Can you believe?

27 February 2025

In crisis and conflict, "the church is like a ..."

Memories of Elektrostal, Russia, in winter, thanks to Sergey Kadyrov (composer and videographer). (Not related to tonight's post.)

The president of the United States is vigorously putting his authoritarian stamp on all aspects of federal government. With the help of technocratic lieutenants, he is cutting ties with past practices and norms as quickly as possible, hoping to carve and cut as much as possible before (if ever) the courts, the Congress, or the people slow him down.

A crucial part of his core support is a network of charismatic Christians who believe that Christian authoritarianism is actually better than democracy, that their leaders are apostles and prophets in the biblical mode, and that their opponents are in the service of Satan. How might those of us Christians who value democracy, and are emphatically not in the service of Satan, organize our responses?

Last week I summarized at least one school of interpretation of all these developments. This week, I want to consider how we in the Church (capital C) might be responding. My ideal is a mutually respectful division of labor according to our spiritual gifts, temperaments, and leadings. And I'm organizing these tentative thoughts using the metaphors in my post from May of 2021, "The church is like a ...." As always, your additions, improvements, and personal stories are very welcome.

My overall point is this: each of us can do, and is called to do, only so much. Our strength is in Jesus, not in anxious overwork, and the church can be our point of coordination and mutual support.

"The church is like an incubator."

Are you a pastor or elder, a member of the meeting of ministry and counsel? Whatever your title, perhaps you have a calling as one who cares for souls. You can hold open space for grief, for lament, for the recognition of our losses, for our disillusionment and discouragement, and also for those whose idealism flares up in the face of all this.
You can watch for the new growth of leadership and prophecy for our times among young and old alike, and let them know you've noticed and are ready to connect them with mentors.
You will see who among you, and who in your broader community, has lost jobs as a result of the administration's slashing of the federal workforce and its contractors, and the cost of the MAGA war against the hard-won gains of the civil rights movement, and connect those people with aid.
Your role in the church might be to administer the funds or shepherd the connections that respond in practical ways to these challenges.
If you have the gift of prayer or healing, you will certainly be needed to uphold all of these ministries, and to pray protection over the community and its places of work and worship.
Consider how to bring children and newcomers into conversations that might come more naturally to some than to others.
How can our worship faithfully reflect the joy, grief, and commitment that we honestly feel as we put ourselves and our situation into God's hands? As Larry Norman asked fifty years ago, "Why should the devil have all the good music?"

"The church is like an observatory."

Not everyone can cope with the constant stream of news, rumors, and social-network posts that reflect the administration's actions and their consequences. But if you can do so, your careful work in discerning truth from exaggeration (from whatever side), urban legends, and outright false witness will be an important contribution to the whole community.
If you are an observer, part of your role might be to identify reliable sources of information, as well as predictable sources of misinformation (inaccuracies and exaggerations) and disinformation (deliberate deceptions and false narratives, no matter how persuasive).
Are you a legal expert or lawyer? In collaboration with other observers, you may see opportunities to initiate or join legal challenges to unlawful, unethical, or unconstitutional acts.
The prophets among you will be needed to give voice to God's leadings, and confirm them through consultation and mutual accountability among each other. Remind the community that, whatever other business the faith community may have, agenda item number one remains, "What does God want us to say and do at this time and place?"
Prophets can help us know when the time has come for civil disobedience.
You and other observers in your own community can be in frequent touch with other communities that have similar commitments to faith and trustworthiness.

"The church is like a laboratory."

Be curious! The Christians who choose authoritarianism over democracy have their reasons, and their own version of idealism. If you are feeling led, and are equipped and prayed-for in your community, reach out to our opponents and ask questions, supply accurate information, build relationships, pray for them, and bring your insights back to the rest of us.
Do you have the gift of evangelism? Pray for opportunities to open up a more complete witness of grace than the opposition offers. Be ready to explain concepts of spiritual warfare that that are not politically manipulative. For those who have never seen what spiritual unity looks like when nobody is excluded, be sure your community is ready to demonstrate what we preach, and don't conceal our failures!
When civil disobedience is called for, be prayerful and creative. Look to the past for inspiration (for example, in George Lakey's books) but also innovate. Build coalitions with trustworthy allies. Consider tax protests and boycotts, and be prepared to explain your actions to the public without resorting to activist jargon. Accept failure and learn from it, without losing heart. Stay in constant touch with pastors, elders, stewards, and prophets, cherishing your unity with those who may be called to prayer and stewardship but not to disobedience.
Does your community have divisions between mystics and activists, between cynics and idealists, conservatives and radicals, between those who rage and those who mourn? This is the time to experiment with new commitments to love and learn from each other, and use our differences to keep each other sharp and honest. There's nothing wrong with conflict, conducted ethically among those who love each other.

This list is just a start. Its biggest weakness: no stories. I could tell a few ... and make this post far too long. Better idea: please tell some stories of your own, and add some ideas and color to this list. Also, I'd love for us to know who else is working on church-based responses to the threat of Christian-sponsored authoritarianism. Let's build the network.

