In an Independence Day op-ed published by Religion News Service, the Most Rev. Sean Rowe, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, writes about the denomination’s changing relationship to power and government in the United States.
Rowe describes recent decisions by the Church, including joining a lawsuit against the federal government over ICE activity in houses of worship, ending participation in the federal refugee resettlement program, and responding to new travel restrictions affecting Episcopal communities abroad. He argues these developments have brought longstanding questions about church and state into sharper focus.
“We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus,” Rowe writes, “and that is no choice at all.”