Brandt Montgomery, Author at The Living Church Thu, 30 May 2024 15:45:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://livingchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/cropped-TLC_lamb-logo_min-1.png Brandt Montgomery, Author at The Living Church 32 32 Say No to the ‘Taterix’ https://livingchurch.org/covenant/say-no-to-the-taterix/ https://livingchurch.org/covenant/say-no-to-the-taterix/#respond Fri, 03 May 2024 05:59:35 +0000 https://livingchurch.org/uncategorized/say-no-to-the-taterix/ Two school years ago, during a dinner in the Saint James School refectory, a former male student asked me, “Father Montgomery, what do you think about Andrew Tate?” I can still remember the visible disapproval of the female students at the table upon hearing the question. That should have been my first indication that Tate was not a commendable figure. But as I had never heard of Tate, I could not offer a response. Now I can, and my response is one of concern, particularly for the young men influenced by Tate’s particular views and machismo personality.

Andrew Tate is a 37-year-old American-British social media personality, businessman, and former professional kickboxer dubbed the “king of toxic masculinity.” Tate gained larger notoriety in 2016 when he was a housemate on the British version of the reality television series Big Brother. It was then that past Twitter posts airing racial and gay-bashing comments, as well as a video showing Tate assaulting a woman with a belt, came to light, causing his exit from the show. His toxic masculinity has since been moving more into the mainstream, Tate having amassed over 9.1 million X.com followers as I write this post.

A litany of his provocative statements — that sexual assault victims bear some of the responsibility for their assaults; that women belong in the home and are men’s property; and that depression is not real — have made Tate a prime spokesman of the online “manosphere.” His effect on young middle school and high school students in Britain and America has manifested itself within school halls, with Tate-esque phrases such as “What color is your Bugatti?” (said to brag about social and financial status) and “Make me a sandwich?” (disparaging women and young girls) seeping into their conversations. Tate’s critics have rightly characterized him as “brainwashing a generation” of young impressionable men.[1]

Normally one could simply ignore and reject Tate’s comments. But what makes Tate different from others of his mindset can be seen in his successes. He is young, wealthy, owns fasts cars and palatial houses, and is physically fit. Tate has recalled how he, as a mixed-race man raised by a single mother, has suffered “all of the disadvantages of the old world” and considers himself a fantastic role model for men and women.[2] Yet, like prosperity theology, Tate’s promises of personal development and wealth has drawn young men from underprivileged and socially awkward backgrounds more into his sphere. The most disastrous aspect of Tate’s influence is the thinking by his disciples that hyper-masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism are the keys to better lives and financial success. Tate has admitted, “I am absolutely sexist and … a misogynist, and I have … money and you can’t take that away.”[3] That Tate’s admirers accept his harmful views will lead only toward bad consequences.

While we should give no respect to Tate’s toxic beliefs, his influence among this generation of young men cannot be ignored. As a justification for his words and actions, Tate says he acts “under the instruction of God to do good things.” He encourages hard work, discipline, religion, and abstaining from drugs and alcohol.[4] Those are all commendable. Yet underneath them are dangerous views that render Tate a false prophet in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15). This is why Tate cannot be ignored. To combat him, we must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest God’s Word and live by his will, which leads to our human flourishing.

I must be fair to Tate in acknowledging his genuine belief in God. Raised within the Christian faith, Tate was for a time an atheist before briefly returning to Christianity and then converting to Islam. He grounds his argument for God in Newton’s Third Law of Motion, that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” For Tate, the presence of evil and injustice throughout the world is evidence of God’s existence, because if there are forces seeking to destroy us, then there must be good forces wanting to help us. That which seeks to help us is God.[5] That is the good in Tate’s belief system.

Tate, though, views Christianity as “a joke of a religion.” He finds Christians ignoring certain articles of faith, becoming tolerant of everything and standing for nothing.[6] While there is some element of truth to this view, the problem is grounded there too. Tate characterizes Christianity based on people’s actions and not on its creeds and he from whom those creeds are derived. And because he sees Christians as weak and unwilling to stand up for their faith, Tate considers Christianity inauthentic and irrelevant. He sees Christianity through what he deems to be true, not by what is the truth. Tate’s perspective is thus more reflective of the world and not in sync with the reality that is God.

There too we see the assumptions influencing Tate’s beliefs on manhood. His beliefs have led to a mindset that one’s successes are attained through having power and control. Given his opinions regarding Christianity, and how the modern women’s movement has called many men to task for women’s historic inequalities, Tate sees dominance as the solution for men countering perceptions of weakness and irresponsibility. For the young men who feel ostracized and disrespected by society, and particularly by young women, Tate is the gold standard of masculine success.

