WHY HAVE WE ASKED REV. DR. CARTER HEYWARD TO TEACH US ABOUT HER NEW BOOK, The 7 Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism

WHY HAVE WE ASKED REV. DR. CARTER HEYWARD TO TEACH US ABOUT HER NEW BOOK, The 7 Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism ?

• In 2019, the hate group Maine For Mainers (named as an homage to a Ku Klux Klan slogan) launched a targeted harassment and intimidation campaign against a young woman who worked as a waitress in Hallowell, and against the restaurant who employed her—because she had spoken out publicly against their anti-immigrant beliefs.
• In 2021, the Southern Poverty Law Center tracked four hate groups active in Maine: Proud Boys, Nationalist Social Club, Patriot Front, and The Colchester Collection.
• One year ago, a church in Maine was the target of arsonists who used a Black Lives Matter banner to start the fire.
• One month ago, white supremacists rallied in Kittery, holding “Keep New England White” signs along Route 1 and distributing leaflets around residential neighborhoods urging white Mainers to join them in “pro-white authentic resistance to anti-American and anti-white street gangs like Black Lives Matter” and in “promotion of prosperity of whiteness.”
• And groups like these, here in Maine and across the United States, have weaponized a twisted version of Christianity to serve their political purposes and bolster their hateful racism.

That’s why the Maine Council of Churches and The BTS Center, along with esteemed co-sponsors, including the Haney-Leighton Fund, First Congregational Church of South Portland, the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, the Maine Conference of the UCC Social Action Committee, the Maine Conference of the ELCA and others, have invited world-renowned theologian and Episcopal priest, Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward (one of the “Philadelphia 11” women ordained in 1974, two years before the Episcopal Church authorized ordination of women) to lead us in a conversation about her upcoming book, The 7 Deadly Sins of Christian Nationalism: A Call to Action (Rowman & Littlefield, September 2022).

Bangor Theological Seminary Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics, Rev. Dr. Marvin Ellison, who will facilitate the September 21, 4pm, online event, had this to say about Heyward’s book in a dust jacket “blurb”: Progressive theologian Carter Heyward is as fearless as she is brilliant in naming how our body politic is in political, moral, and spiritual crisis. May her sound advice be heeded before it’s too late.

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