More occupation shorts

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement-branded GMC SUV, left, and an ICE-branded Ford pickup are parked at the Capitol on Aug. 13. [Note the "DEFEND THE HOMELAND" tagline.] (Andrew Leyden/Getty Images via Washington Post; trimmed.)

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I'm sure you have more and better sources than this blog to keep up with the chronicle of malice, corruption, and ineptitude that is the USA's current presidential administration. But every once in a while, I want to note, for the record, how utterly bizarre it all is. And it's not just bizarre exhibitionism—you already know that real people are in constant danger, whether they are immigrants and children of immigrants, or targets of Russian guided bombs and drones, or in need of food, health care, shelter, and a safe environment. I'm not even counting those who had once experienced American care through USAID before being cut off by MAGA fiat.

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For me, today's trigger (not the most serious piece of news, but maybe the most ... spiritually symptomatic?) ... was this article in the Washington Post, concerning an urgent government purchase:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to spend millions of dollars on SUVs and custom, gold-detailed vehicle wraps emblazoned with the words “DEFEND THE HOMELAND,” according to a contractor’s social media post and records that describe the decked-out fleet as urgently needed in President Donald Trump’s stated mission to improve safety on the streets of the District.

Screenshot from a Homeland Security video on X.

As the article notes, these purchases and decoration orders are not being made through competitive bids. But what really triggered my "occupation" nerves was the following detail. In addition to the vehicles for use in D.C., some specific purchases were made to enhance the image of ICE for recruitment purposes. Here's a quote from the end of the article:

The vehicles the agency proposed purchasing include two Ford Raptors, two GMC Yukon AT4s and two Ford Mustang GTs. ICE wrote in the documents that the Mustangs were “an immediate request by the White House, on Thursday August 7, 2025.” The Mustangs — which are set to cost $121,450 — will aid in recruitment “by serving as a bold, high-performance symbol of innovation, strength and modern federal service,” the documents say.

It all reminded me of the connections Kristin Du Mez has been making for years. For example:

My own research on masculinity focuses on just one facet of the evangelical worldview—but a foundational one. In many ways, gender provides the glue that holds together their larger ideological framework. For years I’ve been tracing evangelicals’ embrace of increasingly militaristic constructions of masculinity, which go hand in hand with visions of the nation as vulnerable and in need of defense.

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Earlier this year, I wrote a couple of posts about the Christian movement that is animating much of MAGA leadership: Are we agents of Lucifer? and Enthusiasm and politics.

Given the depth of religious enthusiasm displayed by these apostles and prophets, I can't help wondering whether they pray for the people they're arresting, deporting, and rendering with wild abandon. I tried putting variously worded questions to Google, along the lines of "Do dominionists pray for the people they arrest?" " Do MAGA Christians pray for immigrants?" Google's AI provides the vaguest of answers, mostly "it depends," with no examples.

I used the specific name of Sean Feucht with one of these questions, and found his prayer for Los Angeles on Facebook, with a fascinating string of comments. One specific prayer struck me right away, but it wasn't Sean's:

We pray God that your mercy comes upon those suffering from massive deportation and family separation, even though they have done nothing deserving of deportation. May your grace touch the hearts of those encouraging hate against immigrants, and turn them into a loving and caring heart....

Google also told me that Feucht has worked on behalf of refugees in the past, so this evident militancy may be part of his more recent MAGA profile.

Signe Wilkinson.

In any case, "What does the Bible say about refugees and immigrants?" The Bible makes no distinction based on what documents the immigrant is holding, but just in case that is the issue, the awkward truth is that Congress has been resisting immigration reform and providing adequate judicial resources for immigrants and asylum seekers for years—not just under Trump.

(One specific border-crossing incident in the Bible fascinates me: the visit of the three wise men to the baby Jesus. See Matthew 2:1-12. They came from abroad to follow the star to Bethlehem, and then defied King Herod by returning home without reporting to him.)

Finally, our Christian MAGA politicians should take note that many (most?) of those being arrested, deported, or rendered may be their Christian brothers and sisters. N.B. When Christians abuse power and mistreat non-Christians, it is just as awful as mistreatment of Christians! Maybe worse, since its gleeful and gratuitous cruelty compromises the reputation of the Gospel. Be warned!

See John Woolman's Journal, page 128. (Click link to chapter XII in table of contents.)

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Under occupation

Occupation shorts

Occupation: Myrtle Wright's experience

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Christian refugees caught in the crosshairs of U.S. immigration policy.

Litigation Tracker. When I mentioned this resource back in February, it was tracking 37 cases against Trump administration actions. Now it's tracking 381.

Judge Fred Biery rules against the Texas Ten Commandments law. (A side note: why aren't these Christian activists campaigning for the Beatitudes? Is it their deep interfaith sensitivity?)

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Is there a religious resurgence among members of Gen Z? Data may actually show a growing divergence between men and women.

George Orwell's son writes about his parents' collaboration on Animal Farm, and on why they had a hard time finding a publisher. (Anna Funder's fascinating book Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life may add some less flattering details to the picture of Orwell as husband and collaborator.)

What a small church in North Carolina did with its real estate, to the possible benefit of affordable housing in its area.

Nancy Thomas remembers an extraordinary, even life-shaping, vision.

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Kid Ramos with two late greats, Henry Gray and Lynwood Slim.

"Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace"

William F. Buckley (Firing Line) interviews prominent atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, 1971. Screenshot from source. Also see "Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That We Need Not Fear the Religious Right," 1993.

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The U.S. president, on February 6 of this year, ordered the creation of a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. The first two paragraphs of Section 1 of his order gave the legal underpinnings for this task force's mission, then went on to say, "Yet the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses." The first impression left on me by this order is not the voice or reflection of Jesus; it is venom toward the previous administration, laced with false witness.

Aside from the merits, or lack of merits, of these cases of "targeting peaceful Christians," the most glaring problem with the president's decree is that anti-Christian bias is the only sort of bias to be "eradicated." There are no mentions of other faiths (except possibly in Section 3iii and 3iv, but even there, nothing explicit).

A first report from the Task Force was due no later than 120 days after the order, but I've seen nothing that purports to be this initial report on its work. Instead, the Justice Department organized a Task Force hearing on April 22, with three witnesses complaining about their treatment during the Biden administration. The Baptist News Web site summed it up: "‘Anti-Christian bias’ task force focuses solely on grievances of evangelicals." (More commentary on The Convocation Unscripted.)

With this background, you might forgive me for some initial skepticism about the more recent "Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace" memorandum issued by Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. federal government's Office of Personnel Management. Indeed, the first paragraph includes what seems nowadays to be an obligatory tribute to the president's leadership on the issue.

