When a Church Becomes Something Else
Christ our Advocate Church Has Forgotten Its Mission
Editor’s Note: A few days after the article below was published, I realized I had made a pastoral mistake. I should have contacted the clergy of Christ Our Advocate before writing it. I didn’t, and I regret that. A new article titled “I Was Wrong About Something. And I’m Sorry” is my attempt to state it clearly and explain what I was actually trying to address. —David+
Christ Our Advocate, or Something Else?
I’ve been in Anglican ministry for a long time. Long enough to remember what the Episcopal Church looked like before the upheavals of the 1970s, long enough to feel the aftershocks, and long enough to remember the empty pews that followed. And long enough to feel a certain sadness when I see the same pattern showing up again, this time in an ACNA parish called Christ Our Advocate.
I’m not angry. I’m not here to shame anyone. I’m writing as someone who has loved the Church for decades and has seen what happens when a congregation forgets what a church actually is.
And yes, some will hear this as the complaint of an older priest. Fair enough. But memory is a gift. And when you’ve lived long enough to watch the same story unfold twice, you owe it to the next generation to speak up.
What Makes a Church a Church?
Anglicanism is wonderfully clear on this point. Article 19 of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion gives us the definition:
The pure Word of God preached.
The Sacraments duly administered.
That is the center. Everything else is secondary. A church can do a hundred worthwhile things, but if preaching and sacrament get pushed aside for activism or agitation, something precious is lost. Once the center moves, the people move too. And they move out.
What Is Happening in Wheaton
Christ Our Advocate has been in the news because many of its members—and in several cases, its clergy—have been deeply involved in anti-ICE patrols. Tracking enforcement movements. Posting alerts. Organizing resistance. Their sermons, which anyone can read online, describe ICE agents as “gestapo,” “masked fascists,” “brutalizers,” and people who “terrorize our neighbors.”
Let me quote their own words.
September 21, Emily McGowin, “On Kingdom Shrewdness”:
“ICE is in our neighborhoods terrorizing our people and abducting our neighbors… Many of you have spent this past week doing all you can… Who knows how long this latest operation will last.”
October 5, unsigned sermon:
“…federal agents drug residents, including children, out of their apartment building without clothes… masked fascists marching in U.S. cities… genocide in Gaza… medical misinformation… mass shootings…”
Then a call to action:
“You might not be able to protest at Broadview or go out on neighborhood ICE patrols… but you can ‘vote’ with your wallet… For some of you, grace to do less; for others, grace to do more.”
October 26, Aaron Harrison, “It’s Not the Pharisee’s House”:
“At the No Kings protest, I had a sign that reads, ‘Be the salt of the earth. Melt ICE.’… driving around vulnerable neighborhoods… asking ICE officers to repent, as many clergy did at Broadview. That is enacting God’s kingdom.”
November 9, “Advent Creep”:
“Patrollers, take courage… When you’re out on patrol filming ICE, you are bearing witness.”
These are not sermons. They are rally speeches. Mark Marshall took the time to transcribe a good deal of the messages. Take a look at them here.
Christians may disagree on immigration. That is not my concern. My concern is that the pulpit is being used to advance a political movement. And advocacy organizations are fine, but they are not churches.
The Website Tells the Story Too
Christ Our Advocate’s “Resources” page reads like a social-services directory:
hotlines, crisis centers, legal aid, shelters, mental-health agencies, “Know Your Rights” packets.
All good things. I’m not opposed to any of it.
But what is missing?
Catechesis.
Discipleship.
Christian formation.
Theological grounding.
Biblical teaching.
Anything that sounds like the life of a church.
Mercy ministry is good and biblical. But when mercy ministry becomes the entire identity of a congregation, the core of the Gospel preached and Sacraments celebrated and recieved—those things are lost.
I Have Seen This Before
Those of us who lived through the Episcopal Church’s long decline have a kind of muscle memory here. In the 1970s, political energy flooded the church. Sermons shifted from Scripture to causes. Clergy became activists. Budgets moved toward advocacy. Coffee hour became political caucuses. After-service life became rallies and demonstrations.
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People would come hoping for preaching on a biblical text. Instead they got instructions for an afternoon protest.
And what happened? They left. They didn’t leave because they were unloving. They left because they no longer recognized the church as a church.
To my way of thinking, a church’s first and only directive is to be a center for Worship, Discipleship, and Evangelism, Pastoral Care, Community Life, and Ministry. It is not a rally center for a cause on either said of the political spectrum.
A Church Is Not a Non-Profit Advocacy Group
Yes, churches and non-profits share the same IRS category. But that is where the similarity ends.
A non-profit exists to advance a cause.
A church exists to proclaim Christ.
A non-profit mobilizes supporters, identifies enemies, raises awareness, and advances a program.
A church preaches the Word, administers the Sacraments, forms disciples, comforts the afflicted, teaches the Scriptures, and worships God.
The two may overlap at moments, but they are never interchangeable.
When a church starts sounding like a movement, it becomes a movement. And when that happens, the Gospel no longer shapes the mission. The mission begins to recruit the Gospel. That is when the center moves. And once the center moves, everything else is up for grabs.
You see it in small clues:
The Eucharist shuffled or minimized to make space for “urgent” action.
Sermons turning into partisan monologues.
Giving that feels less like stewardship and more like campaign funding.
The church begins speaking a language it was never meant to speak.
“But the Gospel Has Implications…”
Yes, it does. Amos railed against injustice. John the Baptist rebuked Herod. Jesus confronted sin openly.
But the pulpit has one primary purpose: to preach the Word of God to the human heart.
Advocacy may follow, but it never replaces proclamation.
Jesus did not say, “My house shall be a house of activism.”
He said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.”
And prayer shapes us differently than politics does.
“But What About Nazi Germany?”
I can already hear the objection.
“If the church had spoken earlier, the Holocaust might have been prevented.”
Yes, the German church failed terribly. But not every modern policy issue belongs in the shadow of 1938. Those comparisons usually shut down conversation instead of opening hearts. They inflate every disagreement into a moral apocalypse.
We can oppose injustice without reenacting the Third Reich on Sundays.
A Final Word
I write this as one of the older priests in the ACNA, someone who has lived long enough to see the Church’s strengths and her failures. I don’t have authority beyond this small corner of Substack, but I do have a pastor’s heart.
I want our congregations to flourish. I want them to be places of preaching and sacrament, prayer and worship, grace and truth. I want them to avoid the mistakes that drained the life out of the Episcopal Church for fifty years.
So I would gently ask the leaders of Christ Our Advocate:
Has your pulpit become an instrument of the Gospel, or an instrument of the movement?
Because the church can survive almost anything except losing its center.
And the only center strong enough to hold a congregation together is Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.
Everything else is shifting sand.
My hope—sincere and without any bitterness—is that Christ Our Advocate will rediscover what its name promises:
Advocacy for Christ, not advocacy instead of Christ.
And that they will return to the true center of the Church:
the pure Word preached,
the Sacraments offered,
Christ lifted high for all to see.
Anything less is something else.
And something else is not the Church.
Grace and peace,
The Anglican is the Substack newsletter for LeaderWorks, where I share insights, encouragement, and practical tools for clergy and lay Christians. I’m also an author of over a dozen books available on Amazon.
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The ACNA should act quickly and firmly to disassociate from these churches in as kind and loving manner as possible. It is disappointing that the ACNA is not stronger on this and WO.
Well said, Fr. David.