Flavor to the table and a blaze to illuminate the world

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — “Are we losing our flavor? Are we dimming our light?”

The Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, posed these challenging questions to the World Communion of Reformed Churches' 27^th General Council on Thursday.

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Speaking on the third day of the global gathering, Moss urged delegates to persevere in fostering a just communion, resist diluting the Gospel, and dare to join their lights together. Watch Moss' address here.

Salt, he said, has two functions: to preserve and to add flavor.

“We the people of God are called to be the salt and the light of this world,” Moss said. “The beauty of this World Communion of Reformed Churches is the diverse flavors of this gathering. We all bring flavor to the table!”

Beware: Salt can lose its flavor

Moss warned against the “bland and bitter” spiritual diet spreading across churches and nations.

“Has the bland and bitter non-seasoned flavor of hatred become the new civic recipe for the church and nations across the globe?” he asked. “There is a growing addiction to theologically unhealthy processed spiritual food lacking any nutritional value.”

He spoke amid U.S. debates over educational curricula, where some lawmakers are moving to restrict teaching about the civil rights movement, slavery, lynching, segregation, and LGBTQ, Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latino histories.

“Much of the spiritual food we are consuming in the space called America and across the globe is recycled colonial compost killing us from the inside out,” Moss said. “If we do not have the courage to change our theological diet, we will become emaciated, unethical souls unable to walk due to our self-righteous consumption of greed and self-absorbed power.”

Moss also cautioned against the Gospel being co-opted by prosperity theology. “When the church centers itself on personal prosperity or being a government auxiliary, it has gone down the road of contamination,” he said.

This little light of mine

The pastor called on WCRC delegates from its 230 member churches to consider how they might let their collective light shine brighter.

“The challenges in the world today may be daunting, and we may be tempted to lose our salt quality or cover our light,” Moss said. “Our individual light may not look like much, but if we dare take our light and join together, we can create a blaze to illuminate the world.”

Amid applause, he urged unity across church traditions, nations and regions.

“We will no longer have a little light, but a blaze to illuminate the Gospel, empower the poor, liberate the oppressed, set the captives free, declare the year of the Lord’s favor, and bless our planet!” he said.

Who owns the salt?

Responding to Moss, Prof. Heleen Zorgdrager of the Protestant Theological University in Amsterdam reflected on the question, “Who owns the salt?”

“My country, the Netherlands, has a troubled history with salt,” Zorgdrager said. “Battles were fought between imperial powers over access to salt. In our time, the spirit of owning and exploiting is alive more than ever.”

The Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, recalled the complicated history of Christianity in Africa.

“When the Christian Gospel first arrived in my part of Africa, it never came as a pure light or tasty salt,” he said. “It came with worship services on the top floors and slave dungeons on the ground floors of the slave castles. In the same building, when people were painfully screaming downstairs, slave masters and slave mistresses were praying and doing Bible studies upstairs.”

To read the keynote address by the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III and the responses, go here.

The Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency, is leading a PC(USA) delegation to the 27^th General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Read additional reporting here and here.