The Rev. Nathan Empsall is an Episcopal priest, writer, organizer, and the recently former executive director of Faithful America, the largest online community of grassroots Christians putting faith into action for love and social justice — and against white Christian nationalism.
Rev. Nathan’s motto is “God loves you. Accept it, and spread it!” He is a digital and community organizer, a recent member of the Episcopal Church’s Task Force on Care of Creation and Environmental Racism, and a leading expert on Christian resistance to Christian nationalism. His writing has appeared in Time, Newsweek, NBC News, the Daily Beast, Red Letter Christians, Religion News Service, and more. He’s visited 44 states and can’t wait to see the other six.
For Rev. Nathan, spreading love means focusing his ministry on social, environmental, economic, and racial justice. We love those who have been exploited or marginalized the way that Jesus loves them when we listen to them, do everything we can to amplify their voices, create space for healing, and work together to end oppression and discrimination. As the Mother of Christ sang in Luke 1, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Rev. Nathan affirms the equality and God-given dignity of all LGBTQ persons, and believes that no one can truthfully say all lives matter until we have achieved a society where Black lives matter.
Rev. Nathan holds a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (since renamed Yale School of the Environment), a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, a Diploma in Anglican Studies from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, and a B.A. in government and Native American studies from Dartmouth College. Prior to seminary, he worked as an online organizer trained by President Barack Obama’s Organizing for America with a record of success at the national Sierra Club. He also served as a member of the 2008 Joe Biden for President New Hampshire Steering Committee and as a consultant for multiple humanitarian and environmental charities.
At Yale, Rev. Nathan studied religion and ecology under the field’s pioneers John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker, focusing his studies and research on climate science, God’s interconnected design for all things on earth, and the challenges to implementing new creation-care ministries in Christian churches.
Within the church Rev. Nathan has interned as a CPE hospital chaplain in Virginia and for the Episcopal Service Corps in Nebraska, the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations in D.C., the Presiding Bishop’s United Nations staff in New York City, the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane’s communications staff, and the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana’s Office of Disaster Response following the storm. As part of his time at the U.N., Rev. Nathan helped represent Presiding Bishop Michael Curry at the 23rd United Nations climate change conference (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, and at the 17th Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.
At Dartmouth, he was an active member in the New Hampshire College Democrats as well as multiple Episcopal and evangelical campus ministries including the Navigators Christian Fellowship, Christian Impact (the local chapter of Cru), and his home away from home for four years, “the Edge” — the Edgerton House Episcopal Campus Ministry.
Rev. Nathan is a proud native Texan who came to call Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and the gorgeous northern Rockies home, but who also maintains an appreciation for the White Mountains, Cape Cod coast, New Haven apizza, and Boston Red Sox of his more recently adopted New England. He is personally fired up by the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ; roots music (particularly Americana, neo-traditional country, and bluegrass); all thing Scottish; Native American Indian rights and sovereignty; and U.S. geography.
Rev. Nathan is extremely lucky to be married to the love of his life who is utterly brilliant, creative, and amazing. They have one young daughter who is the absolute joy of her dad’s existence.
The Rev. Nathan Empsall 