Wallis, an Evangelical Christian theologian who co-founded the progressive-leaning Sojourners community, reflected on topics he addressed in his most recent book, “The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy” in a Sept. 14 presentation at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral n Downtown Phoenix.
“One reason we are at such a moment right now is because this nation is closer than it’s ever been to a multiracial democracy,” Wallis said. “Do you think the white supremacists are paying attention to that? This is their last battle where everything is at stake, and they’ll do anything and everything to end white minority rule.”
Wallis, who currently serves as the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Chair in Faith and Justice at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, noted that in Galatians, Paul writes that there’s no more Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.
“Here are the most basic pillars of oppression, always there, race, class, gender,” he said.
During a panel discussion after his presentation, Wallis shared how his own father — a World War II veteran — had access to the GI Bill and an FHA loan, allowing his family to succeed.
“When you give people housing and education, you make the middle class. My government made us middle class in the biggest affirmative action program in the history of the country. No Black sailors on his ship got an FHA loan or a GI Bill,” Wallis said.
What’s missing, he said, is a “Theology of Proximity” — interacting with each other makes it more difficult to see someone else as “other.”
“On the immigration question, I’ve seen people from conservative places and cultures, and when they finally encounter that immigrant family personally and see their kids and hear their stories, it changes their stereotypes, their ignorance,” he said. “But this society wants to prevent us from proximity.”
After being challenged about the personal nature of faith, Wallis pointed to the words of the Lord’s Prayer that ask for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven.”
“God is personal but never private,” Wallis said. “Jesus knows everything about everyone in this room and loves us anyway. If that’s not personal, what’s the point? Do we at the pulpit just do papers on issues every Sunday? No, we talk about the Gospel but the Gospel is to save us in order that we can help to bring this new order into the world.”
The idea that faith is private is the ultimate heresy, Wallis said.
“It’s white Christians who do that because to privatize it maintains our privilege in a system that we don’t want to be examined,” he said. “So, my Gospel is personal and social, and it wants to change me, and it wants to change the world through people like us.”
The Right Rev. Jennifer A. Reddall, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, which co-sponsored the event, first became familiar with Wallis’ work when she read his book “God’s Politics” in 2006.
“Rev. Wallis is an amazing author and speaker, and any time that you can get someone who will provoke people and share their faith and inspire them, I think is great,” Reddall said.
Bhikkhu Vasu Bandhu, an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk, serves as the interfaith manager for the Arizona Faith Network.
“It’s so important to have these conversations on Christian nationalism (and) learn how to navigate, to live in harmony, to live in peace,” Bandhu said.
The Rev. Canon Erika von Haaren, who serves as priest-in-charge — or interim pastor — for Trinity Cathedral, said she was moved by the idea that faith leads to hope, which then leads to action and change.
On a practical level, the cathedral community takes that action, von Haaren said, in its ministry to the downtown neighborhood, providing food, water, and bus passes to those in need.
“That includes a lot of people that are unhoused, that are struggling.” Erika said. “It’s deeply embedded and ingrained in this community to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to try and work for making sure that indeed all of them count, all of them feel like they have been given a sense of dignity when they come through our doors.”
Edited by Shi Bradley, Anyon Fak-McDaniels
