After George Floyd was killed, white evangelical Christians seemed to lean in and learn from Black Christian leaders like Esau McCaulley and Justin Giboneyin ways that appeared miraculous compared to how many white Christians engaged in conversations about race and faith after Trayvon Martin was killed. Fellow white Christians were offered tools to zoom out from just thinking about personal sin and, instead, think about the immediate and generational impacts of communal sins (both intentional and unintentional). Our eyes were opened to the ways that imbalances established by intentional injustice tend to be maintained (or even widened) over future generations if there is no intentional correction.. White evangelical Christians recognized their responsibility to do something to deconstruct the systems that maintained imbalances and do something to make the victims of generational injustice whole again, somehow.

As someone who coaches pastors and parents about how to minister to sexual minorities, I was curious about how to translate these new found tools and concepts for biblical racial justice into biblical justice for gay people. And as someone who experiences same-sex attraction and stewards that according to historic Christian sexual ethics, I was both curious and wary about what those potent intellectual and theological catalysts might do in my heart and in churches leaning into conversations about race and faith.

I noticed many of my fellow white evangelical Christians posting black squares on social media in support of #blacklivesmatter (and often in the same season, declaring that they were egalitarian). Then there was sexual ethics. During this period, I received dozens of messages from earnest Christians with some version of the following question:

“I’ve become convinced that how Jesus really sees things is more in line with culturally progressive views on racial justice and women in leadership. I’ve always believed in a more traditional Christian sexual ethic, but now it’s bothering me that the version of Jesus in my head leans one way on race and women, but then the other on sexual minorities. That seems inconsistent. I feel like Jesus wants some form of dignity and justice for gay people as well. Does that mean I need to switch my views on that too?”

My first impulse was to send these earnest Christians an Amazon link to William Webb’s Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. This somewhat dated, unsubtly titled volume concedes that Christians have used the Bible to justify slavery and oppress women, but it encourages modern Christians to instead focus on what the narrative across the Scriptures tells us about God’s ultimate ethic on slavery, women in leadership, and gay sex. Webb argues that when we take a closer look at how the Bible talks about each of those, we see the Scriptures treat those topics differently and compel the Christian to hold perspectives on race, female leadership, and sexuality that point in different directions.

Basing his approach on the notion that God accommodates His self-revelation based on our abilities and limits, Webb points out that across the narrative of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the way God talks about slavery and women changes over time—suggesting a trajectory toward an ultimate good. Women, for example, are among Christ’s disciples, and Paul urges Philemon to see his slave as a beloved brother.

Webb argues that this trajectory, however, is not found in how the Bible discusses same-sex sexual activity. Notwithstanding all the cultural caveats we might make, sexual activity between people of the same sex appears to draw consistent repudiation, even condemnation.

So I sent the Amazon link for Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals to my friends yearning for biblical justice for sexual minorities. They were underwhelmed.

What I failed to recognize was that their core concern wasn’t the seeming inconsistency of Christian responses to race, gender, and sexuality. Instead, their primary concern was a desire for gay Christians to experience genuine wholeness and thriving in our churches, instead of experiencing loss of faith driven by Christian homophobia. The Christians messaging me saw that believers could hold onto biblical ethics while seeking justice for racial minorities and women. Their real question was, “What about gay people?” Unspoken, I heard them also hinting that they were hoping there was a way to satisfy their God-given yearning for justice for sexual minorities without needing to abandon historic Christian sexual ethics.

After many discussions, we slowly started to piece together an answer. As is often the case with problem-solving, we first needed to admit that there is a problem. And we needed to name how Christians have intentionally and unintentionally fostered injustices against gay people.

