Leaving Church
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Those of us in the Mainline Protestant traditions who still find community in church settings often feel an allegiance to whichever denomination we were raised in. In my case, I was baptized and confirmed in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and became a United Methodist in high school. Throughout my 20s and most of my 30s, I rarely attended church, but when I did, it was either a PCUSA or UMC congregation.
When my husband (a cradle Methodist) and I were expecting the birth of our daughter in 2016, we visited both PCUSA and UMC churches before finally settling on the UMC as the denomination for our family. For the last eight years, we’ve been active in two United Methodist churches in North Texas — specifically two churches within the Reconciling Ministries Network of the UMC, which affirmed LGBTQ inclusion before the denomination as a whole did.
After years of watching the rise in Christian nationalism, the insurrection on January 6 finally moved me to action. In fall 2021, I enrolled at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. In my application, I minced no words — my calling then and now is to help the church stand with people of all faiths and no faith against the idolatry of Christian nationalism.
As I entered seminary, I — like most Methodists — had no knowledge of the long Baptist tradition of standing for religious freedom. In fact, the only Baptists I’d ever met were Southern Baptists, too many of whom are neo-Calvinists hyper-focused on a theory of “original sin” and a literal interpretation of the Bible.
“The only Baptists I’d ever met were Southern Baptists.”
Imagine my surprise when I learned there are other streams within the Baptist tradition.
In spring 2022, I attended a lecture by Beth Allison Barr about her book The Making of Biblical Womanhood. I raised my hand and asked a question that generalized Baptists. Barr corrected me, saying that there is more than one kind of Baptist. After the event, one of those other kind of Baptists — George Mason, now senior pastor emeritus of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas — made a beeline to introduce himself to me.
Thus began my journey alongside those other kinds of Baptists.
In January 2023, I traveled to the Holy Land with a group of 100 women — half of whom were United Methodists and the other half Baptists affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists traditions. In fall 2023, I began my required internship for the master of divinity degree with Faith Commons, the interfaith organization founded by George Mason and Rabbi Nancy Kasten.
Today I work for Faith Commons as their program director, volunteer as the Dallas County Chair of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty’s program Christians Against Christian Nationalism and, of course, write for Baptist News Global as a Clemons Fellow.
I have been spending a lot of time in these social justice-oriented Baptist spaces while journeying through the ordination process in The United Methodist Church to become a deacon. So, when I recently found myself at my district-level interview for ordination in the UMC, I was surprised by the pushback I received when I said I wished more pastors would address Christian nationalism from the pulpit.
Christian nationalism threatens our longstanding practice of separation of church and state and poses an existential threat to both religious freedom and democracy. Any denomination unwilling to enter into this conversation and any pastor or group of pastors afraid to lead their congregations in understanding and fighting against this threat are perpetuating it.
I made this case in my ordination process. Members of the district committee became incensed at my challenge to pastors to speak up and stand up against Christian nationalism. They also deferred my ordination.
“There is no denominational hierarchy with the power to control prophetic voices.”
There are individual Methodists — laity, clergy and congregations — actively in the fight against Christian nationalism. On the flipside, there are many Baptists who are part of the conspiracy to promote Christian nationalism either actively or through their silent complicity. But because the two denominations are structured differently, prophetic voices within the traditions are also treated differently — particularly when it comes to ordaining someone who then represents the church in the public square. Within the Baptist world there is no denominational hierarchy with the power to control prophetic voices, which can be positive or negative depending on the message.
The denomination on the front lines of protecting the separation between church and state and speaking out against Christian nationalism is now (and always has been) branches of the Baptist family tree.
It was a Baptist, Roger Williams, who founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1636 as a refuge offering religious liberty for all. And it was the Danbury Baptist Association who then-President Thomas Jefferson wrote to in 1802 assuring them and future generations of Americans that the First Amendment of the Constitution established “a wall of separation between church and state.”
We are in a unique moment in history. Democracies around the world are facing the rise of right-wing, autocratic, nativist movements. These nativist movements often embrace religious nationalism that fuels violence and destabilization. White Christian nationalism in the United States is just one branch of this morally depraved movement.
The irony, of course, is that while Christian nationalists have coopted Christian language and symbols in an attempt to legitimize their political aspirations, young people are fleeing Christianity in droves. This is not coincidental. While those of us who lived through the rise of the Moral Majority have become numb to the bastardization of Christian rhetoric, younger generations have no tolerance for such blatant hypocrisy.
Mainline Protestant traditions helped create the situation we’re in. As Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood point out in their book Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism, it was Mainline Protestants who, in 1951, originally instituted official prayers in public schools (which was struck down by the Supreme Court 11 years later in Engel v. Vitale). We are neither free of blame for these past sins nor exempt from the responsibility to repair what is broken in our politics.
That repair will not happen as long as pastors, congregations and denominations play it safe and bury their heads in the sand. Instead, repair can only begin when we first bravely name the false gospel being used by those seeking political power.
Having sensed my own United Methodist tradition is unwilling to face head-on the threat of Christian nationalism, my faith journey continues and I’m going to take up with the “other kind” of Baptists who share my concern for separation of church and state.
So, after 35 years as a United Methodist, I am leaving the UMC and joining an Alliance of Baptists church to stand in solidarity with those who are actively fighting for religious freedom for all.
Mara Bim
Photo Courtesy of Baptist News Global
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as program director at Faith Commons. She is a spiritual director and a recent master of divinity degree graduate from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.