Category Archives: Life as the church

Call on your inner prophet: Light is needed

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual direction, , ,

Mhosen Mahdawi (above), a leader of the anti-genocide protests at Columbia U. and also leader of the student Buddhist association, was released from two weeks of ICE detention in Vermont last week. Fortunately, his detainers missed the flight to Louisiana or the rapid action of his lawyers  might have been foiled.

Mahdawi has a reputation as a peacemaker, but he is not shy about speaking the truth, as any prophet would not be. Upon release, he had a simple word for President Trump from the courthouse steps. “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”

Buddhists, Jews, Palestinian Muslims and Christians, amoral “nones” and atheists, Evangelicals and Episcopalians all have some prophet in them, some more than others. Some of us are braver, but most of us feel compelled to tell the truth about situations that go against goodness and trample love. When the psychopath president and his abuse victims in the cabinet (at least according to Ann Coulter) say the defenders of the Gazans should be punished, the prophets keep talking anyway.

Afraid to be a protester

In the face of the terrible things the U.S. government is doing, a lot of people are finding their inner prophet, just like Mhosen Mahdawi. But most of us are still standing back and considering the costs.

The other day we were at the huge, union-sponsored protest “For the workers, not the billionaires” and heard Bernie Sanders rouse the crowd to action [PhillyCam]. Part of the  crowd was teargassed and over 70 people were arrested when they blocked 676  during rush hour, trying to get people to hear their prophecy: the nation belongs to everyone, not just the one percent. Some protesters wore their Palestinian regalia but covered their faces, since they are not sure what the government is capable of doing. Other faces. particularly brown ones, were not present at all, because they are rather sure what the government can do.

I don’t find it easy to go to protests. Last week, I had to navigate SEPTA, stand in the sun with a bunch of strangers, and deal with a strange counter-protester sitting on a statue. I also had to feel the absence of many people I know, Christians, in particular. Not only do they not see the value in protesting, they are somehow not paying attention to what is going on, or they don’t think anything is happening to them, so they are exempt from making anything happen.

I see it as part of my Christian duty to tell the truth, especially when the rulers are evil. So I find ways to lift my voice. I have been scared before. But I try not to let fear dull my conscience too much.

We’ve all got a prophet in us

If you follow Jesus, you have a voice. You have the inborn capacity to be a prophet. That’s how I read the Bible. And the Bible influences how I live my life.

Paul sent a one-liner about prophets back to his church plant in Thessalonica. I think we need to read it in a deeper way. He said, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).

I think most of us read that passage as if someone else is one of those weird, prophet types and we should at least listen to them in a discerning way. But I also think Paul is telling us not to despise the prophecy in ourselves. Each of us is testing everything according to the Spirit of God, who is in us and with us every day. We know what is good, and we need to hold on to it and hold it out like the light of the world we are.

Paul gets into this a bit more in 1 Corinthians 12. Part of the reason the protest leaders on May Day kept saying “When we are united across all our organizations, we are powerful” is not only common sense, it is part of the Christian influence on the United States. When Paul writes to the church in Corinth, he celebrates how we are all unique in our giftedness and in our value, and at the same time we are all part of a glorious whole. He says this in a variety of ways, but he starts off with, “There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit” (v. 4).

At the end of his chapter, before he moves on to highlight the love that is the deepest part of all expressions of the Spirit, Paul says, “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers” (v. 28) then goes on with his list. You may have a high opinion of apostles and prophets, the tag-team leaders of authentic Christian community, so you might relate more to “teachers.” You may have children, or you might have helped someone develop their jump shot — you can imagine being a teacher. I say, as surely as you can teach when called upon, you can prophesy. Now we are being called upon to prophesy. You may not be a gifted prophet like Bernie Sanders, but you have the same Spirit living in you that motivates a prophet. At some point, you are likely to be called on to exercise what you are given.

For the Christian, I think the protests should mainly be about speaking the truth in love, like  Mhosen Mahdawi has been trying to do. Love is at the heart of our prophesy. And our present federal leaders do not have love as their measure of how to govern, as far as I can tell. They are deadly and need to be stopped. I need to tell them to stop.

There is always danger

When there is trouble in the land, most people run for cover; they don’t automatically put their faces in places a drone is filming. Being a prophet inevitably causes trouble. John Lewis called his prophetic work “good trouble.” It is not just trouble for the evil doers, it is trouble for the prophet.

As the New Testament writers look back over Old Testament history, they find themselves in a long line of people who have been persecuted. When Jesus lists the marks of the new humanity he is creating in the Beatitudes, he ends with: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Prophets always face danger. It boils down to two main things: 1) rejection of themselves and their message, and 2) violence.

You may not get overtly rejected, beaten or killed. But you will likely be afraid of what might happen to you if you keep speaking the truth about the rulers in love — especially now that bullies run the government and they don’t care about the laws.

Old advice for a new prophet

If you are going to raise your voice along with the rest of us, on the street or wherever you get a chance, these basics might help you be a light in the darkness.

Difficulties with other people are normal.
Good troublemakers are still troublemakers. A prophet has to face being despised by priests and other “professionals,” being opposed by false prophets, and being rejected by familiar friends, even their own family.

We need to be grounded in discernment and compassion to handle God’s prophetic word.
A prophet must speak what God has given– not water down the message to make it more acceptable, must be aligned with previous revelation (like the Bible), must be prepared to bring the same message over and over again, and must let love rule what they say and do.

You will struggle with your own thoughts and feelings.
A prophet must be patient and wait confidently for the fulfilment of God’s prophetic word. They must allow critics to call them “traitors” to their country, their party, their clan, or their church, trusting God to vindicate them. They must accept the fact that they will be isolated as abnormal and disruptive and continue even though they torment their hearers.

You will be a blessing
A prophet must follow Paul’s teaching to “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom. 12). We can know that Christ is with us, because persecution is one of those things which cannot separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8). You’re trying to do some good, not just call out bad people.

We need to rise from the dead
In troubled and perilous times, when all we have left is to exercise the rights they are trying to erase and the convictions they are trying to pervert, we must “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” as Jesus has taught us (Matt. 5).

A prophet must expect the same treatment Jesus received: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15). But we must also expect to live in newness of life when we are taking to the streets. I think I share quite a few convictions with Mhosen Mahdawi, the AFL-CIO, Bernie Sanders, and the protester in D.C. with that great sign I am still singing with Mary  Poppins: super callous fragile racist sexist nazi potus. As angry as people are, protests are usually joyful — we’re trying to make something better together! It is encouraging to be so alive!

