From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of the most important things we do, as Christians, is spend time looking at how our outward manner of life is, or is not, in sync with the beliefs we profess. This is at the heart of our theology of confession, forgiveness, and amendment of life. That’s a tough task for any of us — in part because it’s very easy to convince ourselves that we are in the right in any given situation. 

Once, in conversation with a friend who was a missionary in Pakistan, I asked him how he approached his conversations with Muslim neighbors in Peshawar. He said, “I always go preparing to discover that I am wrong.” He had the deep hope and belief that his faith was true. He had the confidence in Christ to go abroad and to preach and teach in a place where the Taliban was a daily threat. Yet he did so with the humility and, I would say, the courage to be prepared to be wrong.

Whatever this election brings us in the coming weeks and months, it feels like I need a dose of whatever he had. I need to approach my conversations, interactions, and even my vote with the hope that I’m right but with the humility to be open to being proven wrong. It seems like the greatest threat to democracy right now is the increasing intransigence and polarization we see, hear, and feel every day. 

Evidence, persuasion, and compromise are increasingly treated as irrelevant in the face of ever more divisive rhetoric designed to stoke fear and anger. There is wisdom in humility — there is wisdom in being prepared to be proven wrong.

This is not to say we should operate from a place of fear but that our confidence should be tempered with that holy desire not to just be right but by a deeper desire to be on the side of truth, on the side of hope, and on the side of love. Whatever our politics, the Christian call is to a charity that is deeper than kindness for the sake of getting along — it is a call to see in those with whom we disagree the image of God. That means respecting those with whom we disagree enough to be honest with them and loving them enough to be prepared to be changed by those honest encounters.

The next weeks and months will probably be riven with misinformation, anger, and recrimination. Let’s try, together, to temper our response so that people see in us not one more group caught up in a mad distemper, to steal a phrase, but that they see in us a more humble way of proclaiming truth yet doing so knowing that we may be wrong.

Where we can rest our hope is that our model for what is true, just, and holy has given us himself as our source of truth. So long as we stay true to his desire for justice and his call to loving service, we will find ourselves made bold in proclaiming a love that casts out fear and humble in welcoming the truth — even if that truth makes us more than uncomfortable and especially if it makes us more holy.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert