A few weeks ago I received a message from my good friend Bill Picard. He had read Ed Vargo’s review of my novel (A Book Review From Thailand) and wrote, “The review resonated with a mini essay I just wrote on church reform. I am attaching it.”

The essay is too good to keep to myself, so I asked Bill to let me share it with my readers. With his permission it appears below:

INSTITUTIONAL REFORM IS EVANGELIZATION

By William Picard

It was the great prophet of our time, Mark Twain, who spoke our need to become a non-conformist if we are to embrace the way of truth and reform. He did it by putting his words in the mouth of Huckleberry Finn:

"O.K., then, I'm goin' to hell." After all his introspection on that raft with Jim, Huckleberry Finn finally finished his agonizing process and was born again.
         
How else to understand this painful struggle Huck was having over the well-accepted stand on slavery all the people around him held. It now had to do with his friend Jim. Huck knew now he could not go along with the crowd and continue hurting his friend Jim. "O.K., then, I'm goin' to hell," but I'm on Jim's side. I'm not goin' to abandon him.

Huckleberry Finn had to choose. And he did. This so reminded me of Jesus asking his friends if they too were going to go away. It was up to them. Yes, what he said was strange and opposed to the thinking of the others, but, he insisted, he was the way and this was it. They had to choose. They had to start all over on their journey. It was all different and new. It was a new life. They had to be born again into this strange way and new life.

Last night as I watched Ken Burn's rehearsal of Mark Twain's character, Huckleberry Finn, I immediately thought of his decision and my own of late. I had to choose between the acceptance of the masses in society and in the church of the whole notion of war or the insistence of Jesus against war. When Huck said, "O.K., then, I'm goin' to hell," this expressed my agony too.

Does the newborn infant get a pass when water is poured on her head at baptism?

Or does she have to one day also make the agonizing decision in the struggle to be born again.

Is not the institutional church in need of reform when it insists the baby at baptism has undergone the process of being born again by the simple pouring of the waters of baptism?

When Jesus insists that peace cannot be found in the power of domination, but in him, and the institutional church says that peace can be sought through the power of the weapons of war as long as it is a "just war," is not the institutional church in need of reform?

When the institutional church disciplines its members by excluding them from the community, does not the institutional church need reform?

When the institutional church is hesitant in decrying the use of death as an instrument in the protection of society, is not that church in need of reform?

When the institutional church refuses to address its own leadership when that leadership allows its messengers of the gospel of love to abuse children and cause them insufferable pain throughout their whole life, is not that church in dire need of reform?

When the institutional church imposes a lifestyle of celibacy on its messengers of the gospel of love to the world of loving married people, and stubbornly defends its own disciplinary lifestyle on these messengers, is not that church in need of reform?

When the institutional church refuses to embrace in unity all the followers of Jesus through their acceptance of the gospel of love, that church is in need of reform.

When the leadership of the institutional church organizes itself in an engulfing division among the followers of Jesus, that church is in need of gospel reform.

When the institutional church no longer draws others through its irrepressible power of love, but even repels loving people, even to the abandonment of its own loving members, the church is in need or reform.

When the light and the love and the inclusivity of the man who trod the paths of Nazareth is not found in the gatherings of the institutional church, then that church is in need of reform.

Last night my friend remarked that the gospel which was so revolutionary became institutionalized. It became so status quo that the only revival of the gospel is institutional reform. 

We have been blessed that it was the head of that institutional church (John XXIII) who proclaimed this need of reform in 1960. Even his words were so transformative:  he said so truthfully that the church is always in need of reform; and he said it so poetically: that we must let the refreshing air (read "gospel") in through the windows.

Indeed reform of this distorted church is evangelization. We must proclaim the gospel at all times and at all places that the Way of Jesus may be seen and followed.

Yes, all of us in the institutional church must continually reclaim our call to the gospel. We are called to shine with that gospel difference. We are called not just to believe that gospel. We are called to reflect its beauty and its way in ourselves. Then and only then can we proclaim that gospel and that kingdom to come which is reflected in us.

Published 10/14/2010

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