News coverage of the memorandum reflected this crediting of Donald Trump as the inspiration for the policy. (CNN headline: "Trump administration allows federal workers to promote religious beliefs.") However, beyond that nod, the memorandum seems moderate and defensible, and the examples of items that federal workers are allowed to wear or display go beyond specifically Christian symbolism. The guidance seems to protect faith expressions in general. It also places limits on those expressions: reserve work hours for actual work, and don't try to persuade anyone of your beliefs when they've asked you to stop. Also, "Title VII does not cover all beliefs. For example, social, political, or economic philosophies, and mere personal preferences, are not 'religious' beliefs within the meaning of the statute."

Wearing religious jewelry, having a Bible or rosary on your desk, or a religious poster on your wall, may seem a bit aggressive in a U.S. culture that privatizes religion and frequently treats it as some kind of inadequacy. However, whenever two human beings have business with each other and no prior ties, there are always risks involved, as well as (we hope) mutually beneficial rewards. It would seem like a sad—and impractical—accommodation to those risks if we end up expecting all public servants to adopt a bland exterior that reveals nothing of their individuality, personality, and values. What we can expect is that they treat us with the same fairness as the director of the Office of Personnel Management expects their co-workers and us to treat them.

Other familiar conflicts can arise when someone decides to take offense at a religious expression. I remember a U.S. Supreme Court case I wrote about here, Town of Greece v Galloway, where I agreed with the majority that the town was within its rights to allow religion-specific prayers at its legislative functions. But I had another priority as well. (Quoting myself!)...

But in any case, I think it is time to challenge the idea that being offended is, without evidence of actual coercion, a trump card in political discourse. If you are offended by someone else's religious speech, maybe managing your feelings rather than suing for relief is part of the price you pay for being in a country where there is religious freedom for the local majority as well as the local minority.

Maybe you're thinking, "OK, Johan, that's easy for you to say; you're too often in the majority; you don't know what it's like to be in the minority." And you're probably right. But you might be surprised by how easy it is to offend me. Just say "Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists." Call me an anti-Semite for criticizing Israeli apartheid. Put a Hitler moustache on a picture of Obama. Tell me I shouldn't say "Merry Christmas." Label Quakers as "heretics" or evangelical Christians as "theologically bankrupt" as people have done to my face. I keep having to remind myself what a therapist once told me: "People have a right to be wrong."

Back to the case at hand, Scott Kupor's memorandum. It has two major gaps, to my mind. 

First: what about people who don't identify with any religious faith? Could atheist federal workers have on their desk, for example, a clearly visible copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian? 

Are atheists and agnostics covered by this policy in the memorandum's second section? ... 

Employees may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature.

Consistency would require attempts to persuade others of, say, Bertrand Russell's viewpoint as equally protected, but I'm not sure that was contemplated in preparing this policy.

The second gap: the policy is naive regarding the power differentials involved, both between supervisor and employee, and between the employee and citizens requiring a service. It is not hard to come up with a hypothetical.... In a federal employee's office, would a picture of Trump at his desk with Jesus standing behind him, hand on Trump's shoulder, be just this side of coercive? Would a plaque quoting "Those who curse their mother or their father shall be put to death, Exodus 21:17" in majestic calligraphy be a bit over the line? Would that one be okay in the Department of Transportation but not in the Department of Justice? The subordinate or client who would be tempted to argue in more equitable circumstances could well decide, "I'll stuff my feelings rather than argue and lose my access to the services I need." Is that acceptable? But on the other hand, would the cost of preventing outliers smother the more general freedom Kupor's policy is designed to protect?

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I'm always puzzled by some Christians insisting on what can come across as in-your-face religiosity, which seems far more likely to repel than attract. Just because your favorite Christian celebrity, or Scott Kupor, or Pam Bondi says you can make your affiliation obvious in your workplace doesn't mean that it actually serves the cause of evangelism. Here's a passage from a former atheist who became an advocate for "permission evangelism." ...

Many times in my life, actually most of my life, when people tried to evangelize me, it caused more harm than good. Many of the scars I carried through my life that kept me away from seeking truth in God were delivered at the hands of well-meaning Christians. They had no idea who I was or what I was seeking, but they interrupted me and tried to force their beliefs down my throat. I've never bought a product that way, and sure wasn't apt to buy God that way. If going to church subjected me to hundreds of those kind of people, I definitely wasn't headed there. Like much of today's society, I chose not to be come assumptive and insensitive, so I incorrectly chose not to be a Christian.

The very next day after I accepted Christ, I prayed that God would never allow me to forget what it was like to live a life without knowing Him. I asked for the emotions and experiences to remain present with me so that I could always relate to non-Christians, forever remaining empathetic. I have prayed that prayer numerous times in my life, and God has always honored that request. Now I was given the insight to use the heart God had provided to be as effective as possible. It is exciting to use the methods of the world to reach the world, yet see eternal results.

The purpose of permission in evangelism is to create trust, get around the legal and social barriers to discussing your faith, and most importantly, to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit in someone's life. ... Evangelism, when asked to tell someone about Jesus, is easy and resembles giving an answer for the hope that you have, rather than forcing an answer on a person yet to ask a question.

— Michael L. Simpson, Permission Evangelism: When to Talk, When to Walk.

Note to Quakers: If your reading tastes were formed by the likes of Thomas Kelly and Caroline Stephen, Michael Simpson's book might come across as cliche-ridden and glib. (Who wouldn't?!) Give him a chance! I believe his insights, suggestions, and his reframing of marketing in the service of ethical evangelism, are valid, or at least worth putting into the mix. If we actually care to help our communities be more accessible, and spread the message of grace to heal the wounds left by white Christian nationalism, and the resulting cynicism we have to contend with, his book might be very helpful.

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Elizabeth Bruenig in The Atlantic: Who counts as Christian?

Adria Gulizia: Spirit-led evangelism.

Jade Rockwell in Friends Journal: Risking Faithfulness: Quietism and experimentation in unquiet times.

Early Friends were led to start our movement as a way to recover a wayward Christianity that they felt had taken too many wrong turns for it to be reformed from within the existing churches. But despite the inspiration of early Friends, it is the Quietist period that I think in many ways has most shaped the beliefs and practices that we cling to in our meetings and churches.

Windy Cooler: Angela Hopkins tells the truth about the hidden costs of ministry.

Israeli author David Grossman now "can't help" using the term genocide.

Racism: an informal five-question survey.

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McKinley James with his own song, "This Is the Last Time."

Why evangelicals should like CRT

 Our home (red marker) in my high school years, and our "nice" neighborhood. Source.

