination) for healthy, construc-tive engagement in the religious pluralism of our time? And in so doing, by focusing on the basics of faith, I trust our congrega-tions, schools, camps, agencies, homes, and even neighborhoods will thrive.

But how? What does “educating and pre-paring our membership” really mean?

Karen Armstrong (2009) argues that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the reach of hu-man reason. That, she says, was the role of logos. Religion’s task, closely al-lied to that of art, was to help us to live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there were no easy explanations, and problems that we could not solve: mortality, pain, grief, despair, and outrage at the injustice and cruelty of life (p. 318.) Her conclusion is that the Christian Church needs to reclaim its relationship to the mythic, the mythos, that alone provides access to the transcendent enabling human beings to affirm their suffering with serenity and courage. For Armstrong, [healthy] religion is a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from “dedicated intellectual endeavor” and a “compassion-ate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood” (p.318.) It isn’t easy but it is essential.

Paul Knitter, now the Paul Tillich Profes-sor of Theology, World Religions and Cul-ture at Union Theological Seminary and professor emeritus of theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, is a pioneer and leading theologian of religious plural-ism. He would challenge us to “claim the truth” but recognize that the truth is local, embedded in culture and inherited narrative particular to our social location. He encourages us to live with the aware-ness that there may and there may not be universal theologies of religion and with the existential humility that “all religious traditions, in varying ways, recognize that the ultimate reality or truth that is the ob-ject of their quest or discoveries is beyond the scope of complete human understand-ing.” There is always more to learn in the religious quest – vocational security for those of us in academia and on the journey! – but more importantly then, all claims to absolute truth become idolatrous (Knitter, 2005, xi.)

“What matters to me is that we admit the extent to which our congregations are, in fact filled, with well-intentioned people with frail understandings of what they actually be-lieve who are often deeply wedded to the status quo.”

Parker Palmer, self-described educator and activist whose writing and speaking has focused on helping professionals “rejoin soul and role,” by renewing their passion for their work, reclaiming its basic values and deepening their service to others, says education is fundamentally a spiritual journey. It’s NOT giving a lecture or imposing one’s views … it is actively dia-logical … a way of being fully present and open such that truth can emerge. Palmer invites us to learn from his Quaker tradi-tion, to remove the idolatry of expert and to understand that, “To teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced … a rich and complex network of relationships in which we must both speak and listen, make claims on others, and make ourselves accountable” (Palmer, 1993, p.xii).

Remember that I am a bridge person – I look for sturdy, reliable towers or piers or abutments from which or toward which another span may be soundly supported. It is clear that I am not alone in recogniz-

ing the urgent need for American main-stream Christianity to be renewed. The good news is that there are sturdy piers in our own Episcopal tradition from which we can build strong spans (theological and practical) to reach people where they really are.

The time is right for the Episcopal Church to focus anew on Christian education in its widest and richest forms. In my opinion the Episcopal Church is uniquely posi-tioned to differentiate itself from a costly drift toward either of the false polarities of religious apathy or religious extremism. Little about our central creeds– or as the secular world would say, our core values – belong at either extreme. We are and have always been people of the via media – natural bridges between Geneva and Rome – who believe mystery AND the mundane matter. Today’s world needs credible re-ligious voices from the center. We cannot assume that privilege by inherited entitle-ment. We have to earn it.

Just last week, the Charter for Lifelong Christian Formation (GC Resolution A082) was released as a guide for Life-long Christian Faith Formation in the Episcopal Church. It makes explicit what so much of the church has taken for granted. It challenges all of us to achieve lifelong growth in the knowledge, service and love of God as followers of Christ informed by scripture, tradition, and rea-son. More succinctly, it reads, “Christian formation in the Episcopal Church is a lifelong journey with Christ, in Christ, and to Christ.” How many Episcopalians are honestly ready to say that out loud?!

