I once saw an Off Broadway play that was supposedly set in Lancaster, Pa. The title is long forgotten—but I can’t forget that all the characters mispronounced the name of their own hometown. How can the audience get lost in a story if it isn’t believable? Anyone who’s really from there knows that it isn’t pronounced like the Lancaster in California.
Speaking of California, I spent an entire childhood there unaware that the Reading Railroad in the game of Monopoly was not pronounced like the reading room at the library. When Annual Conference was held in Norfolk, many of us got schooled in the right way to pronounce that city. At another Annual Conference, the city’s tourism office displayed a neon sign in the window showing five different ways to pronounce Louisville, none of them with an S.
If you want to announce that you’re not from around these parts, try saying Staunton in Virginia, Willamette in Oregon, Beatrice in Nebraska, Cairo in Illinois, Peru in Indiana, East Palestine in Ohio, or New Madrid in Missouri. Apparently, it would be best to leave behind our assumptions when we hit the road.
That’s a good idea even when we’re in our own familiar places. When we encounter other people, how do we receive their differences?
I’m intrigued by a somewhat new approach in conversations among church bodies. It’s called receptive ecumenism. The emphasis is on receiving—that is, what we need to learn from others rather than on what others need to learn from us.
This describes the stance of Christian Churches Together, which gathered representatives of 40 communions, including the Church of the Brethren, at its annual forum in October. CCT uses five words to describe receptive ecumenism: ready, relate, receive, repent, respond.
Under the theme “Come, Holy Spirit,” CCT participants listened intently to the different accents, both literal and figurative. The group welcomed two historic Black denominations into its membership, and engaged in times of worship and study across the five families of the organization, learning more about each other’s theological and cultural hometowns. The breath of the Spirit filled the room, animating and enlivening minds and hearts.
Sometimes it seems as if Christians in the US are deeply divided. But that’s not the whole story. Come, Holy Spirit.
Wendy McFadden is publisher of Brethren Press and executive director of communications for the Church of the Brethren.