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It’s A Boy

~ daveburnie

It’s been two weeks already…

For those of you who have followed the blog but not social media I just wanted to give you an update. My wife gave birth to a healthy and handsome boy on September 26. I’m looking forward to a completely new normal now – and a return to blogging soon.

Our son’s name is Christopher Shawn and we are so happy to have him in our lives.

#MyChurchToo

~ daveburnie

Last week was a defeat for many of us in the Adventist Church. Many hoped that we’d see the Holy Spirit move on the hearts of delegates at the GC session and give a powerful endorsement to the work hundreds of Godly women are already doing as pastors and encourage even more to follow God’s call down a difficult path. That didn’t happen. Beyond the vote on women’s ordination, there were other votes at this session that have had the effect of turning our church in the direction of fundamentalism.

One which truly concerns me is that we felt the need to reword the church’s official statement on creation to exclude anything but a young-earth position. This bothers me because I am one of many who believe that God created the world, but not in 6 literal days 6000 years ago. Now I know what the official stance my church is, and I know my understanding is at odds with that position. It’s not my disagreement with those positions which bothers me most. I’ve known I was at odds with the church on those issues for years. What worries me is the trend we seem to be following toward exclusive space and shutting off debate. We seem to be moving in the direction of fundamentalism where there is no room for diversity of thought, where our faith is an all or nothing package, and where the slightest hint of dissent is met with the full force of the official position of the church. This is what truly worries me.

Fundamentalism is dangerous. It stifles reason, it shuts up creativity and it looks nothing like love. God himself welcomes reason, you can find a proof text and a pattern for it. God gave us the ability to create and the scriptures tell us to sing a new song. And Jesus said that it is by our love for one another that we shall be recognized. For those reasons I am prepared to call fundamentalism false teaching. I humbly submit that those of us of conscience need to take a respectful, loving and firm stand to reclaim our church from this darkness.

We won’t accomplish this goal with the same tactics used to get us where we’ve come. But I believe, I have hope, that if we stand together firm in our faith – that we can bring the warm smile of Jesus back into our church. Part of this means speaking out. I drained my cell-phone battery twice the day of the ordination debate keeping up with twitter – there are more than enough of us, young and old, who are concerned about our church and want to see it have more of the character of Christ. We need to continue to make our voices heard. It means working together. We need more collaboration between the big-tent Adventists, we need to support one another and we need to get to know one another. We need to rally behind the public voices that speak our language! There are 10 Doug Batchelors for every Herb Montgomery – so let’s get behind the public figures who speak our language so our understanding of Adventism gets a fair hearing! We also need to understand that success isn’t about shutting the others up. It’s not about telling them to go away, but making room for people from all perspectives to call this faith their own.

Finally it bears mention that our efforts within the church cannot be focussed entirely on the church. We have a mission that is so much bigger than what happens within our walls. We must not neglect that. We cannot be so caught up in our internal business that we forget what the whole church is here for. There is a Kingdom of Heaven to be built and not just when Jesus comes back! So continue with the service you do for your community, continue with your efforts to spread the good news of Jesus’ love, continue with living lives that honour him. Let’s be twice as passionate about being the church as we are about fixing the church. There’s a time for both and we should do both – but it will prove the fundamentalists right if we focus exclusively on getting our way in church politics.
It’s going to take the love of Jesus and the patience of a saint to do all this – but we can take a loving stand and turn the line which has been drawn in the sand into an arrow which points to Christ. To finish the work Jesus gave the church we all have to be in this together. So I call on my sisters and brothers who have been disappointed by what’s happened last week to press together and double our efforts to make this church our home. Of course many will need more time to grieve the hurt, take it. But as we heal let’s grow stronger because this is our church too.

