Letters to the editor

Imposed doctrinal tenets
would force others out

I wonder if James Ryan might consider the possibility that an even greater exodus from the Methodist Church would occur if all members were forced to adhere to one set of preordained and unbending tenets (“How would bishops answer these questions about UMC?” March 24).
I think a conservative movement is afoot to take inquiry out of the process by which individuals come to an understanding of God. A liberal movement is afoot to oppose that—without being very clear about what the aim of their opposition is.
In a recent “Bizarro” cartoon, two South Seas islanders, some distance from a smoking volcano, were talking. “Am I the only one,” one said, “or would it be better if we invented an invisible, omnipotent being that controls our lives from inside the volcano?”
I think too many churchgoers may want the God that somebody else has invented, rather than make the effort to find God through the discovery process. The beautiful thing about the Bible in the discovery process is that God can be found through a literal reading as well as through reading it as allegory, folklore, poetry, drama, history or myth.
As a wise pastor once said, “It’s not either/or. It’s both/and.”
My feeling is that both conservative and liberal camps might be attempting to invent a god for all of us instead of discovering God themselves.
Russ Marlett
Wimberley

We need moderation, but we
need passion as well

What a relief!  On a page where rancor so often reigns, a voice of sanity.
Thank you, Milton Lewis (“Our decline is about more than what pastors believe,” April 28).
Mr. Lewis must be a man who understands moderation. We need the liberal voice but not in excess. We need the conservative voice but not in excess. 
We need the tension between the two. Then we can know that the center will be creative and vital.
If the voice of either is seriously weakened, the center will grow mordant. 
I am happy to tip my hat to moderation and also happy to criticize it. All the great teachers of wisdom from Confucius to Ben Sira to Aristotle have counseled moderation.
In sum, they have taught, “Nothing in excess.”
Express all your passions, appetites, yearnings and instincts but only in moderation. That may be wise, but I remember Santayana saying that ’tis not wisdom to be only wise.
The Christian can live moderately only if he or she is appropriately immoderate.
Only an immoderate faith in God can moderate our anxieties. Only an immoderate hope in God can moderate our despair. Only an immoderate love can moderate our antipathies.
Too often pastors who make moderation their guideline end up living by this proverb: “Never rock the boat.”
Remember Unamuno, whose final benediction upon us was, “May God deny you peace but give you glory.” If we are too moderate to be daring, God will rock the boat for us.
Lon A. Speer
Missouri City