Can you believe?

15 May 2025

80 years ago

Peace doves, Catherine Park, Moscow. Victory Day 2015

WWII in 24 minutes, from origins to aftermath. Screenshot from video World War II Summary on a Map.

Last week we observed the 80th anniversary of V-E Day.

Ten years ago, Russia's version of Victory in Europe Day, May 9, occurred on the day Moscow Friends met for our weekly worship. We met that day in a theater not far from Moscow's Dostoevsky Museum, and afterwards we visited the Victory Day celebrations in progress at nearby Catherine Park. That's where we saw those peace doves, pictured above.

Victory Day in Elektrostal, Russia, 2010.

A lot can be said about Russia's Victory Day observances—both the enduring importance of remembering the human cost of that victory for practically every family in the former USSR ... and also the exploitation of Victory Day by Russia's current leadership, particularly as they now portray the war in Ukraine as a continuation of that sacred struggle against Nazi forces.

World War II has a deep fascination for me, too. My mother lived in Japan from her birth in 1929 to her family's expulsion to West Germany in 1948, the result of a U.S. policy that expelled all resident Germans from Japan. As I found out during our visit to Japan in 2018, her father joined the Nazi party in 1934.

In what became West Germany, my mother began her university studies in Heidelberg, but then went as an exchange student to Northwestern University in the Chicago area, where she met my father, who was an exchange student as well. He came from the University of Oslo. His father had been an officer in Norway's resistance army, fighting the German occupiers, so his parents' surprise at their son's choice of bride was understandable. (Their other child, my father's sister, married an American soldier in Oslo.)

It's just about impossible to take in the total human cost of that war—the cost in lives and limbs, the grief among survivors, the destruction of housing and workplaces in many places, and the displacement of whole populations. My own peculiar origin story is part of that sweeping narrative: my parents might never have met if my mother and her family had not been evicted from their adopted homeland.

One of the questions I can never answer satisfactorily is what lessons our species has learned from that war. The postwar international institutions that the WWII victors set up have seemingly prevented wars of a similar scale since 1945, although a tacit part of the deal was that the USA took over much of the imperial role that the UK was forced to relinquish. As a country, we've had a hard time accepting criticism for our less-than-perfect stewardship of global power. Even so, there was an undeniable portion of idealism in those postwar arrangements, much to the apparent distaste of the USA's current leadership.

I've also meditated on the micro scale: what must it have been like for my mother to grow up as a child and teenager in the Nazi sphere of influence and then in total warfare? On this last Mother's Day, I gave a sermon at Silverton Friends Church, in which I mentioned the importance of these meditations for my slowly growing capacity to "honor my father and mother" despite the violence and "master race" mentality that we children witnessed in our family's life. When I was comforted by those who told me that "your parents did the best they could," I used to get irritated. Why did alcohol seem so much more important than us kids? Now I am learning to allow for factors in my parent's lives that I've never had to experience personally: total dictatorship and total war, starting in childhood. I owe it to them—and myself—to consider their own share of World War II's global tragedy, and grow accordingly in compassion. If they had not made certain decisions in favor of life, I would not exist.

Some of my other posts on World War II and related themes:

Kristin Du Mez: For certain Christian followers of the U.S. president, there is no corruption.

Arwa Mahdawi in the Guardian: new rules for travelers entering the USA.

A lifeblood of Quaker community: Brian Drayton on Friends traveling in the ministry.

Scot Loyd: "Jesus didn't die for our country—he died because of it."

Jeremy Morris (commenting on recent research on Russians' sense of stability and satisfaction): on being happy in a Mercedes and on "the ludicrous optimism of minimal expectations."

The socially galvanizing effect of war short of rally-round-the-flag is what I call ‘defensive consolidation’. Fears and foreboding are real and remain massively underacknowledged in research, but the sense of ‘the world is against us, so we have to find sources of satisfaction in the now’ in consumption, in leisure, in socially meaningful work, in geopolitical resentment even, is also palpable.

My tiny rebellion as a high school student: in TV production class, making a video on a risky subject, using a track from an album I wasn't allowed to play at home:

I went down on 31st Street just to buy me a drink of alcohol.
I went down on 31st Street, buy me a drink of alcohol.
Told the man to put in some water but he wouldn't put in a drop at all.