Since Tate sees all his actions as coming from God’s instruction, the young men who follow him likewise think of Tate’s advice as reflecting God’s intentions. From the Christian perspective, Tate’s philosophy of manhood is undeniably averse to what God has revealed in Holy Scripture. For instance, when the Pharisees asked Jesus about the legality of divorce, he reminded them that the reason divorce even exists is because of people’s hard hearts, not God’s intentions. Jesus reminds his hearers that God originally designed marriage to be a lifelong union between one man and one woman who are equal in a God-centered relationship (Matt. 19:3-8; Mark 10:2-9). This is why Peter says that husbands must truly honor and respect their wives, not domineer them, and Paul instructs married men to love their wives as Christ loves the Church (1 Pet. 3:7; Eph. 5:25).

Beyond marriage, there is instance upon instance of Jesus affording women respect and dignity throughout his ministry, emphasizing how God made all men and women in his image and declared them good (Gen. 1:26-31). Jesus, the visible face of the invisible God, shows us what God’s original intentions are for every relationship and how Christianity calls each of us to advocate for the respect and dignity of every person. God is love, revealed in Jesus as patient, kind, and building up, not boastful, rude, or domineering of others (1 John 4:16; 1 Cor. 13:4-6). If Tate heeded God’s instructions, he would see how God calls us to conform our lives to his will, seeing from his goodness and revealed truth the true way of living.

Many incels, primarily young heterosexual men defining themselves as “involuntary celibates,” are drawn to Tate. Like Tate, many of these men believe that women owe them sex and that, because of men’s general advantage of strength, they can treat women however they wish. As women resist these views (and rightly so), many incels descend into anger, racism, and violence, further alienating them from other people. Thus, many of them resort to violence against women and sexually successful men as revenge for their perceived plight. As incels refer to themselves as being “black pilled,” a term deriving from the 1999 film The Matrix, and as Tate often refers to The Matrix as part of his rhetoric, the potential effects of Tate’s views on a certain part of this generation of men must be confronted before it is too late.[7]

Here is where we should consider Tate’s criticism of Christians. As I wrote a couple of years ago:

God’s continuing work of redemption in Jesus requires us to be hearers and doers of the Word (James 1:22). This makes Christian theology something we not only profess but also something that represents how we believe God functions in the world through our actions. If we believe that God is love and that we should love one another as God loves [all of] us, then why are we perceived as hypocritical, judgmental, self-righteous, arrogant, and even racist? Because there are pockets throughout the Church in which one or more of these views are unfortunately present. … Sin has caused theology to become a weapon used against one another. Charity in our theological talk has been lost in segments of Christianity. The lack of charity has produced a gap between Jesus and his followers.

I am a single, 39-year-old man. I would welcome the privilege of loving a kindhearted, God-fearing woman with whom I could have a family. But as that has yet to happen for me, I have been embracing more and more the call to and gift of celibacy. I do not find myself feeling angry, depressed, or despondent about this. I remain in good spirits because of the faithful Christians throughout my life and still today who have witnessed to the truth of God’s unconditional love in their words and actions. Through their love for and witness to me, I have seen and experienced the greater love of God, coming to know God’s will to be the best path in this life. And I can love and encourage others because of God’s first love for me and all of us. Love of others, not dominance over them, truly does work.

That is the key to combating the harmful beliefs of Andrew Tate and those like him. We must be active images of giving ourselves wholly to the love and will of God, made known in Jesus Christ. If we are, then we have an opportunity to witness to others how God truly loves them and gives the greatest peace of mind that passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7). If we are not, then woe to us and those coming after us.


[1] Anti-Defamation League, “Andrew Tate: Five Things to Know,” (March 12, 2024); Amanda Holpuch, “Why Social Media Sites Are Removing Andrew Tate’s Accounts,” The New York Times (Aug. 24, 2022); Carly Douglas, “Teachers and Girls Call Out Andrew Tate Influence as Rape Threat Revealed,” The New Zealand Herald (Sept. 7, 2022); Isabella Kwai and Emma Bubola, “Brainwashing a Generation: British Schools Combat Andrew Tate’s Views,” The New York Times (Feb. 19, 2023).

[2] Martin Domin, “Andrew Tate Banned From TikTok as Controversial Kickboxer Faces Social Media Blackout,” The Mirror (Aug. 22, 2022).

[3] Saman Javed, “Andrew Tate Shares ‘Final Message’ After Being Banned by Social Media,” The Independent (Aug. 24, 2022).

[4] Lucy Williamson, “Andrew Tate BBC Interview: Influencer Challenged on Misogyny and Rape Allegations,” BBC News (June 1, 2023).

[5]Andrew Tate vs. The Matrix,” Real Talk with Zuby (Episode 232, Nov. 17, 2022).

[6]Christianity Is a Joke—Andrew Tate,” YouTube (June 24, 2022).

[7] Amanda Taub, “On Social Media’s Fringes, Growing Extremism Targets Women,” The New York Times (May 9, 2018). For further information, see Bruce Hoffman, Jacob Ware, and Ezra Shapiro, “Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (Vol. 43, No. 7), pp. 565-87.