At the end of 1968, when we were still living in our apartment near one of Evanston's tacit racial boundaries (the city of Evanston is located on Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago, USA), my mother received $25,000 from her parents in Germany—enough at the time for a substantial down payment on a house. On July 26, 1969, we as a family went to a real estate office, accompanied by one of my father's colleagues, to begin house-hunting.

I don't know how much I was supposed to hear in the conversations among the adults, but I distinctly remember my mother making it clear that she intended to live in a white neighborhood. No problem, the agent said; the neighborhood we were considering would be perfect. I distinctly remember the words "nice people."

My mother didn't mention that her daughter Ellen was at that moment incarcerated in Chicago's juvenile jail, the Audy Home. My 1969 diary chronicles many of Ellen's run-ins with the law, as well as the general mayhem that transpired in our home on a near-daily basis. In between White Sox scores, Project Apollo coverage, and lists of unfinished homework, I regularly reported on the epic fights between my parents, some of which involved food being thrown about the kitchen and dining room. On one memorable occasion, my father threw my sister's copy of the Walker Report at me.

Obviously, we would fit right into a neighborhood of "nice people."

These are the memories that came back to me when I was reading Michael Gerson's op-ed, "I'm a conservative who believes systemic racism is real." His version of my story goes like this:

I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood of a middle-class suburb in a Midwestern city. I went to a middle-class high school, with middle-class friends, eating middle-class fried bologna sandwiches. And for most of my upbringing, this seemed not only normal but normative. I assumed this was a typical American childhood.

Only later did I begin to see that my normality was actually a social construction. By the time I was growing up in the 1970s, St. Louis no longer had legal segregation. But my suburb, my neighborhood and my private high school were all outcomes of White flight. The systems of policing, zoning and education I grew up with had been created to ensure one result: to keep certain communities safe, orderly and pale.

We're not just talking about the right to buy property among one or another group of nice people. Here's how the U.S. president, Lyndon Johnson, described how systemic racism sabotaged the basic right to vote, in his post-Selma speech to the U.S. Congress in 1965:

There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes. Every device of which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny this right. The Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or the hour is late, or the official in charge is absent. And if he persists, and if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name or because he abbreviated a word on the application. And if he manages to fill out an application, he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of whether he passes this test. He may be asked to recite the entire Constitution, or explain the most complex provisions of State law. And even a college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write.

For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin. Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books—and I have helped to put three of them there—can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.

What was blatant in 1965 Mississippi may have been comparatively latent in middle-class suburban Chicago or St. Louis, but (here's the crucial point) the phenomenon of racism doesn't depend on the existence, disappearance, or conversion of individual racists. For a well-meaning white person to proclaim their own color-blindness misses the point.

[Related: Seeking to justify myself.]

Critical race theory, for example, is not a way to charge every white person with being racist. It is simply an analytical tool to help us go deeper, to explore why our neighbors continue to feel the effects of embedded racism, even if we personally do not. Is it the only tool? Probably not, but I cite it here because it is under such concentrated attack that, even if you are a loyal Fox News viewer, you must wonder sometimes how such a malignant danger could have struck such deep roots into mild-mannered legal scholars and sociologists! Isn't it possible that someone or something is benefitting from convincing you to distrust CRT? Are those critics of CRT describing something that its advocates are not actually advancing?

From an evangelical viewpoint, here are some ideas about that "someone or something."

First of all: Black people—and Black Lives Matter activists of all colors—are our neighbors, too! To many of them/us, the idea that our lives have all been made poorer by racism's long-time, persistent power to warp our laws and institutions is not new, and it's not rocket science. Don't we owe it to our neighbors to see if their perceptions are correct, and if they are, to work alongside them to confront this power? To reiterate this crucial point, the purpose is not to tag or shame anyone, because the problem is systemic, it weakens the whole community, and our individual virtue is totally beside the point.

Critical race theory is, by definition, unable to "essentialize race" for the purpose of condemning all white people, as some have charged, because CRT denies the objective, biological basis of race in the first place. Instead of encouraging us to look at people and judge them for their skin color, the tool helps us discover the systemic, embedded effects of looking at people that way.

Michael Gerson argues that studying systemic racism is consistent with conservatism because...

For me, part of being a conservative means taking history seriously. We do not, as Tom Paine foolishly claimed, “have it in our power to begin the world over again.” We live in an imperfect world we did not create and have duties that flow from our story.

There is an important moral distinction between “guilt” and “responsibility.” It is not useful, and perhaps not fair, to say that most White people are guilty of creating social systems shaped by white supremacy. But they do have a responsibility as citizens, and as moral creatures, to seek a society where equal opportunity is a reality for all.

Rather than slander the methods used to expose and explain the lack of equal opportunity, wouldn't it make sense to put that passion and urgency into questioning why that lack persists? After all, we have at our disposal the tools of "systemic anti-racism," as Gerson says. "We have documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the 14th Amendment—that call us to our better selves.... The response to systemic racism is the determined, systematic application of our highest ideals."

Evangelicals are the last people who should be shocked that sin has embedded itself in our laws and institutions. In an earlier post on perpetual war and biblical realism, I pointed out that "Biblical realism allows us to confront perpetual war by reminding us that the hearts of nations as well as individuals are inclined toward deceit, and the Bible doesn't make an exception for us." The same goes for all forms of socially embedded sin. Ecclesiastes gives us a vivid example: "If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still." (Ecclesiastes 5:8.)

Given its origins, persistence, and ability to confuse, confound, and stir up useless controversy, I personally have no doubt that racism has a demonic stronghold in the USA. All of us who believe in the nonviolent Lamb's War against the powers and principalities and forces of evil in high places can play a role in tearing down this stronghold:

• We can reject false allegations about the tools and methods at our disposal, including CRT for those led to use it. We can courteously remind our alarmed neighbors that the Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, not Fox News.
• We can also confront the misuse of those tools, their exploitation to shame people for political purposes, or the temptation to idolize the tools instead of keeping our eyes on the prize.
• We can create and maintain multiracial communities of struggle that, by their very existence, subvert the myths of racism.
• If we are far from the obvious centers of struggle, we can still participate by prayer, study, correspondence, making judicious contributions.

If by our faithful struggle we begin tearing down the stronghold of racism, chances are we will also be well on the way to healing the polarizations that threaten to tear us apart. Those polarizations distract us from focusing on our common dangers—and I'm realist enough to believe that this is no accident.

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Robert P. Baird, The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea.

The idea of whiteness, in other words, was identical to the idea of white supremacy. For the three centuries that preceded the civil rights movement, this presumption was accepted at the most refined levels of culture, by people who, in other contexts, were among the most vocal advocates of human liberty and equality. ...

