Here are gathered writings on ecclesial affairs broadly taken. I served in the pastoral role only very briefly many years ago: at my alma mater for a year as Assistant Chaplain and at a small UCC parish in El Paso, Texas for about six months. In both cases I accomplished pretty much the opposite of the mission I was given:
At the Baptist university, I forced cessation of mandatory attendance at chapel services. At the UCC parish, my presence occasioned the congregation's increase instead of merger with a larger congregation not far away.
Never again was I offered an academic chaplaincy or parish ministry and never again did I seek either role. I did try to join the Navy Chaplain Corps. The Navy was enthusiastic and so was I. The UCC judicatory in San Diego refused on grounds I was not a Christian.
I think my career as a churchman has illumined a path ahead for the churches: de-industrialization. Churchmen first in Germany -- Organization -- and then in England and The United States begged to be included in enumerations of the proper sort of Joe by scientists in academe. Churchmen's cravenness with respect to scientists put sensory experience at the top of popularly acceptable epistemological method (Dewey, Whitehead, Russell), then as sole acceptable epistemological method (Popper, Maslow, Sartre), and finally as merely one among the all, utterly unacceptable epistemological methods (Derrida, Foucault, Barth) because all are causing the oppression of man. That last phrase / estate, of course, is no more than a nasty, arrogant assertion which yet enfolds a kernel of truth.
Industry is good. Organization is good. Order is good. Declaring epistemological tools outside the ken of respectability is bullying. Churchmen have no cause to accept or submit to bullying. Doing so is being craven. Churchmen are not cowards and cowards are not churchmen.
De-industrialize the churches. Congregations will return to them and produce new ones. Make them pretty, not petty.