Then I was drinking my straight alcohol, went wobbling on down the street.
Drinking my, drinking my straight alcohol, went wobbling on down the street.
Yeah, but my head got so heavy, my eyes couldn't take a peek.

Yeah, but my baby said, "J.B., J.B., you ain't no good at all."
My baby said, "Hey, J.B., J.B., you ain't no good at all.
She said, "You ran around on the West Side, and then drank too much alcohol."

07 May 2025

Speaking of speaking

Source.

My heart is pounding, words are lining up impatiently at the tip of my tongue, the silent room suddenly feels as if it's holding its breath, I'm starting to tremble.... Should I speak?

The first time I had this experience in a Quaker meeting for worship was around Christmas 1974, at Uwchlan Meeting in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. I knew the theoretical answer to my urgent question. In the words of Ruth M. Pitman in the Canadian Friend magazine (later published as "On the Vocal Ministry"):

It is understood in such a Meeting that any messages that are spoken strive to be God’s word for these people at this time; that is, no one will speak unless he has prayerfully considered two questions: whether the message is God’s or his own, and whether it should be given to these people now, or is for the individual alone.

But I had been among Friends for only a few months, and furthermore, this particular group was not my home meeting. Who was I to say whether God was the source of my thoughts in this time and place? What business did I have interrupting this peaceful assembly?

I did overcome my self-doubts, and spoke a message on spiritual power in the context of the recent oil embargo. I make no claims as to the merits of this first message, but the experience felt like a sort of baptism.

These were the memories that came back to me as as I began to read Rhiannon Grant's new book in the "Quaker Quicks" series: Speaking in Quaker Meeting for Worship: what, when, how, and why? I wish a guide like hers had been available to me five decades ago!

Confession: I approached the book with some initial skepticism, which may say more about my prejudices than anything about the book or author. First of all, Rhiannon Grant's Quaker community is Britain Yearly Meeting, which despite its variety is typically described as liberal. Its meetings for worship are, except for special occasions, unprogrammed (see this post for a bit about "programmed" and "unprogrammed"). Although I spent my first eight years as a Friend in similar cultures in Canadian, New England, and Baltimore Yearly Meetings, the rest of my Quaker experience of forty-plus years have mainly been among programmed Friends served by pastors. Would any of her observations apply where I live?

My second apprehension: would a book-length (even a Quaker Quicks-length) treatment come across as an attempt to groom the aesthetically perfect unprogrammed meeting, pitched to the comfort level of Atlantic-culture demographics in terms of class, education, verbal fluency, and long attention spans, or would there be room for Holy Spirit spontaneity, of grief, ecstasy, confession, prophecy, song, all that potentially attaches to Quakers quaking?

My apprehensions were unfounded.

First of all, Rhiannon Grant is clear about her own Quaker context, but is aware of the range of worship styles among Friends, including programmed worship. More importantly, her practical guidance on speaking in worship seems to me to apply to any Friends meeting in which time is set aside for what programmed Friends often call "open worship." As she says early on, "The understanding of this book is that when we are open and willing in the stillness of meeting for worship, any of us can be moved to speak." That's why "any of us" can benefit from her observations.

She doesn't address the specific situation of a Friends pastor or regular speaker preparing a sermon, but even here many of her suggestions would be useful. It's clear that in her culture, advance preparation of a message is usually inappropriate—but there is no hint of taboo. (My own belief is that the work of worship-planning and sermon-writing should be surrounded by the same level of sensitivity that we expect in meeting for worship. I'm sometimes startled by how similar sermon-writing can be to giving spontaneous messages in unprogrammed worship.)

Another feature of Grant's book: its kind, unpretentious, open-ended tone, often grounded in personal experience, with touches of humor. Examples:

Contrasting ordinary speech with ministry during worship: (Link added.)

