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New s Page 8 Street Roots • September 29-October 5, 2017 Street Roots • September 29-October 5, 2017 Adam Phillips will give a TEDx talk on inclusion, the foundation of his evangelical practice A series highlighting the role o f religious leaders and groups in Portland’s resistance movement BY EMILY GREEN He said in recent years, lines were drawn between who could and could not be a “real Christian,” and changes in the church’s regional astor Adam Phillips began his sermon on leadership led to a reversal of its commitment to white supremacy with a personal anecdote support his values of inclusion. about walking through a slum in Ghana before arriving at a “door of no return” - one of “We started getting the most harassing phone calls and emails - from our religious leaders,” he many passageways Africans were forced through said. They wanted him to take down signs he had on their way to slavery in the Americas. hung that read: Everyone’s welcome. Yes, It was the last Sunday in August, and for two everyone. weeks, Phillips had been preaching on But Phillips refused, and when the church dismantling white supremacy following the neo- leadership asked if he would allow “them” - Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va. meaning LGBTQ congregants - to participate in “I feel dubious at best, addressing white the children’s ministry, in the church’s leadership supremacy. I am a white, cisgendered, privileged and in the band, he said, “Of course.” male,” he told his congregation. “I fear I might Apparently that was not the answer they were whitesplain or mansplain these things. I’m looking for. embarrassed at my privilege in this But losing his church may have been a blessing conversation.” in disguise, as he’s now free to practice his faith But he persisted, calling on his fellowship at as he interprets it. Christ Church in downtown Portland to confront Phillips and his supporters launched a crowd racism. funding campaign that helped him raise enough “It’s not just about marches and protests. It’s money to start over with a new church, and most about simple everyday moments to dismantle this of his small congregation came with him. generation upon generation upon generation sin Elsa Johnson, 33, had been a lifelong member that so infects our lives even to this moment,” he of the Evangelical Covenant Church, but she, said. along with her husband and two young children, Phillip’s choice of sermon topic that Sunday followed Phillips when he left. was not likely to surprise his congregants. While Johnson had grown up near the denomination’s he was ordained through the Evangelical headquarters in Chicago, and her family’s history Covenant Church, one of the fastest-growing is closely intertwined with the origins of the evangelical denominations in the world, his views denomination, with many of her relatives and on feminism, LGBTQ inclusion and climate friends still practicing. change have set him apart. “It wasn’t hard to decide to go with Christ While in some ways, Phillips, 37, still considers Church, with Adam, but it was hard to realize that himself an evangelical Christian, he said he’s not they were not standing with our church and our a good poster child for the religion. values,” she said of her former denomination. “We’ve gotten in trouble for things we believe “It’s a continual hope that they will one day also in,” he said during a recent interview in the tidy value inclusiveness for all people at all levels of living room of his modest home in North leadership with that church.” Portland’s Kenton neighborhood. On Oct. 7, Phillips will give a TEDx talk on Phillips explained his approach to faith while inclusion at TEDxMtHood, held at Roosevelt nearby his wife of 15 years, Sarah Phillips, tended High School in in North Portland. His “idea to their child, a 2-month-old boy named Desmond worth sharing,” to put it in TED Talks terms, he (for Desmond Tutu). Behind the leather-bound said, is that inclusion is actually an ancient idea. chair where Phillips sat hung an abstract painting Today, Phillips’ church has grown to 150 of a brown-skinned Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. members. He attends marches and rallies with Next to him, a well-stocked bar, complete with his congregation and incorporates calls for social muddler, cocktail shaker and plenty of bourbon. justice action into his weekly sermons. He’s also About two and a half years ago, Phillips made working on a book about spiritual practices and national headlines when he lost his job, his reflections around resistance. church and his funding because he openly This summer, he began a public Bible study at welcomed the LGBTQ community into his house 6:30 p.m. the first Monday of every month at of worship. Century Bar in Southeast Portland. He calls it He had opened the church’s doors just nine “Public Theology,” where religion and