-
4: First Down Church's Belief Practices
- Baylor University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
105µ 4 First Downtown Church’s Belief-Practices T he ethnographer writing about her own community faces significant challenges. It is very difficult to develop the naiveté, the unbiased eyes, the freedom from an internal map of a community that was formed through direct experiences in that community.ThisisacongregationthatIlove,wheremydaughter was baptized, where I have witnessed many moments of mercy and redemption, courage, and kingdom-building. Therefore, it is clear that it is impossible to attain freedom from bias. What the ethnographer can do when encountering her home community , however, is view it from the perspective of someone who has visited other lands, the perspective of the traveler who has returned from a journey through other ways of being Christian, worshipping God, and caring for the sick. The ethnographer of one’s own community, whose eyes have been forever altered by visits to other places, can return home and see one’s community with a freshness that would be impossible without having left. It is my hope that that is the perspective I bring. Like my discussion of Healing Waters Church, my approach has three moments: first, a moment of “empathetic description,” when I get inside the belief-practice world of First Downtown in order to describe it on its own terms. The second is a moment of “appreciative interpretation,” when I describe in my own 106 Caring Cultures language the strength of a particular belief-practice. Finally, I move to a “cautionary warning,” when I discuss a belief-practice’s vulnerability to corruption by idolatrous impulses. Again, I do not put myself in the judgment seat regarding these belief-practices. I do not at all wish to suggest that these belief-practices have in fact been corrupted by idolatry in this congregation. I only discuss the possibility of their serving idolatrous ends, how they might be corrupted. Belief-Practices Like my treatment of Healing Waters Church, I offer here a summary of the belief world of First Downtown Church gleaned from interviews with members and staff. The most important way God is present to the sick is through the church community, through both networks of affection as well as structured programs. God also works by giving the sick internal strength and through modern medicine. There is much that we do not understand about why people suffer. We do know, however, that people get sick for “natural” reasons, such as exposure to bacteria or genetic vulnerability, as well as problematic internal dispositions, such as stress or pessimism. They should seek medical care, though not everyone in the world has access to it. Church members take care of the sick because of what Jesus said and did. This care should extend to the sick outside the congregation . It includes practical help as well as sending cards and remembering the sick in private prayers. The Community Mediates God God is mediated through people. After describing a moving encounter with a woman dying in the hospital, I asked Pastor Spaulding where God was in that moment. He replied, “My own belief is that God was in the interaction.” When I asked a man with cancer how his faith helped him deal with the uncertainty of his future, he replied that it was “not through faith itself” that he was helped, but it was “being part of a faith community” that was significant. He also spoke of valuing the sense of belonging he had in his Sunday school class. [54.211.148.68] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:27 GMT) First Downtown Church’s Belief-Practices 107 When I hadn’t been around this fall for different reasons, someone from the group came over to me and said, “We miss having you there.” There is a sense of being valued as a person and valuing other persons. I’m not alone. I’m not a lonely person. He concluded, “So faith for me has been within those communities [that are within the congregation].” The summary statement for what the community actually did that mediated God was “support.” Immediately after identifying the faith community, not faith, that was significant to him in his illness , the man cited above identified “support in a number of ways” as what the community did to mediate God. Again, when I asked a caregiver about how a person might experience God during their illness, she replied simply, “Through community.” Then she added, “I think God reveals God in community, in those support networks” (emphasis added). When I asked Pastor...