In ministry, by contrast, the majority of the source is inspiration: even if I have done a little bit of planning, like being asked to read from Advices & Queries, I wait to be led to speak and to feel what would be right to read. Usually, I don't speak at all unless that strong inspiration arrives. There will still be a little bit of me in there—including whatever I feel about having to speak in front of others—but ego is in the minority and the promptings of love and truth are in the lead.
There can be times when it is hard to tell which element is strongest. Am I really inspired to say this, or do I want to say it? Am I sharing this story about having a wonderful spiritual experience on holiday because it's brought me insight, or because I want other people to know about my holiday and my spirituality?

When you have finished saying what you have been given to say:

After giving ministry, there can be a sense of relief. If you experience physical sensations like shaking, they might either stop or briefly get worse. Sometimes I experience a wave of anxiety about the mundane social side of the situation—in my discernment process, I focussed on the message, and it's only afterwards that I ask myself whether I said something ridiculous and whether everyone hates me now.

What about theology? Rhiannon Grant explicitly says that theology is a secondary concern for this book, and refers readers to her books that focus more directly on theology. As a self-described evangelical Quaker (sometimes in despair that the word "evangelical" doesn't communicate what I stubbornly think it ought to!), I'm guessing that she and I are probably not in the exact same place. This book, however, communicates a warm theological hospitality that enhances rather than weakens the practical guidance she gives for speaking in worship.

One of her book's great virtues is that it simultaneously honors and demythologizes the ministry of speaking in worship. Grant recognizes its high value as a way God shapes us as a community and guides us toward other ways of ministering to our world. At the same time, she considers all the various temperaments we find among us, including those who speak too readily, and those who feel totally unready to speak at all. She describes various ways that spoken ministry can derail a meeting for worship—and how Friends might respond—but also points out that disruption might at times be God's actual intent! She holds up the precious service of elders or other experienced Friends who can encourage the budding minister or help those whose ministry can be unhelpful. She considers the practice of "afterword" or "afterwords," a time after the end of the worship when thoughts that did not seem to rise to the level of ministry during worship—perhaps less than prophecy but more than casual discussion—can be shared with the group. She describes a variety of ways to organize this supplementary opportunity, and outlines their advantages and disadvantages.

Grant's book is well-organized. Her first few chapters define her terms and concepts, and would be helpful to anyone mystified by how we Friends use terms that mean different things among us than they do in the wider world. After some basic observations on worship among Friends, she describes the ways that speaking contributes to the depth and power of worship, and the general patterns that often prevail when things are going well.

Then: when things are not going so well, what might be happening, and how might we respond? Her list of possible dysfunctions is telling...

Popcorn ministry (too many messages too quickly, without enough time in between to absorb them or to discern one's own participation)
A message is too long
Predictable ministry
Absent ministry
Inappropriate ministry, and
Is it really wrong?

On that last point, it's worth quoting her directly:

It isn't always clear about how to draw a boundary about what's acceptable or not, and being told to trust your discernment might only make things worse if discernment is not already a strong and regular practice in your life. Add in issues of politeness, status, insecurity about belonging to the community, challenges around the role of authority without hierarchy, along with some questions about theology, which touch on very personal religious matters, and the situation is undoubtedly sometimes very difficult.
...
If my community is also a body, I have to expect that the painful will come with the pleasurable and that things I don't notice and can't control will be happening alongside the things where I have some choice. It's part of the gift of being together.

The following sections of the book help us apply all these insights to ourselves, our own discernment on whether or not to speak, how we speak, and how we then return to the quiet center from which our ministry arose. Finally, Grant addresses questions of assistive technology, online and hybrid worship, and the sometimes awkward questions arising from these newer modes of worship. She ends her book with a list of print and online resources.

If your Friends meeting or church uses this book in a discussion group or a class for newcomers, I think you'll be delighted with its scope. Rhiannon Grant succeeds in linking her central topic—speaking in meeting for worship—with just about all aspects of our life as a worshipping community. Her approach is grounded but not rigid, and should lead to many fertile conversations.

Here is an older guide to "Open Worship" including whether and when to speak during worship. It was adapted from a pamphlet written by the late Stan Thornburg, who served Friends churches in Mid-America and Northwest Yearly Meetings. His chart has been used and adapted to various formats in several Friends meetings and churches.

