More Pride Needed in Grand Haven

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

Two years ago, in the summer, I stood on the stage at Waterfront Stadium and looked out over a crowd filled with rainbows.

When my parish, St. John’s Episcopal Church, had planned to host the first-ever Pride Community Worship Service, we were not sure how many people would come. We hoped to see around 50 or so people – about as many as we were seeing at in-person worship at our church at that point in the pandemic.

We did not expect over 200 people to fill Waterfront Stadium, people who gathered on the morning of the last Sunday of Pride Month to celebrate all of God’s beloved children, especially those members of the LGBTQIA+ community who have experienced such marginalization and discrimination from the church.

After the second Pride Community Worship Service last summer, several of those who helped organize the event – along with participants – had a sense that we were ready for more. Ever since then, that group has been working to plan for the first Grand Haven Pride festival.

Our application is winding its way through the city processes, and we are hopeful that it will be approved soon so that we can begin planning in earnest. Because it is so very important to have a fully supported community celebration, one that is not just a worship service but one that is a full pride festival that everyone can be a part of.

One of the reasons this need has become clear to me is the work I’ve done with other community leaders in the Lakeshore GSA Youth Group. Hosted by our church, the Lakeshore GSA Youth Group (http://sjegh.com/gsa) meets every Thursday night and is for any LGBTIA+ teens in the Tri-Cities area and any kids who see themselves as allies to this community.

Though our church hosts it in our space, the programming is not religious, and the leaders are drawn from adults around the community – not just members of our parish. Once a month, we offer a special add-on book discussion that is religious for the kids who want to grow in that side of their identity, but it’s not required. Our goal is to provide a safe space for kids. That’s all.

Having run this group for two years now, let me just say that these kids are amazing. Absolutely amazing. Their strength of identity and character inspires me to no end. They are funny, smart, curious and tremendously interesting to spend time with on Thursday nights. They are a big reason we are pivoting from the Pride Community Worship Service on Sunday to a full Pride festival on a Saturday. They have a passion for speaking out, being clear about who they are, and being bold advocates for other youth whose families or faith communities might not support their sense of gender identity or sexual orientation.

If you have a kid that you think would enjoy coming, feel free to contact me at rector@sjegh.com – I’d love to add you to our email group and put you in touch with our leadership.

As many of you know, I grew up in Grand Haven. I have friends I know from growing up here who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community and who have told me how massively difficult it was at times. When I was younger, a foolish middle school kid who should have known better, I know I was a part of making it hard for some kids. In some ways, as I work to support the Lakeshore GSA Youth Group, I feel like I’m trying to do penance for the sins of my more conservative and homophobic youth. I know God forgives me, but also know God calls me to make right the harm of the past.

My sense, from the crowds of people at our Pride Community Worship Services over the past couple of years, is that I’m not alone. There are lots of Christians out there who may not agree with their church’s position on this question and who want to be a bold and explicitly affirming voice. I also know that there are several business and organizations right here in Grand Haven who support the LGBTQIA+ community. And, most importantly, we have amazing LGBTQIA+ leaders in the Tri-Cities, people who already contribute so much to making this a great place to live.

My deep hope is that all of these people will come together and support the first Grand Haven Pride festival this summer. You can find out more about the planned festival at http://ghpride.org. The leadership team is still developing and, in addition to leads for a few programmatic areas, we are looking for a second member of the LGBTQIA+ community to serve as a co-chair alongside of our other co-chair, local social worker, educator, and minister, Jess Robinson.

To see what positions of leadership are open, go to http://ghpride.org/about. Our next meeting of the Steering Committee, where we will plan to lay the final groundwork for structure and planning, is next Monday, March 6. If you’d like information on joining, you can contact the committee at info@ghpride.org.

I am proud to call Grand Haven my home. I’m proud to have grown up here. I’m proud to be a Buccaneer. But I’ll be even prouder this summer when I see the many organizations, businesses and community leaders who I know will stand up and say Grand Haven is a place where you belong, no matter who you are, no matter who you love, and no matter your gender identity. You belong here.