The Charter was developed between 2003 and 2008 by the Standing Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation and Educa-

This year’s Convocation drew over 250 alumni and guests. Pictured here (from left to right) are Masud Syedullah and Class of 1979 members, Peter Stube and Fred Huntington.



tion in collaboration with the Proclaiming Education for ALL Taskforce, and mul-tiple groups and individuals throughout the church. The authors believe that “mo-bilizing this Charter for Lifelong Christian Formation with discipline, depth, and coordination will enliven Christian mis-sion and ministry from cradle to grave for generations to come.” It is simultaneously rooted in tradition and richly informed by contemporary experience and understand-ing. It acknowledges the agency of God to invite, inspire, and transform human lives and the responsibility of the Church to make that incarnate for all people. By using the language of “formation” this Charter transcends the historic tension

A powerful foundation for responding to our times is right under our noses. It is the Book of Common Prayer – the cor-porate rites and rhythms that reflect and give shape to our theology. As you are likely aware, on September 12, 2009, the Episcopal Church marked the 30th anniversary of General Convention’s approval of the 1979 Book of Common

Prayer (BCP), an event that is being cel-ebrated here at VTS by a 3-part Zabriskie lecture series.

Like today, significant forces were shap-ing the “common life” of Americans and challenging the church when the Stand-ing Liturgical Commission (SLC) began its official work in 1968 to prepare what would become a significantly revised edition of the BCP to meet the needs and hopes of the late 20th century. Remember that beginning in the 1950s, the SLC had produced a series of Prayer Book stud-ies that examined the issues driving the movement to revise the Book of Common Prayer. So what was happening around the church?

• The Cuban Missile crisis had ushered in the end of the Cold War – by 1963 the United States and Soviet Union had established a hotline providing a direct communication link between the White House and the Kremlin.• 1964 – Beatles first U.S. tour.• 1964 – Passage of the Civil Rights Act• Height of the Vietnam War.• In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Medicare-Medicaid Act in July, and in October, the Immi- gration Act that abolished national origin quotas. • April 4th, 1968 - Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.• In June 1968 – Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.• July 20, 1969 – Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.• 1969 – Woodstock – “Peace, Love and a whole lot more!”• May 1970 – Kent State riots.• July 1971 – Voting age lowered to 18.• 1972 – Five men arrested breaking into the Democratic National Commit- tee headquarters in Washington D.C.

• 1973 – Supreme Court legalizes abortion, Roe Vs. Wade.• 1974 – Bernstein & Woodward published All the President’s Men, and the Watergate scandal erupted. President Nixon resigned.• September 16, 1976 – General Convention voted to approve women’s ordination to the priesthood and episcopate.• By 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the first successful “test-tube baby” was born Great Britain.

As many of us remember first-hand, the world was not a quiet place when the Gen-eral Convention of 1979 voted to approve the “new” BCP!

This fact matters today. Our owner’s manual is simultaneously ancient and modern. In wanting to make liturgy more accessible and more meaningful to people in order to encourage their participation, the authors of the 1979 edition moved the focus of the worship services from a focus on the sermon as the climax to the holy Eucharist. Baptism was returned to the center of the church’s life as a complete rite of passage with the anointing of oil restored from its sojourn to the Confirma-tion rite. As in the early church, baptism was recognized as a profound transforma-tion in which one dies to one’s old self and rises with Christ to a new life as a

redeemed child of God. It now marks full membership in the body of Christ, the Church.

And things didn’t slow down as copies of the new BCP arrived in local pews:

• By November 1979 the Iran Hostage crisis had erupted.• AIDS was first identified in 1981.• The next year, 1982, the word Internet found its way into our vocabularies.• 1989 marked the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of the Cold War.• The dissolution of the USSR followed in 1991.• The Maastricht treaty on European Union was signed in December 1991.

By placing an expanded baptismal covenant at the heart of congregational life, the authors provided a timely and radical (rooted) theological framework for responding to the rapid social and demographic changes this nation would experience. Through the use of the interrogatory, the authors heightened our awareness of standing at the intersection of church (tradition) and world (mission), and increased the congregation’s active, regular participation in this rite.