progressive months earlier. politics are discussed over vegan nachos and beer. Not long before losing nearly everything, Phillips said he was drawn to religion from a Phillips was considered an up-and-coming pastor young age. While his family didn’t attend church within the Evangelical Covenant Church. He had when he was growing up, he sought out any and already made a name for himself and held a every opportunity to attend with friends. He promising future as one of the denomination’s went to Pentecostal and evangelical youth groups leaders. and attended Catholic Mass. But it was at a “It was really shocking to me in some ways neighborhood Evangelical Covenant Church in because I guess I was pretty naive,” he said. “We Hudson, Ohio, he said, where he found his faith had rules that we weren’t allowed to do gay community when he was in high school. At the marriage and so on and so forth, but I was always time, he had no idea it was part of a encouraged to be very inclusive in my theology.” denomination with hundreds of churches in the Page 9 Faith3lustice T o do church, but do it different!/ The Rev. News STAFF WRITER P PHO TO BY A L A N BORRUD The Rev. Adam Phillips speaks to Street Roots at his family’s home in Portland’s Kenton neighborhood. U.S. and ministries on every continent. When Phillips attended Ohio State University in Columbus, he joined a campus ministry group. As an international-relations major, he said he was becoming aware of all needs for social justice in the world. “My campus ministry group just did not know how to deal with that,” he said. “We were kind of being trained to go around and convert people to get a ticket to heaven, and that didn’t make sense to me.” He began to question what it really meant to love your neighbor as yourself and follow the teachings of Jesus. He said he was discovering that being a Christian wasn’t just about getting “fire insurance” to escape hell, but about addressing the real needs of people. “That’s when I started to feel that maybe my call was to do church, but do it differently,” he said. After graduating from college, he received his pastoral training at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. He co-pastored an Evangelical Covenant Church near Wrigley Field and helped plant another in Washington, D.C. He also spent five years leading interfaith mobilization efforts for the ONE Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group co-founded by Bono with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He traveled the country, speaking with imams, rabbis and ministers, encouraging them to get involved in advocating for policies to address world hunger, clean water, education and other international development issues. “It wasn’t a political thing,” Phillips said of his time with the campaign. “It was a way for me to live out my calling and my seminary training and my sense of what it meant to be a pastor.” For Phillips, being evangelical is believing God is active in our world, living out the Scriptures’ teachings and seeking out the good news. He said this means “I don’t believe that God is up in the clouds with a lightning bolt and a long white beard angry at us, ready to strike. I think that God is a God of love and a force of embrace and light and justice in our world that is so good.” He said being evangelical used to mean being involved in the community and living out a disciplined life for the common good. But his perceptions of the denomination have changed - first when he lost his church, and then confirmed with the popularity of President Donald Trump among its followers. “I think you have to talk about Donald Trump when you’re talking about evangelicals in 2017, because 81 percent, according to Pew, of evangelical voters voted for Donald Trump. And that is a real referendum, I think, on what it actually means to be evangelical,” he said. “Now you see a scenario where evangelical means voting for a president that is literally today threatening to wipe out North Korea and 25 million people, or having what they call ‘locker room talk’ during the campaign, and these are people who voted for him and they, so far, don’t seem to be upset with this.” An ABC News/Washington Post telephone survey in early July found 61 percent of white Evangelical Protestants still approved of Trump’s performance. Another poll, conducted by Pew Research Center a month earlier found 74 percent of non-Hispanic white Evangelical Protestants approved of the president. “For me, over the years,” Phillips said, “I’ve realized that call and that commitment is quite different than the way we were told to be, in terms of evangelicals, whether it was Christian radio or the books we were told to read. It’s actually a much bigger and more inclusive and better story than we were ever allowed to believe.” Phillips said he’s not alone among evangelical Christians in coming to these conclusions. “I think we’re seeiiig a major