Ottawa Impact is not done with us (Tribune Version)

I posted the original version of this column several weeks ago. Here is the version the Tribune ran in their print version today, with several updates and revisions. 

As I was working on my absentee ballot for (today’s) election, I was surprised when I hit the school board section and saw some familiar names. Some familiar Ottawa Impact and Ottawa Impact-adjacent names.

Tommy VanHill had previously run as an unabashed Ottawa Impact candidate and lost, and is on the ballot once more as an official Ottawa Impact candidate. Joshua T. Spurr and David Olthof have been endorsed by the chair of the Ottawa Impact-run Ottawa County Republican Party.

Olthof’s social media shows regular posts from the far-right group Restoring Ottawa, which has been behind repeated attacks on our public school system. In his answers to the ONTRAC questionnaire that was sent to all candidates, he is clear that he homeschools his own children.

Spurr’s social media includes a video from May 2023 that has him shooting at Bud Light cans, presumably part of the far-right protest of Bud Light’s brief promotion with transgender TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney. Spurr heard of my concerns, and, to his credit, he reached to me personally. He confirmed that he did indeed post the video shooting cans because of Bud Light’s partnership with Dylan, something that, in his words “was meant to be a funny video.” He said he is not opposed to transgender people in general, just Dylan in particular.

I asked Spurr if he thought that the parent of a trans teenager in our school system would think that was a funny video. He declined to answer, simply saying that “a company protest does not translate into me not treating all kids unequally.” We ended the conversation cordially, with me letting him know I still have concerns and him saying he appreciated keeping lines of communication open.

Though not endorsed by the Ottawa County GOP chair, two other candidates still concerned me as well. Helen Brinkman made news in 2023 as an attorney in Kent County that sought to ban books in school libraries that her clients deemed unsuitable, part of a continued pattern of attacks on books with LGBTQIA+ characters and storylines. She also represented Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, the restaurant owner who refused to follow health department guidelines during the pandemic. One only needs to read the news articles to see the ways that her efforts are part of the larger attacks on the LGBTQIA+ population. In her answers to the ONTRAC questionnaire, she expresses her own support of Ottawa Impact and says she would welcome their endorsement.

Steve Skodack has repeatedly denied his connections to Ottawa Impact and yet his views tend to align with those of the movement. Skodack lost his bid to get on the Grand Haven City Council and apparently now is trying this route of school board candidate instead. However, he has no campaign website and his candidacy page on Facebook still, with only a few days to go before the election (as this column was being written), names him as a City Council candidate, so it’s rather difficult to suss out why he is running for this position.

I was reminded that though Ottawa Impact did indeed lose ground in the recent primary election, that group and those who support their far-right views are far from done with Ottawa County – and that includes Grand Haven.

This is perhaps also a helpful time to remind everyone that the waste, corruption and vengeful governing tactics of Ottawa Impact were not an aberration or something that only happened in our neck of the woods. Ottawa Impact is only one manifestation of a national movement by Christian nationalists seeking to seize local control of counties and school boards.

Much of this movement can be traced to Mike Flynn, who served as Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor for a whopping 22 days until he resigned after it was revealed that he had lied about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador. He pleaded guilty to a felony count of making false statement to the FBI. Before he was sentenced, he was pardoned by Donald Trump.

During the Great Lie, as Donald Trump sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Flynn encouraged the president to silence the press, suspend the Constitution and hold a new election run by the military. When he was deposed about the insurrection on January 6, Mike Flynn repeatedly pleaded the fifth.

After the failure of the insurrection, though, Flynn took to calling for a different approach to seizing control of government. Claiming danger from everything from Critical Race Theory to LGBTQIA+ rights, Flynn began urging Christians around the country to take over their school boards and county commissions in order to stop the “woke” infiltration of these bodies.

As the Associated Press has reported, “Flynn’s movement envisions Christianity as the basis of American life and institutions; where the right to bear arms is paramount; where abortion is illegal; where concepts such as systemic racism and gay or transgender rights have no place in the schools; and where people who disagree are called ‘Marxists,’ or perverts, and are excluded from American civic life.” Sound familiar?