Particularly in the past century, it seemed like Christians have either perpetrated or been complicit in these behaviors, motivated at some level by homophobia:

1. Christians defended the criminalization of gay sex, supported housing and employment discrimination policies, and stood by as the AIDS crisis was waved away as gay cancer.
2. Pastors taught that merely experiencing same-sex attraction was a sin and propagated ex-gay theology that led millions to lose their life or faith.
3. Denominations barred celibate gay Christians from leadership in their churches and policed what words sexual minorities could use to describe themselves.
4. Parents failed to protect kids from the wounds of the closet by waiting until kids came out to share about God’s love and wisdom for same-sex attracted people, enabling loss of faith and loss of life.
5. Churches neglected to teach about or support the vocational singleness encouraged in Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7, instead cultivating churches in which no one can thrive in lifetime singleness for the sake of the kingdom.
6. Often with the best intentions, churches hid their historic Christian sexual ethics, publicly used messaging that hinted at the opposite, and set gay people up for painful bait-and-switch experiences when they learned the truth after years of fellowship.
7. Christians maintained a double standard of sexual stewardship by calling gay Christians to biblical standards but then turning a blind eye to sins among straight Christians, including casual romance, premarital sex, disregard for Christ’s invitation to consider vocational singleness, refusing to be open to raising children for the kingdom in Christian marriage, and enabling unbiblical divorce/remarriage.

As my friends and I considered the effect of these seven injustices, I noted that most of the gay Christians I’ve known haven’t directly endured the worst of these injustices. Their churches weren’t overtly homophobic, and many of them allow celibate gay Christians to lead. Fellow Christians have often supported basic LGBT civil rights. But too many of the gay Christians I’ve known who’ve tried to follow historic Christian sexual ethics still struggle mightily. They’re haunted by the lingering wounds of the closet, including shame, anxiety, depression, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. A subtle double standard of sexual stewardship in their churches still stings. Their churches still don’t know how to offer lifelong, lived-in family to anyone in long-term singleness, regardless of sexual orientation. It seems there’s a systemic homophobia that was established by communal sins of the past, continues to burden gay Christians today attempting to follow God’s wisdom, and must be pruned from the Church.

Holding unambiguously to biblical wisdom for sexual minorities, believing unequivocally that God loves gay people, and asserting unreservedly that He wants to offer them what’s truly best, my friends and I dreamed about biblical justice for sexual minorities. We remembered one of the key transferrable lessons from biblical racial justice and empowerment of women: God is much more concerned with making those on the margins whole than He is about punishing those who established or maintained injustice.

In contrast to the injustice gay people have experienced, we discerned seven ways the Church can be cleansed of systemic homophobia and sexual minorities can be made whole:

1. Churches can repent for the sins of past Christians against gay people. Nehemiah 9 and Ezra 9, among others, make clear that it is good for the people of God to recognize and confess the collective sins of the Church.
2. Pastors can correctly teach that while same-sex attraction may constitute a temptation, a person has not sinned until the individual has yielded to that temptation in thought, word, or deed. Pastors can teach that the solution to temptation isn’t harmfully ineffective ex-gay practices, but instead a daily dependence on the Holy Spirit to resist temptation.
3. Denominations can recruit leaders who are faithfully stewarding their same-sex attractions, celebrate the spiritual gifts they have to offer the body of Christ, and support them to use whatever words empower them to reach LGBT people with the gospel.
4. Churches can clearly and compassionately share their convictions about God’s love and wisdom for sexual minorities so that straight Christians know how to better support their queer siblings and so that gay Christians know whether it’s safe to share their story.
5. Parents can teach every kid in age-appropriate ways about sexual stewardship for all people, including God’s love and wisdom for same-sex attracted people, before puberty.
6. Churches can raise the bar for everyone’s sexual stewardship, protecting gay Christians from a self-destructive victim mentality and fostering thriving according to God’s wisdom for all.
7. Churches can teach what Jesus and Paul had to say about vocational singleness, guide teens and young adults to discern (regardless of sexual orientation), celebrate the commitments and kingdom work of vocational singles, hire them as church staff, and cultivate intentional Christian community where vocational singles can find lived-in family.

