Love is not all we need.
Lessons from Bishop Budde and others who strike the rare balance between love and accountability.
On Tuesday this week Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde gave a sermon at the national prayer service following the presidential inauguration.
Reverend Budde spoke for thirteen minutes about unity and love, then ended her sermon by bravely reminding the president that his actions have consequences:
“Let me make one final plea, Mr President. Millions have put their trust in you. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.
And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shift in hospitals – they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.
Have mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. Help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.” - Reverend Budde
We’ve upheld the tradition to have a national prayer service the morning after every presidential inauguration since 1933.
But Reverend Budde was a first.
Never has clergy called out the harm a president is doing to his face during a national prayer service before.
A few months ago I was engaging in my numbing activity of choice and scrolling TikTok, but I was pulled out of my scrolling stupor by a TikTok of a girl answering the question of how she attracts so many men.
The gist was that she loves men, like really delights in their company and friendship, but she simultaneously puts up with zero bullshit.
Her handle is Sky Fisher. She says, “I am not easy to love, I am fulfilling to love. I’m the kind of woman who will make you a better man because I will not accept less from you.”
Hm.
As a happily married woman, this is not normally my cup of algorithmic tea, but something about her fascinated me. In the span of the next twenty minutes I watched a dozen or so more of her videos.
Even though I do not agree with everything she says, for weeks and even months afterward, I kept thinking about her.
Why?
I think its the same reason the nation can’t stop talking about Reverend Budde:
It’s the act of boldly calling for both love and accountability simultaneously without wavering on either.
This stands out because it’s incredibly rare.
We tend to set up our tent in either camp love or camp accountability.
It’s rare to hear a call for accountability from those in the all-love camp. It’s rare to hear a call for love from those in the all-accountability camp.
When it comes to religious sermons, we’ve come to expect ‘only-love’ messages, but then bam! Budde whacks us with a direct call for accountability.
When it comes to relationship advice, women are either told to dump his ass because men are scum and should be cut out of our lives altogether or sold the fairy tale that finding and keeping love will solve all your problems, and love takes work. So just be patient and sacrifice.
Very rarely do we hear a call to both love men and to hold them to a higher standard of behavior.
Take this from a video of Sky Fisher responding to the question of how she deals with the disappointment when male friends just want to sleep with her:
"I take this as an opportunity to deprogram men from believing that women are just sexual objects... I have had that conversation of
‘I am not a conquest for you. I love you. I care about you in a way that is really and truly platonic…. And that is a beautiful thing. It is a beautiful thing to have a chosen family. I need you to see me as a person separate from the conquest you have been programmed to pursue and if you can’t, there is something fundamentally and profoundly wrong with your worldview and I want us to work together for you to be able to get over that because you will never find love in a willing participant if you can only ever see women as sexual objects….
I don’t get disappointed, I get very fucking direct."
See what I mean?
To look someone in the eye and express both that you fiercely love them and that their current behavior is unacceptable?
It’s rare.
It’s rare in a partner. It’s rare (but necessary) in a parent. It’s very, very rare in online discourse.
This is why I can’t get enough of bell hooks.
bell hooks says that not including a love of men is a great failure of feminism. Equally, she calls for men to cease their oppression of women. Her books often read one sentence calling for love, the next accountability. One chapter accountability, the next love. Both with equal urgency:
"In turning away from my dad, I turned away from a part of myself. It is a fiction of false feminism that we women can find our power in a world without men, in a world where we deny our connections to men."
“Men do oppress women. People are hurt by rigid sexist role patterns… Male oppression of women cannot be excused by the recognition that there are ways men are hurt by rigid sexist roles.”
"We claim our power fully only when we can speak the truth that we need men in our lives... that we need men to challenge patriarchy, that we need men to change." - bell hooks, The Will to Change
Why Reverend Budde made the news
The topic of Reverend Budde’s sermon was unity.
We do need unity, but unity can also be weaponized as an escape route to avoid accountability.
Calls for unity are often used to by-pass justice: "You talking about racism is just being divisive. What we need is unity." "Sure inequality is a small problem, but our REAL problem is our lack of unity." "Women are fine- what we need isn't women's rights, what we need is unity."
Real unity cannot exist without accountability.
Which is why Reverend Budde’s sermon made news in the first place. If her sermon had only been about love and unity? Well that's what we've come to expect from sermons, it would hardly have been newsworthy.
If she hadn't included those last three paragraphs calling for the president to face some accountability for how his actions are harming trans kids, undocumented immigrants and refugees, she would not have gone viral.
On the other side, if a Democratic senator or left-wing writer had issued her same call for accountability? That is also not newsworthy. We hear those calls every day.
But a sermon calling for love coupled with a call for accountability? That's new. That's news.
