For what it’s worth, in terms of the current prophetic witness of the Church, may I share a bit of – what I find deeply encouraging – news from another part of this world: “More than 1,100 religious leaders in the Netherlands have signed a petition against the right-wing Dutch government’s ‘strictest refugee policy ever,’ Trouw reported on Thursday.”
As an English person, who considers the Netherlands her second home, am feeling pretty proud of those Dutch church leaders right now. They’re standing alongside other faith leaders and raising their prophetic voice together; speaking as one to the government. Perhaps that is also the crucial role of American church leaders the coming days, the coming years…
Try switching from Southern Baptist to United Methodist in 1980, go to a UM seminary, then spend 38 years as a UM pastor, only to have to tiptoe around the "triggers" the whole time
Jon Altman I am a member of a rural ELCA church in west Texas which has a retired UMC pastor He had to leave Texas as a Methodist because he could not “out Baptist” the so called Methodist pastors around him.
Thank you! I've been thinking the same thing. White mainline churches stayed silent against the rise of White Christian Nationalism. I think we are too afraid of losing more members. We need to do some serious repentance and speak out now.
So interesting David. And I want you to know that I still start my mornings and end my evenings with your excellent book, "A Morning and Evening Prayer Book." I love it.
Thanks David. As a theology professor who is Catholic this analysis is useful if sad in its particulars. I want to read Compton. Many of us are frustrated if not appalled with some aspects of evangelical Chistianity especially the far right Libertarian wing. Many Catholics have also drifted right but I have faith that in the end the witness of Dorothy Day and others will show that "harsh and dreadful love" of the poor and despised is our mission and will be the sign of the kingdom already here and yet to be realized in the power of the Spirit searching our hearts.Thanks for your writing and witness. Free Gaza!
David...thank you for taking the time to write Changing our Mind 10 years ago. I am fighting for justice in an evangelical church. Your book is my rock!
Thanks for your words of wisdom. My grandfather was Bishop Charles Williams and was appropriately called a prophet of peace and justice. How we miss that prophetic mission today amongst most clergy!
I also deleted socials except Substack. I’ve washed my hands of Christianity too. Tired of being treated horribly by judgmental Christians and I don’t want to raise my daughter around those kinds of influences.
David: thanks for this personal and introspective assessment. I’m particularly struck by your last comments: “primary contribution in the remaining few years of my career must be in direct local church ministry, in training leaders for a future church with moral integrity, and in providing a few more academic resources that can perhaps be of help to the next generation.”
David, the book sounds interesting and valuable, yet I wonder if Compton’s history goes back as far as the 1920s, and takes note of the widespread engagement of nascent evangelicalism with the resurgent Ku Klux Klan? I encountered this while studying Quakers in Indiana, where the KKK was strongest, and swept up conservative Protestants by the thousands, including many Indiana Quakers. What was more surprising to me was how fully the 1920s KKK political platform corresponded to the Trump/Pence agenda of 2016. This pointed to a continuity of political outlook & program that long outlived the organizational decline of the KKK,
Which after all had their own brand of militant protestantism, which they openly pushed on many a pastor in mid-service.
I put these observations with examples into a blog post, which seems to have some renewed resonance eight years later. The URL:
You can get a Jesus solution or you can get a race one. You're going to have to make a choice but you should stop bothering people by trying to mix both.
You can have racial empathy or you can have Christian empathy but you're not getting both and that's scripture.
Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
You can make your choice now. I'm putting it on you.
Empathy that's not grounded in Christ is how any terrible ideology has started. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You have to believe nazis thought they were the good guys.
Christ demands all - not just money. We don't even do love outside God. He doesn't demand philadelphia, or brotherly love, he demands agape - divine love.
Colossians 3:5: "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
The more you take away from God the less freedom you have. The more you impose that separation from God on other people, well, Jesus said something about millstones.
“Love your neighbour as yourself.” Leviticus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul and James all reinforce this message. Thanks for the warning about millstones. I will assume that that is your way of loving the stranger.
It's what Jesus said and love your neighbor as yourself isn't eros nor philadelphia - it's agape. You only love someone if you see them as God sees them. That distinction between loves was lost in English because England became Christian.
Agape (/ɑːˈɡɑːpeɪ, ˈɑːɡəˌpeɪ, ˈæɡə-/;[1] from Ancient Greek ἀγάπη (agápē)) is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for [human beings] and of [human beings] for God".[2] This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a profound sacrificial love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance.
Edit: Matthew 18:6, "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea".
Thank you, David, for such a great piece!
For what it’s worth, in terms of the current prophetic witness of the Church, may I share a bit of – what I find deeply encouraging – news from another part of this world: “More than 1,100 religious leaders in the Netherlands have signed a petition against the right-wing Dutch government’s ‘strictest refugee policy ever,’ Trouw reported on Thursday.”
