And now for this episode, we're going to talk about a pastor who compared Trump to Hitler and is pushed out of his own church. Eli has the story thunder Katt.
Doctor Ben Boswell was asked to resign from his position as the reverend at Myers Park Baptist in Charlotte, North Carolina, as the church's attendance numbers have fallen and not recovered since twenty sixteen when Boswell arrived. Several current and former attendees were quoted in the article as being less than pleased with Boswell's message of love, acceptance, inclusivity, and community.
Hold on a minute, welcome back to that Boswell had a habit of addressing politics and racial justice in his sermons, which resonated with with at least one person of color in the congregation, to the point that Boswell's dismissal felt like a betrayal to the gentleman. Boswell's intent, aside, his white congregants just didn't like the idea of acknowledging being white and what that means, so they chose not to.
The church leaders do insist that bossie Well's removal is based on the lack of attendance, not his socio political views, and that the church does remain committed to the same values of inclusivity and acceptance that Boswell preached about. The story is from a male online by Bethan Sexton on February fourth, twenty twenty five.
Sol, you know, I'm going to go ahead and just stick with you for a moment. What does Reverend Boswell's ousting suggest about the balance between political activism and religious leadership in modern churches?
So this particular church does have, like in their mission statement, it does suggest that like it is you know, it is an opening, a welcoming church. It's identified in the article as a liberal church. I wanted to clarify because the article headline is misleading. It wasn't that Boswell was pushed out for comparing Trump to Hitler for having they're saying, you know, like I mentioned that it's not big because
he's preaching this that they're getting rid of him. But it's because he's preaching this that people aren't attending, and it's because people aren't attending that they are asking him to resign. So it is a sort of clash between they're saying they want to preach this message of inclusivity and welcoming in community and acceptance. But when it comes down to doing that, they don't like the consequences of
doing that. The social consequences of social justice don't sit well with them, so they're like, oh well, let's find somebody else.
Yeah, that actually jumped That was one of the things in the article that really jumped out at me was there was a quote from Deacon Robert Donlin that was, we have got to put more butts in the seat. Butts in the seat, quote unquote. So apparently these butts in the seat are more important than this message of inclusivity, community spirituality, and justice that the church claims to stand for.
That's what was in its mission statement. But inclusivity, community spirituality, and justice just don't put money in the collection plates, no matter how many thoughts and prayers you devote to it. So you really need, I guess, to get those butts in the seats because those butts have wallets and apparently at this church, money speaks louder than Jesus, right. I mean,
I don't know what kind of message that is. If you just want to put butts in the steats, why don't you just start offering uh, slot machines, blackjack, weed, alcohol, and sex workers.
Kerry, I gotta say money speaks louder than Jesus is a T.
Shirt except when.
Exactly except what he was actually flipping over, like the money changer tables, I would consider that pretty loud. Well, you know, Okay, So guys, it's it's kind of interesting that you bring up, Kelly, that Reverend bos as well, and according to the mission of the church, brings up like a mission and also a message about inclusivity and acceptance and you know, and all the things that make
you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Yet this is not something that's putting the quote unquote butts
in the seat. But I'm wondering what would because one of the things that I think that a lot of us that happen to be in a secular community that is in the process of trying to build more in community is to be inclusive, is to be equitable, is to talk about justice, is to talk about those things that are not necessarily something that is considered cool or considered acceptable right now, because we want people to feel
like they're in a community where they are valued. So what's the messaging that is going to bring more money than Jesus, that is going to assist the congregation to grow if we're not allowing the messages that would be I would say, more welcoming to people than what they are saying that they're not getting. Helen, what are your thoughts on that.
All besides doing a hook or a blow church. I think the only.
Way it's kind of like like we have progressive churches you know around my area as well that is very pro LGBTQ plus you know do but most of the congregation are from those groups because they you know, they're spiritual people, but they also want to be around other like queer spiritual people, and I get that. You know.
The thing with you know, Boswell's congregation was they started experiencing white guilt, you know, and then they there was a woman in the article quote that quoted that she was tired of going to church and feeling guilty, and I'm like, well, that's the whole point of church. So you missed, you missed the point of church. That's why
you go to church. But also, but the other side of that is like to think that you know your your pastors going there like you know, talking about what may happen, you know, if we don't do something and and follow in the words of Jesus as you know, if you're you know, all for you know, if you're like, you know, have a heart on.
For Jesus, you know you should be doing that.
But my she is is that because people had by guilt, they were like leaving the church, and then you know, the board and the people that ran the church was like, oh no.
We're losing money. We're losing funds, as Kelly.
Pointed out, So that way he's over there, Kelly's over there pointed out, They're like, oh fuck, how are you going to make money?
We need butts in the butts in the seats and church membership is just going down everywhere. So what you're you want to be a.
Progressive church, you want to be a liberal church, but you don't want liberal messaging. And this is kind of the backlash We've been seeing a lot of the show, like as soon as you start preaching politics in church, you're you know, when you're violating the establishment clause on both sides, you know.
Which, yes, I would love it.
I wish if you're going to be political, please be political for human rights, you know, fighting against the things that harm other human beings. I'm all for that, but this is a consequence when religion and politics can't stop fucking each other.