I want the U.S. to be a safe and loving place for everyone. I want real justice under good laws. But when I get into the street, I’m mostly motivated like Paul as he wrote in his letter to the Philippians (chap. 3):

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me.

If the light in us is dark, how great the darkness!

Say “No” now: It won’t get better

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , , , ,

I know my Evangelical friends believe humans are sinful from birth and our main work is to save them from their just deserts. But we are also a very nice species. The vast majority of us hate conflict, we’re easily hurt by slights, and we care about stray animals and lost children to the point of obsession. We can be awful, but most of us are rather polite, and all of us are desperate for love. We are so desperate we have a hard time saying “No,” even when we ought to, if we think it detracts from getting or giving love.

No is often important

Whether we like it or not, though, sometimes saying “No” is very important, and loving. Here is an example of when saying “No” was surprisingly effective. I’ve heard of it happening this way many times:

A mate appeared in the TV room at an unexpected time and turned off the tube. They said, “We need to talk. I can’t keep it in anymore. I want a divorce. You are terrible.” Their partner said, for once, after years of going up and down with their mate, “Well. I guess you’ll have to decide what you need to do.” The mate said, “No. I don’t want to file for divorce; you need to do it.” The partner said, “Well, I am not going to do it” — for once, they said, “No” to their dysregulated mate. They did not get mad and add fuel to the mate’s anxiety-making fire. They did not withdraw and reinforce their fear of abandonment. They calmly said “No.”

The instigator stormed out. It could not be predicted what was going to happen next. It was tempting to go find them and reassure them, or fight with them, or offer a grievance just as powerful as theirs. But the partner did not do it. An hour later, the mate came back and said, “I’m sorry. I should not have said what I said. You are my life. I can’t imagine the future without you.” The “No” actually helped their mate get a handle on what they wanted apart from the fury of their overwhelming feelings.

How to helpfully say “No” is basic training for working with “borderline personalities” (another label which probably needs retiring). I had to learn that the hard way when I was a pastor, since dysregulated people look for love where people will say “Yes” (like in the church), even though their desperate anxiety will usually get them kicked out — the seminal book about them is I Hate you, Don’t Leave Me. I actually invented a few “contracts” that helped people find their way in, safely.

Saying “No!” is crucial when responding to anyone who is acting irrationally or contrary to their own best interests. If someone presents to us and we are drawn into their mania or anger or despair or any unconscious reaction, we should probably say, “No. I don’t want to do that with you,” before we jump in, get hurt, and start hurting others.

Right now we all could use a refresher course on saying “No.” Our surprisingly irrational, megalomaniacal new government keeps turning off our TV and saying something dreadful. Fortunately, we are not married to our leaders. But the need remains. Before we get enmeshed in the dysregulated, abusive pattern being presented, we need to say and act “No.”

Say no to psychopaths

The president is not a normal person. Right now we he is challenging all of us to think about our boundaries, or whether we even have any (“officers” are driving up in unmarked vans, in hoods, to snatch people off the streets these days, after all). And A.I. is collecting what I write — maybe monitoring what you are reading; who knows what can be done with that when the president is so capricious! If he were your houseguest (which is unlikely due to his germ phobia) he’d rearrange your rooms to suit himself and dare you to say “No.” You probably wouldn’t say “No!” because you care, and because dealing with a person who brazenly does not care is hard. But we need to say “No!!”

This week’s brazenness has School Boards and Universities all over the country wrestling  with whether to say no to the regime’s attempt to roll back anything that looks like preferential treatment to people of color, including the ancestors of slaves. Some programs I love and support are now causing problems with Universities charged with getting rid of them. Here are people near Nashville having the problem:

People are worried that something resembling a “DEI expenditure” will be in the budget somewhere and potentially noticed by some new bureaucrat rooting out diversity, equity and inclusion and rooting in uniformity, inequity and exclusion (as Pete Buttigieg aptly points out). Are we going to say “No” to uniformity, inequity and exclusion or not? Or will we rush to ChatGPT and ask it to scrub our statements? Again, what would Jesus do?

There is no real process for losing the funds, of course, yet. We’re still just under the onslaught of dubious presidential decrees and illegal impoundments. But schools are conforming because they fear they’ll lose some funds, get outed on Truth Social, or infuriate donors – they can only imagine what might happen. And they do imagine it and act on their fear. That’s the authoritarian playbook in action.

Many states have hopped on the bandwagon and begun to pass bills to eradicate DEI. Here’s a list of bills and what they mean [link]. In my opinion, they mostly just demand we stop saying “No” to racism and pretend white supremacy is equality. But you can decide for yourself.

@diddlyfrickinsquat

the cherry on top of this is that my undergrad is in history… I’m so numb at this point #cabaretmusical #thoughtdaugher #returntotiktok #dearcolleagueletter

♬ only politics – dani 🎭

It got started with the “dear colleague” letter

It is unnerving when you wake up one day and a previously-unknown bureaucrat gives you an order. Educators got a letter designed to undo decades of assistance to students who bear the weight of systemic racism. Last week many of them finally read the “Dear Colleague” decree from the soon-to-be-dismantled Department of Education issued on Valentine’s Day under the authority of Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.  You should read it. It is a breathtaking sea change.  I’ll give you some highlights that show you why people are wondering who they invited to spend the weekend. I highlighted my highlights:

  • Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon “systemic and structural racism” and advanced discriminatory policies and practices. Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them—particularly during the last four years—under the banner of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (“DEI”), smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.
  • Nebulous concepts like racial balancing and diversity are not compelling interests. As the Court explained in [the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard], “an individual’s race may never be used against him” and “may not operate as a stereotype” in governmental decision-making.
  • Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly. At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law. Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.
  • Other programs discriminate in less direct, but equally insidious, ways. DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not. Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes. Consequently, they deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school.
  • All educational institutions are advised to: (1) ensure that their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law; (2) cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends; and (3) cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race. Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding. Anyone who believes that a covered entity has unlawfully discriminated may file a complaint with OCR. Information about filing a complaint with OCR, including a link to the online complaint form, is available here.

Anti-racism is now racism. Animal Farm and 1984 will soon be banned from schools, I suppose, since we’re supposed to unlearn what Orwell taught us. I will let you dialogue with Trainor’s claims, since an argument can be made. But I find his thinking a short step away from a slave being told, “You should be happy you have a Christian master.” Regardless, the main message that came to me and educators I know was, “There is a new sheriff in town. Change your mind and change your ways, or you won’t get your share of the tax money.”

