Greetings everyone. I’m still trying to find a rhythm to sending out this newsletter. I’ve finally settled on a name, En Route, which is also the new (and final) name of the podcast. The podcast seems to be going well. If you haven’t listened to an episode, take some time and listen today.
Reforming Conservatism.
I want to start things off by sharing a story found in the Bible. In John 5, Jesus meets this man who can’t walk. He is at this pool that is supposed to stir up by an angel and anyone who gets their first when the water is stirred will be healed. Jesus walks up to this man and asks him a simple question: “Do you want to be healed?”
This is how the guy responds:
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”
Do you notice what’s wrong here? Jesus asks him if he wants to be made well if he wants to be able to walk. The answer the man should have given Jesus was “Yes, I want to be made well!” Instead, he gives Jesus this very weird answer. In fact, he doesn’t give Jesus a direct answer. Why couldn’t he say yes?
Some people chalk it up to a lack of faith and a sense of despair. He isn’t able to get to the pool in time in order to be healed, so even though he wants to be healed, he’s given up hope that he will be healed.
The center-right in America is in a very bad spot. As many people saw from the CPAC gathering last weekend in Dallas, the conservative movement is one that seems focused on fear of the left than it does in providing policy answers. Donald Trump’s speech has been considered by some a sign that Trumpism and conservatism has moved into fascist territory.
I’ll leave the discussion of whether or not the brownshirts are on the march for others, but as we see conservatism in America go more and more off the rails, I have to wonder, why isn’t there a strong countermovement to the Trumpists? In fact, over the last six years, ever since Trump started his campaign for President, why has there never been an effective movement to confront Trump. It feels at times as if the NeverTrump movement has taken itself out of the fight to counter Trump. We considered the battle lost before it really began.
The months following the insurrection at the Capitol seem like an accident happening in slow motion. We can see the crash about to happen and there is a sense of despair that there is nothing to be done to avoid the collision. Former President Donald Trump and his minions are busy trying to find ways to get him back in the White House, by hook or by crook and it feels that those arrayed against him seem to not know how to stop this from happening. We know that the collision will damage if not destroy American democracy, but we are at a loss of what to do. Because we have never had something like Trumpism threaten the republic before, Democrats and NeverTrump conservatives have a hard figuring out what can be done to stop him from harming our nation. We respond in two ways. The first one is to think of Trump and his band as a roving band of dim bulbs. We know he is dangerous, but it is hard to not see him as an idiot. We see the stupidity like what was displayed at CPAC in July and don’t know if this movement is a joke or something darker. We look at Trump and think he is not just an idiot, but a madman that couldn’t win again.
But we know madmen and fools can win. It’s happened before, it can happen again. if some people are whistling past the graveyard, others are just resigning themselves to the coming end of the American republic.
Other NeverTrumpers are trying to do something and I am hoping against hope they succeed. The Renew America Movement is trying to support anti-Trump GOP candidates to run. I want to see them succeed. But I’ve seen this movie before where an organization is created to stand up for a more compassionate Republican Party or conservatism and things end up nowhere. I’m left to wonder, do NeverTrump conservatives want to be healed?
Healing here is about reforming the wider movement. Is there stomach to get involved or are we so discouraged that we don’t have the fight in us? One of the reasons I believe Trump won the GOP nod in 2016 is because the other candidates were offering nothing but more tax cuts and smaller government, something that many people weren’t interested in anymore. Are we willing to change conservatism to be more appealing to the masses without all the racism that is a part of Trumpism?
Steering the movement away from Trump is a multi-faceted endeavor where you have to look into recruiting volunteers, creating clubs of like-minded people, recruiting candidates, creating places where people can talk about policy and persuading Trump supporters that there is a better way.
To do that, you have to offer something more than nothing. I truly believe one of the reasons we are in this mess is that conservativism became stale. After a while the answer to any problem was a tax cut. But tax cuts worked in the 1980s because tax rates were high. When you have tax rates hovering near 40 percent down from 70 percent, it’s time to expand your policy options.
Jerry Taylor and Samuel Hammond of the Niskanen Center believe in offering new ideas that can get the GOP away from what they call “zombie Reaganism. “Transcending Trump starts with a recognition that there’s no going back to the stale, threadbare brand of Conservative Inc. that he warred against in 2016 to great effect,” they argue. Their observation is that Trump built his MAGA movement based on the despair plaguing the working class. This means providing an agenda that offers needed “bread” to Donald Trump’s “circuses.” This would include a child allowance like the one proposed by Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, universal catastrophic health insurance, a focus on struggling parts of the United States and Federal revenue sharing.
But for any of this to happen, you have to have people willing to organize people and find candidates willing to run promoting a non-Trumpist message. Can it happen? Can NeverTrumpers get past the despair work for democracy?
What I do hope is that people on the right will be willing to get involved. It’s an uphill climb and it seems impossible. But I hope there are people out there willing to fight for a better GOP and for a better country.
