Another Church Ahead of Its Time

Pastor Toni Cook doesn't abide "conversions" but rather sharing sacred space and peaceful co-existence with Buddhists.


Though I'm definitely not a cheer leader for divinity -based religion, especially those with autocratic authority structures- I am sensible enough to realize atheists and atheism will always occupy a minuscule proportion of the populace. There is simply zero chance that a majority of humans will ever surrender their pet afterlife fantasies and acknowledge being orphans in a purposeless cosmos. Never mind the aggregate of data collected point in that direction!

Given this situation, it follows that the next best thing we atheists can do is encourage and support the less toxic forms of religiosity and the least toxic and most affirmative churches. I did this already in a prior blog for one small Christian church in Denver that reached out to the GLBT community, and do so now for another Denver church: St. Paul's United Methodist in Denver.

St. Paul's formally emerged in 1887, albeit not at its current location. The congregaton reached a peak of 800 - but by the time Toni Cook took over as pastor (in 1989) it had declined to only 15. Currently, the membership is about 250 with nearly 600 in a support capacity.

What is so unusual and affirmative about St. Paul's? I'd have to say its "reach out" mandate, becoming a place with "truly open doors" to use Pastor Cook's words. Along with having ministries for AIDS and homeless youths, the church also sponsors a joint union with Denver Buddhists - in the Buddhist-Christian Interfaith Service. Now, a Buddhist-Christian Interspiritual Service takes place every Sunday at 5 p.m.

This means there is a place for both Buddhist and Christian worship without the need for name-calling, invective, hostility and worse - lording it over the other (minority)group (e.g. Buddhists) as "unsaved", creating a spiritual apartheid. To quote Pastor Cook from The Denver Post ('St. Paul's Programs Not Appreciated by All', Sept. 19, p. 5B):

"We can coexist and share sacred space without the need to convert."

Imagine that! CO-exist! Live together! Share sacred space without the need to CONVERT! How radical is that? How revolutionary? Two dissimilar religous groups confident enough in themselves to worship together without the need for petulance, nastiness, or self-righteous palaver to justify being unwelcoming, and intolerant! Both Christ and the Buddha would be proud of this island of sanity in a too divisive landscape of faith.

Of course, this isn't to say the church hasn't been without its troubles since its reach out incentives. Pastor Cook has recalled, for example, how deranged conservative (e.g. evangelical) Christians once performed an "exorcism" in front of the church in 1995. No witness, however, beheld any "demons" fleeing from the church, though they did try cross burning when the exorcism failed to stop the church's outreach.

But, what do you expect of knuckle draggers, who now have the audacity and chutzpah to claim THEY are the ones being picked on! PUH-LEEZE, give it a rest already! Learn to live in peace with our other faith (or no faith) neighbors then you might not feel so beseiged!

This atheist, however, congratulates St. Paul's on its 150th anniversary and wishes them many more, especially in furthering and reinforcing other faith outreach programs - to gradually diminish the rancor of the religous zealots and crazies.

The way I see it, the more compassionate and all-embracing churches there are, the less we will have to contend with the jabbering, nasty idiots like Pastor Terry Jones, Fred Phelps and the rest of the crew of sanctimonious super-turkeys. The more moderate churches and religious approaches take hold, the less the atheist has to worry about eventually being persecuted himself - when the crazies tire of picking on the Muslims and come after more homegrown "enemies".