As though aware of their own guilty conscience, the evangelists of the religion of whiteness were always desperate to prove that it was something other than mere prejudice. Where the Bible still held sway, they bent the story of Noah’s son Ham into a divine apologia for white supremacy. When anatomy and anthropology gained prestige in the 18th and 19th centuries, they cited pseudo-scientific markers of racial difference like the cephalic index and the norma verticalis. When psychology took over in the 20th, they told themselves flattering stories about divergences.

Stuart Masters, A glimpse of heaven on earth—the roots of Quaker utopian communities.... (Russian translation of Stuart's article.)

Mark Buchanan, it's time to set some rules for talking to extraterrestrials.

How Mindy Roll came to love embodied prayer.

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My James Harman tribute continues. Today—"Payback Time" from a pandemic-shaped streaming concert last summer, with the Rhythm Scratchers. (James Harman died last month at age 74.)

Credible faith, part one

Source.  

In the sometimes tedious rhetorical duels between liberals and evangelicals, this quotation from a Church of England rector struck me as a dose of welcome sanity:

It has never been cool to go to church, but now it isn’t even really respectable. There is simply no market for a church which doesn’t really believe in God. If you’re going to take the social hit of admitting to being a Christian, you might as well actually be a Christian.

(Marcus Walker, "God's Comeback," in The Critic.)

It was Jessica Hoff's blog post "How Unbelievable?" that pointed me toward Marcus Walker's essay. Hoff and (indirectly) Walker are addressing assertions by a retired Anglican parson, David John Keighley, that the main reason for the church's decline is its hopelessly outdated theology.

“Traditional faith is dying,” he [Keighley] said. “Traditional supernatural theism is dead. A belief system that is unbelievable to a scientifically educated population, and is based on ancient, unintelligible creeds and outdated concepts, cannot remain the foundation of Christianity in the changed and developed culture of today.

Hoff observes that the generation of leaders (and maybe the attitudes?) represented by Keighley might in fact have something to do with this decline. I remember visiting a meeting in Britain Yearly Meeting during which an elderly Friend got up and preached along these same lines. I wondered, what was he thinking we would hear in his message? -- that every person of more or less orthodox faith was a plodding idiot?

I believed then, and still believe now, that whatever decline the church is suffering (and it certainly is!), this decline does not come from some stubborn church-wide insistence on superstition. There are very lively conversations going on among theologians and scientists, many of whom in the 21st century are drawing on insights ranging from biology to cosmology and quantum mechanics, all challenging the conventional boundaries between theology and science. Biblical scholars have equally fertile dialogues on the composition and ratification of the Scriptures, and sometimes even deign to tell the rest of us what they're talking about in language we can understand. Eastern and Western Christianity challenge each other's conceits, while both learn how to relate with the rest of the world's faiths, and with the atheists whom God loves as much as any of us.

The scandal that repels and expels people from the church is not its ability to express mystery and hope, nor its claim that we can have a meaningful relationship with the Creator who desired us into existence. It is our willingness to hide all that amazing stuff in the background in favor of our cutting and one-upping each other, cruelly exiling those we don't approve of, and straining all that is holy to ingratiate ourselves with the powers that be.

Source.  

As I am writing this post, the case of Bethany Christian Services, the largest evangelical adoption and foster-care agency in the USA, is riling the gatekeepers. Bethany has decided that their services will be available to gay and lesbian families, to the outrage of certain self-important leaders. I would go on about the predictable rhetoric of Albert Mohler and his allies, but you can probably already guess where I'm headed. What are those families and their extended social networks to make of Mohler's unstated implication? -- namely that these very people and the rights they've won are evidence of the nation's revolutionary choice to turn away from God.

Given this wicked, anti-evangelistic, and totally unnecessary (but utterly routine) insult to LGBTQ Christians and non-Christians alike, it's so interesting to read this observation from Marcus Walker's article:

And of the younger priests, it’s the gay ones who are often at the forefront of the battle to defend the creeds and Christian orthodoxy (if my more traditional readers can park, for a moment, their disbelief in the separation of questions of sexuality from orthodoxy). A study by the Dean of Virginia Theological Seminary showed that, across the American church, “our LGBT seminarians are not interested in a vacuous liberal theology that has no authority, no God, no Christ, and no sacraments”.

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I've spent my whole adult life as a small-e evangelical Quaker. In some Quaker settings, such as Canadian Yearly Meeting, that put me in a small theological minority. Since I loved those people who, without fail, encouraged and affirmed me along the way despite our differences, I had to think a lot about why those differences might exist.

I slowly realized that doctrines are not accepted or rejected solely on people's personal preferences or inclinations, nor yet on their having encountered, or not encountered, one or another persuasive Christian mentor, celebrity, or book. So much depends on temperament, worldview, historical accident, and countless other factors -- rendering any sort of arrogant assumption about someone else's beliefs completely out of order. What my faith told me that I owed others was a simple and honest account of what I found true about Jesus, and its ethical consequences, and about the community that gathers around him. Their response was their business; I could not hold them as emotional hostages.

These words from Hans Küng in On Being a Christian, which I first read forty-some years ago, gave me comfort, and still do:

If someone still has no idea or very little idea of what to make of the miracle of the resurrection, of the new life, but regards this Jesus as the ultimate criterion of his mortal life and finite death and thus as living, then it cannot be denied that he [sic] is a Christian. And he is different from that other person who regards Jesus' resurrection as a great miracle, but draws no conclusions from it for his own life and death.

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Credible faith, part two.

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Rachel Havrelock revisits Jericho and offers a biblical exegesis of violence in Israel and America.

The push toward Jericho culminated on January 6 in Washington, D.C. where blasts of the ram’s horn signaled their preparation “to take back America.” The night before, I recognized the battle plan to overtake the Capitol and perhaps the government, yet I could not think of whom to call with the claim that, as an expert on the book of Joshua, I knew there would be violence.

Perpetual War Department: William Astore on the U.S. military's cancel culture, or lack thereof.

No matter how poorly a major weapons system performs, no matter how much it goes over budget, no matter how long it takes to field, it almost never gets canceled. As a corollary to this, no matter how poorly a general performs in one of our twenty-first-century wars, no matter his lack of victories or failure to achieve mission objectives, he almost never gets cashiered, demoted, or even criticized. A similar thing could be said of America’s twenty-first-century wars themselves. They are disasters that simply never get canceled. They just go on and on and on.

Hello Frances Perkins. (This day in labor history.)

