National Pastor’s Statement on US Threats
Digital art by Jean-Daniel O’Donncada
To our American siblings in the family of God,
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada is an exceptional body. For decades we have resisted allowing human borders to divide our church, choosing to be one institution. We navigate different languages, different currencies, different tax codes, different employment rules, and different pension plans in order to do so. Our binational church is a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world, where we confront the real and pragmatic consequences of difference. Wholeness requires lawyers and customs declarations and visa applications and translators. Wholeness is work. Holy work.
It is also requires mutual respect. We share a continent. We share a general church. Many—but not all—of us share a common language. We share the same troubled foundations of settler colonialism and slavery. We also share positive histories of being a refuge and a land of opportunities. As the northern terminus of the underground railroad and as a haven for pacifists in the 1960s and more commonly as a place where they have found education, work, or love, Canada has welcomed Americans, too. Many of us—including me—have lived and studied and work in the US or are dual nationals.
Our Disciples across Canada are united, as we are with all Christians in all times and places, by our shared saviour, Jesus Christ. Canadian Disciples speak many first languages and include those whose ancestors have always been here, those whose ancestors settled centuries ago, those who nervously await their permanent visas today. Canadian Disciples include the full spectrum of Canadian political opinions. We live in our country’s smallest towns and largest cities.
We as Canadian Disciples respect our neighbours’ freedom to vote for or support who they wish. We ask that right in return, though. One of the founding leaders of our movement, Alexander Campbell said, ‘’We do not ask [anyone] to give up their opinions--we ask them only not to impose them upon others.’’ As the president of the United States makes patently false statements about Canada repeatedly, openly says he wishes to use economic pressure to destroy our country, and relentlessly speaks of annexation, I call upon you, as a pastor to Canadians, and as your brother, to rebuke this loudly and frequently. You may retain your political opinions, and they need not be mine. But to be a faithful member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada is to call us your siblings and to believe the only appropriate American view on Canada’s future is that it is Canadians who decide it.
Jesus calls us all to love our neighbours. We are your neighbours. We love and pray for you, too.
The Reverend Jean-Daniel Ó Donncada (he)
National Pastor of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Canada