And here again is the link to Ruth M. Pitman's "On the Vocal Ministry." Ruth Pitman identifies with Conservative Friends and has been a frequent contributor to Quaker Religious Thought. In this post from 2017, I said more about Pitman's tract and my first experience of speaking in meeting.

Patrick Nugent's article (1996) "On Speaking in Meeting for Worship" appeared in this issue of Friends Journal, starting on page seven.

Here are Friends' opinions on the use of queries as framing for open worship, part one, part two.

Mass Observation, May 12. Are you in the UK? Are you planning to participate in this national diary? (With thanks to Rebecca Rosewarne for the link.) Does your country have a similar archive project?

Revoking international students' visas "makes America smaller, not stronger." I have a Palestinian friend, a young doctor who is scheduled to arrive soon for a residency in the USA, so these days I'm very alert to this concern.

Mondoweiss on Gaza: Israeli forces are working toward making Gaza uninhabitable for its current population, but they are running low on soldiers.

May's theme at the Daily Quaker Message is peace and nonviolence. I continue to appreciate these daily posts. Here's Tuesday's post, with a quote from Duncan Wood.

Sarah Thomas Baldwin: When we "spiritually amphibious creatures" can't quite find our souls.

Beth Woolsey's Irrational Joy Project. (Also: "...wallowing is an underrated stage of grief.")

Here (audio only) is the late Joe Louis Walker's version of "Wade in the Water." Rest in peace.

01 May 2025

Love, theoretically

Source.

FCNL via Facebook

friendsincubator.org

fwcc.world

Three of the gospels tell the story of the rich man who asked Jesus what he (the questioner) needed to do to get eternal life. Jesus sums up the commandments, and the man says that he's been observing them all his life. Jesus says that he lacks just one thing: he needs to sell all he has, give the proceeds to people in poverty, and follow Jesus.

Matthew. Mark. Luke.

I remember one particular sermon on this passage. Judy and I were on Boston Common on a rainy day in October 1979, on the first day of Pope John Paul II's visit that fall to the USA. In his sermon, the Pope pointed out a detail that only Mark's version has: namely, "...what the young man in the Gospel experienced : 'Jesus looked at him with love' (Mark 10:21)," before explaining what the cost of his hopes would be.

The love of Christ is unconditional; it precedes our response. The response that Jesus gave the wealthy man was not just theoretical, saying "yes" to a doctrine; it was practical. And if the first part of the advice to the man seemed difficult (and Jesus says it will be, for it's harder for a rich person to enter heaven than for a camel to go through a needle's eye), the second part of the advice is more than compensation: "Then come, follow me." In other words, you won't be alone.

With a certain bit of irony, Jesus expands on this compensation:

... No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.

The way Jesus looked at the inquirer—with love—is the way he looks at each of us. No exceptions, as the Friends Committee on National Legislation campaign puts it. And as I've mentioned before, we are to "regard" each other the same way.

At least, that's the theory. The important thing in my life was that, having decided to trust Jesus, I did not have to work out the practical implications alone! The nuclear family that didn't understand or like my conversion receded into the background (not entirely, of course) and my earliest emotional support came from my Canadian relatives, with whom I was living as I went through all the stages of grief at losing one sister to murder and another because of being asked to leave my home. Then Ottawa Friends, and wider circles of Canadian Friends, came alongside me. They decided to make this utter newbie a representative to the Friends World Committee's triennial sessions in Hamilton, Ontario, and I soon realized I had a global family. A couple of years later, I was serving that extended Quaker family in Boston, Massachusetts, and there I met my life companion, Judy.

Now many of us are in a season of persecutions. The values that are precious to us, particularly equality and nonviolence, are under sustained attack. On a more doctrinal level, the gospel is being grievously misrepresented by Christian nationalists and their toxic enmeshment with state power—and not just in the USA.

Again: we don't have to work out the implications alone! Our Quaker and ecumenical and interfaith networks are alongside us. Our traveling Friends ministers and community-building events (see posters above) can give us ideas and spiritual refreshment from far and near. The gift-based division of labor means that we equally treasure our mystics and our activists, our evangelists and tax refusers, our street theater organizers and our potluck dinner organizers. They are all part of the "hundreds of times as much in this present age...."

