Friends,
This week marks a happy milestone for me: for the first time in more than 23 years of pastoral ministry I am teaching or leading four different classes or informed discussions in a single week. In addition to my regularly-scheduled weekly Bible study, I am leading a discussion around what it might look like for our congregation to declare itself a Peace Church (Saturday, 10-11:30 in the Thornhill Room), I am teaching a class that looks at white privilege (Sunday, 8:30-9:30 in Room 10), and I led a discussion about faith and politics for our Faith Trio meeting on Tuesday evening.
It has been busy and a lot of fun. I am grateful to be working in a congregation that values education, learning, intellectual curiosity, and spiritual exploration. The end of October marks the third anniversary of the day the Pastor Nominating Committee called me to offer me the job of pastor to the Montclair Presbyterian Church family. Serving as your pastor has been wonderful for lots of reasons; the opportunity to teach is one of my favorites.
I hope you will consider joining one of my classes this weekend. I also hope you will join me in attending another class after celebration on Sunday. The class will look at the role religion is playing in this year’s presidential election, and the presenter will be my friend, Jim Bennett. Jim is the assistant provost for undergraduate studies at Santa Clara University, and he is a professor of American religious history in the University’s religion department. Jim is a graduate of UCLA (where he was a member of the marching band), Princeton Theological Seminary (where we became friends), and Yale (where he earned a PhD in American religious history). In addition to being a tenured professor and professional academic at a Jesuit university, Jim is an ordained Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and serves as a Parish Associate at the Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church.
As an academic, Jim’s work has focused on new religious movements in America, which has made him an expert (among other things) on Mormonism. His interest in and knowledge of Mormonism led him to write extensively on the last presidential election, in which a Mormon (Mitt Romney) was running as the Republican nominee, and garnering a huge percentage of the white Evangelical vote, despite the fact that Evangelicals traditionally have distrusted Mormons.
This, in turn, has helped Jim learn a lot about white Evangelicals and their voting habits, which is a big deal in this election, because despite copious evidence of behavior that is conspicuously not Evangelical in its nature, Donald Trump continues to enjoy support from a lot of white Evangelicals, which, of course, is confusing and fascinating at the same time.
Jim’s task will be to sort all this out for us. I expect this conversation will be both stimulating and illuminating, and I look forward to seeing you there.
God’s Peace,
Ben