52 churches in 52 weeks: "the other CBF"

[Haruo]

[David Flick]

.
.Thanks for posting the update, Haruo. This is, for me anyway, an interesting project. Do you plan to write a summary/evaluation of your experience after you complete the year? Are you collecting documentation (i.e bulletins, photos, etc)? I'd be very interested to see what you discovered along the way...

[Gene Scarborough]

A great exercise in religion!

I applaude you for the diversity and the reports. We have no oriental people to speak of outside metro areas in the Southeastern US.

Now that you are sensing the tenor of other religions, do you think we are so different that "only a professing Christian may enter heaven?"

[Ed Pettibone]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

Oriental is a rather antiquated term and offensive to some. I remember reading a year or so ago about the governor of NY effectively banning the term from government documents.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Gene Scarborough]

So is "Far Eastern Religion" now the PC term???

Didn't mean to offend any religion or region = sorry.

Guess that puts "Southern" Baptist into the non-PC region as well!!!

[Mrs Haruo]

To folks who's whole family always went to the same church all their lives, this adventure in diversity of Haruo's must seem pretty radical. To me, it's an expanded trip around the picnic table at my cousin's house over Fourth of July weekend. Carol and I are great-grandaughters of a Methodist preacher in Nebraska. When Grandma came out to Seattle, she discovered the Unitarian Universalist Church, one daughter and Carol kept up the connections with that outfit. Another cousin is Bahai, Peggy is still active in the Presbyterian Church I joined as a teenager- much to the surprise of my father, who "has no need for organized religion" after growing up having doctrines of the Mormon church "rammed down my throat" as he colorfully puts it. My sister-in-law is a fervent Catholic. My brother supports her fully, but after a year of investigative classes before they wed, chose not to join the church, and most Sundays can be found in the Church of Car Parts out in the garage, or doing service with his ham radio club. Out in the 'burbs of Seattle where I grew up, many of our neighbors were Neisei- second generation Japanese immigrants. When I ride the bus to Downtown Seattle, I often hear more Chinese and Vietnamese spoken than English. To me, this is just getting to know my neighbors better.

[L Heard]

Comments concerning stairs in church and knees. My advice is -- if insurance coverage is good and Dr. says you are up to it, then get them replaced. I had both replaced a year ago (5 weeks apart) and it was an "old too soon, smart too late" moment. I should have had them done 10 years ago as I was "holding on the handrails going up and down stairs" also. Now I can run up or down them if I desire to do so... (at 72 down is easier than up).

[Haruo]

Wednesday noon was Holy Eucharist at St Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in the Chapel. Small group (maybe ten). No music of any sort. Second form read prosaically but clearly out of the Book of Common Prayer. I dipped my wafer in the wine (don't think this will affect my sobriety date, even though TEC isn't formally transsubstantiationist like the RCs). Although there was no music, the homily (based on the Collect in Holy Women, Holy Men, the Episcopal Church's new "Lives of the Saints" volume) was about Zinzendorf, whom I think of very much as a hymnist (and a major influence on the hymnody of the Wesleys); the pastor read one of the Count's hymn texts, very likely in John Wesley's translation though I am not sure. She got the history of the Bohemian Brethren and the Moravian Church a bit confused, made it sound like Zinzendorf made it up out of whole cloth instead of inheriting it from the Hussites. But it was interesting nonetheless. The deacon was a former American Baptist. If I need a little Eucharist in the middle of the week I may go back sometime. I certainly intend to do Compline at St Mark's sometime this year; that's a different enough crowd and service (and in a different space in the Cathedral) that I'll count it as a separate one of my 52, just as I counted the Evergreen services for MLK Day and Easter Sunrise as separate "churches".

[Gene Scarborough]

[Haruo]

I am intrigued by the notion that Shin Buddhism (or Pure Land Buddhism) — and the Tea Ceremony — may be the outgrowth of Nestorian mission work (kerygma and eucharist respectively) at the Chinese court in the century or two preceding the Muslim expansion.

