The Free Pew and The Free Pulpit
In spiritual communities formed by a covenant to which individuals have consented, whose aim is freedom (and thereby, to “spiritualize” freedom), there are two “institutions” that symbolize two different facets of human nature in relationship to freedom: The Free Pew and The Free Pulpit. The Free Pew expresses how covenantal community that spiritualizes freedom, presents a “new view” of human nature itself, and thereby a view of the ontological makeup of the individual that “competes” with the conservative view of human nature represented in its quintessential form by Western orthodoxy before the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. The Free Pulpit symbolizes how the existence of the covenanted community becomes a means for enlarging freedom and therefore, expands the possibilities in existence through creative novelty.
The church I currently “walk with,” All Souls Community Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, maintains there is no theological declaration needed to become a member of the church and share in its fellowship; the widest definition of the Free Pew. It is a spiritual discipline to maintain the Free Pew because it is terribly difficult to uphold; not to regard others first and foremost by their theological beliefs; not to conceive of religion primarily or exclusively as a set of beliefs regarding truth. It is even more difficult in a day when religion everywhere is swallowed up by political pronouncements and "certainist" ideologies, and the divisiveness and rancor they generate.
The Free Pew is a spiritual practice in conceiving of a new view of human nature. Each human being is created with the freedom of a differentiated self. Each “possesses the self,” is a living instance of individuality. Human beings don’t create the freedom the Free Pew symbolizes in this new view of human nature. This is the part that is hardest to understand. We have to discipline ourselves not to think we create it by our opinions, beliefs, or practices. Otherwise, we are only declaring that it is by the mood of any generation that freedom is created. Human nature is created free, and individuals possess an inherently emancipated individuality and a differentiated self-interest. This is what the Free Pew symbolizes, and what is theologically represented in the statement, “God creates us. We do not create ourselves.” Easy to describe, but difficult to maintain and understand.
The Free Pulpit’s aim also concerns freedom, but unlike its compliment, it is as difficult to explain as it is to understand and maintain. It is created and maintained as a socially created arrangement. It is the freedom human beings create in time; which means it is relative to a generation's faithfulness and understanding. The Free Pulpit is something more than what any generation, including this one, explicitly practices or implicity embodies. For example, the Free Pulpit does not mean the free access of the pulpit by anyone, that the pulpit is the “Open Mike at the Improv.” The Free Pulpit is guarded by the social arrangement of the covenanted community and its faithfulness to that covenant. It does not mean that the pulpit is this century’s version of the 19th century Lyceum or is the theological version of Toastmasters, where individuals “learn” to speak publicly or organize thoughts into a coherent manner. The pulpit “becomes free” over time through the bond established between a spiritual community and an individual called to serve as that community’s spiritual leader; an individual who must seek to lead by understanding what the Free Church tradition is and endeavor to have his or her life shaped by its disciplines. The spiritual community itself maintains the Free Pulpit by guarding its access through lending it only to one who, through a mutual agreement consented to, “walks” with that community in the authority given by that community, and not by any one individual or set of individuals who happen to inhabit that community at a particular moment in time. It is the product of a relationship over time. And, finally, the Free Pulpit doesn’t mean a person can say anything from it that he or she wants. That’s the most common misunderstanding of the Free Pulpit. It’s often confused with absolute verbal license, such that someone might mistakenly retort, “If a person can’t say anything from the pulpit it’s not free.”
A pulpit is free because it is the product of a spiritual agreement, a covenant, lived out over time. And a spiritual covenant is instituted as a bond of affection. Its foundation is love. And love here is distinguished from the vagaries of romanticism by the theological declaration that a covenant is a "Covenant of Being," that its origin is in God known as and through Love. A pulpit isn’t free because anything can be said from it, because that can be done from any pulpit. I’ve heard it said in contrast that you can’t say anything from pulpits in other churches without severe consequences; meaning, of course, that saying anything doctrinally blasphemous from an orthodox, creedal Christian church’s pulpit will have consequences for the speaker. But, there are consequences in every pulpit when anything is said. All relationships have consequences, whether or not they involve freedom; and especially relationships that do involve freedom because they involve consent and decision. Freedom doesn’t mean the absence of consequences. The Free Pulpit is not built on absolute verbal license. Spiritualized freedom is the yield of a bond of affection. It involves discernment by the individual who has been lent the pulpit by the community, shaped by the obligation that individual has to the bond of affection formed with the community. So a Free Pulpit is free because there exists a bond of affection between a spiritual community and a minister; a covenant that includes love and judgment, and which goes both ways. From this affection, freedom can grow from this mutuality and obligation into a possibility larger than our individual beliefs, our narrow self-interests, a Spirit that is liberated when together we aspire to and are called by an affection larger than any one of us.
