Chris­tian­i­ty Today Pro­motes Pro­gres­sive Church’s Stained Glass Win­dows Glo­ri­fy­ing Social Jus­tice

Last week, Chris­tian­i­ty today’s (CT) pod­cast pro­mot­ed the pro­gres­sive, hereti­cal Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Cathe­dral’s (WNC) deci­sion to replace its stained glass win­dows depict­ing the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion that occurred after the Civ­il war with new win­dows glo­ri­fy­ing protests for racial jus­tice. The deci­sion to replace the win­dows orig­i­nat­ed in 2015 after a white man killed 9 black mem­bers of a church in South Car­oli­na. The win­dows depict anony­mous black Amer­i­cans hold­ing pick­et signs and march­ing in protest to some unnamed injus­tice. In this pod­cast, Rev. Leonard Ham­lin, over­seer on WNC’s out­reach and social jus­tice ini­tia­tives, stat­ed the fol­low­ing regard­ing the pur­pose of the new stained-glass win­dows:

“…[B]eing a sacred space, a gath­er­ing of those who would come togeth­er, we’re telling a sto­ry and we are send­ing mes­sages there. We’re not just cap­tur­ing his­to­ry, but it’s more than even the his­to­ry. We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to tell that his­to­ry, though, as truth­ful and as inclu­sive as possible…When you look around the Cathe­dral in all of those 200 win­dows, what was real­ly being rec­og­nized was that many were being left out. That is an ongo­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for those who are walk­ing in their faith, about who’s not just ostra­cized, but who’s includ­ed. Who are those that are pushed to the mar­gins, and some­times not brought to the cen­ter? The win­dows allowed us to tell a greater and rich­er, more inclu­sive sto­ry, which is ground­ed in the faith that we know has been Chris­t­ian.”

Nowhere in the pod­cast does Ham­lin explain why stained-glass win­dows depict­ing protests of any kind is appro­pri­ate in a Chris­t­ian church. How­ev­er, he does claim that the win­dows are sup­posed to por­tray a “truth­ful and inclu­sive” his­to­ry that rec­og­nizes those who are “left out” and “pushed to the mar­gins.” How­ev­er, a truth­ful and inclu­sive his­to­ry in the Unit­ed States would rec­og­nize that our his­to­ry is mul­ti­fac­eted and includes much, much more than oppres­sion of blacks. A truth­ful and inclu­sive his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive would include a nation that was large­ly found­ed on bib­li­cal prin­ci­ples, by men who held to a bib­li­cal world­view, and who desired a bib­li­cal ethos in soci­ety. It would acknowl­edge Amer­i­ca’s con­tin­u­al estab­lish­ment, from word to real­i­ty, of a land where the Bib­li­cal truth that “all men are cre­at­ed equal.” That does not mean that there were not prob­lems, but Amer­i­ca was still one of the first nations to abol­ish slav­ery, and has con­tin­u­ous­ly been able to fight off the ideas of those that would seek to enshrine par­tial­i­ty rather than lib­er­ty. This, though, is a con­tin­u­al fight, as can be seen in the mod­ern day fight against “wok­e­ness” and its desire to estab­lish a new form of par­tial­i­ty.

If this “inclu­sive and truth­ful” his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive paint­ed by these win­dows is actu­al­ly an exclu­sive half-truth about our his­to­ry, then what about it is “ground­ed in the faith”? The answer is found in look­ing at WNC’s doc­u­men­tary they filmed about the deci­sion mak­ing behind the art­work for the win­dows. In that film, Rev­erend Vin­cent Pow­ell Har­ris makes a strik­ing admis­sion about why the win­dows were built when he explains, “We can all talk about diver­si­ty, inclu­sion, and equi­ty. But the word must become flesh.” Here Har­ris blas­phe­mous­ly quotes John 1:14 (And the Word became flesh) that refers to Jesus enter­ing into His own cre­ation as the sav­ior, and attrib­ut­es that verse to the tro­jan horse woke terms, “diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion.” Inten­tion­al­ly or not, Har­ris has min­i­mized the truth of the incar­na­tion of Jesus, and betrayed the idol-god of WNC: social jus­tice.