I am inclined to universalism, so I think that everyone will become a professing Christian ("every knee shall bow, every tongue proclaim...") in the dénouement of the Heilsgeschichte (or, if you will, when the Eschaton is finally immanentized ) sooner or later. I am not convinced that the river spoken of in faith that when one dies the Amida Buddha will ferry one's soul across the river to the Pure Land in the West is any less Jordan, in the salvific sense, than the river we cross after death with the assistance of angels enlisted through our faith in Jesus the Christ.

I think the Bible is replete with instances of God accounting one thing as another (the archetypical case being Abraham's faith as righteousness), whatever it takes to save.

As for the atheism of the Buddhists, it strikes me as not that different from the atheism of the Christians. (Remember, atheism was one of the principal charges brought against our forebears in the early Roman persecutions.)

[Gene Scarborough]

My experience and conclusions are much the same as yours!

When I first studied Sociology at Emory I discovered the consistency of a religious aspect of EVERY society on this planet. When you looked into the depths of any religions, I found the same kind of God and Saviour I had in my Southern religion which happened to be Baptist.

So why should I place myself as the great judge of another man or another society's approach to their diety?

To claim a Morman is Christian is anathama at SBC Voices. They ranted and raged and gnashed teeth at me over that contention. I no longer care to be the object of derision for the judgemental conservative segment of Baptists or other fundamentalist outlooks.

I found God residing more kindly in many other religions than in my SBC / Puritanical roots. I am happy to leave the ultimate judging to God, Himself. If one gains a "joy of salvation" and a "peace that passes understanding" in his spiritual walk, then I rejoice with him/her over trying to judge them into my narrow ways influenced by southern breeding!

[Haruo]

Sunday morning we went to the 11 am service at , a Free Methodist church that is not in our neighborhood, but fairly readily accessible from here. It is a very interesting place, and we both enjoyed the service and fellowship. As you can see if you poke around their website, they're a diverse and active bunch of people. There were at least seven congregational songs (five of them in an opening medley that was extremely well choreographed and orchestrated). Guitar-keyboard-drumset accompaniment. All words on the wall. The only song we knew, and the only one that would have been in the hymnal if they had used their hymnals, was "All Is Well" {"When peace like a river"/VILLE DU HAVRE), and it (all 4 verses) was seamlessly woven into the medley. After the service one of the pastors (they have 8 or 10 of them!) told us they're thinking of doing a hymn-sing. I hope they do, it'd be nice not to have to run one for a change, and the next Evergreen Foot-Stomper isn't until Oct. 30.

Monday evening we spent in the company of a couple of Renton Bahá'ís, watching a PowerPoint about the Faith at a coffeeshop and then moving to one of their homes to talk about our spiritual histories and listen to Bahá'í gospel music and what Mrs H called "the Bahá'í Tabernacle Choir". I'm not sure this qualified as another "church" for purposes of my New Year's Resolution, but it was a very enjoyable evening, informative, and uplifting. I'm reading Esslemont's Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, and I'm sure we'll be working at least one or two more Bahá'í events into the year's schedule. There's a longstanding, somewhat complex relationship between the Bahá'í Faith and the Esperanto movement, which figured in our conversation in several ways, and led to the meeting being more two-way than it perhaps would have been if we were normal Anglophones.

Sunday night I attended the Seattle Song Circle, and led one of the Tindley hymns ("A Better Day Is Coming") and sang a Japanese Christian text to LACQUIPARLE (not a translation of the Dakota hymn). A couple showed up who had never been to a Song Circle before (and I think expected us to be more professionally musicious); they didn't stay too late, but they did lead "I'll Fly Away" (all four verses, to my joy) and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" before they left. I also sang the Skye Boat Song in Esperanto while everybody else sang the English text out of "the Bible" (Rise Up Singing!). One of the others led "" (), and if I'd had more turns I would have replied with , probably just the Stone stanzas (). In a way I think I should be able to count Song Circle as one of my churches.

