This based on the text of an email sent to a mailing list I was once a member of. It had been shared with the list by the original recipient. It later came up in a sermon and spoke to me very clearly, through my memory of the event, down through the last 5 years, coming thoroughly into my mind since January of this year. But I could never remember the ful text. I’ve spent like 4 months trying to remember it, I finally had to ask.

I’ve removed the personal details, edited two phrases and added one sentence of my own. The email is over 5 years old… but I think the edits would express the writer’s current opinion as well as they do my own. The final paragraph speaks to the specific context of the email, but I think it makes a good example of applying the document.

Considering this was in 2000 or 2001, it’s “pre emergent” (as “Emergent Church” had only begun to percolate at that point) but it seems to fit on the progressive side of that spectrum.

X remarked at a Buddhist-hosted dinner that the main divisions lie not between religions, but within them.

It has long seemed to me that there are really just two religions in the world, and they show up in each tradition: one runs on risk/ welcome/ abandon/ grace/ transformation/ forgiveness/ creativity/ multiple-possibilities; and the other, on security/ control/ rules/ order/ stability/ only-one-possibility.

Both religions can quote the scripture and tradition in support, because both religions have contributed to the scriptures and teaching in every tradition. God must be finding a use for both or they wouldn’t be everywhere. Some “liberals” fondly suppose there are traditions free of the second religion, but I doubt it. Some “conservatives” fondly suppose there are traditions free of the first religion, but I doubt it.

At the same dinner table a Unitarian raged at length against all proselytizing, saying that’s how Christians mess up the peaceable religious order of the world–so even Unitarians include folks wedded to rules–and some Buddhists present nodded agreement while others sat politely silent.

Every label has been used by both religions: orthodox, faithful, traditional, mainline, visionary, etc. There’s no escape, no correct stripe to put on your sleeve and help you identify from a distance the soldiers in your own army. You have to get closer to find out. Even church publications devoted to one religion will feature occasional articles and editorials promoting the other.

Currently, the Episcopal church seems less devoted to the second religion than to the first, but you’re never safe here. That’s why you belong here. You don’t need safety.