As we enter a New Year with serious, ongoing problems as a nation and in our churches, how can spirituality give us direction in terms of navigating these challenges? The important key is whether one believes God is still active in history, as indicated in a phrase that became popular in the church in the 1990’s: “God is not finished with us yet.”
Amanda Gorman, twenty-two-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate, pointed us in that direction on Inauguration Day:
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
Both church and state begin in a kind of “originalism,” building upon the Scriptures (church) and the Constitution (state), which are beloved. But we Progressives also believe God is alive and at work in history, guiding us into ever deeper understandings of truth. We believe God can use both the physical and social sciences to “reveal” to us these deeper truths, such as the insight that being LGBTQ+ is an orientation, not a choice; that people are poor, not because they are lazy, but because they lack opportunity; that minorities in almost any culture are often the victims of discrimination and unequal treatment. We see science not as being opposed to God, but as a gift from God. An example would be the messenger RNA research that has so quickly given us vaccines. Human intelligence comes from God, and can either be used for good (these vaccines) or evil (nuclear weapons.)
Two of the most important revelations of human knowledge that affect how we see all of life, including church and state, are, first, the linear view of history and, secondly, the revelation of modern psychology that the hiding of, and the refusal to admit--let alone confess—destructive, factual secrets leads to increasing pain and suffering in any system, from family to congregation to nation-state.
All ancient religion viewed life as circular, following the seasons of the year.
There was no sense of the movement forward of history. Rather, life was a continuous repeating of what had already been, and the gods have to do with things like thunder and weather (Zeus), hunting, (Artemis) and the fertility of the earth in the spring (Demeter).
The Judeo-Christian-Islamic understanding of history, with a beginning and an end, changed this view of reality. Now you have a choice. Either you can look for ways to return to the past and attempt to preserve it (the Conservative view) or you can look for ways to move into a new future, different than anything that has gone before (the Progressive view). This is where Catholic and Protestant theology split in the medieval era. Catholic theology affirmed a succession of popes with the goal of preserving what had been, and that is why I believe it has had so much trouble dealing with the discoveries of the modern world, from birth control to the equality of women and the LGBTQ+ community.
Protestantism was born out of the desire for Reformation, taking the best of what existed at the time and trying to improve upon it. That has been a rocky road, with fits and starts, and with anything but unanimity, but in recent history we have finally been able to embrace women and the LGBTQ+ community as equals, create a Just War theory that tries to curtail increasing violence, and to confess the sins of the past such as Luther’s anti-Semitism and American slavery.
We ELCA Lutherans (the denomination of which I am a pastor) have tried to argue that Reformation is on-going, built upon the past, but with a view to the future that keeps struggling to make things even better by remaining open to revelations from God as we try to grow in our ability to be in harmony with the will of that God. This is where Conservatives and Progressives often part, because the very things many Progressives have been working for (the equality of women and the LGBTQ+ community, the acknowledgement of white privilege and systemic racism) are seen by some Conservatives as conflicting with what they see as the truths of Scripture.
The second arena--that of family systems psychology--has demonstrated how hidden--and thereby unconfessed and “covered up” actions--from alcoholism to physical and sexual abuse, continue to destroy that family system. I have been a called pastor in eight congregations, and the difference between those that were relatively healthy and those that were not, is that the unhealthy ones continued to carry secrets that were never admitted, confessed and confronted,
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| The Trail of Tears |
Now, just as church bodies can decide whether to focus on preserving the past or moving into a new and reformed future, so can nation-states. Just as theology and church are called to acknowledge our “original sin” of rebelling against the will of God, so America needs to do the same, and I don’t believe we really have. We have never fully acknowledged, let alone confessed, our original sins of beginning this nation with the genocide of the native peoples and the building of the economy upon the backs of slaves and migrant workers. And, whenever sin is not confessed, it finds ways of continuing. A short list of examples would be the continual breaking of treaties with Native Americans, the incarceration of the Japanese during World War II, the unequal treatment of Blacks by police and our legal system, the constant abuse of Latinos and their children by our government, relying on their labor but refusing to give them basic rights. I have had the opportunity to visit ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Detention facilities three times. The first two times I became so physically sick I decided not to go the third time.
The biblical definition of repentance is “turning around,” as we acknowledge and then turn around and walk away from sin. Today in America we are at a “turning point.” Which way will we go? Will we strive to return to the past, not only refusing to confess our original sins, but actually working to maintain white privilege and the systemic racism inherent to our way of life? Will we continue to resent immigrants, taking their skills and labor but not allowing them to be fully a part of the American dream? Even though our Constitution uplifts “freedom of religion,” will we continue to discriminate against Muslims and Jews and other religious groups?
Or, instead, will we strive to create a “more perfect union” that continues to improve its ability to treat all people with dignity? Will we be open to Reformation, taking the best of what is already here and committing ourselves to making it even better, with “liberty and justice for all”?
Amanda Gorman, painted us just such a vision:
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children's birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes, we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we're brave enough to see it
If only we're brave enough to be it [The Hill We Climb]
