Key points:
- A United Methodist pastor from the U.S. who serves in Denmark shared the ongoing impact of U.S. aggression on international relations.
- The Rev. Mark Lewis also urged United Methodist leaders to counter the kind of Christian nationalism being promoted by the Trump administration.
- He will be a panelist at the “Serve Joyfully” webinar on mission scheduled on Feb. 21.
The Trump administration’s threats to seize Greenland may be out of U.S. headlines, but the damage to transatlantic relations will be long lasting.
That is the assessment of the Rev. Mark Lewis, a retired United Methodist pastor who grew up in the U.S. but has spent the bulk of his ministry in Denmark.
Greenland is an autonomous territory within Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally and fellow NATO member. That alliance has come with sacrifice. Forty-four Danish soldiers died fighting the Taliban on the U.S.’s behalf in Afghanistan — the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces. Eight more died in Iraq.
“A majority of Danes no longer consider the United States as an ally,” Lewis said, pointing to a recent poll that found 60% of Danes in fact regard the U.S. as an adversary. In recent weeks, Danish journalists have reached out to him for his insights as an American expat, and he in turn has learned from their reporting.
“Many, especially Danish veterans and others, are absolutely incensed that they have been undermined in terms of their support for U.S. initiatives and just feel completely betrayed,” he said. “And this is not going to go away anytime soon.”
Lewis is not alone in predicting the long-term impact of U.S. threats, even now that the Trump administration appears willing to back negotiation over military bases rather than a larger takeover. U.S. lawmakers at the Munich Security Conference reported that the menacing of Greenland dominated conversation.
The U.S. aggression toward putative allies is upending the international order. It also poses a challenge to the broader United Methodist Church, Lewis said.
Lewis was speaking Feb. 9 to dozens of United Methodist leaders from around the world who are working on proposals for the denomination’s future. Those who listened to Lewis wanted to hear about what current tensions mean for the denomination’s presence.
“In my understanding of mission, the starting point is just showing up,” he said. “And for me, the question is: How do we as a church show up especially where there is crisis, where there is conflict? How do we show up as people of Christ that are also coming with the attitude of the Beatitudes, coming as that light and salt in a world that is dark and is losing its taste?”
He sees the Trump administration’s attempt to replace international treaties with raw might as consistent with its embrace of white Christian nationalism — a view of Christianity associated with a reverence for earthly power and opposition to immigrants and racial, religious and sexual minorities.
“Christian nationalism, which supports in large swaths this administration, is playing on things like fear mongering and towards immigrants and refugees and so on and so forth,” he said. “Now even secular people are saying, ‘That ain’t what Jesus taught.’”
Learn more about Wesleyan Mission
The Rev. Mark Lewis will be among the panelists at the “Serve Joyfully” webinar set for 9 a.m. U.S. Central time Feb. 21.
The webinar, exploring Wesleyan approaches to mission, is the second of three webinars focused on the denomination’s new vision to “love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously.”
Other speakers include the Rev. Shandon Klein, a provisional elder serving in the Minnesota Conference and a doctoral candidate in religious ethics at Southern Methodist University; and Deaconess Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana, who serves with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries as Area Liaison for Asia and the Pacific.
The Rev. April Casperson, an ordained deacon and director of enrollment management at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, will be the moderator.
He challenged the church leaders to counter the Christian nationalist view with a broader worldview in line with Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome the stranger and look out for the downtrodden.
Instead of simply lamenting the troubled times, Lewis encouraged his listeners to be bolder.
“In dealing with all the emotional and psychological analyses and stuff like that, we sometimes forget to call evil, evil,” he said.
“In our own worldview, our own level of consciousness, we need to be challenged to grow to the next level. And I think the next level is going to be with greater moral clarity in dealing with these things and not just try to nuance and accommodate.”
Lewis, who earned a Ph.D., in missiology from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, brings to this time of conflict a background as both a pastor and former leader of the Denmark Annual Conference’s international mission work. He is also scheduled to be among the panelists at the “Serve Joyfully” webinar that will explore Wesleyan approaches to mission at 9 a.m. U.S. Central time Feb. 21.
