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On Thursday, Oct. 3, I participated in a prayer vigil outside the Essential Conference. The Essential Conference was organized by the Center for Christian Virtue and held in Columbus, Ohio. Funded in part by the Heritage Foundation, the conference was a platform for promoting Project 2025. Project 2025 is a diabolical attempt to recast American society from one that aims to see and welcome all, to one that is centered around a small, select few.
While America’s original sin was slavery, the nation has made great strides at the creation of a multi-racial democracy. There has been progress to create an inclusive society, but with each lurch forward, there is predictable backlash. Project 2025 is one such example; every attempt at inclusion would be wiped away through the recommendations and practices outlined in this proposal.
While the audience of the Essential Conference was evangelical faith leaders, I believe all faith leaders have a responsibility to protect religious freedom and democracy. Both faith and freedom are under threat, with one of the biggest threats coming from Project 2025. It is to this moment what the Southern Strategy was in the 1970s and 1980s, an attempt to promulgate white supremacy.
As Christian leaders, we have a responsibility to safeguard religious freedom and democratic values. The vote is the most powerful thing we have and we should not allow Project 2025, or any other legislative or political maneuver to take away.
Regardless of our denomination, followers of Jesus have a responsibility to take care of our communities. However, Christian nationalists have a narrow view of who is included in the community. They see themselves and those who look, act and think like them.
It is imperative that far-right Christians not become the poster child for Christianity. Real Christianity is a life of sacrifice, a life of outward and upward focus, i.e. our relationship with God and our relationship with others. Real Christianity is about ensuring opportunities for all; it includes caring for the least of these, the widow, the fatherless, and the orphans. Persons who are concerned solely with one hue, one color, one profile, etc., do not represent the ethos of Christ. Christ got in trouble with the Pharisees and Sadducees, because they had a prescriptive way of being and persecuted everyone else. But we know that Christ loves us, regardless of our identity or life circumstance.
Project 2025 poses a serious risk to our democracy by seeking to dismantle government agencies, roll back protections for vulnerable groups, and castigate some as second-class citizens.
How should churches respond?
Christians are called to speak truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). We are called to show compassion to immigrants (Leviticus 19:33-34). In fact, the command to love the immigrant comes just after the command to love the lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind (Mark 12:31). Finally, we are commanded to do no harm to others (Proverbs 3:29).
In light of these truths, the primary focus should be galvanizing ourselves so we can serve the people. What we do affects people — not just Christians, but all people. Therefore, the focus of faith leaders must be comprehensive and broad. One of the most powerful tools of evangelism is relationship building. It’s time for the church to build relationships with all people.
If we do this, we can engage more people, including young people. But many young people are disaffected and disenchanted by American politics. When young people see newscasts and listen to rhetoric from Christian nationalists, they are turned off. There is discord between what they see and hear, with what they believe Christianity to be. That’s because concepts such as ‘helping the least of these,’ or ‘being my brother’s keeper,’ are absent from the mindset of Christian nationalists. As a result, young people see in Christian nationalists, focus on capitalism not Jesus. There was no alignment with Jesus and the money changers, and young people understand and appreciate this point.
Our faith must remind us that no one is expendable; not the Haitian migrant, not the Mexican refugee, not the person living in poverty, not the person who holds differing political views. All of us make up the fabric of the United States and there is a place for us all.
To seize that place, faith leaders must step up and live into real Christian ethics and values. This isn’t about momentary moments of euphoria. We must do more than get happy; we must be willing to organize, vote, and encourage others to do the same.
We know that power concedes only to power. It is time that Christians show their power by abandoning Christian nationalism and embracing a life of love and service.
Michael Harrison is the pastor of Union Baptist Church in Youngstown Ohio, chair of the board of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, and president of the Ohio State Baptist Convention.
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