We were inspired by this vision, but something still felt undeniably different about biblical racial justice versus biblical justice for sexual minorities. Then we clearly named it: there’s nothing broken about being Black. The color of our black and brown siblings in Christ is exactly what God intended for them. In contrast, while injustices have been committed against gay people and systemic homophobia lingers, same-sex attractions are ultimately a brokenness that God did not intend. Perhaps this difference is why Webb’s Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals is unavoidably necessary. Biblical justice for racial minorities and for sexual minorities will look different, but not because God is arbitrarily singling out gay people. No, true biblical justice for sexual minorities will be just as good for gay people as it has been (in part) for women and people of color. But it doesn’t look that way yet, right? Why? I submit it is because we haven’t tried it yet.

The Church has never actually tried to embody God’s wisdom for sexual minorities in ways that lead to good and beautiful thriving for gay people. We’ve only seen the tragic fruit of ex-gay theology and revisionist sexual ethics. Perhaps for the first time in history, Christians have everything we need to compassionately embody historic Christian sexual ethics. We could try it and see what happens! We could discover how gloriously good and beautiful a Church filled with gay Christians thriving according to God’s wisdom can be.

We might realize a Church in which kids grow up hearing and seeing the testimonies of Christians publicly navigating same-sex attractions, committed to historic Christian sexual ethics, and experiencing just as much connection and community as their opposite-sex attracted brothers and sisters in Christ. Imagine some gay Christians walking out vocational singleness and others walking out marriage with someone of the opposite sex, but all finding deep belonging as they daily depend on the Holy Spirit to resist lesser loves. We might see a Church in which gay and straight Christians spur one another on toward love and good deeds, and the whole body of Christ flourishes according to God’s wisdom. And we might delight in a Church where kids are sober-minded but not scared if they notice same-sex attractions in themselves, because they’re confident they can share with their parents and find lifelong support from their local church to thrive according to God’s wisdom.

Let’s try.

I received a communication from a seminarian in a progressive evangelical church interested in the Episcopal Church. This person wanted to know, before a potential visit, if our parish is “LGBTQIA+ affirming.” My initial response was that, although it may sound clichéd, all are welcome. I said that I’d be interested to hear what LGBTQIA+-affirming means to him. His response: “Practically speaking, being LGBTQIA+-affirming generally means that queer folks are accepted and welcome to serve in any capacity, up to the highest levels of leadership. Affirming denominations and churches usually do not consider homosexuality, or ‘homosexual acts,’ to be sinful. This position (Side A) was, understandably, placed in contrast to Side B, which holds to a ‘traditional’ sexual ethic (between one man and one woman).”

This became an opportunity for me to formulate as thoughtful a response as I could, which follows.

✜ ✜ ✜

Allow me to try to express an understanding of your questions (even though I would prefer to do so in person). As you know, writing does not allow for immediate feedback and clarification, and can lack helpful nuance, limiting what we seek to express).

At any rate, if one has to “take sides,” Church of the Ascension & Saint Agnes is on Side A. However, speaking of nuance, these categories require much more nuance which could perhaps happily lead to viewing these questions less in terms of sides.

For us, as for much of the Christian tradition over the centuries, the divine life, although it takes hold of who we are in all that we are, is beyond the categories of which you speak. Hence the words of Saint Paul (Gal. 3:26-28):

“In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” One could add, “no longer straight nor gay, no longer transgender or…”

This declaration of Saint Paul is not simply aspirational. It is a given, it is a divine fait accompli, into and according to which we are invited to live. Indeed, “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

Because we believe and try to live this, these categories are, in one sense, a non-issue. They do not apply to the depth at which we meet one another as Sisters and Brothers (even though, again, we bring our whole selves to these encounters). All are truly welcome, and all are truly supported in how they are personally “working out their salvation” (Phil. 2:12). And because we believe and try to live this, and because of the depth at which we meet one another as sisters and brothers , we have members from across the philosophical spectrum. Everyone here is affirming of individual persons, knowing that we are called to want what is best for one another to grow in faith, hope, and love, knowing also that our individual journeys in the public square will look different.