If I lose money as a consequence, will I still say “No?” Will the institution fire me if I suggest resistance? Will I stick out, in contrast to compliant people, and my family will wonder what I’m doing to them?

Again, what would Jesus do?

Since Jesus was a teacher without an institution and a psychologist without a license or guild, I guess it is kind of obvious what he would do. He found it quite easy to say “No” to all sorts of dysregulated regulators — people who actually believed the Son of God was going to ruin their world!  He’s never been too tied to the present homeostasis.

I don’t think Jesus cares much about the latest status quo, he has deeper things to do. When he says from the cross, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing,” that is his most loving “No.” Your borderline loved one does not really know what they are doing, either. Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not really care what they are doing to you as long as they rule you. Jesus on the cross is a big “No” to that, and big “No!” to whatever destroys love and peace. The cross is a big “No!” to sin and death, right? The resurrection is a big promise that you will flourish, one way or another, later if not now, if you say “No” with Him.

April 5, 2025 – Hands Off protest in DC

I am going to try to keep saying “No!” in direct and loving ways, as needed. The easiest way to do that is, in the case of Trump/Musk, to get out on the street with a sign and 5000 friends. (You see my latest sign above from April 5 in DC).

The hardest way to say “No” is when I have to say it to a co-worker who wants to advance a truth that is not true like, “Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism.’” Or you have to speak to your mate and say, “No. I do not want to do that with you. I’d rather relate to your true self. I’d rather both of us relate to God right now.”

I think one of the messages of the Gospel is “Say ‘No’ now. Things will not get better or just stay the same.” If you go along with the powers you might “gain the world and lose your soul.” Paul says it clearly:

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power; put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day and, having prevailed against everything, to stand firm. — Ephesians 6:10-13

I know, Master Trump says DEI is the devil and Venezuelans are demons, and that uniformity, inequity and exclusion is the law now. Yes, I am saying “No” to that and “Yes” to freedom, forgiveness and fellowship. And I think we all need to say “No” now, because it may soon be too late to say anything at all.

The rulers without rules: What would Jesus do?

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, The Mission, , , , , , ,

Christians are scrambling to reorient their thinking, now that Trump and his rulers have upended their experience of the Empire. The church has had a rather large comfort zone in society for the last 50 years. As a result, we had the freedom to “mail it in” rather than showing up in faith. Now there is crisis every day, our wealth is dropping, government services are diminishing, and the world is no longer functioning under Pax Americana. It is back to every MAN for himself.

When you ask “WWJD?,” you’re asking within a new context.

Jeffrey Goldberg outs our rulers

The recent Pete Hegseth debacle is a good example of the new context, as we see the faulty new rulers acting faulty. Hegseth and the major players in national defense actions (except the President and the General in charge!) were making decisions about bombing a Yemeni apartment house via Signal this month. The fact they brazenly did that (maybe to hide what they were saying), and now that the whole world knows what they said, lets everyone know that truth and law-following are fundamentally NOT central to the new regime. I think the Signalers firmly believe whatever they say is the truth because they said it. I think they might be narcissistic (or psychopathic) enough to think they are like Allah speaking the Koran to whoever has a pen.

This problem, in a long series of problems, goes like this. A national security advisor, Mike Waltz, included Jeffrey Goldberg, a reporter and editor for The Atlantic, in the group chat on Signal. The very chat they had to know was easily monitored by Russia and the China was also being delivered to someone who should never have been in their group chat. Goldberg did not have clearances, of course, and one would suspect he just might broadcast what they were trying to keep secret. When Goldberg made it known he had listened in, the liars doubled down, as the liars who run the country do. They tried to create their own media reality, or at least tried to produce enough fog so no one would remember what’s what after the news cycle was over.

Using the communication platform was wrong and what they were planning on it is probably a war crime. But instead of admitting that (God forbid!), the president said nothing they did was illegal or classified. The Trumpspeak was: “The attack was totally successful. It was, I guess, from what I understand, took place during. And it wasn’t classified information. So this was not classified.” The story goes on. Goldberg has already published the screenshots of the conversation belying what Trump asserted.

That story depicts the new context in which we live in a nutshell. What is a U.S. Christian to do?

We’ll sort it out on Reddit

For years a great number of Christians, following what they called a “literal” understanding of the Bible extracted Romans 13:1-7 as plain-speaking instructions for how to relate to the government: one should submit because the rulers are God’s servants and you’ll be judged if you don’t. So they teach we need to submit to Trump; he’s the ruler.

In relation to something I posted in Reddit about Elon Musk, a person engaged me in a little chat about that passage last week.

Person: What do you think about the Romans 13 doctrine of government?

Me: If you start it off with the last verse of Romans 12: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And end it with 13:8: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” I think it can make sense. I usually say I need to tell the government what to do because it is as faulty as I am. But most of the time, I let God handle it.

I would not call Romans 13 a “doctrine.” It is missional advice for church planters and survival tips for the persecuted.

Person: you wouldn’t consider the first six verses of Romans 13 to be doctrine of government?

Me: I think people turned it into doctrine. I don’t think Paul was writing doctrine. He was being practical about how to live in the world as God’s people. He obviously teaches “theological” truths. But if you put Romans 13:1-7 in context, as I noted, it really should not be extracted as if Paul were writing a treatise.

Obviously, plenty of people base their doctrine of government on those verses. If they chose to extract John 18:36-9 the doctrine would be quite different, I think. If they decided the Sermon on the Mount was a blueprint for government, the world would be transformed.

Person: how do we know if someone is intending to write doctrine?

Me: The word “doctrine” came to have its present meaning in Middle English.

I think there’s a good chance Paul did not intend to write the kind of “doctrine” we argue about these days. Paul’s writing in Romans 13, when put in the context of what he says before and after it, is a classic example of his two-tiered thinking, which I assert here.

In essence, I think would agree he’s saying, “Jesus is the Lamb on the Throne, the Way the Truth and the Life. His law of love rules the citizens of heaven; by following him we fulfill the Law. Our submission to the authorities is based on our submission to Jesus, first.”

What is “due” to whom?

I certainly do not feel I “owe” respect to Pete Hegseth because barely half the Senate confirmed him and he is now “in authority!” I don’t think Paul lives in unqualified submission to the Roman or local governments, even to the town synagogue!  There are actually quite a few qualifications in the Romans 13:1-7, which the Constantinians made a “doctrine” of government.