Make no mistake, Mike Flynn and those who share his views will not rest in their attempt to take over local boards and governments. As Ottawa Impact’s brand continues its downward spiral into toxicity, it will become harder to identify candidates who are a part of this attempted far-right takeover of our community.

Naturally, all of the candidates I have identified above whose views concern me don’t share all of Flynn’s views. But voters must dig deep and do their research to know how far-right a candidate’s views swing.

Thankfully, groups like the League of Women Voters help out from a non-partisan perspective (though Olthof, Brinkman and Skodack declined to participate in that forum on Oct. 15). And, we also have the gift of Organize Ottawa, an organization that has carefully vetted all candidates and is working to keep extremist control out of our schools and government. You can access their information at organizeottawa.com.

Because, conservative or liberal, independent or progressive, there are lots of followers of Jesus out there who do not believe in the hateful rhetoric against queer people, who believe families and households of all shapes and beliefs should have equal access and rights in schools and the broader community, and who are more interested in showing love than banning books and using terms like “Marxist” so that you don’t have to engage in actual conversation with others. It is those followers of Jesus who must continue to stand against these far-right misrepresentations of his life and teachings.

After all, protecting the marginalized from religious extremism, that’s the sort of thing Jesus actually did do.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com. The views in this column are his alone as a Grand Haven resident and parent of a student in Grand Haven schools and do not necessarily reflect the views of his congregation.

Ottawa Impact (and Christian Nationalism) is Not Done with Us

Below is the column I submitted a week ago to the Grand Haven Tribune for my October column. To date, they have not yet printed it—however, with absentee ballots being turned in, I'm publishing it on my own platform so that those voting in our local election (or any local election) can be aware of the dangers posed by those extremists across the country trying to infiltrate local government. Don't let what happened to Ottawa County government happen to you, your county, or your school board. 

As I was working on my absentee ballot for the upcoming election, I was surprised when I hit the school board section and saw some familiar names. Some familiar Ottawa Impact and Ottawa Impact adjacent names. 

Tommy VanHill had previously run as an unabashed Ottawa Impact candidate and lost and is on the ballot once more as an official Ottawa Impact candidate. That lawsuit was dismissed. Joshua T. Spurr and David Olthof have been endorsed by the chair of the Ottawa Impact-run County Republican party, so one assume they also fall in line with the other candidates. And one doesn’t have to dig very hard to see that is indeed the case. Olthof’s social media shows regular posts from the far-right group Restoring Ottawa, which has been behind repeated attacks on our public school system. Spurr’s socia media includes a video from May of 2023 that has him shooting at Bud Light bottles, likely a part of the far-right protest of that business for their brief promotion with transgender TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney.

Though not endorsed by the Ottawa County GOP chair, two other candidates gave me grave concern. Helen Brinkman made news in 2023 as an attorney in Kent County that sought to ban books in school libraries that it deemed unsuitable. One only needs to read the news articles to see the ways that her efforts are part of the larger attacks on the LGBTQIA+ population. Steve Skodack has repeatedly denied his connections to Ottawa Impact and yet his views continually align with those of the movement, especially homophobic and transphobic criticisms of the Grand Haven Pride Festival. He lost his bid to get on the Grand Haven City Council and apparently now thinks that the school board is an easier way to get power. However, he has no campaign website and his candidacy page on Facebook still names him as a city council candidate. 

I was reminded by these candidates that though Ottawa Impact did indeed lose ground in the recent primary election, that group and those who support their far-right views are far from done with Ottawa County… and that includes Grand Haven. 

For those who want to ensure they don’t accidentally vote for Christian nationalists and far-right extremists in the election, you can go to groups like Organize Ottawa who have vetted all candidates and is working to keep extremist control out of our schools and government. You can access their information at https://organizeottawa.com. 

This is perhaps also a helpful time to remind everyone that the waste, corruption, and vengeful governing tactics of Ottawa Impact were not an aberration or something that only happened in our neck of the woods. Ottawa Impact is only one manifestation of a national movement by Christian nationalists seeking to seize local control of counties and school boards. 

Much of this movement can be traced to Mike Flynn, who served as Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor for a whopping twenty-two days until he resigned after it was revealed that he had lied about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador. He pled guilty to a felony count of making false statement to the FBI. Before he was sentenced he was pardoned by Donald Trump. 

