You Have To Be Carefully Taught

I've come across this blog post, "What makes Worship Lutheran?" from my Lutheran friends and this blog post, "11 Things I Love About the Episcopal Church," from my Episcopal friends, both making the rounds on Facebook lately.  Living now as half Lutheran Transitional Pastor and half Episcopal Priest in Charge, I realized that in both articles I could swap the words Lutheran and Episcopalian and no one would ever know!  What both of these authors seem to ascribe to a particular denomination, I've found to not be at all exclusive to either denomination.  To be fair, I would bet that neither author even thought about their article as being exclusive, but that is exactly what made me start wondering.    

One of the most interesting and unexpected things I've had to do as I work to bring the people of an Episcopal Church and a Lutheran Church together for worship and ministry, is to work to overcome what I'll call, denominationalism.  I don't even know if that's really a word, but it's certainly shown itself to be a real thing.  It appears to me like the same sort of tribal loyalty found in the fans of football teams or by countries during the World Cup or the Olympics.  In some instances, it comes across in subtle joking about a love of coffee or pot lucks (both assumed by both groups to be their exclusive inside joke) while in others it is a clear, more distrusting rivalry that shows up in strongly believed stereotypes and prejudices.    

I was really surprised how some of the stereotypes were so deeply held.  Some of the Lutherans were convinced that the Episcopalians had no regard for congregational singing, lay involvement or music.  Worship, they worried, was done exclusively by the "professionals" and the congregation would be left to simply watch the show.  Some of the Episcopalians were equally convinced that Lutheran worship would be like a tent revival, with no discernible liturgy whatsoever.  So deeply held are some of these feelings that even after we began worshiping together one parishioner said, "I find all these hymns (assumed to be from the other church's hymnal) too different," when the reality was that all the hymns that day, with one exception, could be found in their hymnal!  

In our situation, it is clear that the stereotypes and denominationalism people have expressed is simply an easy place for the anxiety of beginning to do something very new and different to leak out into the system.  That I understand. What I wonder is if continuing to reinforce our denominational, tribal or team-type loyalties learned over the last five hundred years is the best way to proclaim the Gospel in the very different world in which we all now live?  I wonder if we even consciously know we're doing it and I wonder if the vast majority of our neighbors, who aren't a part of any church, see our gentle jokes and funny stereotypes as we most often intend… as good natured ribbing or do they see them as something else?  Are our "team" loyalties being seen by them simply as a healthy, humorous, thanksgiving for finding a church comfortable enough to call home, or are our "team" loyalties viewed by those on the outside as an arrogance that says, "we're #1" and, well, everyone else isn't?