Being Stretched by Faith Traditions
Dyed-in-the Wool Presbyterian A Broadening Experience Evangelical Worship Keeping an Apen Mind
Dyed in the Wool Presbyterian
I tell folks that I'm a dyed-in-the wool Presbyterian. I grew up knowing that if folks were Presbyterian, they were all right and if they were Methodist or Episcopalian or 
Lutheran, they were all right too. Roman Catholics and Baptists of any ilk were a little on the suspicious side; the Roman Catholics for "obvious" reasons (after all, we were Protestants and that's all the explanation you needed in those days), and Baptists partly because they had more stringent rules (no drinking or dancing) and partly because there was a hint of something a little unruly there. I don't recall that we put a name on it at the time, but I suppose "evangelical" would have been the word if we had used one.
That's why, when it came time for me to attend seminary, my first choice, of course, was Presbyterian. Problem was, I was 40 years old, lived in Pierre, South Dakota, with my husband who had a good job there and the closest Presbyterian seminary was in Dubuque, Iowa, some 570 miles away. But the closest seminary was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, some 220 miles away. It was (and is) North American Baptist Seminary.
Now, folks, that's not American Baptist and it's not Southern Baptist, it is North American Baptist, a denomination of its own. They would take my money and they would educate me, but there was not a chance in the world they would ordain me because I was a woman. And while my childhood suspicions remained somewhat intact, the call I felt to seminary was so great that I signed up and headed off to my first class.
After commuting for three and a half years, I graduated with my M.Div. (Masters in Divinity) degree. What's more, I passed all of the Presbyterian ordination exams on the first go 'round which is much more than many of my colleagues who attended a Presbyterian seminary could say. And the Presbyterians ordained me in a very Presbyterian ceremony a few months later.
A Broadening Experience
But in those 3-1/2 years, I discovered many things about the Baptists and among the Baptists, and I learned a lot about myself as well. It was, in fact, one of the most broadening experiences of my life, something I never would have thought I would say about Baptists and/or Evangelicals before I set out on this journey with them.
I went in with my eyes wide open, intent upon learning what God would have me learn, and also intent upon avoiding being sidetracked by the Baptists and the Mennonites and the AOG's (code, I learned, for Assembly of God) and the Independents around me. I knew pretty much what I was supposed to believe and how to put that belief into practice. But I also knew that I needed a theological education.
What happened in the process is that I found a group of professors who encouraged and nurtured me, who took the time to carefully analyze with me my questions....Their molding of me allowed me to take my own form, drawing on their teachings and beliefs, weighing all of that with my Reformed thinking, and allowing me to agree to disagree....
Evangelical Worship
The first few times I attended the chapel, I was thrilled with the music played by the young praise band. We rocked and we rolled. But in the midst of prayer or in the middle of one of the slower, more thoughtful songs, I felt more than a little uncomfortable as I saw hands and arms reaching into the air, seeming to grasp something that I could not see. There was sometimes a swaying to it all and I, Calvinistic to the core, stood staunchly wanting to look neither right nor left and trying to tune it all out.
Fact is, I couldn't. It grew on me. Oh, believe me, I really missed the substantive hymns on which I had been raised....But the songs of faith that these Evangelicals taught me allowed me to open myself in worship in ways I had never done before. "Shine, Jesus, Shine" I sang, and truly prayed that Jesus would fill the land with God's glory.
Somewhere back in my Presbyterian upbringing I must have had some pretty good Sunday School teachers because the Holy Spirit was something that, abstract as it is, seemed quite concrete to me. What I had was understanding. What I did not have was a willingness to let the Holy Spirit run rampant in and with my life. That's something to which I was introduced at that seminary. In music and in prayer and in worship I invited the Holy Spirit to move me in ways I had never imagined before. And the Holy Spirit did. I began to understand and feel God's presence in a truly intimate way. The Presbyterians didn't teach me that. The Baptists and the Evangelicals did.
Keeping An Open Mind
I'm still a Presbyterian. And I absolutely celebrate the influence of my Methodist and Episcopalian and Lutheran and Roman Catholic and Baptist and Evangelical relationships. Yes, it is important to have a strong foundation from which we can develop our beliefs, but it is equally important to allow that foundation to become even stronger by opening ourselves to traditions and thoughts we would otherwise hold at bay. We don't have to accept and believe and agree with everything that every tradition teaches. But it is important to accept the fact that God can work through those -- and will.
Gretchen Lord Anderson shared these reflections in Ecu-News [March 2001],
published by the Wisconsin Council of Churches. Edited and used with permission.