In Denmark, The United Methodist Church is but a small minority. But one bright spot Lewis sees amid the uncertainty facing his adopted country is a renewed interest in exploring what Jesus actually teaches.
“I think we can find common ground with people around the world who also are waking up to these other levels of consciousness where we also can find Christ in the midst of us,” he said.
In all that’s happening, Lewis urged church leaders not to lose sight of the hurt experienced by the Greenlanders, who have been terrorized by the prospect of a U.S. invasion.
Through a trick of the Mercator projection map, Greenland looks both far larger and less distinctive than it is. The Arctic island is far from the world’s largest island — Australia is nearly four times bigger. The continent of Africa is 14 times larger, absolutely dwarfing the snowy land mass.
Still, Greenland has been home to an array of peoples. The first inhabitants arrived some 2,500 years before Christ. But their descendants had died out or moved on by the time Norsemen first established settlements in southwest Greenland in A.D. 986. Erik the Red gave the island the somewhat misleading name of Greenland to attract fellow settlers.
His salesmanship paid off. More Norse settlements sprang up and existed for another 500 years before they were abandoned for unknown reasons. In the meantime, the Thule people — ancestors of the modern Greenland Inuit — began migrating from what is today northern Canada to Greenland around A.D. 1200. Within 100 years, they became Greenland’s dominant population group.
Still, given the Norse history, Danes continued to lay claim to the land. In 1721, Denmark established a Christian mission there and has maintained connections to the island ever since. Greenland was never a U.S. territory.
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Danish relations with the Greenland Inuit were often uneasy, with Danish authorities at one point taking the Inuit children from their homes to be educated in Denmark just as the U.S. and Canada had similarly forced Native children into boarding schools. Since the 1950s, the people of Greenland have demanded greater autonomy and finally achieved full self-governance in 2009. Today, the island has a population of about 57,000.
U.S. threats have drawn the people of Denmark and Greenland closer together, and indeed have brought the countries of Europe closer together as well, Lewis said.
He grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and still speaks English with a Southern drawl. But he moved to Denmark in 1994 because of love. He married a Danish woman and wanted to be part of her world.
Beyond Denmark’s beloved “Little Mermaid,” Lewis has been urging people to take a lesson from another familiar story by Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson. He tells Danes they should be willing to say of Trump, “that emperor over there, he ain’t got no clothes on.”
He was speaking to a receptive audience.
Retired Bishop James Swanson, who was the first Black United Methodist bishop in the desegregated Mississippi Conference, reminded those gathered that Christianity has been misused as a tool of division and hate before.
“It was even during slavery where we couldn’t even have church by ourselves,” Swanson said. “So this stuff has been going on. What has happened, what is new about it, is that it is so blatant under this new administration that whites are now beginning to see, when we saw it a long time ago.”
Bishop Mande Muyombo, who leads United Methodists in Tanzania and parts of Congo, warned that U.S. actions are not just affecting relations in Europe. He said the administration is also spreading Christian nationalism to Africa. He pointed out that Paula White-Cain, Trump’s spiritual adviser, has been traveling across the continent spreading a version of Christianity that minimizes democracy, bolsters those already in power and quells dissent.
“My concern is: Are we going to stay passive?” Muyombo said. “Don’t we have policymakers who are members of our church? What kind of chaplaincy should we provide?”
DuWanna Thomas, a Georgia United Methodist who attended the gathering with her husband, the Rev. Byron Thomas, shared a similar sentiment. She attributed the rise of Christian nationalism to a failure of Bible education.
“Christian nationalism is not Christian,” she told those gathered. “It’s just a name that’s been put on something to trick those who don’t know their Bible and their faith, to think it’s somehow a legitimate thing, and it’s a soup mixed with patriotism, which is not love of country but love of self.”
Lewis thanked those gathered for sharing their experiences.
Now, he said, is the time to share an authentic Christian faith.
“Whatever it may cost us, let’s commit ourselves to be renewed in our commitment to spreading a truthful Jesus to our world,” he said.
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
