My comments on Christian Nationalism
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Prairie Unitarian Universalist Church, Parker, CO
Following the remarks by Jeff Scholes providing context on what Christian Nationalism is. I delivered these pastoral remarks.
1. They aren’t the only ones fearful and angry.
2. They aren’t the only ones feeling at risk of losing something precious.
3. We have that in common.
4. We have to come to grips with our commonality, our common connection. Above all, we have to see in “them” something of us. We can start from there.
5. For our own sake, we have t come to grips with those emotions in our own spirit. We must not turn away from those emotions.
6. Why? Because as in all things if we tamp down our rage, our fear, our grief, we will either
a. Stay in our heads, and this will all be an abstraction and an issue out there
b. Be acting from a place of fear and rage instead of love and vision
7. This question of vision is important. Where does it come from, in our own spirit, in our own lives? We are invited to understand ourselves in this moment, to understand our fear and to face our emotions. And then, to put together the why. Why is this important to me? What is motivating me to take a stand here. What is it that is compelling me to take a stand on this or anything else around social justice? If I say, I do not believe in the death penalty because it seems gross and unbecoming, that is on the surface true. I do believe that. But if I ask myself why did I spend a year working against it, making money talking to clergy and congregations and audiences about it. There is rage that the state puts people to death that are innocent. There is rage that often those innocent ones are poor or can’t speak our language, or are excluded from the halls of power. Well, it took me a long time to realize that this was my fundamental, most important issue because I grew up poor, I grew up excluded from the halls of power. I saw parts of my family scrambling and ineffectual and powerless in the face of an establishment that wanted nothing to do with them, and in them I saw that I was too. And then, and then, I became aware of my rage, my grief, my fear, my sadness. And…