(Note: See the items from Beacon Hill Friends House in the link list below, under "Coming in March.")

Gospel order revisited

Living without lying

Worship and protest

Dining across the divide

Coming in March:

March 2, 4:00 p.m. Pacific time: Bremerton (Washington) Friends Worship Group.
March 5, noon Eastern time in Washington, DC, and online: Faithful Witness Wednesdays at the U.S. Capitol.
March 5, 7:30 p.m. and March 19, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time: Organizing for the Time We Are In, Session Two ("Know Your Rights and Community") and Session Three, online from Beacon Hill Friends House.
March 5, 6:30 p.m. Pacific time at Reedwood Friends Church: Daniel Smith-Christopher, Digital Doubts? Faith in the Future with A.I.
March 22, 7 p.m. Pacific time at Reedwood Friends Church: An Evening with Cornel West.

Kelly Kellum at Friends United Meeting writes to Donald Trump.

Today's OCHA report on the situation in the West Bank.

Since OCHA began systematically documenting demolition incidents and displacement in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2009 until recently, the main direct driver of displacement of Palestinians was the demolition of homes for lacking building permits issued by the Israeli authorities, due to restrictive and discriminatory planning regimes applied in Area C and East Jerusalem. However, in the past two years, displacement patterns have shifted, reflecting broader changes in the protection environment for Palestinian communities, particularly herding and Bedouin communities in Area C. In 2023, settler violence became a leading cause of displacement with more than 1,600 people displaced due to settler violence and access restrictions (mainly in Bedouin and herding communities), compared with about 300 people displaced by lack-of-permit demolitions in these communities. Between 2020 and 2024, settler-related incidents targeting Bedouin and herding communities that resulted in casualties, property damage or both increased nearly sevenfold, rising from about 50 incidents in 2020 to approximately 330 incidents in 2024.

Online presentations and conversations with Mark Russ (Britain Yearly Meeting) this year. Mark is the author of Quaker Shaped Christianity and The Spirit of Freedom.

A Friends Peace Teams story from Indonesia: Building a Children's Library with Heart.

Tom Gates posts the prologue to his study, Turning Toward the Victim: The Bible, Sacred Violence, and the End of Scapegoating in Quaker Perspective.

I vividly remember my first encounters, over fifty years ago, with the music of Lightnin' Hopkins, the subject of this affectionate tribute.

20 February 2025

Enthusiasm and politics

Screenshot from source.

In his book, The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening our Democracy, Matthew Taylor documents how two movements overlap: the Christians he classifies as Independent Charismatics, and the political phenomenon that brought victory to Donald Trump in the USA's 2024 presidential election.

It is no surprise that many Americans have not heard of the "network of networks" that compose Independent Charismatics, particularly those centered on Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation. (See this post, Are we agents of Lucifer?, for a brief introduction.) Those of us who just catch occasional glimpses of Pentecostal and charismatic subcultures may find them either absurd or disturbing, especially if we rely on video clips of "preachers gone wild" and the like. We are therefore likely to underestimate the appeal and reach of those subcultures.

Taylor points out that, contrary to some stereotypes, the Independent Charismatic leaders who enter the political realm are ethnically diverse, have women in major leadership positions, and are far from biblically illiterate. Their political significance is rooted in several interrelated theological themes that, as Taylor describes, unite the vast majority of this Christian movement: they believe that their leaders are apostles and prophets, with all the authority that comes from the biblical models linked to those labels; they believe that Christians are (directly or indirectly) to dominate all the major institutions of society, including government; and to get there, they are to confront the territorial demons wherever those demons are in control. Given these beliefs, it is not surprising that this enthusiastic core of Trump's political support are (so far) apparently not disturbed by the blatant authoritarianism evident in the first month of the new presidency.

The largest part of Taylor's book examines the formation and careers of several of the major figures in the movement, and how together they built up the theological pillars of their politics ... and came to identify Donald Trump as the crucial "Cyrus" they were to anoint to high office. Those figures include Peter Wagner (arguably the central figure in the formation of the New Apostolic Reformation), Paula White, Cindy Jacobs, Lance Wallnau, Dutch Sheets, Rebecca Greenwood, Ché Ahn, and Sean Feucht.

Matthew Taylor and others have done a useful job in examining the personalities, theologies, and politics of these and other leaders, along with their congregations and networks. I'm intrigued by something else: the sense of mobilization and enthusiasm among their followers, compared with the rest of the USA's Christians.

Taylor writes,

To be charismatic is to seek fulfillment of two deep and driving desires. The first desire is mostly individual: charismatics want to feel supernatural power flowing through them. This personal desire usually gets discussed under the rubric of the biblical "spiritual gifts." Charismatics want to be filled with the Holy Spirit on a deep, existential level so that they can participate in a world of miracles, ongoing revelations, and a personal sense of closeness to God.
The second desire is more communal and global: charismatics want to be part of an extraordinary work of God in the world. This is usually framed in terms of seeking "revival": a fresh, unpredictable, collective outpouring of God's Spirit in such a way that thousands or millions of people are rejuvenated in their faith. Many Christians in many traditions hope for revival and talk about it in different ways. But I have never encountered any section of Christianity so singularly preoccupied with revival as Independent Charismatics. They pray for revival, prophesy about revival, strategize for revival, study revival history, and hanker for a bracing new work of God.
The steady pursuit of these two desires is what gives charismaticism its remarkable energy and even gravitational pull. For many Christians, the promise of having Holy Ghost power flow through you and seeing the extraordinary outpouring of God's energy into the world is irresistible.