There are three particular gifts that I want to hold up, and they're closely related. First: how do we extend the blessing of no exceptions to those who seem to be spreading counterfeit gospels at the expense of immigrants and other marginalized people, not to mention the reputation of the gospel itself? After we get good and angry (speaking personally, here!), then what? I love the idea of the "Truth Brigade" Judy mentioned in this post, and hope that those of us who are suited to, and called to, this kind of ministry of fierce love will find encouragement for their work.

Second: we need evangelists who understand that all our theories of love will atrophy if our communities are closed to new people, and when we subconsciously assume that all marginalized people are external beneficiaries rather than being among us as equal participants. So ... to the gifted evangelists still among us: please forgive us when we seem to pretend that you don't even exist; and help us identify the barriers and filters that too often result in welcoming only people who match our prevailing demographics.

Third: we need pastors and elders who understand the rhythms of enthusiasm and discouragement, help us when we get on each other's nerves, and know how to help us spell each other as needed.

"Love Your Neighbour" is not just a Friends Committee on National Legislation campaign, it is also the theme of this year's World Quaker Day, October 5.

Another occasion of mutual care in the global family: the Africa Section of the Friends World Committee for Consultation is hosting the next FWCC global online meeting for worship on June 8, 4:00 p.m. Nairobi time.

"Love in Motion: Friends Traveling in Ministry" (see graphic above): Brian Drayton will help us consider the specific role of traveling in the ministry, which I see as part of the ways we can be each other's encouragement in challenging times. This online presentation and discussion is scheduled for May 21, 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Eastern U.S. time. (By the way, Brian Drayton signed Judy's and my certificate of marriage for the registry of vital records in Boston, nearly 45 years ago.)

"Dear Pope Francis": Diana Hadjiyane writes about Francis, community, and ecumenism from her Eastern Orthodox perspective.

Speaking of love, Levi Gaytán's "wildest dreams" came true.

Elderchaplain Greg Morgan:

.... Death sometimes arrives with no forewarning: a massive heart attack, a brain aneurysm, an accident. Past a certain age, though, we are more likely to die from conditions that progress relatively slowly: cancer, congestive heart failure, or simply old age. This is largely a blessing, I think, as it gives both the dying person and their loved ones time to prepare, and to share conversations that can be among the most intimate and meaningful of their lives.
But this blessing brings with it a challenge....

The monthly gathering of the Bremerton (Washington) Friends worship group is happening again this Sunday at 4 p.m.

The latest United Nations humanitarian situation reports on Palestine: the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Another global family, Playing for Change, presents their version of "Crossroads."

24 April 2025

Simon and Francis, part two

Source: found on threads.net, credited to AFP on this BBC page.

It has been a bit more than twelve years since the late Pope Francis began his papacy, and just three short days since his death in his Vatican residence.

I won't attempt to write an obituary; you've probably seen several already. Here are some that I found interesting:

BBC News: Vocal critic of the powerful ...
America (a Jesuit periodical): Trailblazing Jesuit with a heart for the poor ... and the pope's Jesuit identity
Christianity Today: A friend to evangelicals
Al Jazeera: Pontiff who pushed church boundaries ...

Soon after Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, our friend Margaret Benefiel published a very helpful blog post: Papal Leadership without Easy Answers. Her article reinforced my own hopes that the new pope's leadership would give a powerful witness to humane and evangelical (in the broad sense) values.

As I wrote at the time in my post Simon and Francis, I had two particular hopes for the leadership of Pope Francis, one personal and one more global. On a personal level, I wanted his help in my own battles with cynicism, which I imagine is an occupational hazard for all political scientists, however idealistic.

In turn, I wanted to be one of the pope's Simon-like helpers in my own microscopic way, by committing to pray for him daily, which I've done.

