A Message from Mark
The Church and Its Social Impact
Mark McCormick, General Presbyter
In a recent essay in the Presbyterian Outlook entitled, “Church, country and the crisis of moral imagination,” Jennifer Butler argues that mainline Protestants have an important role to play in healing a fraying democracy. No one can credibly deny that our democratic norms and the confidence that so many Americans once held for the structures of our governance are being challenged regularly by voices of division and accusation.
Though every generation has the tendency to see its moment in history as unique and precipitous in a way that no other generation has known, our socio-political moment is certainly not the first time that American democracy has been challenged or threatened with vast economic impacts resulting. This is not the first time that social justice and equitable access for all have been hotly debated or challenged. Nor is this the first moment when theological interests have been invoked as a guide for addressing these challenges. With the 227th General Assembly’s denunciation of Christian Nationalism as a theological error and affirmation of continuing discernment of how to fulfill the commandments to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, Butler encourages mainline Protestantism to recover thicker language of solidarity and shared purpose before answering theopolitical challengers.
What might this look and sound like? I will leave you to read Butler’s answer to this question, but I do have some ideas of my own about it. While it is perpetually tempting to vilify those who disagree with us and to stake out positions of interpretive authority based on claims to one theological theory or another, the challenges of this moment might more readily respond to doubling down on the very commitments that align with the teachings of Jesus Christ and taking those commitments public.
Rather than debate theological intricacies, what if the connectional church worked together more closely to support equity and justice for the outcast and the overlooked? It is easy be so focused on being right and being righteous and forget that we are commanded to be loving and show compassion for those who are struggling to get by, to understand, or searching for some experience of grace in their lives. Now that mainline Protestant churches are aligning more with those who have been excluded and marginalized, we should not be surprised that opposition would become more focused on strategies to discredit faithfulness by labeling it as falling away from biblical truth, or compassion as compromise of values and acquiescence to cultural norms. But this is the very reason that all faithful Christians should be prepared to give a defense of the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15) and be bold in loving and praying for those who would oppose these commitments. Elevating and extending our standards for welcome to the marginalized grows from an increasing understanding of the compassion that we have experienced ourselves and are now compelled to extend to others. Welcome, not exclusion, is the hallmark of the Gospel. As we grow in our understanding of what it means to live thankfully as a sinner of God’s own redeeming, we extend further welcome so that the domain where God’s Love reigns continues to expand into all areas of our lives.
When Jesus told the parable of the sheep and the goats and described that image of the Son of Man coming to judge all the nations, the distinction between those who were blessed and told to come and those who were cursed and commanded to depart was not who had the better theological argument or was closer to the traditional beliefs of former generations of the faithful. The Matthew 25 Initiative is an encouragement to all of us to serve Christ by caring for and serving the needs of the people in our society who are in need. We might see it in a variety of contemporary activities from feeding the poor through serving in a food pantry to calling for compassion for the stranger in our midst, but it always looks like caring. Butler’s conclusion is that mainline churches that move more boldly to live their spiritual commitment out loud and in public provide a powerful witness to the transformative grace of God and its impact upon civic life. The church that lives its faith and embodies it spiritual commitments by sharing grace and compassion is the church that will continue to exert a transformative impact upon citizens and through them upon society.
Thanks be to God for new understanding and for faithful followers of Christ who love because they have known love. AMEN.