I was grateful for the invitation to preach at the Riverside Church in New York City this morning. It was an honor to be back in the pulpit that was built for Harry Emerson Fosdick to preach the gospel to the nation in the midst of an authoritarian crisis.
Riverside was built in troubled and troubling times.
And it was built to proclaim a public theology of Jesus over and against the lies that religious nationalists always tell in times like these.
I stopped by Riverside this morning because a century later, we are once again in troubling times. Religious nationalism has taken on new forms, and the tech billionaire Peter Thiel has been using using the biblical image of the Antichrist to sanctify techno feudalism and justify his support for authoritarian regimes.
But you can’t talk about Antichrist without inviting a conversation about the Way of Christ. And I know the power of Christ to show us the way toward freedom in this world.
I’m glad to be able to share this message with you, and I hope you’ll share it with others.
If you understand both the danger of religious nationalism and the power of moral movements to push this nation toward a more perfect union, I ask you to please support the work of Repairers of the Breach. Our Moral Mondays campaign, support for labor organizing, solidarity with immigrants, theomusicology, and training of religious leaders for moral fusion movement building are work dedicated to building up this embodied way of love and justice that I preached today.
You can learn more about how to help sustain the work of Repairers of the Breach at https://breachrepairers.org/get-involved/donate/
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