"Bending the future, together, into something we have never experienced.”
Part III of thoughts on PB Sean Rowe’s op-ed, "Once the church of presidents, the Episcopal Church must now be an engine of resistance.”
Throughout the next two weeks, I’m going to be sharing some thoughts and questions that spring from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s July 3 op-ed, “Once the church of presidents, the Episcopal Church must now be an engine of resistance.” My hope is that both the thoughts and questions will spark conversation and even collaboration. Please feel free to use comment or chat to join in. This is Part 2 of 5
Click here for Part I – Pride makes us artificial and humanity makes us real
Click here for Part II – Until the Lioness Tells Her Story, The Hunter Will Always Be the Hero.
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I found Presiding Bishop’s Sean Rowe’s reference to the Confessing Church in his op-ed excellent and nuanced. We love stories of heroes … and particularly as time goes by figures like those brave clergy who preached sermons against the Third Reich tend to fit more in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than in the pages of accurate history.
As the Presiding Bishop states, though there was some truly sacrificial and prophetic preaching that happened among Confessing clergy … a prime motivation was not the atrocities of the Third Reich but that they dared to try to subvert the church’s authority and tell it what to do.
In other words, the church really began to care when it started impacting its own ability to hold onto power.
I have talked about wanting to say “yes … and” to PB Rowe’s statement and this is where I want to begin.
Yes, the Confessing Church is something we need to be looking at right now and yes, its history, though important, is not entirely altruistic.
And … let’s take a closer look at that.
The most notable figure in the Confessing Church is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who famously wrote from prison:
Perhaps the most notable Roman Catholic cleric to stand up against the Third Reich was Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen, who most famously preached:
“The right to life, to inviolability, and to freedom is an indispensable part of any moral social order… Any government that punishes without court proceedings undermines its own authority and respect for its sovereignty within the conscience of its citizens”
Both Bonhoeffer and von Galen are lauded today … and this was not always the case. When they wrote against Hitler, they received considerable criticism – from both the primary church institutions and from the Confessing Church itself.
Bonhoeffer was marginalized within the Confessing Church, which saw his views –including protecting Jews from the Holocaust and underground pastor training – as divisive and dangerous. He was seen as too political and polarizing and much of the Confessing Church either distanced themselves from him or rejected him outright.
He wrote:
“Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to humankind and the world.”
And he was right.
The same was true for von Galen, who condemned the lawlessness of the Gestapo and denounced the Third Reich’s Aktion T4 euthanasia program as “pure murder.”
Though Pope Pius XII supposedly supported him privately, Vatican officials asked von Galen to “moderate” his tone, and many German clergy urged him to be silenced for putting the institutional church at risk by inviting retaliation.
This is a deeper truth about the Confessing Church and whatever small cognate movement there was in the Roman Catholic Church … its primary concern was the preservation of the church’s power and … most important … when people like Bonhoeffer and von Galen – at great personal risk – actually stood up for the moral imperatives that are at the heart of the Gospel, they were left hanging at best and marginalized at worst.
The Presiding Bishop is correct that in terms of institutions, churches like ours
“may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting this administration’s overreach and recklessness.”
And then he continues:
“To do so faithfully, we must see beyond the limitations of our traditions and respond not in partisan terms, but as Christians who seek to practice our faith fully in a free and fair democracy.”
I can’t read the PB’s (or anyone’s) mind … and what strikes me is that this is a very Bishop-y answer. And that’s not a criticism.
We ask our bishops to take a vow to
“guard the faith, unity and discipline of the church”
That’s a challenging vow (one I have no interest in taking and plenty of gratitude for those who try to live it faithfully). It’s challenging because my experience is that if we are truly to live the faith of Jesus … it will reveal and even cause division.
It is a natural consequence of this vow that Bishop’s tend to define the “faith of the church” as that which won’t disrupt the “unity of the church” … and thus use the “discipline of the church” to maintain it.
One problem with that is the culture and unity of any institution is primarily defined by those who have the most power in that institution. When people speak and act in a way that points out the disconnect between the words and actions of the church and the revolutionary claims of the Gospel, my experience is those people – like Bonhoeffer and von Galen – quickly get branded as dangerous radicals and marginalized.
If what PB Rowe is saying is that we can’t get bogged down in a partisan conflict along the lines of the current Republican administration is all evil and past or future Democratic administrations are all good … I completely agree. I do not know … but it would be consistent with Bishops that his rationale is preserving the unity of the church and not have us be divided along partisan lines.
I agree with what he said … but for a (potentially) different reason.
I agree “we must see beyond the limitations of our traditions and respond not in partisan terms,” … but for me that’s because I see both parties as deeply entrenched in and sustaining of the oppressive systems that have been around for a long time and are finally reaching such an extreme that those of us who are usually not in its crosshairs are actually noticing.
