On October 28, 2024, we’ll be hosting our 143rd Annual Assembly. This year’s theme is “Christ or Caesar: An Exploration of Church and State.” We’ll spend the day reflecting on this relationship and hearing from several thought-provoking speakers, including Rev. ellie hutchison, who’s coming all the way from Arizona!
We hope you’ll be able to attend this year’s Annual Assembly and hear the entirety of Rev. hutchison’s session. You can register to attend by clicking here, and registration closes on Oct. 21.
But for now, here’s a brief Q&A with Rev. hutchison to give you a taste of what you’ll learn if you attend.
“I’m tired of feeling like I have to defend Christianity because of the Christian nationalists. I want to invite people into spaces of dreaming with me, and it doesn’t have to be the same way. And any time that we’re hurt, I want to recognize the trauma. I want us to heal the trauma. But I also want us to reclaim the beauty that is in Christianity.”
— Rev. ellie hutchison
WVCC: Why don’t we start by talking about your life before you became an ordained clergy member?
Rev. hutchison: I was a teen mom fighting against poverty pretty much my whole life. My son was disinterested in school for a period of time, and, at the time, I wanted to show him that education was the answer to all of life’s problems. So, I went to community college and eventually transferred to a four-year university.
I’d been taking classes in disability studies—and I didn’t have the language for it then—but I was thinking about America’s Protestant theology and work ethic. I was also thinking about how these ideas impact Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor students. If you are poor, your education—from the very beginning—is not going to be the same.
We were going to church at the time, and I shared my questions with my pastors, who suggested I go to seminary. That’s where everything that I believed about my United Methodist upbringing was totally stripped away. I was like, “Why aren’t any of the pastors that I work with teaching this or talking to us this way?”
WVCC: But that wasn’t the moment you became a Reverend, correct?
Rev. hutchison: Correct. I actually left the divinity program and completed a public leadership program, using liberation theology as my guide. I worked in the arts and humanities for many years after that, which led me to a women’s prison outside of Phoenix, Arizona, where I was teaching creative writing.
We were doing really great work, bringing in MacArthur Fellows and nationally-known playwrights to work with the women there. But then, a new director of the prison system took over, and our program was canceled. We grieved deeply. We spent three, four days a week with these women. And when you put people in a space of learning, there’s a camaraderie that builds.
We’d heard whisperings that our class would be canceled before it actually happened. And at that time, a couple of the women pulled me aside and said, “ellie, you know who doesn’t get kicked out of prisons? Churches. Go start our church.”
I was trying to figure out how I could get back inside the prison, and at the time I was working at a United Church of Christ congregation. A good friend recommended I try to get ordained through them, and I went through the member discernment process, eventually becoming an authorized minister with the United Church of Christ.
WVCC: You’ve also incorporated the humanities into your work at the Arizona Faith Network. Tell us about some of the things you’ve done as an organization to address Christian nationalism.
Rev. hutchison: In 2023, we started working with the National Council of Churches on a three-part series, including conversations and training sessions that explored various questions: How do we train pastors on what Christian nationalism looks like within congregations? How do we care for congregation members who are leaning toward Christian nationalism? How do we care for pastors who are leaning that way?
We also looked for ways to reach broader audiences that weren’t necessarily faith-based or Christian.
For example, we partnered with the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center, and we hosted a tour of their facility to talk about the correlation between Christian nationalism and what we saw during the Holocaust. We organized a trip to the Arizona State University Art Museum, which was the first launching point of the traveling George Floyd exhibit, to show the impact of Christian nationalism on our Black brothers and sisters. We’re also currently working with a number of liturgists and songwriters to analyze aspects of our hymns that may be perpetrating Christian nationalism without us realizing.
WVCC: For folks who don’t know much about Christian nationalism, what are some key beliefs circulating among its supporters—and why, in your opinion, are these beliefs taking hold?