Taylor and other observers of these movements also point out that their worship experiences, including immersive music and inspirational sermons, play a role in building up feelings of "supernatural power flowing through them." They are blessed, not just by their own spiritual gifts, but by each other's.

Source.

With these "two deep and driving desires," it's not hard to see how participating in the enthronement of a supposed Cyrus figure such as Trump would be deeply satisfying. It would not be fair to describe these millions of people as spiritual zombies without wills or minds of their own; many of them have made the deliberate calculation that, to defeat the demons corrupting our country, it is worth the risk of having an authoritarian in charge who is (they believe) answerable to them through their prophets and apostles.

At the same time, it's also important to say that many Christians of a charismatic temperament have not signed up for this. They may share those same personal and communal desires, but work for goals along different lines: revival, yes; but in the meantime, planting churches that love their local communities in practical ways. They are not busy trying to flip presidencies, but they do understand that their local faithfulness will have global effects.

And that brings me to Quakers. When I read about "ongoing revelations and a personal sense of closeness to God," am I not right in detecting desires that we Quakers share? Don't we want to be part of "an extraordinary work of God" in this world where so many suffer from violence, poverty, and degradation of the environment? (Not to mention the principalities and powers, and evil in high places. "The world is dying for lack of Quakerism in action," said Hugh Doncaster in his address to the Friends World Conference in 1967.)

If so, how do we encourage and express these personal and communal desires as Taylor described them, or reasonably similar desires? What factors get in the way? Do we assume that we are spiritually or culturally superior to those whom Taylor describes? Do we think there is something unseemly about sharing enthusiasm? Or, as in the case of some in my own extended family, have we been burned by communities that emphasize obedience to the apostle or prophet, rather than mutual trust? How do we find a healing that doesn't involve quenching the Spirit in others?

Also: if a political leader rose up who was far more palatable to us than Donald Trump, would we become as starry-eyed on their behalf as his current followers are on his? (Truthfully, I have several candidates in mind!)

13 February 2025

Occupation: Myrtle Wright's experience

Cover design shows Grini Concentration
Camp main building. Print made by Ole
Olden and smuggled out as his greeting
for Christmas 1941. Nothing can keep a
star from shining.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted "Under occupation" as one of the ways I'm trying to make sense of the current USA presidency and its actions.

A commenter on that post mentioned Myrtle Wright's book Norwegian Diary 1940-1945. I just finished re-reading it, to my great benefit.

On April 9, 1940, Wright was a Quaker peace worker who happened to be on her fourth day of a brief visit to Norway when the Germans invaded that morning. She ended up remaining there for nearly four years. Thirty years later, her account of those years was published by the Friends Peace and International Relations Committee in London. It's now out of print but there are used copies on the market. Online, a Russian translation is available in various formats.

After the initial conquest, the German occupation of Norway seemed relatively mild at first; the occupiers hoped to convince Norwegians that the invasion was simply to protect Norway from the UK's hostile plans. German soldiers conducted themselves correctly, by and large; the German overlords mostly operated behind the facade of the Quisling government and other local collaborators. In summer 1942, the mass arrests of Jewish people began, including a group of Jewish children who became a special concern of Wright and her friends. Executions were more frequent, private radios were outlawed on pain of death, labor conscription began (often destined for Germany). The occupation became much harsher. As life in Norway became more and more complicated under these conditions, Wright began keeping a diary starting in June 1942 in order to record and remember significant events, travels, and contacts as they happened. The first four chapters of her book were written after the war, and cover her arrival in Oslo, the German invasion, the famous teachers' and pastors' acts of resistance. After those first four chapters, the contemporary diary itself begins, and takes up most of the rest of her book.

The book was published in 1974, the very year I became a Friend. In 1975, after my visits to Moscow and Leningrad, I spent a couple of weeks with my grandparents in Oslo. On Sundays I attended the Oslo Friends Meeting, and there I met some of the people whose names come up in Wright's book, and visited some of the locations she described.

Norwegian Diary reminded me of Patricia Cockrell's more recent Sketches from a Quaker's Moscow Journal. In both cases, much of their service consisted of making and keeping appointments, arranging meetings, carrying food, money, clothing, and letters, dealing with bureaucracy, responding to emergencies, and observing discretion in risky situations. The level and character of repression differ between the two cases, but, sadly, that gap is narrowing.

I wondered—what might Myrtle Wright have recorded in her book that we might find interesting in our present situation? Here are some of her observations on living in an occupied country.