move amongst millennials,” he said, “waking up to the reality that our faith is not just about going to heaven when we die.” He said this faction of believers, which he has noticed evolving over the past 10 years, is one that “still takes the Bible very seriously, that still believes that God is active in the world, but is turning away from the culture wars and the fights that we used to have in the world and trying to be about change.” Shortly after losing his church, Phillips walked in the Portland Pride Parade holding a sign that read in bold lettering: “As a Christian, I am sorry for the narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, manipulative actions of those who denied rights and equality to so many in the name of God.” The response was overwhelming. “I had no idea what that sign would do,” he said, looking back. “It opened up so many amazing conversations and people on the parade route coming and hugging me and crying. Some of those people joined our church. “It was a huge eye opener,” he said. “I was thinking that we were just going to quietly embrace LGBTQ folks, and it became really clear to me that you couldn’t just be quiet; you had to be public about it. You had to evangelical about it! Because it was good news, and the good news was that you could be gay or lesbian, bi or trans and keep going, and that God loved you, and God embraces you, and you didn’t need to change.” Today Phillips openly performs gay marriages, with the next one planned for Halloween. He has also included members of the LGBTQ community in his church’s leadership team, and his congregation has placed a special emphasis on being supportive of trans rights and its trans members. Damien Geter said Phillips’ church is not the first Christian church where he felt welcome as a gay black man. However, it is the first church he’s ever attended where the preacher talked about racial justice from the pulpit. “I remember sitting in the pew and thinking there is no other church, maybe in this country, that is having this discussion right now,” he said. “Not in an after-church meeting or a before church social, but in the church - that’s what the. sermon was about.” Geter added, “It’s great, because for me, faith is so personal, and being black is so personal, that it’s just another conduit to help make a change.” Phillips said he’s trying to open his congregation’s eyes to Portland’s and Oregon’s history of racial exclusion because even today, it’s more deeply ingrained than many liberals may realize. “We meet at this church downtown, and two of the stained glass windows have slave owners in them,” Phillips said. But racial justice is just one of four areas of mission his congregation has committed to this year. They continue to focus on LGBTQ inclusion, and also the housing crisis and homelessness and refugees and immigrants. Phillips said the church is connecting with groups already working in those areas and offering their assistance. They’ve made welcome kits to help refugees settle into their new homes and hygiene kits for people living on the streets. They also support immigrants rights groups and have engaged in some work around sanctuary. “For me,” Phillips said, “this is what this is about: It’s integrating prayerful, meditative, spiritual thoughts but being embodied and active in the world. So whether it’s doing something - serving at the overnight shelter when it gets cold outside or packing bags for schools or Thanksgiving meals, or marching in the streets to resist white supremacy or homophobia - that’s what it means to be active in our world. Social justice is just living out the fruits of our faith.” Geter encourages others who may be looking for an inclusive Christian community to visit Christ Church. “Adam is doing real things,” Geter said. “When I talk to him, I can hear it in his heart that this is something that really means something to him, and he is really trying to make a difference. He’s made a difference in the LGBTQ community in having a safe space for us, and he’s trying to do the same thing with race, and I think he can do it. And I think that he can do it in one of the whitest cities in the country.” emily@streetroots.org; Twitter @greenwrites "It's not just about marches and protests. It's about simple everyday moments to dismantle this generation upon generation upon generation sin that so infects our lives even to this moment." THE REV, A D A M PHILLIPS, O N W H IT E S U P R E M A C Y If you go What: TEDxMtHood 2017 (speakers include the Rev. Adam Phillips) When: Saturday, Oct. 7 Where: Roosevelt High School Theatre, 6941 Central St., Portland Tickets: $37-77; visit tedxmthood.com for more information Online Rabbi Ariel Stone, who convened the Portland Interfaith Clergy Resistance, leads her congregation in the fight for social justice. Read this previous installment of Street Roots’ Faith & Justice series at news.streetroots.org/ faithandjustice ■<*
