WASHINGTON -- Jane Dealy was one of 1,000 Christians standing in front of the White House on Thursday night, all holding tiny candles and saying "Jesus" in unison in the direction of America's seat of power. Dealy had wanted for weeks to attend the vigil, but only felt confident to say yes last weekend, when she heard a certain wedding sermon.
Along with the rest of the world, Dealy heard the sermon Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry gave at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, a passionate, positive, Jesus-filled homily about love as a healing balm for the world.
"That was it!" Dealy, 78, beamed from the White House plaza, after the vigil. "I said, 'I'm going down there!' " Her primary concern is the prejudice stirred up in the United States in the last couple years, "and Bishop Curry can change people's hearts. He's done more for Christianity [with the wedding sermon] than anyone I can remember."
In 14 minutes (the length of a sermon that was either too long or just right, depending on one's perspective), Curry rocketed to the top of what in 2018 is an extremely short list: Celebrities of the religious left.
People in airports are chasing him for selfies. Media from Fox to the BBC are doing interviews back to back. Just by taking the podium Thursday night before the vigil -- not even speaking yet -- Curry triggered a 30-second standing ovation among the packed National City Christian Church in downtown Washington.
The 65-year-old priest is now the repository of hope for Christians who want to reclaim their faith. In fact, that was the name of the event Thursday -- "Reclaiming Jesus."
"This is not a protest march!" Curry preached at the pre-vigil worship service at National City. "We are not a partisan group, we are not a left-wing group, we are not a right-wing group. We are a Jesus Movement!"
Anytime anyone used the word "march," Curry or his staff would correct them. Yet even if the program and speakers never used the word "Trump," the president and the negative forces unleashed by the 2016 election were all over the hour-long service.
"Racial bigotry is a brutal denial of the image of God. White nationalism and racism are in our nation on many fronts, including at the highest levels," said Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, one of the speakers at the service.
"We reject the language and politics of political leaders who would have growing attacks on immigrants and refugees," said Tony Campolo, a sociologist and evangelical pastor, to the crowd. "We won't accept the neglect of the well-being of low-income families with children. I know it's easy to get discouraged, but I've read the Bible and I know how it ends. We win!"
"We reject the pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life. The way of Jesus is the truth," boomed the Rev. Walter Brueggermann, hoping to drive home without names.
For his part, Curry says his role models for religion is public life are an odd couple: Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. King, he said, focused on building a world where people wouldn't get hurt and abandoned. Graham, he said, was all about finding out how people related to God. The goal is not to think in this binary way, public action or faith, but both, Curry told the Post.
The events Thursday spun out of work a group of top progressive Christian clergy, including Curry.
The Rev. James Perra, an Episcopal priest outside Baltimore, has a bumper stick on his car with Curry's words: "I'm from the Episcopal Church of the Jesus Movement." To Perra, that's about the idea that not everyone needs to be in lockstep on policies and strategies. They just need to be committed to the enduring love of Jesus.
While Curry has been known through his career for speaking up on issues from voting rights to gun control, people said he has been focused, since becoming presiding bishop over the Episcopal denomination, on evangelizing -- for the end goal of having us all "reconciled with our creator at the end of whatever this is."
Religion on 05/26/2018