During the Great Lie, as Donald Trump sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Flynn encouraged the president to silence the press, suspend the constitution, and hold a new election run by the military. When he was deposed about the insurrection on January 6, Mike Flynn repeatedly pleaded the fifth. 

After the failure of the insurrection, though, Flynn took to calling for a different approach to seizing control of government. Claiming danger from everything from Critical Race Theory to LGBTQIA+ rights, Flynn began urging Christians around the country to take over their school boards and county commissions in order to stop the “woke” infiltration of these bodies. 

As the Associated Press has reported, “Flynn’s movement envisions Christianity as the basis of American life and institutions; where the right to bear arms is paramount; where abortion is illegal; where concepts such as systemic racism and gay or transgender rights have no place in the schools; and where people who disagree are called ‘Marxists,’ or perverts, and are excluded from American civic life.” Sound familiar? 

Make no mistake, Mike Flynn and those who share his extreme, hateful, and undemocratic views will not rest in their attempt to take over local boards and governments. As Ottawa Impact’s brand continues its downward spiral into toxicity, it will become harder to identify candidates who a part of this attempted far-right takeover of our community. I’m grateful groups like Organize Ottawa are helping the average voter out. 

Because, conservative or liberal, independent or progressive, there are lots of followers of Jesus out there who do not believe in the hateful rhetoric against queer people, who believe families and households of all shapes and beliefs should have equal access and rights in schools and the broader community, and who are more interested in showing love than banning books and using terms like “Marxist” so that you don’t have to engage in actual conversation with others. It is those followers of Jesus that must continue to stand against these far-right misrepresentations of his life and teachings. 

After all, protecting the marginalized from religious extremism, that’s the sort of thing Jesus actually did do. 

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com. 

Turn from hypocrisy— be who God created you to be

Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.

Of the many arguments Jesus had with the religious leaders during his ministry, one constant thread was his repudiation of their hypocrisy.

For those who attend churches that follow the Revised Common Lectionary (and who also went to church this past Labor Day weekend), they heard from Mark 7, where Jesus upbraids the religious leaders, calling them hypocrites, because they “abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Specifically, they clung to the traditions of ritual washing – even though many of these traditions were never commanded in Scripture for all people to follow – and yet abandoned the greater commandments of God. As we know from elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus saw this particularly in the failure to faithfully love God and your neighbor.

The religious leaders in the time of Jesus may keep the traditions and ritual, but the way they treat other people is not good, loving, or just. And so, he told them that they cannot think they can treat another human poorly but still claim holiness, at least not a holiness that comes from God. To act as though they were ritually holy despite the word and actions that flowed from their hearts, this was hypocrisy.

The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word for an actor, someone who is pretending to be someone they are not. As one scholar notes, “hypocrisy is a negation of authentic life: it is life acted out to fool others, a role that we take on and pretend to be, that is not really us.” It’s described as well in the first chapter of James, where he says those of us who hear the word of God but don’t actually do it are like those who look at themselves in a mirror, see who they truly are, and then forget the second they walk away.

Perhaps the best way I’ve ever heard this described, comes from the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In a scene early in the book, the wretched Fyodor Pavlovich – the patriarch of the Karamazov family and a man who is licentious, a compulsive liar, sensualist, and a buffoon – is always making a great deal about how he doesn’t care about what others think of him. He has gathered with his sons in the cell of the great elder Father Zosima. The miserable person of father, Fyodor Pavlovich, asks Father Zosima what he must do to inherit eternal life (a question he clearly does not actually care about for he is simply putting on a show). But Father Zosima responds, anyway, telling him to turn from his obviously wicked and sensual ways.

Then, Father Zosima goes even further, saying, “And, above all – don’t lie. Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures.”

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. I think that might be the heart of the hypocrisy that Jesus warned about, the hypocrisy that lies close at hand to any one of us. That’s certainly how James describes it as well, saying that if you think you are religious but you don’t bridle your tongue, you are simply deceiving your own heart, that your religion is worthless.