Regarding the specific ideological underpinnings of what appears to be the predominant secular political LGBTQIA+-affirming agenda, we have an array of perspectives among our members. This makes sense because these are philosophical questions that do not find a clear, easy answer in faith and theology. There are some who wholeheartedly agree with and are supportive of the predominant LGBTQIA+-affirming ideology and there are some who are uncomfortable with and have reservations about the predominant LGBTQIA+-affirming ideology. The latter, however, are no less supportive of the spiritual life of those with whom they do not align in terms of thinking on this issue. They are very affirming of individual persons, their fellow parishioners, and of each one’s responsibility to live the Christian life as he or she discerns best. In fact, one could argue that the presence of such members who are differently affirming (who do not have, by the way, a hidden agenda to force their perspective on the parish) witnesses to a special magnanimity of heart. Indeed, one does not have to agree with someone to love and to affirm them. And loving someone with whom I do not see eye-to-eye requires particular generosity of heart.

What I am perhaps essentially saying is that unity, oneness, is the fruit of love, not of ideological alignment. If this were not true, church as we know it would not be possible, church would only be a place of the like-minded (nowadays, we sometimes see this — at both ends of the political spectrum). We are not like-minded, humanly speaking. Saint Paul does, of course, say, that we must

be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 2:2-5)

I would argue that this “like-mindedness” is not regarding social issues. It is regarding one another as sisters and brothers, beyond human categories, as Jesus sees us (“the same mind that is in Christ Jesus”) and about laying down our lives for one another as such. We are like-hearted, joined by the Holy Spirit as siblings in God.

And so, here at Ascension & St. Agnes’ Church, we journey together with these philosophical tensions, knowing that we are already one in Christ. We are not militant. Individual members may feel called to “militant” activity, in which they are affirmed. We do not fly a “pride” flag. We are not unanimously in agreement with the tenets that this flag seems to presume. We need not be, because our life is deeper than this. Even if we were unanimously in agreement with the tenets that the “pride” flag seems to presume, we would not fly it. The cross is our flag, which is more inclusive than any other flag.

I hope that this is helpful. I close with one of our five parish “values,” which may give a little more perspective.

We value the church as a community that welcomes all people, where viewpoint diversity is considered a blessing. Jesus’ “kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The course of action for Christians in the political sphere, therefore, is not always obvious and may lead to different political perspectives among parishioners. We are certainly not removed from the world, as we are called to love “in truth and in action” (1 John 3:18). Because we may have different understandings of how to “act justly” (Micah 6:8), as a church we choose to minister primarily in our immediate community and we pray that each parishioner go forth, formed by our common faith and according to the dictates of individual conscience, to make the world a better place.

I feel confident that I am not alone in noticing the proximity of the Feast of the Holy Cross, September 14, to the anniversary of September 11, 2001. The feast day originally set aside to celebrate Constantine’s mother, Helena, finding the cross in Jerusalem circa 324 is likewise an opportunity to reveal hidden truth, a truth covered over by our comfortable expectations for life. September 11 marked the end of the 20th century not merely chronologically, but also culturally. The 1980s’ “morning in America” and the end of the Cold War was followed by the bubbly 1990s, an upbeat period in the United States featuring the Dave Matthews Band and the comedy of Seinfeld.

The new century, which began with the falling of those towers, has turned out to be far less optimistic and less secure. The 2008 economic downturn, only a few years later, called into question for young adults (including me at the time) an expected course of life: buying a house, starting a family, following the road to being middle class. During the 2010s, the two political parties began to widen to their polar extremes, birthing the bitter fruit of (without hyperbole) lunatic fringes gaining credit on the national stage. There has been palpable social change, some of which seems like satire and whose ultimate ends are still unknown, and there is a pervasive uncertainty about democratic institutions that have long been trusted. Oh yes, and there was a global pandemic through which many of us were trying to raise kids.

