Ramble On
The third stanza of Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On talks about losing a love in Mordor.
Mine’s a tale that can’t be told, my freedom I hold dear
How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air
‘Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair
But Gollum and the Evil One crept up and slipped away with her
Her, her, yeah
Ah, there’s nothing I can do no
I guess I’ll keep on
Ramblin’, I’m gonna shake…
Well, actually, the lines are about a love being stolen by Gollum and Sauron (the Evil One) and that love could be the One Ring. But when I was listening to the song recently, another idea came to mind. This is how I feel about the Church sometimes. I feel those who see the beauty possible in the Church have stolen her. But, like Sauron, there is an impulse to seize power and try to shape the Church into a certain vision of good. Within the world of Tolkien Sauron becomes the “big baddie” but he began with a vision of shaping the world to be good. But, as it is with the power of the world, that shaping took on a twisted and dark form. Sauron’s drive to control and shape with power led to his path becoming evil.
I was listening to a recent Homebrewed Theology Podcast with Ryan Burge whose analysis of data of religion and the public sphere is excellent. Burge mentioned that a leading indicator of clergy mental health issues is a difference in the politics of a congregation and the clergy leading that congregation. One reason that was given as a factor in this statistic is that we (American Christians) are becoming shaped primarily by our politics and that Christianity follows behind the political. That is both sobering and frightening; but it makes perfect sense. The problem for those of us in the U.S. is that we have made dualistic choices that push us farther apart by rigid politically drawn lines. The Church should exist outside of this dualism. Rather than being captured by partisan assumptions, the Church should be able to speak prophetically into the political by recognizing that no “side” is Christian. The partisan categories align with thoughts that can be Christian and anti-Christian. The Church should discern when those ideologies diverge and be able to speak into the truth of a politics that transcends the politics of this world.
What makes this difficult is that the marrying of politics, economic policies, and power has crept into the Church and carried the beauty of a diverse body of Christ away. They crept in and slipped away while we have been watching for the wolves; we did not realize we were becoming the wolves. The rambling search for the Church is complicated by the impulse to live into the political such that we can grow churches around shared and deeply held political ideologies. The mental health of clergy is better if they align with their congregations, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. Between the realization that aligning with particular politics with no nuance or view to a third way and the pressure to match a certain political platform or party crushes those who are trying hard to call others to faithful discipleship of Jesus.
I am becoming increasingly pessimistic that we can find our way out of this. Prophets are ignored throughout history. That is no different for the prophets speaking to the Church today. They are cut off and “cancelled” by the mob who demands adherence to politics of the right or the left. They are cancelled because they faithfully call us to leave behind the political platforms to embrace a politics of Jesus. A radically inclusive and diverse politics shaped by martyrdom and poverty rather than power and influence. My pessimism is softened by the prophets who ramble on the path that rejects dualism and one sided politics and forges ahead into the politics of the Family of God (Kindom). I pray we can overcome the impulse to embrace sides and forge a path that rambles right on past that morass.
Preach! So correct here. Thanks 🙏