Nev­er­the­less, CT has pro­mot­ed these social jus­tice pro­mot­ing stained glass win­dows. What’s worse, CT has plat­formed and praised Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Cathe­dral with­out qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Upon look­ing at WNC’s web­site, as well as the Epis­co­pal Dio­cese of Wash­ing­ton to which they are affil­i­at­ed, we have uncov­ered a few rea­sons why this is prob­lem­at­ic:

1. WNC denies the inerran­cy of scrip­ture, say­ing that the Bible is full of con­tra­dic­tions: “While the Bible is our sacred text, we acknowl­edge that it is an ancient human doc­u­ment, full of all the con­tra­dic­tions and incon­sis­ten­cies of human­i­ty. We seek in Scrip­ture spir­i­tu­al inspi­ra­tion, his­tor­i­cal ground­ing for our faith, the teach­ings of Jesus and of the Hebrew prophets before him, and guid­ance for our own life of prayer and ser­vice.”
2. WNC ordains female and gay pas­tors, with no regard to the bib­li­cal qual­i­fi­ca­tions for pas­toral min­istry: “We believe that lead­er­ship in the church is avail­able to all, both lay and ordained, male and female, and can be expressed by all peo­ple, regard­less of gen­der, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, race or eth­nic­i­ty.”
3. WNC per­forms same-sex wed­dings: “I cel­e­brate our church’s deci­sion to name the sacred, life-long com­mit­ment of gay and les­bian cou­ples for what we expe­ri­ence it to be – a mar­riage, not only accord­ing to the laws of the state but also in Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty.”
4. WNC denounces Amer­i­ca and pro­motes ideas con­sis­tent with Crit­i­cal Race The­o­ry and Inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty: “As Amer­i­ca con­fronts the orig­i­nal sin of racism and slav­ery, we believe there is no place in God’s king­dom for dis­crim­i­na­tion or hatred of any kind…That’s why we’re com­mit­ted to work­ing for racial jus­tice, racial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and equal­i­ty for all. None of us is free until all of us are free.”
5. WNC calls for repa­ra­tions for slav­ery: “Our jour­ney toward repa­ra­tions will not be with­out its chal­lenges. Yet our com­mit­ment to jus­tice and equi­ty requires that we walk this road of self-dis­cov­ery, under­stand­ing, con­fes­sion, repen­tance, and ulti­mate­ly, resti­tu­tion for our insti­tu­tion­al involve­ment with white suprema­cy.”
6. WNC claims that Amer­i­cans are liv­ing on stolen land: “We remem­ber and hon­or the Indige­nous peo­ple of North Amer­i­ca, in par­tic­u­lar the Ana­costan, Pis­cat­away and Pamunkey nations, who called this land home.”
7. WNC pays homage to the cli­mate agen­da: “May we always remem­ber that the Earth does not belong to us, that we belong to the Earth…”
8. WNC wel­comes inter­faith wor­ship of peo­ple from oth­er reli­gions in their church on Sun­day: “Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Cathe­dral is a House of Prayer for All Peo­ple, root­ed in the Epis­co­pal Church yet open to all. We believe every per­son is a beloved child of God, and we aim to live out our Bap­tismal Covenant to “respect the dig­ni­ty of every human being.”

WNC is not a “church” in the bib­li­cal sense. It is a social jus­tice cult that denies the gospel and its pow­er to save peo­ple from their sin. This pod­cast is anoth­er link in the long chain of depar­ture from Bib­li­cal Chris­tian­i­ty on dis­play at Chris­tian­i­ty Today. Let’s pray that those at CT will repent of their many com­pro­mis­es with world­ly philoso­phies and return to the Lord.