The 7th Fosdick Lecture on Preaching — Rev. Barbara Lundblad addresses the topic “Shall the Christian Nationalists Win?” Barbara Lundblad is the Joe R. Engle Professor of Preaching Emerita at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She received a B.A. in English from Augustana College, an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, and a D.D. from Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.
All right good morning everyone we’re going to go ahead and get started if you are having trouble finding a seat I know we’ve opened the Overflow there are also wonderful seats in the balcony so wow is all I can say what a great crowd um I’m Paul prau the president
Here at Augsburg and it is my great privilege to welcome all of you to the sth Harry Emerson fosic lecture on preaching who would have imagined at a little Lutheran College in the middle of Minneapolis that we would host an annual preaching lecture and uh it’s been a
Great gift to us to be able to do this uh each U each of the past several years and to be able to bring distinguished guests to campus who um who bless us with their understanding of how we share the word to the world I want to say a
Special word of thanks to our event staff U that is at the moment under staff and is still doing a wonderful job preparing us for these wonderful events to our campus ministry staff pastors babet and John um administrator extraordinaire Janice who’s back there opening up the back room um but a
Special thanks to the Reverend Greg renstrom who um our wonderful friend who is the instigator of this annual event and has been so generous with both his vision and his support for this Greg you want to wave so folks can thank you for your wonderful areas in the back row of
All places but let’s let’s thank [Applause] great so again it’s wonderful to be here with you I’d now like to introduce Pastor John schain who will introduce our distinguished [Applause] guest good morning so I’m John Ro schain as president Pon mentioned I’m one of the University pastors here at Augsburg
Serving alongside Pastor babet Chapman I have the privilege of introducing our speaker this morning but first a word about the namesake for this event the Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick Reverend fosic was the founding pastor and preacher of The ecumenical Riverside Church in New York City regarded by
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr as quote the greatest preacher of this Century Reverend Fosdick believed the task of preaching belonged in the Public Square that proclamation of the Gospel must enter the current lived anxieties fears and realities of people’s lives fosic was also a leading public critic of the growing fundamentalist
Movement within Christianity and I think Reverend fosic would be encouraged to know that the topic our lecturer and preacher this morning brings takes one of his most influential sermons shall the fundamentalists win which he preached in 1922 and recontextualizes it to the ideology that threatens church and
Society today and is top of mind for many preachers this election cycle we will hear shall the Christian nationalists win though Christian nationalism has long been present in this land used to justify this nation’s original sins of slavery white supremacy and genocide of native peoples it feels
Like it’s on the ballot this year in an especially dangerous way way a poll released just yesterday by the public religion Research Institute found that three in 10 Americans either sympathize with or adhere to Christian nationalist ideas with the majority of them living in the Southeast and Upper Midwest and overwhelmingly expressing
Support for Donald Trump we know the Christian nationalist agenda is contrary to the gospel but how do we effectively preach and resist and offer an alternative vision of the Christian faith from the pulpit to congregations who are more divided than ever in an election year enter Reverend Barbara Kon blad the
Joe R angle professor of preaching amerita at Union Theological Seminary in New York City Reverend lblad is ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and in addition to her many academic homiletics posts she has served for decades as a parish pastor and I got to add a campus Pastor
Too she is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Academy of homiletics and a recipient of the distinguished alumni award at Yale Divinity School where she was also invited in 2000 to offer the Beacher lectures one of the most distinguished lecture series on preaching in the world
Reverend lundblad is a pastor Prophet author teacher Mentor friend partner and faithful follower of Jesus who we are so honored to learn from together this morning so please join me in welcoming Reverend Barbara [Applause] [Applause] lblad [Applause] well thank you uh this is an honor for me and it is
So good to see many many friends here today it feels like a bit of a reunion so um thanks for coming and I also want to reach out to those of you who are watching this online uh because I know that there are many people probably as many as are here
Today who are also watching online uh how wonderful that Augsburg has started this preaching lectureship in in in in honor of Harry Emerson fic uh I the last time I preached at a fosic conference was at Riverside Church in New York City where they we used to
Have a a fosic conference on preaching and worship so it’s wonderful to see that it’s now come to the Midwest as John noted uh my title was stolen in a sense or updated from his sermon of 1922 shall the fundamentalists win and that sermon he really didn’t want to
Preach that sermon it wasn’t on the top of his agenda and he didn’t want to be a divider but he felt that the fundamentalist forces were so powerful that he really had to preach it at the First Presbyterian Church in New York in 1922 this is about eight years before he