Now, I want to be quite clear. Neither Jesus nor James nor Father Zosima are saying you must be perfect. No, they are saying you must be honest. When you fall short, don’t think your ritual or superior perspective on religion will save you. That’s simply not true and you are deceiving yourself. All of us are saved by gracious love, and that is all.

But, on the other hand, certainly don’t think that you can let evil or hateful words come from your heart and still be who God calls you to be. Indeed, this is why so many have turned away from Christianity entirely. They see people who claim to follow God but who speak and act in hateful ways towards those who are different from them, those with whom they disagree, those who see God differently.

They see what comes from the hearts of Christians and, in the eyes of unbelievers, these Christians are just as defiled as were the religious leaders in the time of Jesus. And when those religious Christians claim they are actually superior… well, the hypocrisy is obvious.

In that same first chapter of James, he describes true and pure religion as this: care for the orphans and widows (that is, whoever the marginalized are in your society) and live differently than the world around you. So, if you want to follow Jesus, don’t think you can ignore the marginalized and be who God calls you to be. When you live a self-centered life, as though you are what is most important, you deceive yourself about what love actually demands of you, you forget that your worth is not in yourself, but that you are called to offer yourself to others.

As the theologian Robert Cummings Neville once articulated it, “the human condition of sin is ontological self-contradiction, or being divided against oneself in one’s very being.” Sin is deceiving yourself about who you truly are. It is a form of lying to yourself. And so, I think all of us could stand to take Father Zosima’s words to heart. (Including this Christian priest writing this column.)

Don’t lie to yourself. You were created for God, you were created for good, you were created to be a force for love in this world.

Don’t believe the lies others may have told about you, especially religious people who have condemned you while claiming their own righteousness.

Don’t believe the dark thoughts that linger when no one else is around. You are so much more than that.

Ensure that what comes out of you, what comes out of your mouth, what comes out in your interactions with others, in the way you live your life, in all the ways you impact the world, ensure that what comes out of you is true to the good and loving person God created you to be, that what comes out of you makes holiness, makes goodness, and makes justice.

Because it is only then you will be who you truly are.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.

None are free until all are free

Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaning and importance of freedom in the days leading up to this year’s Independence Day celebration.

July fourth is, at its root, a celebration of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the document signed 248 years ago whereby the 13 British colonies declared their independence from the rule of King George III. The document itself is stunning in its prose, argument and ideals, and it inspired other movements around the world.

The intellectuals and revolutionaries in France were inspired to begin their own French Revolution in 1789, eventually forming the French Consulate and solidifying many of the principles of a liberal democracy. Our nascent democracy maintained a principle of neutrality (a story told memorably in the musical “Hamilton”), but that stance created sharp divisions and was one of the political realities that created the first two-party system in our country.

As a part of that revolution, leaders in the French Enlightenment drafted the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” As in our own declaration, the French declaration declared a belief in the natural rights of each person. We had declared belief in the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The French declared that all “men are born and remain free and equal in rights” and, furthermore, that there was a right to liberty, private property, the inviolability of the person and resistance to oppression.

Just two years after this document was published, slaves in the French colony of St. Domingue joined with free people of color (often mixed-race individuals of both African and French descent who had less rights than the white colonialists) and revolted. Within 10 days, the slaves took control of the entire Northern Province and within a year they controlled a third of St. Domingue. The battle would continue, though, for more than a decade. After achieving complete independence, they published the Haitian Declaration of Independence in 1804.

What we can see in the relationship between these three movements for independence is how freedom was variously understood and then applied in each context. Our own Declaration of Independence, of course, spoke of the inherent freedom of all men, a phrase that is often assumed to refer to humanity. And yet, the rights declared in the Declaration were not even given to all men in 1776. Slaves were clearly not understood to have an inherent right to freedom – though many people do not know that the original draft of the Declaration of Independence included a clause about slavery.

In the initial draft, Thomas Jefferson’s list of grievances against King George III included the king’s role in both creating and perpetuating the transatlantic chattel slave trade, writing, “he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.” He went on to describe slavery as “piratical warfare,” “execrable commerce” and an “assemblage of horrors.”