I described my more global hope for his pontificate in my response to Margaret's post:

It's a mysterious and (hopefully) fertile anomaly that the titular head of a Christian confession automatically becomes a world leader, entitled to visibility and influence in an otherwise severely secular and often ruthlessly pragmatic circle. By design, Providence, or both, John Paul II became a hugely important figure on the global stage in his own time. He created and exploited disequilibrium in Eastern Europe on a mass scale. What I hope for Francis is that he will create and exploit disequilibrium in a more specific realm: the "world leaders" themselves, in how they envision leadership, the image of leader, the "God-bearing" quality inherent in spiritually grounded leadership. By helping them, consciously or unconsciously, "confront the gap between their espoused values and lived values," he might help accomplish a shift that is just as important as adoption of this or that policy.

Source: BBC, "Is the Pope a Communist?"

As a role model and idealistic provocateur, Francis definitely succeeded. His political critics on the right ("He's a communist!") may not have realized how rooted Francis was in longstanding Catholic social teaching, but what gave his position added credibility were the ways he consistently advocated and modeled care for people in poverty and distress, for the earth, and for peace. He was criticized by progressives for not changing doctrines sufficiently, but he had the gift of forming friendships across all sorts of social, cultural, and theological differences, in full view of his critics and skeptics.

This consistency, and the creative (and sometimes humorous) ways it was shown, ministered directly to my own struggle against cynicism. It's harder to say whether all of this made an impact on his peers among world leaders. Now, in the wake of his death, the presidents and potentates of the world are praising him, but few of them seemed to try to meet his standard in their own lives and careers. (If I'm forgetting about someone, please correct me!) Even so, his example proved that it was possible. And in the meantime, his inspiration lit up the lives and efforts of many mystics, philosophers, and activists worldwide who might otherwise have been subdued by cynicism.

Pope Francis was sometimes criticized for not taking a stronger pro-Ukrainian stance after Russia's full-scale invasion. However, one powerful incident for me was his challenge to the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Kirill, as told in this article by CNN's Delia Gallagher.

In one of my posts about the strange popularity of hell among some Christians, I compared Grayson Gilbert's God and the Pope's God.... God's sweet revenge.

Many world leaders are showing up on Saturday for the funeral of Pope Francis. As Harriet Sherwood (the Guardian) points out, from a diplomatic point of view, there may be both risks and opportunities.

Diana Butler Bass on Francis, his amazing final sermon, and the stakes in choosing his successor.

Ashley Wilcox, A.L.S., and her very particular path to marriage. A powerful article.

Could Lamorna Ash become a Christian in a year? (I was intrigued enough to pre-order her book.)

Nancy Thomas, her leftover chicken gumbo, and her hidden inner critic. (I really would like to pre-order her book. Watch this space!)

This afternoon, Judy and I went to St. Olave's Church on Hart Street, about a fifteen-minute walk from here, for today's lunchtime recital. The musicians were the Quartet Concrète. The first work they performed was Bach's "Komm, süßer Tod, komm selge Ruh" (Come, sweet death, come, blessed rest). I couldn't find a video of this quartet performing that piece, so the video below is another arrangement altogether. (Here's the quartet in a different recital; they're good!)

I'm including the video below in memory of Pope Francis, although I don't think the lyrics to "Komm, süßer Tod" exactly match his outgoing personality. ("For I am weary of the world...."—I don't think so.) His death reminds me more of the way he sometimes went to sleep while praying, because it is good to fall asleep in the arms of God.

17 April 2025

Malice in Wonderland, part two

Portland, Oregon, USA, April 5.

"I give you a new commandment, to
love one another."

On this Maundy Thursday, the liturgical Christian calendar reminds us of Jesus' final meal with his disciples, and his instructions to them—to love and serve one another.

On the very next day, soldiers of the occupying power executed him—but not before they took the opportunity to mock him and beat him.

Which of these behaviors—the conduct and instructions of Jesus, or the treatment he received at the hands of the occupying power—more closely resemble the behavior of the Christian nationalists now enjoying power in the USA?

As I tried to understand what was happening to my adopted country, the USA, in the hours and days after the new president's inauguration, I proposed the metaphor of being under occupation. Despite the "MAGA" slogan, there is practically nothing recognizably American about the ruthless and vindictive actions of the highest officials of the land, the demands for absolute loyalty to the nation's new monarch, or the spinelessness of most members of our legislature, all of whom have promised with straight faces to defend the Constitution they're all in the process of shredding. In a word, they are occupiers.