The Russian government's ongoing clampdown on political speech reaches Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. (In all fairness, the previous threat to RFE/RL came from the Trump administration.) Meanwhile, here's RFE/RL's update on Navalny's location.

The last idiot standing: A dream job at Mad magazine.

Shannon Brink, the reluctant missionary.

We grieve T. Vail Palmer, biblical scholar, Friends minister, and faithful student of the connections between faith and practice. To register for his memorial meeting on March 13, follow this link.

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"Good Morning Little Schoolboy" ... Tamara Zaritskaya and Ilya Giverts.

Christmas Eve -- and a country in turmoil

"Happy New Year!" Elektrostal's 2020 holiday tree on Lenin Square, with Kristall ice hockey arena in background. Source.
(Elektrostal was my home from 2007 to 2017.)

The hour of Christmas nears. I want so much to listen to the music of the season, and to enjoy our Christmas tree and its ornaments, gathered over the four decades of our marriage. But there's a discordant static in the air, generated by the friction and distress of a country in turmoil, a president unresponsive to alarm signals on all sides in favor of his obsession to remain in power, a Congress at a loss for what to do next. Maybe we could ignore all this noise, if our circumstances were happy and isolated enough that our neighbors' health and economic distress made no difference, and we could therefore wrap our gifts and play our happy Christmas music in ignorant bliss.

I doubt that simple happy bliss is your lot today, or you would not have read even this far. I'm grateful that I have some help in describing this strange moment: Elizabeth Spiers, who claims not to be religious as an adult, but grew up Southern Baptist, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post that carves up responsibility for our plight with surgical theological precision: "Mike Pence and the GOP are waging the real war on Christmas."

In case the paywall keeps you from reading this whole article, let me summarize some main points.

Her starting point was a Turning Point USA event two days ago at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, at which public Christian vice president Mike Pence was a speaker. While exhorting his audience to keep up the fight for Trump's second term (interrupted by chants of "Four more years! -- four more years!"), he warned of the dangers of what "the Democrats and the radical left want to do...." Now, nobody expects to get a fair and accurate account of Democratic policies and plans from someone like Pence, but these words struck her as revelatory: "They want to make rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable."

(I'd like to add what Pence says his side does want: to make everyone richer because "a rising tide lifts all boats." Have we actually seen this happen during these last years, when the increasing gulf between our richest and our poorest, already growing at an accelerated pace, has gained speed in COVID times?)

Spiers reveals the assumptions behind the implication that the poor must not be made more comfortable -- 

In the modern Republican version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” the Tiny Tim situation is unfortunate, but private insurance shouldn’t be obligated to cover his preexisting condition, and we certainly can’t give Mom and Dad unemployment just because they lost their jobs — they’ll have no incentive to find new work! After all, it would be grossly unfair to ask Ebenezer Scrooge, a self-made man, to pay a bit more in taxes.

Republicans don’t have to state the case for this callousness overtly because it’s articulated over and over again in policy. In Dickens, Scrooge tells the men soliciting donations for the poor that the poor can go to the workhouse or prison, and if they can’t, they can just die, and reduce the surplus population. If that sounds overly cruel, it’s worth examining GOP policies that try to force people who can’t work to do so, throw people who haven’t been found guilty of a crime into prison because they can’t afford bail or leave them to die for lack of health care. At least Scrooge is honest about his morally abhorrent end goals. Democrats want a War on Poverty; Republicans want a war on the poor. [Links in original.]

Spiers pinpoints the irony: the "war on the poor" is being waged in part by evangelical Christians, the very people whose Gospel requires aid and comfort to those who suffer -- and not just those deemed worthy of help by those with the capacity to help but held captive by their love of wealth. Jesus is quite clear that he is helped -- or rejected -- whenever we help or reject someone in distress. In the feasts of loaves and fishes, there was no means test.

Gospel values, it turns out, make sense as policy values as well. In Spiers's words,

The problem with poverty is not, as the GOP would have it, systemic laziness and bad judgment on the part of the poor. It is the condition itself, which is not conducive to human prosperity and certainly not a de facto crucible in which character is forged. Without any kind of economic safety net, poverty often perpetuates itself no matter how hard the poor struggle to alleviate it. Class mobility via the market is nearly impossible when basic needs aren’t met. Even when people can participate in the labor market — and not everyone can — they need to be able to eat and take care of themselves first. In this context, making the poor more comfortable isn’t just the morally correct position; it’s the only sustainable policy prescription for long-term mitigation of poverty.

Elizabeth Spiers allows that there are many nuances and alternatives in working out exactly what would make up a "sustainable policy prescription" -- but they don't include patronizing and self-serving platitudes claiming that helping poor people does them a disservice.

Marley's ghost; source.

She ends her column by an observation that she might not call "evangelistic," but I do. It is a call to "repent and believe the Good News," but she puts it in the context of Charles Dickens. She points out that Ebenezer Scrooge, after all, did repent and change. Are Republicans (and all of us, for that matter!) willing to do the same? 

One further point, beyond what Spiers wrote.... Another argument that Christian conservatives often use to insulate themselves from pitching in more generously to the cause of poverty reduction is that there is nothing biblical about the government aiding poor people. The Bible assigns that task to the family of faith.

It's true that the Bible asks us to be obedient to the rulers (except when they contradict God, or when God counsels disobedience), but the Bible is also utterly realistic about what rulers will demand of us, and the corruption that can ensue. Now, thanks to a revolution, we citizens of the USA have become our own rulers, with a charter (the U.S. Constitution) that makes "the general Welfare" part of our common mission as a nation. When private philanthropy cannot reach the scale necessary to comfort the poor who somehow haven't earned the Republican Party's compassion, isn't it our democratic right and duty to fulfill our common mission through governmental mechanisms of our choice and that are accountable to us?

To sharpen the point further, we are in the midst of a pandemic, our legislature has already approved emergency assistance at the very moment it needs to be in place for people whose health, or housing, or food security, might be in danger. (Apparently, our wannabe Caesar is choosing to play politics with this aid; so far he has refused to sign the bill.) Is there a biblical precedent for government assistance in crisis? The first example that comes to mind is Joseph organizing Egypt's emergency storehouses, Genesis 41:46-56.

At any rate, let's put more effort into searching for good answers to this question of our national obligation to comfort the poor, and less effort into dodging it under cover of "biblical" piety. After all, few spectacles are more harmful to the reputation of the Gospel than celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace while refusing to see him appearing among us here and now.

A PS to last week's coverage of the conflict at Earlham School of Religion: Chuck Fager tells us what he's found out. Since then, there has been an online worship-sharing among those who are concerned about these developments, to be followed this coming Monday by a strategic follow-up meeting.

