The theological conflict laid bare by Bishop Budde’s sermon

Left: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Right: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

There's been a lot of coverage of Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde's direct address to President Trump on Tuesday, and I just wanted to give some big picture context to the internal conflict that American Christianity is in today. Between the vision of God's compassion and mercy as articulated by Bishop Budde, and the Christian nationalist vision that animates a lot of President Trump's advisors and supporters.

What I want to point out is that this same conflict plays out in holy scripture: it's perhaps the big drama of scripture taken as a whole. Which means that, as Christians, we've been here before, and scripture has something to say to this moment.

There are so many different strands to the tradition in the Bible, but lets say for now they can be grouped into two contrasting ways of relating to God, and to each other. Both are "biblical," which means as Christians we have to make a choice between them.

Across both testaments there's is a recurring paradigm of faithful life: let's call it the "purity / punishment / power paradigm." In this mode, God’s desire is to bless and protect a chosen people who obey God’s commands. And as that people proves the purity of their devotion to this divine King, or celestial Judge, God rewards them by sharing God’s power with them: giving them victory over their enemies, expanding their territory, shoring up their control of resources, and giving them power over other peoples who are outside the circle of God’s care and concern.

In this way of being Christian, the central currency is power—and a particular kind of power: power OVER, dominating power. By following the rules laid out by a god of power, Christians are not only protected from the constant threat of this god’s violent punishment, but their god also gives them some of [his] power in order to treat others, in their own context, like [he] treats them. So they demand fealty and obedience of those they have power over. If those people disobey, they deserve violent punishment; if they fall in line, they get a little power to lord over someone even more vulnerable than them, as a treat.

This theology imagines the world as a divinely ordained hierarchy of people punching down on the people on the rung below them. And it is in the Bible. It is biblical, it is traditional, it has done profound damage to countless bodies in its imperial, colonizing, and heteropatriarchal expressions. And it is the theology of white Christian nationalism, which is currently co-opting American state power to punch down on immigrants, LGBTQ+ folks, women, and in the earth.

But there’s a big problem with this theology of purity, punishment, and power, as a Christian theology. It is in direct conflict with the way of life and the way of imagining God that Jesus shows us in everything he says, does, and endures.

And I don’t know, I think that for Christians, Jesus is pretty important!

Jesus shows again and again that God takes the side of the oppressed, the poor, the marginalized—the people who are getting punched down on. Jesus is one of these people. A colonized, exploited person. A refugee. He shares their suffering, and his presence is a healing, liberating, restorative form of loving solidarity.

So Jesus embodies and models a paradigm of faithful living that not about purity, but about integrity. Not about punishment, but about liberation. Not about assuming power over, but about nourishing and empowering the life that God gives freely to everyone.

This paradigm of integrity, liberation, and life—nourishing life—also runs across both testaments, and has always been a part of the Christian tradition. Jesus takes up the call of the prophets before him to insist that God’s justice is not about keeping people in their place, but about ensuring that everyone has what they need to heal, and grow, and flourish as free people made in the image of God, with unique gifts to offer for the greater good.

The stories of Jesus’ life tell us that wherever he goes, Jesus is always helping people glimpse this way of being, in which nobody needs to scrap and scramble over others just to be safe—because there is enough, if we can open up our grasping hands.

Jesus enacts this vision of what he calls “the Kingdom of God,” or we might say today the KIN-dom of God—where we all recognize our kinship with one another. The currency of this kin-dom is not power, but abundant life, which is given to us freely by a God who IS liberating LOVE. At to be faithful to this god is to be filled to overflowing with God’s love and life, and to be empowered to share that life with others, to be part of the healing and redeeming of the world.

This is also a biblical vision—just as much as the power game of Christian nationalism. So why do I choose this one? Why does the Episcopal Church give this one authority, and stand against Christian Nationalism?

Because, as the story goes, Jesus puts his own body on the line for people under the heel of self-righteous power. He puts his life on the line for the way of being together he calls the kin-dom of God, and in nonviolent resistance to punishing hierarchies that hurt the people around him: God’s beloveds.

And the powers that be do the predictable, terrible thing: they exercise their power, and “the cruelty is the point.” They torture him and execute Jesus as a criminal, as an enemy of the state, as a heretic.

But then what happens? The life that Jesus lived exceeds his death, overflows the grave. The power to dominate, to deal death, is proven weak before the indomitable life of divine love. He is risen from the dead. That's what we talk about when we talk about resurrection power.

The power of life and love overcomes the love of power. And God doesn't overcome that by crushing the hierarchy with force—but by receiving the worst that power hungry people can do, taking that into God's own self, and coming back with more love, more life.

And , for one, want to be a part of that.