You know, you're going to get these issues of people.
You know, they're got only for you the reason either you're going to be too progressive or are you going to be too conservative? And people if they don't like the messaging it as an online with their values, they're going to leave. And this is a natural consequence.
I don't know if there is anything that they could say to bring those butts into the church. I mean, because I mean, let's face that the pews are bleeding worshippers like crazy right now. It's something it's a trend we've been seeing for the last three or four decades. So I'm not sure that there's anything that they could be doing to bring those those butts back into the church. You know, I just don't know that there.
Is so Kelly, do you think that the church should prioritize growing a congregation over prioritizing social justice messaging? Is there way to reconcile between the two? Should religion dress like you know Mary, and politics stress like Uncle Sam and then continue to point one another. How does that work?
You know, here, here's an interesting question that get that gets brought up by one of the things you just asked. Right, we want to keep our government out of religion, right now, it shouldn't we also be keeping the religion out of our government. So when we're going to when we're talking about the church rallying for this government issue, is that something the church should be doing. Should they be working on those political issues or should they just be working
on other social issues like helping the poor? Right? I don't know that churches need to be getting involved with anything political at all. And that's probably that's my big stance. Nothing no, no, nothing political at all. But there are many social issues that you can work on, like I say, like helping out the poor. That's I don't know why more churches aren't doing that. You know, It's always seems like they're more than willing to help the one poor
person in there within their congregation. But if you're not in their congregation, they don't have any interest in helping you out. So I mean, I just don't Yeah, I don't think, like I said, I don't think they should get involved with politics at all, well, I don't know.
I would have to say, excuse me, Lionel, it's going to be a little bit difficult for me to actually say that politics is going to completely be out of the religious pulpit only because you know, one of the things that you mentioned, Kelly, is that there are social issues that the church could totally work on that could
actually make people's lives better. But you know, if we're going to be honest, a lot of times that would also involve some type of political and policy change in order for that to you know, convey For instance, let's
talk about the poor. We know that we have more working poor people in the States then we do people who happen to be at the you know, upper echelon of you know income, right, So a lot of times, in order for them to get out of one area into something that makes more sense would concern the government actually saying okay, we want to help with that. And the ones who would sometimes have a pulse have their finger on the pulse to that particular issue with the church.
So if they're seeing core people come into their domicile every week, they're you know, being part of you know, feeding programs. If the church happens to have a safer instance of shelter. You know, they know how many people are coming in in order for them to house them things of that nature. Sometimes even some churches like set up five oh one c threes in order for them to be able to employ social workers in order for
people to transition into housing things of that nature. Well, and if weally think about it, all that stuff is political. So even though, like I get what you're SA saying about. You know, if we are saying that there's an establishment clause and we should keep you know, church and governments separate, then they should be separate.
But you know, we have.
All these other issues that come up where it's almost damn near impossible to do it. How do we reconcile that.
I agree with your example, but I think in that in that example, we're using the church as a means of research, right, We're using we're using what the what they're doing to get research numbers to make it a better to make better conditions for the poor, right. And I think that's a far cry from the congregants of a church going out to say a maga rilly and supporting anti LGBTQ issues and that's the kind of stuff
I'm talking about. When you're actually got your church congregation, when you actually got your minister encouraging the congregation to go out and protest against a political issue, that's the kind of that's the kind of thing I'm talking about, trying that the church shouldn't be doing so. But I agree with you. I mean, using them, use using the data that they're acquiring for research purposes, that's great. I don't see any problem with that.
So, yeah, I'm picking up what you're pulling down.
I think we should clarify that it was the case in this church, right, So in this case, it was more And I was going to point this at too, because I feel like in this case it was Ben Boswell who was preaching about inclusivity of people who are LGBTQ.
And and uh, you know, preaching about inclusivity and like how to tackle race issues in positive ways, and it was kind of like, like, I believe, Helen, you mentioned that a lot of the congregants felt white guilt, and I think that's something because and I guess I couldn't speak for everybody, but I know that what happened to me early on and my like learning journey is that when I learned about way that I was benefiting from things that were harming other people that didn't live the
same life as me, that didn't you know that that you know, people of color, people who are marginalized, and it does make you feel guilty because he started realized like, well, I don't want anybody else to suffer, but I also don't want to give up this benefit. And that's the sort of first place that your mind goes. And it takes some time if somebody intentionally sitting with that and acknowledging it and working on it to realize like, okay,
like me, losing the benefit isn't the only option. Let's just make it so everybody has it, or like, okay, it doesn't say anything about me as a person that I just happened to be born under circumstances that allow me to benefit from this while others were not. That doesn't say anything about me as a person. But now that I know, I have the option to either do something or not. And people typically don't sit with it long enough to have that realization.
And that's why he lost.
The numbers here. I don't. And to your point, Kelly, I don't consider that the church getting involved in politics because I don't think you know, issues of like race and gender and sex and sexuality are a political issue. I think that's just characteristics of personhood. So I think I think, you know, Ben Boswell is absolutely in the right, Doctor Boswell, I'll say, he'll use the correct honorific for him. Doctor Boswell was completely in the right. I think doing
what he did. I think it's unfortunate that he, uh, he lost his position for it.
