The following is the paper written by Rev Doug Norris on his recent study leave to the College of Preachers, National Cathedral, Washington DC. 


Questions For Our Answers 
Theology, Identity, & Preaching In The United Church of Canada
Rev Doug Norris - May 30, 2000 - College of Preachers 

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"I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the
faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints." (Jude 3 ) 

" ...put the vision into words, make it plain 
as a billboard so people can see it on the run." 
(Habbakuk 2:2) 

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Two competing priorities will take part in shaping the life of the United Church in the time ahead - two mandates in tension in the first case, that the words we speak - our preaching and teaching - must be the content of the apostolic message, the  'faith once and for all entrusted to the saints' ; and, in the second case, that we be constantly 'putting the vision into words', re-shaping and re-saying and finding new idioms, making it plain, so that it can be seen by a ‘people on the run'. 

Where these two intersect we will find that we are declaring an identity , saying - hopefully with some precision - who we are, in distinction to who everybody else is.  This will stand in some contrast to the traditional and prevailing culture of the United Church of Canada, in which precision is sacrificed to ambiguity and identity held secondary to autonomy. Paradoxically, at a time of growing pluralism and a time when rigid and exclusive dogmatism will be deathly, it may nonetheless be time for greater precision and a clearer identity to be the hallmarks of our community's theology, and especially our preaching. 

A Crisis Of Theology & Identity 

"Increasingly, the Christian church in our world is a Diaspora (a scattering), and, we can be pretty sure, will become even more so in the centuries that lie ahead." (Douglas J. Hall) 1 

"In the midst of meaninglessness, the Church seems to be preaching from little scraps of Bible, spiritual bites from a prescribed lectionary, but offers woefully little theological meaning. Where are we ? " (David Buttrick) 2 

And, I would add : "Who are we ?" What does it mean to say 'I am part of the United Church of Canada '? Is there a content that attaches to that statement? Are there any boundaries that define who we are, or what we will preach and teach ? 

Don Posterski and Gary Nelson, in a chapter about church identity, place great emphasis on the importance, for what they call "future faith churches" of "Knowing Who You Are". 

"The constant factor in effective churches is not size, worship style, church tradition or even theological flavour, but a deep belief about what the church is biblically mandated to be. Future Faith churches know who they are. They function with a clear identity, a clear self image." 3 

Terry Shillington draws on a study of the Presbyterian Church (USA), called 'Vanishing Boundaries' : "Their studies support Dean Kelly's theory that churches with a clear theological focus grow while theologically unfocussed denominations decline....Thriving churches...appear to have clear and focused good news to declare." 4 

The Way We Were - An Intentional Ambiguity 

It has not been the tradition of the United Church to claim that such a sharply defined set of beliefs is necessary. In fact, the relationship between theology, identity, and freedom to innovate is probably one of the longest standing conversations for us as a denomination, predating even the 1925 Union by decades. 

Jim Christie puts his finger on how we have traditionally dealt with questions of theological identity. "...in the United Church of Canada we are not concerned so much with having a theology as with doing theology...Theology is always provisional....we affirm that "this is all the truth we have for now"." 5 At its most polite, this has led to a reputation as place for ‘enquiring minds' ; at worst, a reputation as a place where ‘anything goes'. 

John H. Young sets out the essence of how the very founding documents and decisions that brought into being this particular denomination have, embedded in them, an intentional ambiguity of theology that was not simply a compromise aimed at finding a lowest common denominator so that three distinct groups could find a life together, so much as a signal, a declaration about the provisional and tentative nature of theology and dogma. 

He refers to the 1908 proceedings toward union, and the Basis of Union that was being formulated : "This committee (Doctrine subcommittee) was convinced that they had expressed the essentials of the faith, but they recognized that the language in which such essentials were expressed was not eternal. They believed that in each period of history the Church had to re-state the faith in the context of the age." 6 

This option toward provisionality is echoed in the 1940 Statement of Faith : "…Christians of each new generation are called to state it afresh in terms of the thought of their own age and with the emphasis their age needs." 7 

The sense is clear - to posit doctrines with absolute authority is unwise and cocky given our changing knowledge and ongoing experience. This conviction was a foundational ‘stone' in the construction of United Church identity, to the extent even that candidates for the ministry were not required to "subscribe" to the 20 Articles of the Basis of Union, but to give their candidacy committee the evidence that they found themselves to be "in essential agreement" with the statement. 