  • The whole section begins with “Let ,” which I take as Paul including us in his strategy. “Let’s keep submitting ourselves to the authorities, who God raises up and deposes according the same mysterious working we accept when we consider everyone coming before the judgment seat.”
  • I think his teaching is quite practical, not an abstract theory. In essence he says, “It is smart to keep your nose clean when it comes to the rulers; we have bigger fish to fry than subverting or running away from the prevailing law. The authorities are supposed to be doing good for us. Let them.” That being said, I think it would be ludicrous to say Paul thinks governments are going to do him good, be just, or act godly. He has already noted in his letter that the Roman Christians are facing persecution (chap. 8) and the government is not doing them any good. Quite the opposite of doing him good for doing good, the authorities have been misleading or chasing Paul ever since his name appeared in the New Testament!
  • Then in verse 7 he says, “Give to everyone what you owe them” (in the NIV). This is a misleading translation. I think Paul is talking about paying what is due. He’s saying, “Keep yourself on the right side of the tax collectors and tariff officials; don’t go underground or smuggle. Tip your hat and make friends with the enemy. To those to whom honor is due, bless them. Give honor as it has been given to you; they are as undeserving as you are.”  That’s how the subjects of the Lamb are subject to the authorities.

I wish the powermongers who wrote doctrine to justify their hegemony would have been more honest. Had it been as unsafe to be themselves as it was for Paul, maybe they would have written a different way. We are certainly going to find out what we write, now that millions of us are undermined or persecuted by the powers-that be!

Christ Before Pilate — Mihaly Munkacsy (1881)

Introducing Romans 13:1, the NIV heading reads: “Submission to Governing Authorities.” But we all know the editors of the NIV made the titles, not Paul, right? The supposed summary of submission to the authorities should include vv. 8-10

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

A Jesus follower submits to the authorities in grace and truth, discerning the spirits. You owe them nothing and can afford to give them everything. They have no authority unless God gives it. If they do not fulfill the law of love they receive the submission they are due. We are fulfilling a Law to which the government is ultimately subject, too. They are only the “law” provisionally.

Unlike our present rulers in the U.S. executive, Paul says Jesus followers don’t commit adultery, kill, steal, lie or covet. We love God with our heart, soul mind and strength in Christ and love our neighbor as ourselves. As such people, we salt our society with truth and love, with energy and compassion. We will not invite the wrath of the authorities unnecessarily. We will do our best with the leaders we have. But we will never give up the rule of Jesus for anyone.

I think our terrible rulers might end up doing the corrupted U.S. church a favor. If you are praying for a revival, Trump would be a good cause for it. In the past, our strength of character and our purposeful living regularly saved the country from its worst instincts. But an aggressive minority of “Christians” in the 21st century have lusted to claim their self-ordained right to be rulers. Project 2025 is their manifesto. The abjectly corrupt Trump is honored by them as he implements it, even though most of them admit he scorns the commandments Paul uses as markers above.

I believe their project will come to a bad end, as Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth so ably demonstrate. But I hope the church, in general, as it is starting to do in many places, will get out from under its faulty submission doctrine and follow Jesus, to whom every knee will bow. We can’t mail it in anymore — especially since Elon Musk is likely to destroy the postal service any day now.

************************

Today is John Donne Day! Visit the poet turned preacher at our Transhistorical Body blog.

Empathy: Love in the crossfire of political warfare

Doing Theology, Psychological growth, , , , , , ,

While I was ignoring podcasts, a rebellion against empathy was bubbling in them. Post-WW2, Eurocentric, therapeutic moralism was under attack! I was not completely ignorant of these rumblings, since Rush Limbaugh was like a non-resident member of my Central PA Church, and Trump has been getting away with various forms of grabbing for years. But I was still shocked when Elon Musk, who does not lie and dissemble as well as Donald Trump, parroted a line of reasoning that seems to be taking hold.

Elon on Joe Rogan

Musk spoke out on the Joe Rogan Experience. Young men who listen to Rogan, among others, are being taught they are fearful empathy-robots who will lose their country if they don’t grow a pair. I thought that must be an out-of-context exaggeration when I heard about it. But then I found a person who makes transcripts of Joe Rogan episodes (!). I had already reacted on hearsay when I wrote my congressman. Then I found out he actually taught it!

Since I work on connecting to people empathetically all day and hope they feel safe enough to explore who they are and who they want to be, I was understandably alarmed. So I wrote the 20 congresspeople on my list, as follows:

Elon Musk got on the anti-empathy bandwagon with Joe Rogan last week. In his own autistic way, he justified why he cares more for humanity (which he thinks Tesla and SpaceX will save) than for the people right next to him. This is consistent with his neurodivergence. He thinks his heartless capitalism will save us from overspending our love on nonsense – and he will decide what is nonsense.

He said, “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.” He slightly qualified that with “I believe in empathy, I think you should care about people. But you need to have empathy for civilization as a whole, and not commit civilizational suicide.” After repeating multiple falsehoods about immigrants, he claimed it was empathy that had allowed immigrants to become a threat to the United States. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit—they’re exploiting a bug in western civilization, which is the empathy response.” In truth, empathy is a “bug” that threatens his lust for power. He needs our resentments to outweigh our regard for other people, and ourselves.

Senator, please help us oppose him. Help us focus on our connectedness and our shared regard for the people being harmed by DOGE, Musk, and Trump. Please keep this administration’s victims front and center in your narrative. Uplift the stories of people whose lives are being lost, endangered or undone. Please help us build a narrative around our shared humanity, rather than grounding our politics in contempt. Form a more perfect union. “Love as I have loved you” is not the downfall of civilization.

I hadn’t explored the Rogan podcast yet, or I might have mentioned that Musk goes on in the conversation to lament if he walked the streets of San Francisco in his MAGA hat, he would get harassed and maybe beat up. I thought, “Oh, so you would like some empathy instead of being bullied!” He yearns for empathy as those empty of it usually do.

The anti-empathy movement

I missed the anti-empathy movement as it was percolating. But it was prevalent enough for Paul Bloom to write a book about it and get a review stored by the NIH. In the review, Trevor Thompson checks out the binary argument the author conducts, beginning with his title: Against Empathy. The Case for Rational Compassion. The book takes a strong line against empathy, arguing that it is not only not useful, but positively detrimental to human progress. Bloom says empathy leads to biased, shorted-sighted, and practically useless action. What Musk might call “civilizational suicide.”

