A Coalition Building? Seattle’s Religious Communities Stand Up

The scene at the patronal celebration in Seattle’s Epiphany Church was unusual for a secular city and a mainline American church. A couple dozen parishoners stood in front of the altar, being formally received into the growing Madrona congregation.

The pastor, Rev. Doyt Conn, Jr., spoke of parish good works and service to Madrona, arguing that the neighborhood holds the key to unexpected recent growth of religious practice, even the expression of God and country. The faith community here has punched above its weight in a very secular city.

So it is across the country. There are signs of religious rejuvenation here in God’s country. In particular, young people (even young men) are drifting back to church. Hitherto, the survey trend has been to a rising member of folk answering “none” when asked their religious beliefs.

It is made complicated by a trio of trends. The growing (until recently) evangelical church community is split. A part of it has embraced human rights and protecting God’s earth. The fundamentalists, however, are into judging people while turning a blind eye to the multiple sins and wickedness of one Donald J. Trump.

A leading figure is evangelist Rev. Franklin (son of Billy) Graham, a man with a mile-wide mean streak. When 150 University of Notre Dame grads did a commencement walkout, protesting honoree Vice President Mike Pence, Graham called on the university to expel them. The Family Policy Institute of Washington has resisted abortion rights and fought legalization of same-sex marriages.

The Gaza War has divided the Jewish community in Seattle and elsewhere. A substantial faction has called for Israel to agree on an immediate ceasefire, with some going further to support a Palestinian homeland. They are pitted against a powerful, monied, rightist AIPAC, the American Israel Political Action Committee.

The Catholic Church in America was battered by the clergy sex abuse scandal, but is on the mend. It, too, is divided. The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops has been a MAGA movement at prayer, dominated by orthodox, disciplinary bishops named by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They decreed abortion as the preeminent issue facing Holy Mother Church in America.

But a new generation of pastoral bishops has been put in place by Popes Francis and Leo XIV. They are expanding moral imperatives to embrace care for immigrants and refugees, and for cherishing the earth as God’s creation. The Church laity refuses to be docile, a notable Northwest feature.

The Trump regime’s pursuit of “illegals” (a demeaning term) has spawned ecumenical cooperation in Trump’s first term and again today.  A bonding has grown up between St. James Cathedral, St. Mark’s Cathedral, and Temple de Hirsch Sinai. Hundreds of the faithful have marched those 1.46 miles, cathedral to cathedral, for peace and against the suppression of immigrants. 

The three congregations offered themselves as sanctuaries during Trump I. “Illegals” resided on the grounds of St. Mark’s. Two Holocaust survivors shared their witness at Temple de Hirsch Sinai. St. James runs a refugee and immigrant assistance program.

This is what faith is all about. The cathedral’s new pastor, Fr. Gary Lazzeroni, put it best in a recent homily. It is not enough to just lead a virtuous life. Witnessing means to reach out. We are community.

Never more than now, in an increasingly fractious and violent society, with cruelty given an imprimatur by the president of the United States. ICE agents have morphed into Trump’s private army. Who would have thought, in the country that produced the tanks and planes which crushed Hitler, that we would have armed men in unmarked vans snatching people off our streets and shooting unarmed Americans?

Intimidation is the basic face of fascism. It takes the form of deploying troops abroad, and lately at home. As Eleanor Roosevelt told the Democratic National Convention in 1940, these are not ordinary times.

Resistance to Trumpism has only just begun to gel and grow. Numerous artists and the Washington National Opera have refused to perform at the Trump-run John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Federal district judges have ruled against efforts to gut the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts. Harvard has spurned Trump’s efforts to butt into its curricula.

For the most part, we have witnessed submission. Republican members of Congress have voted to gut programs that benefit their constituents, witness Central Washington. Universities, save for a few like Harvard, are caving to federal intervention. The press, save for the New York Times, is submissive and not really covering the Trump administration’s brazen, continuous corruption.

The churches, however, have displayed greater guts. I woke up Christmas morning to an Episcopal bishop on TV celebrating Eucharist outside an ICE detention center in Minnesota. Pope Leo XIV has deployed Cardinal Robert McElroy, an advocate for immigrants and LGBTQ rights while Bishop of San Diego, as the new Archbishop of Washington, D.C. 

Leo has become a cool, reasoned advocate for immigrants and refugees, decrying the climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. If you want passion, come to St James to hear Lazzeroni or pastor emeritus Fr. Michael Ryan.

The United States is witnessing folks being picked up at a Seattle cemetery by armed thugs, people shot in streets of Minneapolis and Portland, while POTUS threatens to deploy the 1789 Insurrection Act — the Trump answer to Germany’s 1933 Enabling Act.

“I’d like to be Pope,” Trump joked while in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral. He later posted an AI generated photo of himself in papal vestments. Nobody laughed. Keeping the faith has come to mean defying the government. Let’s hope church attendance, and ranks of demonstrators, both keep growing.