The insufficiency of ‘only-love’
I was raised Mormon. I grew up so entirely stewed in ‘only-love’ soup that I didn’t know any other brew existed. Accountability? Never heard of her.
I was trained to ‘only-love’ men from the time I was a toddler. Taught to show nothing but love and support to prophets, bishops, fathers, husbands and God. When I went through the temple, I covenanted to obey my husband and “never speak ill of the Lord’s anointed.” Conveniently, all males are the Lord’s anointed.
The inability of members to hold male leaders accountable is a poison in Mormonism:
Thousands of law suits show that the church regularly upholds abusers and silences or punishes the abused.
At church and at home, the women are trained to take the responsibility and accountability for men's misbehavior on themselves.
To navigate life and relationships, I was only ever handed the tools of love, forgiveness, and selflessness. I was never handed the tools of standing up to injustice, setting boundaries, or recognizing inequality.
Ironically, 'only-love' does not create an environment where love can thrive. Accountability is a key ingredient in love soup. Without it, we curdle.
I’ve been so over-saturated with ‘only-love’ messages my whole life that I’m still trying to drain them out of my system. I’ve gravitated towards the ‘only-accountability’ camp of late to balance myself out.
I now bend towards seeing the lack of accountability as a greater problem in society than the lack of love.
However.
When coupled with accountability, love is so enticing and beautiful that I can’t help but dig for it.
Like a moth to a flame, I’m magnetized towards accountability campers who also call for love. They inspire me. (More of them in a minute).
"Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." - Martin Luther King
Zero love can be just as poisonous as zero accountability.
The insufficiency of ‘only-accountability’
Recently a friend asked me what I thought of the 4b movement— a women’s movement that began in South Korea in response to marital violence and societal oppression. Women in the movement adhere to the “4 nos”: no dating men, no marrying men, no sex with men, no children with men.
The 4b movement is an accountability movement.
In discussing this movement gaining momentum in the US, my friend said, “Isn’t it awful? This is the opposite direction we should be moving in.”
I pushed back.
Our society has made it abundantly clear that men sexually assaulting women is not something we deem a problem.
It’s not a requirement to not abuse women to win the Nobel Prize, to be a celebrated world-renowned poet, author, spiritual leader, Olympian, actor, singer, CEO, peace activist or to be president.
Treating women poorly does not affect a man’s career, popularity or income.
Time and again, we’ve decided it’s a non-issue.
When it comes to holding men accountable, women have very few resources. When they do speak out and hold men accountable, they are punished. But only every single time.
When our systems of power have again and again shown their refusal to hold men accountable, what else do women have to work with?
Well.
Women could stop sleeping with men until things change. That is something we have to work with. Revolutions require creativity. They necessitate utilizing the resources we do have to incentivize change.
And change is long overdue. One in three women still experience physical or sexual violence.
We have not achieved equal partnership with ‘only-love’ - the 4b movement says its time to call in some accountability.
However.
While severing men from our lives may be effective in inciting change in the short term, as a collective end goal it would make for a very divided, depressing world. We’re in this thing together on this floating rock through space.
“In the grand scheme of things, we are stuck with each other, I don’t want to live in a world where half of our species is ‘the other.’ At the end of the day it makes us all weak, it makes us all helpless and nobody benefits. Nobody wins in a gender war.” - Sky Fisher
Accountability is necessary for equality, but it’s not enough to create a beautiful world. We need love too.
“To create loving men, we must love males.” - bell hooks
Feminist thinkers who inspire me in how they balance accountability + love
Amy McPhee Allebest.
My brain was still operating from its Mormon circuitry when my feminism emerged from its chrysalis. But 35 years cocooned in deeply negative feminist stereotypes made it so my brain could not relax enough to really listen to any accountability talk that didn’t include a lot of love.
The Breaking Down Patriarchy podcast provided the perfect flying lessons. I shit you not, listening to Amy never waiver on her love and hope for men while teaching the harsh historical and present realities of patriarchy changed my life. Highly recommend.
In a lovely twists of fate, I now write scripts for her YouTube channel. Though she would be top of the list whether or not I worked for her.
Terrence Real
Oh my God, if you haven’t read Terrence Real, run. (We will soon for book club, don’t you worry). The way he talks about boys, men, husbands, sons, masculinity? It’s the perfect blend of hope, love and justice. bell hooks quotes Terrence Real more than she quotes anyone else if that gives you any idea.
Cyzor
I’ve cited Cyzor before in this essay. I cannot recommend following him more for a high-quality patriarchy education coupled with grace and humor.
I’ve also cited Liz many times before. Reading For The Love of Men was a huge eye opener for me. I learned so much. I’m inspired by her staunch dedication to both love and accountability.