The importance of community. Even after being unexpectedly trapped in a country under occupation, Myrtle Wright was not alone. Her overlapping networks—including Quakers, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and Old Woodbrookers (alumni/ae of Woodbrooke College in Birmingham, England), and their families and friends—were sources of mutual support. Although at the start of her story, Oslo had just one Quaker member, there were frequent opportunities for worship with likeminded people. Occasionally Wright was able to travel to Stavanger, the historic center of Norwegian Quaker life.

The importance of information. After the German authorities confiscated private radios upon pain of death, Norwegians listened to BBC news and similar sources on hidden radios at great personal risk, and then passed along war news by word of mouth and through underground newspapers—also a very risky business. Information about arrests, prisoner transport, and incarcerations, about the underground railroad to Sweden (its departures, arrivals in Sweden, failures and betrayals) needed to circulate under the noses of the occupiers. The book gives several examples of the code words used by the resistance. Despite all the impediments, Norwegians found ways to keep themselves informed. One example: the amazing story of the White Rose circle in Germany became known in Norway.

Pacifists' dilemmas in war and occupation. Myrtle Wright and many of her friends were committed pacifists, yet (as she writes eloquently) they understood that Allied successes on the battlefield would hasten the end of the war. Within Norway, most people agreed that nonviolence was the only basis for resistance, but many people quietly cheered the Allies' advances in the USSR, (Stalingrad is often mentioned), North Africa, Italy, and France. With these wartime realities, Wright and her friends preferred to discuss postwar visions of freedom, justice, and the growth of empathy without distinctions.

War and occupation create understandable bitterness. The pacifist outlook, as expressed by Wright and many of her friends, not only made violent resistance unacceptable, it also helped them preserve empathy (for example) for the German cities being bombed by the Allied air forces. Such spiritually grounded empathy was nothing if not universal, and would be badly needed when the time for repair and restoration would come, as these circles believed it would.

The value of humor. Humor has the power to build community, point out awkward truths, reward divergent thinking, and restore perspective.

Myrtle Wright tells this story from Grini concentration camp:

At Christmas the prisoners had decorated the barracks and Per Krohg had painted a frieze. Fehmer, from the Gestapo ... came to inspect. He was evidently impressed and stopped in front of Per Krohg's frieze with the remark, "It is remarkable what a primitive nation can produce under German control." This became a byword in Grini and, when prisoners were digging ditches in slow temple or on some other work, they would say to each other, "It is wonderful what a primitive nation can produce when under German control."

The importance of rest. The constant demands on Wright and her friends eventually brought them to the very limits of their energy. As the war went on and restrictions on travel increased, it became harder and harder to do the usual Norwegian thing—hiking on mountain paths, along rivers, on glaciers, in meadows ... and away from the streses of daily life. Some of the most beautiful passages in Wright's book describe these wonderful escapes, even as they find their movements being more and more restricted by the occupation.

There are few direct parallels between the occupation that Myrtle Wright experienced and the looming threats to democracy in the USA, but I think that some of the values and capacities that aided her and her friends remain valid for today's resistance.

July 10 Saturday (from Norwegian Diary, 1943).

Landing on Sicily—the news has gone round like lightning and spirits rise at once. Everyone adds a few more details until there is no more to tell, and rumour does the rest. At least this is another step, and a long-awaited one. A pacifist, what should she think? Many lives will be lost, but every day of delay means more lives, to say nothing of illness and misery. The fury of this disease of violence is not likely to abate without much more loss of life, and, therefore, can one feel a little relief if only the end draws nearer? The physical death of the soldier cannot be worse than the torturing decay of the concentration camp, or the ghetto, or the terror of the civil population in the bombed towns. But physical death is not the ultimate test—what of the spirit which is bread in the warring nations and the occupied countries? We at least can do nothing to stop the fury of the armed warfare; our job lies in another direction and is quite clear, if only we can get it done. We have to prepare the minds of men for the moment when they again have choice and can by their actions, determine the way the peace shall be built; or will the end of the outward war show that Nazism, beaten in the battlefield, has won a victory in men's hearts?

Myrtle Wright (Norw.) married Quaker educator Philip Radley in 1951 and was then known as Myrtle Radley. She died in 1991. More about Myrtle and Philip.

Meanwhile, in Russia: Meduza's Lilia Yapporova and colleagues survey the realities and dysfunctions of the Russian opposition inside and outside Russia.

Trump and Musk aren't just tiptoeing toward autocracy.

Pope Francis denounces inhumanity to refugees.

From Tim Gee at Friends World Committee for Consultation, a letter to Friends for 2025.

Friday PS: "They won't let me down." On the anniversary of Navalny's death.

Evan Nicole Bell performs Albert King's classic "Crosscut Saw."

06 February 2025

Occupation Shorts

Last week, I proposed "under occupation" as a way of absorbing what the new Trump regime was imposing on us, and considering how to respond. I'm not going to try to list all the developments since then, that, taken together, feel like a occupation—you know as much as I do about all that. Here are just a few reflections, with references, on the past week.

