My wrist is tattooed with “Stoma kai Sophia”, a phrase in Greek from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus is telling his followers what life will be like after he’s gone. He says that if they are living out the Gospel, they’re going to get into some trouble, be hauled before judges and magistrates. Jesus advice is that we not plan ahead what we will say, for we will receive Stoma kai Sophia -wit and wisdom, courage and insight, fortitude and creativity.
As a Southerner, church is expected. Synagogue or mosque is of course an acceptable substitute, and my hometown of Memphis has a vibrant and robust Jewish and Muslim community. ‘Where one goes to church’ is an introductory question, and even those who don’t really claim any faith often have an answer ready for that query.
But we still have the same separations along the wide spectrum of faith traditions that you’ll find in any American city. The left leaning Houses of Worship communicate, the right leaning ones collaborate, but little common interaction happens. So we grow up in silos as tight as any country church in many ways.
As a teenager, I broke into some of the conservative christian communities when I was ‘outed’ as a Christian. I think act I fascinated the conservative church goers I knew, because I was a theatre person and known to be political. They started asking me questions and inviting me to things but it didn’t quite go as they’d planned. I got kicked out of a bible study (a great story I’ll tell another time), was asked not to return to a church that hosted monthly lock-ins, and occasionally got into shouting matches with friends in the halls.
The biggest distinctions and the thing that seemed to truly raise their ire, was some iteration of this conversation:
Them: But that sounds like a social justice Gospel.
Me: I don’t know any other kind of Gospel.
Them: We are saved by grace, not works.
Me: Faith without works is dead.
Them: People have to believe in Jesus.
Me: If they don’t do what he said to do, why bother?
In many ways, I dove into theological education in order to be better equipped for those conversations. But I now realize what an opportunity I missed timing wise! This was the 1980s, and I was receiving fruits from the first wave of our modern christian political complex. Little did I know then that the term “Social Justice Gospel” was coined by a Baptist theologian over 100 years ago. It isn’t new, leftie, or radical -it’s just the Gospel and it’s solid Christian tradition. Who knows how much of that tenuous ground I could have shaken up, kept from setting, if I’d just realized I was seeing glimpses of a coordinated, strategic attack on Gospel Truth.
Maybe ‘Gospel Truth’ isn’t a commonly used phrase in your life, but I grew up in the American South. Faith-based language permeates everything, and swearing something is the gospel truth is a promise of truth-telling. Unless said with a wink and a “Bless their hearts” and then you know there’s no truth anywhere ‘round at all. And so culturally, the meaning of Gospel Truth is fungible, movable.
Elected officials swear oaths of office most typically on a bible, as most elected officials claim to be Christians, but any text sacred to you is acceptable, which is interesting in and of itself. What exactly is being vowed here? The words spoken have to do with upholding the jurisdictional Constitution or Charter, and being accountable to constituencies. But there are never explicit moral or religious promises made. So why swear on a bible?
I grew up in the 1970’s when we all still said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning to start school. By the 1980’s, this had been replaced by a moment of silence, an interesting swap of patriotic vow for pseudo-prayer time. I didn’t learn about the addition in the 1950’s of references to God not only there but on our money until I went to college.
It also took time to learn more in-depth church history, and to discover the ways in which Christianity moved from an anti-Empire movement to becoming the moral voice of the secular powers, the frequent provider of the rationale for colonial expansion.
Many years ago, I decided to stand but remain silent during any Pledge of Allegiance or singing of the national anthem as my own response to a growing discontent. At first, I would say the Pledge but omit the “under God” line, but that did not satisfy me. Eventually, I adopted the choice to remain silent, but then Colin Kaepernick modeled a new way of resistance. His actions and the vitriol that followed led me to think again about my relationship with vows. About what it means to swear on something sacred.
Where I’ve landed for now is no more vows. I’ve made marriage vows and ordination vows and upholding those is a lifelong journey. I think we need to step back more often, and consider what it means to align ourselves, swear something’s true, vow an allegiance, or adhere to a theory. We need more critical thinking. More prayer. More humility. And more integrity to what we say we believe and hold sacred.
I have been doing community development work and political advocacy all my adult life. I have advanced degrees in the topics, and have lived and worked in several American cities. But I have settled in Denver, CO, and notice some trends here that amplify an issue I’ve been mulling for a while, the heresy of alignment.
Where I live is an unusual place, socio-politically. Very different types of coalitions and tables exist here. Alliances shift and new circles are drawn. Some councils and such have expectations of permanency or requirements of confidentiality, but these are fewer in number than I’ve encountered in other places. Essentially, I have found it to be a place where if you can show up in any of a variety of ways, it’s noticed and appreciated. Showing up matters, actions speak, and first impressions are regularly adapted. It’s possible that these characteristics be appropriately claimed for more of the state as well; I suspect this to be true. I just don’t know yet for sure. #ComingSoon.