The scandal over the renditions of ICE detainees to Venezuela and El Salvador is just one of a whole list of unconstitutional transgressions and abuses of power committed by this administration, some of which will have terrible effects on the impartial management of the Justice Department and the courts, on public health research, on the USA's ability to attract international talent, on our credibility throughout the world. But our leaders' capacity for cruelty has been made particularly vivid by the case of Kilmar Ábrego García as well as the others on those early deportation flights to captivity in El Salvador—flights that had clearly been arranged to avoid judicial intervention.

(And now we are not even granted the certainty that Ábrego García is alive and well. [However, UPDATE.])

It's not just the bizarre contortions that government lawyers and spokespeople have to go through to avoid taking responsibility. The total lack of enthusiasm for making amends is mindblowing. What is even more shocking (and more powerful as proof that our country is slipping away) is summed up in the words "gleeful cruelty."

I don't know how long this term has been circulating, but I first came across it in an article in The Atlantic by Charlie Warzel, "The Gleeful Cruelty of the White House X Account." After reviewing several cases of conspicuous online glee, Warzel continues,

The White House is after something more than just shock value. It’s propaganda, and Trump’s allies are learning the playbook. This week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a video on X from a prison in El Salvador where deported immigrants are being held. Behind Noem are dozens of men in one jail cell, many shirtless with tattoos; their heads have all been shaved during intake. The prisoners are props, a backdrop for Noem’s message of intimidation to undocumented immigrants: “If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison.” Like the ASMR post or the Ghibli cartoon, the implication is that these deportees are utterly undeserving of any shred of human dignity. There are many other examples, such as FBI Director Kash Patel’s recent posts, one of which features him walking around in camouflage, set to rock music, as FBI agents blow open doors with explosives. Taken together, the posts offer a bracing but useful insight into how the administration sees itself, and the message of casual cruelty and overwhelming force it wants to project to the rest of the world.

Looking back at the first principles I proposed back in November, are they adequate for this era of flagrant and gleeful cruelty? I still feel strongly about not dividing our country into pro- and anti-Trump populations, and resisting the degradation of civil discourse. What other disciplines and practices should we consider? For myself, I'm constantly drawn back to Jesus, who was himself mocked and whipped before being crucified. What can we say to those who proclaim faith in Jesus even as they mock and whip others and look to their MAGA audiences for approval? The case for actual evangelism seems more urgent than ever.

Malice in Wonderland, part one.

On false witnessing and mocking Jesus.

Catholics connecting the dots: Holy Week and deportees.

Britain Yearly Meeting's Truth and Integrity Group is facilitating a global online meeting for worship on April 22 at 9 a.m. and again on April 24 at 7 p.m. (British Summer Time).

Timothy Snyder: resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Ábrego García case is evidence that the USA is crossing the line into state terror.

Kristin Du Mez: courage really is contagious.

Gordon Haber interviews Jerome Copulsky on the history of efforts toward a "specifically Christian state" in the USA.

On "...Living Together in the Life and Power of God." Earlham School of Religion presents Colin Saxton in the 2025 Perkins Family Lecture Series. April 23 at 7 p.m. Eastern time, online and in person at ESR.

Mahalia Jackson with an important query.

10 April 2025

What I know for certain

Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (played by Ralph Fiennes) giving his homily on certainty in the film Conclave. Screenshot from source.

Conclave's fictional Cardinal Lawrence, addressing his fellow cardinals as they prepare to elect a new pope, warns them of a dangerous attitude: certainty.

There is one sin which I have come to fear above all others: certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. … Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery and, therefore, no need for faith. Let us pray that God grants us a pope who doubts. [Source.]

I don't totally agree. A personal sense of certainty can be a source of strength and courage. A few years ago, in a blog post inspired by Chris Hedges' When Atheism Becomes Religion, I made a distinction between personal certainty, on the one hand, and assertions of certainty in the social arena—particularly as categorical and coercive action.

I also admitted that ...

