Can you believe?: occupation

Showing posts with label occupation. Show all posts

02 October 2025

The Bible, MAGA, and a new mission field

The 2020 census counted about 258 million adults in the USA. If about 23% of them were evangelical Protestants, that group number would number about 36 million. And, as surveys indicate, if 80% of those 36 million voted for the current president, that means 20% of them did not. That's 7.2 million evangelical Protestants who dissented one way or another from the majority choice.

Of course these estimates are rough, and there are many other Christian categories not included, but I'm intrigued by that specific minority. It may seem discouragingly small, but it's far from nothing, and as MAGA continues to pursue an aggressive anti-Christian agenda behind its thin Christian facade, might it be growing?

(If these sorts of statistics intrigue you, I recommend this and other research by the Public Religion Research Institute, along with this election study by the Pew Research Center.)

What do I mean by "thin Christian facade"? I certainly don't mean a facade that is inexpensive to produce. You can look no further than Charlie Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, and its Web site, and its YouTube channel (4.48 million subscribers) for evidence of voluminous content and high-quality production values.

What is missing? I don't see much evidence of whole-life conversion, of putting our loving Creator at the center of one's life and relationships, of "regarding" others as Paul invited us to, of loving enemies, of engaging the principalities and powers spiritually, of remembering the Matthew 25 priorities that Jesus taught, not to mention God's promise that Abraham and his descendants will bless all the nations of the earth, even as they're commanded not to mistreat or oppress foreigners/strangers/immigrants.

The facade is thin because it differs so little from all those blood-and-country mythologies that falsify history, identify danger with "the other," misuse sacred language served with hypnotic music to whip up enthusiasm, and license extreme responses.

One writer, Mitchell Sobieski, has taken the risk of inventorying these scandalous divergences from biblical faith in the form of an open letter from Jesus. (I wouldn't use this device myself, but the inventory itself is important.)

Drew Strait speaks during the Catholic Social Tradition
Conference at the University of Notre Dame in Notre
Dame, Indiana, on March 21, 2025.
(Brian Kaylor/Word&Way); source.

Another helpful commentary comes from Drew Strait, who teaches at the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary: "How to Challenge MAGA's Biblical Authoritarianism." It's a good presentation, but I'd like to expand on his apparent assumed audience, "progressive ecumenical Christians." It's urgent for some of those 7.2 million evangelicals who aren't sold out to MAGA to participate. Could some of them serve in a new mission field—an outreach to those among the 80% who might be ready, even yearning, to consider genuine good news for all nations?

I appreciated Peter Wehner's recent Atlantic article, "Fully MAGA-fied Christianity."

Politics fills the void left by faith, and it’s doing so in ways that I’ve never quite seen before. For many fundamentalists and evangelicals, politics meets the longing and the needs that aren’t being met by churches and traditional faith communities. If there is something useful that has come of the Trump era, and there’s not much, it is that it has offered a diagnostic CT scan of much of American Christianity. Trump and the MAGA movement capitalized on, and then amplified, the problems facing Christian communities, but they did not create them.

After giving us a gallery of the kinds of personalities filling that void and meeting those needs, Wehner seems, in my own mind, to be addressing the new mission field:

The churches and denominations that are not militantly MAGA but are still overwhelmingly composed of Trump supporters often get less attention than churches and denominations that are hyper-politicized, but they’re also essential to the Trump coalition. So it’s useful to understand the complex dynamic at play in those spaces.
I say complex because, every Sunday, millions of Christians attend churches that are nondenominational and that are affiliated with conservative Protestant denominations. These churches aren’t particularly political, and they are led by pastors who preach thoughtfully on topics such as loving your enemy and turning the other cheek, which Jesus talked about during his Sermon on the Mount; and on verses like this one, found in the Book of Ephesians, written by the Apostle Paul: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
The great majority of people attending these churches wouldn’t consider those verses to be woke talking points; they would view them as the inerrant word of God. They would earnestly pray that those words would sanctify their life and that they would become more like Jesus. And almost to a person, these congregants would say that Christ is at the center of their life, their “all in all.”
Yet many of them will spend part of the rest of the week, and maybe much of the rest of the week, in the right-wing echo chamber, in the company of conflict entrepreneurs, having their emotions inflamed, feeling the same way toward their enemies as Donald Trump does toward his enemies. And it will all make perfect sense to them.

How might we begin (or, more hopefully, continue) to chisel away at this "perfect sense to them," this immersive correlation of Christ, their "all in all," and Fox News? Judy Maurer wrote recently about the power of narrative and community in offering a better way. To my mind, it's an incomparably better way of experiencing the love and power of Jesus and his community between Sundays, and re-engaging in missions that really could bless the nations. Do you have useful experiences in your own community to overcome this gap between Sunday faith and daily practice?