But one of the as of yet unchallenged realities of political life here can be a dizzying array of authenticity tests and purity warrants. These proscriptions are especially strong in the social media realms. I think one reason coalitions and communities are formed here more easily than in other places is that schism is also a matter of course.
We know that a significant obstacle to quality broad conversation in current American culture is our siloing, our thought-segregation, our echo chambers. A major engine of this inward movement is our desire to find for others who think like us, and who agree with our basic sense of ethics. There’s nothing wrong with this, not really. But alone, it’s dangerous. Drawn lines -which may or may not ever be put aside- are often present but invisible and unspoken until transgressed. Sometimes, a desire for conformity and alignment supersedes the need to act.
Even the “search for common ground” can become fuel for growing and nurturing only like minded conversations when common belief dominates common action in whom we ask to the next table, in who is deemed worthy. Our larger works would benefit if we sought out differentiation among stakeholders, if this were an ethic for all collaborative work, if we formed coalitions with a high value on difference instead of an insistence on alignment. What if we sought out varying assets, skills, mindsets in an attempt to build something new from the intersections of where these things meet?
It’s not that finding like-minded allies is a bad thing. In fact, doing this is necessary for any movement or endeavor. We each need peers and colleagues and our organizations and programs need a wider community. But even within a themed or wholly aligned circle, different bodies do different things, have varying specialities and opinions. Clearly, there is no collaboration where all parties can have completely the same function, nor any group of people wherein all members believe precisely the same thing.
We also seek like-minded groups because they make us more comfortable. And again, nothing wrong with comfort in and of itself -we all need it at times. Yet an underlying tension to comfortableness as a goal is always the reality that growth, development, and change only happen when we are at least slightly uncomfortable, where there is conflict of some kind.
We also seek ‘alignment’ when at some level, we honestly believe we know best, have the best solutions, or the most appropriate resources. When we believe these things, we confuse understanding with agreement. When alignment or agreement are not immediately forthcoming, we reiterate our facts (or process, or model, or rationale) again and again, ensuring even further the inability to hear each other. There is also a fundamentally toxic miasma of paternalism, colonialism, privilege, and hubris enshrouding arguments for alignment. It takes a certain amount of arrogance to assume YOU are the one with whom others must align.
It is also incredibly frustrating to be the one who believes you yourself have failed to communicate well or thoroughly or in just the right way. This is happens easily when agreement from others is your goal. Understanding is deeper, requires acceptance, and doesn’t always lead to consensus. You can truly understand a thing you don’t agree with, and may never align with. On the basis of understanding and acceptance can come respect, and an increased capacity for common work.
Behaving like any heresy, alignment taken too far perverts the concepts of solidarity themselves. If the betrayal of an idea -a heresy- be, as my first spiritual director proposed, simply a good idea taken too far, I would agree and add an important second. Presence of perversion. I know a heresy for truly dangerous when this twisting of a core concept or tenet happens. The search for alignment is pushing all my buttons pressed by other deadly heretics of our age: Joel Osteen and the Heresy of the Prosperity Gospel, Franklin Graham and the Heresy of Male Exceptionalism. We know them, these figures who preach such abominations. I don’t have a primary heretic on whom to hang this obsession with alignment.
Instead of establishing impossible vows of alignment, we must establish undeniable areas of common good, common work, and common appreciation. A friend recently told me a story of playing in a long established orchestra in the only urban area within a large consevative section of the state. These musicians have been playing together for decades, and know each other well. They are also all over the political and religious spectrum -Trump voters, Green party advocates, the apolitical, churchgoers, and atheists all sharing scores, rehearsing and performing. These orchestra players have done the common work of showing up and making something transformative and generative. They are aligned only by purpose and intent and not belief or opinion. They make music.
We undermine the Heresy of Alignment by leaning into a theology of difference, a celebration of the wild diversity of Creation. We must adopt those unlike us into our ranks, seek out divergent models that overlap ours but aren’t contiguous, find entities and voices far too long left out or dismissed. We must put aside the seduction of being “right” or “better” in any competition and instead focus on what can be built. This does not mean abandoning any principles of justice or discernment. Not everyone will be able to be a part of every collaboration; not every entity can sit down with every other. Sometimes, the divide might be too wide, damage done too deep. Not only is this alright but it is to be honored and heeded.
But like any orchestra, we all have voice, and we can never really tell how our voices will blend with an instrument completely foreign to our usual repertoire. The Heresy of Alignment crowds out the difficult and uncomfortable, and sabotages the deep and sustainable change our world requires.