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.

Combatting the corrosive power of Christian nationalism

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

A few years ago, before the current debates and arguments about the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners, I attended a meeting where they were considering the question of refugee resettlement in our county. As the priest at a church that had helped a Sudanese family resettle here, and with a strong commitment to refugees in my own faith, I wanted to speak in favor of this important work.

The room was packed to overflowing so much so that we were not in the normal meeting room. Person after person got up to speak, and I was surprised how many spoke against refugee resettlement. I had not expected many people at all to do that, as refugee work was something that is generally bipartisan and a shared commitment of religious groups across the spectrum. Sure, many residents also spoke in favor of refugee resettlement, both on humanitarian grounds and with the belief that immigrants make communities stronger not weaker.

What truly inspired me, though, was the pastors. Every single pastor – no matter the denomination, no matter how conservative or progressive – every single one got up and spoke in favor of refugee resettlement. I breathed a sigh of relief as I went home that day, after seeing the county commission affirm that Ottawa County truly is a place “Where you belong” – and that this included the refugee community.

Relief is not the emotion I have felt this year, watching the newly elected county commissioners take office and get directly to work doing precisely what they said they would do. Though I knew they would dismantle our office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (even though it was local businesses who had asked for it so we could attract diverse talent to the area), and though I knew they would take several actions to reshape Ottawa County in their own image, I did not expect it to be so brazen and so absolutely uninterested in the principles of transparency upon which they had campaigned.

Decisions were made in advance, outside of the meeting, with no opportunity for public input. The very important position of county administrator was given to a candidate immediately after firing the current administrator – with no public posting of the job, no opportunity for others to apply, and no chance for public consideration of the candidates.

I was shocked that so many of the new commissioners felt comfortable ignoring the basic rules and practices of governance. As they fumbled with how to deal with a consent agenda, I realized that they didn’t even have a basic understanding of Robert’s Rules.

But what has turned my blood cold has been the very clear display of Christian nationalism since these commissioners took office.

Christian nationalists believe that our country is fundamentally a Christian nation, and they seek to use their understanding of the Christian faith to shape public policy with no regard to the variety of faith traditions (and variety of views within Christianity itself). Studies have also found a concerning link between Christian nationalism and white nationalism, as many Christian nationalists also share anti-diversity and anti-immigration views.

Philip Gorski (a professor at Yale University) and Samuel Perry (a professor at the University of Oklahoma) are authors of “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy,” have written, “We define white Christian nationalism and identify white Christian nationalists using a constellation of beliefs. These are beliefs that, we argue, reflect a desire to restore and privilege the myths, values, identity and authority of a particular ethnocultural tribe. These beliefs add up to a political vision that privileges that tribe.”

Those with Christian nationalist views twist the concept of liberty to make it mean their own freedom to discriminate or violate the law due to their religious beliefs. Thus, Christian nationalists believe they should not be bound by nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQIA+ people, women or religious minorities. The fact that Ottawa Impact started because the founders didn’t believe the government had the power to issue health orders during a pandemic, and that they based this freedom on their sense of faith, makes it clear that this is the viewpoint of this group.

And now, with their new proposed leader of our health department being someone who refused mask mandates and social distancing (and whose qualifications are woefully inadequate given the statutory requirements in Michigan for this position), there is a deep concern that the extreme views of this group may strike at the very core of the health of our community.

Amanda Tyler, an expert on religious freedom and a member of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, says that she believes the single biggest threat to religious freedom in our country right now is Christian nationalism. She is also clear that despite having “Christian” in the name, it does not have a lot to do with the actual teachings of Jesus Christ, “But the ‘Christian’ in Christian nationalism is more about identity than religion and carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy and militarism.”

