Notes from WATERtalks: Feminist Conversations in Religion Series

with Heidi Neumark in conversation with Cyndi Lapp

on Heidi’s book Sanctuary: Being Christian in the Wake of Trump

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

An audio recording of the talk is available here on SoundCloud.


Mary E. Hunt, introduction

We are here to discuss contemporary ministry challenges with Heidi Neumark who is the author of Sanctuary: Being Christian in the Wake of Trump and Cindy Lapp who is pastor of the Hyattsville Mennonite Church, former WATER staff and a dear friend. It is wonderful to have them with us as we celebrate International Women’s Day, albeit two days late. At WATER, we operate out of the assumption that every day is International Women’s Day.

Like all of WATER’s efforts, this WATERtalk is not simply an academic seminar. It is a way to learn in order to bring what we learn to the creation of a more just and equitable world. Our speakers do that in the ministries, so by learning from them we can do it as well.

Heidi Neumark is an author, speaker and ordained Lutheran pastor. She and I crossed paths in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1981 at ISEDET, the ecumenical seminary there. I like to think that our paths since then have been close and parallel though we have not been in contact. Her experiences in congregational and community organizing in the Bronx led to her first book, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx. Heidi now serves as a congregational pastor and the co-founder and executive director of Trinity Place Shelter for LGBTQIA+ youth who are homeless. Her late-life discovery of Jewish roots is chronicled in Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory and Faith. Heidi is married with two adult children, one grandchild, and two on the way. A busy life, for sure! Today she brings her latest book, Sanctuary: Being Christian in the Wake of Trump (available here at bookshop.org).

Cynthia Lapp, a dear friend of mine and of WATER, has been pastor at Hyattsville Mennonite Church since 2003 when she left WATER for congregational ministry. Before that, she studied music at Eastern Mennonite University and theology at Wesley Theological Seminary. She says that marriage, mothering three children, and seven years working at Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) continued her education. She is active with Congregation Action Network in solidarity with immigrants and is a community chaplain with the Hyattsville Police Department. She observes that she is learning to be anti-racist and contemplative. I can attest to her pastoral skills and sensitivity; she was the witness, presider, and only guest at my marriage for which I will always be grateful.

Here is how we at WATER blurbed the book for our What We’re Reading page:

“Excellent pastors only got busier with Covid, which is hard to imagine given all that Lutheran minister Heidi Neumark was already doing at Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City. This insightful reflection on four decades of ministry reveals the skill of an organizer, the heart of a pastor, and the politics of a progressive, globally connected citizen. Fortunate are the seminary interns who learn at her side and the many, diverse people who call Trinity Lutheran home.”

When I was reading Heidi’s book, I kept thinking how wonderful it would be for her to meet and come into conversation with Cindy Lapp whose gifts I would describe in identical terms: she has the skill of an organizer, the heart of a pastor, and the politics of a progressive, globally connected citizen. And I would add, the voice of a well-trained musician.

These two marvelous pastors have graciously agreed to make my wish a reality. I welcome you, Cindy and Heidi, for a conversation with one another and later on with us.

 

Conversation between Heidi Neumark and Cindy Lapp

Cindy

  • Amazed at how you’ve continued for 40 years in ministry.
    • Sounds intense in NYC, with family, traveling, wide range of congregants – all can be a challenge. Thank you for persisting.
  • Put off by seeing “Trump” in the title
    • personal spiritual discipline of not speaking 45’s name
    • but in Sanctuary, used his words and turned them on themselves
    • Used scripture to disprove his words

Heidi

  • Didn’t want to focus on Trump
    • Most days not focused on him at all
    • But Trump’s voice kept intruding
      • Both a distraction and a goad
      • His voice is false and angering – motivated more to keep going against his voice and for a very different vision

Three Kings Pageant

  • Preface: Instead of doing a Christmas Pageant, they do the Three Kings Pageant from a Spanish tradition. The Christmas story from Luke segued into the Three Kings story from Matthew, including King Herod. Before Trump, played King Herod as a buffoon but still evil.

“For those planning the Three Kings pageant that would be performed in January, a few months after the 201 presidential election, the decision to cast the villain was a no-brainer. A congregant with acting chops offered to play Herod and a blonde wig was purchased. Herod’s Trumpesque lines were delivered to us via Twitter:

The world was gloomy before I won – there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!