Hamilton Nolan: Merry Christmas, Americans.

Margaret Fraser spirals around: "Ministry kind of creeps up on you, and it’s only by looking back that we see pieces that complete a picture."

Molly Olmstead: The USA's most famous nun, Helen Prejean, confronts death. (Part of slate.com's series on the 80 most influential Americans over 80.)

Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, in Germany for treatment for Novichok poisoning, has published a video in which he apparently pranks one of the members of the team that poisoned him with intent to kill. The video (subtitles available) -- note the number of viewers. Some of the fallout in the Russian Internet. On the one hand, this whole episode is an amazing gift (just in time for Christmas) for all those who slog away in the struggle against authoritarianism. On the other hand, what additional risks might Navalny now face upon his return home?

More from Navalny (in Russian) ... the pluses and minuses of contemporary medicine, from one who has experienced both.

Justo L. González reviews how his self-understanding as a minister, theologian, and historian has changed over his decades of service. (I reprinted one of his articles here. In that article, he comments on the "teach a man to fish" dictum which Elizabeth Spiers also mentions.)

Camas Friends Church presents our Virtual Choir:

"The devil doesn't like it but it's down in my heart."

It may be a hard and uncomfortable time to be a white Christian. But it is time for the church of Jesus Christ to sit with that discomfort–maybe even to kneel in it–knowing how much more “uncomfortable” it is to be a person of color in this country; and recognizing that the Church has played a role in the violence of inequality.
-- Rev. Erin Wathen, "Truth and Transformation: Can The Church Survive Confronting Racism?"

I attended the regular monthly meeting of Camas Friends Church's Peace and Social Concerns Committee. We had invited anyone in the church interested in our agenda to attend (via videoconference), so we had excellent participation. The agenda included questions about how to observe Juneteenth (June 19) or participate in community events dedicated to this occasion. The agenda was posted before the most recent global whirlwind caused by the extrajudicial killing of George Floyd in full view of the whole world, so the concern for wholehearted attention to racial realities was close to all our hearts.

I don't feel free to go into great public detail about what we said to each other, so I just want to make a general point: it is not easy for a majority-white church congregation to take our hunger for justice, our frustration with the world and sometimes with ourselves, and our sense of urgency, and translate all that into concrete action.

Furthermore, it is also hard to confront embedded racism in majority-white churches and meetings without inadvertently making the people of color among us seem invisible or marginal to the conversation -- or giving them the task of fixing us.

(Referring back to Erin Wathen's article, one thing that does not happen at Camas Friends Church is any complaining that we are "being too political.")

It's been my experience with race-related conversations with other white people, starting with my high school years in the late 1960's, that we're desperate for "resources." We want to know what to read or watch to educate ourselves. This can have the effect, as Lauren Michele Jackson pointed out in her visit to the Slate Culture Gabfest, of choosing great writers such as James Baldwin and Toni Morrison for their utility in our self-improvement rather than opening ourselves to a full, direct encounter with their works. Not surprisingly, books and seminars on race for anxious whites are also doing a brisk trade.

As I try to contribute to these conversations, I don't want to be preoccupied with my motives, slaloming between the hazards of self-flagellation and virtue-signalling. I want to learn how to "dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord...," and to see that beauty in all my fellow creatures made in the image and likeness of God, and share that dwelling with them, delighting in the joy of reconciliation.

And I want to know what gets in my way.

"What gets in our way" ... there's the rub! I remember Little Richard's version of "Joy In My Heart" where the second verse goes like this: "The devil doesn't like it but it's down in my heart, down in my heart...." When we look at the past, we can and should trace the destruction caused by racism, not flinching to look at the full picture, not avoiding the lament and repentance involved, not overly concerned with our own fastidiousness but acknowledging the reality of our own limitations, addictions, vested interests, denials. The devil won't like it, but here's the best part: when we turn around and look into the future, there is joy awaiting us in that dwelling place, a joy that is made complete when every system of exclusion is torn down.

Yes, that's political, but it's also biblical. Can we go there together?

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Illinois State Psychiatric Institute. Source.  

During the Christmas season of 1969, I was home alone. One sister was in the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute in Chicago; the other was in Germany with my parents, tending to my mother's parents, who were in fragile health. On Sunday, December 14, my neighbors invited me to attend the Christmas party at Evanston's enormous Protestant cathedral, the First United Methodist Church, where my neighbors introduced me to their legendary minister Dow Kirkpatrick.

The party began with a dramatic presentation on racial justice. Ten days earlier, Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark had been killed in a hail of gunfire from a combined city/county/FBI force, the official cover-up was in full swing, and emotions were high all around. The whole country was also still reeling from the My Lai Massacre revelations. I had never been to a church event of any kind before (at least not since my Lutheran baptism as an infant in Norway), so my eyes and ears were wide open. However, my hosts were twitching with impatience during the presentation. "Come on, let's get to Christmas," said one of them.

The problem is, we can't really get to Jesus without an encounter with truth.

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Reality check: Radley Balko presents his updated evidence of racial bias in the police system. (If you can't access this because of the paywall, contact me for a PDF version.)

Richard Ostling: resources for journalists trying to explain Donald Trump's Bible-brandishing photo op.

Meet the artist who painted the George Floyd murals on the Israeli separation wall.

Igor Yakovenko introduces us to "ordinary racism" in Russia, and how recent events in the USA brought it into the daylight.

Ethan Zuckerman on why video recordings of police violence are not the accountability tools we had hoped they'd be. (Thanks to Oregonlive for the link.)

The institutions that protect police officers from facing legal consequences for their actions—internal affairs divisions, civil service job protections, police unions, "reasonable fear"—work far better than the institutions that hold them responsible for abuses.

Lauren Michele Jackson asks what an anti-racist reading list is for.

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Jean-Rene Ella-Menye is back!

George Floyd, rest in peace. As for those still here ...

. . . don't expect peace too soon.

I'm writing about the death of George Floyd for no reason related to my own insights or wisdom, but only because not to write anything just feels wrong.

Why this death? Why this particular victim of an ancient and constant phenomenon? Is there any indication that the death of Floyd, the shocking scandal of the police violence that killed him, and the subsequent protests and riots, constitute a turning point? I have no answer.

