"Dwell in that which is pure..."

Sources: Poetry and Passion, Barclay Press (2026); The Power of the Lord, Friends United Meeting (1989; cover is from the epub version, 2023).

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In August 2022, our old friends Ben and Jody Richmond visited Judy and me in Maine. Ben brought with him several pages of an exciting project: a sampling of George Fox's epistles that he was in the process of laying out in verse form. Two years later, a full-length manuscript emerged, and last month it became available to you and me.

Canby (b/w) and Ben

Ben explains that it all started when he began using George Fox's epistles as devotional reading.

At first, I had no idea of publishing anything.  I used Canby Jones' Power of the Lord Is Over All and treated it like Hodgkin's A Day-Book of Counsel and Comfort, plowing through, one epistle per day. I started by copying out a sentence or two that was striking to me, then journal-style writing my response.

As I was doing this, I began to wonder what was behind Canby's ellipses. Using the Digital Quaker Archive for the base text, I began to try reconsidering repetitions as progressive parallels rather than redundancies. We see this in the Psalms all the time. This eventually led me to experiment with formatting selections from the epistles as poetry. Some of the first fruits of which I brought ... to see how Judy and you would react.

In Poetry and Passion, I have the entire text of Epistle 50, with the exception of a parenthetical expression, "as aforesaid" which Canby and I both delete. Here is my text, with Canby's deletions struck through:

All Friends,

[I]

Dwell in that which is pure,
and wait for the power of God
to preserve you in that which is pure,
up to God.

And know the seed of God in one another,
that the knowledge which is after the flesh may die;
and know the power of God in one another.

Let your faith stand in that
which throws out the earthly nature,
and the loftiness of man;

which overturns the worldly wisdom
and the carnal knowledge,
which is brutish and devilish.

[II]

Dwell in that which is pure,
that ye may be able to discern,
and savour, and comprehend
that which is not pure;

and wait in that which is pure,
to have your minds guided thereby,
which will let you see God,

and show you your evil thoughts,
and judge them; and is a cross
to your evil desires, wills, and lusts.

[III]

I say, dwell in that which is pure,
which will guide you to God;
but if ye lust, . . . then the pure is veiled,

and the light mind speaks at random,
with a drunken spirit,
and not from the mouth of the Lord.

And there lodgeth the dreamer,
and the lying spirit, and the false prophet,
and that which is like the truth but is not the truth;

but dwelling in the truth,
this will be discovered.

And wait upon God in that which is pure,
for the receiving of that which comes from God,
which is living, which nourisheth up
to everlasting life.

So God Almighty be with you!

[Again, Ben:] The poetic formatting allows progressions of thought to be made plain. For instance, see these early lines --

And know the seed of God in one another,
that the knowledge which is after the flesh may die;
and know the power of God in one another.

Knowing the seed of God in one another leads to the death of "the flesh" which leads to knowing the power of God in one another. The third line in that triplet is a development of the first. But what does it mean???? I'm guessing that it's related to overturning "carnal knowledge" which is "brutish and devilish." Fox's language is provocative, not to say provoking.

Note also the move from individual waiting for the power in the first stanza to knowing the power corporately in the second stanza. Is this community awareness of the power of God in one another part of our contemporary experience????

And, of course, the three-fold "dwell in that which is pure" leads to a progression of its own which I mention in the "Introductory Note."

Both Ben and I are great admirers of T. Canby Jones and his work on Fox's epistles. Canby put countless hours into making sure we had the most comprehensive collection to date of those epistles in book form, introduced with Canby's own scholarship and wit. Canby himself noted the lyrical quality of Fox's letters. From his introduction:

In the early 1970's, I spent more time meditating on Fox's letters. As mentioned in my preface, on a retreat with the Friends of Berkeley, California, Friends Church, I felt led to read aloud and share many of Fox's Letters. Their response was so joyously electric that I determined I must bring out a newly edited complete edition of Fox's Letters as my next major project. Another reason for my concern to do this arises from the fact that since 1831 no edition of Fox's complete Letters has appeared in print. There have been five editions of Selections from Fox's Epistles in the intervening years but no complete edition.