If you don’t think that’s what’s happening in Ottawa County right now, listen to those who speak up to support the new commissioners. As reported by Sarah Leach in The Holland Sentinel, not only do we hear COVID-19 denialism and claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, but clear Christian nationalist ideas. They believe it is God who has put these commissioners in place to orchestrate their plans with comments like, “The power you have has been delegated by Christ.” In the opening prayer before a meeting by one of the pastors who support them, he prayed, “I pray for the chair and that you would bless him and the other council members, commission members. Again, knowing the only reason we’re here is to bring glory to you.”

The reason a county commission exists is not to bring glory to God. I say that as a priest who has taken lifelong vows to devote my life to God and his church. The reason a county commission exists is to enable the flourishing of all residents in an area through smart governance. It’s also clear that it’s not really about bringing glory to God anyway, it’s about enforcing their narrow view of Christianity and the government on all the residents of Ottawa County by destroying anything that stands in their way. And, let’s be clear, that certainly does not glorify a God who became human and who died at the hands of religious extremism and political cowardice.

I’m grateful that there are others increasingly joining the fight against this movement. People from the right and the left, from a variety of faith traditions and no faith traditions, are coming together as a part of the Unifying Coalition of Ottawa County (https://www.webelong-oc.org). Because this county should not be a place where freedom to discriminate rings. Together, we must work to restore it to a place where all people belong and can find home.

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.

Not all boys are boys; not all girls are girls

 

My column in today’s edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.

Last week, one of my fellow community columnists asked a question. On Oct. 25, Geri McCaleb wrote, “What’s extreme about recognizing that boys are boys and girls are girls?” While I doubt that McCaleb does not know how very loaded and problematic that statement is, I’d like to offer an answer. Whether or not McCaleb is interested in learning the answer to her question, though, I’m absolutely sure there are likely a good number of well-meaning and thoughtful folk out there who might ask the same question.

The question itself comes from one of the core commitments of the “Ottawa Impact” PAC, as every candidate they endorse has as one of their values the statement, “A boy is a boy. A girl is a girl.” The problem with this statement is that it seeks to erase the reality of any person who does not fit within the gender binary. It literally seeks to pretend that the trans community doesn’t exist – and thus only continues the marginalization and discrimination toward those who identify as anything other than cisgender (this is the term for those whose sense of gender identity corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth).

First, just from a scientific and realistic standpoint, the idea that “a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl” ignores the reality of people who are intersex. That is, the statement ignores the reality of those who are born with ambiguous genitals, or genitals that do not clearly match their chromosomal gender identity due to a variety of scientifically identified conditions. Most scientists believe that somewhere between 0.02 percent or as many as 1.7 percent of births fall under this identification.

Yes, these children are real. Yes, they attend schools in Grand Haven. And to pretend they do not exist is to participate in the culture of stigmatization and discrimination that has led to the high rates of infanticide and abandonment these people experience within their own families.

Second, the true attack of this claim, I imagine, is not on the intersex community (I’m willing to allow that people may be ignorant and unaware of this scientific reality). Rather, it is directed at those who might have a clear biological gender externally but who cannot identify with that gender internally. This could be someone born as a boy who identifies as a girl, someone born as a girl who identifies as a boy, or someone who is nonbinary and does not identify as either female or male.

The Mayo Clinic (clearly not a secret cabal of liberalism) even has a helpful article for parents titled “Children and Gender Identity: Supporting Your Child.” In that article, the staff of Mayo Clinic stress that it is common for children to go through periods of gender exploration when it comes to clothes and toys and even the roles they adopt in play. For some kids, however, as they get older this sense that they identify as a different gender persists. They encourage parents, “Listen to your child’s feelings about gender identity. Talk to your child and ask questions without judgment.”

People can become aware and able to articulate their transgender identity at any age. In a non-discriminatory environment, many adults who identify as transgender can point to an awareness of that reality as young as 7 years old. Some can identify it even younger. For others, they may live for years with a vague sense that they don’t really fit in and it’s not until later in life they realize it is because of their gender identity.

The reality of children and adolescents who don’t fall into the “boy/girl” categories of cisgender is an essential reality for educators and school board members to recognize.