Bloom is working with a reduced definition of a very large and varied human experience. We are all wired for empathy and express it on a broad spectrum. Even autistic people experience empathy on all sorts of levels and have all sorts of neurodivergent struggles with it, in just a different way than neurotypical people do. Yet Bloom says empathy is merely the “act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does.” — as if it were just Bill Clinton performing “I feel your pain.” He seems to think most people are just unconsidered reactions to their mirror neurons — irrationally sending useless children’s gifts to the scenes of mass shootings.

Simplistic and debatable, but gives a whole picture

Researchers also name “cognitive empathy,” which Musk could have called “rational compassion.” The label states the obvious: we don’t just feel empathy, we think about it, too. People can react with any of their faculties to the empathy they feel, and generally do. When we feel the pain of another, we may also understand their experience, or respond viscerally, automatically to it, or care about it. Or we may metabolize the pain spiritually and suffer it. We might ignore it or mock it. No one is a robot (yet).

There is a noisy, Christianity-claiming faction with a lust for power dominating the government. Members of it are mounting an argument that love – especially love for strangers – is a distraction, the Bible notwithstanding.

The bandwagon seems to be bulging with new adherents. Last year Allie Beth Stuckey, a Christian podcaster wrote a popular book called Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. Lately, Joe Rigney, a Minnesota pastor and theologian, published The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits (for which, he laments, he gets no empathy). He  redefines empathy as self-immolation: “If someone’s drowning, empathy wants to jump in with both feet and get swept away. Empathy jumps in. Whereas compassion says, I’m going to throw you a life preserver. I’m going to even step in with it and grab you with one arm, but I’m remaining tethered to the shore.”

Of course people do foolish things and get exploited. Their empathy might make them a sitting duck for people like Elon Musk if they stop mentalizing. But I think most of us know that humans created civilization with empathy. It is one of our most basic and best instincts. We can be trusted to work out the daily decisions we have to make about it and not get killed. It is not always that easy, since the U.S. government has relied on empathy to get Marines to kill and sacrifice themselves. Even if we don’t want to protect loved ones from “the enemy,” the soldiers want to take care of their comrades in the unit, who pulse together like a common set of neurons.

Jesus will not destroy civilization

When Elon Musk gets ahold of empathy, you know it is being used for something except empathy. He’s not pondering how to best help people or how to alleviate suffering. He’s hard at work finding ways to de-prioritize alleviating that suffering – all the while assuring us he is rooting out the waste in the budget, saving those hard-earned dollars previously thrown away on people who don’t deserve help or should help themselves or might be trans. He’s muting the voices of the dispossessed — it has always been a slave economy, after all. Musk notwithstanding, I find hope in the fact that few people, including the Pope – would accept that the interests of power should be prioritized and the least powerful forgotten.

Jesus does not forget the powerless. Here is a bit of what the Bible actually says about empathy:

  • “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
  • “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17)
  • “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
  • “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13).
  • Jesus wept (Luke 19:41).

In building his robots and longing for Mars, has Musk forgotten what it is to be human? Has he forgotten that history shows how empathy knits societies together? Has he missed how empathy leads people to volunteer, which then boosts their mental health? Hasn’t he heard that kids who have low empathy are more likely to bully?

Have all these bullies missed learning what happens when we ignore pain and mute the cries of the suffering? Maybe. It happens.

Any post featuring Elon Musk gravitates toward Nazis. So let me end with this warning. Psychologist Gustave Gilbert, interviewed Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials and wrote a book about it. He said, after all his work examining the psyches of those who committed the most horrendous acts of World War II, he had come close to finding a definition of the nature of evil: “It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants,” he said, “a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

***************

Today is Patrick of Ireland Day! Get to know him better at The Transhistorical Body.

It’s a replay of Belshazzar’s feast of the billionaires

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, Spiritual direction, The Mission, , , , , ,

The feast of the billionaires is playing on our screens day after day. It is an age-old story:

King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them.  While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. (Daniel 5:1-4)

Didn’t we just have a present-day version of Belshazzar’s feast playing out in the TV series Billions for seven(!) seasons? I think so. I even watched a couple of the sordid seasons.

One of the series creators, Brian Koppelman, talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the series finale in 2023. The interviewer wondered if the ending were not a strangely happy one for rather dark story. While the main character took a real hit, most of the players ended up a lot richer. Koppelman explained:

Any director, any actor, writer, any cinematographer and editor. We would always say: The thing you need to understand about these people is they only feel alive, or the most alive, when they’re engaged in battles that to them feel existential and very difficult. So it’s funny, that when you say “happy,” I understand what you mean by “happy,” in that it’s not tragic. But if you think about it, Bobby Axelrod ends at a table, and all he’s really learned, after all the time he’s been behind his desk, as he looks at the hungry faces of the pigeons that want to get fed, he says, “Let’s make some fucking money.”

Bobby has no doubt he can make it all back. It is what he does. Don’t you suspect that same story, with the same assumption, is being played out in the U.S. government’s executive branch right now? For example, Elon Musk, the richest guy in the world, now mucking around in our data –if he loses 100 billion in the pursuit of absolute power, don’t you think he assumes he can make it back? It is what he does.

While there are undoubtedly some ideologues in our government presently, and some religious people, too, it is mostly a feast of the billionaires we are witnessing. They were hungry to get to the table and do something, to engage in a battle that feels existential and very difficult. They yearn to have a battle.  They have “praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone” which are the money-making machines of their own design. But their gods demand more and they demand more of their gods. It’s an old story.

But the handwriting is on the wall

You know you’ve told a good story when the most dramatic part becomes iconic. Like Rhett saying, “Frankly my darling, I don’t give a damn.” Or Captain Kirk saying “Beam me up Scotty” (which he never actually said, exactly). Or, in my house, the Wicked Witch saying, “What a world! What a world!” In the story of Belshazzar and Daniel, which is full of iconic images, a main one is this strange hand:

Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking. (Daniel 5:5-6)

I think we have to admit that the men at the U.S. billionaires feast might ignore a human hand writing on a wall. They are drenched in A.I. after all, and own it. And they are surrounded by deceivers, so their senses are probably a bit blunted. They are also, generally, bullies, so they are used to making someone else’s knees knock.

I think they will need something else to get the message. I hope what they get is about 50 million human feet on the streets and 100 million boycotters to relentlessly deliver it. We really need that to happen before there are a thousand dead children, millions of lost jobs and a world thrown into meltdown because of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their minions.

No one can read it.

The way Christians and most people use the phrase: “the handwriting is on the wall,” is to lament how someone got the word, how the truth was out there for anyone to see, how the circumstances were telling them the obvious, but they could not read it. They could not understand the language of truth. Or as Jesus might say, “They did not have eyes to see.”

