Big Trouble in California churches.

January 14, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Now I have to put “big church” in the same dreaded column as “big government” and “big corporations.” Big churches are making the case that “big is bad.”

Have we not been abused and insulted enough that big Saddelback Church Rick Warren made himself famous by inviting McCain and Obama to a debate before his fundamentalist audience, then got into bed with the “Yes on 8″ people, and now has invited the break-away Episcopal parishes to get into bed with Saddleback?

(Never mind that Warren is the honored kick-off prayer man for Obama’s inauguration. I am sure the Obama team thought they were being uniters by picking somebody right of center for that honor.)

But, according to Monday’s Associated Press story,”Warren has offered the use of his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., to conservative Southern California parishes that left the national Episcopal Church.”

The implication is far more serious than the Proposition 8 issue. In that, Warren or any other conservative minister could stand behind some argument about the sanctity of marriage or the Christian tradition and make a case, however heartless or flimsy. I have read the opinions of gay people too that don’t think marriage is what we want or what we should be fighting for. But marriage is only one small piece of the pie.

But to welcome break-away Episcopal parishes to his sprawling campus has an altogether different symbolism. These are parishes that haven’t gotten over the consecration of V. Eugene Robinson as the first openly gay/partnered Bishop in the Episcopal Church in the U.S. Never mind the fact that Robinson’s own diocese in New Hampshire picked him as the first and best choice for the office. Individual congregations and dioceses elsewhere in the country, and in the world (specifically, Africa) immediately bristled. Robinson doesn’t serve those people, but they still couldn’t stand it that there was such a thing as a gay/partnered Bishop.

That was in 2003, by the way, and they still haven’t gotten over it. A handful of them rattled sabers, and finally left the denomination. Last week, the California Supreme Court settled the real estate lawsuits three of them were embroiled in, in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles (Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, Bishop), saying that the real estate of those congregations belongs to the Episcopal Church, not to the congregations.

So if they want to leave the denomination, they must get out of the buildings and off of the property which no longer belongs to them. The Supreme Clout case is merely upholding the law in accordance with the constitutions and bylaws which those congregations subscribed to. They only hold their local real estate in trust for the entire church, not as their private fiefdoms.

But Warren, at Saddleback Church, meanwhile, is itself a private fiefdom. The thing which many people don’t notice about so-called “non-denominational” churches is that they have accountability to no one. They do as they please because they are a denomination of one; they have no overseers, no bishops or national councils. Their relationships are at will according to their local pleasure. This is the way that a lot of the “mega-churches” like it.

St. Paul, of course, scolded them two thousand years ago, when he said, “What! Are you the only ones the word of God has reached….?” (1 Corinthians 14:36)  Pastor Rick doesn’t worry about that stuff, though. He has built a 30year old kingdom in Saddleback Valley, “fresh out of seminary” as his web site puts it, and does things exactly his way.

Ironically, Warren’s “News & Views” page for 2009 sates the obvious: “In 2009: Will You Build Bridges or Walls?” He has determined to build walls against the Episcopal Church, and all welcoming and reconciling churches, by symbolically taking in the disgruntled conservatives who would rather be church-homeless than abide by the thought that there is a gay man of faith in New Hampshire who is shepherding his flock.

I say symbolically, because the three congregations in Southern California who are legally church-homeless are in Newport Beach, Long Beach and North Hollywood. For a few of those folks, Saddleback Valley is a bit of a stretch.

Rick Warren’s über-conservative gesture is problematic for another reason: he is actively intervening in a dispute within someone else’s flock. Episcopal Bishop Bruno has not actually expelled these congregations from their real estate as a result of the Supremes’ decision. According to his pastoral letter, he still holds out the hope that they will reconcile with the national denomination. Even the three dissident congregations’ attorney says the fight is “far from over,” because he has other ideas up his litigious sleeve.

But Rick Warren, the grandstand-alone pastor in Orange County, can’t wait for either of those two scenarios to play out. He wants to gather in somebody else’s sheep right now. In most Christian circles, that is a pastoral no-no.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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