Little Brown Brother
I was just contemplating my career in a rather WASPy mainline, Protestant denomination, and thinking of just how I don't really fit into its dominant culture. My traditional beliefs and orthodox theology have a place, however contained, in this church. Even the West Coast generally features churches of a more conservative sort, the California congregations represent a very upper middle class, culturally WASP identity by and large. Just another indicator that this little brown brother of Spanish/Filipino extraction does not fit in.
Ironically, I am preaching regularly in a nice, liberal church in a very affluent part of the city that boasts a more suburban than urban feel. The community represents one of the more elite neighborhoods of the city with beautiful, large homes on a peninsula jutting out into the Long Island Sound. This is Great Gatsby country.The people there are very lovely and welcoming towards me. Their hospitality has been wonderful. Yet I can't help but feel that I am a sort of anomaly there, a kind of stranger in a strange land. The visitor from another planet who, it is understood, must eventually return to that planet. One of my dear friends in ministry now ministers in a bucolic upstate village where I couldn't imagine myself living even if I do wear khaki trousers and pastel Oxford shirts. It's like the patina of my immigrant parents never wore off in spite of their best efforts at assimilation into the "Leave-it-to-Beaver" culture of the fifties. Thus, I often wonder again and again whether I have any business staying in the Dutch Reformed Church where I remain, at best, a statistic of the denomination's vaunted diversity-a specimen of something out of the mainstream whose purpose is to give the church a reasonable claim to catholicity. Just wondering.
Ironically, I am preaching regularly in a nice, liberal church in a very affluent part of the city that boasts a more suburban than urban feel. The community represents one of the more elite neighborhoods of the city with beautiful, large homes on a peninsula jutting out into the Long Island Sound. This is Great Gatsby country.The people there are very lovely and welcoming towards me. Their hospitality has been wonderful. Yet I can't help but feel that I am a sort of anomaly there, a kind of stranger in a strange land. The visitor from another planet who, it is understood, must eventually return to that planet. One of my dear friends in ministry now ministers in a bucolic upstate village where I couldn't imagine myself living even if I do wear khaki trousers and pastel Oxford shirts. It's like the patina of my immigrant parents never wore off in spite of their best efforts at assimilation into the "Leave-it-to-Beaver" culture of the fifties. Thus, I often wonder again and again whether I have any business staying in the Dutch Reformed Church where I remain, at best, a statistic of the denomination's vaunted diversity-a specimen of something out of the mainstream whose purpose is to give the church a reasonable claim to catholicity. Just wondering.
Comments
As a 100% Dutchman, my life is richer for having you as a "little brown brother." I am grateful to our Lord that our paths crossed in 1979. As our journeys continue in diverse ways, it seems the blessings of old friends become more important.
slb