The church I currently “walk with,” All Souls Community Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, maintains there is no theological declaration needed to become a member of the church and share in its fellowship; the widest definition of the Free Pew. It is a spiritual discipline to maintain the Free Pew because it is terribly difficult to uphold; not to regard others first and foremost by their theological beliefs; not to conceive of religion primarily or exclusively as a set of beliefs regarding truth. It is even more difficult in a day when religion everywhere is swallowed up by political pronouncements and "certainist" ideologies, and the divisiveness and rancor they generate.
The Free Pew is a spiritual practice in conceiving of a new view of human nature. Each human being is created with the freedom of a differentiated self. Each “possesses the self,” is a living instance of individuality. Human beings don’t create the freedom the Free Pew symbolizes in this new view of human nature. This is the part that is hardest to understand. We have to discipline ourselves not to think we create it by our opinions, beliefs, or practices. Otherwise, we are only declaring that it is by the mood of any generation that freedom is created. Human nature is created free, and individuals possess an inherently emancipated individuality and a differentiated self-interest. This is what the Free Pew symbolizes, and what is theologically represented in the statement, “God creates us. We do not create ourselves.” Easy to describe, but difficult to maintain and understand.
The Free Pulpit’s aim also concerns freedom, but unlike its compliment, it is as difficult to explain as it is to understand and maintain. It is created and maintained as a socially created arrangement. It is the freedom human beings create in time; which means it is relative to a generation's faithfulness and understanding. The Free Pulpit is something more than what any generation, including this one, explicitly practices or implicity embodies. For example, the Free Pulpit does not mean the free access of the pulpit by anyone, that the pulpit is the “Open Mike at the Improv.” The Free Pulpit is guarded by the social arrangement of the covenanted community and its faithfulness to that covenant. It does not mean that the pulpit is this century’s version of the 19th century Lyceum or is the theological version of Toastmasters, where individuals “learn” to speak publicly or organize thoughts into a coherent manner. The pulpit “becomes free” over time through the bond established between a spiritual community and an individual called to serve as that community’s spiritual leader; an individual who must seek to lead by understanding what the Free Church tradition is and endeavor to have his or her life shaped by its disciplines. The spiritual community itself maintains the Free Pulpit by guarding its access through lending it only to one who, through a mutual agreement consented to, “walks” with that community in the authority given by that community, and not by any one individual or set of individuals who happen to inhabit that community at a particular moment in time. It is the product of a relationship over time. And, finally, the Free Pulpit doesn’t mean a person can say anything from it that he or she wants. That’s the most common misunderstanding of the Free Pulpit. It’s often confused with absolute verbal license, such that someone might mistakenly retort, “If a person can’t say anything from the pulpit it’s not free.”
A pulpit is free because it is the product of a spiritual agreement, a covenant, lived out over time. And a spiritual covenant is instituted as a bond of affection. Its foundation is love. And love here is distinguished from the vagaries of romanticism by the theological declaration that a covenant is a "Covenant of Being," that its origin is in God known as and through Love. A pulpit isn’t free because anything can be said from it, because that can be done from any pulpit. I’ve heard it said in contrast that you can’t say anything from pulpits in other churches without severe consequences; meaning, of course, that saying anything doctrinally blasphemous from an orthodox, creedal Christian church’s pulpit will have consequences for the speaker. But, there are consequences in every pulpit when anything is said. All relationships have consequences, whether or not they involve freedom; and especially relationships that do involve freedom because they involve consent and decision. Freedom doesn’t mean the absence of consequences. The Free Pulpit is not built on absolute verbal license. Spiritualized freedom is the yield of a bond of affection. It involves discernment by the individual who has been lent the pulpit by the community, shaped by the obligation that individual has to the bond of affection formed with the community. So a Free Pulpit is free because there exists a bond of affection between a spiritual community and a minister; a covenant that includes love and judgment, and which goes both ways. From this affection, freedom can grow from this mutuality and obligation into a possibility larger than our individual beliefs, our narrow self-interests, a Spirit that is liberated when together we aspire to and are called by an affection larger than any one of us.
posted by Brent Smith | 7:04 AM
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