Lawsuits: In my list of links last week, I included a lawsuit challenging a U.S. Department of Homeland Security policy change. That change allows DHS to invade "sensitive locations" such as places of worship, schools, and hospitals in order to arrest immigrants suspected of violating the law. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends, New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, and Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends, along with two congregations within Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
Since then, several other faith communities have joined the lawsuit, including New York Yearly Meeting. In that same list of links, I provided a link to this legal challenges tracker. At that point it listed 24 lawsuits challenging various executive actions of the Trump administration. As of today, the number of complaints has grown to 37.
The favored religion: Today, in a document entitled "Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias," Donald Trump announced that his administration "will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians. The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my Administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms. My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified." (More in Reuters' coverage.) I wonder, will this protection extend to Catholics and Lutherans defending migrants, or "nasty" Episcopal bishops who preach the Gospel in the president's presence? And what about our neighbors who peacefully practice other religions, or none?

The executive order mentions religious freedom in general several times, but the heavy emphasis (judge for yourself) is on eradicating anti-Christian bias. The Biden administration is charged with "an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses." The charges include the completely coincidental timing of Easter Sunday 2024 and "Transgender Day of Visibility." I can't help suspecting that to score points with a crucial part of his base, Trump might actually contribute to a whole new wave of genuine anti-evangelical bias as religious and secular people alike absorb this embarrassing enmeshment of government with the Christian knockoffs that suit this cruel and irreligious regime.
Ethnic cleansing, American style: Joe Biden's active participation in the rubbishing of the Gaza Strip was bad enough, but here comes Donald Trump with an amazing new embellishment: remove the whole population and create a "Riviera of the Middle East"! Meanwhile, as Michael Arria (Mondoweiss) points out, (1) the West Bank may face equal threats, and (2) "A Trump-appointed member of the United States Holocaust Memorial" (Martin Oliner) "has published an Op-Ed calling Palestinians 'fundamentally evil' and not worthy of 'any mercy.'"
Meanwhile, up in space: First, another false witness against Joe Biden. Last month, Elon Musk posted on X "that the president [Trump] had asked SpaceX to bring the two 'stranded' astronauts back to Earth. Musk added that SpaceX would do so, and, 'Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.' Trump chimed in, "I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to 'go get' the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck."

The actual situation, and the complicated planning and spaceship-swapping involved (no fault of Biden's!) is described by Ars Technica's Eric Berger.
Secondly, the impossible (and impossibly costly except for the contractors!) promise of an Iron Dome for North America.
A history lesson: "What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes." Timothy W. Ryback (gift link) in The Atlantic.
Rebecca Gordon (Tomdispatch) sums up: King Donald, old and new litanies, and the Faithful Fools.

Heather Cox Richardson's own summary of the occupation's progress, and a few instances of resistance. (Don't blame her for the "occupation" metaphor; it's mine.)

Speaking of the West Bank, here's this week's OCHA Humanitarian Situation Update.

A pro-Russian disinformation source produced a video discrediting USAID, and apparently Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Jr., have taken the bait.

Becky Ankeny has been speaking to Silverton Friends Church about the crucifixion of Jesus. Last month she spoke about the resurrection.

Micah Bales at Berkeley Friends Church on Jesus and his inaugural sermon.... "'All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.' Wow, what a guy! He’s going to make Israel great again." Shouldn't he have stopped while he was ahead? More to the point: What has God anointed him to do? And are we ready, not just to admire, but to follow?

Greg Morgan, Elderchaplain: "Religious faith is an important source of peace for many facing death, but it’s no guarantee...."

Once again, an invitation to join our weekly online prayer meeting for peace, under the care of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Europe and Middle East Section. Every Tuesday, 1:30 p.m. London time. See this page for more information.

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram and his band perform "662."

30 January 2025

Under occupation

For the past two days, the new Trump administration has been demonstrating that it is far easier to break things than it is to build them.
— Heather Cox Richardson, January 22.

Keeping track of all that breakage may be a practical and emotional challenge. For the practical side of things, there are resources:

Federal Register (see executive orders for yourself; note lag times in posting them. Compare with earlier presidents.)
Glenn Kessler (selected examples)
FactCheck.org (selected examples)
Tracking Trump's Cabinet nominees (the site promises to update)
[Added] Tracking legal challenges to Trump administration actions. (Thanks to Timothy Snyder for the link.)

Less convenient: keeping up with the news. (Did you see this item on California water?) Maybe it's less important to scan for every single scandal that comes along, but cultivate the reflex to fact-check dubious and polarizing claims from those in power, as well as self-styled heroes of the resistance.