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Listen now to the strategic placement of two simple but powerful adjectives “all” and “every” given the socio-political-cultural context of the time …

Will you seek and serve Christ in all per-sons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

For a church that had struggled to look beyond its own boundaries because of the largely homogenous membership of congregations in increasingly affluent communities, this was courageous lan-guage. The 1979 BCP radically re-oriented the rhythm of congregational life and the expanded Baptismal Covenant, no longer the Catechism, now provided the roadmap for Christian Education and Formation in the late 20th century. Knowing that how we pray shapes belief, adding the exami-nation questions to the Creed to describe baptismal living led to extensive theoriz-ing about the relationship between baptism and full inclusion, and that in turn has resulted in the church fruitfully re-exam-ining the role of laity and all marginalized populations.

In swinging toward the inclusive and elec-tive and away from the legalistic, the 1979 BCP invited healthy reason and debate, emphasized the importance of personal choice, but sacrificed some doctrinal clarity and personal responsibility in the process. For example in the 1928 Prayer Book parents and godparents were asked directly, “will ye also on your part take heed that he learn the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and all other things which a Christian ought to know and believe, to his soul’s health?” That explicit charge moved from an ac-tive position in the baptismal liturgy of

Lisa Kimball, Ph.D.

between focusing on nurture and focusing on mission. It offers an integrated alterna-tive, acknowledging that regular study, prayer, worship, discernment, evangelism, advocacy and service are equally essential dimensions of mature faith. Most im-portantly, the Charter moves way beyond passive models of religious education and recognizes that faith formation is a dynam-ic, highly relational, highly contextual, ongoing process that requires deliberate attention by all parties. John Westerhoff (the Episcopal priest/educator) was right, faith is indeed caught in the informal mo-ments of our lives. But I would add that catching someone else’s tired or unexam-ined faith does not grow mature faith.

Elisabeth (Lisa) Kimball joined the VTS faculty in 2009 as Director of the Center for Ministry of Teaching, and Professor of Christian Formation and Congregational Leadership.

Lisa received her Ph.D. in Work, Community, and Fam-ily Education from the University of Minnesota in 2007. She earned a M.Ed. in Youth Development Leadership from the University of Minnesota in 2001, and an A.B. in Human Biology with a con-centration in Cross-Cultural Communications from Stanford University in 1980.

Prior to her appointment at Virginia Seminary, Lisa was a member of the fac-ulty in the College of Education at the University of Minnesota with dual appointments in the School of Social Work (Youth Studies) and the Depart-ment of Curriculum and Instruction where she coordinated the Master’s Program in Youth Development Leadership. Lisa also held a position as Research Scientist at Search Institute in Minneapolis, MN where she focused on adolescent spiritual development and program evaluation.

While working full-time in the academy Lisa maintained a regular schedule of national consulting, conference presentations, and teaching in youth ministry, evangelism, congregational and leadership development including serving as adjunct faculty at Luther Seminary, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. Before assuming an academic career, Lisa spent 20 years serving on the staff of five congregations and two dioces-es in California and Minnesota.

Lisa’s published writing includes book chapters, journal articles, book reviews and regular articles for professional publications such as Vestry Papers and Giving.

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J. M

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Bert

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1928 to a more modest guideline in the 1979 rubrics concerning the service, “parents and godparents are to be instructed in the meaning of Baptism, in their duties to help the new Christians grow in the knowledge and love of God, and in their responsibilities as members of his Church.” The emphasis on instruction is well intentioned, and developmentally ideal, assuming the local clergy and/or congregation is equipped to teach well and to make such a process compelling enough for busy, distracted families to choose to participate. Sadly, we have probably all witnessed the pain-fully unprepared baptism, where cultural accommodation and wishful thinking replace confident, informed promises. When clergy and congregations have high expectations and provide substantive op-portunities for education, preparation, and spiritual formation surrounding the central liturgies of our church, people come to know what they believe. Without high ex-pectations for deep religious engagement our congregations become membership clubs with secret handshakes or comfort stations for the spiritual consumer.

It’s clear that most Christian churches in the United States today have a multi-gen-erational “problem” of shallow Christian formation and we, the Episcopal Church are not exempt. However, I am proposing that awakened by the noise of religious diversity we also have what we need to flourish if we have the will.

Let me share my praxis, my action, my practice, my attempt as a Christian to walk this talk, my method of active, faithful en-gagement – it’s my rule of life – and sug-gest it to you as a place to start personally and corporately … remembering that in all

things God is with us: Show Up. Listen. Tell the Truth.

