Honoring history

The Rev Dr Richard Frazer reflects on the importance of remembering roots in forging the future.

HOW much of our religion is a cultural phenomenon as opposed to a spiritual quest?

I have reflected on this a lot over the years. We develop habits in our church and stories passed through generations. I wonder how much is rooted in faith and how much is simply custom.

Many years ago, a woman who always sat in the very far corner of the church posed a challenge for the rest of the congregation. The Kirk Session had decided to remove a few pews at the back of the church in order to create a small kitchen and social space. “You will have to box me in”, she declared defiantly, “I have sat here every Sunday for 80 years and I am not moving now”.

The culture of a congregation is something introduced to me many years ago when I undertook study at Princeton Theological Seminary. I had simply never heard anyone mention the topic here in Scotland. The Americans gave the subject a grand term and called it ‘Contextual Theology’.

People might be very similar in their background, but when it comes to our congregation, the differences can be huge. It is about history, habit, self-perception and even status. Everything from when we say the Lord’s Prayer in the service to how we do the collection matters and when done differently, people can be unsettled.

What also matters is the story we carry in our hearts about our congregation’s history. That can be very precious indeed and, in some places speaks of the great sweep of our turbulent Christian history. We should not overlook that. Some of the best new ideas are old ones brought back to life. The story of Christianity in Scotland is not just 450 years of Presbyterianism it is 1600 years of faith, manifested in various forms.

When congregations unite, they have to find a way of bringing their stories together, stories that may well have been unfolding independently for centuries. How do we negotiate and blend those stories? I often feel that we underestimate just how difficult that can be.

When unions take place and some people lose the sacred place they have cherished for generations there is always grief and loss. There can also be clashes of culture when congregations begin the task of coming together and blending their stories. Recently a friend told me of a congregation where following a union the people from the church that closed continued to sit apart in services for decades. Some people stop attending church when their church closes and become exiles, still people of faith but without a spiritual home.

In the face of change, it is tempting to write a new story, overlooking the narratives of the past but that can be disastrous. If we forget all that has gone before we can lose our roots. It is better to read the story of our places and seek to twist the plot, to write a new chapter that makes sense of what has gone before.

“ When congregations unite, they have to find a way of bringing their stories together...

When we began the Grassmarket Community Project at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh that walks alongside those on the edge of society, I would often say that the roots of the project began with the Franciscan Friars in the 15th century (The Grey Friars) who also walked alongside the poorest in the same location. It was a way of saying that there was nothing new in what we were doing. Our primary task is sharing the story of faith, but we should honour our history and even some, though perhaps not all, of our habits.