Was called as the founding pastor of Riverside Church just an aside Nicole and I lived in an apartment that was literally fastened to the wall of the organ pipes at Riverside Church so there was no sleeping in on Sunday morning that sermon that he preached was really preached to the church and was
About what was happening within the church uh in his own words just a brief segment of that sermon already all of us must have heard about the people who call themselves fundamentalists their purpose is to drive out from the Christian churches the conse rated Souls who do not agree with their theory of
Inspiration what immeasurable Folly well if he wanted that sermon to stay within First Presbyterian Church it surely didn’t it went far and wide and the fundamentalists wanted to get him out of the Presbyterian Church uh and that charge against him was led by William Jennings briyan who had been Secretary of State
But U probably is most remembered for being uh the person the lawyer who who tried to defend the Tennessee law that forbid the teaching of evolution and he actually won that case so they could continue to teach Evolution although it changed later but um his witness on the witness stand was
So discredited and even ridiculed uh that the fundamentalist project really was diminished uh people thought well we can’t believe this kind of thing that he’s saying and so you could say in some ways that Harry Emerson fosdick’s question shall the fundamentalists win was answered no they shouldn’t they shouldn’t
Win but he himself felt that he had to leave First Presbyterian Church because he refused to submit to a heresy trial so he left that church and on his last Sunday there the sanctuary was packed and he said they call me a heretic well I am a heretic if conventional Orthodoxy is the
Standard I should be ashamed to live in this century and not be a heretic but there’s nothing in that 1922 sermon that warned about any kind of takeover by the fundamentalists of the government of the United States it was really a sermon about what was happening in the church 102 years
Later it is a different story Christian nationalism has probably many definitions I will just share one Christian nationalism is a movement that believes the United States must be a Christian Nation grounded in Christian values and principles devoted to preserving Christian superiority notice that the word democracy does not appear
Now some of you have probably heard already a clip of the beginning of the CPAC conference that was held recently where a man named Jack pvic opened the conference with these words I just want to say welcome to the end of democracy we are here to overthrow it
Completely we didn’t get all the way on January 6th but we will get there we will get rid of of it and then he held up a cross necklace and he said we’ll replace it with this right here that’s right because all glory all glory is not to
The government all glory is to God but that conference was mainly about the government it’s hard to pinpoint the exact theological uh underpinnings of the Christian nationalist movement but they would be probably very similar to what fosic faced with the fundamentalists uh and these are not really up for
Argument uh the inherency of scripture the Virgin birth salvation through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and Jesus coming again in clouds of Glory glory and for many a final battle of Armageddon think back to the left behind books but if you really listen carefully
And John noted that survey that was done by prri recently they said that there are two non-negotiables for the Christian nationalists and it’s not virgin birth it’s not the inherency of scripture it is number one access to guns and two immigration other cultural issues we know are important to this group of
People lgbtq rights abortion and the country’s tending toward what they would call socialism but this title Christian nationalism really doesn’t say it all it should be noted that the title should be white Christian nationalism and maybe that’s understood that word white uh is understood but it
Should be there it may not it may be that there are black people who are part of this movement but it oh so very very few this is white Christian nationalism it’s really been the framework for the history of this country from the time that slaves were brought to Virginia in
1619 on through thousands of slaves who were brought to this country I can’t even begin to emphasize how much this movement has to do with race the Civil War was fought in spite of Nikki Haley’s not having an answer to that question it was really fought to
Preserve the right of white men to own slaves and why not this was big business I didn’t realize this until years ago I read tanesi coat’s uh article on reparations in the Atlantic slavery is big business in 1860 just listen to this I was so shocked slaves as an asset were worth
More than all of America’s manufacturing all of the railroads all of the productive capacity of the United States slaves were by far the single largest financial asset of property in the entire American economy you can see why the Confederacy wanted to win this war but to lose that war was for them
Culturally religiously and racially devastating they had written the word god into their Confederate Constitution the word God is not in the US Constitution so this was a terrible blow how could God let this happen how could God allow the freeing of the slaves how could God be so mean to good white
People but why now so Civil War was a long time ago uh why now this rise uh of white Christian nationalism well the scaffolding had already been built for this movement and um I can’t tell you how much I’ve deleted from this lecture but you can read so much about
