WLSU: Unwelcome Beliefs

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There’s a story about when the Dean of my seminary was interviewing for the job. He’d gotten to the point in the process where he was being asked questions in a semi-public forum – interested parties could attend, and could raise their hands and ask him questions. The questions were not prearranged or preapproved. One person raised their hand and asked if, under his administration, all opinions and positions would be treated equally in the seminary community. “Of course not,” he replied.

There were gasps and shocked faces. This man was interviewing for a job and he had been lobbed a softball. All he had to say was absolutely, that all ideas should be welcomed for the sake of creating an open environment in an institute of higher learning. But the story goes that he said of course not.

He then immediately elaborated. Say, for instance, someone was espousing White supremacist rhetoric and advocated for the return of slavery – they should not be treated as if their opinions deserved consideration. We should be past the point of taking that seriously, he argued.

Upon hearing this, I gasped alongside the people in the story. And then I was immediately converted. We want to be open and thoughtful and we want to consider all sorts of possibilities, but there are certain things that, as a community, we have already decided. Pretending otherwise is unhelpful and can even be damaging to our community.

Anyway, he got the job.

Our country guarantees the right to believe and to say what you want. There is, however, no implication in that guarantee that all beliefs or ideas should be taken seriously. All speech may be protected, but it’s not all equal. Some beliefs, ideas, and words are harmful, dehumanizing, and detrimental to community. Acknowledging this is not censorship, it’s just good sense.

Deciding which beliefs are beneficial and which ones are detrimental is a basic part of building any community.

The Christian church is meant first and foremost to be a community. Jesus did not build any church buildings, nor did he command the Bible to be written. Jesus built a community, and commanded the members of that community to love one another. This is the primary definition of a church body – a worshiping community that knows Jesus and grows in Love.

Our church, The Church of the Redeemer, has a clearly articulated statement that describes how we are seeking to live into that. We say that we have a vision of a church that is:

United in relationships of holy connection and communion;
Growing with people of every age, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic situation, and political persuasion;
Inspired by our understanding of why we are Christian, why we are Episcopalian, why Redeemer matters to us;
Sent into the world, rooted and grounded in love, to serve all people with humility, compassion, and faithfulness.

That’s our Vision Statement. And I know, the term Vision Statement sounds very corporate, but I love the vision we are pursuing. I love the leadership that helped articulate this vision. I love that we are moving toward it, and I love that we’re not there yet. I love that we are trying to let this guide our understanding of community.

And also I have a confession to make. There’s a part of it that I’m not sure I believe anymore. It’s that second part, where we say we want to be a church that is growing with people of every age, race, gender, sexual orientation, sociological situation, and political persuasion.

I am currently wrestling with whether or not I still personally believe it. Specifically, I wonder if I want us to be a church that grows with people of every political persuasion. I understand me saying that may raise some red flags for you. Stick with me.

When we wrote that line, about 7 years ago, I thought I knew what we meant by “every”. In my mind, I was thinking primarily about Republicans and Democrats, and a good mix of independents that included moderates, libertarian types, and some socialists for good measure. This was the scope of my thinking, and I thought that was pretty broad. That was everyone.

It feels naïve now. Sunny, even. It’s not that I didn’t realize other ideologies and perspectives existed – it’s that I assumed the rest to be so extreme as not to need to be acknowledged or discussed. But in the intervening years, Christian Nationalism has emerged as an apparently acceptable perspective. Many legislators openly and comfortably proclaim themselves as Christian Nationalists. Shockingly, frighteningly, it is not a disqualifying proclamation.

It should be.

Christian Nationalism is antithetical both to America and to Christianity.

Christian Nationalism insists on creating legislation based on one particular interpretation of religious belief. That is patently unamerican. Our country has in its founding documents a refusal to establish a state religion. You will sometimes hear adherents to Christian Nationalism try to sidestep this by talking about “Christian values” as the backbone of America’s creation. This is also patently false. For all its faults, our country’s desire to exist as a place free from religious coercion is imaginative, noble, and courageous.

America is not a Christian nation. We were not[RC1] founded by Christians, but by a mixture of Christians, Deists, Atheists, Agnostics, and Unitarians. Our founding documents are not Christian. While some of the values they promote may be compatible with Christian thought, they are not themselves inherently Christian. Pretending otherwise is just that: Make-believe.

Christian Nationalism seeks to promote values that are dehumanizing to women, LGBTQ+ persons, immigrants, racial minorities, and non-Christians. Which is to say that Christian Nationalism does not love its neighbor. Christian Nationalism is not about following Jesus. It is about using the power of the government in order to coerce others to live into one narrow set of values. Jesus was literally executed by such an ideology. Christian Nationalism is not Christian. It can call itself Christian all day long. I can call myself tall, but I’m still 5’7”.

Christianity is not American and America is not Christian.

I do not know what this all means for that sentence in our Vision Statement. I don’t have a good answer for that yet.

I do know in my core that Christian Nationalism should not be seriously entertained. But “should” doesn’t mean anything in the realm of reality. Here we are in 2024 and Christian Nationalism is being taken seriously. So it needs to be said – Christian Nationalism is completely and unequivocally incompatible with our understanding of Christianity at the Church of the Redeemer, and in the Episcopal Church at large. We seek to walk the way of Love, to recognize Christ’s presence in everyone we meet, and to respect the dignity of every human being. We seek to know Jesus and grow in Love.