When Church Should Say “Yes” v. When Church Should Say “No,” by The Rev. Kaji Douša
It occurs to me that church has become a bit confused about when it should say Yes and when it should say No. I understand that this can be confusing. When we carry as much moral authority as church has often claimed, it can be somewhat of a moment of potential abuse. There are times when church has said No when it should’ve said – and listened to God’s unsurpassing – Yes. And yet it said No to people based on all kinds of morality clauses that were picking and choosing what God wanted us to do. For example, we see church saying No on matters of so called “lifestyle” while letting a whole bunch of other things happen that church needed to say No to. And so, I wanted to address this today because I would love to call my colleagues in the ministry and all of us who are in churches to think very carefully about the things we should be endorsing as church community and the things that we should be resisting. And instead of resisting people’s choices in terms of who they love, in terms of all sorts of sexual questions that seem to obsess church community, we need to set aside some of that and think, what else are we endorsing? Are we endorsing leadership that is going to be oppressive? Are we stepping into spaces that say Yes to leaders who don’t care about whether or not all of the people they are called to serve are able to thrive? And so, I ask us to think now, what do we say Yes to? And what are we going to powerfully resist? That’s the role of church.