This yourself um of what led to this movement now uh I think a catalyst really was FDR’s New Deal people couldn’t stand it especially the business people anybody with money couldn’t stand it they did everything to denounce it and they were very angry with his wife elanar who insisted on the
Equality and of gender and Race So church people Christian people and Business Leaders came together to really denounce the New Deal and this has been a tension now we have felt in the political landscape of the United States for many generations but what about the Supreme
Court decisions of just just in the in the lifetime of many of us sitting here today Brown versus Board of Education surely in 1954 one of the ones that really got people mad uh this was you know to integrate the schools and almost every city went through a terrible terrible time of
Division over that decision or what about Row versus Wade 1973 the interesting thing about this decision of the court to allow for women to decide to have an abortion within certain limits always from the beginning it was never the Catalyst at the beginning the Southern Baptist convention had written into their
Platform that abortion was an honorable option a faithful option what drove the conservatives was the decision to deny tax exemption from Bob Jones University because they refused to admit black students that was really the C that’s what got people going and then later on they they latched on to abortion but
Abortion was not the beginning citizens united you know treated uh corporations as a person it’s completely changed the landscape of funding for politics huge numbers of huge amounts of money uh now come into a political campaign but one of the most interesting to me is Shelby versus holder in in 2013 which completely
Gutted the real heart of the Voting Rights Act that act from 1965 was troubling to people and they wanted to get rid of it and they finally did Paul wrick who many of you know his name and if you don’t just look him up he’s a very interesting fellow really one of
The founders of the modern GOP and surely one of the leaders of what we now call White Christian nationalism in 1980 he spoke to a group of Evangelical Christians and he said this I don’t want everybody to vote elections are not won by a majority of people they never have been and they
Never will as a matter of fact our leverage in elections goes up as the voting population goes down it’s made a huge difference so you can see fight after fight after fight in almost every state to somehow suppress the vote and then uh in 2003 2013 and 2015 three decisions that honored the
Humanity and the rights of LGBT people how could that be how could that have happened gay marriage it’s against everything God ever wanted and then alongside of this the Civil Rights Movement often you’ll hear the gospel preached from the edges from people who are oppressed will be the ones who will
Fight for democracy and that surely was true with the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks refusing to get up in 1955 to Martin Luther King to Malcolm X to the Black Panthers to George Floyd and black lives matter we love to hear Martin Luther King’s dream especially we white people we love
To hear that dream where little black girls and little white girls will hold hands on the hills of Georgia but the rest of the Civil Rights Movement seemed like a nightmare to many white people then of all the trouble in 2008 Barack Obama was elected president of this country it was way too
Much Carter Hayward has a wonderful book called The Seven Deadly sins of white Christian nationalism and she writes this we should not underestimate the fear and horror struck in the hearts of people in this country who could not imagine living under the authority of a black president most of what has happened in
American politics since Obama’s election has been motivated at least in part by the refusal of significant numbers of American Christians to accept even the possibility that the strangle hold of white male power had been broken a black man in the White House was too much to
Bear fear has motivated so much of the white Christian nationalist movement uh fear that black lives matter more than white lives fear of black and brown immigrants pouring across the border fear that white people no longer are in charge and fear that Christians are being persecuted where is this
Happening Christians are not being put in concentration camps not ined like the Japanese were during World War II Christians have all kinds of TV stations and websites and I mean where are Christians being persecuted Donald Trump has picked up on this fear at an event last June he said these
Words no president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have I got it done and nobody thought it was even a possibility surely he means the courts but many other things too he’s tapped into that fear particularly since the election of Barack Obama oh so what in the world shall we
Do I’m not completely sure I think we have to figure it out together but those of in this room who are called to preach I think we have to preach about this even if you will not find a verse in the lectionary on white Christian nationalism I had experience shortly
After we moved here that I opened up the star trip and there on the front page I said oh my goodness that looks like my friend Jeff huh it was Jeff and there he is over there um Pastor Jeff Sarten was there talking with a Muslim man and they were in front
Of a big mural of Jesus arrest Jesus was uh there with his hands bound and a crown of thorn on his on on his head and I don’t even know the occasion but um they they were the same size as the people in the mural so it looked like
Jeff and this Muslim man were part of the trial somehow oh Oh I thought I put that on my Facebook page and I said that’ll preach what what did I mean what did I mean by that uh did it mean that um these two men in conversation were