So many potential "turning points" and "teachable moments," of varying degrees of seriousness but blazing diagnostic clarity, have come and gone in recent memory:

• Rodney King and the dawn of a new era: witnesses with cameras
• Jeremiah Wright (Obama's pastor)
• Henry Louis Gates, James Crowley, and the "beer summit"
• Trayvon Martin and #BlackLivesMatter
• Michael Brown and Ferguson; and Eric Garner and Ferguson II
  ... fast forward (sorrowfully; note the chronology provided here) ...
• Ahmaud Arbery
• Christian Cooper and (once again) #LivingWhileBlack

The weight of all this evidence is clear: whatever we feel about race, whatever ideals we may have, however our parents and communities of origin shaped us, our actual degree of day-to-day social safety depends too much on our racial appearance. My individual goodwill is beside the point; I'm white, so if you're black and don't know me, you're just a bit safer, statistically, to stay on your guard or avoid me altogether. What is the individual human cost of constantly living with vigilance when around people of another race? What is the cumulative human cost of so much alienation? This is the persistent reality in the USA, and in other countries as well.

On top of all the progressive political points being made (and well made) by commentators in the wake of George Floyd's death and the ongoing overflow of anger on the streets of Minneapolis, I'm most troubled by the spiritual diagnoses. Read Kyle J. Howard's "Why Do They Riot? Rioting and the Overflow of Racial Trauma," which groups together his series of tweets from earlier today Please read the whole thing. Here are some points that spoke directly to me:

6. White America does not listen to the laments of Black people unless it’s forced to. Historically speaking, white America has always waited until the black community has exploded due to its ongoing trauma & rage at injustice before they’ve been willing to act… out of fear.

7. I do not condone rioting, but I also recognize it as a part of the cycle within a society that establishes caste systems. People who wield power against others can only do so for so long before those under the oppression explode. Power is rarely ever willfully relinquished.

Freedom Riders, 1961; source.  

8. It doesn’t have to be this way. Black and white people COULD come together and make a stand against the Kingdom of Darkness and the racialized oppression it has promoted within our world. It will not happen unless there are white people willing to count the very real cost.

Of course, being white, I noticed point 8 right away, and being a Christian, I could not miss theologian Kyle Howard's reference to the Kingdom of Darkness. For me, the church is the obvious laboratory and incubator to test Howard's challenge:

• The church is (or ought to be!) independent from the principalities and powers that find it convenient to divide us by race and class, and to keep us helpless in our bondage -- or worse, ignorant that this bondage even exists!
• The church is (or ought to be) a place where we regard each other as God regards us, where outward appearance and social situation take their proper place as we recognize that we are all made in the image and likeness of God.
• The church is (or ought to be) the place where it dawns on us that reconciliation with God and reconciliation with each other are inseparable. We see how important it is that we discern anything that seeks to block reconciliation -- whether it's internal attitudes or external forces -- and the freedom to disrupt that bondage.
• The church is (or ought to be) where we expect miracles and supernatural revival to honor and meet our fears, and feed us with joy. It is that joy, that hope, that trust and abandonment, that can draw spiritually hungry people together, rather than our progressive theories or white people's messiah complexes or performative self-flagellations.
• As we envision what it will take for us to "make a stand against the Kingdom of Darkness," it is (or ought to be) the church who learns how to count and share the cost.

To draw on early Quaker references, when we are new creatures in Christ, we go back through the flaming sword into the Paradise of God, where we live once again in peace and equality as helpmeets to each other. I am so hungry to hear that our meetings and churches are enjoying this quality of relationship, taking territory from Satan in the process, and breaking down strongholds of violence and objectification.

This kind of work is not going to be easy. There is plenty to do for all gifted people (and ALL are gifted!) ... from prophets and pastors to teachers and treasurers. As with every front in the Lamb's War, we know that those who temporarily seem like enemies (racist police, for example) are actually in bondage themselves -- though we still expect justice to be served. We will be saddened but not fatally shocked when yet another outrage occurs. America's territorial demon of racism has been at it for centuries, and defeating it is not the work of a day. But, as believers, it is our work.

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I was a bit nervous about using the language of spiritual warfare in this post. I actually believe that evil exists, and that its Author is our only actual enemy. All other "enemies" are fabrications designed to alienate us from each other and keep us from working for each other's liberation. Authors as diverse as Walter Wink and C. Peter Wagner have helped me understand this warfare. However, the terms of spiritual warfare have sometimes been used by right-wing Christians to demonize (!) people they oppose. For example, a subset of Donald Trump's "court evangelicals" (John Fea's term) have drawn on this language to exalt his presidency and demean his critics. This misuse of powerful spiritual language, of course, can play right into Satan's purposes.

You may not use this language as I do, or maybe not at all, but maybe you can see my overall point: the structures of objectification, oppression, and violence serve the Kingdom of Darkness -- principalities and powers and evil in high places (see Ephesians 6:11-20) -- and are not simply attributable to the designated human villains we're being told to hate.

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Related posts:

• Evangelism and enemies
• It's hard to believe in Jesus
• Evil
• Paul's shorts
• Signs, part four: revival

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Cheryl Townsend Gilkes on the killing of George Floyd: When you are kneeling, you are worshipping ... but whom? [My own contrast: the backlash against Colin Kaepernick for kneeling.]

Eugene Robinson: Black lives remain expendable.

William H. Lamar IV on the coronavirus, bad theology, and their impact on communities of color. (Thanks to Jim Fussell, via the Quaker Theology group on Facebook, for the link.)

I am a preacher. So as I dust the COVID-19 crime scene, I am ultimately in search of theological fingerprints.

What kind of God-talk makes possible a refusal to provide the universal health care that may have mitigated this crisis? What kind of God-talk makes possible a refusal to invest the money necessary to end homelessness? What kind of God-talk makes possible the racializing of criminality and poverty? What kind of God-talk gives political power to science-denying policymakers?

The answer? White evangelical God-talk. The injustices that many communities are experiencing as a result of the novel coronavirus are inextricably linked to this theology. The evidence is irrefutable.

(Are you tempted to try to refute this evidence? I am, but he's got a case. It's not exactly a purely theological case, but we see how race is embarrassingly decisive in how many evangelicals make their policy choices.)

Jonathan Aigner: Worship IS essential, but so is loving your neighbor.

Speaking of John Fea, he reports that Jerry Falwell Jr. designed his own unique COVID-19 mask.

Russians under lockdown arrange their own intricate versions of famous art masterpieces.

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This is a video I embedded here about seven years ago ... now, thanks to widespread use of videoconferencing, it looks strangely up to date! See the comments on the YouTube site to get JR's explanation of how he put the video together. (And here's a recent article about JR -- the musician/scientist, Jean-Rene Ella-Menye.)

"Our life is politics"

Alexei Navalny (light blue shirt) and Ksenia Sobchak (other end of row) debate opposition strategy on election day 2018.  Sobchak was rumored to have been approved as a candidate by Kremlin strategists who wanted to make an otherwise boring political campaign more interesting without threatening V. Putin. Source.

