Kneeling on Loop: Reflections on Public Theology in DFW

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the different styles of carpet on offer, there are basically three types of indoor wall-to-wall from which to choose: texture, Berber, and pattern (a cross between texture and Berber). Texture is that nice, soft twist carpet you find in most homes. Berber, also called loop, is that dense, thin carpet under which you can clearly feel a slab of concrete. I’ll let you guess which is the popular choice for high traffic areas in public spaces.

I can tell you precisely which carpet lines the aisles of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. For this, I have to thank my fourteen hour layover. Running on two hours of interrupted sleep from the flight before, I found the darkest well-lit corner in walking distance and curled up in a corner with headphones in and a rolled up sweater for a pillow. It wasn’t long before I relented to the reality that I would not be adding a wink of slumber lying on Berber.

Sam Lachow and Johnny Cash kept me company while I looked for something to keep me busy. Just before sunrise, the voice of God came to rescue me from my boredom. At least, that’s what the priest called it. In secular discourse, it was an announcement over the intercom informing weary travelers of a morning Mass in the room just past gate D40. Whether by faith, boredom, or curiosity, but probably by their amalgam (the priest called it predestination), I found my way into that small, discrete chapel.

I had thought that it would be empty, and I was almost right. A handful of devotees had stumbled from red-eye flights into the neat rows of chairs to receive the Word of the Lord and Sacrament. We were from different parts of the country, but we all found ourselves before the same alter this morning.

Taking Our Faith into the World

The room was like any other room in the airport, Berber and all, save for the accent wall of stained glass that overlooked the runways. The priest informed us that we had a thirty minute slot to worship together and we began. The liturgy was basic enough for any Catholic to keep up with little trouble; being a Protestant, I kept the corner of my eye peeled on my fellow faithful to insure that I wasn’t too out of step.

He wasn’t kidding about the half-hour allotment. No singing, no hymns, and nary a pause, this cobbled community of this particular layover made its way trough the reading of the Word, prayer, preaching, and half-communion (the wine was left out, perhaps a result of lingering pandemics). There was a lot of kneeling – too much kneeling for Berber carpet – and before I knew it I was back to distracting myself with various airport amenities.

As I remember the sermon, it actually wasn’t bad. The priest preached on faith and doubt and the fact that faith is more about commitment to a person than an easy agreement with doctrinal specifics. Faith is a lens by which we view the world with all its inherited promise and challenge, a lens which should affect everything we see, hear, confront, receive, and endure. Whatever our destination this morning, we were encouraged to take this insight with us: we don’t need more faith, but the commitment to act on the faith that we already have. After all, each of us would be putting faith in something or someone in due time, not least of which our pilots and aircrafts; why not similarly press into our faith in Christ? But the part that really stuck out to me the was his introduction to the chapel itself. Being part of one of the largest airport chaplaincies in the country, the priest was grateful to serve in a role that allowed him to “take our faith into the world”.

The whole experience got me thinking about a lot of things. It got me thinking about what it would be like to pastor a different congregation of strangers every Sunday morning, taking confessions and praying for people you will never see again. It got me thinking about what brings travelers through the door in the first place. It got me thinking about what state my knees will be in tomorrow and whether I had made a mistake. Most of all, as I am on my way to a public theology conference, it got me thinking about public theology.

Private Theology in a public Space

There are as many definitions of public theology as there are public theologians (you can read mine here), but basically it has to do with doing theology in a way that engages public concerns in conversation beyond church boundaries. So, it isn’t really as simple as doing theology “in public”, but I still think there are lessons (some positive, some negative) to be gleaned from my thirty minutes of kneeling on loop.

First, faith is a fundamental, central, and inescapable part of what it means to be human. It matters. It matters in church, in the home, in school, in politics, and in airports. What’s more, it is present already in public spaces, even if we hide it behind unassuming beige doors. We carry with us our allegiances and the myths by which we live everywhere we go. The modernist utopia of a faithless society is no more within our grasp than it was two-thousand years ago. If it isn’t faith in God, it’s faith in airplanes, manufacturers, bolts and screws, and pilots. Trusting in something and someone beyond ourselves is just what it means to be alive in the world. Until we accept that, we have not really accepted each other or ourselves. Until we make space for each other’s faith in the public spaces we share, we will neither be free nor equitable.

Second, faith doesn’t mean ascent to a confession (although confessions are a part of it) but action arising out of a commitment to a something or a someone. Christian faith isn’t passing some theological true or false test at the pearly gates. It’s getting on airplanes, walking down streets, getting out of bed, raising children, and doing our jobs. It is committing to Christ and his work above our commitment to comfort, class, or country. Faith is evidenced in our public lives; actually, that is exactly where it lives.

Third, shared liturgy is a powerful thing. It has the power to unite people from all over the world and from every walk of life. It also has the power to alienate and exclude. As a PhD student in a theological program, nothing has made me feel more out of place in theological spaces than saying “forgive us our debts” while everyone else says “forgive us our trespasses”. As public theologians, how do we cultivate liturgies that are accessible and formative? How do we pursue liturgies that actually form us for our public life?

Fourth, the public space is a shared space, one of the greatest challenges and opportunities of public theology. The room that housed the chapel was complete with a couple Bibles, but these were accompanied by the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and other sacred texts. The public realm is a library of literature over which we have little say. Are we good neighbors, or do we wax nostalgically about the days where respectable men could still burn books?

Finally, the Christian life is more than just praying “the prayer” and getting to heaven. We know this, sure, but it is also more than just looking at the world and praying that things get better. I’m certain that the DFW chapel has seen it’s fair share of nervous flyers trembling before the Lord of the skies; eventually each one had to get up and go get on a plane. It really isn’t enough to pray for poverty, gun violence, the sick, the incarcerated, and the hurting. Praying for your kids does little good if you remain in your prayer closet and the same goes for our communities. At some point, you just have to get up, walk around, and do something.

Besides, too much praying on loop is bad for your knees.