One of the most impressive things about George Fox's Letters is his use of striking and unusual words and phrases. His writing style is full of organic and down-to-earth images. Others are pure poetry. Some passages are inspiring litanies of praise. In some, his words of censure are as unique as they are severe.

Here is a poetic example. In Letter 56 (1653), Fox calls us to bring our "minds out of the earth ... towards God, where the pure babe is born in the virgin mind." Have you heard spiritual birth described in such terms?

Canby's gift to us was to provide Fox's words with a balanced approach of completeness and clarity, in a documentary format. He knew the pulsing power underneath those dense paragraphs. Ben's reformatting makes that pulse and cadence vividly available.

Other features of the book are also very helpful. Paul Anderson's preface provides additional historical and theological context. Ben includes a chronology of Fox's life. Each of Fox's letters has an introductory note and a related biblical passage. The epistles themselves are sorted by themes, but at the end of the book there is an index of epistles in numerical/chronological order. (You may be among those who love Fox's epistle "Sing and rejoice, ye children of the day and of the light," and it's right here, on page 171.)

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Source.  

One more thing. Since I just mentioned Paul Anderson, another linkage comes to mind. Paul recently published Margaret Fell's 'Women's Speaking Justified' in Modern English with his thoughtful commentary. George Fox wrote an epistle on a related theme (page 131 in Poetry and Passion):

To All Women's Meetings (Epistle 291, 1672)

Introductory Note

The equality of women and men was among the first testimonies of Friends, and was demonstrated in the prominent and controversial leadership roles of women such as Elizabeth Hooton, Margaret Fell, Mary Fisher, Mary Dyer, and many others whose prophetic preaching some found scandalous, but had a major part in spreading the everlasting gospel. In this epistle, addressed To all the women's meetings, that are believers in the truth, Fox asserts the equality of women and men in leadership and encourages “your women's meetings.” (See also, Epistle 320.) The foundational theological idea is that Christ restores men and women to the state of Adam and Eve, who were equal “help-meets” before the fall.

Note: Five years prior to this, in 1667, Margaret Fell, then a prisoner in Lancaster Castle prison, wrote the seminal tract, “Women’s Speaking Justified.” Fox and Fell married each other in 1669.

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Scripture: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him an help meet for him.

Genesis 2:18 (KJV)

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:27 (KJV)

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Epistle

Friends,—

Keep your women's meetings in the power of God... and keep the gospel order.

For man and woman were helps-meet in the image of God, and in righteousness and holiness, in the dominion, before they fell; but after the fall in the transgression, the man was to rule over his wife; but in the restoration by Christ, into the image of God, and his righteousness and holiness again, in that they are helps-meet, man and woman, as they were before the fall....

And women are to take up the cross daily,
and follow Christ daily,
as well as the men;

and so to be taught of him their prophet,
and fed of him their shepherd,
and counselled of him their counsellor,
and sanctified by him

who offered up himself once for all....

Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, were the first preachers of Christ's resurrection to the disciples, and the disciples could not believe their message and testimony that they had from Jesus, as some now-a-days cannot; but they received the command, and being sent preached it.

So is every woman and man to do, that sees him risen, and has the command and message; daughters shall prophesy as well as sons.

So they are to be obedient, that have the spirit poured upon them. Women are to prophesy; and prophecy is not to be quenched. They that have the testimony of Jesus, are commanded to keep it, whether men or women....

So women are to keep in the government of Christ, and to be obeyers of Christ; and women are to keep the comely order of the gospel, as well as men, and to see that all that have received Christ Jesus, that they walk in Christ Jesus... of the increase of whose government there is no end.

