In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myths that you’re not good enough—a myth we often tell ourselves, or the church tells us, particularly in Lent. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple here.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

As we wind up the first full week of Lent today, if you are observing the season, you might be finding your Lenten disciplines beginning to be a bit more of a struggle—if they weren’t already. I know we’ve all already had to give up so much during this past year, that giving up something extra in Lent can feel like a true burden (which is one of the reasons why last week I talked about how Lent is about much more than giving something up!). 

But I know I’ve struggled more than normal in my own disciplines this year, and I would imagine I’m not alone. All of this brings out one of the unintended consequences that Lent can sometimes result in: you just feel worse about yourself than when you started.  And, given that sometimes it might feel like the big goal of Christianity is to make you feel worse about yourself, I think this is a good week to break the myth that you’re not good enough.

In my evangelical upbringing, I grew up with a fairly normal amount of guilt—at least, normal for evangelical Christianity. Like other church traditions, I often felt like I just couldn’t measure up to the expectations of God and the church. I felt like I did way too much sinning. I was always confessing to God. I was always trying to do better… and never quite enough. 

While contrition for the sins we’ve done, for the things we’ve left undone, while this is an important part of the spiritual life, an important part of growing and maturing spiritually, it can get out of hand when you start truly doubting whether you are good enough for God, good enough for the church, good enough for anything.

So, let me state one thing very clearly: you are good enough for God. You are so good, that God in Christ was willing to lay aside the powers of divinity and suffer death on a cross so that you might know how much God loved you, so that God could forgive your sins and heal your brokenness. You matter very much to God. And, even though we don’t know each other, you matter to me as a priest. I’m honest. You do. 

One of the things I love about the catechism of The Episcopal Church, as it is articulated in our Book of Common Prayer is where it begins. Our catechism begins with the question, “What are we by nature?” Given so many of the messages I’d heard from the church over the years, my own answer would probably have been something like “we are sinners” or “we are all broken” or “we are all wretches in need of God’s grace.”

But that’s not the answer our prayer book gives. Instead, it says, “We are part of God’s creation, made in the image of God.” The prayer book reminds us that, though we do all have our own brokenness, though we all have our own struggles and sins, that is not at the core of our nature. The core of our nature is the image of God, pressed upon your very soul. At your beginning,

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myths about Lent and the idea that it’s primarily about giving up coke or chocolate or some other delight. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Here we are on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Season of Lent and the day that many of you have started giving up soda or chocolate or alcohol or some other delight in life. 

While giving up something is an important part of observing this season (I’m giving up something, too), it’s not actually, though, at the heart of what Lent is about. So, today I’d like to bust the myth that Lent is primarily about not having coke or chocolate. 

Lent began in the early church as a period of fasting, prayer, and preparation for catechumens—those who were going to be baptized at Easter. Over time, though, the preparatory aspects of Lent spread and were practiced by all those in the community, not just those preparing for baptism. Lent also became a time when those who had been separated from the church due to some kind of notorious sin were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness. 

So, the first thing to remember, is that the point of Lent is to prepare you for Easter. Lent is not meant to be simple mortification, or giving things up. It is not like a second round of New Year’s resolutions. If you give something up, it is to help you do the spiritual work you need to do so that you can more fully celebrate at Easter. 

In the Episcopal Church, we invite people to the observance of a Holy Lent with five different practices—not just giving up something sweet. 

The first practice of Lent is “Self-Examination and Repentance.” Called examen in Latin, the examination of conscience is one of the fundamental Christian spiritual practices. It was first enjoined by St. Paul who warned that, before receiving Holy Communion, you should “Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Throughout history many spiritual mothers and fathers of the church have urged a daily examination of conscience, which also includes repenting from sins you have done and seeking to amend your life. 

The second practice of Lent is “Prayer.” And, as I’ve said before on Christian Mythbusters, we must remember that prayer is primarily about practicing the presence of God. Or, as our prayer book says, it is “response to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” During Lent you try to me more intentional about your prayer life, about setting aside time to be in the presence of God and responding to God’s presence in your life.

Fasting is the practice of going without food for a period of time… sort of. Traditionally there are two related practices here. “Abstinence” means lowering the quality of your food, for example, abstaining from meat. Fasting means lowering the quantity of food you eat. So, having a great big basket of fish and chips because it’s Lent is not really what it is about. My wife and I decided to fast one year by eating vegetarian for the entire season—but we also quickly discovered you can do that without actually lowering the quality of the foo...