I love following Desireé’s work here on Substack. Her calm, helpful, educational presence is exactly what we need to stay focused and grounded in this time of outraged panic. She educates on liberation from all oppressive systems with measured, practical advice. I loved her recent series on being co-creators rather than allies.
Are you guys following him? Garrett’s articles are consistently some of my very favorites here on Substack. I’m obsessed with this one. And this one. Read them, you’ll get it. I just joined his online community-building class and I can't wait to learn more from him.
Jason the Chao
This is a new follow for me, but similar to Sky Fisher, I got lost on his TikTok page and just wanted to stay there. I left my binge feeling more in love with humanity and hope for our future. I love both his vision that we need a revolution and his commitment to see that it be a bloodless revolution.
Love + accountability educators whose focus is civil rights:
OBVIOUSLY James Baldwin.
Obviously Maya Angelou. She also writes about women and lots of other things.
Obviously Audre Lorde. Same.
(Entire series of essays should be devoted to these power houses. Relegating them to bullet points feels borderline sacrilege)
Love + accountability educators whose focus is LGTBTQ+:
Alok Vaid-Manon. I stop what I’m doing and lean in whenever an Alok video comes across my screen.
- . Their poetry and attitude on life never cease to bring the butterflies.
Jeffrey Marsh. Jeffrey was one of my first and most influential queer educators.
Love + accountability educators whose focus is the environment:
- . Her On Being episode changed my brain chemistry.
Christiana Figueres. Hers too!
- . Hers too!!!! (although her focus is probably more civil rights).
I know I’m missing people- drop your favorites in the comments!
, the host of On Being needs her own shout out. Her podcast and Substack are always right on the love + accountability money.Here’s what she said this week amid overwhelming national turmoil:
“It is harder for us to train our eyes and imaginations on the beauty and creativity that are so alive in our world… They are quiet. They do not trip the fear center of our brains, which inclines us to attend more seriously in every moment to what feels dangerous and destructive. And, in our time, that narrative of danger and destruction comes to us a thousand times, a thousand ways, each day…
We need settled, grounded bodies and spirits in order to meet what is hard and hurting and rise to what is beautiful and life-giving.” - Krista Tippett, On deep truth, deep time and the world ahead
That’s it. That’s the vibe.
Back to Reverend Budde
It would not have been risky for Bishop Budde to only call for unity and love. That’s what we have come to expect from clergy. But it was incredibly risky for her to call for accountability.1
Why does it feel risky in the feminist movement to call for a love of men?
While the end of her talk was exactly the counter-balance the ‘only-love’ team needs right now, those of us who tend to root for team accountability may stand more to gain from the more over-looked beginning of Reverend Budde’s sermon:
“Is true unity among us even possible and why should we care about it?”
“I hope we care because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in this country threatens to destroy us… We are all bombarded daily with what sociologists now call the outrage industrial complex.”
“We are perhaps the most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded, without a doubt, that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong. Because then we are just a few steps away from labeling ourselves as the good people, versus the bad people.”
Let’s discuss: What did you think of Reverend Budde’s sermon? The 4b movement? How do we strike the balance of love and accountability and which do you think is more in jeopardy in this moment in history? Who inspires you in how they strike this balance?
And while I’m asking questions- my last few articles have not included an audio recording of me reading the article. And I haven’t heard any feedback one way or the other- do you guys miss those? Was anyone listening? I usually finish these essays well after midnight on Saturday nights, so it’s been nice not to sneak downstairs to record them, but if you miss the audio- I will sneak again.
Thank you, Celeste.
Accountability with Love creates Justice. It makes space for justice to emerge.
About Budde, Diane Butler Bass, here on Substack, is friends with her. She said in her 'The Convocation' that Budde only spoke those last 3 minutes to the president by the movement of Spirit. She had not written that out or planned on saying those words. They emerged in the moment with the President and JD Vance and their people only a few feet away from her and they had no ability to say anything back in the moment. They were forced to hear her words of love and accountability. Of course, later they've said plenty. But it was quite a potent moment of the movement and flow of Truth with a capital T.
This brings to mind one of the messages from the manosphere that troubles me most… the idea that men should avoid women who are not completely submissive to them.
They describe powerful, ambitious, or independent women as masculine.
They discourage men from romantic involvement with any woman who has a voice and uses it.
In reality, when a man is secure enough to accept constructive feedback from a woman who is secure enough to give it to him, everyone wins. It strengthens the relationship. It supports him in being a better man.
It is a cop out when we intentionally avoid women who are willing to challenge us to be better.
If a fraction of the Republican caucus on Capitol Hill had a fraction of the courage Budde demonstrated in her speech, he who I will not name would never have been president in the first place.
The fact that it now takes courage to remind a leader to be kind and merciful is shameful, and says a lot about who we have become, as an electorate.