Fasting Against a Divided Body

by Brent Laytham

One of the great joys of our EP Gatherings is eating together. We break bread with friends old and new, discovering at a common table our common life in Christ. That makes it all the more painful that many of us who endorse The Ekklesia Project cannot come together as one body at the Eucharistic table of our Lord. Several years ago, we spent an entire Gathering exploring that pain.

This year our Gathering explored another division that scars the body of Christ—race. Both visibly and invisibly, race and racism have divided us from sharing together at our Lord’s one table. Confronting that reality for three days has renewed my commitment to the Friday fast that EP endorsers commit themselves to. Heretofore, I have fasted because that’s what Methodist pastors do, and because it was a simple practice of solidarity with my sisters and brothers in The Ekklesia Project. But now, committed to “Crossing the Divide,” I am also fasting as a practice of judgment—judgment against my ongoing racism, judgment against our racially segregated churches, judgment against every failure to receive what Christ has already done—broken down the dividing wall of hostility (Eph. 2:14).

Today I fast, not just to be in solidarity with you all, but especially to hunger for the full unity of Christ’s church.

(July 11, 2008)

Below are the plenary sessions from the 2008 conference. Click on the links below for a PDF file of each session.

Rodney Sadler

God’s Word and the Proliferation of ‘Humanity’s Most Dangerous Myth’ 

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Mikael Broadway

Racialized Ecclesiology, Oneness, and Catholicity

Many discussions of ecclesiology find their way to the four traditional marks of the church contained in the Nicene Creed.  Although they are far from a comprehensive guide to ecclesiology, these four marks open the conversation toward a range of shortcomings when applied to contemporary churches.  The church in the contemporary United States is far from the church that the gospel calls into being.  In an age questioning the inherited assumptions of Christendom, one mark has captured much theological attention.  There is fruitful conversation from many quarters of the church concerning a renewed call to holiness.

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Victor Hinojosa

The Most Segregated Hour in America

You’ve doubtless heard by now some version of “11 am on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” Indeed, the phrase itself appears to predate Dr. King and  it’s not clear who said it first.  But no one said it better than Dr. King when, in 1963, he remarked, “We must face the fact that in America, the church is still the most segregated major institution in America. At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation.”
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Kelly Johnson

Thoughts on Racism as Ecclesial Vice

“Presumption seizes control and remakes the world with my own will at the center, denying the existence of what does not fit its program; despair abandons attempts to change.  Hope, by contrast, is the virtue of pilgrims, it’s the virtue of the way of the cross.  It faces uncertainty, incompleteness, a loss of control, and without denying them, it works toward the good.  Hope is about work—knowing that we have to work and knowing that there is reason to think our work will bear fruit, through God’s mercy.  We’re not guaranteed that we can “fix” racism, that I can reconcile all whites and blacks.  But we don’t resign ourselves to silence, misunderstanding, mutual alienation either.  Hope depends on stories of hard, long work that achieve some good.” Read More

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Mike Budde

A House of Prayer for All Nations? The Limits and Hopes of Ecclesial Formation

To request a copy of Michael Budde’s plenary presentation, please email him with your request.

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Michelle Loyd-Paige

Culture Matters: Diversity, Relevancy, and Contextualization in Worship

“It is tempting to go to Scripture to discover the ideal paradigm for liturgical practices. The fact is, however, Scripture prescribes no one monolithic form or language of worship. Biblical worship practice was diverse, reflecting the various cultural and apologetic environments of those gathered. We do not find any liturgical order or obligatory form of

Christian worship in the teachings of Christ or the writings of the New Testament.”
Read More (A slide presentation in PDF form here)

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James Lewis

Speaking and Doing Truth in the Face of Divisions

“About 1,954 years ago, the Apostle Paul dispatches a letter to the Galatians.  The only authentic letter of Paul without the characteristic “Thanksgiving,” Galatians reveals Paul’s deep displeasure at the congregation’s being seduced into embracing another gospel—a gospel that is less than the truth which Paul both proclaimed and lived out. 

While Paul challenges the body of Christ “to stand” in the freedom arising from bondage to Jesus the Christ, he does so by reminding them of his own calling, the implications of this calling, and the freedom we have in Christ.  Paul engages in selective autobiography to bear the thrust of his argument that faith in Jesus Christ—as he had proclaimed it—is wholly sufficient to transform the world.  Perhaps with furrowed brow and a pained look, Paul asks these believers in Galatia: “Who has deceived you?” Read More

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