The American Psychological Association advises: “Parents of gender-nonconforming children may need to work with schools and other institutions to address their children’s particular needs and ensure their children’s safety.” Data from the National Institute of Health indicates that 82 percent of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40 percent have attempted suicide – with rates of suicidality being highest among transgender youth.

As adults, these children will also face profound challenges. Most anti-discrimination laws do not protect transgender people from discrimination. They are often discriminated in housing, employment, health care, legal systems, along with their educational experience and their family of origin. In a recent study, about half of transgender participants reported they had experienced a transphobic hate crime at some point in their life. Half.

“A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl” – these are words that contribute to a culture that is literally killing trans people, literally killing trans kids. And ignorance cannot be an excuse anymore. It particularly cannot be an excuse among those who would like to be elected to our school board. Their denial of the reality of non gender-conforming kids is just one of the many reasons I voted for our current school board incumbents (Carl Treutler, Nichol Stack and Marc Eickholt) and against the transphobic platform of the Ottawa Impact candidates (Tommy Van Hill, Roger Williams and Thomas Hoekstra II). While Van Hill, Williams and Hoekstra certainly have the right to their transphobic views, they must be stopped from imposing them on the children of our school district.

One more word on this question, before I close. And that is to the loss. There is a loss when people deny the reality of trans people. You miss how wonderful, beautiful and strong these people are. In my work with the Lakeshore GSA Youth Group (http://sjegh.com/gsa), I’ve had the gift of meeting some kids in our schools who don’t identify as cisgender. They are smart, funny and amazing kids.

Because I believe our God delights in diversity. After all, God created animals that can change their gender identity (particularly common among fish). Some birds can have the biological characteristics of both genders. People want to force God’s creation into a box, insisting that everything should live how God made them – and I agree. After all, fish should swim and birds should fly, right? But our God is a God who created some fish to break the norm and fly into the air and some birds to dive into the water and swim.

The wonderful diversity of God’s creation – and the wonderful gifts of all transgender individuals, whether kids or adults – should be cherished, celebrated and protected. It should never be denied.

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. His opinions with regard to the candidates in the school board election are those of him alone as a resident of the community and do not necessarily reflect those of his church or congregation. However, his congregation and denomination enthusiastically support the rights and gifts of trans people everywhere.

Impact versus Integrity: A Correction

The following is a column I have submitted to the Grand Haven Tribune to correct a very unfortunate typo in the first paragraph of my column published yesterday. 

Yesterday, in my column on the attempts of far-right extremists to take over our school board and force their views upon all the education of all children in the district, there was a tremendously unfortunate typo in the first paragraph. 

I wrote how all this began two years ago with a group called “Grand Haven Conservative Parents” and their attempts to ban book with sexual content, particularly books that contain LGBTQ characters. I wrote how that group then became “Restoring Ottawa,” and then wrote how many of the individuals associated with this campaign are active in a local PAC.

However, in a slip of the keyboard I wrote that this local PAC was “Ottawa Integrity.” Clearly, though, “Ottawa Integrity” is not the PAC formed from these extremist individuals. And throughout the rest of the column, I referred to that PAC by their actual name “Ottawa Impact.” 

As soon as I was alerted to the typo in the first paragraph, I alerted the Tribune who promptly corrected the online version and issued a correction in the next print version. However, there may be a “felix culpa” here. That Latin phrase means “happy fault” and refers to the truth that goodness can flow even from mistakes and sins done wrong. The typo raises the importance of explaining why a distinction between Ottawa Impact and Ottawa Integrity is so very essential. 

Ottawa Impact is a PAC that has already successfully won primaries where their candidates will now run unchallenged to represent several districts on the Ottawa County Commission. Absent challengers in the General Election, those Ottawa Impact commissioners will likely be elected  in November and establish their own majority on the Commission. Presumably, they will proceed to do what they promised in the campaign. They will seek to dismantle the Ottawa County Health Department and to eliminate the Ottawa County Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. They will find any way they can to grind their axes from the restrictions of the pandemic and punish public health officials who were trying to keep us safe. 