Rev. hutchison: Christian nationalists often have no biblical standing. They can refer to a couple of scriptures, but in taking those scriptures out of their historical context, they tend to side with Rome—not Jesus. For example, they’ll say, “You know, Jesus was actually a zealot. He flipped the tables. He was anti-government.”
For many people, church is a place for community. You take pride in your church. That becomes your tribe, and then you will fight tooth and nail to keep it thriving or surviving. We’ve found through the conversations we’ve had with folks that this is all about tribalism and a space of belonging and acceptance that doesn’t challenge us to question. People are afraid of change, and people are yearning for longing, belonging, love, and identity. And in a world that’s ever-changing, where people are increasingly saying, “It’s okay to question your identity,” folks are holding onto what they know.
And if people are afraid of change, what is the one tool that you can use to control them? The thing that they’ve never questioned in the first place. The thing that they’ve been taught to never question in the first place. And that’s our scripture and Christianity.
WVCC: Christian nationalists often hold hateful and, in some cases, downright dangerous views. But is there room for compassion toward people who believe in these ideologies?
Rev. hutchison: Jesus goes out of his way to say, “I’m going to talk to the people that you don’t think I should talk to. I’m going to be in relationship with them, and then I’m headed out. I’m going to go rest and figure out what all of that means, and then I’m going to come back. I’m going to teach. I’m going to talk. Rinse and repeat.”
And so people who are anti-Christian nationalism are awesome. You are my kin. But so are the people that believe in something different than me.
WVCC: Speaking of your beliefs, talk about what makes the United Church of Christ distinct, for folks who may not be familiar with this denomination.
Rev. hutchison: So the United Church of Christ was founded when several streams of Christian thought came together and broke away from different practices or belief systems in which each felt that they were being oppressed in some kind of way.
We run the gambit from churches that are not social justice-based to ones that are incredibly progressive in their understanding and theology of justice work. We were one of the first denominations to ordain a person of color. We were very big in the abolitionist movement. We supposedly ordained the first woman and the first LGBTQIA+ identified clergy member.
WVCC: You yourself identify as queer and use they/them pronouns. What’s it like being a nonbinary reverend?
Rev. hutchison: So my first year at Arizona Faith Network, I reached out to leaders from all the different expressions of faith. And what I found was that the women-led denominations got back to me. And we’ve met, and we’ve talked, and we’ve dreamt together. But when it comes to men in pastor or imam roles, I often don’t get my phone calls or emails returned. I don’t know if it’s because I use they/them pronouns. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman. I don’t know if it’s because I have tattoos.
We recently brought in a former pastor who is a white male—and he’s awesome; I love this dude so much. But he was able to organize the first interfaith breakfast we’ve had, and some of those same people I’d tried to meet up with who never returned my messages were there.
Being a female Christian pastor is lonely and hard in the current time when people are fleeing from Christianity. Early in my journey, a white male pastor asked me, “Why would you want to be a pastor at a time when it’s crumbling?”
I think that things crumbling, while sad, offer a really beautiful, exciting opportunity to imagine something new.
I’m tired of feeling like I have to defend Christianity because of the Christian Nationalists. I want to invite people into spaces of dreaming with me, and it doesn’t have to be the same way. And any time that we’re hurt, I want to recognize the trauma. I want us to heal the trauma. But I also want us to reclaim the beauty that is in Christianity.
To register for the 143rd Annual Assembly, please click here.
**This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
About Rev. ellie hutchison
Rev. hutchison is ordained by the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries in covenant with the Southwest United Church of Christ. Their ministry is based in Womanist Liberation Theology and interfaith engagement through the arts and humanities.
Rev. hutchison currently serves as the Southern Arizona Community Organizer at the Arizona Faith Network; National Minister for Church and Community Engagement for the United Church of Christ; and Minister for Pastoral Care and Spiritual Development with The Good Shepherd UCC in Sahuarita, Arizona. Rev. Hutchison also volunteers with St. Peter’s Episcopal Prison Womxn’s Ministry and has spent more than 15 years working as a creative writing and poetry teacher in the Philadelphia and Phoenix communities.