The Church Showdown in Wagner and Why it Captured my 8-yr-old Heart!

When I was a little guy of about 8, we moved to a town in South Dakota called Wagner. My dad was a United Methodist pastor, and I really didn’t know what I thought of the church at that age. I would say my attitude toward church at this time was best described as "Meh". I just didn't care. I loved Wagner, though. If any of you were to ask just where I grew up, I’d point to Wagner. It was the place where I would get on my bike (one I had paid for with my own money) on a summer day and ride out to Wagner Lake with my friends and fish all day. It was the place where I learned to collaborate with people who were a different color and race than I was—the Lakota people—amid racial tension. It was the place where I kissed my first girlfriend after a JH dance. But it was also a place where the church was amid an all-out controversy! And for this 8-year-old boy bored out of his mind with “church life”, this was incredibly exciting! I never used to like going to church meetings with Dad before, but now I found myself sneaking into the back seat of the car just so I could go and listen to all the Trouble—yes, with a capital T! I mean people were up in arms! And for me, nothing could be better!

 And it all centered around, of all things, the cross!

You see they had built a new church at Wagner. The old church was right next to the parsonage, but the new church was out in Wagner Heights...the new part of town where all the “rich” people lived. The old church was very traditional with an old organ, pews, bells in the belfry (when I had friends over we used to sneak up there about midnight and wake up the whole neighborhood with those bells...talk about fun!), and a cross with beautifully stained wood with a light that lit up the world right behind it. 

The new church was contemporary. We didn’t have pews but chairs that we could move around. And although there were stained glass windows, they were of a contemporary design. And the cross, when we got there was a hand-crafted cross crafted out of driftwood from the Missouri River just 12 miles west of Wagner. It had been the creative work of the pastor who had been there just before we came. And while the people put up with it while that pastor was there, there was a large contingency of the congregation that wanted it out and replaced with the old traditional cross!

And so, the argument began. Those who loved the new cross thought that it represented the reality of Jesus death. It was knotty and twisted and yet beautiful...just like Christ’s death on the cross. But the traditionalists argued that the traditional lighted cross focused more on the resurrection. The tomb, just like the cross, was empty! Christ is risen! And it is Christ’s resurrection that becomes the light of the world! That’s where our focus should be.

Now as exciting as all this was, my focus during this controversy was on my dad. He was acting peculiarly! You see usually he was the church peacemaker. He was the first to put out the fire! But this time Dad let them argue it out. I remember coming home one Sunday after one of these meetings and sitting at the dinner table and Mom looking Dad square in the eyes and saying, “Bob! What has gotten in to you! You’ve got to stop this thing! It’s getting out of control! You’re supposed to be the peacemaker...that’s why God put you on this earth! And now you are fanning the flames! What has gotten into you. Do your job!”

But Dad didn’t. He was actually smiling a bit about it. Mom challenged him. “Are you enjoying this? What is this all about?”   And Dad said, “Elsie, they aren’t arguing about carpet samples or paint colors. Don’t you get it? They are arguing about theology! And both sides have wonderful points. I mean this is cool. We are arguing about something that is significant!”

That Sunday, Dad preached a sermon about this controversy. He shared that he thought both sides in this controversy were right. For those who loved the rugged drift-wood cross from the river, Dad shared the emphatic words from the apostle Paul “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24) He went on to say that the reason Paul preached Christ crucified was because he saw the cross as an indictment of the rulers and principalities of his world and this world. The powers that be were so concerned about their own power dynamics that they had hung the savior of the world, Jesus, on a cross to die! The cross was supposed to be an indictment of the self-driven power of our world. It was God looking us in the eye and saying...there is another way...a more excellent way to live (read 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13)

This made the driftwood crowd elated!

But then Dad turned to those who loved the “light of the world” cross and said, but Paul wasn’t a one-trick pony. He was, after all, someone who had had an incredible personal mystical experience in which he saw and heard the Risen Christ. There on his way to Damascus, coming back from a trip in which he was persecuting Christians, he had seen a great and blinding light and heard the voice of Christ calling him. This experience of the “light of the Risen Christ” changed Paul’s life forever. Before he was Saul, an instrument of the powers of this world, and after, he was Paul, the follower of a more excellent way of love.

It was then that my dad’s “peacemaker” spirit came out. He worked out a compromise. One season we would have the old “light of the world” cross up and then the next season we had the “driftwood” cross of Christ crucified. And everyone at the Wagner UMC church seemed happy and content. That is until they decided to build a new educational wing, and the trustee chair wanted to paint the rooms lavender! Oh boy! My dad’s greatest nightmare!

Your friend and pastor, thankful for the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, Brook