Sunday, October 16, 2005
A Strange Service? For Sherpa!
The wiffle and I had a rather distressing experience this morning. Via our friend Bill, we had learned of some Protestant churches in the area with English-language services. So we picked one and decided to try it today: St. Andrew's Church (Church of Scotland). Since its denomination is Church of Scotland, it is Presbyterian, and I for one was looking forward to a Presbyterian service in English in the solidly Biblical tradition to which I've become accustomed.
We entered the small building and got bulletins. On the back of the bulletin was this statement:
So far, so good, I thought. A church that keeps the Word of God in its rightful place.
One can perhaps imagine my surprise, then, during the 'Readings' segment of the service. In between a reading from Isaiah and a reading from Matthew, both done by a member of the congregation, the minister stood to do a reading. He prefaced it by saying that we didn't have a Psalm this week, but that he would instead read something by Sherpa Tenzing, who accompanied Sir Edmund Hillary in climbing Mt. Everest. I thought this was rather odd; my Bible still includes 150 Psalms, and there was plenty to choose from. But instead, sandwiched between two passages from the Bible was an extra-Biblical--and not only extra-Biblical, but non-Christian--reading, de facto elevated to the status of God's Holy Revelation by its placement in the service. If you think I'm overstating the strategic importance of the positioning of this travesty, perhaps it will also be useful to know that he followed the reading from Sherpa Tenzing with an 'Amen', and that it was the only reading that the minister himself did.
One of the main points of the Sherpa reading seemed to me to be the 'validity of all faiths' shtick, which, for one thing, flies in the face of orthodox Christian doctrine in general and, for another, flies in the face of God's exclucivist pronouncement in the Isaiah passage that had just been read (45:1-7):
At any rate, the cognitive dissonance caused by this Sherpa reading vis-a-vis Scripture, and its incongruity with the church's own statement in the bulletin, was more than a little distracting.
Harumph.
We entered the small building and got bulletins. On the back of the bulletin was this statement:
From the Church of Scotland have developed the English-speaking Presbyterian and Reformed Churches throughout the world. The supreme rule of faith and life of the Church, which is both Catholic and Reformed, is the Word of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
So far, so good, I thought. A church that keeps the Word of God in its rightful place.
One can perhaps imagine my surprise, then, during the 'Readings' segment of the service. In between a reading from Isaiah and a reading from Matthew, both done by a member of the congregation, the minister stood to do a reading. He prefaced it by saying that we didn't have a Psalm this week, but that he would instead read something by Sherpa Tenzing, who accompanied Sir Edmund Hillary in climbing Mt. Everest. I thought this was rather odd; my Bible still includes 150 Psalms, and there was plenty to choose from. But instead, sandwiched between two passages from the Bible was an extra-Biblical--and not only extra-Biblical, but non-Christian--reading, de facto elevated to the status of God's Holy Revelation by its placement in the service. If you think I'm overstating the strategic importance of the positioning of this travesty, perhaps it will also be useful to know that he followed the reading from Sherpa Tenzing with an 'Amen', and that it was the only reading that the minister himself did.
One of the main points of the Sherpa reading seemed to me to be the 'validity of all faiths' shtick, which, for one thing, flies in the face of orthodox Christian doctrine in general and, for another, flies in the face of God's exclucivist pronouncement in the Isaiah passage that had just been read (45:1-7):
1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
2 I will go before you
and will level the mountains [a] ;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
3 I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
4 For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.
5 I am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
men may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
At any rate, the cognitive dissonance caused by this Sherpa reading vis-a-vis Scripture, and its incongruity with the church's own statement in the bulletin, was more than a little distracting.
Harumph.