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Uncle Tom or New Negro? A Black Episcopalian’s Reflections on Booker T. Washington https://livingchurch.org/covenant/uncle-tom-or-new-negro-a-black-episcopalians-reflections-on-booker-t-washington/ https://livingchurch.org/covenant/uncle-tom-or-new-negro-a-black-episcopalians-reflections-on-booker-t-washington/#respond Tue, 06 Feb 2024 06:59:12 +0000 https://livingchurch.org/2024/02/06/uncle-tom-or-new-negro-a-black-episcopalians-reflections-on-booker-t-washington/ Robert Norrell’s Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington (2009) was the first full-length biography of the late 19th- and early 20th-century Black American educator and community leader published in a generation.[1] Before reading it, like many Black Americans, I did not have a completely favorable view of Washington. As a native Alabamian, I first knew of Washington as the founder and wizard of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Macon County in the state’s Black Belt region. Tuskegee was the successful example of Washington’s industrial education philosophy, endeavoring to instill in Black students of the rural South self-reliance through the attainment of practical skills that would lead to dignified work and living. Yet his 1895 Atlanta Exposition Speech, in which he said how “in all things purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress,” made me uneasy about Washington’s legacy. Like W.E.B. DuBois, Monroe Trotter, and others of the early 20th century Niagara Movement, I saw Washington’s “accommodationist” views as troubling and a setback to full racial equality.

After an Alabamian Episcopal priest recommended Norrell’s book a decade ago, I was brought back to something Victor Lee Austin told me a couple of years before: “To be a fair student of history, one must willingly seek to fully understand where the person one is studying was coming from.” With Austin’s sage advice in mind, I read Norrell’s volume seeking to better understand why Washington advocated for gradual and not immediate racial integration in the Jim Crow South. Reading Norrell’s book proved enlightening.

DuBois, his primary intellectual rival, had been born free during the early Reconstruction Era in Massachusetts; Washington lived his first nine years in bondage in Southwestern Virginia until he was freed via the Emancipation Proclamation as Union forces occupied the region. Thirty years later, DuBois, from a racially integrated New England, was granted opportunities to receive a quality liberal arts education. Washington, a former slave, was laboring hard in the South, where racial tensions were at an all-time high. Black agitation of whites for immediate racial equality was one of the causes of the 4,000-plus known Black lynchings that occurred from 1877 through 1950.

As one of America’s last slaves, and seeing violence being inflicted on Black Southerners all around him, Washington aimed for a solution that would both end the violence and encourage Black empowerment. Thus, as Norrell says, Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” was not the pandering of an Uncle Tom, but an acceptance of the reality of the South’s social situation and an endeavor to provide a means for Blacks’ attainment of full social and political rights without any further violence. Norrell’s book helped me see Washington in a whole new light. Washington, like DuBois, helped prepare the way for the “New Negro,” albeit through a different strategic mode.

More recently I read Rebecca A. Carroll’s Uncle Tom or New Negro? African Americans Reflect on Booker T. Washington and Up from Slavery 100 Years Later (2006). Including essays by contemporary Black scholars, politicians, business leaders, filmmakers, and writers, it seeks to “reflect [on] the impact …Washington has had on black people throughout history,” with the aim of rehabilitating his image. As John Bryant, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Operation Hope, says in the book’s closing words:

Was he perfect? Of course not, we all have errors in judgment. We are born broken and are all sinners. But a saint is a sinner that got up. Booker T. Washington should be credited for doing what he did—for doing something when others did nothing. (p. 163)

In matters of religion, Jonathan Reavis asserts that Washington was much affected by the “Protestant ethic,” which emphasizes that work produces diligence, discipline, and frugality. Originating from the late 19th and early 20th century work of German sociologist Max Weber, the Protestant ethic teaches that common workers, like business professionals, have a call from God that can be fulfilled through a dedication to their work. Hence, Washington’s ascribed statement, “If a black man is anything but a Baptist or a Methodist, someone has been tampering with his religion,” makes sense, considering his educational thought. Further, many of the Episcopal Church’s Reconstruction Era institutions for Southern Blacks failed due to the racial majority’s persistent mistreatment of its Black members.[2] Thus, Anglican theology was not, for Washington, pragmatic for the Black American masses. It can be argued that Washington regarded Anglicanism as too idealistic and not at all conducive to Black social and economic progress.

Washington’s ascribed statement is not totally far-fetched. American Anglicanism’s racial majority in Washington’s time lent believability to his thought. As I said in a review of Gayle Fisher-Stewart’s Black and Episcopalian: The Struggle for Inclusion:

Human sin is what has made the Episcopal Church complicit with racism. That complicity has been passed down to successive generations of Episcopalians. Sometimes the complicity was intentional; sometimes it was unconscious. Nonetheless, the complicity has marred the experience of many.

