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May 2004: A month of pain and hope for the United Church of God

While UCG functionaries have been in a dither, and Chairman Clyde has been swatting at dissenters with the musty pages of Jamieson, Faucett and Brown and Matthew Henry, this has in fact been a very good month for UCG.

Not that United's ministry, by and large, will appreciate that fact. Their Pavlovian conditioning keeps getting in the way. Any indication that people are (gasp!) thinking for themselves must mean the sky is falling. And when the sheep dare to actually face down their shepherds, Satan is on the loose!

But the future of any COG organization – if it is to have one – does not lie with the recycled WCG demagogues who rose to the top of the heap by the standard techniques of guile and bootlicking. Not that some of them aren't sincere or well-intentioned, many are. It's just that they're operating in a mindset that belongs to the scrap yard of church history. To put no too fine a point on it, the ministry just doesn't always know best, and everyone seems to know that except the ministry.

It's interesting that one of the strongest reactions to recent events has come from younger members. Clyde Kilough's overbearing letter, which managed to come across as both pretentious and defensive at the same time, simply drew attention to the fact that for the under-35's, respect and credibility have to be earned: they don't come as of right. And they're not intimidated by the "rank" of  minister.

Lord knows, UCG doesn't exactly have an overabundance of "young people", so you'd think the Home Office bosses would sit up and pay attention when those who are still on-board start telegraphing a strong message to the graying bureaucrats in cardigans.

The control freaks have surely had their chance and done their time. On the basis of the evidence in hand, they haven't got a lot to show for it. It's time for an inclusive approach, one that breaks down the artificial barrier between the ministry and the great unwashed who sit in the pews each Saturday. It's time someone started talking about the "priesthood of all believers" - a concept noticeably absent from the reform process in any of the COGs.

Unordained Christians are not spiritual minors to be treated as children. Many of them are better informed and better educated than their pastors. And the post-Armstrong generation hasn't imbibed the spirit of spineless acquiescence that too often characterized their parents. The next generation of COG members will want a voice in determining their own destiny, and not just sit on the sidelines as passive observers. And they're right to do so.

The current strife in UCG has exposed a generational fault line. Already most of the up-and-coming generation have up-and-gone; not least the children of those very ministers who still cling to ministerial privilege with a vise-like grip.

And that's the basis of my optimism. This month we've clearly seen that there are those in UCG with the nerve to stand up and be counted. Is that true of the Living Church of God or the PCG?  United desperately needs these people. It needs them inside the camp. These are the leaders of the future, and they are the only people capable of taking the church into a viable future.

This is not the moment for the those who have now discovered a voice to back off, or to turn down the heat. Loyalty isn't a matter of "do what the pastor says." Loyalty may mean doing the very opposite. Walking away is to hand the victory to the very people who will lead the church into stagnation and a long, cancerous decline.

When Clyde Kilough referred to "foes" this week, perhaps he should have first looked in the mirror. Consider the sage words of Walt Kelly's comic creation Pogo (a more perceptive observer than Matthew Henry): "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us."