Dear friends of Ron Sider,
I have some bad news: my father Ron Sider died suddenly last night (July 27, 2022), of a cardiac arrest. Please join our family in grieving for him.
Ted Sider
Dear friends of Ron Sider,
I have some bad news: my father Ron Sider died suddenly last night (July 27, 2022), of a cardiac arrest. Please join our family in grieving for him.
Ted Sider
Congress has an historic opportunity to protect religious liberty in what at first blush may seem an unlikely vehicle: legislation to protect gay civil rights.
By amending the U.S. Civil Rights Act to make LGBTQ people a protected class, it would become illegal to discriminate based on LGBTQ status in housing, employment and public accommodations. That is necessary and right and all Christians including evangelicals should support that.
Supporters of religious liberty, however, are right to oppose the current version of the Equality Act passed by the House of Representatives. The Equality Act as written would be disastrous for religious nonprofits and religious schools receiving federal funds — indeed dangerous for the long American tradition of freedom, choice and pluralism. The Equality Act in its current form does not adequately accommodate groups that adhere to traditional views of marriage and sex, and it explicitly sets aside the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. This bill ignores the fact that large numbers of Catholics, evangelicals, Orthodox Jews, Mormons, historic Black denominations, and Muslims have traditional views on marriage and run nonprofit programs serving millions of American families, especially the most vulnerable.
In a free society enjoying freedom of association, a wide variety of organizations rightly are free to hire staff who share their core commitments. Environmental organizations, feminist groups, unions, and others should be free to choose only staff who agree with their agenda. This right should not disappear if governments choose to request that these private organizations perform some desired tasks. Planned Parenthood, for example, should not lose its right not to hire pro-life staff simply because it has a government contract. To deny hiring rights to religious organizations would be intolerant discrimination, not the promotion of an open free society.
So how exactly could passing gay rights legislation be good for both religious liberty and LGBTQ rights?
The debate over this legislation presents a golden opportunity for both sides. The bill cannot move forward unless amended in significant ways. The Washington Blade, the LGBTQ newspaper, has said the Equality Act is “all but dead” in the Senate, mostly because of concerns over religious freedom. The bill is doomed unless it incorporates more diverse voices, including those of religious Americans.
The choice before religious groups is clear. If we are willing to accept a simple principle — that LGBTQ people should be free from discrimination — religious groups can win important exemptions for our organizations and maintain freedom in religious spaces. In other words, we can affirm our rights to practice our faith and run our schools and charities as we believe we must, while also affirming and supporting LGBTQ civil rights.
Religious schools are an important part of our society, and they deserve Republican and Democratic support. Christian K-12 schools often operate in underserved urban and rural areas. Many students at these schools receive free or reduced-cost lunch programs through federal funding. A responsible version of the Equality Act would ensure students remain eligible for these programs, even if their schools hold traditional beliefs.
At the college level, about half of students at schools affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities come from families making less than $50,000 per year. One-third of students at these schools receive federal Pell Grants, and one-third also are first generation college graduates. The Equality Act jeopardizes accreditation of these schools and the federal support received by their students.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Simple amendments to the Equality Act would protect these important benefits instead of imperiling them.
Numerous states have already enacted gay rights legislation that explicitly protect religious freedom. Utah provides robust protections for LGBTQ people — ranking next to Vermont on this measure — while also protecting the rights of religious organizations to practice their beliefs. In state after state, advocates of religious liberty have realized that the debate over LGBTQ civil rights is an opportunity for both sides, presenting a non-zero-sum scenario. Major evangelical organizations—including the National Association of Evangelicals and the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities—support this approach.
Both religious conservatives and LGBTQ advocates have good reason to negotiate and compromise now. For conservatives, it is an obvious fact that the larger culture has changed enormously on LGBTQ issues in the last two decades. And as that trend continues, conservatives would be wise to compromise now to obtain some basic guarantees of their religious freedom.
For liberals, it is very likely that the current Supreme Court is going to come down strongly on the side of those with conservative views of marriage and sexuality. That trend may last for a decade or two at least. The best (and perhaps only) way to avoid major Supreme Court decisions that weaken the civil rights of LGBTQ persons is for those civil rights to become law through national legislation.
The American people want Congress to act as well. More than half – 57 percent – of Americans back a bipartisan deal on LGBTQ rights and religious liberty, and a plurality of Americans want Congress to act rather than continuing to litigate the issue in the courts.
The Senate should amend the Equality Act so that it also protects religious freedom and expression. By supporting a compromise, both sides can obtain what matters most to them: LGBTQ rights and religious freedom. That is the American way of pluralism, individual choice, and respect for diversity.