This is the same group that is running extremist school board candidates in the Grand Haven Area Public Schools election: Roger Williams, Thomas Hoekstra, and Tommy Van Hill. Not only are these candidates running on a platform to ban books in the name of parental rights (they really are only interested in the rights of parents who agree with them, not other parents who want a free and professionally curated library for our kids), but they have all signed a contract with Ottawa Impact supporting its platform. That platform is based on not only on banning books in library, but is also opposed to LGBTQ content in sex education (erasing the existence of queer and trans kids, something that will only increases their pain and suffering), the rejection of healthcare policies for vaccinations to keep the public safe, and a platform statement that explicitly opposes attempts at racial justice and equity.

This group is so extreme that one of the candidates, Roger Williams, has regularly attended school board meetings and when he is told he has to keep to the same three-minute time limit as everyone else in public comment period, he says the board is racist for insisting upon that reasonable guideline.

And Ottawa Impact is not only active in Grand Haven. They are running candidates in school boards across the county. Right across the bridge in Spring Lake, they are running candidates who are disingenuously hiding their connections with Ottawa Impact, as our communities increasingly realize the danger of this group’s extremist views. Indeed, their fear to confront the public is evident in the refusal of any of their candidates for school board to attend the public forum hosted by the non-partisan League of Women Voters. Ottawa Impact, and candidates aligned with their views, are part of a larger effort nationwide to takeover local government and replace public servants with ideologues who support fascist control based on narrow puritanical and discriminatory beliefs over service to a diverse populace. 

Ottawa Impact is true to its name: they are seeking to punch through the policies and structures that seek to enable the freedom and flourishing of the whole community, insisting everyone else must follow their own views on these questions. Theirs is a platform that would violently disrupt our community.

On the other side of the world from them is Ottawa Integrity. While it is clear that Ottawa Impact only supports far-right candidates who align with Trump’s “America First” worldview, Ottawa Integrity is a non-partisan PAC that “is driven by a desire to protect, promote, and uphold integrity for the people in our community.” Rather than attack the health department and school boards, they have explicitly expressed appreciation for the work they (and so many other publics servants) did, trying to keep us safe in the worst health-crisis we’ve seen in a century. Instead of dismantling government, or running on national partisan issues for local elections, Ottawa Integrity believes that “the primary responsibility of local governments is to assess and meet the needs of the community; through the functional administration of municipal services and infrastructures.”

And, yes, they are non-partisan. When you go to the website of Ottawa Integrity, you can see that they have endorsed both Republican and Democratic candidates who follow the principles of integrity they have outlined. None of these candidates are required to sign a contract with Ottawa Integrity. 

So, I want to express my apology to Ottawa Integrity for anyone who may have been confused by the typo in the first paragraph of last week’s column Ottawa Integrity is striving to create a non-partisan response to far-right extremists like Ottawa Impact. Please, whether you live in Grand Haven or elsewhere, be very attentive to who is running in this year’s election and who supports them. It will take every resident standing up and rejecting this takeover for it to be stopped. It might be too late for this year’s Ottawa County Commissioners, but it’s not too late to protect the kids in our schools. 

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. These opinions are those of him alone as a resident of the community and do not necessarily reflect those of his church or congregation. 

Vote for the Interest of All Kids and Against Censorship

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

It’s been around two years since I first wrote in this newspaper, expressing concerns of the efforts of some individuals in our community to ban books, particularly books with LGBTQ content. Originally, that group was “Grand Haven Conservative Parents.” Then it became “Restoring Ottawa.” Now many of the individuals associated with this campaign against our schools are active in the local PAC “Ottawa Impact.”

Ottawa Impact has now released the names of their “vetted” candidates for school board, and you can tell that there is a direct connection between the efforts to ban books in our schools and the candidacies of Roger Williams, Thomas Hoekstra, and Tommy Van Hill. 

