This essay is an edited version of the author’s Margaret Parker Lecture, delivered at the 130th Annual Meeting in Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, November 8, 2025. The lecture addresses the role of the church, especially the Episcopal Church, in an era of rising nationalism, dramatic wealth inequality, resurgent white supremacy and segregation, and threatening authoritarianism. Centering the “greatest commands” of love and the imago dei as organizing principles for the public life of the church, the lecture considers three paths for a church seeking justice in relationship to its state: the church of empire, the church of exile, and the church of dissent.
Jeffrey R. Baker (Fri,) studied this question.