This latitude in doctrine, exceptional among Reformed churches, was largely due to the tenacity of the Congregationalist representatives, whose tradition valued the scope given to ministers to interpret doctrines and teachings. It was almost a deal breaker, and the question brought about the first formal dissent among the Presbyterian community. 8 

Who's Sorry Now ? - Not A Consensus 

This core 'intentional ambiguity' has been quite satisfying for many Christians in Canada over the years, and has given the United Church the identity of being a ‘safe place' to ask difficult questions about the Scriptures and the traditions of the Church. Preachers have had the license not only to expound on but also to probe doctrine and tradition. This latitude has been largely responsible for the theological and teaching work needed to produce and support such decisions as the ordination of women, the ‘New Curriculum' approach to Scripture, the opening of ordered ministry to homosexual men and women, and positions of the church on interfaith relations, among other things. To lose or set aside this direction will be to lose a capacity for the prophetic re-thinking of tradition. 

This ‘ambiguity', however, is either not well remembered, or not satisfactory for many in the United Church community in our own day. The pages of the United Church Observer are fairly regularly filled with letters from members decrying the theological wanderings of the church, and calling for adherence to doctrines. 

In an on-line editorial, Greg Smith-Young responds to 'Project 2000' , an initiative of Peter VanderKam, a member of the United Church, to revisit and reword the 20 articles of faith : "...(are they) attempting to redefine the beliefs of our church in such a radical way so as to render it outside the boundaries (in a word, "unapostolic") ?" 10

Clergy are being divided and labeled. In a letter to subscribers of ‘Fellowship' magazine, editor Gail Reid considers how many ministers in the church are "orthodox believing ministers". By her figures "82% of all United Church Presbyteries have at least one minister who represents the orthodox faith" 11 

There is no immediate consensus within the United Church about what the appropriate content of our theological witness is, and no longer a consensus about it being characterized by an ambiguity that will let theology remain provisional and contextual.

Some Questions 

 The above, then, leaves some questions which, if pursued, may clarify matters. What forces are acting to produce the quandary ? What choices does the church have by way of possible responses ? What do preachers do now ? 

Dare We Say 'Post Modern' ?? 

While the existence of differing beliefs and practices in the name of Jesus is as old as the earliest discussions between Paul and Peter about circumcision and Jews and Gentiles, the present discussion is somewhat more pointed, and has to do with not simply differing definitions, but lack of agreement on whether there are definitions. Not a conflict between absolutes, but between absolute and relative. The 'post-modern' quandary. Much of current Biblical and theological conversation veers towards a guiding relativism that does not easily allow for absolutes, and this stands in contrast to the historic absolutes to which some would return. 

To bring an example : One of the principal United Church reports to be considered in recent years (1997) was Mending The World. 12 The essence of the report was a proposal to direct the energies of the church more toward working with partners of all faiths, or of no faith, in "the search for justice for God's creatures and healing for God's creation" - noble work and no doubt at the heart of the Kingdom, but maddening to those who believe that work most likely to be fruitful when undertaken by a people called and equipped by God, in Jesus. Should not the specific theological task of equipping people in Christ be prior to the mission, the sending out, of that people ? 

In a response to the report, David Fisher writes: "the effect is to undermine the Church's witness to the redemptive work of Christ who reconciles humanity to God...the report is flawed because its approach undermines the absolute nature of Christianity's truth claims" 13 

Here the thing is laid bare : if there are indeed absolute truth claims that attach to the teachings of the Christian community, then our identity, and by extension our preaching is clearly set out. Here is the possibility of "the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints" . If, however, as much of current thinking suggests, there are no such absolute claims, and our particular community does not solely possess truth, then our identity and teaching and preaching will of necessity be tinctured with a humility that confesses the provisional nature of what we say. 

Leslie Houlden states this 2nd case concisely : "the theological enterprise has the unique feature that by its very nature it can never plausibly claim finality..." 14 

Marva Dawn, on the other hand, in a work that sets out to define a "theology of worship", is quite clear on the perils of postmodern relativity. "We also reduce theology to anthropology when we engage in what is called 'sharing' rather than theological discussion. We are too polite to ask whether something is true, and as a result we eliminate the possibility for genuine theological growth." 15 

Door Number One, Door Number Two 

We can line some things up now. Declare some options. 