However, one-third of those who would go on to sign the declaration were enslavers (as was Thomas Jefferson himself!), so it is no surprise that this clause did not remain in the final form of the draft. Too many people depended upon the traffic of enslaved Africans for the economic prosperity to call out and condemn the trade so clearly. In Jefferson’s autobiography, he blamed the removal of the slaves on South Carolina and Georgia, noting that while his own state of Virginia had sought to restrict the trade, those states wished it to continue.

All of this underscores the fact that freedom, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, was at that time a dream yet to be realized. Much of the story of our country in the years that follow is how freedom advanced, as more and more people claimed the freedom promised to them in 1776. And so we ended slavery, but then quickly the Jim Crow south kept African Americans from having equal rights. In many ways, the battle for equal rights for African Americans continues, as Black bodies are still not valued at the same level of white bodies in our culture.

Women were given the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th Amendment, but that right was not extended to all women as prohibiting any denial of the right to vote on the basis of sex did not prohibit discrimination in other ways, And so Native-American, Asian-American, Latinx and African-American suffragists have all had to continue to fight for their own rights long after ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Furthermore, the 19th Amendment spoke only of the right to vote. In 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment was placed before state legislatures for ratification, stating, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” Within a year, 30 states ratified the amendment, but the ratification stalled, and the seven-year deadline included in the legislation passed. While numerous attempts have been made to finish its ratification, they have not yet been successful.

The need for it is still clear. Women didn’t have the right to open a bank account without their husband’s signature until 1974. Marital rape was also legal before the 1970s – and though it was made a crime nationwide by 1993, married women are still treated differently than non-married women in rape cases quite differently in several states. With the current assaults on the rights of women to have control over their bodies, true freedom remains elusive. And not just women, many of those on the right who still oppose the Equal Rights Amendment do so because they fear an expansion of rights to queer and trans people.

And so, on tomorrow’s Independence Day holiday, absolutely celebrate the freedoms you have – but also perhaps consider those in our country whose freedoms are still limited, still circumscribed, by those with power and privilege. Recommit to working toward freedom for all people. Because, as Maya Angelou said, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

About the writer: The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.

Love will stand against attacks on Pride

 Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.

Last month, someone forwarded me the May newsletter from the Ottawa County GOP.

They began straightaway saying that while normally they would focus on Memorial Day (and rightfully so), they chose instead to focus on the upcoming Grand Haven Pride Festival. They wrote, “Because what happened last year was devastating to the Grand Haven community and Ottawa County at large, we feel a responsibility to inform the public of what took place and are asking our responsible citizenry to please spread awareness.”

“Devastating” I asked myself, thinking about the numerous news reports and videos that showed thousands celebrating joyfully and safely last year. How could it be seen as devastating? As I read on, my heart sank to read the baseless, discriminatory, false, and transphobic words from the official entity for Republicans in Ottawa County. They attacked me personally for my work as the sponsorship lead. They falsely claimed that our festival was a “stunning debacle of soliciting children in a public space in broad daylight.”

And so, here we are, just like last year, beginning Pride Month needing to counter hate with love and truth, all because certain people in our community are simply incapable of seeing queer people in public and not immediately moving to dark and disturbing places.

First, these attacks cut to the heart of why Pride Month exists in the first place. The very first pride parade was on the anniversary of the Stonewall riots of 1969, riots in which drag queens played a central role due to the harassing and violent treatment of police in New York. Ever since then, drag queens have played a significant role in the Pride movement, raising millions to help AIDS patients in the eighties, for instance, while the rest of the country turned a blind eye to the death of millions upon millions of people.

The GOP newsletter posted pictures at our festival of kids giving tips to the drag performers, performers who were dressed like so many other musical and entertainment acts that perform at Waterfront Stadium every summer without complaint from the Ottawa County GOP. I’ve yet to see the Ottawa County GOP argue that Grand Haven State Park is sexualizing children because people are allowed to wear bathing suits that they feel confident in (and Lord knows there’s more skin on those beaches than at a drag performance, as the pictures the GOP posted will quickly demonstrate).

Each summer, buskers bless our streets with music and performance in exchange for a few dollar bills in a case, and no one bats an eye. That is because tipping drag performers is just as customary as tipping street performers. To compare tipping queens to tipping strippers misses the key distinction: queens are not taking off their clothes! They are working incredibly hard, dancing, displaying amazing physical strength and, most importantly, are confidently claiming an identity they truly own to the core. Tipping an artist is teaching children that art is of value.

