Spong, Change
My Dear People,
Would Richmond become an "open-housing city," that is, a city where neighborhoods were not segregated by race? And what part, if any, would a church have in answering that question? The Vestry of St. Paul's Church would vote in a few days.
To put a fine point on it, would funding be provided for a city-wide educational program to promote open-housing in Richmond? A St. Paul's parishioner had established a non-profit and planned the program. St. Paul's funds were available for the purpose, if the vestry consented.
Debate lasted for two hours. By a 7-5 vote the answer was "no."
As for those who voted against the proposal, "Their primary argument was that this was a political and economic issue, not a religious issue; second, they appealed to a favorite religious argument, namely, that it would divide the church, upset the people, and cause them to cut off their pledges. No matter how many times these threadbare arguments had been shown to be lacking both in power and integrity, they continued to be trotted out to give ignorance and bigotry the cover of respectability."
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There are times when we step out in faith, with courage and imagination. When we do so, we will meet with resistance. It's not whether we will. We will. Why? Because to step out in faith, with courage and imagination, constitutes a challenge to the status quo; and a challenge to the status quo will not go unanswered. Because, consciously or not (often unconsciously), there is too much at stake for those invested in the status quo.
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As it turned out, the 7-5 vote was only a temporary set-back. The effort to get the open-housing education program funded would ultimately succeed.
This particular moment in the life of St. Paul's was 37 years ago. I was not yet two years old. Jack Spong was the rector. (And, by the way, Bishop Spong looks back on his time at St. Paul's as the most cherished in all his years of ordained life.)
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A lot has changed
since 1972, and yet human nature has not. Nor has God.
At our
church--at any church--and in all human
hearts, there is the struggle
between courage and fear, between the new and the known. That interior
struggle--within our hearts--plays out, of course, in families, in our church,
in our city, and throughout the world.
In the midst of this struggle, God calls us to be faithful. Which is to say, God calls us, not to popularity or to tranquility, but to honesty and to integrity and, yes, to courage.
That is the way of the Cross. That is the way of the Christ.
Your brother in
Christ,
Wallace+