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Not long ago, I was one of several Americans talking with a 16-year-old Palestinian from Gaza. As she answered our questions about her family's experiences living inside that locked-down territory, she said something I'd never heard from a teenager anywhere: "How can we not talk politics? Our life is politics."

I cannot say that every teenager in Palestine would agree with her. But I checked with her to be sure she was really saying what I thought she was saying: People in her situation did not have the luxury of ignoring politics. Or to put it in contemporary terms, they did not have that privilege.

It was an interesting contrast to our experiences with young people in Russia during the years 2007-2017. In a blog post from three years ago, "Russia's YouTube generation," I reported the single most popular cliche about politics I heard over all those years: "Politics is a dirty business; it's not for me."

As I reported in that post, the anti-corruption movement in Russia had made inroads among young people, some of whom seemed undaunted by the prospect of being arrested at a demonstration. Their increased awareness seemed connected to their choice of information sources -- mostly Internet-based, in contrast to older generations' preference for broadcast television.

However, those demonstrations, startling as they were in a political scene that had seemed almost dormant, only involved a microscopic percentage of all young people in the country. Our own students were well aware of the anti-corruption movement, and talked about it without fear, but were almost uniformly skeptical about its utility. Few (if any) trusted the government, but almost nobody saw any point in public opposition.

On the Global Voices Web site, freelance writer/editor Eilish Hart just posted more recent impressions of youth participation in Russian politics. Some young people, having known no other Russian leader, are asking, "Volodya, aren't you tired?" I don't doubt that there is potential for more creative pressure from this generation, but it is not obvious how and when they will become a critical factor.

I wish I could now go back and discuss with our young Russian acquaintances what that Palestinian teenager said: "Our life is politics." Specifically, is their definition of the word "politics" the same as hers? If they could all compare understandings, how much overlap might actually exist between her viewpoint and theirs?

For example: if by politics you only mean "effective participation in an open process of choosing those who will govern us, and then choosing their replacements," neither the average Palestinian nor the average Russian is likely to get this kind of experience anytime soon.

In contrast, if "politics" means "gaining influence in choice of leaders by whatever means are available," then you filter out -- in both countries -- those who are allergic to the "dirty" reputation of politics. Those available means can include trading on family ties, buying influence, currying favor by joining the right youth groups, patriotic clubs, political parties' summer camps and seminars, and so on. That's exactly the sort of definition that many of our students assumed, but perhaps not our friend from Gaza.

Of course, neither the cleanest nor the dirtiest versions of these understandings of politics are all we have in real life. If a company builds chemical warehouses, disobeying laws and polluting the local park near a housing complex (an actual situation not far from Elektrostal), ordinary people who had always assumed that politics was not for them, might mobilize in response, and in that process might learn more about the laws, the authorities who are supposed to enforce them, the incentives that bear on those authorities, and -- ultimately -- how they can be replaced. On a national level, things might look stagnant, but there is local ferment nearly everywhere in Russia; and as the old saying goes, "All politics is local." It follows, maybe, that the most effective education for learning about politics is also local.

There's a way of understanding politics that is far more descriptive and analytical than all transaction-based descriptions -- and to my mind, far more helpful. "Politics" simply refers to the social processes by which a community allocates scarce resources. It's not just limited to the arrangements in place at the moment -- it also includes the marketplace of ideas within which we advocate fairer and more transparent processes and learn to do that advocacy more persuasively. There are few forces that can resist the power of an idea whose time has come ... thanks perhaps to years of intelligent development and persistent advocacy.

It's that kind of alertness to the forces at work and readiness to respond knowledgeably, rather than dependence on heroes and villains, that may be one important way of understanding that "our life is politics." It's a refusal to resign oneself to a passive acceptance of whatever happens, in favor of awareness of today's hazards and tomorrow's possibilities of change. The more hazards you face (e.g., Gaza!!), the more important it is to stay aware.

Christian discipleship potentially influences all these understandings of politics, but to apply discipleship to political life, we have to think systemically. If we only see politics as transactions among personalities, we will only attract and repel based on our audience's willingness to engage in those transactions -- whether they be abject loyalty at one extreme, or character assassination at the other.

Instead, we need to do the work of building ideas and visions of a biblically-shaped allocation of resources. What that actually means may not be clearly and universally understood, but those kinds of conversations, even passionate debates, can be conducted ethically, with love and respect, within a discipline that bans today's ever-popular practices of bearing false witness, name-calling, objectifying the "other," and so on. To ask what it means systemically "to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" is worth all the hard work, active listening, and mutual forbearance we put into it.

Even when we succeed in convincing more people that politics is simply a systemic process of allocating resources, not a fancy euphemism for conniving and mud-slinging, we have work to do. But we don't each have to do all of the work. We need a division of labor: we need prophets to stick their necks out for advocacy, vision, and for calling out unethical shortcuts. We need evangelists to spread the vision of a Godly rebuke to all bondages, and to invite people into the community that's building upon that vision. We need pastors to care for them all. We need teachers to do the hard work of shaping a common arena where everyone potentially knows the same things, can learn to analyze for themselves, and where none are left out. As E. Stanley Jones said, we need conservatives to protect traditional values, and liberals to expand the reach of those values. Each keeps the other honest.

Maybe all this can be done outside the Church as well. I'd like to think we have an advantage: by having Jesus as sole occupant of the center of our lives as individuals and as community, we can take risks with all other aspects of human diversity. The lion and lamb can be together, as can the liberal and conservative, the prophet and the pastor, the socialist and the capitalist, the skeptical newcomer and the weighty Quaker. Our churches and meetings can be laboratories and incubators of that capacity for systemic discernment that can start building new visions, new alliances ... new politics.

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Opportunities and dates:

Quaker Men's Gathering for the full variety of Friends in the U.S. Pacific Northwest: April 17-19 at Camp Tilikum near Newberg, Oregon.

Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference, June 24 to 28th, 2020 at Cascades Camp, Yelm, Washington.

Support the Friends International Medical Teams (and Judy!) as they take their ministry back to Bolivia, April 15-27.

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Micah Bales brings to our attention one Christian experiment in understanding politics differently.

British and Irish Quakers on Brexit.

The Trump-Netanyahu annexation plan, and what Palestinians could do.

Russia and Poland ... both guilty of distorting Holocaust history?

From "president" to "Supreme Ruler" ... some highlights of recent proposed Russian constitutional amendments.

Finally ... twelve years ago I asked myself, "Am I a political junkie?"

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Samantha Fish with Christone "Kingfish" Ingram ... another version of "I Put a Spell on You."