Doing something that might get them arrested did it mean that at the time if we had been against the ban on Muslim travel that we would be arrested and then I thought must every sermon from now on be political it depends a lot on your definition of
Political I have gone back because I had to do a lecture on Bon hofer’s preaching a few years ago um I went back and looked at some of his sermons he also lived in a very urgent time and what kind of sermons would he preach it’s interesting to me that
Dietrich bun Hofer came to study at Union in 1930 exactly when Harry Emerson fosic was called to to the Riverside Church uh I think Bon Hofer felt much more at home at abis indan Baptist Church he has often talked about what it meant for him to hear black preachers and to hear
Spirituals and he actually brought uh recordings of the spirituals back to Germany probably the first time they had been heard in Germany uh he has two little books that were edited by two women uh containing all of his 70 sermons it’s really those they’re little books I would recommend
Them highly the collected sermons of dietr Bon Huffer um and Isabelle best who was one of his editors and translators wrote this little paragraph to say this is what was this was Bon huffer’s world this is what it was like he went back to Germany you know in 1931
Won so uh this was happening during his time there on January 30 1933 Hitler was named Chancellor even though he never won a majority in a national parliamentary election his party only had a 38% majority but you know he was named Chancellor because the conservatives in
His party wanted to control him and his popular movement but Hitler soon started a stepbystep plan for getting real power into his hands broke every law along the way and rapidly dispensed with constitutional rights such as freedom of the press and the freedom of a trial before imprisonment that of course led
To the concentration camps because nobody got a fair trial before they were sent to the concentration camps this is the interesting part to me meanwhile the force of Hitler’s personality and his gift for public events such as rallies and torch light processions turned public discouragement into hope and enthusiasm
So this was Bon huffer’s World surely an urgent time if there ever was one but if you read his sermons in many ways um they seem apolitical he doesn’t preach directly against the third RI he doesn’t uh preach against Hitler he does write about these things and he wrote a very powerful daring
Essay called the church and the Jewish question in that essay he defended the Jews he preached again he wrote against the Aryan clause and he reminded people that Jesus was a Jew January 30 1933 Hitler was named Chancellor by Easter not long many of the laws had been
Ed many of the churches had been now uh under the authority of Bishops named by the Reich and on Easter Sunday Bishop Hans muser prepared a proclamation that was to be read in every Church on Easter Sunday and this was the Proclamation a state he’s talking about
The new government here and The Wonder of it a state which brings into being again government according to God’s laws should be assured not only of the Applause but also the glad and active cooperation of the church with gratitude and joy the church n takes note that the new state bans blasphemy assails
Immorality establishes discipline and order espouses the sanctity of marriage and Christian training for the young kindling in thousands of hearts in place of disparagement and Ardent love for vul and Fatherland happy Easter we can almost hear the people singing deand has arisen to day Hallelu though he never preached overtly against the Reich it is true that his sermons were political he called The Church always to obedience and faithfulness the church must be obedient to the Gospel of Jesus Christ not to the fur not to the Third Reich not to anything less than the Gospel of
Jesus now our country is not Nazi Germany but we hear Echoes don’t we more than Echo some would say to White Christian nationalism uh from the days of Hitler this is an urgent Time more than anything today that’s what I hope we know this is an urgent
Time so I think those of us who preach and if you’re not a preacher here you may talk to your preacher about this your pastor you may talk to your friends about it you may write some things on your social media but we want to preach with the
Urgency of this moment in our years the Bible is our friend even though people interpreted in many different ways the Bible is our friend and the lectionary believe it or not is our friend because people know that we the preacher didn’t choose the text although sometimes they accuse us
Of that that that how could you have preached on that text today well I think that we have to preach biblically theologically strong sermons with the urgency of this moment always underneath or beside or wherever it is that we can’t forget this is a different time than I have ever lived
In now you will not find a text about white Christian nationalism at least not in those words but as Fred krack who wonderful teacher of preaching for many years used to say over and over every text has a surplus of meaning yeah so um how do we
Preach the text with the urgency of this moment also be beside us just want to example coming up the fourth Sunday of Lent it’ll be March 10th so you have some time to work on this I just want to focus on the most familiar the text is John 314 to
21 so I won’t focus on the snake on the pole but the most familiar part of this text which many people memorized as children for God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal
Life lots of places we could go sermon one might be this uh sermon one will deal with the tension between the promise that we won’t perish and the exclusive claim that this is only promised to those who believe in the son of God now that’s enough for a sermon right there you can