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myths (or, really the misconceptions) about the point of Fat Tuesday / Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras, etc.). You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Well, Lent is just around the corner with Fat Tuesday (or Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras or whatever your culture or tradition calls it) coming to us on February 16 and then the beginning of Lent arriving on Ash Wednesday, February 17.

Given the variety of cultural experiences and approaches to this final day before Lent, I thought today might be a good day to break some of the myths—or really, more accurately, misconceptions people have—about the final day before Lent. Quick answer? It’s not just about parties or pączki—though I do admit to loving a good pączki.

It’s actually pretty interesting how every culture approaches the final days before Lent differently. You can get some of the different approaches just through the names different countries and languages use. 

For some cultures, the celebrations of the Tuesday before Lent stretch even longer than just that one day. In New Orleans, the celebrations begin on Twelfth Night (January 5, the last day before the Epiphany on January 6, the Epiphany being where the church remembers the visit of the magi to the child Jesus). Hence the custom of eating King’s Cake from Epiphany all the through Mardi Gras… Mardi Gras being French for Fat Tuesday) itself on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. 

Are you keeping up with me?

In German the day is called Fastnachtsdienstag (forgive my German), literally the Tuesday night of fasting. In Pennsylvania Dutch country it is called simply Fastnacht Day and there is a donut called a fastnach that is associated with its observance. 

Though those who love pączki often will call the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday Pączki Day, the traditional Polish name is Fat Tuesday (and no, I’m not even going to attempt to pronounce that in Polish). Both the baking of fastnach and of pączki come from this idea of using up all the fatty delicious things in your pantry before the Lenten fast begins. 

In many Portugese, Spanish, and Italian-speaking countries it is known as Carnevale, from the Latin, carnevale. It means putting away the meat or flesh. This is actually where we get our English word for carnival, even though the point of carnival isn’t a great party but is instead one final night of eating meat before the Lenten fast begins and you put the meat away.  

In the Episcopal Church, to my everlasting dismay, we do not feast on delicious yeasty donuts or enjoy some great meat before going vegetarian. No, we eat pancakes—a food so aptly described once by Mitch Hedberg, who said of doing comedy, “You can’t be like pancakes, all exciting at first but by the end you’re sick of them.” 

Still, cooking pancakes is another way to use up those eggs, all that butter milk, and sugar before the fast of Lent begins. We try to make it a little more fun at my own parish, St. John’s Episcopal, by bringing in some of the Carnivale traditions of our Latinx members along with turning ...

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myth of what true and faithful Christian devotion actually looks like. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

One of my favorite leaders in my own Anglican Tradition was Bishop Frank Weston, bishop of Zanzibar in Africa, who offered a powerful sermon in 1923 to a group of gathered Anglicans. Near the end of that sermon he said, “If you are Christians then your Jesus is one and the same: Jesus on the Throne of his glory, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus received into your hearts in Communion, Jesus with you mystically as you pray, and Jesus enthroned in the hearts and bodies of his brothers and sisters up and down this country. And it is folly—it is madness—to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the Throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children.”

Given Bishop Weston’s attempt to describe the whole nature of full and faithful Christian devotion, today’s I’d like to try to break the myth of what a truly devoted Christian looks like. 

First, I want to be clear that participation in the Christian church is essential to Christian devotion. But that is not because you cannot love God apart from the church—many have clearly done that well. It is not because you cannot be saved unless you go to church—our God can save everyone and the whole of the Scriptural tradition would indicate that he tends to have a preference for those religion often leaves behind. 

Rather, participation in the Christian church is essential for the fullest experience of Christian devotion because it is through the church that we learn how to love our neighbor faithfully. The reason for this, of course, is because Christians are a bunch of imperfect, often frustrating to be around people. And, as our Lord told us, simply loving those you already like is no great test of Christian discipleship. But loving those you find more… difficult… this is when we begin to learn what it is like to love like Jesus. And there’s no better way to find people that are sometimes difficult to love than to start going to church regularly. 

Furthermore, the practice of devotion in the Christian church is meant to train our hearts and our spirits. Devotion to God through prayer, through spiritual practices, through devotion to the blessed sacrament, through sacred images which draw our hearts and minds to God, all of these train us to love God more than ourself. Because, of course, the hardest thing it seems for humans to learn when it comes to Christianity (or any religion, really) is how to love anything more than we love ourselves. 

But it does not end there. 

Rather, the practices of Christian devotion, practices that draw us more deeply into the love our God has for us and the love we have for our God, these are meant to teach us how to better practice reverence in other areas of our life as well. After all, as Bishop Weston also said in that same sermon, “You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slum.”

