Liberal think tank Center for American Progress has released its annual list of 21 faith leaders to watch in 2021.
Compiled by Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative Director Maggie Siddiqi and Fellow Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, the list highlights a series of interfaith figures active in promoting politically progressive causes. Unsurprisingly, many of the Christians on the list also espouse theology outside of historic Christian orthodoxy.
Readers of this blog will recognize disputed United Methodist Bishop Karen Oliveto of the Mountain Sky Annual Conference. Oliveto, the first United Methodist bishop in a same-sex marriage, remains deeply controversial within Methodism for both her manner of life (contrary to the United Methodist Book of Discipline) and the way she was elected by the denomination’s radical (and numerically declining) Western Jurisdiction.
CAP cites Oliveto’s lesbian union and her previous role serving as senior pastor of radical Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco, a congregation that departed the denomination following a settlement at the conclusion of a two-year legal battle.
“United Methodists are called to a life of personal holiness and social justice—you can’t separate one from the other,” Oliveto told Siddiqi and Graves-Fitzsimmons.
In 2018, a heresy complaint was filed against Oliveto, who in 2017 encouraged people to take an essentially Unitarian view of Jesus Christ being “as human as you and me.” Oliveto took this to the point of Christ being sinful and having “his bigotries and prejudices,” which he needed another person to teach him to give up in what Oliveto called “his conversion.” You can read more here about what she said.
Blog readers will also recognize two new additions to the CAP list: Jemar Tisby (a member of the Presbyterian Church in America and a popular author with evangelicals) and Roman Catholic Anthea Butler. Both are prominent in discussions of Critical Race Theory and broad condemnation of American evangelicals as racist.
Derryck Green recently reviewed for IRD Butler’s book White Evangelical Racism here, a book which he said (along with Tisby’s The Color of Compromise) was among recent works chiefly “written to amplify and reinforce the indictment that white evangelicals are inveterately racist.”
Butler writes that “nineteenth-century racial practices of white supremacy and violence would affect how twentieth-century evangelical leadership engaged African Americans and their forthcoming quest for civil rights, justice, and full citizenship.”
Green notes Butler’s repeated claims that contemporary evangelicals preserve their interpersonal and institutional racism – without citing clear contemporaneous examples specifying which evangelicals, or how evangelicals are worthy of such defamation.
The CAP list also highlights the Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews of Faith in Action (formerly PICO National Network) and Board President of the Alliance of Baptists, an early liberal offshoot of the Southern Baptist Convention following that denomination’s conservative resurgence. This selection might be a bit of an overreach, even as Mathews is highlighted (in his own words) as “a product of the prophetic tradition of the Black Church.” The Alliance of Baptists isn’t a majority-black denomination, rather it is primarily a grouping of aging white liberals. The denomination was an early proponent of same-sex marriage and is a member of the National Council of Churches, but hasn’t updated its membership numbers of exactly 65,000 since 2009 (a longstanding IRD observation: if a church’s reported membership numbers are unchanging across several years and end in multiple zeros, they aren’t trustworthy). I’m unconvinced this selection reflects the future of the Black Church.
Two Presbyterian Church (USA) clergy also make the CAP list: The Rev. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, and The Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort, co-minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis, Maryland.
Interestingly, there are no Episcopal, Lutheran, or Congregationalist emerging leaders on the list this year. Those omissions might be just as interesting as those whom the CAP list spotlights.
You can view the complete list from CAP here.
Comment by Tom on May 20, 2021 at 5:24 pm
“We are all Muslims.”
But she is apparently ignorant of the Muslim view of women.
Comment by David on May 20, 2021 at 7:21 pm
“Love thy enemies.”
Comment by Palamas on May 21, 2021 at 12:20 am
Tom: She is ignorant of a great many things, that among them, as well as the Muslim view of homosexuality.
Comment by Dan W on May 21, 2021 at 7:18 am
¨We are all…
… posing for mug shots in church
… exiting the UMC as quickly as possible
… pretending to be UM bishops
… shaking our heads
(Yes I enjoyed this)
Comment by Star Tripper on May 21, 2021 at 8:48 am
It is so fun when these faux-Christian leaders try the “Christ was a bigot” argument. Let us set this up as a logical syllogism:
Major premise: Christ was without sin
Minor premise: Christ held racist views with example being the conversations with the Samarian woman in Mathew, Mark, and Luke
Conclusion: Racism is not a sin.
Comment by Douglas Ehrhardt on May 21, 2021 at 10:03 am
Does this woman have any idea of the genocide that is going on in Africa brought on by Islamic extremists? What insanity!
Comment by Bill Baker on May 21, 2021 at 10:30 am
They are not insane, they are willfully deluded. It is simply what God said in Romans 1. God has given them over to their choice of rebellion. They have embraced a “reprobate” or “depraved” mind and God has given them over to it. This is far more than mental illness, or logic or thinking. This is spiritual. It apostasy. It is evil.
Comment by Douglas Ehrhardt on May 21, 2021 at 4:05 pm
Totally agree, Bill.
Comment by Odell Horne on May 22, 2021 at 1:49 pm
Unfortunately, the CAP’s binary view of the world is simple minded. Jemar Tisby is neither a progressive nor a liberal. Instead, he is an evangelical who has a complaint against other believers, just like Christians did throughout the New Testament (Acts 6, Acts 15, 1 Corinthians 6, etc . . .). His analysis with reference to past events in the book The Color of Compromise is historically accurate, while the abstract philosophical and theological arguments that are made against such evidence are non-sequitur and ad hominem. Additionally, a critique of Critical Race Theory without a critique of racism in America is hypocrisy!
Comment by Loren J Golden on May 22, 2021 at 8:05 pm
“Center for American Progress”
Progress…toward what goal? CAP is essentially a secular organization with this-worldly goals (i.e., improving the lot of people living in this world), but with no eternal goals (making people living in this world fit to live in the world to come). “Faith Leaders to Watch,” in CAP’s estimation, are only valued insofar as they contribute to CAP’s this-worldly goals. Yet there seems to be no appreciation on CAP’s part that, with respect to the “faith” aspect of these “Faith Leaders to Watch,” when the First Great Commandment takes a back seat to the Second, as it patently has in Oliveto’s case, the “faith” is diminished, and the “faith” community in which these individuals are ostensibly “leaders,” languishes. Hence, as noted above, the Western Jurisdiction, which Oliveto ostensibly leads, is the smallest and fastest declining jurisdiction in the UMC.
“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Ps. 127.1)
Critical Race Theory, which is the favored approach CAP has toward dealing with racial inequalities in American society, will not bring about CAP’s utopian vision of “a land of boundless opportunity, where…peace and shared global prosperity” are enjoyed by all. CRT has no room for grace or forgiveness in its core philosophy. The new bogeyman of the “White Evangelical” is to be made to wear the proverbial scarlet letter of racism, with no hope of escaping its stigma. If CRT were to become fully implemented in this land, the only thing that would truly change is that yet another form of oppression will be enacted across this land. Bitter feelings will most certainly ensue, animosity toward the classes of people CRT purports to help will only increase, more problems in society will be created and none currently existing (including racism) will be truly solved, and there will be no peace.
“They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.” (Jer. 6.14)
There is hope for America, hope that injustices can be corrected without creating new ones to take their places, or worse, to join them. But it cannot happen through man-made solutions like CRT. Nor can it begin with those outside the Christian faith.
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (II Chron. 7.14)
And again,
“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jer. 29.7)
And again,
“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” (I Tim. 2.1-2)
Comment by Brother Thom on May 25, 2021 at 8:29 am
Great article. I have a few thoughts. First, if you do anything in violation of church law (the discipline), then it’s clearly not sanctioned by the church. That’s easily understood until we get to Oliveto’s appointment which is in violation of church law. Liberals believe her appointment to be appropriate, but the reality is it’s inappropriate and violates church law. Simple reasoning tells me she’s not a bishop at all, she is just getting paid as if she was.
Second, the notion and false narrative being pushed by liberals in the UMC that whites are racists plays into another false narrative that is critical race theory. If you believe everything that is reported in UMC News, why would you be a United Methodist in the first place? Liberals who control UMC News seem to be trying to convince readers that the UMC is the most racists denomination in the US. This is as false as another narrative they have pushed which is that traditionalists have been unwelcoming of gays in the church. I have pretty much committed the discipline to memory I’ve researched it so often. The 2016 discipline makes it clear the denomination is welcoming of gays. Traditionalists are on record as supporting, following, and living out the discipline. Liberal progressives on the other hand have openly touted their disobedience to the discipline (Oliveto is a good example). Makes me question where these racists are, possibly hiding among liberal progressives?
In all my years in the UMC, I never saw one sign or even a hint of the UMC being unwelcoming of gays, and we had several in our congregation and one in leadership. Additionally, I never saw signs of racism at any congregation I visited. I had the opportunity to preach at an all-black church where I was welcomed as if I were a long-lost relative. It was the highlight of my time in the saddle as a circuit rider. The UMC congregation I was a member of was all white with the exception of the nursery attendant whom every member of the congregation treated as if she was the oldest member of the church. As an active member of Emmaus, I have visited more churches than I’ll be able to count, and I have yet to find the white racists, that liberals at UMC News think permeate the UMC. If all these racists do exist, then I suspect they were the kids that always won at hide and seek.
The bottom line for me is that if you think you need to rewrite the most read, most printed, and most purchased book in the world, then possibly you’re the problem, not the book. If you are not a fan of the Holy Bible, then write your own. If you skipped over the part of the Bible where Jesus said he didn’t come to change the law, but to fulfill it, then you’re obviously into selective reading (another good reason to write your own book). If you prefer a wide path and a wider gate, then how could you possibly be walking with Jesus Christ. I have found the narrow path and narrow gate, keep me closer to Jesus as we walk together.
Comment by Indy Jones on May 26, 2021 at 11:30 am
“We are all Muslim.” Uhm, no. I am Christian. I believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah and God’s son. Muslims do not believe this. They are not followers of Christ. As far as I know, there is no “New Testament” in their Quran. Therefore, they are not Christian and we are not Muslim.
As to Christ being human and sinful: so, you’re going to judge God’s own son, the holiest person ever born, and tell Him *He* is a sinner, eh? Wow. Just … wow. How could he die for our sins if he was sinful himself? Do they even think things through before they open their mouths? My dad used to have a saying for that: “Running your mouth without your brain in gear.” He had another one — “Children should be seen and not heard.” See what happens when we forget the wisdom of our elders when raising our kids?
Comment by binkyxz3 on May 27, 2021 at 12:42 am
Using trite catch-phrases will not get one very far with muslims. Their motto is “convert or die.” We are NOT all muslims.