Disappointed, But Not Going Anywhere

~ daveburnie

My church is about to make a decision that I believe is wrong. Our denomination is meeting for its quinquennial (every 5 years) General Conference session and among many other things they will be voting on the ordination of women. Now I won’t bog you down with details (they are outlined quite well here) but the reality is that this is largely a symbolic vote which won’t directly or immediately change the status of the few hundred women we already have in ordained service. What it’s likely failure will do is give more fuel to the fire of those who oppose these Godly women and give those “leaders” who are threatened by them more pressure they can apply. On the other hand, as unlikely as it is, the passage of a vote endorsing women in pastoral ministry would also not likely create immediate openings in those parts of the world where the leadership is vehemently against them. What it could do, however, is lend the full throated support of a worldwide church to women doing an admirable work under conditions twice as hard as they are for any man.

Pastoral ministry looks pretty easy from the outside, especially if all you ever see of your pastor is the sermons on the weekend. You see the pastor take the pulpit and deliver a talk for anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes and think “that’s not so hard;” and, while I can’t speak for everyone, for me it isn’t. With 10-15 hours of prep anyone with the right personality for public speaking could do it. That’s the most public part of the job and it takes about a quarter of the week (assuming a roughly 40 hour work week…) to prepare. The rest of the time is the hard part. Spending hours pouring over information helping to develop strategies for ministries in your community, taking the time to mentor your lay leaders (or junior staff), counselling people with all sorts of different issues (who still call you even after you’ve made it clear that you’re beyond your expertise and recommended a professional) and mountains of administrative work – that’s what pastors really do. Meetings that go too long, visits that you’re constantly apologizing for not having had sooner, reading lists longer than your arm and cups of coffee with the people who you should be able to spend much more time with. And all of this is done under a degree of scrutiny usually reserved for elected officials. Pastoral ministry is not an easy job, and it’s even harder when a significant proportion of your congregation doesn’t think you should be doing it.

So a positive vote would be a good symbol to encourage those women who take up the mantle of ministry, and perhaps even settle the minds of those distressed by their ministry by lending the official blessing of the world church to their hard work. But barring a miracle, and those do still happen, the vote is going to go the other way. Over the last several days I’ve been giving thought to how I will respond to this, and other issues, being addressed at our General Conference. Particularly I’ve been discouraged by the way things have been going down. The tactics being employed by those opposed to progress have been dirty. It’d been an embarrassment to see how these people who are supposed to be leading a body of Christ had been acting like Judas. I’ve never been more discouraged as an Adventist than I am now – and when my suspicions are confirmed this afternoon I think I will hit the lowest point in my faith. The honest truth is looking at all this has made me want to quit.

More than being pushed out of youth ministry in the congregation where I grew up, more than being told that I would never be a pastor unless I toed the party line on every issue (my two particular issues were just made more fundamentalist at the same session that is about to deny our sisters), more than being told not to waste my time ministering to a particular ethnic group since they were lost already – I’m at the point where my soul is weary and I’m ready to call it quits.

But I won’t. Even though I want to, even though I am angry, even though I am greatly disappointed – I won’t quit. I won’t because that’s not going to help. I won’t because even though there are these serious flaws in the leadership at the top, I have a wonderful local church who I love. I won’t because if all of us who want progress leave – who will lead it (no matter how slow)? I won’t, because Jesus said that when we are compelled to walk a mile, walk two.
It’s going to be a hard journey, and it’ll take some time to get over the disappointment – but I will. It won’t happen today, and it might not even happen in 2020 when we get the next chance – but eventually even the most staunch traditionalists will not be able to deny God’s ordination on the women he’s called. We may never have room for a minister who believes that God created the world and accepts that it didn’t happen 10,000 years ago. It may be a very long time before the climate is such that another conference will hire a minister who openly supports the full acceptance and participation of LGBT church members. It may be my children who see the leadership that is willing to take chances on new ideas for serving our communities – but whether I see all the progress I envision or none of it – I’m going to be along for the ride, how else can I start a revolution?

