I am overwhelmed by the beauty of how you described your faith and understanding of it. I as well could copy and paste this and claim it to speak with bravado of my faith. Likely I would feel the need to add something about non-violence and Christ-centric scriptural reading but that's the anabaptist in me shining through.
I applaud your writing and see no reason why there would be anything to contest in it as you approach your final stages.
Brother may God bless you deeply as you pursue the path he has laid out for you to follow. Keep your eyes on Jesus, speak his gospel of grace boldly to the world. It is the wisdom of Christ, which is foolishness to us, that will bring people to their knees in awe of how amazing God is. It is only by the guidance of Holy Spirit that we can fully walkout our faith. God has clearly anointed you to carry his message of love to the world!

I am overwhelmed by the beauty of how you described your faith and understanding of it. I as well could copy and paste this and claim it to speak with bravado of my faith. Likely I would feel the need to add something about non-violence and Christ-centric scriptural reading but that's the anabaptist in me shining through.
I applaud your writing and see no reason why there would be anything to contest in it as you approach your final stages.
Brother may God bless you deeply as you pursue the path he has laid out for you to follow. Keep your eyes on Jesus, speak his gospel of grace boldly to the world. It is the wisdom of Christ, which is foolishness to us, that will bring people to their knees in awe of how amazing God is. It is only by the guidance of Holy Spirit that we can fully walkout our faith. God has clearly anointed you to carry his message of love to the world!

And, I love the lack of pronouns.

But that's not terribly helpful. That's really about me, and that's not the point. What do we do with this?

The sad thing, and you know this, is that as far as your mind and ability to express yourself goes you are exactly the sort of person the Church needs. I can't speak to your pastoral ability or anything else involved in the job. But you think beautifully and you inspire well. But you provoke, you're right where the Church needs to be in its ability to re-evaluate and repurpose itself, able to look critically at itself and go "what the fuck did we do to ourselves for the last 1900 years.." And of course, the problem is that very people want that and have the courage to face that.

William James, I believe, remarked on how little we do unless we are absolutely pressed. The church desperately needs healing and unfortunately, by the time it is absolutely pressed it will be too late. I think, and of course I think because I'm in this camp too, that this path of passionate engagement with critical re-examination is what we need to continue to build the Kingdom, first of all, and (secondly, certainly) remain relevant.

So I'm sure your call is real… the problem may be that the Church (and I don't just mean the PC(USA), but most of our institutions) is far too much a 'principality' to handle it. You know it goes for Prophets, and I'm not calling you one, but the prophetic tradition moves still in many voices and we surely live in a magnified Jerusalem.

The problem that remains is where does one stand in order to promote change? Do we go off and do our own thing, most likely helping some small amount of people but leaving the rest to wander the wilderness? Do we enter into the City and scream, unheaded? I think we have to be careful when me make these decisions… escapism often masquerades as purity.

Anyway, just my thoughts on this. It pains me to see you go through this and I wish I could say something more substantial.

but don't apologize for the challenge. it means a lot to me. seriously. keep pushing.

peace.

Wow. Did I just say that? I'm considering backspacing, but I think I'm gonna let it stand. I have great admiration for you, brother.