Street Roots • Dec. 22-28, 2017
News
Page 10
" I felt that
going into
m inistry
was a way
to deal
with things
that were
honest and
true — and
also social
justice. So
1 felt it was
where those
sorts of
questions
could be
addressed."
THE REV. JOHN
SHUCK,
S O U T H M IN S T E R
P R E S B Y T E R IA N
CHURCH
M IN IS T E R
P H O TO BY S A R A H H AN SELL
The Rev. John Shuck talks with Street Roots in his office a t Southm inster Presbyterian Church in Beaverton.
Christianity’s subversive tradition
John Shuck, a pastor who believes God is a product o f mythology, frames the Christmas story as one of resistance
B Y SARAH HANSELL
S T A F F W R IT E R
he Rev. John Shuck doesn’t believe in
God. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t
consider himself a Christian.
Shuck, who has been a Presbyterian minister
for 25 years, is the pastor at Southminster
Presbyterian Church in Beaverton.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Shuck
sat down with Street Roots in his office at
Southminster to talk about what it looks like to
be a minister who doesn’t believe in God, his
own journey to the ministry, and how the
subversive tradition of the “Radical Jesus” can
inform resistance today during the Trump era.
“Christianity, and there are different kinds of
Christianity, but the main one that most people
know is about believing stuff,” Shuck said. “You
believe things about Jesus, things about God,
things about the Bible, all that kind of thing.
Well, when things happen in science, and those
beliefs really are no longer credible in a literal
sense, what happens? Well, churches tend to
put a ceiling on that, and my ministry always
has been to break the ceiling.”
Shuck grew up as an evangelical Baptist and
broke away from it in high school. He didn’t
return to Christianity until he was an adult
working as a professional radio announcer
when he followed his wife into a Presbyterian
church in Auburn, Wash. The minister there
ultimately inspired him to pursue a career in
Presbyterian ministry.
“One of his first sermons was about evolution
in a positive way,” Shuck said. “I grew up
hearing that was a bad thing. He was from
South Africa, and he had worked hard in
helping dismantle apartheid. So there was a
T
social justice element right there that attracted
me. I felt that going into ministry was a way to
deal with things that were honest and true -
and also social justice. It was a place where
those sorts of questions could be addressed.
And I found that to be true in many ways.”
He attended Princeton Seminary in New
Jersey and went on to serve at four churches
over the next 25 years, landing at Southminster
four years ago.
Shuck believes that in the face of science,
commonly accepted Christian beliefs don’t hold
up: that God is a supernatural force or being,
Jesus rose from the dead, the Bible is a divine
revelation and an afterlife awaits the dead.
subversive tradition.
Instead, he believes that the Bible is a
The Christmas story starts with Mary, Jesus’
human product, that religion is a human
construct, and that Christianity is a culture that mother, and Joseph, her husband, looking for
room at the inn because they needed to be
draws upon symbolism and tradition to create
counted by the Roman Empire for the census.
meaning in the present.
What is rarely emphasized in this Christmas
In Southminster, Shuck found a church with
story is that the occasion for Mary and
progressive ideologies and a social justice
Joseph’s trek to Bethlehem was because they,
consciousness that was already challenging
as natives of the land, were occupied by the
traditional ideas of Christianity and what is
Roman empire and subject to Roman rule.
acceptable within it.
“The whole story is based right within
“I think what happens is the church
oppression itself,” Shuck said. “Both of these
oftentimes escapes,” Shuck said. “It gets
Christmas narratives, both in (the books of the
controlled by conservative forces, and it
Bible) Matthew and Luke, come out of a
becomes a repository for conservative social
recognition that we are occupied. And we don’t
mores. But there’s also a subversive tradition
ever hardly ever talk about that as Christmas.
in it. And that’s what I saw when you asked me
We don t even read our own texts. We mix
about what Southminster is. I saw that there,
them together and make them be magical.
and my congregation I’ve served, too, has been
And magic is good; it’s nice to have that
that way. Not all (churches) are. There are few
sense m which the veil between the sacred and
that take the lead on issues of social justice.”
lvme is thin, and Christmas night has that to
Shuck finds and emphasizes resistance
it. But we also have to remember that we are
against oppression in many Bible stories that
are not commonly thought of as being rooted in
A series highlighting the role o f
religious leaders and groups in
Portland’s resistance movement
See FAITH & JUSTICE, page 11