"Perhaps the church is not so much the crumbling edifice we see but more a tent for the wandering people of God." (Soelle, Against the Wind)

I was reading a chapter this morning on Soelle's understanding of the church; and why she still feels apart of it. She references a conversation she had with Daniel Berrigan, who called the church a fairly inefficient umbrella. Despite getting a bit wet sometimes, 'it's there and I wouldn't want to do without it.'

She describes the necessary tension of holding the tendencies of the historical church towards both oppression and liberation, describing this as the tension between the church from above and the church from below. What's striking is despite the outright hate and dismissiveness that she personally received from the church throughout her career, she still sees a place within that tent:

“Now I feel much less alone in the church than I did some years ago… This momentum and its orientation carry me along, oriented toward reconciliation. My hope is for an end to the war between rich and poor that has shed and still sheds more blood than we can measure, and to the war between all of us and the earth who bears us. In this process I feel at home and borne by Christian tradition.”

As someone who has struggled to feel at home in the church for quite some time, I feel encouraged by this reminder that the church is not one thing and cannot be claimed by any one group. Yes, there can be hate and bigotry and selfishness but there is also love and kindness and self-sacrifice. The church holds both a history of oppression and liberation.

I am grateful for people like Soelle—and Berrigan—who spent their lives fighting for the latter even when the church itself turned against them.