June Message from Conference Minister - Tyler Connoley

We live in an age of what I call aggressive theologies. People who know they’re correct are not willing to simply evangelize. They pass laws to force people to do as they wish, or bend whole denominations to their will. In the face of such certainty and belligerence, it can be hard to know what we believe.

In the United Church of Christ, we try to hold a big tent and allow people to work out their own theologies, but we don’t always give our people the tools we need to do that. As a result, many of us fall prey to people who are loud and certain. We wonder, “That person is so sure, could they be right?!” I’d like to offer you a tool I use when I encounter a person with an aggressive theology to help me assess whether that person’s actions and outlook might be right for me. I call it the More Life and More Love Test.

When confronted with a question of how to act or believe, I ask myself, “If I believed that, would it lead to more life and more love? If I did that, would it lead to more love and more life?”

In his book The Insistence of God, John D. Caputo uses the story of Mary and Lazarus to argue that we need not seek eternal life in Jesus. Like Mary, who didn’t care about the “resurrection at the end of the age,” but just wanted more life with her brother now, we can seek out those theologies and practices that bring more life. I’ve added to his idea, knowing that love is the greatest commandment, so I also look for theologies and practices that bring more love. Often universal love feels out of reach -- just as eternal life does -- but more love and more life are things we can each grasp now.

One practical example of when I used the More Life and More Love Test is when the Southern Baptist Convention declared their opposition to IVF treatment. I don’t need to understand the SBC’s biblical and ideological reasoning to know that I disagree with their theology and practice. People who seek out IVF treatment are people who want to create more life and more love through biological children, but who can’t. The children they bear and the love they share would not have existed without the intervention of IVF. Even if you worry about the embryos that must be destroyed in the process, the fact is that the result of IVF is more life and more love in the world. It passes the More Life and More Love Test.

The More Life and More Love Test also allows for people to find their own path – something that matters in a church that says, “Wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” My husband and I are people who could have used IVF, because our marriage will never naturally produce biological children. However, we consciously decided not to have biological children, instead choosing more love through fostering those who needed homes. Like many couples who couldn’t have biological children, we also decided we could bring more life into the world through a marriage arrangement that provides us time and flexibility for more artistic and justice actions. By focusing on more love and more life, we’ve found a good path for ourselves, and we’ve done it without needing anyone else’s path to be wrong.

It's Pride Month, so I want to give you one more example where the More Life and More Love Test can lead to better theology and practice. As an expert on gender diversity in the ancient near east, I had a friend recently ask me why any man in a small village would marry a woman who was “born a man and couldn’t have children.” My answer was simple, Love. For thousands of years, people have seen their children who were gender expansive, and known instinctively that allowing them to be themselves would bring them more life into the village, and allow those children to experience more love. In tight-knit families and small villages, our indigenous ancestors embraced their gender-diverse children. However, in recent years, people who live farther from one another have embraced theologies and ideologies that limit the lives of children they don’t even know, and deny them the practical love of parents and medical providers. The More Life and More Love Test is all we really need to see those ideologies and theologies are wrong.

In this month of Life and Love, when we celebrate the freedom of Juneteenth and the joy of Pride, I invite you to use the More Life and More Love Test on your actions and theologies. 

Seek out theologies and practices that bring More Life and More Love, and by doing so you will be the Church God needs for this time and place.

Blessings, 
Tyler