Why the mainline matters.
I am the pastor of a very, very small church in the suburban Twin Cities. It’s a congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainline Protestant denomination. The mainline churches have gone through a rough patch over the last 50-60 years as millions have left the church and churches closed.
How Mainline Protestants deal with the collapse is interesting. I’ve noticed a lot of denial among people, with some saying that churches aren’t in decline. Others will say that evangelical churches are losing members as well. When churches face closure, some will say that no church will last forever.
But I am worried about the decline of mainline churches and I’m concerned for a rather selfish reason: It’s the only place where I can worship openly as a gay man. The importance of Mainline Protestant congregations is that they give a place for people who might not be welcome in evangelical churches to worship God. Ryan Burge, an American Baptist pastor and researcher, wrote a moving essay about this very topic recently. He writes the following:
Some people desperately want to be part of a Christian community. They love the Gospel story of a simple man from Galilee who lived a sinless life and died an innocent death on the cross, that somehow saves all of us from our sins. They believe in the redemption of that simple act. But, they also believe that women can and should preach and that if two men or women want to marry each other, that’s none of their concern. Shouldn’t those types of people have a few options for a church home as well?
The data is exceedingly clear on this point. Most of those people who would like to still be a Christian, but can’t be an evangelical, aren’t gritting their teeth and going to the local Southern Baptist or non-denominational congregation. They are leaving religion behind entirely and not looking back. As a pastor, I cannot fathom how anyone thinks that is the best outcome. Unfortunately, for many evangelicals they have a view of church that is simply “if you don’t agree with our theology completely, then you might as well have no religion at all.”
There’s ample evidence that this approach to theology has left behind in its wake tens of millions of twenty, thirty, or forty-year-olds who would desperately like to feel like they are a part of something bigger themselves. They would love to step toward the altar and take the bread and cup and commune with those around them as well as Christians all over the world. But, those mainline churches that would have embraced the doubters and liberals are becoming extinct in many rural towns across America.
The church that I serve is hanging on by a thread. I keep pressing onward because there need to be places like my little church and there are fewer and fewer places like this. I need these churches because I have nowhere else to go. So do millions of others and I think we need to do what we can to create these places where people can come to hear the Word preached and the sacraments are shared and be able to be LGBT or someone dealing with doubt or who think women should preach.
I want to close by offering some advice. I shared this in an essay a few weeks ago, but I will say it again here. The writer Fredrica Matthews-Green wrote an essay a few years ago called “How to Revive a Dead Church.” In it, she discusses how people tend to choose communities of faith like they would buying a new car. “They think like consumers and seek an experience that is enjoyable, edifying, and convenient,” she says. “ They have little reason to stick around when a church fails the audition; there’s always another church, just a block away.”
She offers those who are looking for a new church home to do something that is definitely countercultural: visit a “dead” church and invest time in it. Matthews-Green notes, “When you visit such a church, your impulse is to leave and find another one that’s more alive. But there’s another possibility: a “dead” church can be revived. There are things you can do to bring a church to life.”
Like the story before this one, for this venerable tradition to survive, you need people who want it to survive. Keeping churches going is hard work and it isn’t something the pastor can do alone. You need people who are will to roll up their sleeves and get to work. You also need people who are willing to join declining churches in order to help turn them around. A tradition can only thrive if there are people that make it a priority.
What I hope is that there are people who are willing to find a Mainline Protestant church, maybe that meets in a shabby building with just a few people and start making a life with them. Keep them alive so that where that doubter who has given up on life will find God within the doors of the church. Keep them alive so that a young gay man or a transgender girl will come and find a place where they can be who God made them to be. Keep the tradition going for their sake.
Earlier in the week, I interviewed Geoff Mitchell, the pastor of Lindenwood Christian Church in Memphis. What follows is a fairly honest conversation about the problems the mainline faces, but also hope for the future if they can balance strong theology with a strong sense of justice. You can listen to that podcast episode by going here.
Recent Writings and Listenings
It’s always fascinating what people will read. My most recent essay on J.D. Vance is pretty popular. Read The Betrayal of the “Trump Whisperer.”
I love the space program. I love science fiction. I love when the two can come together as they have in “For All Mankind” on Apple +. I’m late to the game, but I am loving this alternative history drama where the space race between America and the Soviets never ended. I wrote an essay wondering why we didn’t have the world depicted in “For All Mankind.” I start it off by sharing the first real memory I have of the space program: the test flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Give it a read.
Another piece from May is called Pastor at Low Tide and where I talk about the rising number of pastors that are leaving the ministry in the wake of the pandemic. You can also listen to a podcast interview I did with Joe Tognetti, a Methodist pastor in Texas on how he did ministry in the middle of COVID.
That’s it for now. Please share this newsletter with others who might be interested. See you soon!