Where I disagree with Washington is his notion of Anglicanism not providing a sound theological work ethic leading to diligence, discipline, and frugality. Anglicanism’s rootedness in apostolic tradition passed down from Jesus Christ to the apostles to us lends itself to these fundamental values. This makes me think of Absalom Jones, the Episcopal Church’s first Black priest, whose life and ministry decades before Washington’s birth in many ways foreshadowed what Jones would seek to do for Black Americans. Jones acknowledged the Episcopalians’ compromise — for his parish, St. Thomas African Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, to not have seat, voice, and vote in the Diocese of Pennsylvania Convention in exchange for his access to ordination and the parish to govern its own affairs. It was his reluctant acceptance of the reality before him, yet the best way to minister to his people. Like Washington’s Atlanta Compromise, this compromise was the fervent hope that all Black Episcopalians coming after him would in time experience from the larger Episcopal Church the full equality he had been denied. The faithfulness of Black Episcopalians throughout the years and their greater acceptance throughout the larger church is a testament of his commitment to fight the good fight, no matter how long. In this way, his late 18th-century compromise with the Episcopal Church can be seen as a model for Washington’s with the Southern racial majority one century later.

What I find most unfortunate when it comes to Washington’s story is not the Atlanta Compromise, but how he and DuBois could not find common ground on which to support one another. Paul says:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. … For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. … But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. … As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. (1 Cor. 12:12, 14-15, 18, 20)

How good it would have been if Washington and DuBois could have said to each other, “We may have different views on things, but our goals are mutual. Therefore, as my colleague, I support you.” If they could have discovered common ground, a better understanding between the “Tuskegee Machine” and the “Talented Tenth” would have perhaps been possible. Pejoratives like “Uncle Tom,” “house negro,” and “sellout” could have been spared from the lips of future generations of Washington’s and DuBois’s supporters against each other. The Black community could have seen much earlier how the struggle for full equality needs both the technically minded and the intellectual and how one’s pull toward the other does not determine if one is “Black enough.” But that was not the case. How unfortunate.

During the early days of my ordained ministry in Alabama, there were a few occasions when I was called to offer supply service to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Tuskegee, the only Episcopal parish in all of Macon County. I remember on each of those occasions driving onto the Tuskegee University campus to pay my respects at Washington’s gravesite and to gaze upon Lifting the Veil of Ignorance, Charles Keck’s 1922 monument to the revered educator. Keck’s memorial shows Washington lifting a veil from the face of a former slave, seated on a plow and anvil and holding a book, pointing him toward a better life through the opportunities of an industrial education. “He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry,” read the inscription. “Have faith in God,” Jesus says. “Whoever … does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him” (Mark 12:22-23). I believe this has shown itself true for Booker T. Washington, both in his time and still even now. And as he labored toward the goal of full equality for his people and greater cooperation among all the races, may we all press on toward God’s eternal and peaceable kingdom.


[1] Before Norrell’s volume, Louis Rudolph Harlan’s two-volume biography (Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856-1901, Oxford University Press, 1972; Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915, Oxford University Press, 1983) was considered the main authoritative text on the black educator’s life.

[2] Jonathan Reavis, “To See the Negro Saved: The Religious Pragmatism of Booker T. Washington,” Lucerna (University of Missouri–Kansas City Honors College, 2015), p. 50; Richard Swedberg, The Max Weber Dictionary: Key Words and Central Concepts (Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 348-49; Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, “Report of the Committee of the House of Deputies on the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society,” Journal of the Proceedings of the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America Assembled in a General Convention, in the City of Boston from October 3rd to 25th, Inclusive, In the Year of Our Lord 1877 (Alfred A. Mudge & Son, 1878), p. 491; Harold T. Lewis, Yet With a Steady Beat: The African American Struggle for Recognition in the Episcopal Church (Trinity Press International, 1996), p. 1, 55-56.

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A Priest-Educator’s Response to Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard https://livingchurch.org/covenant/a-priest-educators-response-to-students-for-fair-admissions-v-harvard/ https://livingchurch.org/covenant/a-priest-educators-response-to-students-for-fair-admissions-v-harvard/#respond Wed, 09 Aug 2023 05:59:58 +0000 https://livingchurch.org/2023/08/09/a-priest-educators-response-to-students-for-fair-admissions-v-harvard/ By Brandt Montgomery

The United States Supreme Court recently released a landmark decision concerning affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.[1] The case’s plaintiffs, a group of Asian American students rejected from Harvard, maintained that the Ivy League school’s admissions procedures violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which mandates that no state “shall deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws.” They asserted that Harvard curated the racial makeup of its classes, which caused a decline in the number of Asian American applicants admitted annually. Thus, the central question was “May academic institutions use race as a factor in their admission decisions?”

Six of the Court’s justices said no, siding with the plaintiffs. The majority argued that

[A student] must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of their race.

Many universities have far too long done just the opposite. And in doing so … have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our [Constitution] does not tolerate that choice.[2] 

The dissenting justices countered by explaining that what the law says has not always been practiced. One justice particularly wrote that by

Turning back the clock … the Court indulges those who either do not know our Nation’s history or long to repeat it. Simply put, the race-blind admissions stance the Court mandates from this day forward is unmoored from critical real-life circumstances. Thus, the Court’s meddling not only arrest the … generational project that American universities are attempting, [but] it also launches, in effect, a dismally misinformed sociological experiment.

