I want to shout

Jean Dumas

Translation Canon Tony Dickinson

As a pastor at the end of a long life, I want to shout out my anger.

We are trapped in a dark cul-de-sac, and I want to shout. My Church behaves as if she is blind to herself. She rejects clear-headedness for herself and for the world.

It is time that the scales fell from her eyes. Yesterday’s world is no longer, a new one has been put in place. It is high time our Churches adapted to that, instead of persisting in the outmoded past!

I want to shout these truths which wound, but which can cure.

For I see a light which has been dawning for several decades now, but which has been disregarded. There is new blood on the so-called « liberal » side of Protestantism. Resting on the theological work of Tillich, taken up by Gounelle, Gagnebin, Picon, Spong and others, a recasting of the understanding of Christian faith is consistent with today’s world.

If I want to shout, it is because my friends of yesterday, whom I still consider as my brothers and sisters in my Church, treat me as a non-Christian: they have told me so. On the pretext of safeguarding ancient dogmas and classical rites, they are doing all they can to vilify a pluralism of convictions. The liberal tendency in Protestantism is declared dangerous to the faith of believers. So much so that « now there abide these three: faith, hope and the status quo. And the strongest is the status quo. »

But I also want to shout out to liberalism.

Its own self-definition puts a block on a reality which is nevertheless essential for the world and for the Church: that of the « Breath », (a translation preferable to Holy Spirit). Our age is short of breath. And I note that the liberal Protestant movement is principally turned toward biblical criticism – absolutely needed – and ethical imperatives- an urgent necessity today! But to dodge all spirituality, all mysticism, leads to a narrowing of faith.

Here my shout becomes an appeal to my fellow-supporters of a liberal Protestantism.

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