Will you please identify yourself?

Then I moved from Vancouver to Winnipeg and had to start life over again. Since I had no denomination to plug into, finding a church was a struggle; for the first six months I was like a sheep without a flock. Eventually I found a home in a church called "Community," although technically it was Mennonite Brethren. My reason for attending had more to do with a warm welcome and feeling comfortable in the service than it did with the particular denomination.

I've had lengthy discussions with some of my Mennonite friends who bear their heritage proudly. When we get to heaven, I've argued, we are not going to be split up into categories according to which "tribe," or denomination, we belonged to on earth. We are going to worship God together, forever.

I still believe that. But lately I have grown in my respect for denominational distinctions. Being in an environment that serves the national, multi-denominational church, I can see both sides of the argument: there are many facets to this one diamond, many patches in this one quilt, many tiles in this one mosaic, many parts to this one Body.

That's the beauty of ChristianWeek. From our little offices in downtown Winnipeg, and with the help of phone calls, faxes, e-mails, denominational publications and other means, we get a great view of the Canadian church in its wonderful (regional, denominational) diversity.

Mental checklists

In order to properly represent this diversity, we constantly do mental checklists: are we representing women enough? Do we have too many Manitoba stories? Is there an Atlantic voice? If we carry more city stories, does that mean the church is stronger in the city than in the rural areas? Are we paying too much attention to pastors and professors and not enough to people in the pews, or vice versa? We try, and don't always succeed, to keep all those balances. (When I visited the Maritimes a few months ago I diligently sought stories from a mix of denominations, only to be chided by a Lutheran editor friend that "you didn't do any Lutheran stories!")

In his December 17/96 column, "A plea for denominations," Pentecostal theologian Garry Milley (hails from Newfoundland, teaches in Ontario) warned against post-denominationalism because the concept "is now being used to foster a negative attitude towards traditional denominations and their established doctrinal distinctives." Milley fears that Christian groups abandoning their roots will lead to settling for the lowest common denominator.

Milley had a point, and it gave me something to think about. Then we had an editorial board meeting, during which David Smith (hails from New Brunswick, Baptist dean of a non-denominational seminary in Manitoba) gave some impassioned reasoning for claiming and sticking to his roots. "I stand for the spilled blood of my spiritual forebears," he declared. But he didn't stop there. "I tell my Mennonite students not to forget that their forebears also spilled their blood for their beliefs."

Idiosyncrasies

This was not a case of Baptist is best, or Mennonite is better. This was recognition of a spiritual heritage that has been passed down the line for centuries. It's like saying "I'm Canadian, but I come from the Prairies" (I do), or "my value system was formed in the Maritimes," or "my thinking was influenced by my French Catholic upbringing" (or "my Presbyterian upbringing in Hong Kong"). Yes, we're Canadians, but we're very specific kinds of Canadians, all with our distinctives and idiosyncrasies.

(The analogy only goes so far, of course. As Smith points out, "If you have beliefs that you consider absolutely vital, then how can you compromise them?")

The question of denominations is confronting me again because in a few months I will marry into another "tribe." My beloved is an Anglican theologian-anthropologist who teaches at a Mennonite Brethren college, attended a United church as a child, become agnostic as a teen, had a Jesus-People type conversion as a young man, did a master's thesis on an Amish theologian at a non-denominational school, and spent five years in Africa with Mennonite Central Committee before doing his doctorate with a Catholic supervisor. His most recent research concerned the theology of African independent churches.

So I (born into a Christian and Missionary Alliance home to parents raised General Conference Mennonite, and having been part of a Baptist Union church, a "Uniting" church in Australia, and now happily in a merger between a Mennonite Brethren congregation and a General Conference one--almost unheard of) will trade the informality of my own church family for the more liturgical style (but with a dose of the charismatic thrown in) of my future spouse's congregation. And that's only form, not doctrine.

I'm still journeying. What it comes down to, for me, right now, is that yes, we have our denominational differences, and yes, these differences are important, sometimes critical. But we can still enjoy and respect each other, cooperate where that is useful, celebrate each other's strengths, forgive each other's weaknesses, and remember we worship one Lord.

When we get to that great church in the sky, we'll all be together with our Lord, singing to him with one voice. But maybe, during breaks, we'll chat with each other to get acquainted, and discover the richness and oneness of a tapestry made of Russian Orthodox, Brazilian Pentecostals, East Indian Mennonites, American Southern Baptists, British Columbia independents and Ontario Anglicans that we never learned to enjoy on earth. But hopefully I'll get to write about Nova Scotia Lutherans long before that.

Debra Fieguth
Associate Editor