Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Not that long ago, I remember talk of the Religious Right. It was when the Christian Coalition was coming into ascendancy and after the Moral Majority had played a role in the 1980s. As many of you know, this was a movement I was active in.

As a young conservative activist, I was drawn to the sense of certainty the movement offered. I think I also was drawn to the sense of “Us and Them” that was cultivated; there was a sense of right and wrong and we were, of course, right. 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become much more interested in the potential for faith to bring us together.

The Us vs Them temptation is as alive as ever. But it seems like the things that hold us together are fraying beyond repair. Us vs Them never seems to return to a bigger sense of Us anymore between the election cycles. 

There are three lessons from our faith that might help us bridge this divide.

The first is the Christian view of the dignity of all people. Each and every person is the beloved of God.

There is no room for anyone to be disregarded or discarded or dehumanized. Our neighbors are the way by which we might see sparks of the divine image in which they were created.

The second lesson is repentance. We are all part of cycles and systems of sin and violence and share responsibility for the state of the world and our nation.

Our flawed nature should never let us be fooled into believing that we have all the right answers. We should be humble enough to admit that we could be wrong.

Third, relationships are at the heart of Christian life.

Faith is a pack activity. We are called to community because it is in community that we live out all of the tenets of our faith. How we care for one another, serve one another, and provide for the needs of those in want are all reflections of a divine society that God calls us to. 

I don’t know if we need another Christian Coalition. But we do need a faithful voice in the public sphere that calls us to break our addiction to being right at the expense of relationship.

We need a faithful voice reminding us that we need one another, that we are bound together by divine love, and that we must have the courage to admit we may not have all the answers—even when it is so tempting to be part of the Us that has it all just right.

That temptation may just be sin talking to us once again, pulling us apart when we are called to live with charity, forgiveness, and genuine love across our differences (as large as they may seem). 

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert