In the approach to the U.S. political elections, often in quiet conversations, we began to sense rising anxiety and fear in the voices of many spiritual leaders. People expressed concern — or even dread — thinking about the divisive, racist and hateful speech that had emerged in previous elections.
For those who lead congregations, there was the challenging and complex reality of offering both pastoral and prophetic ministry while at the same time assessing their own vulnerability and risk in this season.
A study published in 2024 by the Religion and Social Change Lab of Duke Divinity School reported that the almost 1,100 United Methodist congregations in North Carolina are theologically and politically diverse. This creates a “purple church,” in which people are often sitting and serving across the aisles from siblings in Christ who think differently from them.
Certain religious communities are gifted in navigating their mission in public and political spaces. The historically Black church is a noted exemplar. More recently, conservative evangelical congregations have influenced electoral politics. The mainline church, in which United Methodism is situated, has had neither a consistent voice nor a meaningful presence in political life, even though UMC churches are often anchor institutions at the heart of their communities.
Yet as the study notes, the mixed political affiliations of our UMC membership aren’t just a source of tension. They also offer an opportunity for the two sides to engage with each other. Indeed, local churches remain one of the few settings where such conversations can occur.
What would it mean for a purple church to enter faithfully into a contentious political election? And how could we hear the voice of Jesus in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”(Matthew 5:9), as both command and assurance?
To equip us in our faithful witness as peacemakers, the Peace Building Ministries of the Western North Carolina Conference launched the Purple Church Initiative in August 2024. This initiative offered a practical, intentional means of fostering peace in our differences. The resources included training for 20 clergy and laity using the 3 Practice Circles method, access to a Politics & Faith town hall in Charlotte, and digitally available guidelines for being a peaceful presence at the polls.
The core of the Purple Church Initiative was a free downloadable resource kit with weekly worship planning, Bible study, prayer guides and social media called Conversation Across the Aisles. At the end, members were invited to sign a Peace on Purpose pledge card to encourage them to be ambassadors of peace within their families, congregations and communities.
We estimate that a third of the churches in the Western North Carolina Conference engaged the Conversation Across the Aisles through sermon series, in Sunday school classes and small groups, and through weekly social media posts.
As part of this effort, Bishop Kenneth H. Carter Jr. preached a sermon across the region in the summer and fall called “Loving God, Loving My Neighbor and Loving My Country,” in which he connected Jesus’ teaching from two passages in Matthew 22: on paying taxes to Caesar (verses 15-22) and on the greatest commandments (verses 34-40).
The sermon was a reflection on democracy and equality rooted in the image of God in each person, and in it Carter distinguished between patriotism and Christian nationalism. He delivered this message in various ways, including in a video released a week before the election and as part of worship resources for a prayer service for peaceful elections.
We both heard anecdotally that the initiative was a success. In a rural county in western North Carolina, the chairperson of a political party said the Purple Church Initiative had opened conversations within his congregation. His community had been hit by Hurricane Helene, and political polarization was contributing to suspicion and a heightened ethos of violence in this difficult time. Through the initiative, people in the church and community engaged in healing conversations, he said.
In another instance, the pastor of a thriving urban church led the congregation through the weekly sermon series and offered small group discussions. Participants said they were grateful and relieved to have the sacred space and time to step away from their usual echo chambers and were able to have holy conversations across differences.
We know it’s not a perfect solution; we’ve heard criticism that the Purple Church Initiative allows people to avoid the hard conversations that love requires. Our experience has been different, however. We saw that for many congregations, the initiative offered an intentional process and context for neighbors to move toward one another. They could express deeply held convictions while finding unity in their core identity in Christ and in our Wesleyan tradition.
The idea for the initiative was to offer conversation starters, not conversation stoppers. We hope people will continue to engage in even deeper and more challenging dialogue moving forward. We know the election isn’t the end; it’s a beginning. And of course, we are still a purple church.
In his sermon “Catholic Spirit,” John Wesley said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?” To love alike requires us to be in genuine relationships that move beyond ignoring — or worse, silencing — different opinions. It requires us to engage in a conversation across the aisles that moves beyond keeping the peace to being ambassadors of peace.
Moving forward, we must boldly reclaim that our identity is not rooted in any political affiliation but instead in the beloved community. As disciples commissioned to transform the world, we must pledge our allegiance to Jesus Christ and to the kinship of God that welcomes the stranger, embraces the disenfranchised and cares for the least of these. This is our unifying mission.
Now more than ever, our communities need to experience our faithful witness as United Methodists who make peace, not just keep it, by working together to be of one heart, notwithstanding our differences.
We know the election isn’t the end; it’s a beginning. And of course, we are still a purple church.
After being expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives for engaging in protest for gun reform, Rep. Justin J. Pearson demonstrated that his work is not just on behalf of the people or even just with the people; his work is Black faith embodied.
The Sunday following his expulsion, Pearson preached an Easter sermon in which he made clear that he’d mastered the homiletical genius and the sociopolitical hermeneutic of hope often found in conscious or prophetic Black preaching. And he is in good company.
He is a descendant of liberating faith traditions that have marked their identity by the life of a revolutionary Jesus resurrected in these contemporary civil rights movements.
Across generations, Black preachers have often been the voice, face and front-line leaders of freedom struggles. That truth remains evident in Pearson’s work as grassroots organizer, nonprofit founder, state representative and invigorating preacher whose audience crosses socioeconomic and racial lines.
Pearson appears to recognize this truth, as he began his sermon by calling the names of his own ancestors — Annie Ruth, Flossie, Evaline, Lavenia, Gwen, Kimberly, Jason — and the great cloud of witnesses who have taught us what it means to believe that “the true measure of a [person] is not how [that person] behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how [that person] stands at times of controversy and challenges.”
Though the myth of inevitable progress coupled with our violent realities may make the future appear bleak, I am encouraged by the voices of my peers across the nation, including the public faces such as Pearson and his fellow state representative Justin Jones, as well as by the quieter workers who are also making major contributions to freedom struggles.
I’ve personally worked with leaders such as the Rev. Kazimir Brown of the Poor People’s Campaign and the Rev. Kendal McBroom, the director of civil and human rights at the General Board of Church and Society of the UMC. They are the evidence that the spirit of Black liberation theology is still moving among us.
I’m inspired by what I am witnessing.
I watched the events in Tennessee unfold, and it seemed as if half the world stopped. I was reminded of the power and purpose of our proclamations, the possibility of realized liberation as a result of liberating theologies.
Many people are moved by the sounds of Black preaching, the oratorical passions and homiletical theater of it all. But in these traditions, the words must be embodied. The Black preaching tradition is a matter of prophetic proclamation that begins in individual study and does not conclude unless or until the sermonic moment has been embodied. Both speaker and hearer become the word daily lived into the world as co-laborers with God in efforts to usher in a more just world.
No matter where we find ourselves after the Sunday morning gathering, what we believe about who God is and how God is at work in the world as a result of that moment will dictate how we engage the world around us. Engaging that experience responsibly is especially weighted for Black faith leaders who have positional authority in particular occupations.
Though the House floor is not an inherently spiritual space (or prophetic in its intended work), there is a spirit that is inextricably linked to the faith in public witness that Black leaders carry with them into diverse occupational spaces, because our proximity to power never saves us from death-dealing politics and policies. Therefore, to be a politician and descendant of Black preaching is also to be the personification of prophetic witness in the face of injustice.
The March 27 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville is not only one of 163 mass shootings in the U.S. as of this writing in 2023, but it is couched within a history and culture of gun violence across generations. Be it by the bullets of police, of neighbors, of racist vigilantes, of white supremacists with Nazi manifestos, of hooded evangelicals or of “friends” on camping trips, Black people are familiar with the violence being inflicted upon the nation right now.
Furthermore, we are familiar with the apathy and inaction of legislators who serve as co-conspirators with the lobbyists, corporations and millionaire classes that benefit from the crosses we’re all being forced to carry.
While it is imperative that we recognize the unique struggle of children being gunned down in schools, it is also important for us to recognize the interconnectedness of our suffering and the shared source of that suffering.
In the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. … This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
Our hope, therefore, may be found in our collective will not to stand down. What took place in the Tennessee House is evidence of what could and should take place across the U.S.
The expulsion of Pearson and Jones from the legislative body coincided with Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday and signifies the hope we embody when we choose to reject the cross in all its death-dealing variations.
We are surrounded by crosses, and those crosses must be dismantled. Second Amendment crosses upon which our nation’s children are sacrificed. Crosses of capitalism upon which the poor and dispossessed are hung. Crosses of white supremacy upon which those who voice dissent are nailed.
Black and brown people who are being sacrificed on the altar of power for the sake of the crosses of dominion must be saved. We are living in existential hells from which we can be redeemed only when we choose to resurrect the spirit and ideology of a crucified but resurrected Jesus.
Pearson and his colleagues are standing within a lineage and legacy of Black faith leaders who have done just that. They are doing the work of moving the pulpit into the public sphere.
This begs the question: Who are we when the hour of “worship” has ended and we are surrounded by the spirits of Golgotha’s hill? When we find ourselves drunk with congregational praise, visions of Calvary should sober us into righteous indignation — until freedom.