Escalating Faith

Local events and meetings will be the start of an escalating non-violence campaign

Yesterday I participated in a multi faith vigil at the cold and windy Capitol, which called upon Congress to live up to its constitutional role as a check and balance to rapidly expanding executive power, and pleaded with Members of Congress, especially the majority who call themselves Christians, to not make massive cuts to food and healthcare to the poor, and the destruction of life-saving international aid to the most vulnerable around the world.

After the vigil, I spoke to a Danish reporter who asked “why did American Christians overwhelmingly vote for Trump and why is there no Christian movement to oppose him?”

There are two narratives out there in America and around the world. First, that most all Christians in America support Donald Trump. And second, that in this moment of deepening crisis, Christians are not speaking out. Both are untrue.

According to PRRI sixty-eight percent of white Christians voted for Donald Trump– 6 in 10 of white mainline protestants and white Catholics, and 85 percent of white Evangelicals. In sharp contrast, 83 percent of Black Christians did not vote for Trump. A majority of Hispanic Catholics also did not, even though the Hispanic evangelical/Pentecostal majority did. In the end, a third of white Christian believers did not vote for Trump.

The most important fact from the results is that the huge majority of those white Trump voters are adherents or sympathizers of Christian Nationalism, while the rejecters and skeptics of that tribal power centered ideology–and I would say heresy–rejected Trump on religious grounds.

Black church leaders testify that they have always been a minority church in America, because of white racism, that they have been to these hard places before, and remind us that God is still God. The early church was a minority counter-cultural community, and we must learn to be one too. But there are tens of millions of us! The extreme racial contrast in voting in America, even among Christians, reveals our painful divide.

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So let’s mobilize those multi-racial minority Christians together around our shared gospel values starting at the local level and eventually escalating to the national level.

We are joining with many other leaders and denominations to call churches to join the #PublicWitness campaign starting over Holy Week and Easter.

The House and Senate are on recess over Holy Week and the week of Easter which means that members of the Congress will be in their home districts and states. The #PublicWitness campaign is calling on people of faith to organize ecumenical public events drawing attention to issues of concern and then to schedule meetings with their member of Congress to discuss these concerns in detail. On the website you will find many resources for how to plan events, how to schedule congressional meetings, and how to structure your meetings with congressional members and staff. In addition we are organizing letters for each state that we invite clergy to sign. These letters will be delivered to each state’s congressional delegation. While these public events and meetings can be convened anywhere in the country, there are specific priority states and districts based on key Senators and House members.

Building or beginning relationships with our elected officials will be carried forward until final votes on Medicaid, SNAP, foreign aid, and immigration in the Capitol, where biblical values are clearly at stake. And these local events and meetings will be the start of an escalating non-violence campaign perhaps leading to civil disobedience and direct action in local communities and at the Capitol itself. The domestic cost of cruel and unjust policies may become the arrest of pastors and priests, Catholic sisters and lay leaders, with denominational leaders and bishops– all in their collars, robes, and religious identifications.

In that vein, the first hearing for our sensitive locations lawsuit takes place next Friday. And so, as people of faith, we are gathering together the night before, Thursday, April 3rd, at 6:30pm at National City Christian Church for an interfaith prayer vigil. Together, we will gather in solidarity, lifting prayers for justice, compassion, and the protection of immigrant communities. This vigil will show that Christians and people of all faiths stand united in protecting American values of religious freedom and fulfilling our religious mandate of welcome– challenging the false narratives of unanimous Christian support for Trump and silence amidst the growing crisis.

Ultimately, the Congress may not hold to the separation of powers with Republicans already succumbing to the autocratic pretensions of the current president. The Courts will battle for due process and the rule of law, but even if they do demand accountability for an Executive that wants no limits on its power, the President might not finally obey the courts– creating a dramatic Constitutional crisis. In such a circumstance civil society will need to stand up, including people and communities of faith, acting with courage and leadership for the common good.

I said at the vigil at Congress yesterday that “authoritarianism is a theological issue and not just a political one. Because of the human capacity for evil for individuals with too much unchecked political power, other voices must now stand up.” Together, we will find the way forward, and answer the question so many people have, “What can I do?”

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Personal Note

Many of us have had personal losses in the midst of the losses we feel so personally about what is happening in our country right now. One very hard one for me was the terribly tragic death by cancer of my book agent and dear friend, Roger Freet. Roger loved words and knew how to put them together in extraordinary ways– all to make a difference in the world. He helped many of us to do that. My conversations with kindred spirit authors that Roger also represented, like Diana Butler Bass and Robby Jones, have been full of deep sorrow. Roger was only 56, and was at the peak of his professional and personal life with a family he so deeply loved. But Roger has such a rich legacy that will live on in the lives and work of so many of us who are now so grateful to him and miss Roger greatly. Thanks be to God for you Roger Freet.

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