When the people came to Samuel and asked him to anoint for them a king, such as the other nations have, he repeated what God had told him to say, “[This king] He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” -I Samuel 8:14-18
In the 1990s, America became schizophrenic about separation of church and state. Conservative Christian leaders rallied what they called the Moral Majority to engage politically. They urged church people to march against abortion, to deny LGBTQ people the rights afforded to other Americans, and to vote republican. Meanwhile, those who felt compassion for those injured by this political shift began leaving the church. For many, organized religion was okay until it meddled in politics in such a way that America became less just and equitable. I had friends and clergy colleagues on both sides of this schizophrenia. I also had parishioners who expected me to side with the Moral Majority. Instead, I fact-checked their biblical interpretations and found them wanting.
Looking back on that era, I find it startling that so few Bishops and mainline denominational leaders denounced this bizarre marriage between conservative politics and Christianity. Their silence contributed, I believe, to the great exodus of the boomer generation from organized religion. So today, I would encourage both pastors and laity in the church to revisit their Bibles and note how political many of its stories were. We are not called to remain cloistered in our sanctuaries, but to go out onto the streets and seek to build a more compassionate society.
This weekend I took part in the “No Kings” demonstration in Pittsburgh. The crowd was large and diverse. Their signs, t-shirts, and chants accused President Trump of a variety of offenses:
- His tacit approval of the war in Gaza, while refusing to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia
- His sexual crimes, for which he refuses to make restitution.
- His stance on abortion (and its hypocrisy)
- His abandoning of the work of the people in order to play golf.
- His cuts to federal workers and the programs they administer which serve the poorest among us
- His deportation of immigrants without due process
- His admiration of other dictators
- His disregard for the constitution
But what united every person, there was a fear that this man wants to establish, if not a monarchy, a dictatorship to replace the democratic process we enjoy in America.
As always, I offer the following resistance poem:
Grant us the courage to resist evil.
Teach us to forgive.
As we pray for each other,
Grant us peace and unity. Amen.