When King Herod heard about the child (Jesus), he was frightened. (Matt. 2:3)

Liars, liars! Fake news! … A baby king? I’ll take care of these babies. No more anchor babies. No more immigrant babies. These babies come from broken, crime infested countries! They are criminals! They are drug addicts! They are ugly! … How does my hair look?

Calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. (Matt. 2:4)

I know things that nobody else knows. I know bigly things because I have a very good brain…but…well, I need to know…where to find this baby.

The answer comes from a girl in Spanish: “En Belén.” Herod looks puzzled: “She speaks Mexican.” Another child translates, “Belén means Bethlehem.”

Herod called the visitors from the East to a secret meeting. (Matt. 2:7)

Take their phones. Take their pencils. Look for bugs. Do not record anything.

Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage. (Matt. 2:8)

My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth… How does my hair look?” (pp. 4-5)

Cindy

  • Three Kings Pageant
    • Preached comparing Trump to King Herod, and another time to Pharaoh
      • Too easy to do!

Heidi

  • And now we have the golden statue of Trump in Florida
    • Easter coming up with Nebuchadnezzar and the golden statue

Cindy

  • Use of scripture in Sanctuary, interwoven into the story of your ministry
    • Difficult to say about this ancient text every Sunday
    • You make it come alive and connect it to your congregants

Heidi

  • Sounds like you do, too, preaching about King Herod and Trump
  • “Keep the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” – German Theologian Karl Barth
  • In preaching almost every week, I see something new in scripture even after having preached on it many times, so it keeps it fresh

Cindy

  • Variety of people in your congregation; from around the world; ministry to queer community
    • Denominational leaders threatened by that integration of diverse groups, says it’s not possible: e.g. “We can’t allow LGBTQ folks because then the immigrant population would leave,” etc.
      • You give witness to that and are proof that that’s a lie

Heidi

  • Experienced horrible judicatory meetings where vulnerable people/groups are pitted against each other
    • Haven’t necessarily seen change among main groups but among Lutheran group ran to support queer seminarians
    • To be called a Congregation in the Lutheran Church, this means you have to be welcoming of LGBTQ people into the church and leadership and prove you’re working towards antiracism
    • Seeing this intersectionality, but it’s not the norm

Cindy

  • It’s not the norm in the Mennonite Church, either
    • Though our National Executive is a man of color, and he’s hired other people of color, so many of our executive leadership are people of color
      • Some people are threatened by that: “how can we really be Mennonite?”
        • If Mennonite means White, then we really have some problems

Heidi

  • Not everyone can do all that work
  • But on both levels, be working on it
    • On the ground, do the work and provide a model for the larger body
      • Which is frustratingly slow

Cindy

  • How is it being a woman in church leadership?
    • People say they’re nervous about including LGBTQ people in the church, but what actually makes them nervous is women in leadership – using that as a cover

Heidi

  • Initially, I was in South Bronx and either dismissed or seen as special
  • What’s disheartening is, I mentor seminary interns doing their field work, the young women are still facing so much sexism and dismissive, sexist behavior, and because they’re young
    • It’s the same thing that’s going on when I was in seminary

Cindy

  • Patriarchy is digging in its heels

Heidi

  • Queer seminarians always have a longer wait to be called to a church
    • If they’re queer, female, black, Hispanic, just add on more time

Cindy

  • Women in ministry and leadership are leading the way in the streets
    • When I’m called to be clergy at events, like on Black Lives Matter Plaza, it’s all women clergy. The men aren’t showing up.

Heidi

  • It’s that sense of solidarity and being able to connect with the importance of change
    • We’re in it together and want to be in it together

Cindy

  • You organized Sanctuary via the liturgical year, and you started with Christmas, rather than advent
    • We’re looking for hope and ending the year looking for hope rather than ending it with Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday
    • Seeing Christ the King Sunday as there being someone else who wants to be king, and we’re going to say, “No, we follow a different way.”