Politicians in the Democratic party are far from united in how to cope with all this breakage. Here are some thoughts from a trusted commentator:

... [T]here's a whole debate raging in the Democratic Party of what to do about Trump, with an early consensus forming that we can't just be the party of "the resistance" forever, (nbcnews.com) and I can see that point—pussy hats don't necessarily appeal to your average swing voter—but I think it's misguided, because the Republican Party is no longer a normal political party, it's a cult of fealty to their God-Emperor and if the Democrats don't push back with every tool in the toolbox, the Democratic Party will be banned (designated a terrorist organization or something), and there will be little room for discussing the finer points of Trump's economic agenda. Likewise, tuning out the "culture war" makes sense in some ways (although it misreads the moment—Harris never ran on culture-war issues, and she still lost), but the now-typical Democratic line that trans issues are a "distraction" from kitchen-table issues isn't quite right, because to the Republicans, trans issues are just the early fault line they're using to cleave apart America's multiracial democracy. Democrats need to push back on every issue, gum up the works in every way they can, because picking and choosing your battles right now may make some sense on a messaging level (no reason to chase after every single perceived Trump slight) but it makes no sense on the level of the political machinations of our fragile republic.

Coping emotionally may be just as big a challenge as keeping informed. (By the way, I was fascinated by Ashley Parker's article on the apparent competition in Washington, DC, to be at the top of the persecuted list.) Yes, "shock and awe" may be the tactic, but I'm looking for a more systemic metaphor to help me absorb and respond to what's going on.

That's where "under occupation" comes in.

Hebron, Palestine. Graffiti. 2019.

"Occupation" implies an alien power imposing control on us. "Alien" is a loaded term—I remember when I was an alien here—and I can't really claim that Donald Trump and his team are from outside the U.S. (with a few exceptions), despite their apparent affinities with certain authoritarian leaders on the global stage. And racism and nativism are certainly not new to America.

Here's the "alienation": MAGA priorities seem to diverge so dramatically from the generally bipartisan postwar consensus in favor of equal rights, free trade, workplace safety, educational reforms, greater access to health care, international collaboration and collective security, independent civil service and judiciary, and at least some improvements in energy and environmental policies, that the word "alien" may not be too far off the point. Any ideal that isn't linked to myth-based nationalism is dismissed or ridiculed.

All of these areas of postwar progress are now under simultaneous and coordinated (if at times sloppy and chaotic) attack, with potentially disastrous short-term and long term consequences. It's that "simultaneous and coordinated" quality, imposed from a central executive, that I'm comparing to an occupation.

The word "occupation" also implies that this control is coercive, even violent. If we don't think this danger applies to ordinary U.S. citizens minding our own business, we are probably not immigrants, we are likely of northern European background, and we fit into the new administration's preferred gender categories. (Full disclosure: I'm a former alien, an immigrant.) Also, our denial may be based on layers of financial security that most people don't have.

If we are Christians in denial, maybe we've managed to smother our testimonies on wealth, hospitality, and mercy in favor of a dominion agenda.

I don't want to push this "occupied" metaphor too far. It's certainly not perfect. For most of us life is pretty easy in comparison with, for example, Palestine, or Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. But it does help me think more systematically about how not to inventory obsessively each new piece of evidence of all this breakage, but rather to contribute toward resilient communities of mutual care, communities who welcome the vulnerable people among us.

My father and his extended family lived under actual occupation in Norway (1940-1945), and they told me a lot about what that was like. Some interesting features:

Circulating accurate information was a vital service, far riskier in the Nazi years than it is so far in the USA. (Radios were banned, so considerable ingenuity went into concealing them. Alternative newspapers were another source of news—also at great risk.)
Teachers, pastors, judges, and other organized groups in Norway learned to practice nonviolent resistance as communities, defining the red lines that most of them would refuse to cross. My cousin Axel Heyerdahl told me how much he had admired his own teachers who joined that campaign.
Those who had particular resources (such as isolated cottages to hide fugitives), jobs (my grandfather spent most of his war years in the coastal lifesaving service), and physical stamina could undertake high-risk missions to undermine the occupiers. Smuggling Jewish people and British pilots into Sweden was one example from my own family.
In opposition to the resistance movement, there were people who actively supported the occupation. Aside from the actual collaborators at the top, such as Vidkun Quisling, the most famous example might be the great novelist Knut Hamsun. And in between these two groups of committed antagonists, there were thousands of people who simply tried to get along without being noticed by the authorities. Some of those became collaborators for convenience' sake. Some fell in love with enemy soldiers and bureaucrats. Some changed position during the war.
One of my grandfather's concerns as a member of the resistance army was to persuade hotheads not to engage in violence against Germans, which would only result in increased repression. By extension, in our own time, resistance doesn't require demonizing Trump supporters or committing our own sins of rhetorical mayhem. As disciples of the Prince of Peace, we are never allowed to forget that even our "enemies" are made in the image and likeness of God. We pray that their eyes would be opened to their captivity, even as we too seek to be free.
During our walking tour of Oslo's World War II and resistance-related sites last summer, our guide pointed out that five years of deprivation—little or no meat, fat, dairy products, etc.—actually led to better health for some people. (Do we see analogues in our own time? Increased capacity to discern priorities? I'm not sure, but I thought I'd ask.)
Finally, Germany's thousand-year Reich lasted twelve years in Germany, five years in Norway. Those were very costly years, but they ended.