My parents would use the phrase to predict dire things to come. They would see me acting out and warn, “It this keeps up…Well, the handwriting’s on the wall.” I think that’s a direct quote. I did not know what was coming, and my knees knocked a few times. “We’re not stupid, but you might be,” was the gist.

Belshazzar summons his “enchanters, astrologers and diviners” (Daniel 5:7-8) to figure out the mysterious message the hand has written. None of them can figure it out. Trump summons Steve Bannon, Paula White, the latest far right TV media personality or whoever wrote Project 2025 and none of them can read the handwriting on the wall.

In our case, our feast of billionaires (maybe that is what one calls a herd of them) not only don’t procure eyes to see, they famously “double down” on their lies, their invisible ink. After Trump got skewered for saying he could imagine Gaza as another Riviera he posted this video on Truth Social:

His doubling down on lies was countered by SNL:

It may end badly for the billionaires

Belshazzar’s wife hears about what is going on and reminds him there is an actual wise man in the empire who interpreted a dream for his dad. They go find Daniel and the king tells the seer what is going on.

Daniel finds it easy to tell him the truth. First he tells him the story of his father, who did evil and did not follow God and ended up like an insensible animal eating grass out in the weather. He frankly tells Belshazzar he hasn’t learned a thing from his father’s fate and is presently repeating his folly.

My father, Goldwater conservative that he was, would be a Daniel if he went to  the present billionaires party, reading the handwriting on the wall. He would have said, “Americans overthrew their king to begin with, and then we beat Hitler, Hirohito, and every other tyrant we faced 80 years ago in the war.” Daniel was confrontive like that:

But you, Belshazzar, his son, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription.

“This is the inscription that was written: mene, mene, tekel, parsin (numbered, numbered, weighted, divided in Aramaic)

“Here is what these words mean:

Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5:22-28)

It used to be that stories about billionaires parties in the U.S. ended with the rich guys losing to scrappy people from the lower classes who rely on goodness. It’s a Wonderful Life comes to mind, of course (1946), and Elysium, back in in 2013. But one of the Oscar nominees, Anora (possibly the least redemptive movie I have ever seen) shows oligarch Russians successfully exercising absolute power, while a woman stuck in prostitution and a man forced to be a henchman are left with an ambivalent, barely flickering moment of hope.

Billionaires are looking normal these days. Everyone knows what an “oligarch” is. Right now, we are in the middle of a billionaires party and it seems plausible for Trump to be scheming to get Ukraine’s rare earth minerals for a song. It does not seem outrageous for Elon Musk to go to the first Cabinet meeting and then say he means to cut 4 billion dollars a day in government spending from now to September [link].

Some Christians are serving Trump like he has a divine right to rule. There was a prayer by the HUD Secretary, Scott Turner, at the Cabinet meeting the other day (Trump called it “grace”). But I think he was praying from an imperial point of view. He thanked God for the anointing they have to serve as the cabinet, among other things. I don’t think his sense of privilege is unusual. Unfortunately, I think a of of Christians, especially in the U.S., read Daniel 5 from Belshazzar’s viewpoint like Secretary Turner must. They are Constantine-descended Christians exercising their Roman-Empire-infected, slaveholder religion. They pray, “Lord, who is going to get the kingdom; how will it be divided; shall I bet my  future on the Medes and Persians?”

There are always wise people

The funniest part of Daniel 5 is when Belshazzar tries to get Daniel to dress up and sit down at his ludicrous feast.

“I have heard that you are able to give interpretations and to solve difficult problems. If you can read this writing and tell me what it means, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”

Then Daniel answered the king, “You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means.” (Daniel 5:16-17).

“You can keep your gifts” is a good Philly response. Or maybe it is like Zelenskyy saying, “I’m not playing cards.”

Even in the dysfunctional, short-sighted kingdom of Belshazzar, there was a wise person available. I think God has people stationed all over the world who keep salting it with love and truth. I don’t think I can imagine what it would be like if they were not there.

Jesus followers read the Belshazzar story from Daniel’s viewpoint.

  • We’re not authoritarian. Although Daniel’s character, spirituality and compassion caused him to rise to a leadership position in the empire, he had no illusion that he was ultimately in charge. Creation belongs to God and we should get used to mystery. We’ve been bought with a price, saved by grace, welcomed into a joy that does not come by our own striving; it is a gift. We don’t earn our place in the world by following the latest usurper of God’s prerogatives. Jesus sits on the throne as a wounded lamb.
  • We read the handwriting on the wall. We develop the skills needed to exercise our spiritual awareness. We listen to God and don’t live squashed by an “immanent frame.” Ultimately, as freed people who live Spirit to spirit with God, the Body of Christ IS the handwriting on the wall.
  • We tell the truth, even if the powers-that-be might make us suffer. Belshazzar decked out Daniel in the finery he promised, even though he didn’t want it, and even though his interpretation was that the king was going to lose his empire. It appears Belshazzar not only could not read the handwriting, he could not hear the interpretation and expected the next day to be just like this one. It was something like Trump saying he won the election in 2020 and made telling that lie a prerequisite for receiving the privilege of following him into disaster. Or like Pilate publicly washing his hands, as if that would absolve him, as the blind crowd, led by blind guides, shouted “We have no king but Caesar.” In the face of such nonsense, even backed by violence, we can’t help telling it like we are in Christ.

The feast of the billionaires is an age-old story, redundant. It would be boring if it were not so deadly. It is astounding that someone will go ahead and play it out again when history is replete with so many ways it does not work out well. The folly of the present cabal of oligarchs has only become more evident as they have emerged from their protective bubbles and into public view, feasting on the spoils of the American Empire, led by the loopy Elon Musk.

They can’t read the handwriting on the wall, even though the populace is already in the streets after only one month of official chicanery. It never ends well.  If you don’t believe the Bible is history, there are a lot of other books to tell you the story. But know this, there are always wise people popping up from nowhere, it seems. The first protest I went to via 50501 was organized by two young women who had never organized a protest. The journalists who deserted their coopted news media are finding ways to create a new news media, which is very exciting [link] [link] [link]. Even Facebook is alive with examples of wise people speaking up.

Let me emphasize the wise people emerging in the church as I close.  A lot of them may be slow to pop up, since their institutions are very old and riddled with corruption, poor leadership and a terrible reputation. Yet the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is hard to repress, just like Daniel demonstrated in the last days of the rapacious Babylonian Empire. Last week I was moved to be with a small group of mostly twentysomethings ready to start a new church within the walls of our Episcopal Church. They had little awareness of church planting, but they knew it was time. They want spiritual reality, authentic community, and a chance to make a difference. Doesn’t everyone? No amount of oppression ever thwarts that desire. And Jesus is among us to make it come to fruit.