Heidi

  • I’ve never been a fan of Christ the King Sunday, but that helped put a new twist on it
    • Started in opposition to fascism
  • organize the book in the order of the church seasons
    • to show how the seasons can breathe life into this difficult season we’re experiencing
    • and how the season outside the church can impact the church seasons

Cindy

  • Pentecost passage from Sanctuary: “The miracle of Pentecost is not that everyone speaks one language, but that as people gather from all over the world speaking many different languages, they understand one another. In the midst of varied identities and experiences, each has their own place in the dance. Except, in Trump’s America, which glorifies English only. If he could, Trump would put a stop to Pentecost. He marked Pentecost Monday of 2017 by celebrating his travel ban and denouncing the Department of Justice for watering it down. At Trinity, a stilt dancer swooped in with wide wings rising almost as high as our tall columns, a towering height that Trump will never achieve” (p. 141).
    • Holding the truth that there’s something bigger than these men who would have their image created in gold and bowed down to

Heidi

  • Predominantly white congregation and a symptom of white supremacy, the practice is often “If you’re going to be a part of our community, leave all distinctiveness behind and become like us,”
    • This diminishes the glory of God’s creation.

Q&A Discussion

Mary

  • There are many parallels in how you see the world and the kinds of ministry you do
  • These are not easy times nor easy issues
    • Thank you for modelling for us what it means to pastor
    • Reminding us what it means to be doing this antiracism, pro-queer work in the trenches
  • You did what many don’t: respected the time and respected each other, speaking 50/50 – male speakers don’t usually do that

Ann

  • I highly recommend Heidi’s first two books, being radically herself in her ministry and the story of her Jewish heritage (see below in Related Resourcces)
    • You are living what you believe in

Heidi

  • I saw that courage in you, too, to try to be yourself in an environment that didn’t welcome that

Mary

  • Those of us who have gone through seminary have been through hard times
    • Not surprised but disappointed to hear that nothing much has changed

Heidi

  • Two members of the church – who are queer POC – are applying to seminary, and I want to encourage them, but also, I hope seminary doesn’t crush them

Cindy

  • When people come to me asking about seminary, especially if they’re part of the queer community, while it’s the best job, I don’t recommend it to people who are going to have to struggle that hard

Mary

  • On committee for reading scholarship applications for Catholic Women scholarships, and I cried, reading literally the same story as mine from 40 years ago, over and over again
  • Why WATER exists, taking every person with radical seriousness and acknowledging their importance and place in the world

Phoebe

  • Where did you feel the most challenged in the last four years and how your congregations might have been transformed?
  • Insights you found that we can use moving forward, living out values of justice and kindness, weeding out seeds of fascism?

Heidi

  • The last year has been the culmination of the hardest challenges, adding Covid to it all
  • Our shelter, which is for LGBTQ young people, had to adapt to Covid
    • Shelter was usually closed during the day, but all the activities that the young people went to do – school, internships, other programs – shut down and closed
    • Had nothing to do, not safe with Covid raging in NYC
    • Decided to open the shelter 24/7 and it’s still functioning that way
  • As a lot of things decreased, the space for the shelter increased
    • “He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30
    • What are things we fill our space and time with?
    • If we go back, does that mean there’s less space for them? Are we doing things that are leaving out those who need that space the most?

Cindy

  • In the past four years, my congregation has, because white supremacy has become so unmasked, our commitment to antiracism has grown, to the immigrant community and community organizing
    • Challenging to keep adding things to my role as a pastor, but is energizing and hopeful

Rosemary

  • Image: an astronaut outside their ship, in danger of being unhooked from their tether
    • You’ve strengthened that tether for me, that bond to the mothership
  • I have been working out in the world, in doing social justice, but I have not been nourishing the connection to the mothership
  • I have a national voice, and I want to have something to say about the relevance of our holy books

Mary

  • Rosemary, speaking for a lot of us coming from the Catholic tradition, where there’s only a Fathership, and we don’t have women in the roles that Cindy and Heidi are in, in everyday leadership

Laura

  • What do you say to well-meaning Christians who say Jesus was not political when talking about racism and LGBTQ issues?

