Searching for God # 87

 First, we stop pretending that spiritual discipline is separate from public life.

This challenge from Reverend Alison Burns-Lagreca, from yesterday’s post here, is fraught with potential controversy. Spiritual discipline not being separate from public life is a challenge to the status quo in the church. Effectively it says that our public life is directly, intimately and inescapably connected to our spirituality and vice versa. And in Lent this year, it asks that we stop pretending that it is separate.

It is the pretension of separation of spiritual discipline from public life that my experience within the church (primarily Episcopalian and Anglican, originally Presbyterian) has bothered me for decades, and it is certainly not restricted to any one denomination. (From a distance, my experience with the United Church of Canada is qualitatively different, in that my of my UCC friends have been quite active in social justice, refugee assistance and food banks and other social services, as an integral component of their spirituality.) Anglicans and Episcopalians have honoured the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) has focused on maternal health, food security, and HIV/AIDS preventions in the developing world. In 2024, it took on a new name: Alongside Hope: Anglicans and partners working for change in Canada and around the world. Focusing on issues in the developing world is very different, politically and psychologically as well as spiritually, from political activism within the nations of North America specifically.

The public life we are both witnessing and experiencing directly and indirectly really leaves us no choice but to cease with the pretending there are not connected. During the nineties, one of the more prominent themes in the church was the escalating voice of women demanding ordination, and full acceptance within the church hierarchy. And while that voice has resulted in some political gains with many ordained female clergy, and several female bishops, in North America and in the UK, there is considerable consternation in Africa and among some already defected clergy in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales, Kenya and South Sudan. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Reverend Sarah Mulally was appointed on January 28, 2026.

GAFCON, (Global Anglican Future Conference, or Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) is a conservative movement opposing what it terms ‘revisionist’ theology in the Anglican communion, specifically the acceptance of homosexuality, same-sex relationships, marriage and blessings. It opposes the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the consecration of female bishops advocating for a male-only clergy. This movement justifies its positions through what it considers the inerrancy of scripture.

Sexuality continues to divide the church, and there are some who argue that the Anglican/Episcopalian church may not survive. Clearly, unequivocally, and without either apology or shame, this scribe stands with the progressive, liberal, cohort of church clergy and laity. (In several places in this space, I have argued that the church needs to let go of its attempt, all attempts, to control and litigate, monitor and supervise human sexuality!)

Certainly, the question of sexuality is central to the public life of all nations in 2026, on so many different levels. Embracing all human beings with love, in following the model depicted by Boff, in the last post here, includes all gender identities along with several other categories of people most of whom would not qualify even for human recognition, except perhaps as a statistic in a demographic map for law enforcement and politicians. And in the spirit of Jesus incarnate and his disciples both Burns-Lagreca and Boff, the loving embrace of undocumented immigrants, refugees, homeless, and those suffering from addiction and/or mental illnesses is also mandated by the Christian faith, as considered from the liberal theological perspective. One’s active participation in these social, political, economic and ethical/moral issues is intimately connected to and related with one’s spiritual life and discipline.

With Boff and Burns-Lagreca this scribe is in solidarity. Clearly, with GAFCON, this scribe is in direct and unequivocal opposition. And even in that divide, in its recognition, exposure and reflective consideration, one participates in the public life of both the church and the state. Any argument that separates church and state, outside of the legal definitions and boundaries, is untenable, unsustainable and somewhat irresponsible especially in light of the current United States’ administration’s policies, attitudes, actions and contempt for their list of voiceless, dismissable, men, women and children whom they are arresting, incarerating, deporting and even killing.

Call the administration’s approach ‘ethnic cleansing’ rather than ‘removing all the worst among us’ is closer to the truth. Calling it fascistic, as opposed to enhanced law enforcement of immigration policy, also comes closer to its full venality. Both goals and methods of this administration are reprehensible, despicable, untenable, and, for the legal-beagles, unlawful. And opposing the gestalt of the programs’ multiple and continuing tragedies has become an act of spiritual discipline as well as public activism. The Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island, Rt. Rev. Robert Herschfield urges clergy to meet the political moment, and ‘make sure they have their wills written. In a piece in nhpr.org (New Hampshire Public Radio), January 13, 2026, by Julia Furukawa and Michelle Liu, we read:

A call to action from one New Hampshire faith leader-urging clergy to  prepare for ‘a new era of martyrdom’ amid escalating aggression from federal immigration authorities-is drawing national attention….At the vigil, Herschfield invoked instances throughout history when clergy members put their lives at risk to protect the vulnerable—including New Hampshire seminary student Jonathan Daniels, who was killed by a sherriff’s deputy in Alabama during the civil rights movement. I have told the clergy of the Episcopal diocese of  New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness,’ Herschfield said. ‘And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.