Yes, you cannot claim to worship Jesus in your church if you are not equally concer...

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myth that God is some sort of cosmic vending machine, and also offers a fuller understanding of how prayer is much more than asking God for things. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Growing up in the church, I was taught to pray from a very young age. For some reason, however, I primarily only ever thought of prayer usually in two ways: giving thanks for something (usually a meal we were going to eat) and asking God for something I really wanted. In theological lingo, these are prayers of thanksgiving and of petition. 

But as I studied Christian spirituality in seminary, I was amazed to discover the actual depth and breadth of the practice of prayer in the Christian tradition. So, this week, I’d like to break the myth that God is primarily a cosmic vending machine.

I use the image of cosmic vending machine, not because I actually think many Christians explicitly think of God that way, but because I don’t think we often don’t realize that our prayers can become so full of petitions—and we can get so frustrated and disheartened with some petitions aren’t granted—that we can turn God into a cosmic vending machine in practice.

Petition, however, is only one type of prayer—and it’s not even the most important! But before getting to the types of prayer, it’s important to be clear about what prayer actually is (and why it’s not a cosmic make-a-wish system).

In The Episcopal Church our beliefs and practices are primarily articulated in our Book of Common Prayer. During the Reformation, when other Christians were drawing up creeds and confessions, statements of faith that distinguished them from “those other people who were clearly wrong,” that is not what was happening with English Christianity. Instead, we were creating a prayer book, the seventeenth-century version of which was used a mechanism to get Catholics and protestants to stop killing other and instead to find ways to pray together. We may disagree on all sorts of things a Christians, but in Anglicanism and in the Episcopal Church, we find ourselves united, not by our exact belifs, by our prayer and worship of  the Holy Trinity, of God.

Our prayerbook also contains a catechism, a summary of the Christian faith that probably Christians from almost any denomination would read and find consonant with their own beliefs. I love the definition of prayer in the catechism of the prayer book, where it says, “Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” 

There is so much to unpack in that sentence. First, prayer is response to God. That is, prayer presupposes that God is already active. You are not inviting God into a situation; you are acknowledging that God is already present and you are responding to that presence. 

In fact, I often describe prayer as, at its most basic, as practicing the presence of God, learning how to perceive the presence of God and then respond to the grace of God which enfolds you.

Second, prayer can be a response through our thoughts and through our deeds,

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myths surrounding the separation of Church and State and asks how the church more faithfully can live into its relationship with the state. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

On January 20, 2021, at noon, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. If you are listening to this episode on Wednesday, we will be just about 90 minutes from that inauguration. If you are listening on Sunday morning, it will be in the rearview mirror.

It is normal for religion to play a role in the inauguration of a president in, at least it has been normal since 1937, when the first inaugural invocation was offered. Since 1933 there has also been an associated prayer service the morning of the election, whether private or public, and often a major prayer service the following day or weekend. 

Before this year, the previous four private services, the ones for the inauguration of George W. Bush, both inaugurations of Barack Obama, and the inauguration of Donald Trump had been at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square in Washington, DC. In fact, of the twenty-two associated morning prayer services the day of the inauguration, fully half of them have been at St. John’s. It has also become customary for there to be a public prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral, a church which is not only the seat of our Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church (since it is an Episcopal cathedral) but which has often served as a national house of prayer for all people in our nation. 

Now, as a country which has the separation of church and state as one of its founding principles, it bears notice the prominent role that churches usually play in the inauguration—especially my own Episcopal Church. And so, in light of the inauguration, I’d like this week to say a few words to break some of the myths surrounding the relationship between religion—especially Christianity—and our government. 

First, we are certainly not a Christian nation. We are a nation founded on the free exercise of religion, with the first amendment to the Constitution making it clear that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Furthermore, many of the founding fathers were actually not traditional Christians. Many were deists, people who rejected supernatural revelation while still affirming belief in some kind of supreme being. 

The principle of the separation of church and state comes from a phrase Thomas Jefferson used to express his own understanding of the intent and function of the first amendment. Though the principle has largely been upheld, including by the Supreme Court, it continues to be debated, even to this day.

This is all a particularly interesting question for my own tradition, The Episcopal Church. After all, as a province of the Anglican Communion, our own mother church is the Church of England, where the Archbishop of Canterbury serves as our own global spiritual leader (albeit, with no authority in our own country). And the English monarch continues to serve as the Supreme Governor of the church,

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myth of Christian Resistance and explains why a resistance that is truly Christian should almost always be nonviolent. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Like many of you, I spent much of last week shocked and saddened by what took place in our nation’s capital, as rioters and insurrectionists who believed the lies told them by our current president about the election, charged down the street to the Capitol building, broke past barricades, and—for the first time since the war of 1812—occupied that important civic space… even killing a brave Capitol police officer. I was particularly distraught to see some of the rioters carrying signs and Christian emblems, making it seem to those watching that this heinous and violent act had something to do with the Christian faith.

