You might have heard about the plea the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D. C. made to the new president. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God, Bishop Mariann Budde said; in the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now, referring then explicitly to the families of LGBTQ children, and the children of undocumented immigrants. The sermon's main theme was how unity despite and across differences, including political ones, requires recognition of others' dignity, honesty and humility (virtues some cardinally lack), but on her way there she reminded us how our tradition calls us to "be merciful as our God is merciful."
Only women seem to have the courage to talk back to this man. But the Rev. Winnie Varghese, another Episcopal superstar, helps us see that it is also true Christianity at work here, as Bishop Budde is "appealing to a good no one assumes is there, but of course it is." Of course? I confess I find it hard to say that, even as it is what I believe. As Bishop Budde also reminded us, we are called to "pray for those who persecute us."
This is hard to do, especially when these persecutors claim to be Christians. I'm thinking here less of the president, whose professions of faith nobody takes seriously, than of the apparently sincere Evangelicals who are so prominent in his entourage. (We get distracted by the white supremacists, the toadies, the plutocrats, the law-breakers, the greatness = dominance crowd, the serial abusers, the xenophobes, the science-deniers, but many of these also claim to be Christians.) It is they who are responsible for the ignorance and cruelty of his horrifying executive order claiming the right to dictate (on day 1!) that bi-, intersex and transsexual people do not exist!
The "biology" invoked in this catalog of hatred is its own kind of science-denial: "'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell," the executive order asserts, "'Male' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell." [Sec. 2 (d) and (e)] But not only do those who wind up in male bodies at birth all start as females in utero, nobody belongs to any sex "at conception" (nor is yet a person)!
The claim is a theological claim - and a heretical one, as it presumes to know what only God knows and intends. (This presumption isn't only Evangelical; they get it from Roman Catholic "natural law.") Its refusal to acknowledge the reality of biological contingency and sexual and gender diversity is chilling, as is its sad inability to recognize divine purpose in that diversity. It's an example of the prideful, dishonest failure to recognize human dignity which Bishop Budde invited us to acknowledge our shared capacity for. And - of course! - our capacity to overcome.
Will her words soften hardened hearts? Maybe not right away. In the meantime, many who are scared now are finding their worst fears confirmed. Hear them, support them, defend them. For God's sake.