Queens are not soliciting children, and to say that just demonstrates the depth of bigotry and prejudice that exists in the hearts of some people. (And in case you are wondering, a 2023 report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue has found a clear linkage between attacks on the drag community and QAnon conspiracy theories that claim to be about protecting children but really are about spreading false narratives). Furthermore, language like this is why violence against trans people continues to increase (even though many drag performers are actually cisgender!), with one study in Britain finding that 80 percent of respondents in the trans community had experienced a hate crime at some point in their life.

This is not OK. And for those who claim to be followers of Jesus to participate in this is shameful.

When I met with a local candidate for public office last year, they suggested that the drag performances should be behind closed doors. I asked why, why would men dressed as women need to be behind closed doors … I was met with an unsure response.

Because those who would attack drag are the same who want LGBTQI+ people to go back in the closet. But the closet is deadly to queer people and Pride Month is about telling people that they don’t need to hide there anymore, that they are safe to be who they are. They are not merely tolerated; they are celebrated by their community and allies. If they are attracted to someone of the same sex, or if they know in their soul that their gender identity is different than their birth gender, or if they just feel better dressed in clothes normally associated with a different gender, all of that is OK. Love is love. You are who God created you to be. And that is fabulous.

Sure, I know there are people in our community who are opposed to Pride. I hope, though, that they will respect the rights and support the safety of those who want to gather to celebrate. As one of my parishioners, Angie Slater, said last year when she spoke to city council, “We even have a kite festival. I’m not a member of the kite-flying community. I don’t even understand flying kites. But I’m thankful to live in a place where I have the freedom to choose to attend or not to attend celebrating people who fly kites.”

If you’re one of those members of our community who, like me, felt anger at the bigotry and transphobia present in the attacks on Grand Haven Pride, know you are not alone. Love will always stand against hate. We’ll stand together at Grand Haven Pride this Saturday, June 8. We’ve doubled the private security at the festival to ensure everyone is safe. My own church will host the fourth annual Community Pride Worship service at 10 a.m. on Saturday, this year joined by two other affirming churches in Grand Haven.

And, if you’ve ever wondered how to respond to Christians who attack the queer community, I’m leading a workshop whose tickets will be donated in their entirety to support the work of Grand Haven Pride. It will be Thursday, June 27 from 5:30–7 p.m. and is entitled “God, Bible, Gender, and Sexuality.” Join me as we talk about what Scripture and Christian theology might actually say to these questions. You might be surprised. Details and tickets are online at http://unifyingchristians.com/lgbtqfaith.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.

Satan is not Voldemort

Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.  

Late last month, Luis Cypher from the Satanic Temple of West Michigan gave the invocation at the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners – and you would think Satan himself showed up.

Crowds of Christians gathered in protest in the lobby and outside of the Fillmore Complex, singing, shouting, and holding up signs opposed to Satanism. When Cypher began speaking, Commissioner Bonnema interrupted, demanding to know his real name. Of course, for several months, pastors gave the invocation, often without stating their name or the church they represented, but that didn’t seem to bother him then. During the prayer itself, the crowd in the overflow room shouted and made so much noise that Cypher’s words couldn’t even be heard.

The whole thing reminded me of an episode in the television show “The Office.” After learning that a convict is employed by the office, Michael Scott outs the convict, who then tells everyone that he was in prison for insider trading and with things like outside time and art classes, it wasn’t really that bad. Pam and the other employees start joking that prison sounds better than their office, creating an increasingly teasing tone and series of events. Michael is infuriated until Toby takes him aside and explains, “They’re teasing you, Michael, to be funny.”

The hundreds of Christians out there in protest, the antics of the board in response both before and during the meeting, all of this whole show was so silly, so unnecessary. I kept wanting someone to lean over and tell them all, “They’re teasing you, Christians, because they don’t really believe in Satan.”

First off, people don’t understand that modern Satanism doesn’t actually worship Satan. Both the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple are atheistic organizations that don’t believe in God or the devil but instead see Satan as a metaphor. Furthermore, the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple are entirely different organizations.

The Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey, embraces a more nihilistic philosophy with roots in Nietzsche. For them, Satan is a symbol of personal freedom and rebellion against arbitrary authority but with a focus on the individual living as their own pride and carnal nature dictates – a more hedonistic outlook. They are not an egalitarian group and LaVey opposed egalitarianism and believed that the “myth of equality” only “supports the weak at the expense of the strong.”

The Satanic Temple is an entirely different organization. It is only a little more than a decade old and was formed to fight against their sense that Christianity was continually intruding in the political sphere in ways that are contrary to our constitution and the good of people. For them, Satan is not even a symbol of evil, but is instead a symbol “the eternal rebel” against arbitrary authority and social norms.

Whereas the Church of Satan uses the metaphor to advance a hedonistic worldview, the Satanic Temple uses the metaphor to promote pragmatic skepticism, rational reciprocity, personal autonomy, and curiosity. Their goal is to encourage benevolence and empathy among people, and to urge the separation of church and state, using religious satire to make their point.

Just take a look at their seven tenets: one should always act with compassion and empathy; the struggle for justice is ongoing; a person’s body is inviolable; freedom (including the freedom to offend) should be respected; beliefs should conform to science; and people are fallible and should make it right when they have harmed someone. In the seventh tenet, they teach that each of the previous six are guiding principles and “The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.”

This is not scary stuff – it’s actually pretty basic secular humanism.

Yes, they use the word “Satan,” but Satan is not Voldemort or Beetlejuice. Saying the word “Satan” doesn’t summon the dark forces of evil. And for Christians to ignore what a group actually believes and freak out because they use the word Satan – especially when they are using that word to troll you – just demonstrates the point the members of the Satanic Temple wanted to make.

Now, I want to be clear, just because the Church of Satan and Satanic Temple don’t believe in Satan doesn’t mean there are not actual cosmic forces of darkness at work in our world. I just doubt those forces are found in some people putting on dark clothes and using Satan to talk about the importance of benevolence and empathy.

In our church’s baptismal liturgy, when people renounce evil, we invite them to renounce evil in three ways. In the first renunciation, they renounce “Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God.” I describe this as cosmic evil: evil that is incomprehensible to us, dark forces that hurt and lead to violence and war. If God’s desire for the world is for it to be in a state of perfect love, justice, and peace, then cosmic evil is what goes against that. And I will tell you, in my 15 years as a priest, I have seen some actual real darkness that has made my hair stand on end.

In the next renunciation, people renounce, “evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.” I describe this as social evil, all the prejudices and systems which harm and wound God’s creatures and creation.

In the final renunciation, they renounce “all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God,” making it clear that sin, at is base, is that which pulls us from God’s love for us or that which breaks our ability to love our neighbor.

Christians in Ottawa County would do well to stop forming protests to a bunch of secular humanists using the word “Satan” to get a rise out of you, like a bunch of Hogwarts students warning about the dangers of saying “Voldemort,” lest the dark lord come and get you.

Instead, Christians should be concerned with those forces in our society – those forces in some of our very churches – which are complicit in systems of poverty and inequity, which oppress the marginalized, which criminalize women’s health, and which lead to queer kids thinking they are broken.

Those are the things dark forces are actually supporting right now. And who knows, if Christians did a better job protesting actual evil, they might find the Satanist next to them can be an inter-religious ally in the struggle for justice, peace, and love.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.

Support for Israel’s war must end: Terrorism does not excuse genocide

Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.

One of the great blessings of my life has been the opportunity to make a few different visits to the Holy Land, both to study and participate in archeological work during my undergraduate and graduate studies, and also in the context of a spiritual pilgrimage as a parish priest.

Last year, as my daughter is now old enough to go with us, I began laying plans for another pilgrimage to the Holy Land with members and friends of my parish, St. John’s Episcopal Church. Wanting to plan far enough in advance, we set a date in 2025 and began collecting names of those interested. Within weeks of registration opening, though, Hamas led a terrorist attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking the current conflict which has consumed the region and tremendous cost of human life.