Williams states on his campaign site that he began attending board meetings when this effort began bank in 2022 and that, as a board member, a major focus “will be to protect children and defend their innocence, allowing them to enjoy their childhood, free of divisive and obscene materials. He believes children should not be bombarded with adult themed books and subjects, or made to feel like oppressors or oppressed, based on skin color or ideology.” Similarly, on Hoekstra’s website, it says, “Thomas decided to run for school board after viewing pornographic material in the school libraries and attending board meetings where there was disregard for parent comment and school policy.” Finally, Van Hill’s website shares his concern for “recent government overreach into individual freedoms, parental rights, and American values.”

So, let’s clarify a few things right off the bat. There are no pornographic books in our school libraries. Are there books with some sexual content at age-appropriate levels? Yes. That’s not the same as pornography. These parents continue to attend board meetings, reading selections from books without attention to the overall literary quality of the work or how that section of content fits into the larger narrative. It is parents like this who have sought to ban some of the greatest pieces of literature from our school libraries, including: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Brave New World  by Aldous Huxley, Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin, Rabbit, Run by John Updike, and And Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. 

These candidates, and the individuals in our community who are still waging a war to ban books, say that they support parental rights in education. They don’t let anyone question them about what that means, though, and so they refuse to participate in open events like the one recently hosted by the non-partisan League of Women Voters. Regardless, let’s be clear, these candidates do not support the rights of every parent. Instead, they believe all children and teenagers in our school should only have access to literature they deem acceptable. They believe they should be the arbiters of age-appropriate content. 

These are candidates with a solution in search of a problem. Parents already have access to the books their kids check out. There is already a system for determining appropriate content, a professional program at the Library of Congress that uses experts in the field and identifies the proper age of the audience. Our school librarians are then trained to use this system when curating content that is age-appropriate for libraries. Furthermore, if a parent thinks a mistake in categorization has been made, that parent can raise the issue with the librarian who can investigate the book and what library it is most appropriate for. 

It's of note that many of the books they disagree with contain LGBTQ characters or content. However, as I’ve written before, the Journal of Adolescent Health published a study that found that 24% of suicides between the ages of 12 and 14 were completed by LGBTQ kids. Data from the United States Department of Health and Human Services indicates that LGBTQ youth seriously contemplate suicide at almost three times the rate of heterosexual youth. Another study from the National Center for Transgender Equity found that LGBTQ youth are almost five times more likely to have actually attempted suicide. A study published in Pediatrics found that 40% of transgender adults have reported attempting suicide with 92% of those adults attempting before the age of 25.

However, when LGBTQ students have access to literature which accurately reflects their experience, it helps them as they grow and develop a healthy understanding of self. Studies have shown that LGBTQ students who have access to themes related to their identity have higher attendance, GPAs, and a stronger sense of safety in the classroom. Rates of suicidality decrease. 

Furthermore, as children grow up into teenagers and then young adults, it is important that they have access to age-appropriate literature—including literature with sexual content that is appropriate to their ages. Studies have shown that this literature helps kids explore what is going on in their bodies safely. And many of these books help adolescents begin to understand the importance of questions like consent as well as providing an avenue for finding language around trauma or abuse they may have endured. 

Will one parent have different ideas about the content they want their child or teenager to read? Of course! That’s why it is so important to cultivate an open relationship with your child, to ask them questions about what they are reading and what they think about it. Education should be a partnership between parents, students, and educators—not a war where some parents try to force their own narrow views on all children in our schools. 

As author Laurie Halse Anderson, whose young adult books are frequently challenged, argues, “By attacking these books, by attacking the authors, by attacking the subject matter, what they are doing is removing the possibility for conversation. You are laying the groundwork for increasing bullying, disrespect, violence and attacks.”

Grand Haven can do better than this. Grand Haven is better than this. And the only way this small group of parents will succeed in their attempt to take over the education of our children will be if we don’t stand up and tell them no. 