Let’s be clear. What happened last week on January 6 had nothing to do with Christianity. And those Christians who are planning to repeat that behavior in Washington DC and at state capitals around our nation on January 20th better think very carefully about the sort of witness they are providing to the watching world. 

Now, I want to be clear, there are times Christians are called to stand up and resist injustice, even to break unjust laws in the name of God’s calling to us—but that is not the case in this election. There was nothing stolen. There is no injustice that has taken place. Over 60 court cases have made it clear that the claims of fraud are baseless and without evidence. 

But, for future information, if you do want to resist what you perceive as an unjust act, this is not how Christians are called to do it. So today I’d like to break the myth of Christian Resistance and why that resistance should actually almost always be inherently non-violent, if it will be the resistance of Christ. 

One of the unfortunate results of the church becoming the legal religion of the Roman empire is that the early history and insistence upon Christian nonviolence began to slip away rather quickly. The church lost its way so entirely that in the middle ages we sent armies to invade the Holy Land in the misguided Crusades. It feels good, of course, to fight in the name of God, the problem is that God very rarely is asking us to fight. 

But that is not to say God doesn’t ask us at times to resist. 

A great example of this difference is found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and its cousin in Luke, the Sermon on the Plain. In both of these important texts that contain the preaching of Jesus, our Lord urges us, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.”

For far too long this text has been misused, it’s been seen as an example of being a doormat and letting people walk all over you. After all religious authorities have used these words to perpetuate systems of abuse and oppression. Jesus said to turn the other cheek and so I’ve actually heard pastors tell women in abusive situations they should continue to suffer under that abuse, that this is living into the love of Jesus. 

That’s a lot of… I cannot say that word on the radio.

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myth the idea that all Christians believe people in other faith traditions are condemned. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1, WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

In the life of the church, today is the Feast of the Epiphany (or Revelation) of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Gentiles.

The Feast of the Epiphany on January 6 is actually the more ancient Christian feast which celebrates the Incarnation. Christmas didn’t develop until later.  In Eastern Christianity, Epiphany celebrates the Baptism of Christ, but in Western Christianity, it celebrates the visit of the Magi from the East who brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ Child. In some cultures, like the Mexican  community, this feast is actually the more significant, known as Día de los Tres Reyes, the Day of the Three Kings. It is the Three Kings who bring gifts on this day in Mexico , not the Santa Clause we are familiar with. 

And so, given this feast day which (in actuality) celebrates some Persian Astrologers worshipping Jesus, I thought today would be a great day to break the myth of what Christians actually believe when it comes to other world religions. The shorthand for this question is the Christian view on religious pluralism. 

Now, sure, every Christian tradition will nuance the question of its relationship to other faith traditions differently. Most think that there are either one of two approaches: a traditional approach that believes followers of other religions are condemned unless they come to faith in Jesus Christ (the exclusivist position) and an open one that basically says everyone is OK and goes to heaven in the end, Christianity is just one of many paths (the universalist position). 

By now you probably know me as someone often on the more progressive side of Christianity, but actually, as with many things, the teaching of the church is just more nuanced than either the entirely closed or entirely open side would lead you to believe. 

Writing in the third century, for instance, Origen was perhaps the first Church Father to fully engage the question of religious pluralism. Before Origen, those who wrote about pagan religions largely did so primarily in a dismissive fashion. Origen believed that eventually all people would be united with God through Jesus Christ, saying that even those who did not do so in this life would be given the opportunity following death to choose God. He said this was a possibility and certainly not definite but given eternity and God’s love he thought it was possible. 

Make no mistake, Origen was certainly no “liberal” or “relativist.” He argued strongly that if only local convention and custom are the standards of religious truth, then religion becomes merely a matter of “arbitrary arrangement and opinion.” You’re kind of saved—or not—depending on where you happen to be born. Instead of each locality worshiping the deity for that region or group, Origen insisted there must be one true God. As a Christian, Origen believed that Jesus directed people not to a local or tribal deity, but to the God of all people. He just also believed that in the end all people wo...