Certainty is a slippery quality. In my experience, it comes and goes—and returns. More importantly, it is relational rather than operational: I can be certain that God wants the best for you and me, and that God will be with you and me as we work for that best, but I'm hardly ever certain about what concrete steps to take next. For that decision, I need a mix of intuition, prayer, plain secular fact-checking, the wisdom of others, and a willingness to risk being wrong.

In the film Conclave, part of the context of Lawrence's homily on certainty is his understanding that the late pope, toward his end, had doubts—not about God, but about the church. It is institutionalized certainty that is the greater danger, and the cardinals would be wise to choose a pope who understands this.

This balancing act between personal certainty and socio-political uncertainty seems to me to be the way God set things up in the first place. I'm recalling the words of Anthony Bloom on God's powerlessness that I've quoted several times before. The context: In response to an interviewer's question, Bloom is commenting on the history of church/state relationships in Russia.

No party at all should be able to claim the Church as its own, but at the same time the Church is not non-party, or above parties. She must be the voice of a conscience illuminated by the Light of God. In the ideal state, the Church must be in a condition to speak to any party, any movement: "This is worthy of humanity and of God, and that is not." Of course, this can be done from either of two positions: either from a position of strength, or from a position of complete helplessness. It seems to me—and I'm deeply convinced of this—that the Church must never speak from a position of strength. The Church must not be one of the powers operating in this or that government; she must be, if you like, just as powerless as God, Who does not coerce, Who only calls us and reveals the beauty and truth of things, but doesn't enforce them on us; Who, similarly to the way our consciences work, points out the truth, but leaves us free to listen to truth and beauty—or to refuse them. It seems to me that this is how the Church should be. If the Church takes its place among those organizations that have power, that are able to force and direct events, then there will always be the risk that she would find power desirable; and as soon as the Church begins to dominate, she loses the most profound thing, the love of God, and an understanding of those who need salvation rather than the works of destruction and rebuilding.

(A lengthier extract is here, toward the end.)

For me, it follows that the work of evangelism is to encourage and draw out people's capacity to respond to God's call, God's offer of relationship, which would be reflected in our own offer of relationship, and our truthful testimony of how we have experienced that relationship in our faith community. This work does not depend on a convincing string of logical propositions, because no such string exists objectively apart from relationship. Just as with the turtles, it's relationships all the way down.

Photo: Judy Maurer, April 5.

Maybe God could have designed a more internally consistent and self-interpreting Bible and left manuscripts for it in perfect condition. Maybe God could have given us the ideal template for church government, along with sinless leaders to occupy perfectly-designed roles. And maybe God could have intervened more frequently and forcefully when we humans treated each other with gleeful cruelty. But as Eugene Peterson commented on the "nearly unrelieved mayhem" of the Book of Judges,

Twice in Judges (17:6 and 21:25) there is the telling refrain: “At that time there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing.” But we readers know that there was a king in Israel: God was king. And so, while the lack of an earthly king accounts for the moral and political anarchy, the presence of the sovereign God, however obscurely realized, means that the reality of the kingdom is never in doubt.

However strong our faith, no human being ever has the whole picture—and we just make things worse when we pretend otherwise. God has, for reasons that may always remain obscure, chosen to fulfill the promises of God through us and our fractious, fragile communities. In the short run, even if our faith is strong, failure is an option, but then we dust each other off and once again wait for God's pull on our hearts. The next steps might not be clear all at once, and we may disagree any number of ways. But the certainty of God's love shared among us motivates us to keep praying for unity, discernment, perspective, and courage. There are no shortcuts; weaponized certainty and coercion are just dead ends.

Tim Gee with more on the police raid on Westminster Friends' meetinghouse.

Tom Gates considers the Rwandan genocide of 1994, "...one of recent history’s most extraordinary cases of mass scapegoating."

David Roberts speaks to Spokane Friends on the dark side of community.

Have you seen the second season of the television drama Severance? Beth Felker Jones gives us a theological commentary. (Spoilers. I have just started watching the second season, so I didn't read her commentary to the end....)

Jeff Sharlet and the eroticization of cruelty: what did we see when Kristi Noem went to El Salvador?

My favorite Canadian blues guitarist, "The Ice Queen," Sue Foley.