*****************************

Yesterday (March 2) was John Wesley Day! Get some lessons from the relentless mouthpiece and organizer for the gospel. A true world changer.  Visit him at The Transhistorical Body. 

Sanctuary: The government wants to approve our altars

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Doing Theology, Spiritual direction, , , ,

Church member can’t find sanctuary in their own sanctuaries. It is still a rare occurrence, but as soon as Trump’s mass deportation plans unleashed the dogs Biden had on a leash, ICE went to church. Some denominations (including Episcopalians and Mennonites, where I connect), recently sued the government for violating their religious freedom. They cited this particular story of ICE coming to the church’s door.

In 2022 Wilson Velasquez fled the gangs in Honduras with his family and entered the U.S. illegally. They presented themselves to U.S. Authorities requesting asylum and he was outfitted with a GPS ankle bracelet. (You can buy one for your kids!). When they got to Atlanta to stay with relatives, the first thing the family did  was find a church. Wilson got a work permit and a job at a nearby tire shop. After a year, they decided to help a church planter start Iglesia Fuente de Vida in Norcross. They led with the music team.

According to Christianity Today:

Media accounts largely agree about the day’s events: At roughly a quarter past noon [on January 26], an usher standing in the church entrance saw a group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outside and locked the doors. Wilson was listening to the sermon when his phone rang with an unknown number. When he silenced it, his ankle bracelet—known in Spanish as a grillete, or shackle—began buzzing. His phone rang a second time, and Wilson rose, flustered, slipping out the back of the sanctuary. The usher met him and said there were agents in the parking lot, asking for Wilson by name.

Moments later, Kenia’s phone flashed with a message from her husband: Come outside.

Running into the daylight, Kenia found him handcuffed in the back of a law enforcement vehicle. “What’s happening to my husband?” she asked the agents. Her mind raced to make sense of the scene. Wilson had made all his required check-ins at an Atlanta ICE office. He had the government’s permission to work and had an appointment on a court docket. He was deported once nearly 20 years ago—a significant strike on an immigrant’s record—but otherwise had no criminal record.

The agents told Kenia they were looking for people with ankle bracelets, then they drove Wilson away.

The denominations are saying their right to practice their religion is infringed upon when the government stops a fundamental act of worship: to welcome the stranger.

Jesus said, “If you welcome the stranger, you welcome me.” With deep conviction and joy, we are trust that we exiles have a home with Jesus, who welcomes us into the presence of God.

Protests in St. Louis against Donald Trump’s January 2017 executive order on immigration. Wikimedia Commons

Experiencing and being sanctuary is basic: “Love one another as I have loved you,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”

So the denominations argue that in the U.S. system:

  • Houses of worship should have the same right to safety as individuals have in their homes.
  • The government should not establish a particular religion (like the cult of Trump).
  • Individuals and groups can practice their own religion so long as the practice does not run afoul of “public morals” or a “compelling” governmental interest.

It is true, compassion may be losing ground as public morality. And it is true, ICE may wantonly decide snatching a church member during worship somehow satisfies a compelling interest. But we make noise when that happens, like hikers in the back country scaring bears before they get too close.

Practicing our faith regardless of coercion has always been a Christian virtue — and sheltering strangers is a main way we live our faith.

The anti-sanctuary government

The theology of sanctuary developed over centuries, from Biblical times to the present.

The story of the Exodus is about captives of an oppressive government in Egypt who are miraculously freed. They flee for their lives and look for a place they can flourish in a land God promises them. The new law of Moses, which identifies them as a nation and keeps them together and healthy, repeatedly refers to Egypt when it addresses how to care for strangers:  “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

J.D. Vance, who schools Germans on Fascism, also sought to school the Pope on Catholicism. The Catholic convert said we should Google “ordis amoris” to see how he justified telling the faithful watching Fox News it was God’s order to love in concentric circles. He said, if you properly love your family and those near to you, you might have enough love left over to get to strangers a thousand miles away. Regardless, it is family then America first. In a rare show of meddling, Pope Francis wrote a letter to U.S. Bishops condemning the Trump administration for “mass deportations” and even indirectly criticized Vance’s for improperly using ordo amoris to defend Trumpist nationalism (see The New Republic).

The MAGA crowd are catechized with alternative facts that go against the Bible and tradition. Walter Masterson got some TikTok views by interviewing MAGA rally attendees about whether Jesus would be welcomed if he arrived in the U.S. as a refugee (see YouTube @ 18:42). Their answer: “If he had the right papers.”

The Emperor’s Darth Vader, Stephen Miller, deployed his America First Legal Foundation to teach various governments how the authorities would be coming after them for preserving the due process of the undocumented. In a Dec. 23 letter, San Diego Supervisors were told: “We have identified San Diego County as a sanctuary jurisdiction that is violating federal law.”

The legal shock troops of MAGA announced they had identified 249 elected officials in sanctuary jurisdictions who, they said, could face “legal consequences” over immigration policies. The California Attorney General’s office and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass were notified [link]. In January. the Oregon Governor Tina Kotek also said she would stand by the state’s sanctuary law despite threats from Miller.

Our history of wrangling

Churches in the United States have a long history of getting into good trouble with immigration enforcement. In the 1980s, hundreds of churches formed networks to protect migrants fleeing political violence in Central America. The Sanctuary Movement, as it called itself, drew the ire of the Reagan administration. Immigration authorities, then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, never arrested migrants inside houses of worship. But they did send paid informants to spy on churches sheltering migrants.

The government arrested dozens of church leaders in Texas and Arizona, ultimately convicting eight of them for “criminal harboring.” The trials sparked protests outside INS offices across the country and made for bad optics. Since then, the Department of Justice has not prosecuted any churches for providing sanctuary.

During the Obama administration and the first Trump administration, more than 1,000 churches pledged to join the New Sanctuary Movement and offer shelter to migrants facing deportation. No one knows exactly how many immigrants took advantage of the offer, but stories abound. In 2019, ICE threatened some immigrants taking refuge in churches with fines of up to half a million dollars (it eventually backed off on the fines).