We can’t get bogged down in a partisan conflict because we need to think beyond Democrat and Republican or Trump and Biden (or whomever). More on that in a minute.
I look at the history of the Confessing Church and take a different urgent historical lesson.
The Confessing Church and the Roman Church had laudable figures and moments of courage but as a movement it was largely ineffective at “resisting (the Third Reich’s) overreach and recklessness” … and it wasn’t because it got bogged down in partisanship but because it was a primarily concerned about preserving its own power and out of fear of retribution and disrupting unity in its own pews, refused to stand up against the worst Nazi offenses (the Holocaust) … and at best did not support and at worst actively marginalized the most courageous voices.
I am someone who believes the primary job of the Presiding Bishop is not to make broad statements or shape institutional structures but to do what is in the title … preside over the House of Bishops (who have also taken that vow of guarding faith and unity of the church).
If the Presiding Bishop truly wants to lead in this area and learn the urgent lessons of history, then one of the most impactful thing he can do is lead the bishops of the church in actively supporting clergy and lay leaders who take prophetic stands of resistance.
Let me be clear what I mean by that.
The history of the church (reflected in the Confessing Church movement) is that the structures will support living as the revolutionary Jesus bids us … until it threatens those ABC’s of Empire .. Attendance, Buildings, and Cash.
In short, when people with money and power start getting upset, the church and her bishops start talking really fast about
“guarding the faith and unity of the church” and
“moving slowly and bringing everyone along.”
For the love of God … please stop.
Bishop Rowe, if you want to be transformational, get behind the closed doors of the house of bishop and have honest conversations about the very understandable anxiety and fear that bishops have when people with power and money in their diocese get upset and threaten to leave or leverage their power and money against the institution.
And … please remind the bishops that in addition to guarding the faith, unity and discipline of the church, they also take this vow:
“Will you boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ, enlightening the minds and stirring up the conscience of your people?”
I’m not even asking that Bishops stand up and do this themselves – though that would be wonderful. I’m just asking if you could all get together and pledge to support each other in vigorously supporting, amplifying and having the backs of leaders in their diocese when rhey tread where Bonhoeffer and von Galen dared but the Confessing Church did not.
Next, a few thoughts on resistance.
The PB rightly says that we need to think beyond Democrat and Republican or Trump and Biden (or whomever). That’s not just because we want to get bogged down in partisanship or even because fighting to return to what justice looked like under previous administrations isn’t exactly something that will send the most marginalized and oppressed among us into dances of joy.
It’s about the limits of resistance.
Jesus wasn’t a resistor.
Jesus was a revolutionary.
Here’s the difference.
A resistor stands up to the immoral actions of an oppressor and says: “No.”
A revolutionary presents a vision of tomorrow where all oppression is a thing of the past and says: “This”
Experienced organizers will tell you that movements built on resistance … on pushing against a force that is pushing back on you … have a definite and short lifespan. It’s not just because the forces pushing people down are generally stronger than the forces of resistance … it’s that one of the most important motivating and sustaining ingredients in any movement is inspiration.
If I could assign one author to the House of Bishops for such a time as this, it would be adrienne maree brown, author of Pleasure Activism and Emergent Strategy.
brown doesn’t talk about revolution in terms of resistance but rather as “an imagination battle.” That’s because for resistance to be successful it must not just stay as resistance but turn into creative construction rooted in collective vision.
With a nod to Octavia Butler, brown says:
“All organizing is science fiction. We are bending the future, together, into something we have never experienced.”
Jesus resisted. Jesus overturned tables in the temple and refused to stop loving when Empire said stop … and Jesus drew a collective vision out of the people … he called it the kindom of God.
The kin-dom of God was not just an Empire with a different and more benevolent dictator. It was a deep, loving and revolutionary living of neighbor love, shared wealth, and abundant life for all.
Jesus didn’t say “resist the Romans so we can get back to the way things were under the Hasmonean dynasty!”
Jesus said,
“I imagine a world where…
“The last will be first, and the first will be last.”
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
“love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”
And …
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
The Presiding Bishop rightly says that churches like ours “may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting this administration’s overreach and recklessness” … but if we limit ourselves to that we are, in the name of self-preservation, betraying our revolutionary roots.
The “yes and” is that what we really are is … if we can care more about following the revolutionary Jesus than preserving our power and position … one of the institutions most capable of “bending the future, together, into something we have never experienced” because that’s what Jesus was trying to do and what Jesus has been begging us for nearly two millennia to continue.
For nearly 2,000 years we have largely been denying that call of Christ … even in moments like the Holocaust where the moral imperative couldn’t have been clearer.
And Jesus is still here. He’s funny about not giving up on disciples who deny him.
And … he is standing with us on the shore as we grip tightly to our power and privilege – to the “attendance, buildings, cash” ABC’s of empire – and he is saying, as he said to Peter:
“Do you love me more than these?”