I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if it hadn’t been for Donald J. Trump…
Ok, I need a shower after typing that sentence, but I can’t deny that in a very real way, it’s the truth. I was hired as the Community Engagement Coordinator at University Lutheran Church of Hope in September of 2016, and I started my seminary education that same month. I had all these beautiful imaginings of a quaint little life working in the church; leading Bible studies, thinking about which food pantry the congregation should support, and talking about the comfort we find in Jesus. Ah, what a time I could have had.
But then…November happened.
The election of Donald Trump seemed to set the world on fire, and I remember my wife and I watching the results coming in and thinking that this felt like the very worst kind of nightmare. You know, those hyper-real ones where you’re naked in front of the class or being chased through your house. I just kept muttering, “shitshitshitshitshit” and thinking that some election judge somewhere would find a bag of ballots that they forgot to count. Those numbers will change, they have to, right?
When morning came on November 9th, it was clear that we were living in a very different kind of social context. I don’t mean something inane like “It all started with the election of Donald Trump”, I mean that there was a very real lifting of the veil for many of us, and the world we thought we lived in, turned out to be a mirage. In class that week we processed together what had happened and it felt like we had all experienced a death in our shared family. We grieved. We raged.
The anxiety in my faith Communities was palpable, I mean, you could feel the shock of it everywhere you went, but in church it felt especially heavy. It was one of those “Where are you, God?” moments. I remember thinking, “How the hell do we talk about small groups and potlucks after all that?” How do we just keep on doing church?
Luckily, that apathy soon faded. What started as anxiety and grief, quickly transitioned to a sense of urgency and determination. I felt my communities collectively start rolling their sleeves up and asking where and how they could get to work. Sometimes we stomped all over the place in eagerness, doing more harm than good. Sometimes we retreated into the comfortable place of planning and discussion in an effort to avoid risky action and public failure. Sometimes we really got it right and found hope in the work we were able to do together and with our neighbors. And it was those moments especially that have helped to define my vocational call and my vision for church.
At United Theological Seminary I studied Social Transformation because I was convinced that the Gospel had something to say about justice and reparations in this life, and not just in the next. I understood that theoretically the church had been called to the work of social transformation, but it was my context and the oh fuck moment of 2016 that forced me out of my head and into practical application. I’m ashamed it took me so long, but I’m grateful for the communities that helped me get there.
So, for two years I’ve been working at a congregation, and within a larger church body, to learn, to teach, and to accompany my friends, family, and neighbors as we work together to build power that looks like Christ and is capable of obliterating systems of oppression. Or at least, get some laws changed in the process.
I haven’t learned this on my own, I’ve been taught and mentored by some of the most brilliant people I know, many of them women and people of color; pastors, professors, my entire peer group, fellow Oblates, scotch enthusiasts, poets, congregants, dead and living theologians, etc. And my education is so far from over. I still have those tendencies to retreat into the theoretical and into the safety of intellectual deliberation. My teachers continue to push and prod, and I keep making mistakes and flipping between getting it and so not getting it.
That’s why I’ve decided to start writing again here. Writing is how I learn best, and for me, writing about this work, both theoretically and practically, is what will help me to remain focused and to learn from a variety of experiences and voices. I’m also Hopeful that there are many of you reading this who are interested in the same thing. I’m hopeful that we can challenge each other, support one another, and hold each other accountable in love. I know that’s the kind of community I need in this moment.
Some of what I want to accomplish here is connecting the practical work of community organizing and the theological tradition of the Lutheran Church, wrapped in a smattering of Benedictine spirituality. I have found that some of the biggest disconnect we have in our faith communities is centered on how we speak theologically about our engagement with power and those systems, relationships, and institutions where power is expressed. What are the implications of an incarnate God? What is righteousness, and how does it operate in our lives? How does the non-violence of Jesus confront the violence of empire? These are some of the questions I need to continuously answer for myself, and I’m hopeful that my attempts to do so here can be at least interesting, if not helpful, to others.
I believe that the Gospel has set us free to be totally and completely human, in all the brutal and beautiful ways that gets expressed. We are not set free to rise above the fray but set free to enter it fully. As a person of faith, as a Lutheran and a Benedictine Oblate, and as a human being alive in this world, I have been called to engage as the hands and feet of a God who took on the flesh of a poor itinerant prophet, and who confronted the systems of power operational in his communities. We are called to no less. That means political action. That means holding one another accountable. That means building power. That means getting organized. That means agitating the hell out of the status quo.
How we show up in the world defines who we are. And how we show up as the church in a moment when our closest communities feel unsafe and divided matters. It matters that the church repents of its white supremacy, and its continued clutch to a culture of whiteness. It matters that we accompany and stand with our LGBTQ family. It matters that we acknowledge our own power and then give it over in service of God’s vision. It matters that we get organized and clear about how and why we bring about change. There is such a beautiful history of radical communities of the faithful setting aside the safety of privilege and inaction in the name of peace, for a full life defined by community, service, vulnerability, and a little righteous anger.
I’m hopeful that we can be the kind of voice that reflects Christ back into a world in pain and in need of salvation. And I’m hopeful that in doing so we can get some laws changed too. So, let’s get to work.