Time will reveal the results.[3]

Both opinions reflect elements of truth. The court’s majority resonates with Thomas Aquinas’s summation of the good of human law. Aquinas asserts the necessity of human law for all humankind, its composition and ratification aiding humanity in righteous living. This means safeguarding every community member and promoting the common good. Thus, human law, to be truly law, must be both just and rational. When laws are such, they become worthy guides for us to be conscious community members. So, yes, the court’s majority judgment is reasonable. Every American should be treated and judged based on individual merits, not by their race. The “letter of the law” of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause reflects the proper legal aims of the American ideal.

As a Christian, I further see the court’s majority opinion as pointing to how our civil laws should reflect God’s revealed law fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus declares that all of God’s law is summarized by the commands to love God with our entire being and our neighbors as we love ourselves (cf. Matt. 22:34-39; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). Paul writes throughout Romans of how God’s law is holy, just, and good (cf. Rom. 7:12). Therefore, to judge based on race not only degrades someone’s dignity but also grieves God, who has created every human being in his image. We need just laws to guide us in doing right actions. We do well when there is some sort of proper and good authority functioning among us.[4]

Yet, as Paul stresses his delight in God’s law, he also points out how sin keeps us from doing it perfectly. This makes the court’s minority argument equally reasonable. Because of sin, people throughout the years have judged based on race and not merit. And when laws such as the Equal Protection Clause were passed to ensure historically oppressed groups their legal equality, people found ways to circumvent them. Hence, over time, affirmative action came to embody preferential treatment of historically oppressed groups. Though first developed in the 1960s without such partialities in mind, from affirmative action evolved the aim of giving racial minorities equal opportunities within society on par with the majority population. It became a policy seeking the full justness of the law.

Perhaps not affirmative action, but rather its evolution from a race-blind concept to preferential policy, is what its critics have come to oppose. To read and inwardly digest the gospel is to see affirmative action’s original intentions. God desires the salvation of all people. Through Jesus Christ, God becomes incarnate so that all may be united with him in his death and resurrection (cf. Rom. 6:5-11). And the Holy Spirit comes upon all who repent, confess, and believe, and strive to live out God’s Word. No distinctions dictate to whom God’s salvation is offered. And with affirmative action’s original design calling for the fair treatment of all regardless of their race, color, sex, religion, and national origin, God’s Word likewise is given to and for all, regardless of human distinctions. Spiritually, we all need extra help and redemption. The kingdom of God is affirmative action in its most original form.

For the court’s majority to be proven right and its minority’s concerns put to rest, we must commit to living in the way and doing the things Christ tells us. Only through Jesus can we strive to keep God’s command to love and do good toward others with pure affection. To follow Jesus is to find the courage to bear witness to the truth, that our words and deeds match with God’s command to love our neighbor as we love him and ourselves. Following Jesus — who came down to this earth, gave up his life, defeated death, and rose to life again for us all — is to take affirmative action that the rights of all people are recognized. As John Henry Newman often prayed, our hearts must be directed by God to “help … spread thy fragrance everywhere I go.”

As a Black Episcopal priest who primarily serves at a boarding school, I feel in a real way the tension of the Supreme Court’s decision. It was at an Episcopal day school in my Alabama hometown 26 years ago that I learned of the Church’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic nature, it being Christ’s visible body of different yet equally important members. From this I came to see myself as loved by God and deserving of respect and dignity. Yet, my race doesn’t make me naïve to the prejudices that still exist throughout this country. Even with my qualifications and acquired skills that God has given me, I know that there are some who still regard me with suspicion, questioning if I truly should be where I am. On the one hand, I believe that the court, in theory, got it right. On the other hand, I fear that things will remain the same instead of improving.

Episcopal schools have become crucial mission centers in this post-Christian age. Our identity as institutions connected to the larger Anglican Christian tradition is more important now than it has ever been. To embrace our Anglican Christian heritage is to recognize the connectivity of all God’s people everywhere as being what historic Christianity has always taught and believed. The traditional view is that only through Jesus Christ can exclusion be conquered and race-blind treatment become normative. In Jesus is true affirmative action: the promotion of fairness without preferential treatment. To hold fast to our Episcopal heritage, looking to Jesus as its pioneer and perfector, gives us courage to bear witness in principle and deed to what the Supreme Court’s majority hopes will result from its decision. But as the minority says, “Time will reveal the results.”

A couple of years ago, I was told a moving story regarding John Evan Owens Jr., the eighth headmaster of Saint James School of Maryland from 1955 until 1984. Owens was Saint James’s first priest-headmaster since its founder, John Barrett Kerfoot, in the middle part of the 19th century, and was committed to integrating the school. The story is that during a mid-1960s trustees meeting, discussions centered on admitting a prospective Black student. One of the longtime trustees expressed concern that the school’s several constituencies would not support Saint James admitting a Black student. The trustee reportedly said to Owens, “The voices of our ancestors are telling us not to do this.” Noble Cilley Powell, the ninth Bishop of Maryland and chairman of the Board of Trustees, reportedly responded, “Well, I listen to a different voice. And what that voice is telling me to do is admit him.” The bishop’s words were the start of Saint James School’s diverse community.

