pat loughery

A couple weeks ago I was listening to a recording of a Pagitt talk at EC, and he described some of the things that he does as in reaction to allergies he has to church forms, beliefs, patterns, etc.

Like in the natural world, I could be allergic to wheat and dairy and they give me very negative reactions, but they’re not bad in and of themselves. Dairy and wheat are, in fact, generally helpful to humanity. But that doesn’t mean I could eat them. (This is for the purpose of illustration only, you underrstand; I love ice cream and a good piece of bread, so thank God I’m only allergic to various pollens and pop music).

And in the church culture, there are things that may give us allergic reactions. I have allergic reactions against simple answers to complex questions; to marketing the church like it’s any other business; to music festivals that market themselves as worship events but really are just promotional events for the contemporary Christian music industry. (Yes, I’m getting the spam marketing for that Festival again this year, and while I’d love to go check out some good bands I find it more and more difficult to reconcile the description of the Festival with its actual observed reason for existence).

Anyway, all this to say that there’s a local bookstore that I’d really like to support, but it’s really hard to. It’s a Christian bookstore but I can find three, four times the stock at the Barnes & Noble across the street. If I’m looking for simplistic, self-help stuff I can find it at this place – but nothing out of the strong mainstream. I wanted to look at the new book by Eugene Peterson on spirituality, but they didn’t have it. (B&N did, cheaper than list price; I’ll still order from Bean Books).

But I realize that the more I visit this particular store, the faster I find that I need to get out of it. Oh sure, it’s a fine place to find knicknacks, bumper stickers, bracelets, that sort of thing – nothing bad in and of itself – I just find that my hives act up, and I have to keep my mouth shut and leave quickly.

Hives. Allergies.