A National Epiphany

January 6 is the one-year anniversary of an armed assault on the U.S Capitol. It is also Epiphany in the Christian calendar. Meaning “revelation” or “manifestation,” Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, symbolized by the magi who came from the East to honor him. January 6, 2021, was a revelation as well, confirming our national polarization and revealing equally deep fractures within Christianity.

Many in the crowd that stormed the Capitol carried Christian flags and believed they were defending a form of white Protestant Christianity that has long defined the country. Although the Constitution enshrines religious liberty, they harken to the Puritan settlers who sought to establish a community based on Biblical values that would be a shining example for the world – a “city on the hill,” to quote John Winthrop.

Heirs of this vision see religious difference as a corruption of American identity. ¹ Evangelical Christians have been among Donald Trump’s staunchest supporters, resonating with his fearful rhetoric about what they stand to lose in an increasingly diverse America. Robert Pape’s study of those charged in the January 6 assault reveals that a high percentage of them came from counties where the non-Hispanic white population is in decline. The Great Replacement theory also played a role, as white Christians fear they are being supplanted by immigrants and religious minorities.²

On the other end of the religious spectrum are progressive Christians, who are less visible and vocal than Evangelicals, but just passionate in advocating for a more inclusive country and church. These Christians embrace racial, ethnic, and sexual diversity, and they see changes that allow it to reach new communities as an extension of the Christian revelation to Gentiles that Epiphany marks.

These differences have produced fractures in several mainline Protestant denominations already and have brought the United Methodist Church to the breaking point.³ Conservatives see themselves as upholding biblical values, while progressives appeal to God’s inclusive love and oppose legalism that resembles the Pharisees more than the Jesus movement.

Church division is not new, and sometimes it is necessary. Religious scholars⁴ see the current division as evidence of a religious fracture on the scale of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century and the schism between Western and Eastern Christianity in the eleventh. Referred to as “the Great Emergence” (Phyllis Tickle), another Great Awakening (Diana Butler Bass), and an ecclesiastical rummage sale (Anglican Bishop Mark Bishop), current changes within Christianity are viewed by some as necessary transformation to adapt to social change and by others as departure from core Christian values. As United Methodists and other Protestants have come to realize, such radically different views cannot be reconciled within one denomination, and separation allows both factions to form new bodies consistent with their vision.

National division is resolved at the ballot box, but this past year has revealed vast differences in how Americans view the democratic process. On this anniversary of the protest by those who claimed a stolen presidential election, polls indicate that just over half of Americans believe Joe Biden is the duly elected president, although investigations and lawsuits have failed to produce evidence to the contrary. Living as many people do in social media “echo chambers” that reinforce rather than expand our viewpoint only drives the wedge between us deeper. A high percentage of Americans now see other Americans as the greatest threat to our nation.

As with church division, moderates are key to determining how we will go forward. The extremes on the right and left so dominate the debate that most moderate Republicans vote in lock-step with their party, fearing repercussions from “the party of Trump.” With bipartisanship so scarce, moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema are viewed as obstructionists when they fail to uphold their party’s razor thin margin. Many political observers fear that the U.S. democracy cannot withstand being so deeply frayed.

We face some of the most significant challenges in history, with an ongoing global pandemic, continuing racial and economic inequality, and the impending perils of climate change, yet these issues have become so politicized that they have driven us further apart, at a time when we desperately need to come together.

On this Epiphany, Christians on the right, left, and in the middle are reminded that Jesus came for all people, not just his own Jewish community. The traditional Christmas pageant conflates the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew so that the visitors from the East arrive at the stable where rustic shepherds have also come to see the baby.⁵ This may not be an accurate portrayal, but that cherished tableau is a beautiful image of how Jesus brought unlikely folks together, especially those on the margins, like the shepherds, and outsiders, like the magi.

Epiphany reminds us that Christians are commanded to reach out to those outside our own circle and to love our enemies. As the current division in both the church and country suggests, sometimes the hardest enemies to love are the ones closest to home.

1. A foremost exponent of this view was Harvard scholar Samuel P. Huntington, as explained in his 2004 book Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity.
2. We can see the religious aspect of this theory in its use by those committing mass shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and two mosques in Christ Church, New Zealand.
3. The Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and the Episcopal Church all experienced breakaway denominations after approving the ordination of LGBTQ persons, and a potential split of the United Methodist Church has been delayed by the pandemic.
4. See Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence (2008), Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith (2009), and Diana Butler Bass’s Christianity after Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (2012).
5. While Luke’s gospel sets Jesus’ birth and the shepherds’ visit in a stable (Luke 2:16), Matthew reports that the magi entered a house (Matthew 2:11).