So, I urge you, vote in the election on November 8. You can already even request an absentee ballot if you need to. Vote for GHAPS Board of Education incumbents Carl Treutler, Nichol Stack, and Marc Eickholt, and send a message that Grand Haven does not support book banning, puritanical views on sexuality, the shaming of LGBTQ students, or efforts to stop our children from engaging challenging content about race and history. Let’s keep professionals and librarians in charge of our schools, not far-right extremists. 

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. These opinions are those of him alone as a resident of the community and do not necessarily reflect those of his church or congregation. 

The Call of Labor Day for the Christian

Below is my column from the September 7 edition of the Grand Haven Tribune. 

I know many of you, similar to me, likely enjoyed the traditional three-day weekend which ends summer each year. I’m always struck, though, that despite the common (and important!) refrain to “remember the reason” for the Memorial Day holiday each year, there is rarely a similar call for Labor Day.

Many of the roots of the labor movement can be found in Christianity itself. Beginning in the late 18th century and running to the mid 19th century, the Clapham sect in the Church of England (the mother church of my own denomination) was active in calls for social reform. The best-known member of the group was the evangelical Anglican, William Wilberforce. Their denunciations against the slave trade were one of the strongest forces that led to its end.

With the rise of industrialization in the 19th century, there was a corresponding rise of a formal Labor Movement which advocated for workers in the new industrialized world. Whether their politics were conservative or liberal, many Christian theologians and pastors found themselves aligned with the concerns of the labor movement.

In an early 20th-century edition of Biblical World (one of the earlier names of the Journal of Religion, which is still published today by the University of Chicago Press), a theologian wrote, “The ‘workingman’ is first of all just a man, and his power to produce commodities is not the object of his existence.” A person’s value cannot be determined by the goods they produce – their existence has much deeper meaning than this. Christian virtues, like the importance of the Sabbath in Judaism, began to be brought to bear on an increasingly industrialized world, with Christians insisting that every person should have a day of rest.

Around the same time, in the early 20th century, the Federal Council of Churches – which included the Anglican, Baptist, Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Catholic, Presbyterian and Reformed traditions of Christianity – adopted something called the Social Creed of the Churches, giving their own support and commitment to responding to these issues. The Social Creed they adopted expressed these convictions:

• For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life.
• For the principles of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions.
• For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, injuries and mortality.
• For the abolition of child labor.
• For such regulation of the conditions of labor for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community.
• For the suppression of the “sweating system.”
• For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practical point, with work for all; and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life.
• For a release from employment one day in seven.
• For a living wage in every industry.
• For the highest wage that each industry can afford, and for the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised.
• For the recognition of the Golden Rule and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills.

In our own time, including right here in our community of Grand Haven, we are seeing once more the need for strong advocates for labor. While corporations and executives take in significant profits, they also complain about the difficulty in hiring workers. Something about the experience of the past two years has made many people unwilling to work for wages that cannot produce a reasonable standard of living. It’s not that there is a shortage of labor – it is that companies and businesses have not caught up to the fact that workers will no longer put up with inadequate pay nor the constant demands for work created by technology, where your office is always hidden right there in your mobile device, 24/7.

We can set partisan politics aside, I hope, and agree as Christians that the inherent dignity of every human being means we should be concerned with the wages people are being asked to live with, even as corporate funding continues to go up to those at the top.

In our church’s nighttime office of prayers called Compline, there is one prayer that particularly highlights this concern to me and is a meaningful end to the day. It says, “O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other’s toil; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Indeed, our common life does depend upon each other’s toil. May we learn, not just on Labor Day but always, to respect and honor that more fully.

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.

Giving thanks for the history and service of the Coast Guard

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

Growing up in Grand Haven, I remember regularly hearing complaints about the crowds of people descending upon our city for the Coast Guard Festival. However, in the 12 years I have been back home, I’ve come to enjoy watching our small city fill up with people who want to enjoy this place we can so often take for granted.

