When I saw the sign “Church open for quiet prayer”, I thought at first it was merely a safe space where the Episcopal faithful could curl up in foetal positions, cry and suck their thumbs.
But there was more to it than that, as is evidenced by this church which has not quite grasped the concept of democracy, let alone the idea of rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s or upholding one’s rulers in prayer. For All Saints Church in Pasadena, opening the church for the weekend was an opportunity to indulge in Sacred Resistance.
I expect the individuals who removed the rainbow fish from the Port Perry church thought they were engaged in Sacred Resistance, too.
A Weekend of Prayer & Sacred Resistance
January 20-22, 2017
At All Saints Church we will enter this new era in our nation’s history with prayers for our country and a recommitment to sacred resistance. We will stand in resistance to the systemic evils that oppress and marginalize any member of our human family – including but not limited to racism, sexism, nativism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Grounded in our baptismal promises, our resistance to public policies that perpetuate those evils is how we put our faith into action in the world.
Apparently it hasn’t occurred to them that if Trump manages to deliver on some of his promises and the Democrats don’t start listening to ordinary Americans, he might be re-elected. Whatever else Trump may be, he is not anti-Semitic (quite the opposite: he’s very pro-Israel), so I’m not sure who they think they are resisting with that line.
Americans deserve Trump for the next four years. The voters were never wrong. Let us pray for a better person to occupy the White House in 2021.
” We will stand in resistance to the systemic evils that oppress and marginalize any member of our human family – including but not limited to racism, sexism, nativism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. ”
” Not limited to. ” As a thought experiment, I would ask them whether they would consider an unborn child a member of our human family, hence would they add abortion to that list of systemic evils. A glance at their website – ” Intersectional Resistance .. Reproductive Justice & LGBTQ Equality .. Panel includes Planned Parenthood’s Sheri Bonner ” most likely completes that thought experiment.
The statement is typical identity politics with the merest dab of Christian-sounding terminology. In other words, the political has now transplaced the spiritual. This process has happened because liberal clergy do not really believe in the Bible at all.
How can I say that? Because humanity needs a locus of meaning. If you can find someone’s centre of meaning you can find what they really believe in and what they really elevate as truly important.
Meaning can be found in the daily effort to survive, which is no longer applicable in Western countries. Or, it can be found in religion or politics. When someone does nothing all day but talk politics, and if their aims are political, and their language political, and their activities political, you may very justly conclude that their centre of meaning is political.
And the only way a person could trade the truly Christian for the purely political is if they believe in the latter much more than they do in the former.