It’s Complicated

~ daveburnie ~ 1 Comment

It’s probably very little secret to anyone who has known me for very long that I have a complicated relationship with the church. I love the church for being a part of my upbringing, for being there on the most important days of my life, for helping me find a purpose in this world and most of all for introducing me to Christ. I’m also frustrated beyond words with the way the church has, at times, treated many of my dearest friends, closest family and even at times myself. I am profoundly vexed at the way we have earned a reputation for being judgemental and hypocritical. I am confounded by the way we can call ourselves followers of the one who was willing to die for us but we’re not even willing to be a little uncomfortable for a time in order to share his grace with those who are not like us. I am angry at the way that we tell women who want nothing more than to dedicate their lives to the ministry of the gospel that they can’t because they were born with the wrong anatomy, angry at the way that we tell gay and lesbian folks that they can’t participate fully in church life because they were born attracted to the wrong gender, and angry at the way we tell foreigners that they can’t share in our worship because their ways are different from our own. I have a complicated relationship with the church.

This was the first paragraph in my sermon from this weekend, it seemed particularly relevant given the events that are taking place at the highest level of my denomination.

6 Ways Christians Lost This Week

~ daveburnie

Reblogged from someone who said it so much better than I could.

6 Ways Christians Lost This Week.

I am sharing a message with my congregation this week, my regular weekly post will come up after I’ve shared with those in attendance. If you’re going to be in the Abbotsford BC area on Saturday July 4th come to the Open Door Church at 11am and join us.

For information and directions check out theopendoorchurch.com

An Open Letter to the City of Abbotsford: Fly That Flag

~ daveburnie ~ 1 Comment

Mayor Braun and Councillors,

I was pleased to hear of the City of Abbotsford’s support for raising the LGBT pride flag in conjunction with the Fraser Valley’s Pride celebrations next month. I believe it was a bold decision given the traditional nature of valley communities and I applaud your leadership on this issue. It’s been far too long that our LGBT brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours, children, grandchildren, coworkers, acquaintances and church members have been forced into silence out here. I also want to encourage you as a council to stand by this decision even though pressure is already mounting for you to change your minds.

It’s no surprise to me that a resistance to your leadership is brewing among certain fundamentalist groups. The Abbotsford congregation my wife and I worship with is far from fundamentalist and even at our church there are those who sit in the pews next to us who likely nod their heads in agreement when they read the words of those who are calling for you to change your minds. Despite having marriage equality for over a decade, the place of the LGBT community across Canada and particularly in traditional areas like the Fraser Valley, still has a long way to go. And that’s why I think it is so admirable that you’ve decided to support the community by raising their flag and showing them that they are a welcome and important part of who we are as a valley.

You’re probably not going to change the minds of any who disagree with your decision. I know, I’ve been fighting for years to make my own church (in a broad sense) a more inclusive space and while a few minds may have been opened many still hold onto deep convictions that we must respect even if we disagree with them. Despite the fact that few minds are likely to be changed, there is a lot to be gained by showing the leadership you have by deciding to support your community. To this day LGBT youth suffer from markedly higher rates of depression, substance abuse, homelessness and suicide than their straight counterparts; and no matter what a person believes about the morality of a person’s private life – I would hope as a community we can all agree that those things are worth preventing.

It’s important to give hope to our LGBT friends because every life matters. Even though one aspect of that person’s life may be objectionable to a segment of our valley, when the ostracism they suffer leads to suicide we lose the whole person. In my opinion we’ve lost enough coworkers, classmates and children; so if there is anything we can do to show a sign of support we should do it. In my former work as a youth worker in a Fraser Valley church I had a number of young people approach me with questions about this issue, from families within my congregation and without. The questions of identity and belonging still weigh heavily on the minds of our youth and it’s not really important what the rest of us think theologically, morally or politically – their lives still matter.

So, kudos to you Abbotsford, for deciding to raise a beacon of hope for the Fraser Valley’s LGBT community be they young or old. And if I can close with one final word of encouragement, it’s this: think of the children. No one is going to turn gay because you’ve raised a flag, but someone might feel like a more valued and important part of our community and choose to keep living his or her life. So Abbotsford, fly that flag and fly it with pride.