Well, if you want to go into the proper honor form, uh, Lionel, you should say reverend doctor doctor.
Reverend Well, he's no longer the reverend of the church, so.
He's still reverend.
Yeah, that doesn't.
It's just like it's like when a senator is no longer a senator, you still call them a senator exactly, so I.
Could allegedly, Well, Eli and and Helen, I kind of want you to chime in on this particular question, and especially Eli, I want you to go first, because you kind of brought this up in your thoughts. So, what does this particular situation with reverend doctor Boswell bring up? Like when we're when we're looking at the situation of itself, and how it reveals the limits of progressive faith in communities, what happens when confronting issues of race, privilege, and political
ideology converge. And I know that, And I know that you talk specifically, Eli about sitting with privilege and really, you know, kind of confronting what does that mean to you as a heterosexual white man in America?
Right?
And how Okay, yeah, I do recognize this is something that I have that not everybody else does. So how does one actually, like you know, really sit with that, contemplate that, and really confront that particular issue to the point where we can say that now that I've done that, I can go ahead and be a contributing factor to others who may be confronted with the same thing.
I think that the important, the most important for the individual that's confronting it is to recognize that it's not a statement about the individual that has the privilege. It is not a judgment, it is not a statement of quality, it's not a value statement. It's just like, hey, be aware of the fact that because of the way you look, the way you present, you know, the way that you were born in any number of categories, you just have
a particular privilege that not everybody else has. And if you can acknowledge that that's the case and acknowledge that it's not, that doesn't mean that you are bad. It doesn't mean that you're good either. It doesn't mean anything. It just means that you have a privilege that everybody has. And when you recognize that, you can, you know, with great power comes great responsibility. I don't know if we're allowed to use that, but I mean you can.
Thank you as long as you don't sing it, You're fine.
Once once you once you recognize that you have that, you can then you know, not only it's it seems kind of strange as they use that for good, but like there are ways in which you can do that, and you can then start to find ways that people are trying to make changes so that not nobody so that everybody has that benefit, so that nobody is suffering, and then you can just kind of, you know, just don't take it personally. That's it, Like it's not personal.
True.
Thanks thanks v though, Helen cats.
So it's kind of for me, it's kind of it's a little weird for me existing like personally existing because I'm hight and I'm just presenting, but I'm also a woman and I'm queer, so I get certain benefits of privilege, but other benefits.
I do not have. So when you're kind of in that.
In between space, it's you become hyper aware of the things you have privileges of and the things that you don't. And I think that the complexity of it too can be lost on people, like especially like if you're a white CIS woman, you have certain benefits that you take it for granted, but you're still in certain circles considered a second class citizen because you want a vagina, so you know, as it goes, So you know, we're like,
you know, use a black woman or have it. We're both women, but we're having a different experience based on our you know, our race. You know, you like you have more melanin than me, so.
You know whatever. I don't know what that means, but apparently mean something. And I you have beautiful brown skin, so for good something. So when you're when you're dealing.
With these like intersectionalities of uh, you know, feeling the effects of history and society upon you, you have to deal with that complexity. And I think, as Eli said, some people like I had to sit there and think about like what ways I'm privileged and what ways that
I'm not privileged, and how they intersect. As Eli said, some people that as soon as that cognitive dissonance starts, you know, wearing this ugly head, they don't sit there and go, well, I'm comfortable, you know, I you know, like obviously like I don't want anything happened to marginalized groups, but they're not thinking about how their privilege, which, as Eli said, it's you.
Just have it. It doesn't say anything about you.
This is just history, you know, rearing its head again, and that's that's what you're facing, you know. And it takes work to like sit there with those feelings and go is this true and how and how does this affect my place affect others?
And I'm going to lift others up with me?
Or am I just going to sit comfortably and just be like okay, well, you know, let them figure it out.
Yeah.
I think that all of us that are sitting on this panel right now can identify because of the way that we present that we have a certain privilege, you know, all of us do, but how that shows up in certain spaces is going to differ because of our lived
experience being who we are. But I think that one of the things that Reverend Boswell was trying to highlight so desperately to his congregation is that listen, because we are all people who are here, there's going to be certain privileges that we're going to possess because the majority of us are white, the majority of us are sis presenting.
The majority of us, you know, have not experienced certain historical implications and issues that have befallen us that would you know, do things like I don't know, mess with our income uh to the point where like you know, there there's going to be like certain things like redlining, that's not going to be as as an effect on us than it is going to be like for say somebody who is black or somebody who happens to be from another marginalized community. Where as a as a cis
had white male. If I go to the hospital, there's not going to be an automatic assumption that I don't feel pain right like, but if I go to the hospital,
that that assumption sometimes is there. So I think that if I were to take anything away from this particular episode, and especially what the messaging that you know Ben Boswell had, it was more so saying that all of us need to check our privilege, and all of us need to understand, you know, the historical implications that may have been fallen on some groups that happen to be in the United States versus others, and that growing a church is not
always about telling everybody what they have, what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.