Reading: Post @DisciplesGA #Abide2019
An article and a film that came out pre-General Assembly, that’s my denomination’s all congregation gathering (imagine a family reunion), have become more important post-General Assembly, at least for me. The article is haunting and I imagine the film relevant specifically after the sermon that Rev. Dr. William Barber II shared as the last Word from the pulpit to close @DisciplesGA.
Watch Rev. Dr. William Barber’s sermon here.
Rev. Barber’s sermon begins at 45 minutes.
The God of Love had a really bad week
Diana Butler Bass (cnn.com / July 20, 2019)
American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel
an independent film in select theaters now – read the synopsis
A tagline for the film is something I’ve noted with youth for a while and something I’m going to have to start saying from the pulpit more: “It’s not what you believe, it’s what you do that matters.” Among mainline, Catholic, and “evangelical” christians, orthopraxy has to be more important than orthodoxy for the next decade if Western Christianity, as well as the Nation, will successfully recalibrate our moral compass.
The christian religious and political fundamentalists that have captured the flag of the GOP, and many of our State legislatures, did so through an ideological manifest destiny theology broadcast through the Trinity Broadcast Company, Focus on the Family, and political super pacs formerly known as the Moral Majority. It’s been done through “voter guides”, pulpits, cultural schism, racial schism, and pseudo higher education dictating a “christian” worldview. If you were in the near East, say Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, you might identify this kind of behavior as the Taliban.
It’s a basic civics class that reminds that these United States provides religious freedom, that is, to practice your worship and faith within the boundaries of your faith community and sacred day without fear of persecution from the government. It also means the government provides freedom from religion without fear of persecution or requirement that a specific religion’s orthodoxy or orthopraxy is normative for the Nation. That is what the pilgrims and our Nation’s founders fled in Europe.
If our Nation is going to become a more perfect union from local government to the Federal government, we must through the ballot box revive a Nation based on “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, rule of law, and equality rather than the white Christian nationalism that enables and profits from the oligarchs, racial schism, and cultural division. The poor and middle class, not matter your race or creed, have more in common and at risk than we want to admit or claim. Maybe Rev. Dr. Barber is right: a fusion movement is what it will take to shake the Nation from its 2001 grief.
Barry,
I understand the harshness of those words for which you don’t have any words. I’m not intending to be hyperbolic, shocking, or offensive. Remove the lethal weapons and observe the behavior of the Taliban for which Americans often disapprove: the religious fundamentalism, the religious worldview, view of women, and those not like them. I observe the way christian fundamentalism, some identify as evangelicals, has embedded itself with the Empire to create a christian nation, or at least a judiciary that will protect their christian worldview, and I think the comparison is more accurate than not. So, I wonder how people like you and me, those in the middle who claim a common citizenship in this experiment in democracy, how will we respond to the current grifting of “out of many, one.”
Michael,
While I don’t have the privilege of a theological degree, I do recognize divisiveness when I hear or read it, and equating the GOP to the Taliban is outrageous and frankly serves no purpose, but to flame further division and I am surprised you would put your name to it. We don’t need anymore name calling from the middle (and candidly I don’t think you are in the middle), left or right. Your reference to our country as Empire furthers that opinion.
The advantage and privilege that I do have, is to have lived and worked in more than a dozen countries worldwide and most recently working to help people immigrate to our great country. No matter what President is in the White House, people, both young and old, still believe in the American Dream and work hard to become a part of our messy experiment in democracy.
Unlike the Taliban, I will never take away your right to write anything that you believe is true. Nor will I be stoning anyone, or calling for death to anyone, or murdering children, women or men for their differing beliefs or a hundred other atrocities that they practice daily.
Anyway….. We will both follow our own heart and beliefs.
Look at my words closely and you will note that I did not equate the GOP, nor individual persons that identify with that political party, with the Taliban. Rather, I compared the behavior of christian fundamentalism and some evangelicals with that of Muslim fundamentalists Americans are quick to condemn. Some of that kind of christianity has been embraced by pockets of the GOP leadership and has enabled a similar kind of control as that of other religious fundamentalists. It is not stoning or IED’s here in America. It is the rollback of voting rights, reproductive rights, an embrace of “separate but equal”, and an overactive religious freedom movement designed to further privilege a particular version of christianity. And, America is a style of Empire in which I am a citizen. Like you, I’m balancing my participation in this empire and that of the empire of God, which I’ve learned, is another way to translate “kingdom” of God as used in the New Testament. America has good and bad and awful in our history from which there are lessons to learn.
Thank you for helping persons immigrate to a place with many more actual and perceived freedoms than other countries of the world. Thank you for the example of faith as you navigate life and participating in the experiment in democracy we share.
“you might identify this kind of behavior as the Taliban”.
Michael – that is an absolutely unbelievable statement! I don’t even have the words.