 PCUSA pastor on the Resurrection: 'Maybe a body got up; I don't care …' By Paula R. Kincaid Staff Writer The Layman Online Tuesday, January 23, 2007 The Resurrection "took place when the community was born. What rose was the body of Christ. Maybe a body got up; I don't care. That's not the point," said Pastor Jim Rigby of St. Andrew's Church in Austin, according to a writer for Texas Monthly. William Martin, who reviews places of worship for the magazine, wrote that Rigby's sermon on the Resurrection during an Oct. 22 service didn't surprise him, given the church's reputation, but "it did make clear why more-traditional Presbyterians might think he has strayed from the theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith."
A symbol In his Oct. 22 sermon, Rigby said the Resurrection is a "symbol of something deeper. Something beyond place and time. What the great saints and sages have discovered … is that the deeper you go into your awareness, the more universal [the Resurrection] is. And what they discover is that they are not just one little life; they are the Big Life and so are you. And they set up ways of understanding, through rituals, through Communion, through baptism, to teach you that you also are the One Life ... What these symbols are talking about are not things that happened; they are things that are always true. The Resurrection is happening now." According to Martin, Rigby called the Resurrection "a symbol to illumine from your own experience, your own life, what it is that does not die." "By acknowledging the pain involved in giving up long-held convictions, [Rigby] insisted that 'science has made certain views of life impossible, and at some level you and I know that. If we are willing to go deeper with our symbols, we could have a religion that actually works. ... For our children and our grandchildren, I believe, we have to have the courage to go through the agony of understanding what these symbols mean at a deeper level,'" Martin wrote. Rigby also declared his belief that heaven is not another world, but "'a profound understanding of this world, of that which is not born and that which does not die.' And Christ is that which we discover 'when we gather in community on behalf of the whole world.'" "I found it fascinating to watch Rigby 'doing theology,' reinterpreting hallowed concepts for people who are no longer able to accept them literally," Martin wrote in his review. "Open wrestling with doubt and ambiguity finds it tough to compete in a market saturated with certainty. That said, such churches, though few in number, are a valuable part of the religious economy, offering a haven to those who seek to be honest to God and to themselves and are less concerned with affirming what the classic creeds say about who Jesus was than with listening to what he said and behaving as they believe he did." Teaching the children During "Time with the Children," Mr. Monkey and the St. Andrew's puppets performed. David Marks and Rigby were the puppeteers. According to Martin's review, Marks began the time by asking the children what costumes they would wear for Halloween, "responding positively to each report." Martin wrote, "The puppet ministers then began holding conversations with Mr. Monkey and his colleagues. Obviously familiar with the cast, the children quickly recognized that the voices they heard did not match the puppets they saw. The ministers then removed the outer puppets to reveal smaller ones concealed inside. The lesson: We cannot and should not judge people by their outward appearance." Welcomes believers and agnostics … Martin called St. Andrew's "'an inclusive, progressive church' whose members approach God through the life and teachings of Jesus but 'recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.'" He said the church bulletin's invitation "explicitly welcomes 'believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope.'" That invitation has gotten the church in hot water with Mission Presbytery. In June 2006, the presbytery's commissioners voted 156-114 to order St. Andrews to remove a self-described atheist from its membership roll and directed the church to work with the presbytery's Committee on Ministry to create a constitutionally appropriate process for receiving members. The presbytery did vote to allow the atheist – Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas – to remain a member while St. Andrews appeals the presbytery decision to the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Sun. In a September 2006 speech to the Methodist Federation for Social Action in Austin, Jensen described the presbytery meeting as "a bit surreal." He said he wasn't allowed to speak at the meeting: "My assumption is that those who wanted to bounce me didn't want to risk letting the delegates see a real human being talk about his struggles with the complexity of the issue – better to keep me as a symbol of heresy, on the assumption that delegates would have an easier time voting against heresy in the abstract than voting against an actual heretic who looks like them and may even have some of the same questions as they do." But a copy of a statement Jensen wrote was made available to commissioners. That statement included Jensen's beliefs:
'Blessing' 50 same-sex marriages In 2004, Rigby took part in "blessing" the "marriages" of 50 same-sex couples on the campus of the University of Texas. A formal complaint was filed with the presbytery by Robert Brown of Carrollton, and his pastor, the Rev. William Pharr of Nor'kirk Presbyterian Church in Carrollton. Two different investigating committees of Mission Presbytery declined to send the case to trial, despite the fact that Rigby never denied his participation in the ceremonies. In fact, Rigby welcomed the trial, saying he wanted the presbytery to try him on the charges of ordaining and marrying gays because that will force Presbyterian officials to confront the issue of homosexuality in the church. "Either they have to strip me of my ordination or the church has to change," Rigby told The Austin American-Statesman. Paul Rolf Jensen, a California lawyer who represented Brown and Parr, told The Layman Online that the "decision, wholly contrary to our Scriptures and polity, amply demonstrates that there is no need to adopt the 'local option' recommendation #5 of the PUP report. We have local option now." He said the letter from the investigating committee demonstrated "there was no factual dispute as to Mr. Rigby's misconduct, and totally usurps the authority of the PJC as the trier of fact." Paula R. Kincaid is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. She can be reached at prk@layman.org. |
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