18 September 2025

Television, censorship, and first principles

Screenshot from source.

When Judy and I were a young married couple, we had a black and white television that had been a gift from Judy's father. My most vivid memory from that TV was the final episode of M*A*S*H.

In the post-M*A*S*H era, we became very fond of the weekly courtroom comedy Night Court. In fact, on one memorable day, the black and white TV died. It was Night Court's day of the week. What to do?! Somehow in an hour or two we managed to choose and buy a new TV, drive home, hustle it into the house, and plug it in before the show began.

Our regular television diet in those years also included Star Trek: The Next Generation, Northern Exposure, and Inspector Gadget. Some part of our daily schedule was shaped around that sort of television entertainment, always tied to their fixed broadcast times. At some point, we signed up for cable TV as well. However, eventually the Internet disrupted all that. When broadband Internet became available, we explained to our kids that our family budget could allow Internet (at first, DSL on our home telephone line) or cable television, but not both. Which did they want? The Internet won.

So: it's been years since I was a regular TV viewer. The few TV shows that we still watch, separately or together, we access on streaming platforms at times we choose, and most of them have only a handful of episodes per season. Basically, regular television evenings are a thing of the past.

These last few days I've been following the controversies over the ending of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! I don't remember ever seeing full episodes of these shows or any of the other late-evening comedy/talk shows on television; I'm basically a random consumer of the clips that show up on YouTube and elsewhere, particularly Seth Meyers' "A Closer Look." When the networks and their owners claim that their traditional broadcast business model is no longer sustainable (one of the explanations for cutting Stephen Colbert), I can't contradict them. We're mostly not in their shrinking audience base.

The abrupt cutoff of Jimmy Kimmel's show, linked with his deliberately misinterpreted comments on the murder of Charlie Kirk, is being treated by many commentators as an alarm bell, even as a Reichstag fire moment. That was my first reaction as well: we've crossed a line into full-blown authoritarianism. But I have two comments that might be clarifications or diversions—you decide.

First: I agree with those connecting the dots between corporate mergers, the president's dislike of criticism, and astoundingly biased Federal Communications Commission leadership. However, I would not look to the television networks' owners (and the television stations' owners) as guarantors of the First Amendment. Certainly they should prioritize loyalty to their long-time talent above placating MAGA, but the brutal truth is that they've always been in it for the money and they will be even more so in this uncertain era. The first-amendment violation is not on those companies' side; they're entitled to broadcast, or not, whomever they want, and the once-applicable FCC fairness doctrine died nearly 40 years ago. The violation is the organized, malicious leverage wielded by the president and his gang against the "agents of Lucifer," namely those of us who now find ourselves under their occupation.

The cancellations (recent and future) of television comedians aren't the Reichstag fire, but they're arguably part of the smoke. The emergency has already happened: the wholesale appointment of unqualified executive-branch and "independent"-agency top managers who are bought and paid for by MAGA; the slashing of safety-net programs and the abandonment of balanced budgeting (including the idea of rational revenue increases) in favor of tax benefits for the wealthiest; encroachments on the constitutional roles of courts and Congress; willful and dangerous denial of climate change; the reversal of years of hard-won progress in racial justice; and a police-state approach to urban crime and immigration enforcement—all happening at a pace that threatens to overwhelm all our civic and constitutional guardrails.

Second (at the risk of introducing a tangent): The political content delivered by the late-evening comedians on Trump's hate list doesn't exactly conform to the first principles I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, and that I committed myself to after Trump's victories (first, second). Often those comedians rudely ridicule and mock and taunt their MAGA targets, making full use of tightly edited video clips and graphics. No pratfall captured by a camera goes to waste. Nobody is fooled; these performers are quite up front in what they're doing. It can be a very seductive comfort to see our political opponents, some of whom are themselves past masters at political insult and able to hide behind the impunity of high office, get a taste of their own medicine.

Don't get me wrong; their biting humor, whatever my doubts about fairness and good taste, is protected speech under any interpretation of the First Amendment, and this brand of political rhetoric has ancient traditions. But what does a steady diet of these commentaries do to our (my) ability to regard these opponents as made in the image and likeness of God?

That blog post of mine from two weeks ago drew these comments from Ken Rubesh on Facebook, who gave me permission to repost them here:

We must ourselves not fall into the same mind as the ones we despise. We must ourselves avoid the three sins of politics.