So the foundation of our women's meetings is Christ, to all them that be heirs of him, and of his government... and therefore, I say, take your possessions of it, and walk as becomes the gospel; and keep the comely order of it, and in it keep your meetings....

So ... both men and women, be helps-meet in the image of God, in the righteousness and holiness in the restoration.... And so see that nothing be lacking amongst you, then all will be well.

Postscript.—

And the elder women in the truth
were not only called elders, but mothers.

Now a mother in the church of Christ,
and a mother in Israel,
   is one that gives suck,
   and nourishes, and feeds,
   and washes, and rules,

and is a teacher, in the church, and in the Israel of God,
   and an admonisher,
   an instructer, an exhorter.

So, all that are come to that office,
   growth, and stature,

   be diligent;

for a mother in Israel, or in the church of Christ,
is beyond all the mothers in Egypt, and in Sodom,
   and the mother of harlots, mystery Babylon,
   who had power over tongues, nations, and people,
   with the cup of her fornication.

But the mothers in spiritual Israel, and church of Christ,
   has the cup of salvation,
   and the breasts of consolation,
   which are full of the milk of the word,
   to suckle all the young ones,
   and to nourish, and instruct,
   admonish, and exhort,
   and rebuke all the contrary;

   and to refresh and cherish
   every tender one....

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More about T. Canby Jones. Canby in Wikipedia.

climate.us "launches independent website for trusted climate information" preserving and extending the earlier government Web site canceled by the current U.S. administration.

Tricia Gates Brown on what a rescued bird taught her.

Jack Jenkins on how Matthew 25 lands in Washington, DC, and how it becomes a political litmus test.

The European Bureau for Conscientious Objection calls upon Ukraine to uphold the right to conscientious objection—including the case of Friend Yuri Sheliazhenko—and to stop the detention and torture of objectors.

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Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, "Ten Years Ago."

The tax covenant—idealism and reality

St. Matthew, the tax collector.
Source.

I remember Walter Mondale's acceptance speech as the Democratic party candidate to challenge U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the 1984 general election—particularly these lines:

By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two‑thirds. Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.

The idealism in these few sentences (about the need to reduce the deficit by increasing revenue, and the pointed willingness to be candid) did not serve Mondale well in his losing campaign. But I admired the thought.

In my blog post last year on the tax covenant, I summed up the ideal of righteous taxation this way:  Ideally, by paying taxes, we citizens are simply upholding a covenant we have with each other.

We have made promises to each other—"to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" (preamble to the U.S. Constitution), setting up a government for these purposes and assigning that government, through our legislature, the practical tasks needed to fulfill those promises.

We know that these tasks cost money, so our legislators make a list of those costs and institute sources of revenue, including taxes. That's the covenant: to decide on the tasks needed for the "general Welfare," from which we all benefit, directly or indirectly, and to pay our fair share for those tasks.

Now we all know it's not really that simple. The best machines can get sand in the gears, and no human organization is completely free from inefficiencies and waste. Worse than that, when you have big streams of money going by, there'll usually be some people with buckets, trying to catch some along the way. That's why we have audits and inspectors general, but even in the best systems, we know that we won't achieve total perfection in getting the revenue to its promise-fulfilling destinations. Even so, by and large, the tax covenant can still hold. During Bill Clinton's presidency, the federal government ran a surplus four times, taking four small bites each year out of the federal debt.

The reason I'm so stubborn about preaching up this covenant is that for generations, populist politicians have been trading on the unpopularity of taxes. (Just think of how unpopular tax collectors were during New Testament times, although it didn't help that, in those times, the tax collectors themselves took a cut from the revenue.) It's convenient for those politicians to overlook the link between revenue and the legitimate expenditures approved by the people's representatives. I want that link to be strong and evident.

Then along comes a figure of such monumental disregard for common decency and legal norms, along with an animal magnetism for which J.D. Vance's ten-year-old epithet of "cultural heroin" is not too strong. It turns out that this personality can drug even legislators to the point of impotence. He has now gained the U.S. presidency a second time, despite the Founding Fathers' warnings against the rise of demagogues who rise by "flattering the prejudices of the people."