An English version here:
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/11/1000-religious-leaders-sign-petition-against-dutch-asylum-plans/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3QTHw7_U6ACmZay2PT5RU9NOzzF7ZObKTj3mF7ipYANTeZ76RW4jUv8dQ_aem_xkR0Tm2Ss9m5IuNtFr-aLw
As an English person, who considers the Netherlands her second home, am feeling pretty proud of those Dutch church leaders right now. They’re standing alongside other faith leaders and raising their prophetic voice together; speaking as one to the government. Perhaps that is also the crucial role of American church leaders the coming days, the coming years…
Thank you for sharing!
Try switching from Southern Baptist to United Methodist in 1980, go to a UM seminary, then spend 38 years as a UM pastor, only to have to tiptoe around the "triggers" the whole time
Jon Altman I am a member of a rural ELCA church in west Texas which has a retired UMC pastor He had to leave Texas as a Methodist because he could not “out Baptist” the so called Methodist pastors around him.
Thank you! I've been thinking the same thing. White mainline churches stayed silent against the rise of White Christian Nationalism. I think we are too afraid of losing more members. We need to do some serious repentance and speak out now.
So interesting David. And I want you to know that I still start my mornings and end my evenings with your excellent book, "A Morning and Evening Prayer Book." I love it.
Thanks David. As a theology professor who is Catholic this analysis is useful if sad in its particulars. I want to read Compton. Many of us are frustrated if not appalled with some aspects of evangelical Chistianity especially the far right Libertarian wing. Many Catholics have also drifted right but I have faith that in the end the witness of Dorothy Day and others will show that "harsh and dreadful love" of the poor and despised is our mission and will be the sign of the kingdom already here and yet to be realized in the power of the Spirit searching our hearts.Thanks for your writing and witness. Free Gaza!
David...thank you for taking the time to write Changing our Mind 10 years ago. I am fighting for justice in an evangelical church. Your book is my rock!
Thanks for your words of wisdom. My grandfather was Bishop Charles Williams and was appropriately called a prophet of peace and justice. How we miss that prophetic mission today amongst most clergy!
I just finished another one of your books. As soon as I finish "The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy", I'll move on to Mr. Compton.
I also deleted socials except Substack. I’ve washed my hands of Christianity too. Tired of being treated horribly by judgmental Christians and I don’t want to raise my daughter around those kinds of influences.
We should have seen this coming with the “empathy is a sin” conversation from evangelicals over the past couple of years.
The soul of America has landed in the landfill.
David: thanks for this personal and introspective assessment. I’m particularly struck by your last comments: “primary contribution in the remaining few years of my career must be in direct local church ministry, in training leaders for a future church with moral integrity, and in providing a few more academic resources that can perhaps be of help to the next generation.”
That’s very much where I am. You may be interested in my last post about empowering The Remnant with key understanding of things such as the Beatitudes! https://open.substack.com/pub/benw97002/p/empowering-the-remnant?r=73g1j&utm_medium=ios
David, the book sounds interesting and valuable, yet I wonder if Compton’s history goes back as far as the 1920s, and takes note of the widespread engagement of nascent evangelicalism with the resurgent Ku Klux Klan? I encountered this while studying Quakers in Indiana, where the KKK was strongest, and swept up conservative Protestants by the thousands, including many Indiana Quakers. What was more surprising to me was how fully the 1920s KKK political platform corresponded to the Trump/Pence agenda of 2016. This pointed to a continuity of political outlook & program that long outlived the organizational decline of the KKK,
Which after all had their own brand of militant protestantism, which they openly pushed on many a pastor in mid-service.
I put these observations with examples into a blog post, which seems to have some renewed resonance eight years later. The URL:
https://wp.me/p5FGIu-1SB
You can get a Jesus solution or you can get a race one. You're going to have to make a choice but you should stop bothering people by trying to mix both.
You can have racial empathy or you can have Christian empathy but you're not getting both and that's scripture.
Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
You can make your choice now. I'm putting it on you.
The verse refers to money, not empathy. You cannot serve both God and money.
Empathy that's not grounded in Christ is how any terrible ideology has started. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You have to believe nazis thought they were the good guys.
Christ demands all - not just money. We don't even do love outside God. He doesn't demand philadelphia, or brotherly love, he demands agape - divine love.
Colossians 3:5: "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
The more you take away from God the less freedom you have. The more you impose that separation from God on other people, well, Jesus said something about millstones.
I see it another way, and I’m very thankful that Jesus loved indiscriminately.
It's not the love Jesus spoke about unless it's reconciliation to God. If it's not then it's loving ourselves which is naturally divisive.
“Love your neighbour as yourself.” Leviticus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul and James all reinforce this message. Thanks for the warning about millstones. I will assume that that is your way of loving the stranger.
It's what Jesus said and love your neighbor as yourself isn't eros nor philadelphia - it's agape. You only love someone if you see them as God sees them. That distinction between loves was lost in English because England became Christian.
Agape (/ɑːˈɡɑːpeɪ, ˈɑːɡəˌpeɪ, ˈæɡə-/;[1] from Ancient Greek ἀγάπη (agápē)) is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for [human beings] and of [human beings] for God".[2] This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a profound sacrificial love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape
Edit: Matthew 18:6, "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea".
Very good depiction of where we are today!
Thank you for putting this book on my radar.
Thank you, David. Your words and example are much needed and appreciated.