One man's Bacon is another's Meat.

One of my favorite fiction books is called, "Lamb, the gospel of Biff, Christ's childhood friend" by Christopher Moore. This book, while some may find it irreverent at times, really touched me and in one especially poignant scene, brought the Point of my faith out in stunning relief. Basically, for those intrigued by the title, it is the (obviously fictional) account of where Jesus was and what He was doing during the years the Bible doesn't tell us about. In Moore's view, He was learning all the things he needed to know in order to take on the burden of the crucifixion and resurrection. Biff is his very, very human, affable friend who is sent to stay with Jesus (nicknamed Josh) through his travels. Being Jewish, they are not supposed to eat pork, but as they grow and learn, Jesus tells Biff that many parts of the Law are Just Bacon. They are rules that are or were there for a purpose, but are not necessarily the Meat of the Jewish faith.

Craig loves this book too, and we use the term, "Bacon" quite a bit as we discuss our own faith. We were both raised Protestent, but Craig was raised decidedly more High Church (he would be Catholic if I'd let him) and I way more Low Church, and though we have compromised over the years, we both feel more at home in the type of church we grew up in.

So here's my quandary. We have been members of a couple Lutheran ELCA churches over the past few years and I have been pretty happy with them. We have found some good congregations, we love that there is Communion every week, and we feel this denomination's stance on social issues meshes with ours. There is also a ELCA church here that we like--for all the above reasons, plus it runs one of the biggest preschools in town and the congregation is positively teeming with little kids. However, at this church, there is one piece of Bacon (to me, Meat to others) that is specifically spelled out.

My question is this--can one belong to a church and not share faith of one key tenant of that denomination? To me, the tenant is bacon, to them, it is absolutely meat. I do feel it is lying to pledge membership to a church, knowing you don't share this particular belief. On the other hand, I also believe that, well, it is Bacon...

Just some Food for thought, I guess.