I've found that the metaphor of occupation helps me to withstand the barrage of bad news, put it all in context, and focus on faith and resilience in community. What metaphors, filters, or tasks are helping you to cope? Where do you find resilience and mutually sustaining friendships?

Three Quaker yearly meetings and two monthly meetings collaborate with Democracy Forward to sue the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over the removal of restrictions against ICE raids on "sensitive locations," specifically places of Quaker worship. Among the plaintiffs: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and New England Yearly Meeting. Story in Friends Journal. Complaint document.

Nancy Thomas has an important strategy for hope.

Kristin Du Mez asks her "fellow enemies" at Christian colleges and universities to consider some implications of the MAGA regime.

In his new substack blog, Quakers and the End of Scapegoating, Tom Gates promises us "Part exploration of Rene Girard's groundbreaking 'mimetic theory,' part Bible commentary, and part dialogue with early and contemporary Quakers."

A conversation with Brian about racism, racial identity, and the "push to choose."

The Doomsday Clock is one second closer to midnight.

Finally, the Daily Quaker Message reminds us: Obey God Only.

"If you walk with Jesus...." More from The Jumping Cats, Moscow.

23 January 2025

1975: From Mississippi to Moscow

My 1975 visit to Russia began even before I left London. Shortly after I boarded Aeroflot's IL-62 to Moscow, before I had taken my seat, the airplane began taxiing. The two seats next to mine were occupied by two delightful middle-aged women who had boarded in San Francisco and who now helped wedge me into my seat. Almost all the floor space was taken up by their numerous bottles and packages of goodies (apparently no need to secure carry-on items!), but after a bit of rearranging, I was fine. Soon they were offering me all kinds of yummy pastries, and insisted on adding cognac to my coffee.

Russia, what will I do with you? You beguiled me from those first moments on the plane and all through the twelve days of my first and only visit during the Soviet era. I knew a lot about your history, including your capacity for cruelty to your own citizens, but your language and culture had been my fascination from my mid-teens on, and now (that is, fifty years ago this year!) I was going to see you for myself. For the most part, I only saw your good sides during those twelve days in 1975, but now you're slipping back into those old ways....

I've mentioned my first visit to Russia several times, but now I'd like to give a few more details, if only to express a bit of the combined nostalgia and grief that accompanies these memories. I choose not to indulge in russophobia, and won't apologize for my life-long fascination, even as I agree with Dmitrii Bykov's sad assessment after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine: "It is clear that Russia crossed many red lines. It cannot live any longer as it did in the past. The world will no longer see [in Russia] a place of spirituality, a place of great culture, a place representing victory over fascism."

Back in this post—Mississippi mellowing?—I wrote about my other significant involvement in 1975, my months at Voice of Calvary in Mendenhall, Mississippi, which were directly followed by my departure for the Soviet Union via the UK. I said then that, between those two places, Mississippi was the larger culture shock.

In the post Sapsan shorts, I mentioned the feeling, during that 1975 visit to Russia, of being so far away from everyone I knew. And in Return to Sergiev Posad, I explained how there was actually a link between those two experiences, Mississippi and Russia, and that link was the American Friends Service Committee.

In that last post, I described my first visit to the city of Sergiev Posad, to the Orthodox campus known as the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, back when the city of Sergiev Posad was still known by its Soviet name of Zagorsk. But there I only told the story of our tour group's visit to the worship service in progress. But as we left the service and were on our way to the next stop on the tour, I spoke quietly to our guide, telling her that I wanted to visit the Orthodox seminary if possible. To my surprise and delight, she told me how to get there, and promised to hold the bus for me when the others had completed the planned tour.

At the seminary, I wasn't sure what kind of reception I would get as a Protestant, possibly a sectarian (Quaker) in their eyes, and moreover as a 22-year-old American with long hair and (to put it charitably) undistinguished clothing. A dignified man who seemed to have the title of "inspector" greeted me very kindly just inside the front door, and soon I was on a fascinating tour of the seminary, while he listened to my story. Everyone along the way treated me as an honored guest! Needless to say, I was walking on air when I rejoined our tour bus, and to this day I wonder what kind of intuition that tour guide had. It's hard to imagine the same thing happening now, but, honestly, who knows?

Churches played a role in several other incidents during those days in Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). On my first full day in Moscow, I went to the Novodevichy Convent, in whose cemetery many famous people are buried—Khrushchev, Gogol, Chekhov, Scriabin, and (just before my visit) Shostakovich, among many others. As I approached the convent's gate, I saw an artist at work in a clump of bushes, and his paintings were on the grass, available to purchase. I asked him if he was a believer, and he said, "Of course!" When I asked whether painting was his work, he laughed and said, "I'm a parasite on society." In the language of Soviet sociology, the term meant that he was not usefully employed within the approved structures, but he seemed to enjoy announcing his title! Of course I bought a painting, which is included in the slide show above.

I brought the painting back to my hotel room at the Mozhaiskaya hotel, which was on the Mozhaisk highway beyond the main circular highway around Moscow. The next day, when I returned from my sightseeing in the city center, I found that my painting had been carefully pinned up on the wall. When I asked the service staffer taking care of my room whether she know how the painting got there, she just gave me a quiet smile.