The cross of Christ has rendered all premature judgments superfluous and increases the importance of mutual flourishing between one and the other. The Church would do quite well by supporting its schools in modeling this endeavor. The example that our schools can offer in light of the Harvard case can go a long way in changing hearts over to the better part and easing the fears of those so long perceived as less than and “other.” With all of us humbling ourselves before God, things better than we can ask or dream can come to pass (cf. Eph. 3:20). Let us all take affirmative action to be what God desires us to be and foster communities that reflect the kingdom of God.


[1] A similar case, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., was consolidated by the Supreme Court under the Harvard case in January 2022.

[2] Opinion of the Court, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (600 U.S. ____ (2023), p. 40.

[3] Dissent of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al. (600 U.S. ____ (2023), pp. 27-28.

[4] I commend Victor Lee Austin’s Up With Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Human Beings (T&T Clark, 2010) for reading on why this point is true.

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Love Gleaned, Offered, and Received https://livingchurch.org/covenant/love-gleaned-offered-and-received/ https://livingchurch.org/covenant/love-gleaned-offered-and-received/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2023 06:59:09 +0000 https://livingchurch.org/2023/01/06/love-gleaned-offered-and-received/ Ruth 1:1-2:23

By Brandt L. Montgomery

On today, the Feast of the Epiphany, we are again invited on a Good Book Club journey through Scripture, starting with the Book of Ruth. Faust author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is said to have described this Old Testament short story as “the loveliest complete work on a small scale ever written.” It serves as a literary witness to all that is attested of God, that he is good and prevails over evil and suffering.

Ruth is filled with inversions of worldly circumstances. Whereas Israel has traveled from success to disaster, Ruth tells of going from disaster to success. Whereas Israel has displayed faithlessness, Ruth depicts faithfulness. That is because in its narrative are characters who have chosen love characterized by chesed, a sacrificial relationship growing from God’s lovingkindness shown and offered to us. This is the love that thrives above evil and suffering. Ruth is an Old Testament picture of St. Paul’s New Testament proclamation: “All things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom. 8:28). This makes Ruth just as relevant to us today as it was when it was originally written. It shows how God provides for those who love him when it appears that all is lost.

Nothing Coincidental or Accidental with God

Ruth starts off by speaking of “the days when the judges ruled” (1:1). These days were not good for Israel. “There was no king … all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Jdg. 17:6). But there was a King: God. The problem was that Israel did not fully submit to his heavenly authority. And though the Israelites’ actions may have been good in their eyes, they weren’t from God’s point of view. The Book of Judges describes these days as Israel forgetting the mighty acts God had done for them, causing them to reject his kingship and ditch his law for worldly ways. Yet, despite his people’s disobedience, God proved himself ever faithful to them.

When we are introduced to Naomi and Ruth in the first chapter, they are suffering personal distress. Naomi has left her native Bethlehem and moved to Moab with her husband, Elimelech, and two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to escape the famine. Their sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Ten years after they moved to Moab, Naomi’s husband and two sons have died, leaving her and her daughters-in-law as widows. Receiving word “that the Lord had considered his people and given them food” (1:6), Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth all begin journeying toward Bethlehem.

Naomi encourages her daughters-in-law to remain in Moab and find husbands from among their own people. They both insist on remaining with her. Naomi again implores them to remain. Her pleas come from a place of genuine love, as she believes Orpah and Ruth’s respective futures will be better by remaining with their native people. Orpah reluctantly stays in Moab while Ruth clings to Naomi. A third time Naomi begs Ruth to stay. “No!” she replies. “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (1:16). With that settled, both Naomi and Ruth arrive in Bethlehem “at the beginning of the barley festival” (1:22).

Considering Ruth’s words at 1:16-17, Naomi has been faithful to God the whole time. Her faithfulness to the God of Israel has moved Ruth to forsake her people’s gods and declare faithfulness to almighty God. God revealed himself to Ruth as the one true God worth submitting her whole being. And through Naomi’s kindness to Ruth arising from her religion and Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi and pledged commitment to the God of Israel, God is starting to engineer their future prosperity. Ruth’s actions exemplify the greater love and commitment God has for all his people.

Naomi’s relationship with Ruth is a refreshing image of how one takes seriously God’s command to love others as he loves us. Naomi could have been the kind of mother who gave her sons a hard time for marrying Moabite women, and a mother-in-law who mistreated her daughters-in-law for being so. But she does not do that. It would make her a hypocrite, as Naomi, an Israelite, for a decade resided in a foreign land. Naomi has chosen compassion in line with God’s law. She fully embraces Ruth the Moabite into her family, which makes Ruth not want to leave her. Ruth’s loyal love for Naomi grafts her into God’s chosen people. Like them, we are called to live out God’s command to love, both in word and deed. Love truly does win.