I'm guessing that, if you're read this far, you are probably not a follower of this figure and his MAGA movement. But how does all this specifically endanger the tax covenant?

We are (or should be!) willing to pay for the expenditures that our elected legislators have approved, and for the means to reduce wastage and corruption in the process. (If we don't like what they've approved or how the money is spent, we should be ready to replace those legislators and/or strengthen the safeguards.) But what should we do when the money is redirected or expropriated by the most powerful man in the system?

What if millions and billions of our tax money are being misspent to:

• replace a congressionally-mandated bipartisan 250th birthday celebration for the country with a celebration centered on the president, partly using money diverted from the bipartisan events?
• demolish the East Wing of the White House, deceptively promising that private contributions will finance the replacement?
• repair and refurbish the National Mall's Reflecting Pool through a no-bid contract, announcing grandiose goals for the project at a fraction of the still-increasing cost?
• pay for operations at the U.S. southern border, including stretches of the border wall, with money intended for military housing and schools?
• pay his own properties to house his security details for his numerous golf holidays?
• upgrade a gift airplane from another country (a gift already of dubious legality), to bring that airplane up to Air Force One standards? (At least $400 million, perhaps much more.)
• begin a war of choice with Iran?

Few of these acts, taken singly, are unique to the present administration, but the scale is unprecedented. Among the rest of us, it's the cynicism generated by not knowing where our tax money is actually going that worries me. And aside from such direct defiance of legislative decisions, we see an apparent utter lack of concern for the transfers of wealth from the 99% to the 1% resulting from the "Big Beautiful Bill" and the lack of attention to the national debt.

Finally, there are all the instances of corruption, self-dealing, and conflicts of interest that come across our news channels, perhaps beyond our ability to keep track. But it's worth paying attention, if only to keep referring back from today's swamp to the cleansing vision of that most basic American covenant: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. For that ideal, I'll stubbornly continue to resist the cheap wisdom of cynicism.

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Brian Baugus on a biblical view of taxation.

Rosa DeLauro on Trump's record of corruption.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington lists some of the president's conflicts of interest.

My own thoughts on hope and cynicism.

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Nancy Thomas: The Lord's Prayer for Ukraine.

Kristin Du Mez on the Moscow, Idaho, pastor whose influence reaches the Pentagon.

Cape Verde's goalkeeper Vozinha: Amy Young's World Cup parable.

God Bless the Grass: The Lamb’s War as Endless Revolution, a presentation by C. Wess Daniels, available online on August 10, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Michael K. Marsh on Abraham, Isaac, and sacrificing our certitude.

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Canadian content! The Whitehorse version of "Baby What You Want Me to Do?"

More on Quaker culture and "density envy"

Thirteen years ago I wrote a post on "Quaker culture." I had just read a novel whose Jewish and Catholic characters were described with lavish details from their Jewish and Catholic religious cultures—rituals, architecture, thought patterns, built up, elaborated, and passed on from generation to generation over many centuries. I wondered if our Quaker religious cultures aren't a bit thin by comparison.

I've recently read two more novels with dense religious settings and the same thought occurred to me. Given the temptation toward Quaker exceptionalism among some of us, maybe a bit of modesty would do us some good!

Of course it's not that simple. A beautiful and rich culture can honor God, and can do so through so many emotional and sensory channels that go far beyond the doctrines and propositions that were hallmarks of that highly contentious period of English history when we got our start. (Come to think of it, doctrines and propositions, and our conflicting feelings about them, continue to exercise us Friends to this day!) But those rich, dense, beautiful cultures can, at their worst, also exclude, entrap, and alienate.

