What is this election season revealing about our faith communities?
Or, how is the angel of your church (or your former church, or the churches of people you know)?
“Every church really does have its own angel, I think. Some of those guardians are still burning brightly, while some have lost their tail feathers and others are dead though not yet buried. Sometimes all you have to do is walk through the door of a church and sniff the air to know which is which.” -
, in Leaving Church: A Memoir of FaithWhat do you think of that―this idea that churches have their own angels, who may be well or unwell, alive or dead?
I think about this in the time we’re living in. People are fleeing evangelical churches in droves because they’re seeking justice, love, and peace, and not finding those things in churches that are more concerned with control, fear-mongering, and exclusion.
And, on the flip side of this, people who identify with patriarchy and white supremacy and militarism and materialism and Christian nationalism are identifying themselves as evangelical now when they didn’t necessarily do so a few years ago.
(This was one of my take-aways from
’s recent book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. It’s not only that people who don’t identify with right-wing everything are shedding the evangelical label, it’s also that people who do identify with it are enthusiastically taking the label on.)
It’s bonkers. And also totally makes sense.
So―in this world, in this country, in this time―what does it mean for a particular faith community’s angel to be alive?
In this series we’re connecting faith and politics and the 2024 US elections with the biblical book of Revelation. Here are the verses I’m thinking of this week (they come right after the ones from last week, with the image of Jesus that John did not make up):
Therefore, write the things that you saw, and the things that are, and the things that are about to happen after these things. The mystery of the seven stars which you saw on my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
-Jesus, to John, in Revelation 1:19-20 (my translation)
A couple verses before this, Jesus appears to John standing in the middle of seven golden lampstands, holding seven stars in his right hand, and then Jesus tells John to write to seven different churches located in seven different cities.
Each church―whether literally, or metaphorically, or however you want to think about it―has an angel. Maybe each church has an “institutional soul”―a term I think I picked up from a book called How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, by Susan Beaumont.
There’s something about the way the church was founded, something about the people who have served and sustained it, who have grown and connected with its community over the years or decades or centuries it’s been around. Something unique. Something beautiful. Something soul. Something angel.
And this soul, this angel, can be thriving or struggling or hanging on by a thread or dead and buried six feet under, today.
Do you relate to this image, when you think of faith communities you’ve been a part of?
I think I do.
I don’t know about “sniffing the air”―perhaps my nose isn’t as spiritually attuned as Barbara Brown Taylor’s―but I do think there’s a feeling of a very fundamental, visceral sort of vitality that can be present in or missing from a faith community.
Maybe discerning this is akin to discerning: Are people here open to being surprised by God? To being challenged? To changing their views about God?
Or: Do this community’s leaders lead with empathy, honesty, and hope, rather than control, manipulation, and fear-mongering?
These are some of the questions. Vitality might not look like what many of us might immediately look for, whether that’s upbeat music played by skillful musicians in a style we like, or a jazzed-up, charismatic preacher who knows what to say to get people to do what they want.
But there’s something there. Something about vitality, something about an angel, something about a spirit that is alive and well, or not.
As I think about these things, I also find myself seeing a couple angles that I didn’t really touch on when I reflected on angels of churches four years ago.
One angle: What if the angel of a church was bad from the start?
Churches that split off to form new denominations because they supported chattel slavery come to mind. Or, more recently, churches that left their denominations because their denominations decided to marry and/or ordain LGBTQ+ folks.
A church whose very cause of existing is enslaving people in one case, or excluding people in the other? That’s not the kind of angel I want watching over a church I’m a part of.
Maybe churches that started under evil circumstances can be redeemed. Maybe they can be turned around. But I imagine it takes a very intentional turning. If they aren’t engaging in that process very intently and urgently…I don’t think their angel is one I’d want to associate with.
Another angle: What if the angel of a church is alive for others but not for me?
I feel like this is real. (If you feel it too, please holler in the comments―I’d love to hear.) There are faith communities I’ve been connected with that really seem to be vibrant, growth-filled places for others―but not for me. It hasn’t always been easy to come to terms with this. But I think it’s okay.
Every community has its own places of sickness, or toxicity, or dysfunctionality. And each of us has our own reactions to these places.
Some of us are deeply harmed by things others brush off as a totally tolerable imperfection. It doesn’t mean that those who experience harm are wrong, or even overly sensitive. (Not that being overly sensitive is a bad thing, but sometimes it’s considered one!) We’re all just sensitive to different things.
We each get to discern what kinds of communities feel alive to us, what kinds of spaces feel beneficial to our growth, what kinds of places support us in ways we need to be supported and open us up to the Divine in ways that resonate with us.
The results of our discernment might end up different for different people. And I think we can choose to respect one another’s journeys.
Some things to think about as we continue walking through this strange time and this contentious rocky terrifying I’m-really-not-sure-there’s-a-strong-enough-word-for-it US election season. Things to think about as you take note of the rhetoric you hear in your faith communities, or that your loved ones are hearing in theirs, or that we all hear from public figures.
If you go to church, how is the angel of your church in this time?
Or, what is this election season revealing about it?
I hope, if you’re someone who wants to be part of a faith community, that you have one where you feel like you’re thriving this season. One whose angel is alive―and hasn’t sold out to right-wing politics. Or, if you’re not in a community like that, that you feel encouraged and empowered to make a change, to look for one.
Peace and courage to you as you do so.
*Note: This post is the sixth in a series exploring different angles on faith & politics while wandering at a leisurely pace through the first couple chapters of the biblical book of Revelation. I hope it provides some good food for thought and conversation with people in your life as we approach U.S. elections. The first five posts are I’m a woman who thinks about the Roman Empire all the time, God doesn’t anoint our political leaders, We can do better than “rising above” politics, What kind of leaders are we looking for?, and If you can control it, it’s not God.
Some really interesting points here. One thing I found interesting during COVID was the number of Christians requesting religious exemptions to vaccine mandates from pastors who were pro-vaccine. They weren't looking to church leaders as authorities, it seems, but to the Internet. I wonder how many people who call themselves "Evangelical" now actually attend church.