One of the most fascinating aspects for me as a journalist having recently published an account of my journey into the life of a mainline Protestant church has been gathering a harvest of Christian critics’ judgments against the institutional mainline church. While Catholic reviewers have decried the lack of a fundamental religious conviction among the men and women at First Church in Windsor, Connecticut, those like James Bratt, whose strange suspicions and generational prejudices cloud their reading, often seem to find something startling and insincere about Baby Boomers, like myself, who return to a church and celebrate the substantial spiritual wellsprings of liberal Protestantism [“How Boomers Do Church,” Nov./Dec. issue].
Well, hallelujah! I wish Mr. Bratt would join me celebrating the mysteries of God in the mainline! Unfortunately, the poor man seemed to be simply unable to stomach such a revelation. As a result, his article left your readers with gross distortions.
Most importantly: The senior minister, the Reverend Van Parker, who Bratt says should be relegated to “American literature’s clerical hall of shame,” is portrayed by him as “scion of wasp culture driving on after that culture has lost its lead … most distinguished in this account as a manipulator of a $1 million fund drive.”
Shame on you, Mr. Bratt. In fact, Van Parker, who recently retired after nearly 30 years as the congregation’s spiritual leader, is among the most unpretentious and humble of Holy Men, a cheerful and enthusiastic Christian whose vision of an all-inclusive, pluralistic Christian community reflects an ideal that has fallen out of favor in our fractured, Balkanized, and often irascible American religious cultures. Unlike Mr. Bratt’s unkind and prejudicial depiction, Reverend Parker actually does appear often throughout my book leading worship services, preaching, praying for his community, writing letters to the editor, visiting sick parishioners, giving private prayers of thanksgiving, writing sermons, smoothing over conflicts, and standing firm for his convictions. …
I will not defend myself against Mr. Bratt’s devastating charge of “narcissism.” (I am surprised that he would appropriate the therapeutic language of the mainline’s evil empire.) Of that, I am guilty, sir. I am fortunate, though, for having found myself in a struggling mainline community of faith where we narcissists can be forgiven, instructed, led, and brought into a new understanding and a new life of wonder, connection, and spirit. I did not make any effort to mask my hunger of soul–for that is really what narcissism reflects–in telling my story or to understate the fool that I often am. Having read my book, Mr. Bratt would know that I am often foolish and unwise.
But even we fools must stand up, at times, and I will defend myself from his report that my wife and I prayed “for a virgin birth” when we discovered that she was infertile. I also cannot allow him to state, without correction, that she and I were driven to church by “the specter of sterility in body and soul, of being found at the final day to be without substance or legacy.” These judgments are not literary criticism, but another indication of the cruelty that underlies his review. The book makes it clear that my wife joined a Quaker meeting near our home before we knew of our infertility, and I was several months into the job of reporting about First Church before we discovered the bad news. We both give thanks to God and to those who prayed with us as we struggled with our problem. We are fortunate now to know a kind of gratitude that many parents may never experience, having the gift of a wonderful daughter by adoption.
Finally, it is true that I left First Church after 16 months and took up membership at another church “closer to home.” Bratt finds this to be “a disconcerting note” for the book’s conclusion and sees it as a “chronicle for the nineties,” reflecting, I assume, the Baby Boomers’ standard unappreciative, restless mongering for something always new and different.
Well, gosh, Mr. Bratt. It was difficult enough to be honest in my depiction of congregational life among people I came to love, warts ‘n’ all, without removing myself to a higher service as a writer and to return to my family, who needed me after the long absences required by thorough reporting.
I am delighted, though, that B&C published the review in tandem with Bratt’s thoughts about “The Black Churches of Brooklyn,” by Clarence Taylor, and the portraits of other congregations by James Wind and James Lewis. … I have hope that some day the division, bigotry, and sniping that festers between the evangelical mainstream and the evangelical mainline will cease because we have learned to celebrate our many blessings as Christian people.
– Gary Dorsey
Catonsville, Maryland
Gary Dorsey is the author of “Congregation.”
James D. Bratt replies:
Mr. Dorsey’s book shows considerably better style and substance than his letter, so I–again–urge people to read “Congregation”. I think they will find it at least as compatible with my interpretation as with the author’s attempted corrective.
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./BOOKS AND CULTURE Review
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