Iconoclast…

It’s been over fifteen years since a fellow staff member of a denominational church called me an “iconoclast.” At the time I thought I knew what he meant, but I’ll admit I had to look it up in the dictionary. He was the creative arts pastor and he was irritated at changes I was promoting in the way we “did church.” All these years later, I am still trying to figure out whether I need to apologize for my iconoclastic tendencies.

My response to some of the silliness I see in ‘church life’ is natural. In fact, it may have been inherited. It probably started when one of the sunday school superintendents chewed out my twenty-something deacon father because he was sitting down outside the door to the sanctuary during the sermon. It was his job to open the door for anyone going in or coming out of the sanctuary during the service. Mrs. Overbearing admonished my dad that the job required him to be standing during the entire service. That was my dad’s last service as a regular church attender. When my mom and he divorced some years later and the elders came to tell him that they were disfellowshiping (kicking him out), he wasn’t very upset.

Years later when my first marriage ended, I got a letter from the church elders revoking my membership. It hurt bad. One result of this experience is that I am highly suspicious of “church membership.” I liked the Calvary Chapel approach of the 1980s. If you show up, you are a member. I have tried to decide whether I need to join a recovery group for my problem, however I am reluctant, I might get kicked out.