Those two newer novels illustrate this beauty and this hazard in very different ways. I highly recommend both of them. The one I read first was Niall Williams's Time of the Child, set in a rain-soaked village in the west of Ireland in the year 1962, the year that, among other things, the first television arrives in the town. At the center of the story is an agnostic general practitioner who attends Mass faithfully, and whose relationship with the parish priests is fascinating. Also in the center of the story is his eldest daughter, who serves as his receptionist; his other two daughters have moved away. Almost every important action in the story is somehow linked, whether by intention or habit, to the region's Catholic culture and faith. I loved this story so much that I hope you'll read it without further commentary from me, so I can avoid revealing its compelling and gradually unfolding plot. Williams, in all the novels of his that I've read, somehow manages to convey love with extraordinary depth but without sentimentality.

If you still need a bit more detail to be persuaded, here's a review.

The other novel is Kate Riley's Ruth. I think it is a small miracle that this book even came to be published. It is by turns deadpan and laconic, reverent, snarky, sad, and wicked funny. Ruth's story is a near-lifetime compressed into a chain of telling incidents from a life lived in an Anabaptist commune, with similarities to Hutterite and Bruderhof communities. Ruth understands the rules, until she doesn't. Her son doesn't. She loves her husband, and despises his annoying habits. In the community she's loyal and skeptical, a total insider who is somehow not trapped. 

For a time, the community seems oddly totalitarian, but the leaders confess their inadequacies. Misdeeds can lead to temporary shunning, usually on a voluntary basis! Travel to the outside world is permitted when necessary—for example, to meet and pray "with a Quaker colloquium at the Wyndham Sault Ste. Marie." "In the van Ruth had erred in wondering aloud whether Quakers might love peace more than they loved Christ, which she'd read somewhere and liked the sound of. No one responded."

(Talking about people behind their backs is not permitted in the community, but, just between you and me, it's worth listening to Ruth!)

Here are two reviews: Englewood Review of Books and Anabaptist World.

If you've read either of these books, or this post reminds you of other books you'd recommend, I'd love to know!

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If I were to live in a high-context religious community, I think I would want these two needlepoint mottoes on my wall:

"Christ is the 'yes' to all of God's promises." — St. Paul.

"All knowledge is local, all truth is partial." — Ursula K. Le Guin.

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Related: Ohio Byways; Core sample of a Quaker culture; Games, sports, comedies....

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Rachel Muers does an amazing job of describing Friends faith, practice, worship, and diversities in a compact, even-handed, and well-organized article for the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, with lots of useful links. Thanks to Jim Fussell for the reference.

Kristin Du Mez, Live Laugh Love, and the librarians.

Ashley Wilcox on "Alaska in my bones," and the example Anchorage provides us.

Adrienne LaFrance wishes happy 100th birthday to Mel Brooks, "the funniest man who ever lived."

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Kelly Zirbes and her band Kelly's Lot perform "Ship." Kelly's tour dates include Klamath Falls (July 25), Burns OR (August 5), Spokane (August 10), and Portland OR (August 12, with Carolyn Wonderland).

A village in grief

Tatiana Blokhina, Autumn in Bolkhov. Elektrostal Artists exhibition, 2012.

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There is nothing new about imagining the world as a village. But today that image really struck me.

It came as I saw the photos and videos coming from Venezuela, with earthquake survivors' faces filling the frames with their personal accounts of disaster. That story on my news feed was followed immediately by the U.S. president blaming vandals for the National Mall's Reflecting Pool scandal, and his vice president and secretary of state spinning their awkward interpretations of war and not-war and maybe-again-war with Iran.

All that was soon followed by accounts of Europe's record-breaking heatwaves. (But nothing about South Asia.)

Speaking just for myself, maybe it takes witnessing disasters—earthquakes, famines, scenes of rubble-filled streets and their desperate inhabitants—to bring the world into human scale. But then, seen in that immediate scale, how do I regard the world's potentates and their conceits? Suddenly Trump, Putin, and other would-be global bigshots can be seen shrunk down to their true scale, not the puffed-up versions they want us to admire or fear. What right do they have—do we grant them—to pollute our village and put our neighbors and ourselves in danger?

