New United Church moderator reaches out through Cohen and Jazz
Rev. Gary Paterson recited from Leonard Cohen’s If It Be Your Will in his speech last Friday to United Church of Canada delegates in Ottawa.
It was fitting Paterson was elected moderator of the country’s largest Protestant denomination soon after, since the minister at St. Andrew’sWesley United Church in downtown Vancouver often leans on poetry to get across his messages.
A former English literature instructor, Paterson believes it’s crucial for Christians to move beyond reading the Bible “literally” so they can explore it’s deeper meaning as a blend of history, poetry, ethics and spiritual truth.
With the United Church struggling with declining membership, Paterson is convinced a metaphorical method of interpretation is key to reaching the growing cohort of Canadians who insist they are “spiritual, but not religious.”
The approach is having some success on the highly secular West Coast. Paterson’s liberal Christian congregation now welcomes roughly 450 people ( about four times the size it was when Paterson arrived) to its two services on any given Sunday.
St. Andrew’s- Wesley has for years offered a Sunday Jazz Vespers event; movie nights with spiritual reflection; classes based on Christian and Buddhist contemplation practices and an interfaith dialogue series.
Since being elected moderator of the 500,000- member denomination, the media have focused on how Paterson, 63, has openly been in a 30- year marriage with Vancouver City Councillor Tim Stevenson, also a United Church clergyman.
But — in an interview from Vancouver Island where he was trying to vacation and make arrangements for care of his ailing parents — Paterson said it was revealing that his homosexuality was “not mentioned once” during the process of electing a moderator.
Even though Regent College professor John Stackhouse, an evangelical theologian, told a media outlet Paterson was “being reduced to a sexuality symbol” by his own church, Paterson said three of the 15 candidates for the moderator’s position were openly homosexual.
“It’s a non- story for the United Church,” Paterson said. “It reflects a capacity of a religious community to grow and to say, ‘ Of course, it [ homosexuality] is just part of God’s variation in creation.’”
However, Paterson recognizes, as moderator of a denomination that has been ordaining homosexuals since 1992 and women since 1936, he will be attending international events with Christians who have never sat with a gay person, as head of a major denomination.
The proud father of three, plus four grandchildren, from his first marriage, returned earlier this year from a four- month sabbatical in Jerusalem in which he lived with Catholic and Orthodox clergy.
“My experience in the wide church community is that, when you’re not angry and defensive, relationships begin to develop. I’m hoping, in a nonconfrontational way, my presence [ as a homosexual] at ecumenical meetings will be a learning opportunity.”
Far beyond sexual orientation, however, Paterson wants to get going on many pressing issues.
He’s intent, without “scolding,” to find better ways to protect the Earth and respond to the needs of the homeless, mentally ill, prisoners and aboriginals.
Veteran observers of the Christian scene, such as Anglican Elaine Perry, retired owner of Vine and Fig Tree Books in Vancouver, believes Paterson is an “inspired” choice to lead the United Church during the next three years.
“Gary Paterson is the best kind of communicator: Straightforward, compassionate, authentic, humble, funny, open. Whether or not he expects it, I think he is going to be the voice of the whole so- called progressive church in Canada,” Perry said.
“He has no illusions or pretensions. He knows the church is beleaguered and that Christianity is one faith among many. But with poetry and vigour he will let everybody who listens know what is particular and transformative about open hearted, intelligent Christianity.”
The Vancouver School of Theology graduate yearns to highlight a long tradition of Christian spirituality which doesn’t expect “you to park your mind at the door.”
To that end Paterson was eager to respond to Stackhouse, who challenged him in an interview to explain why " orthodox” evangelicals and Catholics are doing better than the United Church, Anglicans and Lutherans at holding onto members.
While recognizing new immigrants are more likely to attend conservative churches, Paterson said he’s simply “astounded” young people go to congregations like Granville Island’s Westside Church, where the Bible is read literally, only men can be pastors and homosexuality is judged an abomination.
Paterson said he wants to learn more from the “passion” and “excitement” of evangelicals, and work more with social- justice- oriented congregations such as Grandview Baptist Church.
But he believes liberal Christians, following thinkers such as Jay McDaniel and John Cobb Jr., are in a much better position to engage in “mutually enriching” conversation with other faiths, especially Buddhism.
Paterson is also convinced progressive Christians, unlike Biblical literalists, have been learning for decades from “a serious dialogue with scientists, from theories of evolution and from quantum mystery.”
Paterson’s celebration of spirituality as metaphor is part of the reason he recites Cohen poetry and that St. Andrew’s- Wesley has for almost two decades held a Jazz vespers service on Sundays.
“Someone once said, ‘ Jazz is the sound of God’s laughter in the world,’ ” the new moderator said. “Jazz is itself a rich metaphor for how God operates in the world; using solos and improvisation to develop themes that are then picked up by the community.”