Go with that sermon two might go in a different direction we often hear God so loved the world that he gave his only son to Die For Us problem that last part isn’t in the text is it to die for us we hear it even though it isn’t there
When I was in high school we had a book called youth’s favorite songs I don’t know who voted on that but um one of the choruses that we love to sing for God so loved the world he gave his only son to die on calvary’s tree
From sin to set me free I don’t know why it had such a lilting Melody but uh you can hear it so many of our hymns are framed by this part that’s not in the text now that that could be a whole sermon if Jesus didn’t send his son to
Die for us what did Jesus send his son to do well there’s a sermon right there but surplus of meaning urgency of this time in our ears what about the very first words for God so loved the world oh my but doesn’t God love America best what about American
Exceptionalism how could God love the world and you could go many directions does this include Palestine and Israel does this include Russia and Ukraine now this will depend on your setting how big you want to make this Does it include farmers and city folks Does it include gay and
Straight no am I going off in a bad Direction here with so much emphasis on the world well in the next verse the world is repeated three times indeed God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through
Him all the world is important to God is it important also to us so lectionary is good but don’t hold it too tightly Jesus didn’t ever say preach from the lectionary so at times and I think many of you already do this step outside of the lectionary a bit to allow say a
Second reading from part of Martin Luther King’s letter from the Birmingham and don’t just do this on Martin Luther King day you might read a poem by Maya Angelou or you might read a poem by Patrick cabayo Hanzo he’s here has a wonderful book called breathing in
Minneapolis might be a very good second reading or think about the Sunday after Easter Easter it’ll be April 7th you may be not preaching at all then um but if you are and you really have preached way too many times on Jesus and Thomas because that text comes every
Year on the Sunday after Easter you might remember that April 7th is two days before April 9th the anniversary of the day that Bon Huffer was H was hung in the prison in Nazi Germany just about a week before the end of the war that would give you a good excuse to
Preach about Bon Huffer about the world in which he lived the a urgency of his time you might quote a part of his sermon or something from letters and papers from prison but this would be a very good time to preach about bun Huffer on the 7th of
April you might plan and I know most of us are probably not into sermon series but some of you may be but I think between now and November it would be wonderful to plan a a series of sermons called Good Question pastor and every uh every sermon and you could alert people
To this ahead of time so they wouldn’t know that you’ve abandoned the Bible and you can surely find biblical quotes that fit with these themes but how about a few questions you could add your questions to these uh what are white people so afraid of um are Jews and Muslims welcome in a
Christian Nation that’s another Sunday uh here’s another Sunday what what would happen to our country without immigrants who would take care of our elderly parents for example what would happen I mean no sorry I already said that one is it is the right to bear arms a god-given
Right and you could just search Through the Bible for that answer and you could search Through the Bible for this question question where are the biblical families in the bible really they’re hard to find I mean you can have your own questions but I’m just saying maybe in
The summer you would do this or maybe you would do it from now until November not every Sunday no not every Sunday but now and then maybe once a month and preach preach about race and don’t just wait I mean don’t just have it during Black History Month which it is now
We’ve actually got an extra day this year because today is leap day um I think stories are often more powerful than facts lots of facts about racism in this country how many of you have seen the movie origin I hope as many people as saw barbie will see
Origin uh it’s a book that uh it’s a movie that’s based on um Isabelle wilkerson’s book cast uh and you wonder how can this how how could Ava duvarney make a story out of cast which is a non-fiction book of course but she tells wonderful stories in there and I
Was so moved by this story of Al brigh um Al brigh was a little boy in this movie and in her book and uh he was on a Bas a baseball team he must have been like eight or nine uh in a in a little league team and
Uh he was actually the person that helped them win uh this ball game and so uh the coach and some of the parents to celebrate brought them to the swimming pool well when they got there and they were getting ready to get in the pool they had their trunks on and everything and
The director shouted to Al you can’t go in that pool well he was the only black kid on the team and the coach tried to argue with the director but the director said if he goes in that pool none of you can go in that
Pool so they got a blanket for Al and they put put it outside the fence and some of the parents brought him some sandwiches and some other food and we kept watching this and he kept sitting out there and finally the the coach had had it and he said this is
Not fair you know let him come in and so the director said everybody out of the pool and then they let Al come in and he he was a kind of short kid not very big big kid and the director said go down that ladder and get on that