The second chapter begins with Ruth gleaning in the grain field. The field on which Ruth gleans belongs to Boaz, an affluent man who happens to be a relative of Naomi’s late husband. For a foreign single woman like Ruth, gleaning was dangerous as well as embarrassing work, as Boaz implies in 2:9. Despite these factors, Ruth asks Naomi to let her “go to the field and glean among the ears of grain, behind someone in whose sight I may find favor” (2:2). Ruth suffers through the embarrassment and puts herself in potential danger, all for the sake of providing for her mother-in-law and herself.

The author uses the words “as it happened” (2:3) regarding Ruth’s gleaning in Boaz’s field, implying it was merely coincidence. Naomi rightly sees God at work in Ruth and Boaz’s meeting (2:20). Boaz has heard of Ruth’s courage in leaving her native land to dwell in an unknown land to offer support to her widowed mother-in-law. Ruth’s fortitude and loyal love for Naomi wins Boaz’s admiration and protection. By granting a widowed foreign woman permission to glean in his field, Boaz shows kindness to this foreigner. God uses Boaz’s kindness to further incorporate Ruth into his heavenly kingdom.

Boaz particularly points us to the greater love of almighty God. He not only blesses Ruth for her strong character, but he is benevolent toward her, showing his godly character. Even better than how Boaz is with Ruth in the second chapter, and will be with Naomi in the ensuing narrative, God is full of compassion for the poor and needy. And similar to, yet grander than, Boaz’s first meeting with Ruth, God has come into our time in the person of Jesus, knowing our troubles and offering us divine protection. Boaz points us to God as the Redeemer who rescues all who yearn to be found. Ruth’s three main characters each show how God uses all people of goodwill in both heart and mind to carry out his divine plan. Nothing is coincidental or accidental with God.

After a full day’s gleaning, Ruth tells Naomi that she met Boaz and how kind he was to her while out on the field. “Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead! The man is a relative of ours, one of our nearest kin” (2:20). From here, Ruth and Boaz’s relationship will continue to develop.

Godly Character, Not Race, Matters

Some commentaries put forward the view that God isn’t directly involved in the story’s events, though they proceed under his direction.[1] I believe, though, that God is directly involved by way of the lovingkindness shown through Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz’s actions toward each other. Their actions of loyal love and strong character reflect who God is, and how his qualities affect those faithful to him. They chose God, who uses their actions to bring about a good end, not only for them then but for those coming after them. As we read this book now, during the Epiphany season, Ruth shows how God is directly involved and reveals himself as the eternal light the world needs.

We have seen in these two chapters how genuine love and relationship rooted in God’s unconditional love are essential to defeating the evil and suffering that plague our world. The Barna Group notes that 90 percent of Americans aged 16 to 29 perceive Christians as judgmental, hypocritical, and being too involved in politics. The January 6, 2021, insurrection, Christian nationalism, and Great Replacement Theory are three examples of events and issues many young people cite as Christians using their faith to personally, derogatorily, and unfairly judge and exclude others. The sad fact is that there are segments within Christianity for which this is very much the case. Fear of displacement by racial minorities has led some within the Christian faith to advocate for anti-immigration policies. Their advocacy has in turn led to violence and an epidemic of mass murder aimed at those labeled as “other.” This is not of God, nor should it be representative of Christianity.

The Book of Ruth helps remind us of an important truth: race — the categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into distinct groups — is a foreign concept in God’s divine economy. Ruth the Moabite, an “other,” will be Jesse’s grandmother and David’s great-grandmother and, as a result, an ancestor of Jesus the Messiah. That very fact should be enough to highlight the lunacy of racism. Thomas Aquinas argues in his Summa Theologica that God is the perfection of good and that no evil or prejudice dwells in or comes from him. Thus, racism and all other toxic isms and suffering are not supreme. Only God, the creator and sustainer of all things, the perfect structure of goodness and love, reigns supreme. God’s good comes out of the faithfulness of all who seek after and put their whole trust in him who made all things and declared them good.[2]

God’s direct and continued involvement in the world is important for us to recall in our day. Despite any sort of conflict, there are still those who freely choose him and commit themselves to doing justice and living righteously. It is through our faithfulness to God that another reality, more powerful than the world’s troubles, is revealed. We see this fact throughout history. As Saul was a king who was unforgiving and cruel, David was a king who was forgiving and benevolent. As Herod sought to sustain his earthly power through violence, the Virgin Mary gave birth to the one whose eternal power “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52). In the 1950s and 1960s, as the segregationist Bull Connor said that “you’ve got to keep the whites and the blacks separate,” the integrationist Martin Luther King Jr. observed that “we [all] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” No matter the time, place, or circumstance, and however large or small the individual, God’s light combats and shines in the darkness and wins.

As Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz have already shown us, choosing God and being faithful to him really does work. Having good character matters. God’s justice and benevolence will come through our observing what he commands and doing right in all our ways.


[1] The Student Bible, New Revised Standard Version (Zondervan, 1996), p. 283.

[2] Richard T. Schaefer, ed., Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society (SAGE Publications, Inc., 2008), pp. 1091-93; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (Part 1, Questions 48 and 49).