The competing forces with which the Church, and therefore its preachers must contend, are, on the one hand, the clear and articulated identities of the church of old - historic creeds and confessions, which have the convincing patina of the saints - and, on the other hand, the more vague, but inviting sense of 'journey', with its value for the individual's experiences and variances. Again, the choice seems to be between having and doing theology. And the choice, in terms of identity, is that we either have a clear set of things to teach and preach, a constellation of characteristics; or we have a place to offer, in which seeking will be upheld, and resources offered for the journey. 

These options come complete with dual dangers. 

To do theology, to endlessly explore, is only minimally to offer identity, it is to be a place for seeking more so than a place for finding. This may not be enough. Conversely, to have a theology, to sign at the bottom of a given creed or declaration is to be defined enough to have consequences. However, given all of the caveats about the inscrutability of God and therefore the provisional nature of theology, this may be too much. 

So, A Proposal For A Church At the End Of A Time 

"It…may turn out to be a marvelous invitation to move past old postures that predictably, perhaps inevitably, produced quarrels. The massive and unarguable dislocation of the conventional institutional church may be an occasion for a common resubmission to the power of God's Spirit." (Walter Brueggemann) 16 

There may be a third way. 

The first way, doing theology, is about process at the expense of content - the act of seeking God, wrestling with angels, processing experience. It is a cherished part of our tradition, but at its extreme it offers either no content, no beliefs (everything is OK, is ‘of God'), or such a range of content (e.g a ritual life that moves from Christian scriptures to Buddhist chant to Native ritual to Wicca...) that it has no identity. 

The second way, having a theology, is about content at the expense of process - the specific set of beliefs and imperatives is strictly set out and cannot be touched. If any of the 20 Articles are 'available' for discussion, it must all be available. This, too, is a cherished part of our tradition, but at its extreme it stifles the personal religious experience and refuses to allow for elements of the received tradition that may have been time or culture conditioned to be revisited. It is all identity, but too rigid to be alive. 

The third way I will call a 'hermeneutic of enquiry', and it may be characterized as an agreed upon set of questions to explore. It is process with content. It is faithful to the sense of inherent duty to revise creeds that was at the heart of the at-birth identity of the United Church, the intentional ambiguity that framed our relationship to the Basis of Union, but also faithful to the set of concrete experiences that formed those churches. 

The content is the set of revealed experiences that are the common heritage of the Christian family - the God-filled story of the ancestors of Jesus and the prophetic tradition in which he stood, the remembered and written witness to who he was and is, the called apart Church, the Pentecostal experience of the moving of the Spirit, the faith of our mothers and fathers... There is ample content, and it is absolute content, a given. 

It is also, however, relative content, in that we have been, and ever will be, taken to different places as we consider it. As Jesus reminded Nicodemus "are you a teacher of Israel and you don't know that the Spirit blows wherever it wants to?" Those who live at the margins of presently acknowledged 'orthodoxy', particularly liberation, feminist, native, and biblical-critical theologies, will find common ground, even if differing conclusions, with those others whose faith is mediated through Nicea or the Westminster Confession or the Basis of Union. Our identity, however, is not in the destination but in the shared community from which we have started. A family starts out the day under one roof, but sets out to work in various corners of the vineyard, with different tools. United need not mean homogenous. 

Now, in one respect, this 'third way' may only move the discussion a little further down the line, as we may simply end up with fundamental disagreements about the appropriate content for our enquiries. It may, however, let us say this much, at least, about our identity : if you truly cannot live with this freedom to explore, or if, conversely, you truly can't live with this given set of starting points that define the content of the Christian experience, then this probably is not, and never rightly was the place for you. This will exclude some. 

So What's A Preacher To Do ??? 

"Those who listen to us expect more than a history lesson on Luke-Acts plus some freeze-dried stories we got out of a book. They want food for their hearts. They want to see Jesus. God help us if we offer them less than that." 