[Gene Scarborough]

Any more reflection on my question mentioned above?

[Haruo]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

First Covenant is quite a worship space! I knew it was "in the round" but hadn't realized that most of the sanctuary is actually under that dome. Through several errors I was about 5 minutes late, missed the Introit and the opening hymn. It was Confirmation Sunday, with three young Confirmands getting salted and slapped around in the name of the Lord (I'm kidding; the ritual slap on the cheek was just about as far from violence as you can get).

I met a couple of cousins of KeithE's, Linda (and Tom) and also a Darryl.

The songs were few: "The Church's One Foundation" was the one I missed; then the Doxology (Praise God from Whom to Lasst uns erfreuen); and closing with "How Firm a Foundation", a stirring organ rendition with a tastefully modernized text (you for thee, and rivers of sorrow for rivers of woe). Certainly over a hundred in attendance, though probably not 200. Good cakes and brownies and coffee afterwards, but nothing for the diabetics and the dinkiest coffee cups I'd seen in years. I would certainly not refuse a chance to go again, preferably on time.

[David Flick]

.
.Thanks for sharing the experience with us. I love the architecture of those older church buildings. Not only that, but I enjoy worshiping in them. Kansas has a large number of ABC churches that were built back in the 20's & 30's. Many of them (actually most of them) have beautiful stained glass windows. They don't build edifices like that any more.

[Gene Scarborough]

In NC the Enfield Baptist Church and Washington Baptist Church share the beautiful Greek-inspired dome. The rounded configuration of the seating inside adds a sense of warmth and fellowship for me!

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

At 2:45 AM this coming night, the Bahá'ís are coming to pick us up to go to the annual commemoration of the Ascension [death] of Bahá'u'lláh. This will probably not be quite as festive as the Declaration of the Báb was on Monday, but we'll see. I really don't know what to anticipate.

The Bahá'í thing will leave us with our schedule pushed so late that I'm thinking tomorrow evening would be a good time for us to go to at . See you there ...

[Gene Scarborough]

Cool--Be sure to give us a report!!!!

[Haruo]

I can see I've missed a few weeks here. In another thread I just posted a thumbnail of this past Sunday's variety of religious experience, the evening service at Bethany Community Church. BCC is that was apparently led to leave the Washington Baptist Convention by a pastor who was teaching at Northwest Bible College (now Northwest University), an AOG outfit. They renamed themselves "Assembly" but didn't join the denomination, and eventually renamed themselves "Community Church". is fairly good and clear. They are big. They have the most impressive catalog of groups and courses I've seen yet at a church. They host a women's shelter. They just got done raising $230,000 to provide water to some parched corner of God's green earth. It was a very young, very white crowd. Lots of UW and SPU shirts. Few folks over 30. Grey hair a novelty. I felt oldish.

The sermon was a good take on the Beatitudes, I thought. Preacher seemed competent and schooled (at least he quoted Brunner and a couple other folks you normally have to go to seminary to meet).

But alas, the music. Not much. What there was was mostly both unknown and less than great; their version of Amazing Grace had much going for it in my book, but not enough to make it my norm. Their huge catalog of extracurricular activities - not a musical item amongst 'em. So no, I couldn't feel at home there; not "my church".

[Haruo]

Since my May 28th posts, we have actually been to three Bahá'í gatherings; in addition to the Declaration of the Báb, we went to the Ascension [death] of Bahá'u'lláh, and then to a devotional gathering focusing on joy and sorrow. Mrs H has been invited to a meeting on the virtue of Unity on Thursday (conflicts with my work schedule), but she has another prior obligation.

And we did go to Compline, which was wonderful, in a medieval sort of way. But non-participatory. I just don't get a lot of sense of having worshipped God from admiring some third party's singing. I could go back many times, but I couldn't say I'd count them as having "been to church".