Your neighbour, church-goer and nephew,

David Burnie

Religion and Politics

~ daveburnie

An issue I often run into is the accusation that I am too political. This comes up in all sorts of circumstances but one of the most frequent is in conversations with leaders of religious communities. I’ve been told that I should be more worried about the gospel than the government. Now on the surface there is a lot of truth to that, I should be worried more about good news than bad; but underlying it is a misunderstanding of what both are.

You see politics is more than the old white man with the blue tie arguing with the old white man with the orange tie and the slightly younger white man with good hair and a red tie. Politics is how we allocate our public resources, what infrastructure gets repaired or not, whether our mental health budgets get an increase or not, whether our towns have enough police officers and fire fighters or not, whether we build shelters for the homeless or not… Politics are the issues that matter to us in our day to day lives, and quite often the most important decisions are being taken at city council chambers before a handful of members of the public by councils made up of people who may not have even been opposed for their positions. But since all the attention is paid to the circuses in our national capitals, we think politics is discussions of abstract issues by out of touch people that don’t make much difference in our daily lives.

In much the same way, the gospel is much more than simply “be a good little boy or girl and you’ll go to heaven when it’s all over”. In fact the Bible even says that good theology is useless to a hungry man. Ok that’s my paraphrase, but it actually says “and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it?” But just as all the attention in politics gets paid to politicians debating issues that don’t impact our day to day lives – the gospel tends to be more about theology and less about actual good news.

Now before I go and explain where I see a need for the two to come together – I want to bring in a very big caveat. I do not support the legislation of private morality. When I say that religion and politics should cross I do not mean that anyone should be subjected to my interpretation of morality, or that the standards which I accept should be applied to others. I believe that free will is God given and it’s not my place to make private decisions for other people.

Where I do think they should meet is that as someone who professes to follow Jesus I should offer much more than a get out of hell free card to the world around me. If it was good enough for him to declare good news to the poor, if it was good enough for him to proclaim freedom for captives and if it was good enough for him to break the bonds of oppression – then the gospel I offer must include those things. But when I go to church and talk about the poor, the mentally ill, the addicts, the homeless or whatever – I’m being political.

Well you know what – yes I am. I am political. My wife and I recently moved back to the town where we both grew up. When we first came back our plans were to start work on a new church. But what we’ve found since we got here is that the last thing our town needs is a new church, what it needs is some good old first century gospel. We don’t need another place where people can gather for an hour on a weekend to listen to some pontification about theology, sing some songs and feel good about themselves. What our town needs is solutions to help people. We need more people working alongside the dedicated folks both religious and secular who are feeding our many hungry mouths. We need people advocating for changes in our policies so that people with mental health issues get the help they need and not just a standing reservation in a jail cell. We need leadership who can say that there are real issues our city needs to face and face them, because right now the good news this town needs has a lot more to do with what happens here than what might happen when we die.

Religion, at least the organized theological side of it, has a different place in my life than it used to.

Religion is no longer what I do, or even how I do what I do. I don’t feel the need to go around telling everyone about what my religious views are, nor do I need to find a church sanctioned way of going about my affairs. A lot of people I know have told me they worry that I’m losing my faith. A lot of people I’ve met recently are surprised to find out that I am a person of faith. But the truth is that I’m probably more religious now than I’ve ever been – but my religion now resides in a deeper place than what or how. My faith occupies the part of my soul that is concerned with why. I believe in Jesus in a passionate way – and that’s why I want to see the outcasts of my community included. That’s why I want to see the hungry fed, the naked clothed and the sick treated. I believe in a salvation that is worth something today, not just at the last day. I believe that we can be free from oppression and injustice and that’s why I speak out for my brothers and sisters who don’t have the same privileges as me. So forgive me, but I’m not about to stop being political any time soon.