But hey, life ain’t so bad. Please forgive me if this sounds like moaning and whining. After all, most of us are not living through the sack of Rome or even the ravages of war and famine that are happening right now across God’s good creation. In truth, many of us in the West are very comfortable; many of us have a reasonable hope to pay for our kids’ college and our retirements. My point, however, is that 9/11 seems to have marked the end of a particular culture of certainty and expectation embraced in America during the second half of the 20th century, a certainty about the course of life that had endured even during the Cold War.

Perhaps the tragedy of 9/11, now almost 25 years ago, inaugurated an era of clarity. I certainly do not mean that 9/11 was somehow helpful; that would be grotesque. And likewise, it is a strange assertion during a season when trust in the former “givens” of Western life is bottoming out. But that is the point. We see, or at least I hope some of us see, the truth about real security. Older liturgical calendars list the feast as the “invention” of the Cross, an echo of its Latin title. The word Inventio has the connotation of uncovering that which was always there. It has the sense of revelation or unveiling, not creation or fabrication. Consider the emotionally powerful moment in our Good Friday liturgy when the cross is brought out for veneration. The cross is unveiled; the truth is revealed. According to Eusebius, the true cross was hidden underneath a Temple to Venus; it was covered over by lies. Hail the cross, indeed, our one hope. And this uncovering is not merely seeing two pieces of wood fixed together, but the truth that our security is found in that place, the cross of Jesus Christ, where pain and hope meet, where death and life intersect, where (once more) perverse human failure is swallowed up in divine provision. There is God’s victory and our security.

Here, then, is a short catena of Christian voices on the Cross, a gathering of sources for reflection on this day. I have only lightly amended language and translations for ease of reading.

Cyril of Jerusalem (313-86), Catechetical Lectures
Let us not be ashamed of the cross of our Savior, but rather glory in it. “For the word of the Cross is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” but to us, it is salvation. And “to those who are perishing it is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:23). For it was not a mere man who died for us, but the Son of God, God made man. Further, if the lamb under Moses drove away the destroyer (Ex. 12:23), did not much rather the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world deliver us from our sins” (John 1:29)? The blood of a silly sheep gave salvation. Shall not the blood of the only begotten save?

Dream of the Rood (c. 8th century)
Listen! I will speak of the sweetest dream, what came to me in the middle of the night, when speech-bearers slept in their rest. It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree … Then the young hero made ready—that was God almighty— strong and resolute; he ascended on the high gallows, brave in the sight of many, when he wanted to ransom mankind. I trembled when he embraced me, but I dared not bow to the ground, or fall to the earth’s corners—I had to stand fast. I was reared as a cross: I raised up the mighty King, the Lord of heaven; I dared not lie down. They drove dark nails through me; the scars are still visible, open wounds of hate; I dared not harm any of them. They mocked us both together; I was all drenched with blood flowing from that man’s side after he had sent forth his spirit … “Now I bid you, my beloved hero, tell them in words that it is the tree of glory on which almighty God suffered for mankind’s many sins and Adam’s ancient deeds. Death He tasted there, yet the Lord rose again with his great might to help mankind. He ascended into heaven. He will come again to this middle-earth to seek mankind on doomsday.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), Commentary on Colossians
O the abundant riches of God’s mercy! O the unspeakable goodness of his heavenly wisdom! When all hope of righteousness was past on our part, when we had nothing in ourselves whereby we might quench his burning wrath and work the salvation of own souls, and rise out of the miserable state wherein we lay; then, even then, did Christ the Son of God, by the appointment of his Father, come down from heaven to be wounded for our sakes, to be reputed with the wicked, to be condemned to death, to take on himself the reward for our sins and to give his body to be broken on the cross for our offenses. “He,” says the prophet Isaiah, meaning Christ, “has born our infirmities and has carried our sorrows; the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes are we made whole” (Isa. 53:4-5) … St. Paul likewise says, “God made him a sacrifice for our sins who knew no sin, that we should be made the righteousness of God by him” (2 Cor. 5:21). And St. Peter agrees, writing, “Christ has once died and suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust” (1 Pet. 3:18).