Cindy

  • Someone answered in the chat, “Read the Bible” – it depends how you read the Bible and who you read it with
    • If you read it with those who read and think and look like you, you’ll think Jesus isn’t political
    • If you read it with people who aren’t, who you might not let into your church, you’ll start hearing what Jesus sounds like to them

Heidi

  • There is this midwestern “nice” strain in the Lutheran church, where you shouldn’t take sides
    • Impatient with that
    • In learning family history during the Holocaust, where much of my family was killed by Nazis because they were German Jews
      • The role of the German church weren’t for Nazis, but they were “good German Christians” who didn’t want to take sides
    • Torture and the Eucharist by William T. Cavanaugh
      • About the Church in Chile under Pinochet
      • When you give bodies over to the state and the church only focuses on the spiritual, it’s very bad

Mary

  • With 45 out and Biden seeming to be leading in a more acceptable way, how do you keep your edge when being more in agreement with leadership so we don’t go soft?
    • And we’re exhausted
  • Denominations shrinking, people leaving religion – what does this mean in terms of your churches being foci for community organizing?

Heidi

  • I find plenty of reason to keep my edge on the small scale
    • g. for a woman in our shelter, who is Black and Trans, the only relative who was nice to her passed away and her family refused to let her come to the funeral – it would be “upsetting” – so we had a memorial in our garden
      • That experience would have happened whether it was Trump or Biden
      • Having legislation is very important, but in terms of religious attitudes, there is no difference
    • It’s not necessarily an edge, but it pushes me to keep going
  • The institutional church seems to be getting weaker and weaker
    • No clue what that will mean
    • Close to retirement
    • We should go out swinging

Cindy

  • Come from such a tiny section of Christianity as a Mennonite and Anabaptist that getting smaller doesn’t feel threatening
  • About keeping an edge
    • Took so many generations to get to this point, will take just as long or longer to recover and undo what has been done in terms of oppression
    • What to pass on to our children about religion is how do we do this justice work and keep passing the work on, generation to generation

 

More Q&A Discussion after closing

Peggy (from the chat)

  • “Lots of work to be done in deep red areas…especially because there may be a rare opportunity to change perspectives…the pandemic brought more diversity of perspective into rural areas…also, while many where radicalized by Trump, others had their eyes opened, even if they are shy to express it.”

Heidi

  • Contemplative life practices?

Cindy

  • Since start of pandemic, two mornings a week, prayer meeting using John Philip Newell’s Celtic prayer books
  • Contemplative prayer group once a month, sitting in silence
  • Takes doing it with other people

Mary

Phoebe

  • Each person brings their own perspective
    • Mary leading us to finding the preciousness in the ordinary

Margaret Ellen

  • Lived in the Bronx when you were there, Heidi
    • Many men used your name in praise because of the work you were doing
    • Wonderful to see the energy is still there in you
  • A new Pentecost going on in women
    • Finding ways to get the deeper sense of justice
  • What do you do to refresh yourselves?

Heidi

  • Going to see our granddaughter Sunday afternoon through all of Monday

Cindy

  • Also take Monday off, do as little as possible
  • Mennonite Church also gives 3-month sabbatical every four years
  • And acupuncture pre-Covid

Heidi

  • Writing also helps me
    • A kind of contemplation
    • Helping see how God is moving in ways I didn’t notice at first

Margaret Ellen

  • Spiritual direction and retreat work
    • Get in touch with their callings and motivated to live into and out of it
  • Because of Covid: finding themselves being more attentive and present
    • Giving us contemplative time and solitude
  • “I’d rather wear out than rust” – I’m not retiring, I get energy from this work
  • And I walk every day, being fed by nature

Phoebe

  • Surprised you said young women might have more energy
    • Struck by your own deep, vital energy

Ann

  • Much of my ministry was sheer survival
  • Doing peace work in Southern Indiana to open cracks in diversity

Diann

  • Amazing to see how the spiral continues
  • Thank you for doing this work, and at what cost?


Mary E. Hunt, closing

Deep thanks to Cindy and Heidi for your work and your presence with us. Please consider the book, Sanctuary: Being Christian in the Wake of Trump, (available here at bookshop.org) for use in your congregation or community, certainly for your own reading. It is exciting to see women leading with such verve, courage, and style. We wish you safe and healthy days ahead, vaccines when you can get them, and an enjoyable rest of the day. Thank you all for being here and good day from WATER.

 

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