Raft Don’t Touch the Water just get on that raft and so this little boy got onto the raft and he was very very still he didn’t want to move a muscle and a lifeguard came and pull that raft around the pool very slowly and he kept saying don’t touch the
Water it was so painful to watch it in the movie and it seemed to go so slowly The Lifeguard pulling Al bright around the pool and all the people standing around the edge not quite knowing what to do and the Lifeguard kept saying don’t touch the water
It seemed like forever that the little black boy on the raft was making it around the pool and he was so still it was 1951 I could have been there I don’t know what I would have done standing at the edge of the pool don’t touch the
Water if you touch the water I will have to disinfect the whole pool but it was 1951 surely that wouldn’t happen now not so long ago in the New Hampshire primary Donald Trump said immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country they’re coming from Asia from
Africa from Mexico we got a lot of work to do they’re poisoning the blood of our country Don’t Touch the Water this is an emotional story for me anyway because I try to picture myself there standing by the pool probably being afraid to do anything white Christian nationalism is very
Emotional it’s not just about a list of facts it’s about how people feel about where they are afraid who they love and who they hate Don’t Touch the Water I think our sermons need to be planned carefully so that we reach not only people’s heads but their
Hearts so it’s okay to preach some emotion in your sermons and to tell stories that could make people cry because this is happening with the white Christian nationalist movement but what if people don’t want to hear this at all you may you may preach in a place
Where people are open even eager to hear more about white Christian nationalism and I hope you’re doing it but you may serve a congregation that doesn’t want to hear anything political on Sunday at all of course people are talking about politics all week and going to websites about white Christian nationalism all
Week do we have anything to be part of that conversation Tim Alberta has written uh what I think is a lovely book called The Kingdom the power and the glory the thing that’s so helpful about it to me is that he is himself an Evangelical Christian he makes no apologies for it
It’s the church loves he has he grew up in this church and he takes us in the book to many different places uh somewhere this uh movement is alive and well and somewhere it’s caused Great divisions and caused pastors to leave uh he he has just an an amazing interview with Russell
Moore now Russell Moore is not to be conf confused with Roy Moore who put the Ten Commandments in the court house that’s I don’t think they’re even related but Russell Moore had risen to a very high position in the Southern Baptist Church he was the director of the ethics and religion religious
Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Church huge position deciding many policies for the southern baptist but uh he began to ask too many questions about the racial policies of the SBC and particularly about the charges being brought Now by women about sexual abuse in the southern baptist
Church and then he made the Fatal mistake he wrote to Jerry fwell Jr and he denounced Donald Trump in public he began to get vicious emails he and his family he finally decided he couldn’t stay he had to leave his position and he left the Southern Baptist Church when pastors around the country
Evangelical pastors heard this they wrote to Russ Moore and they wanted to meet with him he said these words in the book I can’t even count how many conversations I’ve had with pastors who’ve said I’m crushed I’m broken I don’t know what to do over and over he heard the same
Excuses or some same reasons that they gave it’s co and wearing masks it’s critical race Theory it’s Trump these pastors he says are a shell of their former selves the stress has made their job impossible these pastors are going to leave their parishes because their congregants are against them you may know
Pastors who are in this situation you may be one of them maybe some of your Seminary classmates are serving in places where there’s nobody who wants to hear about white Christian National ISM the prri um sent out a survey the group that John noted before it stands for public
Religion Research Institute and they do surveys of all kinds of things but here’s what they discovered about white Christian nationalism I mean where they did a state by state 50% of the people in North Dakota are either adherence or are sympathizers with white Christian nationalism 50% in South Dakota it’s
42% these are our neighbors you probably went to school with some of the people serving there how can we support each other how can we talk to each other how can we learn from each other this is where I think a group like braver angels can be very important they
Intentionally bring together people from Red perspectives and people from Blue perspectives and help them talk across divides I think the churches need to have our own braver Angels project just think of it in the 60s I was a youth director at Gloria day in St Paul at that time the Minnesota Senate
Of the LCA the whole the whole state of Minnesota was one Senate except for the northwest corner which was part of Red River Valley so when we gathered together in conventions rural people talked to City people and Suburban people so you know a soybean farmer from L lour might sit
Next to a 3M manager from St Paul or there might be a um say a a farmer from I don’t know some small town serving on reference and Council committee with somebody from the Senate well now Minnesota has six senates so the farmers can talk to each
Other and the city people can talk to each other too but not so good I mean maybe we need to restructure things but this is not a sermon about restructuring the ELCA I think all of us whether we’re preachers or members of congregations need to let the Christian message become more