Part of what we can take for granted is the rather extraordinary history and place of the United States Coast Guard in our country’s history. Now if, as a resident of Grand Haven, you already know the history of the Coast Guard, feel free to skip the rest of this column. But if you are curious to learn some more about this uniformed service, then read on.

When the Coast Guard was created by Congress in 1790, it was originally known as the “Revenue Marine” or “Revenue Cutter Service,” and was an idea from Alexander Hamilton. (The lack of a song featuring the Coast Guard in the “Hamilton” musical is a true oversight that I hope Lin Manual Miranda will at some point correct – though they do get a shoutout in the song “The Adams Administration” if you listen closely.) The focus of the group was collecting customs duties at our nation’s seaports (hence “revenue” in the name). However, in 1915, the group was merged with the United States Life-Saving Service and became the modern Coast Guard we know today.

The United States Coast Guard is now one of the eight uniformed services (and one of the six armed services) in our country, with maritime law enforcement jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters, and also serving with a federal regulatory agency mission. One of the hallmarks of the Coast Guard is that it has both the security service mission above, but also a distinct humanitarian service.

Even though the Coast Guard is the second smallest of the military service branches in our country, in terms of membership, ours is still the largest and most powerful coast guard in the world. It surpasses the capabilities and size of most navies other countries might have. Indeed, it is the 12th-largest naval force in the world.

When it was created, it operated under the Department of Treasury (hence the connection to Hamilton and the original mission as a revenue service. After the second world war, the Coast Guard operated under the Department of Transportation from 1967 to 2003. Then, in 2003, it was transferred to Homeland Security as part of a massive reorganization of federal agencies.

During times of war, the Coast Guard can be transferred directly into the United States Department of the Navy – something that happened in both world wars. That said, the Coast Guard has actually been involved in every war from 1890 through the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. It not only protects the borders of our country, but safeguards sea lines of communication and commerce across territorial waters.

Each year, the Coast Guard saves tens of thousands of lives at sea and in bodies of water here in the U.S. It also brings emergency response and disaster relief for both man-made and natural disasters both domestically and around the world. Organizationally, authority is remarkably decentralized compared with other armed services, and significant responsibility can fall on the shoulders of even junior personnel. This is one of the reasons the Coast Guard is often praised for its ability to respond quickly in times of distress and disaster.

In a 2005 article in Time magazine, after the work of the Coast Guard in responding to Hurricane Katrina, Wil Milam, a rescue swimmer from Alaska, told the magazine, “In the Navy, it was all about the mission. Practicing for war, training for war. In the Coast Guard, it was, take care of our people and the mission will take care of itself.”

The lifesaving work of the Coast Guard after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon mobile drilling platform was featured in the film of the same name. Base Kodiak, the major Coast Guard shore installation in Kodiak, Alaska, was featured in a Weather Channel series and works closely with the film crew of the Discovery show “Deadliest Catch.”

There are 29 cities in our country that are designated as Coast Guard Cities, but Grand Haven, Michigan, was the first when we were designated “Coast Guard City, USA” by an act of Congress that was signed by President Bill Clinton on Nov. 13, 1998.

So, as the crowds descend on our city during this week, I hope you’ll join them in enjoying the amazing festival that our community has hosted since 1937. Remember that these crowds can be a hassle for year-round residents, but they are the lifeblood to many of our small businesses who rely on festival business to make it through the slower winter months. And if you see someone in uniform, thank them for their willingness to serve.

If you’re interested, you’re welcome to join our members at St. John’s Episcopal Church at 10 a.m. this Saturday, before the parade starts, for a service of Morning Prayer. We will begin with a patriotic hymn sing and then move into that time of Scripture and prayer together as we give thanks and pray for the well-being of those who serve in the Coast Guard. After morning prayer, our church will be selling pulled pork, hot dogs, snacks and drinks all to benefit the Unity School, a small school our church supports in Kaberomaido, Uganda. All are truly welcome.

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.