The following Sunday, I decided to go back to Novodevichy Convent for a church service. It was a lovely service, but I noticed that I was about one-third the age of most people there, and one of the few males. Afterwards, outside the church, I was approached by two young women, Lara and Sonya, who wanted to know what possible interest a young person like me could have in attending an Orthodox church service. They were mainly interested in the architecture, they explained. I tried to explain a little about my own faith. We decided to hang out for a while, and they took me to a nearby museum and exhibition. Lara then had to go, so Sonya and I went on to Gorky Park, where Sonya tutored me in the Soviet skill of working two lines at the same time: one for an amusement-park ride, and the other for shashlyk. The only problem: we arrived at the front of both lines simultaneously, so, laughing, we had to try to eat our food while twirling around on the ride.

Every day I ran into interesting people and unplanned encounters. For example, I visited the Kremlin, but the church/museum I wanted to see was closed, so I sat down in a nearby park. Pretty soon a Polish man came up to me and started a conversation. Somehow Zbigniew and I got onto the subject of political humor, and so there we were in the heart of Soviet power, trading jokes about Brezhnev and his tribe.

The hotel. A photo from the 1970's. Source.

Back at my hotel, its restaurant was an important feature of the place; the hotel was very new and was built in a relatively undeveloped area with no nearby urban amenities. (I think it was part of the tourist infrastructure ramp-up to the 1980 Olympics.) But the restaurant also attracted local people, and on one memorable evening, one couple pleaded with me to stay after dinner and hear the band. "They play forbidden music!" I became pen pals with another such new acquaintance, and for a while we traded records. Among other things, he sent me David Tukhmanov's avant-garde record By the Wave of My Memory, and I sent him B.B. King Live in Cook County Jail.

All my travel and transfers (airport to hotel to train to hotel to airport) were part of a package, which for most ordinary private tourists was the only way to visit the Soviet Union. In my case, everything seemed to work well, and in one situation, extraordinarily well: I was already at the train station for my overnight train to Leningrad when I realized, to my horror, that I'd left my Novodevichy painting in my hotel room, still pinned to the wall. No problem! An Intourist staffer got on the phone, and well before my train left, someone met me in the station with my painting securely packed into a tube. Five decades later, it's on our dining room wall in Portland, Oregon, reminding me of the faith of a "parasite," and our shared laughter.

From Leningrad I went to stay with my grandparents in Oslo. A few days later, I got a call from my cousin Johan Fredrik Heyerdahl: would I like to hear a presentation by the writer Andrei Sinyavsky? Of course! Another chance to connect with Soviet reality. Sinyavsky, accompanied by his host in Oslo, the journalist Per Egil Hegge, gave his lecture at the Nobel Institute, and Johan Fredrik and I were there.

Sinyavsky had served six years for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. His co-defendant Yuli Daniel had also been sentenced under this same charge—it may have been the first time this charge was applied to fiction. After Sinyavsky 's release, he had eventually emigrated to France where he was a professor of Russian literature. (Per Egil Hegge had his own brush with Soviet power; he was expelled from the USSR while serving as Aftenposten's correspondent in Moscow.)

At the Nobel Institute, Sinyavsky told us that there were three principal types of dissidents in the USSR. Some fought for a nationalist myth or the communist ideal, and sometimes even welcomed their punishment. But Sinyavsky's highest praise was reserved for those, such as Sakharov, who were ready to help anyone without exception, especially for the sake of freedom.

Later, I had my own couple of minutes with Sinyavsky, during which he confirmed something that I thought he'd hinted at in his lecture—that he was a Christian believer. I realized that he also valued being a writer, rather than being stuck in the category of "political dissident."

If you've managed to read this far, thank you for your company! Most of my diaries will probably never see the light of day, but it has been both pleasant and sobering to leaf through some of these pages from 1975.

Now I have a question for you. Are you interested in Russian language or culture or spiritual resources? I'd love to hear from you (privately if you like) because I personally know very few people younger than me, particularly among peace church people, who have this interest. In my desire to accompany spiritually grounded peace people in Russia one way or another (and they do exist), I'd love to think that there are more potential partners out there for this ministry.

I originally got introduced to this whole field because I took Russian language classes in high school. I think the popularity of high school and college Russian language and area studies has shrunk dramatically over the last fifty years, so it's not surprising that this specific concern might attract fewer people, but I figured it was worth asking....

PS: Even if you're not younger than me, I would still love to hear from you!! And if you know someone I should contact, I'd love to reach out. Finally, I'd also love to know whether there are other organized efforts to respond to this concern.

The Guardian's Anna Betts: Mariann Edgar Budde, a bishop and (as it turns out) evangelist for the actual Christian faith.

Some advice for U.S. Catholics on discipleship during Trump 2.0 ... and not just for Catholics.

Sarah Scott speaks to Spokane Friends on grief.

"No hatred will be tolerated." A repeat from one of those earlier posts about Russia. It seems like a song whose time has come again.