Show Up

Showing up personally: Woody Allen once said, “80 percent of success is showing up!” That’s close, but how we show up in life matters. It means being real, paying atten-tion, noticing and appreciating creation around me, reach-ing out and meeting people where they are. If years of youth ministry has taught me anything it is that authenticity trumps everything else, even knowledge. Show-ing up means showing up for God – being faithful to my own spiritual disciplines – regular worship, study, prayer, and service to the world – and remembering that I bear Christ’s image wherever I go. It means experiencing awe and wonder, joy and sadness, hope and grief. It means honor-ing my body as the gift from God that it is by eating well, getting regular exercise, and keeping healthy boundaries. Showing up starts at home, choosing to be physi-cally, spiritually and emotionally present to the people we call family. Showing up is being fully human in God’s arms.

How can this personal understanding of showing up strengthen the education in our church? Be an example and invite

others to do the same. It means being willing to spend unstructured time with people in their worlds – in their homes, at their offices, at their soccer games. Shop in minority neighborhoods. Showing up means being honest about our limitations. Not making promises we can’t keep. Showing up is what Westerhoff called “experienced faith”. It is highly sensate and often intuitive. It is pre-verbal trust building.

Showing up corporately: how we gather, how we show up together, how we welcome the stranger, and how we enter into strange lands is important. When the message does not match the medium the Gospel cannot show up. How we live – how we teach, preach, and pray in community – matters as much as what

we say. How often do our congregations encourage their members to go out and show up in unfamiliar places, beyond their comfort zones? More often, we wait for “the other” to come to us and wonder why our diverse society remains so segregated.

As the bishops at Lambeth 2008 noted about interfaith dialogue, “The purpose of dialogue is not compromise, but growth in trust and understanding of each other’s faith and traditions. Effective and mean-ingful dialogue will only take place where there is gentleness, honesty and integrity. In all of this, we affirm that Christianity needs to be lived and presented as ‘a way of life,’ rather than a static set of beliefs.” I believe that to do that, we must show up.

Listen

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps 46:1)

Listening personally: having shown up, it is time to listen deeply to both what is being said and what is not – literally and figuratively. Listening involves active listening to other people of all ages and backgrounds. It also means listening to the world around us. How are the powers and principalities of this world causing harm? Where is God bursting through? I have learned more about the lived experi-ence of immigration and the citizenship exam, about Coptic Christianity and Islam from taxi drivers than I could ever know from reading a book. Listening is work. It takes time. It requires the use of all of our senses and our minds. It assumes a posture of genuine openness and wonder, and the discipline of theological reflection.

Listening corporately: from the theologi-cal statement on interreligious relations and interfaith dialog that was passed at General Convention 2009 (GC-A074): dialogue depends upon mutual under-standing, mutual respect, and mutual trust. Building mutuality requires listening – and there are many ways to listen. Working beside people of diverse faith on a Habitat site; participating in a class at a mosque, temple or synagogue; holding a com-

mittee meeting at a local Middle Eastern restaurant and truly engaging the owner in conversation; or following your children’s lead by inviting the parents of one of your children’s non-Christian friends to join you at the park.

Tell the Truth

Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16.)

with proselytizing which results from claims of superiority (p.xi.)

Knitter believes (and I do too) that it is not enough – indeed, it is too facile and can serve as an excuse – simply to announce that “the extremists” are not true Chris-tians, or true Buddhists, or true Muslims. It is not enough to say that such religious perpetrators of violence don’t belong to our community. They are part of our community. They claim to be. They draw their reasons, their justification for hatred and violence from the same religious texts and teachings that we use. These texts and teachings that are being used to justify violence must be recognized and dealt with as part of the dialogue of religions. We have much work to do to prepare ourselves, and our congregations, for such truth telling dialogue.

It is my hope that within the constraints of a formal lecture I have modeled showing up and listening well enough to offer some truth I have come to know.

I believe, with Stephen Prothero, that the study of world religions should be required in public education. And with Eboo, that all public colleges and univer-sities should be laboratories of religious pluralism and interfaith cooperation. And I will go so far as to suggest that all graduate programs preparing women and men for Christian leadership must equip them with competency and compassion for interfaith engagement.