I still don't advocate caricaturizing or demonizing them. But let's expose their imperial pretensions, whether they're peddling white Christian nationalism or the equally toxic Russian World ... or whatever actual demon is telling them and us that all our problems would go away if we saw our village neighbors as faceless "others."

We're going through a time when the vision of a global village may seem hopelessly idealistic. But ... is it nevertheless a valid vision? Or, if we surrender it in favor of a more cynical view, what keeps us from ending up behaving as apologists for the supposed realism of raw power, aided by increasingly clever tools of persuasion and disinformation?

Some of us are wonderful at bringing visions to life, whether through imaginative policy studies or through creative arts. Others are more suited to analyzing and exposing the forces which seek to pull down such visions in favor of passivity and mutual suspicion. Still others have the gift of keeping practitioners of these two different approaches in loving contact with each other, so that none of us find ourselves abandoned to disillusionment or resignation.

That's where I hope trustworthy faith communities can find a unique and urgent role. 

Have you found such a home? Tell me about it!

Aleksandr Ilichev, North South East West, Elektrostal Palette exhibition, 2012.

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Related: 

On cynicism, benefit of the doubt (part one).

Bill Jolliff with Jacob Jolliff, Love All Around This World, as presented to our students in Elektrostal, Russia. (Jacob's Web site.)

Living without lying, part one, part two.

Division of labor.

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Not to add to our anxieties, but ... why does physicist Carlo Rovelli think we're nearing nuclear apocalypse?

Ellen O'Connell Whittet notices that literacy might be declining but bookstores are booming.

For those of us who wonder if it's really God speaking, Becky Ankeny considers "how Jesus treats people."

Speaking of writing with vision, here's Nancy Thomas on being "Clothed with Joy."

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Denmark's Michelle Birkballe and friends cover Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home."

Tomorrow will take care of itself

Source.  

The occupation of the USA by Donald Trump and his movement has now continued for 514 days and twelve hours. Whether by design or impulse, he and his Project 2025 allies seem to find new ways nearly every day to enrich themselves at our nation's expense, subvert our laws, ignore our courts, divert our taxes, weaken our international reputation, betray former allies, insult former presidents and other leading citizens, reduce civil and environmental protections, shoot and bomb at will, exalt racial purity, lie about our nation's history, and misrepresent our patriotism and our faith.

Peter Wehner, in "The Apotheosis of Donald Trump," provides a sobering and helpful inventory of these realities.

This constant flow of transgressions, along with the evidence that millions of our fellow citizens see nothing to complain about beyond the president's unfortunate vulgarity, can wear down even the sunniest idealist. When "our" side also resorts to gross malice, it doesn't help! Maybe it's for these reasons that this biblical advice, in King James English, has recently been echoing in my brain:

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

This is part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, specifically the verses (6:24-34) where we are told not to worry about our basic necessities but strive for God's kingdom and righteousness.

Most modern English translations translate "evil" (κακίᾳ) as "trouble" or"troubles." Sarah Ruden has "aggravation." ("Today's aggravation is plenty for today.") For some reason I like the English word "evil" here. In Jesus' voice the whole line seems to have a hint of humor or irony.

The full passage seems to suggest that we can overcome anxieties about our basic needs through faith in God, who knows what we need—and wants us to depend on God rather than the illusory security we might be tempted to get via wealth and worldly power. 

On the other hand, Jesus doesn't tell us that we should not worry about others or simply forget about the future altogether. In addition, there are other places in Scripture where planning and policy are addressed. In this same passage in Matthew, we are to care about God's kingdom and God's righteousness. Further on in Matthew, addressing the people and the nations, are we sheep or goats? As for becoming too passive and today-focused, there's Proverbs 6:6-8:

Go to the ant, you sluggard;
    consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
    no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
    and gathers its food at harvest.

