November 1, 2012

A purple witness

I’m exhausted.

I never thought I’d long for beer and sports-drink commercials. But when you live in or near a swing state like Ohio, all of the TV spots are bombast and lambast.

The news is, of course, consumed as well, detailing every jot and tittle of the campaigns.

And then there are the maps of the red and blue states. This shorthand for lumping whole states into one category or another reminds me of the same problem that we face in The Episcopal Church when we use labels like conservative and liberal, without acknowledging a full, rich and diverse spectrum between those points. 

Despite this tendency, The Episcopal Church at its best offers another way – a middle way, perhaps even a purple way. This ethos of via media appealed to me early in my move from another denomination to The Episcopal Church. And it’s one of the first things I tell people who aren’t Episcopalian.

Most of us don’t fully embody one label. We may be fiscally conservative but socially liberal. We may support full inclusion or find ourselves somewhere in between. We may be red on some issues and blue on others.

While the Episcopal Church tries to navigate through these complicated labels, what I love most is that we put above those individual perspectives our collective commitment to coming together at the Lord’s Table. We value our ability to set aside differences and find unity in the body and blood of Christ, in the unity of the spirit, in our mutual journeys toward reconciliation, grace and love.

Two of the local churches in the Diocese of Southern Ohio are offering what I’m calling “a purple witness.” Instead of letting secular society define us as red or blue, they are inviting people to gather for prayer and the Eucharist before, during and after the election.

This commitment to bringing people together despite our differences is a vital part of our witness as people of God. It is living a complex and dynamic faith by word and example in a world that wants easy answers.

I wonder: How many other churches are offering similar services? Share them here as an offering to our communities, an invitation to move beyond hardened ideological labels into a purple witness.