(B Brown Taylor) 17 

With all of the many ministries we exercise, people still regularly indicate that preaching is a primary task, and preaching done well will continue to feed and equip them. 

In our preaching, however, there are 'trajectories' that emerge, and I suspect that in many cases, and perhaps especially in the United Church at this point in time, preaching has become un-moored from theology, and this disconnection will have consequences for our clarity of thought and especially for our sense of identity. 

Among current writers in the fields of Homiletics and Biblical studies, there is a growing chorus of voices anxious about this disconnection, and looking for a move beyond narrative preaching, not back into discursive exposition, but into a style that is responsible both to theological fundamentals and to accessible, relevant language and images. See the recent work on doctrine in preaching by Paul Scott Wilson, Stephen Farris, David Buttrick, Thomas Long, Robert Kysor, among others. 18 Their overall message is not simply to have preachers re-stating old dogmas, but to be providing, in the face of fragmentation and isolation, theology as a means of constructing frameworks of meaning. 

Preparation for this paper included an analysis of a selection of recent (1999) preaching in the United Church, 50 sermons, not reviewed for method or for design but through a ‘template' asking several questions about the theological grounding of the message. Not to screen for a given theological position, but for evidence of a coherent theological message.  

The template asks, in essence, the following : 

Is God at the centre of what we say ? Theology or anthropology ? Grace or therapy? Has the modern worldview, with its tragic confidence in human ability and progress, so placed humanity at the centre that we no longer primarily preach about the character of God, or consciously aim to develop Christian character ? In the sampling, most sermons named God, but were frequently almost entirely taken up with consideration of the human action or perspective, and human efforts to achieve ‘wellness'. As at odds with the prevailing culture as it may be (must be ?) it will be crucial to our enterprise that God and the experience of God be the central movement. 

Is the Bible taken seriously ? Does the sermon do justice to either the text from which it arises, if it is derived from a particular text, or, if it is a topical message, the fundamental themes of Scripture generally? We wander from our principal magnetic pole at great risk. Flat-footed and inconsequential readings of Scripture will not jolt a complacent people or calm the agitated soul. Much of the preaching reviewed faithfully started from the text, but then simply used it as a departure point into a related topic, or wandered through the various aspects of the text (exposition) without declaring, in some simple way, the basic messages of Presence, Call, Redemption, Kingdom, etc. Stories, rather than The Story. 

Is there a clear invitation to identify with and be part of the people-of-God-in-Jesus? We don't do altar calls. (In fact we don't have altars - but we don't do ‘Table calls' either). God, however, clearly called people into Covenant; the prophets clearly set out an invitation to join in ‘right worship' (eg - just and merciful living); and Jesus could not have been clearer about the summons to join him, even to be in him. Faithful preaching will do no less. The reviewed messages were often ended with ‘invitations', but the invitation was frequently to an ‘ethic' of some kind ("let's go and do likewise !") rather than to the life of the community-in-Jesus itself. There is clearly a role for ethical exhortation in preaching, but also for the constant renewal of our identity as conscious, by-choice members of a people of God. Cultural and nominal membership will simply no longer be adequate, and only a clear invitation into life as a people with an obvious identity will let us again be the body of Christ. 

Something To Do Next  

A program inevitably follows out of all of this, or else it is simply idle chat. What I suggest here will strike some readers as so self-evident that it scarcely needs to be said again. For others such an exercise will represent an affront. There are two programs, actually. One for the Church, one for preachers. To loosen and to tighten. 

A summons to the Church, first. It will fall to the national level of the United Church and our leaders and theologians, either by intention, or, later, by default, to revisit the doctrinal assumptions of the denomination. ‘Project 2000', and others here and there have begun this work of re-writing the 20 articles at a grassroots level, and this movement will unfold with or without the involvement of denominational process. The link is beginning even now, as the 2000 General Council hears petitions to examine the language and images of the Basis of Union. Such a search will, however, be set up to fail from the outset, if the intent of the search is to locate a set of declarations. Do we really believe we will find them ? That we will. after all these years, locate the precise wordsmithing that will achieve consensus ? 