But we shouldn’t wait that long. What if our understanding of Christianity in rela-tionship to other religions began explicitly at baptism? What if the next Prayer Book revision added a sixth question to those following the Creed: Will you engage the diverse religious traditions of the world peacefully? I will, with God’s help.

Let me end with two stories that illustrate well and very differently the praxis of showing up, listening, and telling the truth in a pluralistic world.

Right: Adjunct Professor of Muslim Studies, Zeyneb Salim, and the Rev. Robin Gulick (VTS ‘08) participated in a Seminary-sponsored youth conference for interreligious leaders. Below: Two conference attendees.

“What if the next Prayer Book revision added a sixth question to those following the Creed: ‘Will you engage the diverse religious traditions of the world peacefully? I will, with God’s help.’”

Alumni Convocation

Personally tell the truth: having shown up and listened well, we earn the privi-lege to speak the truth as we understand it – to witness to our faith in the context of relationships of integrity. Anyone who has tried to talk to teenagers about real life “stuff” knows the difference between a hard but fruitful conversation, and an anxious one-sided “you should!” lecture. Telling the truth effectively to a teenager about sex requires the same skill set as witnessing to our faith across lines of religious difference. As Knitter (2005) articulates well, witnessing is based on the desire and need to share what we have found to be true and precious by contrast

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The first is the wonderful story of St. Clare of Assisi Episcopal Church and Temple Beth Emeth, a Reform Jewish congregation, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In September 1970, St. Clare’s began renting space to Temple Beth Emeth to meet the needs of both congregations. St. Clare’s welcomed the additional income and Beth Emeth needed space to accommodate its growing congregation. Separate services were held in the com-mon sanctuary. In 1974 the congregations approved a radical proposal: the Christian church and Jewish temple would co-own their newly renovated sanctuary build-ing. A joint committee was commissioned and a new nonprofit corporation known as Genesis of Ann Arbor was established to own and manage the church/temple building and grounds. In 1975 the Star of David and the cross were erected side by side outside the sanctuary – declaring the religious partnership for all to see. Inside the congregations maintained their distinct worship and education lives, shared a Thanksgiving service, Passover Seder and annual pulpit exchange, provided child care services for each other’s high holy days, and together sponsored an active outreach ministry to the homeless. Both congregations grew steadily and by the 1990’s St. Clare’s simultaneously voted to reaffirm its relationship with

the Temple as a “vital expression of our personal and collective ministry” and to enter into a joint capital campaign to build a larger sanctuary, social hall and additional classroom space. What’s so remarkable about the Genesis project is that two congregations are maintaining their distinct religious identities, optimiz-ing the stewardship of their resources, and honoring their common concern for social justice.

My second story is more personal, it’s about Quiana and Jeff, two graduate students in a course I taught several years ago at the University of Minnesota. The particular course, “Young People’s Spirituality and Youth Work,” had a mix of undergraduate and graduate students, all interested in or already engaged in youth work. Quiana was an exceptionally gifted young adult urban youth worker who self-identified as a Queer, African-American feminist activist. Jeff was an exceptionally gifted, middle-aged, white ex-urban school teacher and coach. Quiana called herself a “Christian” but had significant issues with what she perceived as self-righteousness of many evangelical Christians. Jeff called himself an evangelical, conservative Christian. Both were extremely extro-verted and self-confident. You can imagine that they locked horns on many occasions in our class discussions – a dynamic the younger undergraduates found simultane-ously enthralling and terrifying. It was particularly interesting to watch the four African American NCAA basketball play-ers – all of whom identified as urban and Christian – clearly identifying with Quiana as a human being but wrestling with the seeming paradox of her liberal views, while relating well to Jeff’s theology and minimally to his cultural context.

I always began class with an invitation for students to share reflections about things “spiritual” from the past week. One evening Quiana jumped at the chance and began telling the class about a contest she had entered and for which she was solicit-ing their votes. Quiana and her partner, a transgendered man, were engaged! They had been selected as one of the five finalist

couples for a wedding contest sponsored by Lavender Magazine, a publication serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community of the Upper Midwest. Their wedding was planned for the fall and winning the $10,000 prize would solve serious financial challenges and allow them to plan a much larger cel-ebration. Quiana enthusiastically invited everyone to log on to the magazine’s web site and vote for her … Jeff was silent. Class continued.