Impugn the motives of your adversary: To dispute policy or disagree on substantive issues is what politics should be about. To react to a disagreement by always calling your opponent a liar is to assume motive that you, most often, have no right to do. It is to disregard good faith on any discussion and arrogantly assumes your own purity at the expense of others. If we are to get anywhere in our political discourse, we must first assume that all arguments are from good faith and not intentionally intended to deceive, however misguided they may be.
Speak in vitriolic/glistening generalities: Powerful generalities incite the emotions with no substance. They are the lazy way to engage politically. They are intentionally hard to contradict because they have no grounding with which reason against. They make huge assumptions that are not evidenced by facts.
God is on my side: To claim the moral and religious high ground in a secular society is not only unfair but presumptuous. ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’ not only supports taxes for the common good but presumes the right to a secular, unbiased government while respecting all religious views. To take on Politics as a moral and religious cause is to invite Cultism and allegiance to a person rather than principle.

Just one additional comment from me: to resist is not to despise. Resistance that has integrity always grants the humanity of the opponent. Even with heightened vigilance for danger, resistance seeks openings for communication, hoping to address together these overriding questions: What are the specific blessings you and we would like to see for our country and our world as a whole? Whom do we not wish to bless, and why?

David Van Reybrouck in the Guardian: "We must not let the shooting of Charlie Kirk become Trump's Reichstag fire."

Lili Loofbourow in the Washington Post: "Kimmel’s suspension confirms what many suspected after Colbert’s cancellation: Media companies must punish Trump critics if they want their mega-mergers approved."

William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove provide some moral context for responding to Charlie Kirk's death and its aftermath.

Meanwhile, in our own city, "A more complicated protest outside Portland’s ICE facility." Thanks to Norma Silliman for the link.

Sunday, September 21: British Quakers join UK churches in an urgent call to pray for peace in the Middle East.

Greg Morgan pays tribute to Fred White, his high school chemistry teacher and lifelong friend. Who is your Mr. White?

Is old age God's way of preparing us for heaven? Nancy Thomas offers metaphors, poetry, and hope.

Aki Kumar, "Scratch My Back." (Kid Andersen is playing Slim Harpo's guitar.)

04 September 2025

First principles 3.0?

I, Johan, "Mr. Dignity and Decorum," a.k.a. "your favorite blogger," am starting this EXCELLENT post with a confession:

I read the "Newsom University" post from California governor Gavin Newsom's press office via x.com, and was unable to suppress AUDIBLE MIRTH.

Two days ago, I had a chance to hear Howard Macy read his draft chapter on "Blessing Enemies" from his forthcoming book with the working title Living to Bless. This chapter of his book is based on Matthew 5:43-48, but not only: Howard traces the "love your enemies" theme throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bible.

Howard's full chapter is a compelling lesson in why and how we bless our enemies, while not denying the dangers they may pose. Here's the challenge for me: its teachings can be applied to our fractured world this very day, if we're willing.

For example: Shouldn't we find ways to bless those in our own government and society who have apparently abandoned the constitutional mission to "... secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves [that is, "We the people"] and our posterity..."? Some of the people I'm referring to, and daring to classify as "enemies," engage in what's been called "gleeful cruelty"—the very opposite of blessing—and that public glee provokes in me (and apparently in Newsom's office) an almost irresistible temptation to RESPOND IN KIND.

Another case study: Among many other current calamities, we have the reality of Afghanistan, a nation whose Taliban leadership has gone out of its way to alienate much of the planet, is now in great need of assistance for the casualties of this week's earthquake. In so many places, the command to love enemies and bless those who harass us has immediate application.

In Howard's words,

Don’t answer in kind. Don’t make personal attacks, either directly or indirectly. Telling others about how rotten your enemy is seems like revenge. As does name-calling, even in your own thinking, since it keeps hurt and anger fresh. Certainly be careful with humor since, especially in our time, it is too often used to embarrass or demean. Importantly, living in love and blessing also frees us from the damage to ourselves that enduring bitterness and anger invite.

—Howard Macy, Living to Bless, chapter 8, "Blessing Enemies." Italics are mine.

Awkwardly enough for mirthful me, I've written something consistent with this on my own blog. Here is one of the "first principles" I republished upon Donald Trump's November 2024 electoral victory:

3. Resist the degradation of civil discourse. Do not use condescending mockery of anyone, or of their diets, appearance, or class origins. Don't mock their faith communities, although it's perfectly fair to propose contradictions between their publicly-proclaimed faith and their behaviors or policies.

Are those first principles adequate in an era of mutual trolling and unrestrained satire?

Another commentator, Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf in Berlin, is thinking along similar lines, but his specific concern is misuse of the label "fascist":

The ‘fight against the right’ is often portrayed by the left as a matter of life or death, as democracy versus fascism: if the fight is lost, then it would spell the end of democracy and fascism would reign again. That was the stark warning published in a global manifesto signed by 400 intellectuals.
But does this framing actually work? Will it help to defend democracy and win back lost voters? Probably not. In fact, it may do more harm than good. [See full article.]
...
In short, the best tool to defend democracy is open, calm debate rather than fear-driven fascism framing. We should specifically illustrate successes as well as the problems and dangers. Above all, extremists need to be included in these debates.

