Learning to see gray

It's been a long time since I've blogged!!! Wow!!!

This past fall, I attended a continuing education event at my alma mater. One of the key speakers was Adam Hamilton, senior pastor at the United Methodist Church of the Ressurection in Leawood, Kansas. Adam recently published a book about learning to see gray in a black and white world.

It seems to me that Hamilton is reaching back to our Wesleyan roots. In the Church of England, the via media, or middle way, was the goal - finding their way between Catholic and Reformation theology. This church, in which Wesley was a priest, points to a way that the church can move forward. Our world is becoming increasingly polarized - with constant pressure to make decisions in one camp or the other. The church has a unique opportunity to speak out and say that life is not black and white, but full of shades of gray.

As Christians, we need to learn how to see gray. Not many things are so clear-cut that we can see them in black or white. Although we would sometimes like to (especially when our pet issue comes to the forefront - whether it's homosexuality, abortion, homelessness, etc.), our faith teaches us to see gray. Jesus, in his interactions with people, was not so black or white (like Pharisees), but saw people in gray hues.

In our Wesleyan/Methodist heritage, we have the tools to see gray in a black-and-white world. The Wesleyan quadrilateral asks us to discern God's will by considering our experience, using our reason/intellect, revisiting the tradition/history of the church, and holding those findings up to a search of Scripture. These tools provide creative tension in discerning God's will - and they allow us to experience the hues of the color spectrum. Wrestling with the issues - bringing it all to the middle, allows us to live our faith in the tension of love...which embraces the ancient church, while pointing us to God's future.