From Politics to Pulpit:

She’s been shoveling stone into a five-gallon bucket, hauling it, dumping it, and shoveling some more for the better part of an hour. Her sunglasses are on headband duty, keeping her blond hair out of her eyes as she leans into her work. The pile of stone is diminishing, but there’s still much work to be done.

Amy O’Neal Aimonette is in full-on badass mode. When she needs to formally represent her work, she wears a clerical collar, but for this week’s work with Habitat for Humanity in Guatemala, her “collar” is a bandana that both blocks the sun and absorbs the sweat that this heavy-duty work is creating. “This is such a great day” she beams. The Guatemalan children running around and helping move the stone agree.

“Whenever you draw a line, Jesus is on the other side” is something I heard a pastor say from the pulpit many years ago. It was aimed at the divisiveness and polarization of our country as the cracks deepened into chasms. Chasms that have painfully bifurcated our country.

It was a simple statement that spoke volumes, as does this one from Bill Bolin, a conservative Evangelical Christian preacher featured in Tim Alberta’s “How Politics Poisoned the Evangelical Church” in The Atlantic: “The battle lines have been drawn. If you’re not taking a side, you’re on the wrong side.”

Unless you are living with your eyes cinched shut and your fingers in your ears, it is no secret that organized religion—particularly Christianity—is becoming more known for political stances than models of faith. It is an issue that may very well define and, depending on what “side” you are on, mortally damage the church. When politics blurs with religion, what is gained? What is lost?

Pastor Aimonette didn’t plan on becoming a member of the clergy. The history/French double major studied in France when the European Union was forming and had her sights set on international politics. Fresh out of college, she got a job working on a United States senatorial campaign. It was a campaign of national interest, with lots of influencers involved. The candidate won, but the experience left a mark on Aimonette.

Part of her job was escorting the candidate to various events where other major politicians were helping to fund raise. “They would come in and say one thing to one room, and then say something completely different to the next room. It was based on the amount of money the people had spent to be in the room with the candidate and then who was in the room,” Aimonette shares. “I just started becoming really disillusioned. I thought this was a way to help people—to get good things done in this world. Instead, it was just focused on saying the right things to the right people in order to win, rather than having a philosophy or stance.”

The excitement of building something new that fostered her desire to be in international politics was damaged by her foray into national politics. She recalled feeling like, “Wow…I thought these people stood for more. Looking back, maybe I should have known better, but I was really disappointed in the lack of integrity.”

Meanwhile, Dan Mork, the youth pastor from the Lutheran church Aimonette grew up in, died from cancer. He had been an important presence in her life, and the reflection his loss prompted made her realize that his model for doing good was a better one to follow. She knew Monk had done good things because he had done them for her, and she had seen with her own eyes the good he had done for many.

“He was so so cool - and he wanted to hang out with us kids! He listened to us. He took our youth group to the Lutheran Youth Gathering where we had such fun and learned so much about our faith and each other. He played guitar and sang. He taught us prayer techniques and how to calm our hearts. He organized church lock-ins and all kinds of shenanigans for us to have fun while learning about our faith. He was always there for us,” Aimonette reflected. Monk’s “doing good” was up close and personal. It was real.

Aimonette left politics, got a non-political job to pay the bills, and started taking seminary classes.

According to a 2020 Gallup poll, for the first time in the poll’s history (since 1937) the majority of Americans said they do not belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque. Younger generations are mostly the ones behind this downward trend. The correlation of the rise of church divisiveness with the decline of young adults’ desires to belong to a church should merit contemplation, but in what many perceive to be a zero-sum game, the fear of loss just ups the stakes—and the fervent desire to not only hold ground but gain more.

Pastor and author Andy Stanley spends an entire book urging Evangelical Christians to remember that they are Not in It to Win It (his title), pointing out that fear is a great motivator—and manipulator. He adds, “…our nation’s challenges do not stem from the church’s inability to convince unbelievers to behave like believers. Our challenges stem from the church’s inability to inspire believers to behave like believers.”

