Okay, now I’m thinking of a few posts related to the topic of “faithfully disagreeing” in the church, or those who’ve disagreed with certain policies (the race ban being a salient example) but who saw themselves as wanting to be faithful to and to remain in the church. Such a tendency has been given different names like “faithful dissent,” and probably others, but I’ve been thinking about another metaphor I want to try out: steadying the ark.
The phrase comes from 2 Samuel 6 when God kills Uzzah for “putting forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it.” In our church [FN 1], we’ve turned this story into the importance of following church leaders. Leading the church is the leaders’ job, and to suggest changes or differences, we say, is to “steady the ark,” the same sin that got Uzzah struck dead.
In some upcoming posts, I’m thinking about arguing the opposite position: trying to protect the ark was a good thing, that God striking someone dead for doing such a thing is contrary to how most of us see God, and that I think this story most likely did not actually happen. But my bigger point will be questioning the claim of it ALWAYS being wrong for lay members to provide opinions on changes to church practices and policies.
Years ago, I picked my daughter up from early morning seminary and she reported being appalled at the Uzzah story. “He was trying to do a good and helpful thing and God struck him dead!?” I referred to talking with my daughter about issues with the Old Testament in this blog post.
I see the story as a more archaic view that humans had of God in the past of taboos and a wrathful God, but one I see as rather different than how Jesus portrays God, in my opinion. I talked a while back about historicity and other problems with the Old Testament, so I view the Uzzah story as a product of the culture, and that’s okay. No, I don’t think that God really smote Uzzah dead for steadying the ark.
Turning the story into a metaphor claiming that making suggestions about church policies is bad really seems like a stretch to me. It doesn’t look to me that the Uzzah story is about that at all. But again, my bigger point is to present the opposite of the claim that making suggestions is bad. I agree with my daughter that Uzzah steadying the ark was a good thing, and the archaic notion of God killing someone for such an act doesn’t fit with our religious sentiments.
In a few upcoming posts, I want to turn the metaphor on its head: like my daughter said, I will be arguing that metaphorically steadying in the ark, or a conscientious layperson piping up to give a helpful nudge here and there, CAN be a good thing.
By this I don’t mean all criticism of the church, and I do think there’s a difference between outspoken critics and what I will propose here as an “ark steadier,” or a faithful member pointing out a problem. I don’t mean to place a moral difference between the two, but a typological one in terms of church commitment and intent. No doubt the line can be blurry so I don’t give any absolute distinctions, but I will point to a few examples of what I see as people playing the devout role as ark steadiers in church history. I do think there have been faithful members who’ve made legitimate suggestions for changes in an attempt to protect the church like Uzzah sought to protect the ark.
FN 1 I’m not sure about other Christian thinkers and traditions’ use of the phrase. When I put the phrase into Google, mostly Mormon references came up, but not only Mormon ones.
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