The Bishop was speaking directly to the clergy of his diocese. Rev. Burns-Lagreca is writing to her parishioners and readers, beyond the members of the ordained clergy. Common to both ‘prayers’ is the astounding, incomprehensible, inexcusable and intolerable approach, both in policy and in action, that this administration is deploying as elected representatives of the American people.

For centuries, the church’s responsibility as moral compass, based not merely on ethical/moral philosophy, but on religious and spiritual apprehension, perception and belief and loyalty, has been to give a voice to the voiceless. Today, the numbers and layers of reasons/causes that result in the various classes of voiceless among us, have only grown to proportions and dimensions that are not only  unjustified but also intolerable. And the government’s deliberate, planned, organized and deeply funded abuse of these men women and children has only been infused with political, racial, and even religious hatred, bigotry and contempt.

Deliberate, organized, planned, executed and criminal cruelty by those in power evokes memories of other programs of ethnic cleansing, racial extinction and the Third Reich. While the West has not been able to avoid ‘never again’ with respect to military action following World War II, perhaps the clergy are determined to adopt a different, proactive, courageous, faith-driven, and creatively confrontative non-violent opposition to evil that is being enacted right before our eyes and our cameras and microphones. Mandela, Ghandi, Tolstoy, Boff, Gutierrez, Sobrino, Segundo, and we can humbly suggest  Archbishops Tutu, Scott, and Rowan Williams would likely support the Archbishop of New Hampshire as well as the blog of Reverend Burns-Lagreca of New Jersey, and the bishops of all American dioceses who have signed a letter of solidarity in support of the refugees, immigrants, and in opposition to the policies and tactics of Homeland Security and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

The exponential growth of what amounts to a private, publicly funded law-enforcement agency, in addition to the national guard, as well as the full range of military forces and options, all of them under the ‘command of the occupant of the Oval Office, is a spectre with which the whole world is having to confront.

New national security alliances, for example between Canada and Germany, while appropriate and necessary, along with new trading partners among middle-powers especially, are only part of the legitimate, responsible and creative non-violent confrontations of the disturbing turbulence facing the world’s geopolitical leaders, and all of that turbulence, too, is coming from the depths of the same administration that is wreaking havoc domestically in the United States.

Are the clergy in other lands watching and reflecting on their ‘spiritual discipline’ as it potentially impacts public and civic duty, public policy and the abuse of power that they are witnessing in their respective jurisdictions? Clearly the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, in its support of the illegal, unjust and unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Putin has turned a blind eye to this horrendous merciless and inhumane tragedy. Are the clergy in western countries prepared to take a lead from their American peers, and begin to ‘put their bodies on the line’ escalating their non-violent and creative confrontation of evil by force against Putin, Netanyahu, Orban, and Kim and Xi, Hamas, Hezbollah and their Iranian bankers?

There is a clear and undeniable link between those who are determined to abuse their political and their military power, deploying policies, practices, strategies and tactics which are intolerable, unjustifiable and heinous, and must be stopped. The unified, body-driven creative, non-violent confrontation of their commitment to evil by force, by clergy from all major world religions would go a long way to ameliorating, if not eliminating the nefarious, unsupportable and unjustified use of forces, lies, weapons and the immunity of their agents.

Religion, theology, spiritual discipline and the public square have never been more in direct, open, and unsustainable opposition.

Have we all written our wills, and have we all prepared to put our bodies on the line, instead of merely writing statements like those in this space?

We do not have to read the same holy books, nor worship in the same liturgical manner, nor use the same name for God in order to perceive, recognize and begin to mobilize in a non-violent, creative confrontation of evil by force. No faith community escapes the ravages of the evil that is being inflicted. And no faith can truly claim immunity from pretending that spiritual discipline is separate from public life. And this kind of spiritual discipline is easily and necessarily distinguishable from any hidden or overt desire to impose Sharia Law on new lands and peoples.

Giving voice to the voiceless, in a disciplined spiritually motivated non-violent manner is a positive, egalitarian, non-sectarian and non-violent supportive movement. There is no negative imposition of any religious or legal framework on anyone.