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In previous emails, I have told you about Dr. Sunday Agang of Nigeria. His family was so poor that he could not start school until he was 17. But he did an MDiv with me at Palmer Seminary and then a PhD at Fuller. For about 15 years, he has been back in Nigeria leading ECWA’s two major seminaries as Provost. (ECWA is a large 7 million member Evangelical denomination in West Africa and Dr. Agang is one of the 10 leaders of the denomination.)
Sunday is doing fantastic work not only as Provost of the seminary in Jos but also writing important publications. He has edited the first text on African public theology which will be used across the continent.
For sometime, I have realized how dangerous Dr. Agang's situation actually is. Radical Fulani Muslims have been attacking rural Christian villages daily, destroying their crops and killing thousands of Christians. Sunday also told me about the regular kidnappings and the huge ransoms demanded.
But just a few weeks ago, Sunday sent me an email saying he was himself almost kidnapped. On January 4 this year, several people planned to kidnap Sunday. In God’s good grace, the police traced the kidnappers’ conversations and arrested three. One of them (who was to lead the kidnappers to Sunday’s house) had done some work on Sunday’s house. Thank God that in this case, Sunday was spared.
But that shows the danger Sunday Agang experiences every day – – the danger of being kidnapped or killed. But in spite of all of that, Dr. Agang remains there trusting in God’s protection and carrying on his important ministry.
And he continues his work at the large ECWA seminary in Jos! But the combination of Covid, a rapidly deteriorating Nigerian economy and destruction of crops by Fulani herdsman, means that many of his seminary students temporarily lack the funds to continue. Thank you, everyone, who has donated money to Sunday Agang’s ministry and to the seminary at Jos(JETS).
You can write a check (tax-deductible) to Grace Fellowship Community Church and mail it to 3265 16th St., San Francisco, CA, 94103. Mark the envelope: Attention David Williams. In your cover letter, say that the money is for Dr. Sunday Agang’s ministries and Jos(JETS). Or you can donate by going to https://www.gfccsf.org/donate.htm& Choose: “ ECWAJos(JETS). “
Some of you know that Grace Fellowship Community Church recently wanted to make sure that sending money given to the church for Dr. Agang in Nigeria met IRS regulations. They checked carefully and it does! And they are glad to continue sending on our gifts to Nigeria. To meet IRS regulations the church needs to say the following: “As a matter of honoring our tax exempt status, we want to be explicit that GFCC will attempt to reasonably honor all contributions designated for a special fund, purpose or use as approved by its Session. However, GFCC reserves all rights, title, interest and control of such contributions as well as full discretion as to the ultimate distribution of the donation to be sure that it will be used to carry out GFCC’s tax exempt purposes.” The IRS requires such language. But I am totally confident that Grace Fellowship Community Church will continue to welcome and forward gifts for Dr. Agang and Jos(JETS).
Please encourage your friends to join my blog at ronsiderblog.substack.com.
I am a scholar who spent several years of my life completing a PhD. But for better or worse, I am best known as a popularizer. In fact, my problem ,if it is a problem, runs even deeper. I have tried not only to combine popularizing with scholarly work but I’ve also been an activist and organizer.
Trying to do what I have done is problematic. Good popular writing almost inevitably requires an interdisciplinary understanding that no single scholar possesses. But the general public has little interest in simply that aspect of, for example, world hunger discussed in technical detail with professional expertise by the professor of business or the professor economic history or Christian ethics or Old Testament or New Testament, and more. But all those specialities, and more, directly relate to the question: What is a faithful Christian response to world hunger today? The typical Christian layperson wants to read a coherent, reliable response to that broad question, not some specialized technical paper that deals with one small aspect of the problem. Unfortunately, no scholar, however brilliant, is familiar with all those fields. Hence every popularizing scholar knows they are doing what in a sense they have no business doing.
There is another problem because popularization requires simplification. That is not to say that simplistic distortion is inevitable. But good popularizing demands that one set aside many complexities in order to offer a clear, coherent statement of the central issues. This easily frustrates the popularizer who is also a scholar –not to mention the scholarly critics who are not popularizers!
I have tried to work at this problem in several ways. My Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger is certainly my most successful effort at popularization. Had I known, when I was a student, what I was going to do later in life, I would have taken courses in economics, politics, Christian ethics and more. I took only economics 101 as an undergraduate and no courses in Christian ethics when I was studying at Yale Divinity School in the 1960s. Knowing my lack of preparation in economics, I asked a number of friends who were economists to read the early drafts. I did not always take their advice but they certainly helped me avoid many mistakes.