Visible whether it’s a meme that you put on your Facebook page or Tik Tok or Instagram or things I’ve never even heard of to get different words out there for people um I think we can’t do this alone I think we all should join some group it could be braver braver Angels
Or an indivisible group it could be this new group called Christians against Christian nationalism Minnesota you can find them online they’ve just begun they were started by a group of Baptist uh people in the Twin Cities Isaiah many of you are part of faithful America also has wonderful resources
Online and of course there are groups like the ACLU I’m just saying find a group don’t try to do this alone you’ll really be discouraged get the word out gather people together I think it would be great fun to get people in the congregation to come together all ages
And design say uh bumper stickers or buttons or signs to put outside the church many of you do this now I love it when I see you know immigrants welcome here or people of faith for Reproductive Rights or the signs that Lutheran campus ministry has
Put in front of Grace Church um I go to church because I have doubts uh you know we need a we need to get a different message out there that Christian people are thinking about this in a different way love one another signed Jesus that’s a nice button who could
Argue I think you want to be careful what bumper stickers you use because your car could get wrecked but I mean I think I’m just saying there a lot of messages out there that say Christians believe this and this and this we need to say well we’re we’re Christians and
We really want to welcome immigrants whatever it is um you probably want to be careful uh I know a local Pastor whose daughter had a button that she put on her backpack that said um not all Christians are now you couldn’t probably use that everywhere but in some places it would
Work and surely we can go beyond Bible verses um with um you know I said before some poetry some you know verses from uh a line from Martin Luther King um but it’s very important for us to invol it would be we really need to involve young
People in this because we’re afraid now that our son for example doesn’t want to vote at all now we’re going to try to convince him to vote because he doesn’t like Joe Biden um and young people may be feeling that way but people students at Augsburg and the U ofm we have an
Entree with these students and we have to every every student should have a button that says voting matters there’s a lot we can do we need to be more visible make a t-shirt let Justice roll down like waters you know you know a lot of Bible
Verses that you’d like to have out there uh do something with the things that you know and help other people in the congregation get involved too so shall the Christian nationalists win I pray the answer is no for the sake of the country and for the sake of the Christian
Church but we need each other in this task we need to pray the last verse of Harry Emerson fosdick’s hymn save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore grant us wisdom grant us courage serving you whom we adore and we need to remember the preaching of dri
Bon Hofer because not because he’s the only person that ever preached or the only Lutheran that’s worth remembering because he also lived at a very urgent Time A Dangerous Time a time when the state took over the church he wrote a sermon to his godson which was never
Preached in a church or allowed anywhere he sent it from prison in May of 1944 and this was for the little baby named after him Dietrich betka uh son of ranata and eard bka his dear friends so he sent this sermon from prison he said this our church has been fighting during
These years only for for its self-preservation it has become incapable of bringing the word of reconciliation and Redemption to humankind and to the world so the words we used before must lose their power be silen and we can be Christians today in only two ways through prayer and in doing justice among human
Beings prayer and doing Justice and some of us may feel that we’re preaching to the choir but even the choir needs some new songs I offer just one it’s it’s a kind of simplistic takeoff on wonderful world with apologies to the right and to Lou Armstrong except my
Voice now is almost as raspy as his just changed a few words a new song for the choir I see Farms so green big cities too people of every culture and Hue and I think to myself What a Wonderful World I hear babies cry we watch them
Grow they’re all our children this much I know and I say to myself What a Wonderful World the colors of the rainbow God’s promise in the sky the colors on the faces of people p passing by it can be very hard to say how do you
Do how can we ever say I love you I See Fields of grain skyscrapers too I love this country just as much as you can we say to ourselves What a Wonderful World oh God help us to see it’s a wonderful world thank you very much [Applause] [Applause]
Wow what a gift and what a proclamation and a call for us today um and we’re going to keep hearing a good word from Pastor lblad uh at our daily Chapel time at 11:30 and I think we’re actually going to just take a break starting now um people can use the restroom get
Refreshments mingle Barbara we’re kind of skipping the Q&A but Barbara will be available during that time if you have questions for her or want to engage please engage with each other over what you just heard be a group be a community in this work that we’re doing together
And then please be back we’re going to reset the space we’ll hear Barbara preach a sermon for us as part of our daily Chapel um so we’re going to reset and we will try to start as close to 11:30 as possible so please be back uh in your seats 11:30 thank you