Last week, Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C., preached what many are calling the most important sermon of the 21st century.
In the sermon, Budde publicly appealed to President Trump’s empathy, asking him to have mercy on those his administration is aggressively targeting through executive orders. She quoted familiar passages from the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Testament, passages that any person who has spent any amount of time in a pew would know. She delivered this sermon compassionately.
The response from Trump and his allies has been anything but compassionate. One Republican official suggested Budde should be deported for being disrespectful to the new president.
Trump himself demanded an apology from both her and her church. Most startling, though, he called her a “Radical Left hardline Trump hater” and claimed that she “brought her church into the [w]orld of politics.”
It’s interesting that pastors only seem to be talking about politics when someone brings up a theological worldview they disagree with. For example, when conservative pastors speak about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, their congregations (and those who agree with them) believe that’s not a political statement. But when I talk about how my (queer) marriage to my wife has helped me grow as a person and a pastor, suddenly I’m being political.
In short, to be queer is to be political, but to be straight is to be apolitical. The same is true of other identity markers.
If a pastor says “God bless America,” that’s not political. But if someone says “God bless Palestine,” suddenly that’s a political statement. To be concerned for the quality of life in non-American, non-European countries is political, but to preach American patriotism is apolitical.
If a conservative preacher says “God loves white children,” that’s not a political statement. But if another pastor shares the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, suddenly, that’s a political statement.
Do you notice the pattern?
The messaging we receive from far-right extremists is that any theology that supports their worldview is void of politics. This is inherently false.
They also argue that any theology that contradicts their worldview is diabolically political. This argument coming from Christian Nationalists, whose agenda is explicitly to use their interpretation of theology to build a political infrastructure that reflects their beliefs, would be comical if not for the damage it causes.
They are making political statements about who is political and who isn’t, based on their own theology.
When oppressive powers turn divine identities into political identities, preachers have an obligation to get “political.” I intentionally put “political” in quotes because it shouldn’t be political to say “Black Lives Matter” or “Trans Lives are Sacred.”
But the reality is the oppressive powers that run our country have decided those are political statements. Their ideology trickles down to pulpits and infects congregations with a double standard that should make heads turn. Instead, it allows their congregants to believe that their theology, and harmful politics is right.
The truth is that, outside of proclaiming which political party you back, there’s no such thing as a political identity. We aren’t born into a political identity. It’s not something in your genetic makeup. You don’t inherit it the way you inherit eye color or nose shape. A political identity is something you choose.
But that doesn’t mean we aren’t inherently political. The reality is we are all political agents–people who have the ability to affect how politics work in our country.
When I say “political agent,” I’m referring to the language Immanuel Kant used to describe how we operate in society. In Kant’s definition, all political agents are responsible for learning about how our community works, getting involved in the betterment of that community and voting.
We also have a responsibility to exercise our rights in ways that don’t infringe upon the rights of others. In that regard, we all have agency (hence “agent”) to participate in and improve our society.
By virtue of living in America, paying taxes and voting, we are all–and I do mean all–political agents.
Yes, straight folks, you’re political.
Yes, cisgender folks, you’re political.
Yes, white folks (especially white folks), you’re political.
You’re political.
I’m political.
We are all political agents because we live in a society, plain and simple. Our God-given identities, on the other hand, are not political.
Those are gifts you cannot politicize away. Your status as a political agent does not give you clearance to leverage your God-given identity to harm other people just because you don’t approve of or understand their God-given identity.
Until we can collectively separate God-given identities from political agency, I’m not sure Christians will be able to hear each other across the aisle. Until then, may we all be as brave as Budde, who artfully demonstrated what it means to responsibly use her political agency to protect those with God-given identities who are at risk right now.
May we find our agency and use it well. Amen.
A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Williamsburg, Virginia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.