And as regards policy, there's Joseph's advice to Egypt's pharaoh to prepare for the famine that's coming in seven years (Genesis 41:33-36): (here I have in mind those who argue that government has no role to play in caring for the people's welfare...)

"And now let Pharaoh look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance. They should collect all the food of these good years that are coming and store up the grain under the authority of Pharaoh, to be kept in the cities for food. This food should be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that the country may not be ruined by the famine."

Here's the lesson I'm drawing for myself from all of this—and please tell me if this is helpful of if I'm on a tangent:

1. Don't ignore today's evil; pay attention to what is going on in the world today that's not consistent with a vision of God's care for us all, and God's righteousness.
2. But then take it all directly to God. Confess freely to God both gratitude and distress. Ask how my gifts and temperament fit into God's picture.
3. Tomorrow, start the day fresh by being grounded in God's presence so that tomorrow's evil doesn't already turn me sour! I'm much more useful to self, family, and the world if I'm not obsessed and addicted.
4. Be prepared to join and support communities that plan and advocate for the longer term, but above all remember to live one day at a time.

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Related: Biblical realism. A song of quiet trust. Division of labor. Under occupation.

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Robert Reich charges Donald Trump with a rolling coup. (Is this a fair charge?)

Thanks to the creator of this spreadsheet, with its many details and contact information for U.S. legislators, governors, other officeholders, and news media.

Instagram video: Why do children of Christians become socialist?

I was feeling sorry for my half-Norwegian self when our temperatures here in Portland, Oregon, reached 95 degrees (F) a couple of days ago. A friend in Pakistan reminded me of another reality.

Nancy Thomas and a thirty-year-old memory of AI's forebears trying to tempt her with canned letters for "virtually every situation you can face in the church." (I remember this when she first wrote about it in Quaker Life. It's great, though sobering, to be reminded.)

The real harvest: Micah Bales on the day-to-day ministry of Jesus, and its implications for our role.

It’s a really big deal that God hasn’t simply jumped in and fixed our problems for us without involving us in the process. I want us to really grasp what this means for us as human beings: This means that we matter. Our lives and actions are important. The salvation of the world is coming about not merely through the Spirit’s action in the world. God in his wisdom has decided that our world is to be redeemed and transformed by the working of the Holy Spirit in us.

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McKinley James, with Mark Wenner on harp. "Blues With a Feeling."

Debates worth having, continued

Source.  

And our meanest Christians tend to piously and publicly worship Jesus as their King, because that’s considerably easier than following his inconvenient teachings.
—John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.

Last week I looked at a specific debate... True or false? ... Christians are called to change themselves, not systems. I agreed that it is necessary to start with ourselves, but that some of us may then be led to challenge systems. I appreciated Marshall Massey's responses in that post's comment section.

That original debate sprang from an assertion by Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and a rebuttal from one of his Christian opponents. It seemed like a textbook example of a conflict between two different understandings of Christian faith and practice—a conflict that has heated up in the USA's current political context, in which white Christian nationalists seek to dominate the country.

For a while it has seemed that the alliance between some evangelical Christians and far-right politics was defining the public face of Christians in U.S. mass media. Secular audiences could be forgiven for concluding that our Good News was actually bad news. For those seeking to offer different, more attractive and more honest expressions of our faith, help is coming in the form of both diagnoses and resources.

Some of these resources have actually been around for a while, but are worth mentioning now. Here are just a few examples, mostly from a quarter of a century ago or more:

• Elizabeth O'Connor, Letters to Scattered Pilgrims. ("Whoever joins God's liberation movement must be content to spend time in the wilderness....")
• Ron Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity.
• David R. Swartz, Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism. 
• John Alexander, Your Money or Your Life: A New Look at Jesus' View of Wealth and Power.
• Kenneth Leech, The Eye of the Storm: Spiritual Resources for the Pursuit of Justice.

