PCUSA Official Spreads Divisive Post-Election Discourse

The newly selected Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA), Rev. Dr. J Herbert Nelson II, recently released a statement about the presidential election entitled, “When Incivility Becomes the Norm.”

Nelson characterized his missive as a “response to the violence on America’s streets after the election of Mr. Donald Trump as President–Elect of the United States of America.” One might think, upon reading this introduction, that the venerable Reverend Doctor would be making an appeal for peace and calm. After all, peaceful protests are a proud legacy of the church, while violence and riots are generally discouraged by Christians.

Unfortunately, Rev. Dr. Nelson failed to discourage the violent protests even once in his 2000+ word letter (replete with seven footnotes). Instead, he declared his hope that the protests would pave the way for a particular public policy agenda that he favors.

He concedes that “President-Elect Trump is our newly elected leader,” but also characterizes the election as undemocratic and rigged by corporate interests. He also exhorts churches to undermine a not-yet-formulated immigration policy of the President-elect by harboring deportees in their “basements.”

The only instances where Rev. Dr. Nelson explicitly mentions violence is when he links Trump to an imagined future violence: “pain, suffering, and yes, death, which will be wrought by the promised policies of the incoming administration.”

At the heart of the letter is Rev. Dr. Nelson’s vision for “coalition building and community organizing, [where] we have an opportunity to create a vision of shared prosperity, safety, dignity, and justice that is truly inclusive and compelling to a broad base.”

The irony is completely lost on the PCUSA leader that a church that fails to be compelling to its own congregants—as evidenced by the steady exodus from the denomination—is now dispensing advice on how to grow a winning constituent base in politics. The denomination is becoming a parody of itself.  The Babylon Bee couldn’t write a better headline!

But perhaps the height of irony is that the maligned President-elect was baptized in the PCUSA and claimed to be affiliated with the denomination early in his campaign. The PCUSA could have used Trump’s declaration as an opportunity to demonstrate the sort of grace and benevolence that Christ demonstrated to all sinners. Instead the PCUSA explored whether or not they could remove him from their rolls (he had no active membership anywhere, so they were not able to revoke it).

The saddest part of this letter is that many Presbyterians, myself included, wish the divisiveness and animosity directed toward Trump was restricted to our most brash and notorious political leaders. Unfortunately, it is not. It has been a little more than a year since the Presbyter from the local Presbytery came into my small PCUSA church in Michigan to publicly dismiss the pastor during a Sunday service and also invite all those in attendance who were unhappy with this decision to kindly leave.

My pastor’s transgression? He held certain scripturally-based opinions that had, of late, gone out of style in the PCUSA.

Unfortunately, my experience is not uncommon. The majority of my old congregation and the pastor have since regrouped under the ECO banner. And while we don’t all agree on politics, we have learned a valuable lesson: why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?

If the tenor of the election has taught us anything, it is that Christian ideals are needed in our public discourse now more than ever before. As long as Christian leaders, like those in the PCUSA, continue to impugn half of the electorate while encouraging violent protests from others, the church will be appear as divided and hopeless as the electorate itself.

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Peter Johnson serves as External Relations Officer at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He graduated from New York University where he studied English and philosophy. After graduation, he lived and worked in Africa and in South America, where he taught beekeeping to rural subsistence farmers. Before joining the Development team at Acton, he held various positions with the National Capital Area Council, Boy Scouts of America. Peter is married to Ashley, a teacher, and has three children.