Martin Luther (1483-1546), Commentary on Galatians, Erasmus Middletown, trans. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1979)
Carnal glory and ambition is a dangerous poison … Our glory is increased and confirmed because our cross and suffering is the suffering of Christ. Our Savior, who is greater than the world, pronounced us to be blessed and wills us to rejoice (Matt. 5:11-12) … Our glory, then, is a different glory to the glory of the world, which does not rejoice in tribulation and persecution, but in power, riches, honor, and its own righteousness. But mourning and confusion will be the end of this kind of glory.

Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-82), Sermon, “Joy out of Suffering”
The joy of the world ends in sorrow; sorrow with Christ and in Christ, yes, and for our sins, for Christ’s sake, ends in joy … Faint not then, you weary soul, but trust! If you can see nothing but hell before you, shut your eyes and cast yourself blindly into the infinite abyss of God’s mercy, and the everlasting arms will receive you and bear you. Hide in the cleft of the rock riven for you, your Savior’s wounded side, until this tyranny is past. If buffeted by the waves, you would not let go of a rope which held you to the rock! So now, though “all his waves and storms seem to pass over you,” hold faster to him who, unseen, holds you.

J.C. Ryle (1816-1900), Sermon, “On the Cross“
What did St. Paul mean when he said, “I glory in the cross of Christ,” in the Epistle to the Galatians? … He simply meant, “I glory in nothing but Christ crucified, as the salvation of my soul. Reader, Jesus Christ crucified was the joy and delight, the comfort and the peace, the hope and the confidence, the foundation and the resting place, the ark and the refuge, the food and the medicine of Paul’s soul. He did not think of what he had done himself, and suffered himself. He did not meditate on his own goodness, and his own righteousness. He loved to think of what Christ had done, and Christ had suffered — of the death of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, the atonement of Christ, the blood of Christ, the finished work of Christ. In this he did glory … Are you one that finds his heart too ready to love earthly things? To you also I say, “Behold the cross of Christ.” Look at the cross; think of the cross; meditate on the cross, and then go and set your affections on the world if you can. I believe that holiness is nowhere learned so well as on Calvary. I believe you cannot look much at the cross without feeling your will sanctified, and your tastes made more spiritual. As the sun makes everything else look dark and dim, so does the cross darken the false splendor of this world. As honey tasted makes all other things seem to have no taste at all, so does the cross seen by faith take all the sweetness out of the pleasures of the world. Keep on every day steadily looking at the cross of Christ.

The committee reported as required within a year of its commencement, with its position clear from the title of its report: “Proceed with Caution.” The report’s summary clearly said that the U.K. Government “must ensure ethics are at the center of its policy, including expanding the role of the Ministry of Defence’s AI Ethics Advisory Committee” (p. 4). Also critical, from my perspective, was the firm view spelled out in the fourth of its central recommendations: “The Government should ensure human control at all stages of an AWS’s lifestyle.”

There was much that I learned from those who gave evidence to the committee, orally or in writing, and through site visits to research centers and military establishments. I gained a level of technical knowledge and understanding of the development and use of AI across the military spectrum, much of it uncontroversial. I also found, though, that the moral position with which I joined the committee was reinforced through the course of its work. My focus from the beginning was on what might be called the distinctive dignity of humanity. Theologically, such a position in the Judeo-Christian tradition is rooted in the belief that human beings are made in the image of God, according to his likeness (see Gen. 1:26).

As those made in the image and likeness of God, human beings have the capacity to reason. We use our intelligence in all its different forms to come to particular judgments that, at their best, show wisdom. Created through God’s Word, we are endowed with reasoning capacities that can be lifted by his Spirit to reflect even the mind of Christ (Phil 2:5; 1 Cor. 2:16). Machines, however sophisticated and technically proficient, are very different. Whatever “intelligence” they have is not the same as the intelligence with which human beings are endowed. Indeed, it is not intelligence as we know it. It is computation through data analysis, algorithms and the like; and it may be better to call it what it is rather than imputing human characteristics to inanimate things, often only having a digital reality.