In the face of all this dignity and decency, however, Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi points out:

Newsom has grasped what so many other Democrats are loth to admit: you can’t keep playing by the same old rules when the other side has ripped up the rulebook.

A generation ago, George Lakoff was advising us not to let the opposition frame the argument; perhaps the use of salty satire helps break their frame? Or maybe there are two streams of rhetoric that should not be confused, because they're for different audiences:

Honest (i.e., non-manipulative) rage and outrage linked to the violation of the standards we thought ought to prevail by virtue of our common citizenship and founding values: rule of law, due process, separation of powers, and government of, by, and for the people. Are we not to make our distress clear, and assure others that we are seeing the same crazy things they're seeing? Don't we need some of that righteous anger to fuel our efforts to get out on the street and prevent or at least witness the ICE dragnets?
Direct expression, in our own diverse voices, of the values we uphold and intend to defend, and their Scriptural and civilizational bases, and our curiosity at what motivates our opponents to abandon those values. Doesn't our shared humanity, our commitment to "regard" others as we regard Christ, require us to make that effort, to express that curiosity, and to learn from them why they don't apparently see the need for mutual blessings?

But can we truly avoid confusing these two tracks? The danger with the first track, shared rage and distress, in its full range of expression (such as Newcom's trolling) is that it can fool us into thinking we can stop there—that outrage and mocking and mimicking the worst behavior of our opponents, somehow constitute positive resistance and activism, simply because we have the short-term pleasure of feeling like we've struck a blow for righteousness. Worse: for the sake of that gratification, we've reinforced the very alienation that got us into this mess in the first place.

What do you think? Where is the balance for you, if "balance" is even a valid goal? In our era of gleeful cruelty and mutual trolling, how do you handle honest distress without getting frozen into an "enemy" mentality?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

Tom Nichols: Gavin Newsom's parodies are riling people up....

Margaret Sullivan: Two can play at that game.

Regarding, part four: Closer to home.

The Beatitudes and Resisting Evil: this is a sermon by Becky Ankeny that has the same direct application as Howard Macy's chapters. After recounting a bloody period of Burundi's history, she continues,

You can see why I’m jumpy today about current events. I think about various possible scenarios and what I can or should do. Maybe you folks do, too. So today, we will look at two of the Beatitudes, bearing in mind that Jesus spoke to an occupied people, ruled by the Roman emperor and his governors, and locally oppressed by the military. Any rebelliousness was mercilessly put down and the rebels crucified. Therefore, I believe these Beatitudes can help us negotiate our way through our realities.
Matthew 5:6-7
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

If you're in or near Bremerton, Washington, this Sunday, the Bremerton Friends Worship Group is meeting.

It's church coffee hour ... what's an introvert to do? (Review of Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture by Adam S. McHugh.)

This uncomfortable thought occurs whenever I catch myself plotting Sunday morning escape routes. Aren’t church gatherings supposed to offer a foretaste of heaven? McHugh might reply with reasonable alternatives to self-reproach: Perhaps, after worship, most introverts prefer holy silence, quiet prayer, or deeper dialogue to shooting the breeze in a noisy foyer.
Yet my own inward journeys of reflection suggest a less flattering answer: I don’t always love God’s people as I should. I treat them as roadblocks to reading books or watching Sunday afternoon football.

Yair Rosenberg on the MAGA influencers rehabilitating Hitler.

How serious was the GPS outage that may have affected the EC's president Ursula von der Leyen's landing in Plovdiv, Bulgaria? Or is this a case of some of us wanting to believe the worst?

Nancy Thomas thought about simplicity and integrity while shredding paper.

Once again in honor of the late Leonardo "Flaco" Jiménez... The Texas Tornados' version of "96 Tears."

21 August 2025

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.)

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.

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.

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.)

Under occupation

Occupation shorts

Occupation: Myrtle Wright's experience

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?)

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.

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

13 February 2025

Occupation: Myrtle Wright's experience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Myrtle Wright tells this story from Grini concentration camp:

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

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

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

July 10 Saturday (from Norwegian Diary, 1943).

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

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

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

Trump and Musk aren't just tiptoeing toward autocracy.

Pope Francis denounces inhumanity to refugees.

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

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

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

06 February 2025

Occupation Shorts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30 January 2025

Under occupation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's where "under occupation" comes in.

Hebron, Palestine. Graffiti. 2019.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on "occupation": Myrtle Wright's experience of Nazi occupation.

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

Nancy Thomas has an important strategy for hope.

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

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

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

The Doomsday Clock is one second closer to midnight.

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

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

Can you believe?