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myth the idea that Christians never really change, a particularly important question given the upcoming New Year’s holiday. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1, WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, that glorious night of the year when we get to burn the candle down to the nub and wish 2020 a hearty goodbye. Of course, as was pointed out to me on social media, our new year is literally pronounced 2020-won—as in the year 2020 has won and beaten us all, but we’ll try not to think of that as we celebrate in our homes with great hopes for a much better year to come.

One of the most traditional parts of the New Year’s holiday is the obligatory New Year’s resolutions, those commitments to change parts of our lives that are made with fire and fury on December 31 and only sometimes last through the entire month of January. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have the crowd at the gym thin out a little as the weeks of January turn into February, but there is a slight sadness I think many of us bring to the knowledge that our New Year’s resolutions rarely bring fruit we had hoped.

And yet, hope springs eternal, and so this week I’d like to try to bust the myth that Christians never change.

One of my favorite lines from the Christian artist Rich Mullins, who died several years ago, was whenever people tell him they don’t go to church because it’s full of hypocrites, he loved to respond to them, “No we’re not, we always have room for a few more.” What Rich was playfully pointing out is that no person who goes to church follows Jesus with perfect faithfulness. Rather, we commit to the Christian community because we know we need to be changed.

Now, I’ll be quick to admit that not all Christians approach the church with a desire to be changed and to be shaped after the love, mercy, and justice of Jesus Christ. Lord knows I’ve heard people tell me in my days that they didn’t feel uplifted going to my church sometimes. But as another of my favorite Christian thinkers, CS Lewis, once said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

The fundamental message of Advent that we’ve heard for the past several weeks was the call to repent, to change our lives. In the days of Christmastide, we are invited to experience the light and grace of God and to let that love change us so that we can be the body of Christ on earth. As we move toward the Feast of the Epiphany, we are invited to change from a gospel only focused on those who look like us and to ask how God is being present in those strange and far away, like the three magi of old. And, of course, in just a couple months, in the Season of Lent, we will begin with Ash Wednesday, and we will repent once more in dust and ashes.

The practice of examen, is what this is known in the spiritual traditions of the church. It is a practice best engaged in daily actually, asking yourself every day, “In what ways has my life not lived up to the call of Christ. How did I sin in what I did… or what I left undone?”

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myth of what Christian approaches to immigration should look like, particularly in light of the Holy Family at the center of our Christmas celebrations. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1, WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am.

The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. 

One of my favorite things to do this year with my wife and four-year-old daughter has been to drive around the area and see some of the amazing Christmas decorations that our residents have put up. Truth be told, if I was in charge of it, my house would be about as decorated as that of Clark Griswold.  But marriage involves compromise and so I try hard to kind of hold  myself back.

Of course, the central part of many decorations, particularly at churches, is the nativity scene. In this artistic depiction, we see Mary and Joseph around a manger, a feeding trough really, where the baby Jesus lies asleep. Often these images of the Holy Family are surrounded by shepherds and angels and sometimes even the wisemen… though the feast of the wisemen is not really until Epiphany on January 6 (and biblical scholars think their visit was probably to a toddler Jesus instead of the infant), but I digress.

All of this focus on the holy family raises some interesting questions for today’s Christian. Because if we can resist the temptation to sentimentalize the Holy Family, I think we will find in them a profound critique of contemporary American Christianity… particularly when it comes to immigration. So, this week I’d like to take a moment and bust to the myth about Christians and immigration policy, particularly looking at it through the lens of the Holy Family

After the beauty and joy of the Christmas story, we learn of the murderous rage of King Herod, who was afraid this newborn Messiah will threaten his throne. And so, Herod commits an act of genocide, killing a bunch of children. The father of Jesus, Joseph, is warned in a dream about this violence and so the Holy Family flees to Egypt.

That is right, faced with a violent political situation at home they flee to another country for safety. They are political refugees and their flight under the cover of night means that they probably resonate much more with undocumented immigrants in our own country than many Christians realize.

In my own church, Episcopal Migration Ministries has supported immigrants and migrants of all kinds for decades. This ministry dates back to the 1930s, when our church works to resettle people fleeing Nazi Europe. A poster from 1938 that our church put out shows an image of the Holy Family fleeing Egypt. At the top of the poster it said, “In the name of these refugees” and at the bottom, “Aid all refugees.”

It’s very distressing to me that so much of American Christianity has been co-opted by nativism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, to the point that the supposedly conservative Christian viewpoint is to restrict immigration, and many Christian supporters of the current administration were in favor of its drastic reduction in the number of refugees our country would accept… a shameful change in our policies.

This is not only un-American—after all unless your blood comes from native people ...