I took a different approach in the 1990s. Evangelicals for Social Action had received a substantial grant to work on the question: If the United States truly wanted to reduce domestic poverty dramatically, what would be the full range of things that government and other sectors in society would need to do simultaneously? We assembled a group of scholars to work on scholarly papers and eventually published the results in a scholarly volume. But part way through the process, it dawned on me that I should consider writing a shorter, more popular book drawing on the careful chapters being written by scholars. Several of the scholars read the relevant chapters of my more popular book which was published as Just Generosity: A New Vision for Overcoming Poverty in America.
My third effort combining scholarship, popularizing and activism happened around the question of the inter-relationship between evangelism and social action in faith-based ministries. Thanks to the excellent work of a graduate student of mine, Heidi Roland (who was trained as a sociologist), I received a large Lilly Endowment grant to do a five-year study of diverse ways that evangelism and social ministry interacted in 15 different congregations. Baker published a popular book on the results: Churches That Make A Difference. And Oxford published a scholarly volume on the results: Saving Souls, Serving Society.
Since popularizing requires interdisciplinary knowledge, I have tried to develop friends who are experts in the relevant fields. I try to listen carefully to their advice without being intimidated by them.
Here are a couple conclusions from my experience. First, good popularizing requires special skills, and ability to develop a broad synoptic vision, an instinct for quickly discerning the most crucial issues, a personality and mind that enjoys moving quickly from one issue to another, and the ability to write clearly and powerfully.
Second the kinds of choices I have made have consequences. Hardly anyone can attempt the level of popularizing and activism I have sought and also become a widely recognized scholar.
Third I would discourage anyone from trying to do what I have done unless you feel called. Not many people should do it! I do not mean for a moment to urge most scholars to abandon the life of extended, focused scholarly research in their specific area of professional expertise. What I tried is not for everyone.
Finally, some scholars must do it! Plato said that if the wise disdain the task of politics, then they must suffer being governed by fools. Somebody will write popularizing books for the average person. If those with scholarly training will not do it, they should not complain when those with little expertise do it badly, embarrassing the church, and misleading lay people with one-sided, simplistic nonsense.
I hope that at least a few in each generation of Christian scholars will pray for the gifts, develop the skills, and pay the price of becoming far better popularizers and more active activists than I have managed to be.
For a longer statement of this, see my God’s Invitation to Peace and Justice (Judson, 2021), chap 9—available at Amazon and Judson.
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Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, pro-Trump or anti-Trump, we all agree on at least one thing. American democracy is threatened in a way that it has not been at least since 1860.
The facts are devastating. A significant percentage of Americans think violence (military means, violent revolution) is justified to protect their view of America. A December, 2021 national poll found that about 1/3 of all Americans think violence against the government can be justified. (Only 10% thought that in 2010.) Most Americans receive their news (information about the “facts”) from different sources that are often fundamentally contradictory. There is vast disagreement about what science shows and whether that should be important.
Basically, Americans live in two different political worlds. And there is little to no conversation and even less understanding across the huge divide. If we cannot learn how to talk and listen across this huge gulf, the future is terrifyingly bleak.
What can be done? I don’t know. I am asking for your ideas, your help, your stories of respectful bridging of this gap.
What most dismays me is that Christians are on both sides of this huge divide. I weep over the brokenness of the body of Christ.
I genuinely believe that many supporters of Donald Trump love Jesus as much as I do. They want Jesus, not politics, to be the decisive factor in what they believe and do.
All Christians believe (or should believe) that their oneness in the body of Christ is far more important than political disagreements. That should provide a foundation for new conversations. If any group of Americans can begin to truly listen to those who disagree with them politically, that ought to be Christians – – Christians who know and confess that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”(Ephesians 4:5).
Is it naïve or madness to think that American Christians of all political views could start a new movement to listen to each other across deeply held political differences? In realistic terms, that seems unlikely. Christians so often seem to be the problem, not the solution. But when one thinks theologically, it seems possible – – indeed necessary. Our oneness in the body of Christ compels us to make new efforts to new listening and dialogue.
I confess that I do not currently have an ongoing meaningful conversation with people whose political views are dramatically different from mine. But I would like to have that.
And I would like to hear stories of Christians who are doing that.
I need help! Write to me! Tell me if you think my starting point is correct – – that oneness in the body of Christ is more important than political differences. Tell me of examples of Christians genuinely listening and talking across the great political divide. Tell me about how we can make that happen in a much larger way.
Finally, it is not just the future of American democracy that is at stake. Much more important, the future of the church is at stake. If our political differences (however great) override our oneness in the body of Christ, then we have abandoned Christian faith itself. We worship an idol, not Jesus Christ the risen Lord.
Invite your friends to join my free blog at ronsiderblog.substack.com.
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