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Living the Inclusion We Profess https://livingchurch.org/books-and-culture/living-the-inclusion-we-profess/ https://livingchurch.org/books-and-culture/living-the-inclusion-we-profess/#respond Thu, 22 Sep 2022 22:05:04 +0000 https://livingchurch.org/2022/09/22/living-the-inclusion-we-profess/
Black and Episcopalian:
The Struggle for Inclusion

By Gayle Fisher-Stewart
Church Publishing, pp. 176, $19.95

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The Rev. Gayle Fisher-Stewart’s Black and Episcopalian offers a survey of the Black diaspora’s presence within the Episcopal Church, insights from Black Episcopalians about being Episcopalian, and questions for personal reflection. For individuals and parishes desiring a volume addressing issues of race that is accessible for all levels, Fisher-Stewart provides a good resource.

“Is it possible to be Black and Episcopalian?” The author says yes, but only if the church takes certain actions. If the church takes seriously the call to Christian discipleship, creates space for all people to bring their whole selves to the Lord’s table, and goes all-in with Jesus in his mission to change the world, “maybe then, I can be Black and Episcopalian” (p. 161).

While she’s right overall, one of Fisher-Stewart’s points deserves some extra attention. She asks as part of her “Beginning Words”:

What does it mean to be part of a faith tradition that has anti-Blackness as a value? What does it mean to be Black in the Episcopal Church, born out of the Church of England, which, if it did not birth slavery, was its midwife and breathed life into it, and which also has anti-Blackness in its DNA? (p. 10)

The Episcopal Church, via its descent from the Church of England, the mother of the Anglican tradition, is an institutional branch of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Though what is today the Episcopal Church was formed through specific actions of individuals at a particular time, its Anglican heritage, through various historical circumstances, goes back to the time of the apostles, who themselves were ordered by Christ for gospel ministry. And the ministry of Christ was and is anchored within God’s master plan, which decrees that every nation shall come to the rising of God’s light (Isa. 60:3). Race, a human construct, is a foreign concept to God’s desire and will for the world.

If Anglican Christianity is rooted in apostolic tradition, its teachings passed down from Christ to the apostles to us, then the Episcopal Church, an Anglican Christian tradition, does not have anti-Blackness as a fundamental value. We see this in the way that remnant Black Episcopalians after the Civil War remained Episcopalians due to their interpretation of Anglicanism’s catholicity. They rightly saw in and interpreted from the Church’s catholic theology God’s embrace of all persons.

The Episcopal Church’s claim of being part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church requires nonconformity to this world through the transformation of minds, recognizing that all people are one in Jesus (Rom. 12:2; Gal. 3:28). As Harold Lewis notes in his Yet with a Steady Beat, Black Episcopalians have reminded their denomination through their very presence of the actual fullness of catholicity.

The 1979 prayer book, which firmly situated the Episcopal Church’s worship in the catholic tradition, aims to bring that heritage’s key claims to life in practical action. As Marion Hatchett notes in his important commentary, the liturgy’s central focus is the death and resurrection of Jesus, remembered and renewed through the worshiping community’s action.

The flexibility of the prayer book’s rubrics allows for a greater diversity in words and actions, highlighting the gathering of all races into the Church’s life. Recalling Jesus’ universal sacrifice, the liturgy transcends the world’s racial classifications and limits. There are many rooms in God’s house, all equal in value (John 14:2).

Fisher-Stewart is, though, right that anti-Blackness is part of our church. The Episcopal Church’s anti-Blackness is because of its members, not its theology or liturgy. Many Episcopalians have not lived up to their tradition’s precepts. Actions have not always matched with the catholic theology Episcopalians have professed and taught.

Human sin is what has made the Episcopal Church complicit with racism. That complicity has been passed down to successive generations of Episcopalians. Sometimes the complicity was intentional; sometimes it was unconscious. Nonetheless, the complicity has marred the experience of many. Fisher-Stewart’s book helps us see this.

From Fisher-Stewart comes the call for all Episcopalians to live out our Lord’s prayer that we be one as he and God the Father are one (John 17:22). The fellowship Christ calls us to have with others is meant to make us a distinctive people, the distinction designed to draw others into the eternal fellowship we have with God.

Here I note Fisher-Stewart’s second suggestion from her “Sending Words,” namely to “challenge single-race churches to expand their base through active evangelism.” Though she frames this toward every single-race parish, I think it particularly prudent for single minority-race parishes to ponder. There are legitimate reasons, historical and otherwise, for the existence of minority-race parishes.

Yet if we are asking white Episcopalians to make welcome space for minorities in their naves, should not single minority-race parishes do the same as part of the Church’s quest to become beloved community? Are the days of single minority-race parishes coming to an end? Are we already at those days?

Fisher-Stewart’s Black and Episcopalian is a timely book. It is a good reminder in these times for all of us to live by what we profess as Episcopalians. God is pushing us to be better than what we have been before. He is beckoning us to work toward and live by his master plan for all of creation. “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love” (2 Tim. 1:7). If we will live by this truth, then we don’t have to be so-and-so and Episcopalian. We can fully be, in the words of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement.

 

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