Confronting the truth about our people is hard. Especially when the truth is about the evil of empire, oppression, and persecution. But that’s no excuse to avoid or deflect–we must engage with it.
Arrogance and dealing with the enduring terror of empire
“Anglicans persecuted everybody.”
I felt my body squirm. The hairs on the back of the neck and the sudden itchiness of the seat, the telltale signs of guilt, shame; my fragility.
It was easy to dismiss, of course. His family was Quaker. Of course, that’s the narrative he grew up with. I could easily cast aside the comments as biased; their frequency and offhandedness. Their projection and decontextualized character.
I could’ve chosen to ignore them. But I didn’t.
I embraced them and listened. For whether or not these were my ancestors, this is my church. And these are truths. Truths about the Church of England in the 16th and 17th Centuries and about all empires.
While I can choose to claim it, debate it, or ignore it, I can’t change history. But I can change the future.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The speaker was Jacob Eubanks, Assistant Manager of History and Genealogy and the St. Louis County Library. He had come to speak to local genealogists about “English Church Denominations and their Records” and I was there to learn some of the stuff we don’t bother with in seminary.
Friends came with me, curious and hopeful. From the handout, I could tell this was going to be rough. But the words stung anyway.
Since he was speaking to genealogists and people researching family histories, his focus was on the records and where to find them in England. So for him, the religious part is secondary—it’s how we get to the records. This is no doubt true for most of the crowd.
Of course, for me, it was the opposite.
To make sense of 16th Century English records requires talking about church history because inside the church is the only place you’ll find them. And there were no records before the Church of England. So we have to start back where we always start. Henry VIII.
The succeeding 90 minutes dealt with denominationalism and why it is so hard to find certain records in England. For the presenter and perhaps several people in the room, it was a cathartic sharing. But for us, it was the exorcising of demons.
Anglican Church Politics is Always Sexy
Anglican Church history is really sexy for church nerds. Quite literally, given Henry. But it is also unique in a way we rarely appreciate.
While the Protestant Reformation was raging on the mainland, England (and Henry himself) was trying to keep it at bay. Reform was bloody and destructive and whole national identities took to reform. There was no “good side” in the Reformation. Windows were broken, books burned, sacred spaces destroyed, people killed…
But against this backdrop of a violent theological revolution on the mainland which led to persecution and unspeakable violence throughout Europe, England was doing something different. It made a national reformation by government, not theology, and made the Church of England synonymous with the government.
It’s hard for many of our brothers and sisters in Christ to see the full extent of what this means.
To some, it is the outlawing of Catholicism and Protestantism and therefore the creator of denominationalism. To the state and the church, it is the epitome of true catholicity: that all people of every faith have a spiritual home in the church: and the solution to denominationalism.
This is the challenge of division: not that division is evident, but that we can’t even agree on what an offense is.
The Trouble With Persecution
This is what struck me about hearing about persecution in the Church of England: it wasn’t offered in the context of the Reformation, the English monarchy and the pre-Enlightenment period.
When we hear about religious persecution, we imagine today’s religious zealots; perhaps those in the Middle East who have wrested control over a state from a secular authority. Or maybe we imagine our own zealots mandating the Ten Commandments become the basis for a county’s rule of law.
When our minds search for modern examples, we might land on theocratic takeovers of democratic governments in the 20th Century: places of great liberty squashed by religious power. But England is more like the opposite.
This is a monarchy taking control of a religious institution. There is no democracy. No free determination and liberty of the individual at any point under Henry. These aren’t popular concepts of the age. We can’t think of 18th century personal, democratic ideals in 1538, especially in the world’s next great empire.
These civil acts of control like the Act of Supremacy or the Act of Uniformity weren’t based in Anglican theology or a mythic sense of conscience: it came from the empire’s desire for control and order. And the easiest way to do that was to establish as the church universal the churches the people were a part of already.
Avoiding Truth
I appreciated the challenge Mr. Eubanks was facing in the discussion. And I know what I was asking of him inside my own mind. I really just wanted 2 minutes here and another 2 minutes there. A bit more Reformation context is all.
But as I filled in these relatively minor gaps in Mr. Eubanks’ excellent presentation in my mind, I forced myself to go back to what he was saying.
Yes, the spirit of self-determination which inspired the nonconformists is a universal attribute in human nature, but it was also rebellious and new. The spirit of the Enlightenment, the discovery age, the creation of nation states and the Great Reformation represented a multiple-centuries-long struggle to redefine Christianity and a New World Order.
And the Church of England is an easy target for anachronistic critique. It’s because I know that, that I redoubled my efforts to hear him.
This is what the mind does. It defends and deflects. It demands accountability from everybody else to ease the discomfort.
And while it was hard to hear, I listened.
I listened to how my church home treated Roman Catholics and non-conforming churches, like the Quakers, the Brownists, and Baptists.
It was about listening to that experience without defense or dismissal. Because a lot of what England did to its people actually was wrong.
Was it done for exclusively theological reasons? No. But still wrong.
Was it done for the imposition of conformity on everybody for the benefit of the country? Yes. Also still wrong.