So many lines being drawn.

Seminary class after seminary class continued to lead Aimonette down a path that felt right, though she didn’t know where it would lead. Not enrolled in a specific program, she continued taking classes and working. During this exploration, she got married, and a year later enrolled in seminary full time. Not long after that, she and her husband, Greg, started a family.

Aimonette’s political career started with both high excitement and expectations that were slowly destroyed. Her seminary experience, however, had no expectations. Things just kept falling into place, she felt called to the work—and she simply let her faith lead the way. This year marks her 19th year as a pastor, with the last 15 years at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, in Wheaton, Illinois, where she has been Lead Pastor since 2014.

What called her to work in politics—working toward a greater good—has been realized in church work. “Both systems are imperfect,” Aimonette says, “but for me, it’s about Jesus being my savior rather than any given politician or institution. That’s where I come down and reconcile the difference (between working in politics and the church).”

When I ask Aimonette about conservative extremist Evangelicals who do not, at least by word and deed, focus on following Jesus’ example of how to live, she responds, “In my mind, that is a very skewed Christianity. I don’t think that’s founded upon anything that Christ was about. It’s not gracious. It’s not loving. It’s not humble. It’s really just a cult of personality…It’s hard because you need leaders, and you have to trust them, but it has to be about them pointing people to Jesus.”

At Holy Cross, Aimonette—certainly not lacking an engaging personality—fills her days with pointing people to Jesus. She respects the privilege and honor she has in baptizing babies, marrying couples, and holding the hands of those making their final journeys. She has helped members of her congregation through painful life experiences, fought for those in need in the community, been on multiple mission trips, overseen a major church renovation, and guided her congregation through the pandemic. She doesn’t get much sleep.

The pandemic has left its impact on myriad different levels—and the Evangelical Christian world is one of them. When most houses of worship followed the CDC’s guidelines and ceased in-person worship, many Evangelical churches—like Bolin’s—stayed open. People who didn’t like their own churches “closing” looked to find open ones—and Evangelical church attendance numbers swelled with politically like-minded people. Choices like wearing masks became political stances both in and out of the church.

In this current era, politics and religion are so intertwined for some that there is no longer a distinction. And while separation of church and state is in the Bill of Rights, many of the loudest Evangelical Christians have made it clear that they are working to dismantle that.

Pastor Aimonette is beaming. She is holding a baby she has just baptized and is walking down the aisle holding the little one for the congregation to see and share in the joy. The baby smiles up at her, and the joy in the congregation is palpable. It is a familiar vibe in this church. Several people have shared that the positive energy of the church is what lead them to become members.

So…does former-political-worker-now-pastor Aimonette believe there is a place for politics in the church? “There is—when it comes to the things Jesus talks about—when it comes to the people who are more vulnerable, who need care…Speaking out because you hear Jesus say, ‘you are to love one another—and this is how you do it.’ You honor and respect them.”

When I ask her about those who preach disinformation and disregard facts, Aimonette responds, “What is the goal there? That’s just trying to be manipulative and raise fear in people. That’s fear-based. That’s not love-based.” But those louder voices are becoming the voice of Evangelical Christianity—and risk standing as the unchallenged voice of all of Christianity.

In a sense, Aimonette is not completely out of the political realm—she does support politics from the pulpit—as long as they are based in the teachings of Jesus. The change she initially thought she would be working for, the wider, more global-focused work, has been re-focused to be smaller but deeper and interpersonal. She is holding hands with a scared, overwhelmed spouse in the hospital waiting room rather than helping a candidate raise money to score a win.

It is important, live-giving and live-affirming support and faith. Will it be enough to keep a more Jesus-focused faith and organized religion alive amidst the louder agenda-driven voices? It is certainly not a likely outcome in this current climate. But just as Pastor Aimonette leaned into the backbreaking work of moving the massive pile of stone bucket by bucket, she will continue doing the work that she knows makes a difference. Giving up hope is not an option.