‘The gates of hell will not prevail’

I once engaged in an abrasive act of NIMBYism. I willingly participated with a large group of neighbours in a “not-in-my-back-yard” demonstration against some folks who had just moved into the area. This was an act of radical inhospitality for which I offer no apology.

Here’s what happened. In the early 1980’s, a group of people who openly and loudly identified themselves as members of the Ku Klux Klan set up shop in the largely working-class Riverdale neighbourhood of Toronto. Some churches and other social groups came together for a “Ban the Klan” march and rally. While we were generally known as community builders committed to inclusivity, hospitality and neighbourliness, we decided that paradoxically, our values required us to engage in an act of exclusion, inhospitality and clear opposition.

At the end of the march, we gathered for a rally in a local park. I was proud, in a mildly self-righteous way, of the diversity of our rally, but as things unfolded, I became uncomfortable about the predominant “whiteness” of the proceedings. I mean, we were opposing a racist organization and yet no one from the Black community had spoken. But finally, an African-Canadian woman from one of the churches was invited to the stage to address the crowd.

The gospel in the park 

I don’t remember her name, but it was something like “Sister Bernadette” from the “Apostolic, Holy Spirit, Church of the Holy Prophets, for the Last Times.” And I was nervous. What was this Black preacher lady going to say? Was she going to get up there and start preaching her version of apocalyptic, Holy Spirit-filled, hell and damnation sermons? Was she going to embarrass us respectable and “progressive” church leaders with something too evangelistic? 

And I can tell you, all these years later, that’s exactly what she did. It was a sermon of incredible power and amazing brevity. Maybe took three minutes. She preached from Matthew 16, where Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do you say I am?” and Peter replies, “You are the Christ, the Messiah of God.”

With all of the rhetorical flourish and delivery style of a Black preaching tradition, she proclaimed, “Peter, the Holy Spirit has revealed this to you. And you will be the rock upon which I will build my church. And the GATES OF HELL WILL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST!”

She then looked out at the crowd in that park and said, “I’m here to tell you that the Ku Klux Klan are the gates of hell and they will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ.”

Nothing else needed to be said. She preached the gospel and convicted me of my own sexism, cultural elitism and racism. The very sins that I sought to exorcise from our community by participating in a “Ban the Klan” march were deeply alive in my own heart. I was trying to ban something from my neighbourhood that had taken up comfortable residence in my own thought patterns and assumptions.

That afternoon, the gospel was proclaimed with a clarity that addressed not only the violent racism and white supremacy that are at the heart of the KKK, but also reached deep into my own worldview, still burdened with the sinful biases of my culture and privilege.

Sister Bernadette knew all about captivity and the forces of death that hold people in slavery. She knew all about the alarming number of young Black men who had died on the streets of Toronto. And, in the name of Jesus, she wasn’t going to put up with it. So she named the KKK, and all other racist movements as the forces of death that they are.

Sister Bernadette proclaimed that the forces of death will not prevail against the church precisely because the church is a resurrection community, a community of new life. Just as death could have no ultimate power over Jesus, so also does it have no final power over his church. 

Are we there now?

I have taken great comfort and courage in that sermon over the years. But now the sermon creates a painfully disquieting thought. What if the gates of hell have prevailed over the church of Jesus Christ? What if we are experiencing yet again what Luther called “the Babylonian captivity of the church,” and the gates of hell have been opened wide?

Or worse, what if the church is the gates of hell? Or maybe I should be more specific. What if the white evangelical church in the United States is the gates of hell? What if the church has once again been taken captive by a false gospel, an ideology and vision of life that is radically counter to that of Jesus? How else can we make sense out of 80 percent of evangelicals voting for a racist president, openly embracing a white Christian nationalism that makes common cause with the Ku Klux Klan? How else can we make sense of evangelical leaders endorsing a misogynist and convicted sexual abuser?  Jesus did not seek retribution but offered forgiveness, did not come as a pagan ruler to lord it over his subjects, but as a servant who said that the first must be last. How are we now making sense of embracing a politics of retribution, xenophobic hatred and strongman autocracy by people who name Jesus as their Lord? 

From where I sit, it certainly looks like the gates of hell have prevailed over the church of Jesus Christ, or at least a disturbingly large portion of the church. And the tragic irony is that all of this is disastrous for the very “evangelism” that is at the heart of the name “evangelical.” I have spent most of my ministry career addressing what some of us have come to describe as Post-Evangelical Traumatic Stress Disorder (PETSD). It seems to me that this condition is now amongst us in epidemic proportions. The Babylonian captivity of the church has taken a Trumpian turn in our times, leaving countless believers suffering from PETSD. And that can be a terminal condition resulting in the death of one’s faith. I believe Christian education, ministry and redemptive journalism are more vital than ever at a time like this. Christian formation at the gates of hell is our unique calling for Easter 2026.