My mother church acted with hubris and arrogance. It embodied the character many of its people condemned in the Roman church. And it was the willing arm of empire.
I needed to make that confession.
The Dirty Laundry
Growing up in a Polish Catholic community in northern Michigan, I was used to being the outsider; the one nobody heard of and whose name (Episcopal) nobody knew how to pronounce.
The ensuing years full of taunts of decline from Baptist friends and traditionalists in my own denomination have never given me the personal experience of power. And the persistent preaching of the gospel of love has often left me feeling the other end of the persecution dynamic.
It was surprising for me then to hear how Quaker the state of Indiana is. I’m not used to hearing about a denominational group which now seems so quaintly marginal. But, if we’re honest, it’s not unlike my own Episcopal Church that way.
Watching other people hear my church’s dirty laundry was hard. But I’m also getting kind of used to it. And I resisted the impulse to correct just as much as to dismiss. Because there was nothing to correct.
It was all true.
The struggle, for me, was its incompleteness. Not because I wanted to defend my church or attack others, but because I wanted to learn from this and I wanted us all to see how none of us is really learning from this history. I wanted to take the story even further and build toward something new with this as a kind of ad hoc truth and reconciliation moment.
It’s about power and control, which are the tools of Empire, not Jesus. And I longed for the room to free itself from the clutches of Empire.
This struggle with control, even over the conversation itself, is the work of Empire, even in the infighting over church autonomy. So its the church as Empire rather than the church as the way of Jesus.
It’s About Empire, Not Jesus
So the willfulness to wield power for control, the mantles of religious persecution used to justify division and separation, and the defense of individual liberty and the will to control spoken from the same mouth are the voice of Empire. That voice is alive and well today and nowhere near exclusive to the Church of England.
The sense of grievance as justification for power alone could explain the rise of the Religious Right, the Anglican schism, and the Masterpiece Cakeshop lawsuit. The self-justified retribution and discrimination by whites, the wealthy, and southern evangelicals would be astoundingly sad if it weren’t the same desire for power.
Even the slogan which predates the one about making America great (easily reduced to MAGA) had an earlier life as a cry for an empire theology of American exceptionalism. It, of course, was an update of American-style manifest destiny. The long tail of empire masquerading as God-ordained stretches all the way back…
Like Jim Crow, slavery, the trail of tears, this will to power, control, and while we’re at it, to decimate the other is not theological; it’s the siren song of empire. Empire is evil.
And the gospel is our joining in God’s rejection of empire.
The next morning, I confessed.
I didn’t do these things over 300-400+ years ago. That’s not why I confessed.
Confession isn’t just for me and what I have done. It is also for the things I didn’t do intentionally, the things done on my behalf and the things I’ve benefited from.
It’s for beginning reconciliation with those who were wronged or separated from us. So we confess to bring families together and bring the body of Christ into wholeness.
Confession is the antidote to the empire.
I Confess Again
I woke with a confession in my heart.
And in the news was the ongoing fallout from a disastrous G7 Summit with the United States offering the arrogance of empire to our neighbors.
I make my confession again.
Hearing my friend’s pain from depression, and then the slander he received from his own brother wounded me, and left me feeling powerless. Even as I suppressed the desire to “fix” it.
I make my confession again.
Responding to a racist comment with a measure of compassion while resisting the urge to call him a racist scumbag and I just know he’s still going to respond with fragility. And when he does…
I make my confession again.
And I’m reminded once again of Jane Elliott, teacher and anti-racism educator, whose simple question perplexes me still.
“I want every white person in this room who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our black citizens. If you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society, please stand.”
When no one stands, she invites the audience to confront the fact that they have just confessed to knowing the system is unequal, unjust, and unfair. And because we know, we have no moral excuse for allowing it.
I make my confession.
And then I stand up.
Confession allows us to confront our own pain and complicity.
Not for the sake of shame, but to release it.
We can’t get over the sin of racism until we break the system which perpetuates it. Pretending it isn’t there isn’t Christian. Ignoring it isn’t Christian. Breaking away and forming a new church isn’t Christian.
The only Christian response to racism is confession and reconciliation. It is listening and giving up control in favor of a bigger, healthier, more just community in the vision of God.
Empire is the greatest sin in the church. The power of control which led to slavery, patriarchy, oppression, and manipulation and continues to oppress and demean the dignity of millions of people today is our sin.
It’s the sin which created denominationalism and continues to expand it. It’s a sin shared by the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. Shared by Orthodox and Protestant churches, too. By the Puritans and the Brownists and the Quakers; by Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists. And of course, non-denominationalists and independent Christians.
Empire is practiced by the faithful and atheist, white supremacists and anti-fascists. The desire for power, control, and supremacy is humanity’s greatest sin.
That’s why we confess. Because that’s where reconciliation starts. Because in confession, we abandon our excuses and our lust for power and control and reach for something much more potent: vulnerability and intimacy.
Confession is the first step on the path. A long path, but a necessary one. The path we’re all called to walk in the journey of a lifetime. The path of love, compassion, and mercy.