Dear Presiding Bishop Rowe,

An open letter of encouragement in response to his recent Op-Ed

An Open letter to Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe in response to his recent Op-Ed for Episcopal News Service. (https://tinyurl.com/rowe-op-ed)

Dear Presiding Bishop Rowe,

I’m deeply grateful for your recent op-ed in these troubling times. It’s clear-eyed, courageous, and pastoral. You name our current crisis with honesty: the Episcopal Church is no longer in step with the centers of power as it once was, and this is a moment of moral clarity. But such clarity also demands deeper reflection. If we are to meet it fully, we must peel back the layers and speak plainly about the theological inheritance of our long-standing alignment with political power.

Often, when we confront injustice, we fail to recognize how deeply we are entangled in the very structures and assumptions we seek to resist. Mindful of this, you were wise to invoke the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Their courage, embodied in the witness of figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is rightly honored. But it’s also important to remember what the Confessing Church failed to confess: that their own theological tradition had been steeped in the very nationalism they were resisting. Many resisted the government’s incursion into ecclesial life, but did so without fully rejecting the categories of ethnic purity, patriarchal authority, and divine sanction of the state that had long undergirded German Protestantism. It was more than Nazi propaganda, it was long standing identity.

This is the danger for us as well. Ours is a tradition that, for much of its history, was designed not to critique empire but to sanctify it. Without a deep interrogation of our own foundations, we will continue resisting authoritarianism in public while unwittingly preserving its architecture within the church—forms honed for centuries not to disrupt political systems and patronage. And that kind of resistance will always be limited. It will name injustice without addressing the logic that undergirds it.

A quick look at our own prayer book confirms the absence of political encounter as it relies heavily on Tudor cadence and penitential language: worshipers lament their “manifold sins and wickedness,” plead that they are “unworthy to gather up the crumbs,” and seek “pardon and peace.” The emphasis is vertical—holy God, sinful people—with little explicit call to confront worldly injustice. Rite II modernizes the diction and expands communal imagery, yet still orbits around personal repentance, inward renewal, and only a generalized hope for “justice and peace among all people.” Both rites dutifully pray “for those in authority,” but not the possibility that such authority might need to be resisted. We have prayed for and sanctified “unity and concord” in our common prayers so often many of us now see conflict or dissent as inimical to a holy life rather than possibility the Spirit may be breaking in.

And our biblical exegesis—shaped by these same liturgical instincts—often fails to prepare us for resistance. How many of us, for instance, have been taught that the word Gospel (euangelion) was originally a Roman military slogan announcing conquest and domination? How many have questioned the romanticized image of Galilean fishing in the first century? Far from the idyllic scenes enshrined in stained glass, it was an empire-controlled, extractive, and heavily taxed industry. Do we ever consider this as a contributing factor for why Simon, Andrew, James, and John “immediately” left their nets to follow Jesus—their livelihood had become untenable under imperial levies. There is a reason Jesus’ public ministry unfolds in Galilee: it was the fault line where Roman domination and local poverty collided. His parables echo that reality—tenant farmers dispossessed of their land, absentee landlords who “reap where they do not sow,” scribes who “devour widows’ houses,” and tax collectors squeezing the last coin for Caesar. We remember that Luke opens with a census, yet rarely pause to consider its purpose: extracting revenue and conscripting bodies for Rome’s military. Hosanna is not a quaint Palm Sunday refrain; it is a desperate cry from the underside of empire. In Hebrew it means literally, “Save us.” These familiar stories crackle with subversive energy, exposing empire’s violence and summoning the church to resist it.

When we begin to read this way, we may find ourselves drawn back to the margins, listening more closely to the voices of the oppressed, the displaced, and the excluded. And when we do, we may begin to see the Gospel's relation to Empire, then and now, more clearly. If we want our resistance to be more than performative or short lived, we must find ways to better equip the saints for this calling.

I encourage us to find ways to best support faithful resistance: seminary curricula to include Scripture interpreted through the lenses of empire, economy, and power; developing continuing education and resources for clergy and lay leaders with the same.

The early church defied Caesar’s logic. Even in the face of persecution, it grew—not through power or privilege, but because the shape of its common life challenged the empire at every turn. Its worship exposed imperial lies, its economics enacted Jubilee, and its communities embodied a radically new social order. They were not defenders of the cultural status quo; they were a boundary-breaking, justice-proclaiming community of resistance. Living in the shadow of empire, they dared to imagine what the dream of God looked like in their own time and place.

Despite our long history of entanglement with power—from Constantine to the Continental Congress—the Episcopal Church has, time and again, found ways to lead with courage toward justice, love, and inclusion. As you encourage the Episcopal Church “to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life” we will draw nearer, I pray, to the voices of the oppressed, the displaced, and the excluded and begin to not only pray for the victim but confront the oppressor.

We have long been trained to read Scripture spiritually, theologically, sacramentally, therapeutically… Our current climate demands we start reading it politically and economically—as a powerful witness that stands against economies of extraction, systems of domination, and the logics of control and exclusion. I hope the National Church will invest in expanding our vision and equipping our people—clergy, seminarians, and laity alike—with the liturgical, educational, and theological resources needed to see Scripture and Church anew.

Thank you for you leadership. Take heart, every story of good news begins in darkness.

With Gratitude and Hope,

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Thayer