Anthropomorphizing machines and their calculations is not at all helpful. It can distract us from what they are and deceive us into thinking that they have the same capacities as we have, and better. Theologically, the stakes are high. Projecting the features of human beings who are made in the image and likeness of God onto machines, which are by no means as wondrously created (Psalm 139.14), is only one step away from idolatry. The stakes are high pragmatically as well, especially when we begin to assume that through the exercise of “intelligence,” weapon systems have the competence to make life-and-death judgments in relation to human beings made in the image and likeness of God. In an important study; An Ethical Evaluation of Lethal Functions in Autoregulative Weapons Systems to be published next year by Nicole Kunkel, drawing on the philosopher Brian Cantwell Smith, makes an important distinction between the “reckoning” of which artificial systems are capable and the “judgment” that human beings are enabled by God to exercise.

On the modern battlefield — and the battlefields that are sure to come — it is important to retain confidence in human judgment, relying as it does on seeing the whole. It has a God-given freedom “to do otherwise” than what it is programmed to do, and it has capacities for empathy, for mercy, for perception in depth and for wise discernment that may transcend that which may be calculated even by the normal exercise of logic.

Alongside the gift of reasoning comes the calling of responsibility. To act responsibly means to make judgments that bear moral scrutiny, and to which we can expect to be held to account. They are an exercise of moral reasoning that follows from our creation in the image and likeness of God that embody in some way, albeit provisional and partial, the moral law of God by which we ourselves will be judged by God’s perfect justice. Acting ethically is more than reckoning whether our decisions meet certain programmed criteria. It requires those advanced attributes of understanding, the capacities of judgment I have already described that can see in the round, and the ability to assess short- and long-term consequences. All of these are needed for the responsible analysis of risk, upon which the humane conduct of warfare depends.

It is for these reasons that retaining proper levels of human control — meaningful human control, as it is often called — is essential in weapon systems. Quite what that means in relation to every weapons system in all its different elements, from design to targeting and different theatres of usage, is a complex matter in practice. But the principle is vital to uphold. The necessity of determining who is responsible for lethal decisions is necessary as much for law as it is for ethics. It is necessary theologically as well. For the calling to act responsibly lies at the core of our human identity, made in the image and likeness of God. To evade that calling, and to pass it on to that which is not human, is a denial of humanity and will lead to the deformation of humanity.

There are larger questions to be asked of the use of AI in weapon systems and the development of so-called Autonomous Weapon Systems. They are well articulated in Nicole Kunkel’s forthcoming book, and they apply to all weapons and the way that they are used. Will they serve the purposes of peace? That is not only a question of whether they limit and control the use of violence in warfare in the way that Christian thinking about the just use of weapons has sought to do (jus in bello), which is enshrined in international humanitarian law. It is also a question of whether they will serve the establishment of peace, the question that lies at the root of the Christian just war tradition (jus ad bellum) that reaches back to Augustine in the fifth century and, moreover, whether they will help or hinder the creation of a just and sustainable peace when the conflict is finally over in the way that more recent reworking of the just war tradition has done (jus post bellum).

I will soon lead the funeral of a distinguished old soldier. His family has asked for the Collect of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, his first regiment, to be prayed at the service. The collect concludes with these words: “enable us, while loving our country best, to enter into the fellowship of the whole human family, and give us now and ever the gift of courage to seek after a just and merciful peace.” I shall offer that prayer, remembering not only the life of a fine human being who served his country well, but also praying for those charged with the responsibility of the development and use of weapon systems, especially those that incorporate Artificial “Intelligence.”