Fast forward two weeks. Again, I invited students to check in at the beginning of class and this time it was Jeff who jumped in. With his eyes fixed on Quiana, Jeff said, “Quiana, I have spent a lot of time wrestling with what you shared two weeks ago. I have prayed about you and your relationship. I have asked God to guide me in my response to your request. I’ve come to a place where I am at peace. While I still do not understand your lifestyle and am unable to condone it, I have grown to respect you as a human being and a fellow student. I want what is best for you and recognize that only God can judge ultimately. I want you to know that I voted for you today, and not just once but three times! I opened two new e-mail accounts just to be able to vote multiple times. I hope you win!” The room was silent. Quiana got up and walked across the room toward Jeff. She kneeled beside his chair and told Jeff how grateful she was for his courage and support, and for his witness of compassion as a faithful Christian. They embraced and everyone cheered! Quiana and her partner did win the contest and were married in a beautiful, sacred ceremony later that year surrounded by friends and family.

Show up. Listen. Tell the truth … it works! q

REFERENCES

Armstrong, K. (2009). The Case for God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

The Charter for Lifelong Christian Forma-tion. (2009). Retrieved October 5, 2009, from http://formationcharter.com/

Knitter, P.F. (1996). Jesus and the Other Names: Christian Mission and Global Re-sponsibility. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Knitter, P.F. (Ed.). (2005). The Myth of Re-ligious Superiority: A Multifaith Exploration. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Lincoln, Y.S., & Guba, E.G. (1985). Natu-ralistic Inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Mohler, R.A. (2006, April 18). “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: The New American Religion.” Christian Post. Retrieved Sep-tember 29, 2009, from http://www.christian-post.com/article/20050418/moralistic-ther-apeutic-deism-the-new-american-religion/print.html

Niebuhr, H.R. (1951/2001). Christ and Culture. New York: Harper Collins.

Palmer, P.J. (1983, 1993) To Know as We are Known. Education as a Spiritual Jour-ney. San Francisco: Harper.

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. (2008). U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Retrieved September 29, 2009, from http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf

Prothero, S. (2007). Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and Doesn’t. New York: Haper Collins.

Smith, C., & Denton, M.L. (2005). Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. New York: Oxford University Press.

Barry A. Kosmin, B.A., & Keysar, A. (2008). American Identification Survey 2008. Retrieved September 30, 2009, fromhttp://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/To listen to Dr. Kimball’s Zabriskie

Lecture in full, visit our Web site at www.vts.edu and click on the Media Gallery.

On October 27, the Seminary Com-munity gathered to say good-bye to Carol Knape Dawson and Barbara Passut, two influential and long-time staff members transitioning into retirement

Carol came to VTS in 1993 to become Director of Financial Aid and Off-Campus Housing and has faithfully served the past 16 years. Often, one of the first people that prospective or entering students meet, Carol has worked hard to make the financial transition to life at VTS a less difficult one. Accord-ing to Dean Markham, “More than one person has remarked that their decision to attend VTS had a lot to do with their meeting with Carol.”

In 2002, Barbara joined VTS pro-cessing everything payable in the Business Office. After several years of sending money out, Barbara transitioned to accounting for all the money coming in. As the Student Billing/Accounts Receivable accountant, she worked in three separate systems processing receipts. Student billing and receipts are

one system, gifts to VTS are another, and all other cash receipts are a third. Additionally, Barbara handled the complex system of taxes for VTS’ international students.

Both Carol and Barbara finished their collective 23 years of working at Virginia Seminary at the end of the first week in November. They will be missed!

Farewell to Carol & Barbara

Alumni Convocation

Left: Music lover, Barbara, received an Apple iPod as a retirement gift; Carol, sporting her trademark smile, received a beautiful engraved vase in thanks for her years of service at VTS, above.

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SHOW UP. LISTEN. TELL THE TRUTH

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