Hence the ‘hermeneutic of enquiry'. A more fruitful endeavour may be to articulate the foundational enquiries of faith with which we walk as a people of Jesus, and declare these in a way that both sets out the basis of our life together, and an  invitation to live adventurously within them. For example : rather than declaring a precise and mechanical way in which Salvation has come, can we declare our longing for wholeness (‘salus') our conviction, through our experience of Jesus, that God has and is acting to bring this about, and our desire to explore this ‘salvation' ? Can our formal life as a denomination faithfully reflect both the ‘given' nature of our fundamental experiences, and also the tentative, provisional, nature of whatever we say about God ? Our certainty and our curiosity? 

"Speak To The Bones, O Mortal" 

A summons, finally, to the preachers of the United Church. We have been handed the wine of the faith, and we sometimes faithfully hand it on in all of it's intoxicating, life-giving, world-overturning glory. We also sometimes turn it back into water. In the time of Jude's letter ‘teachers' have begun to show up with all kinds of variant messages, all claiming to be about the Christian life. The writer suggests that some of these "are waterless clouds….autumn trees without fruit." How's that for a description of preaching empty of meaning? waterless clouds, fruitless trees. 

The tree, in the scripture, is the bearer of fruit and of healing leaves - the life and new life God gives. The cloud is the presence of God by day. If our preaching is empty of meaning, lacking the central theological narratives of the faith, we empty the tree and miss the Presence. But if we can locate within ourselves the torrent of powerful words that will lay out in front of our people this ‘dream of God' that is a web of meaning, a set of memories and hopes that will provoke the hearer into new, just, healed and redemptive living, then we will have ‘put the vision into words'. It is a high calling, indeed. 

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 Endnotes 

1 Douglas John Hall, "Our New Challenge, Speak Hope From The Wilderness", The United Church Observer, January 2000 p. 22 

2 David Buttrick, Preaching The New and The Now (Louisville, Kentucky, Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) p. 18 

3 Gary Nelson & Don Posterski, Future Faith Churches , (Winfield, British Columbia, Wood Lake Books , 1997) p. 176 

4 Terry Shillington, "The Future of the Church Debate" in Touchstone, January 1998, p. 11 

5 Jim Christie, "Faith Questions For All Our Ages", United Church Observer, January 2000, p.30 

6 Young, John H. "Sacred Cow or White Elephant ? The Doctrine Section of the Basis of Union", Touchstone May 1998, p. 38 

7 Statement of Faith , United Church of Canada, 1940 

8 See fuller consideration of this question in John H. Young, ibid, p. 41 

9 Greg Smith-Young, 'Front Page', United Online , March 7, 2000 (http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/united/united-online.html) 

10 Peter VanderKam, "Project 2000", (http://www.superiornet.net/project2000/essays/god.htm) 

11 Gail Reid, "Person To Person", letter to readers of Fellowship Magazine, winter 2000 

12 Mending The World, Record of Proceedings, United Church of Canada General Council, 1997 

13 David Fisher, "A Response To 'Mending The World'" , 'United Letters & Articles', United Online
(http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/united/articles/mendtheworld.htm)

14 Leslie Houlden, "The Limits of Theological Freedom", in Theology, Vol 92, July 1989, p. 273-4 

15 Marva Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, ( Grand Rapids, Michigan, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995) p. 227

16 Walter Brueggemann, "Together In The Spirit, Beyond Seductive Quarrels", in Theology Today, July 1999, p. 152  

17 Barbara Brown-Taylor, "Preaching Into The Next Millennium", in Journal For Preachers, Vol. 19, Easter 1996, p. 30 

18 See the following writings for a fuller treatment of this question : 

Paul Scott Wilson, "Is Homiletics Making A Theological Turn ?" , in Homiletic, Summer 1998, Vol. 23, no. 1, pp 15-17 ;
"Preaching at the Beginning of a New Millennium", in Journal For Preachers, Pentecost 1997, pp 3-8 

Stephen Farris, "Limping Away With A Blessing" , in Interpretation, October 1997, vol. 51. no. 4 pp358-367 

Robert Kysor, "New Doctrinal Preaching for a New Century", in Journal For Preachers, Easter 1997, pp17-21 

David Buttrick, Preaching The New and The Now (Louisville, Kentucky, Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) 

NB - Finally, a note of thanks to the College of Preachers,
National Cathedral, Washington DC, whose award of a
Fellowship made possible the time to undertake this work. 

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