Among those who profess Christian faith, the question arises: How ought we — how can we — think Christianly about the political and cultural territory through which we are navigating? What word does our faith, our identity in Christ, speak to this political moment?

My personal dilemma: Informed by the Christian value that all human life is sacred, and every human being bears the image of God, I’m concerned about those whose circumstances force them into migration, whether authorized or unauthorized. If former President Trump is elected, their lives will become less safe. I’m also concerned about the lives of the conceived but not yet born. If Vice President Harris is elected, their lives will become much less safe. These are very concrete concerns that intersect with my Christian conscience.

It is, of course, inescapable that we live in the world — the world as it is, not as we might like it to be, or as, in God’s good time, eschatologically, it will yet become. When citizens of the kingdom of Judah were beginning to live in exile in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah counseled them to not shy away from embracing their new circumstances:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jer. 29:5-7, all citations ESV)

Seeking the welfare of the city in which we spend our exile entails being mentally and emotionally and volitionally invested in it. This entails taking one’s rightful place in its political and social structures, whatever those might be. We are part of our society, part of our culture.

St. Paul sharpens this notion as he writes to the Christian community in Rome: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom. 13:1). Paul clearly sees no radical disjunction between the polis of human society, with its governing structures, and the providential purposes of the missio dei to restore unity and abet human flourishing. The inbreaking kingdom of Heaven is not presumptively at odds with the culture in which those who herald its arrival find themselves placed.

The Apostle Peter also weighs in along the same lines: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Peter 2:13-14). As followers of Jesus the Christ, whose kingship is supreme and unique, we are nonetheless implicated with the iteration of human society and culture in which we live. Its blessings are our blessings. Its challenges and problems are our challenges and problems. The suffering of its members is our suffering.

Yet no kingdom of this world can be precisely identified with the kingdom of Heaven. There are limits; there are boundaries. From the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:4). While we are to work and pray for the welfare of the city in which we dwell, our loyalty to that city is contingent, constrained. Again, St. Peter (or this time, perhaps, his pseudonymous disciple) expresses the notion in arrestingly graphic imagery: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10).

We, the pilgrim people of God, are — using the words of William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas in their seminal, now iconic, 1989 work — resident aliens. Or, in the parlance of the anonymous Christian folk song: “This world is not my home, I’m just passin’ through.” So there is a dynamic tension between the reality of our current situation in the world, in which we seek the welfare of the city, and the reality that we are yet in exile in that city. We are undeniably very much in the world, but yet not of the world, as our Lord is recorded as expressing it in his high priestly prayer on the night before his Passion (John 17:16).

As resident aliens, then, how do we approach this election and its aftermath? First, we affirm and trust in the sovereignty of God. As we have occasion, at times, to sing (Hymnal 1982, #534):

God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year;
God is working his purpose out as the time is drawing near;
nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

Those who engage the practice of lectio divina cultivate the habit of always looking for the providential action of God — what is he up to in the passage of Scripture under consideration? Whatever the outcome of the election, God is not absent! God is always up to something. Resting in the knowledge of God’s providential presence enables us to take a high-altitude view of political developments. We realize that there is no need to panic. This does not mean that we are less passionate in our advocacy for justice and righteousness in the political order, but that our eyes are free to focus on the bigger picture. “God is working his purpose out.”

Identifying as a community of resident aliens also enables us to affirm and trust in the ubiquity of divine grace. God leads with grace and concludes with grace, and grace permeates everything in between. God is the consummate opportunist. He is not bound by human social and political structures, to say nothing of election laws, poll results, or debate outcomes. Rather, God will constantly look for ways to “hijack” such things toward his ends, even to the point of exploiting human behavior — whether personal or collective, that is in itself sinful — and channeling it toward his redemptive purposes.

“Elections have consequences,” it is said, but not for God! God is not on the ballot, and there is no way he can “lose” this election. This invites us, as the people of God, to relax a little bit, at least. Among the exploded heads on November 6, there’s no reason any of them need to be those of Christians.