Are there any you'd add?

More recent, reflecting the situation we find ourselves in now:

• Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.
• Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. (And coming in September: Live Laugh Love. See my review here.)
• John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate (the book I started with above).

Of these last three, Fugelsang's book is less diagnostic and more of a resource: specifically, biblically-based counterpoints to the truth claims of white Christian nationalism. It's the book I've spent the last couple of days with, trying to decide whether to recommend it here.

The person who told me about this book often engages, sometimes at surprising length, with MAGA Christians online. The MAGA participants are often surprised at encountering biblical literacy among those who challenge their claims, and it is with this goal in mind—equipping the humane left wing of the Christian movement with biblical responses (and, more importantly, biblical context)—that Fugelsang wrote his book.

Separation of Church and Hate is divided into several sections corresponding to most of the principal controversies that mark these debates.

• Jesus and Paul
• Biblical literalism
• Feminism
• "Thou Shalt Not Hate the Gays"
• Abortion
• "Illegals"
• Poverty and poor people
• Sex
• Capital punishment
• Gun control and the worship of "Warrior Bro-Dude Jesus"
• "Thou Shalt Not Hate Jews, Muslims, or Even Atheists"
• White supremacy

John Fugelsang is not a biblical scholar, historian, or theologian, but he interviewed several of them in the process of assembling this book, and his acknowledgments include some familiar names. Within each of those themes, he gives some background for the controversies within that theme, and also lists typical claims made by Christian nationalists, and suggests responses. I'm guessing that you would already have anticipated many of his recommendations, but this book doesn't take a reader's familiarity with the Bible for granted. One of the good features of this book is its value as an introduction to the depth of biblical resources for justice, grace, mercy, and radical love. And in the process, he comes up with some flashes of insight that may delight you as much as they did me.

Fugelsang anticipates that his audience will include all sorts of readers, including people altogether outside Christianity, and Christians who don't share some of his interpretations. Here's how he explains his purpose: 

[The book is] ... a guide to everything the haters got wrong. It focuses on Christianity through the teachings of Jesus, known to some as the "red letters" of the bible. And it'll show that if you're debating an authoritarian Christian on almost any subject that divides us, Jesus probably has your back. Whether you're a believer, agnostic, or atheist, whatever you think about politics, you're going to have to deal with these people at some point. they want to control the level of freedom in US society based on how they pick and choose from the Bible. It's going to be increasingly vital to dismantle their supernatural authority by elegantly pointing out that they don't really follow this Bible they claim to base their lives on. And you'll be surprised at how good it feels, too.

Personally, I hope I'm not in this conflict simply because it feels good to one-up anyone, but there's nothing wrong with modest confidence in one's desire to uphold the reputation of the Gospel. A related note: Fuglesang is, among other things, a comedian, and I sometimes find his jocularity a bit off-putting. (Note the subtitle!) Maybe you won't. It doesn't diminish the book's usefulness. However, at times it introduces a bit of dissonance when, on the one hand, he proposes excellent guidelines for pursuing dialogue in a courteous and receptive spirit, but then he himself uses some spicy nicknames for the people he's helping us oppose.

On balance, yes, I'm glad I have it.

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Here's the review that appeared in Friends Journal. And in Popmatters.

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Peter Wehner's urgent take: "American Christians Face a Choice: The faithful can still repair the wreckage they have wrought."

Lindsay Winslow Brown on the Pentagon's religious affiliation codes.

Becky Ankeny, "Lifting the Weight." ("What Big Bad John did for the miners reminds me of what Jesus does for us every one of our days.")

Kristin Kobes Du Mez on defining evangelicalism—what interests her about this theme, and what doesn't.

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From a bootleg album of J.B. Hutto and the New Hawks performing in Warsaw in 1982: "Rock Me Baby." (Audio only. Listen to the enthusiastic crowd!)