06/09/2026
A statement from the Indiana-Kentucky Conference UCC was released in response to Lieutenant Governor Beckwith's recent comments regarding our Muslim community.
Dear Lieutenant Governor Beckwith,
We the undersigned as authorized ministers in the United Church of Christ write to you in response to your recent comments about our siblings in faith in the Muslim community. As clergy from Indiana and Kentucky, we are deeply concerned with the divisive and harmful rhetoric you used in reference to our Muslim neighbors, referring to them as a “demonic death cult.” Further, you declared to “hate Islam” while encouraging Americans to be given “permission to hate again.” We as faith leaders condemn these Islamophobic statements as incompatible with the teachings of Jesus and stand with our Muslim neighbors in Indiana in saying no to hate.
We are clergy of an expansive table representing nearly every demographic in the states of Indiana and Kentucky. We are local church pastors. We are chaplains of all kinds. We are middle judicatory and seminary faculty and staff. We are full time clergy and bi-vocational clergy. We serve in urban settings, rural communities, small towns, suburban settings, and college towns. We accompany ministry settings where people of every political framework are represented and we seek to engage their unity beyond partisanship. Some of us serve in contexts where our Muslim neighbors have been partners in serving our community and where Imams continue to be deeply valued clergy colleagues in this sacred work God has given us. While we ourselves hold to the teachings of Jesus to guide our faith and life, we honor and respect the freedom our country affords for our neighbors to practice other faiths as sacred reflections of the Divine. The insistence that other faiths such as Islam must become Christian, reflects a commitment to a Christian nationalism that we not only reject, but stands in direct opposition to Jesus’ commandment that we love our neighbor as ourselves.
To be clear, hate is not a Christian or biblical value. The value that most reflects that of Jesus is one of love of neighbor when he said, “A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jesus’ disciples are not known by hate, but by love. The invitation to hate not only stands in stark contrast to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it has the potential for a ripple effect of violence and harm to an already vulnerable population in the state of Indiana. We acknowledge the worth and dignity of all persons as made in the image of God and who have the inherent right in this country to worship God as they see fit without the interference of government or its weaponizing one particular faith over another.
As faith leaders, we publicly invite you to consider steps towards healing and repair. The divisive rhetoric you have shared further divides Christians who share a wide range of beliefs about the use of religion in the public square and this needs your attention to heal. Members of the undersigned and our other siblings in Christ within Indiana would welcome time to talk directly with you about how we heal ourselves and learn more deeply what it means to love and serve like Jesus. What is more, we invite you to retract your statements about hate as a framework for faith and specifically seek out members of the Muslim community for intentional conversation about how to step towards a more just and humane conversation around religious diversity in our state.
Any religion that expresses hatred as a value is a step away from the primary foundation of faith itself: love. After all, St. Paul did declare, “Faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.” It is profoundly disappointing to experience a public servant such as yourself, whose role it is to serve and respect all Hoosiers, encourage hatred and depict an entire religion as demonic. Our Muslim neighbors deserve better. All Hoosiers deserve better. Followers of Jesus deserve better than this form of leadership. Walking in the way of Jesus, we stand with our neighbors of other faiths, especially our Muslim neighbors in this moment, and work for the day when hatred and bigotry has no safe harbor in our midst. May it come soon and we pray for your willingness to join in walking that journey with us.