The attacks by Hamas in October of last year were by far the worst and deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the modern nation of Israel. A significant motivator for the attack, according to research done by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, found that Hamas invaded as revenge for what it saw as past attacks by Israel; the continued occupation of the West Bank; the arrest of Hamas leaders; and the isolation and bombing of Gaza.

Just a few years ago, in 2017, Hamas had taken a more moderating turn, even releasing an updated charter that signaled acceptance of a two-state solution as an appropriate temporary measure. It still included some hateful language, but it was a tremendous approvement from their 1988 founding statement. Hamas had even begun to publicly punish anyone who instigated attacks within Gaza that might break the fragile ceasefires in place.

This moderation did not, however, produce any substantive changes from the nation of Israel or the larger global community. Instead, in 2021 and 2022, we saw some of the deadliest years for Palestinians as the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, allowed for an increase in Israeli settlements in the West Bank (contrary to established international law). The settlers themselves increased their attacks on Palestinians in their attempts to gain more land for themselves.

A common refrain from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights problem was to say, “Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. And in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?”

While he regularly condemned violence and advocated for nonviolent resistance, King also knew that when people feel unheard and in danger, when it feels like nonviolent resistance produces no survivable solution, that explosions of violence are often the result. And while we can condemn the violence of riots and terrorist attacks like last October, we must ask if there is something the rest of the world is not hearing that has resulted in this violence.

This was clearly a part of what led to the attacks last October. When Hamas official Basem Naim was interviewed after the attack, he said, “We knew there was going to be a violent reaction … But we didn’t choose this road while having other options. We have no options.”

Over the past 16 years, the Gaza strip has become a large prison encampment and not an actual functioning place to live, with 97 percent of the water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption. Over 70 percent of families depend on international aid for their basic needs. Given competition from other terrorist groups, and the increasing right-ward swing of the Israeli government, Hamas has sought to increase its own public image as an Islamist resistance group. It continually seeks to undermine the Palestinian Authority which controls the West Bank (and favors negotiation and cooperation with Israel).

Ironically, both the right-wing forces in the Israeli government and the terrorists at work in Hamas need the other to continue the fight. The terrorism of Hamas has become cover for increased Israeli settlements and horrific attacks on civilians by Israeli soldiers. To wit, the violence of Hamas continues the rightward tilt of Israeli politics. And, of course, the barbarity of the Israeli response fuels the anger and sense of helplessness in the Palestinian people, increasing the view that terrorism is the only way left.

Earlier this week, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees accused Israel of detaining and torturing their staffers in a ploy to get them to make false confessions about the agency’s ties to Hamas. This is not the first time that Israel has sought to discredit United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), but this latest action is perhaps the most brazen. This action follows what we have seen in documentations of abuse of other Palestinian detainees.

On Feb. 29, over 100 people were killed when trying to access humanitarian aid from a truck, with another 760 injured. While Israel claims it was firing into the area in response to looting, witnesses say there is ample evidence that the Israeli soldiers were firing directly into the crowd. The United Nations Security Council met and debated a draft statement which would have blamed Israeli forces for “opening fire” on Palestinian civilians. The motion was supported by all members of the Security Council except one – the United States. The rest of the world sees the horror and genocide in the West Bank and increasingly expresses condemnation, but our country continues to maintain an utterly untenable middle ground.

In response, the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem (which includes Archbishop Hosam Naoum, the leader of my own church in Jerusalem) has published a statement describing the Feb. 29 incident as a “wanton attack,” calling for an immediate ceasefire to enable humanitarian relief, and condemning violence against civilians.

I still hope that I will be able to lead that pilgrimage next summer. (If you might be interested in coming, you can see more details online at http://sjegh.com/pilgrim). If we do go, we will spend time with the Anglican Cathedral and its mission of peacemaking in the region. The current state is wholly untenable, and I cannot imagine it continuing. Something must change. I hope to see that change.

Unfortunately, nothing will change until you and I speak up – no matter our political allegiances – and speak up, insisting that we can no longer support the actions of Israel in response to terrorism. Terrorism is wrong, absolutely, but to answer it with genocide and settlement expansion only escalates the wrong and does nothing to promote healing and a future for all those who call this land holy.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.