Alexia Salvatierra, a professor of missions and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary who cofounded the New Sanctuary Movement acknowledges that many undocumented immigrants have no legal right to residency. The Movement aims to buy time for people being denied due process to resolve what may be legitimate claims. The “Dreamers,” for instance, who were brought to the US as minors, have been in legislative limbo since 2001. “There were certain people who had a deportation order, but there would be a legal remedy for them if they could get deferred deportation and fight their case over time,” Salvatierra says. “For some of those people, it made sense for them to live in churches or to live with families that were connected to the church to allow them the time to be able to fight through this broken system.”

Sanctuary is a core Christian distinctive

Like I said, the theology of a “sanctuary church” regarding refugees is deeply rooted in how the Bible and tradition teach Jesus followers to provide refuge to the vulnerable, to see all people as created in God’s image, and to act on our moral responsibility to protect those fleeing persecution. “Welcoming the stranger” is a core Christian distinctive. Churches are natural shelters and advocates for refugees or they are unnaturalized churches. The Body of Christ and our buildings  provide a sacred space where those in need can find safety and support.

The ELCA laid out the argument about why they are a sanctuary denomination and it may help us all figure out how to express our faith these days:

  • It’s in the Bible

The Bible contains numerous stories and teachings that exemplify the concept of sanctuary. In the Old Testament if a person accused of manslaughter grasped the “horns of the altar” they were supposed to find temporary refuge (see 1 Kings 1 and 2 for Adonijah and Joab). “Cities of refuge” were designated where such a person could flee for permanent asylum. There are repeated calls in both the Old Testament and New to care for the stranger and the marginalized: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” is now folk wisdom from Heb. 13:2.

  • Everyone is made in the image of God

Refugees, regardless of their legal status, deserve dignity and compassion. They are Jesus in his distressing disguise.

  • Compassion and justice are fundamental

We need to act with compassion towards those suffering from persecution and advocate for just immigration policies that protect refugees.

  • Telling the truth regardless of the cost is crucial

Churches have a prophetic duty to speak out against injustice and challenge oppressive systems that force people to flee their homes. Violence and cruelty are not the answer.

  • We must salt the society with truth and love

Jesus is everyone’s refuge. The sanctuary in which we live extends beyond our individual lives and beyond the physical spaces of the Church.  That’s why we actively support refugees through advocacy, providing resources, and fostering community integration, even when we are threatened and even when we find common cause with advocacy groups who do not share our faith.

  • Offering sanctuary is worship

We do not just hear the Word, we do it. Having a mindset contrary to much of the world but aligned with the mind of Christ is normal. It may seem strange in the eyes of others to welcome the stranger the same way God has welcomed us into eternity, but we do it. Making and giving sanctuary is a demonstration of the heart of the gospel. Walking alongside immigrants and refugees is worship. It is not merely a political statement; in essence, it is an act of faith. It does not matter if the government approves of our altars, or not.

War is burned into the U.S. culture: A warning 

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, The Mission, , , , , , , ,

The greatest skill the United States of America has is making war. My veteran dad was proud of that. His pride helped propel me into a meaningful life. Ever since I decided to follow Jesus, proactive peacemaking has been an everyday aspiration. One of the reasons I felt called to stay in the United States, even though I thought it could harm my children, is this: the U.S. A. is a major mission field for the Prince of Peace.

Joint Task Force – Bravo website: Nov. 24, 2024
NGOs retrieve 180,000 pounds humanitarian aid from Soto Cano Air Base (Honduras)

The country where I became a citizen by birth, is history’s largest war machine, by far. Presently, it has 800+ military bases around the world. It rules the air, land, sea, space and, probably for at least a few months, prevails in technowar. It spends more for “defense” than the next twelve largest militaries in the world put together. China is a distant 2nd and Russia is 3rd.

So I am not writing to debate my title; the truth of it is rather obvious. I just want to demonstrate the truth of it, once again. You did not need the last paragraph’s stats to agree that war is burned into the U.S. psyche. You just have to watch our movies, play our video games, look at our national sport, and listen to our language of “shock and awe” to verify the fact that our societal amygdala is wounded.

Researchers say about 20 million U.S. Americans a year demonstrate PTSD symptoms. For many people the symptoms are transitory. But we therapists who listen to a lot of people know that the vestiges of trauma are hard to dislodge. When you live in a country where violence is foundational, where war is considered essential, where the most honored people are the winners of conflicts, and where our political life has degenerated into opposing encampments, most of us expect some projectile to hit us any moment, one way or another. Many of us haven’t slept well for years and even endless screen scrolling can’t distract us enough from the fear that’s built into our lives.

The War on Drugs

The war on drugs is a prime example of our bellicose assumptions.

When Richard Nixon, Trump’s grandfather, was president, he called for a major assault on drug use. People called it his “war on drugs.” The description stuck. It is exactly the way one would expect the U.S. to approach a problem — and not solve it, as is evident all around us. In fact, the war on drugs created a worse problem, including the cartels stationed on the southern border, for whom Trump promises, you guessed it, a war.

However, Nixon did not invent the war on drugs. In Johann Hari’s book, Chasing the Scream: The First And Last Days of The War on Drugs (2015 with a 2018 afterword) he reveals the real instigator: Harry Anslinger of Altoona PA, married to the favorite niece of Andrew Mellon, the richest man in the country. I’m a little late to Hari’s book but the internet is full of articles and blogs where parts of it are lifted wholesale and presented as fact without reference. It is still popular.

Anslinger served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics, beginning with the administration of Herbert Hoover, then under Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy – an unprecedented 32 years. He zealously advocated for and pursued harsh drug penalties, in particular regarding cannabis, which he got included with regulated drugs like morphine. As a propagandist for the war on drugs, he focused on demonizing racial and immigrant groups. And he used the power and influence of the U.S. after WW2 to force the whole world to fight drugs the American way. Hari notes when the Swiss and Portuguese decided to stop the war in their countries, they still had to face international treaties that enshrined a compassionless approach.

I could see the war at work but I, like Johann Hari,  never knew about this well-connected bureaucrat who found a way to make his little department into the DEA. Hari tells his story with verve. Anslinger apparently said in a radio speech:

“Parents beware! Your children…are being introduced to a new danger in the form of a drugged cigarette, marijuana. Young [people] are slaves to this narcotic, continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally, become insane, [and] turn to violent crime and murder.”

The infamous 1936 film Reefer Madness referenced one of the murders Anslinger falsely attributed to marijuana and which the yellow journalists of the Hearst newspaper chain falsely asserted as fact.

Just four months after the passage of the Marihuana [sic] Tax Act of 1937, which made selling pot illegal if not registered and taxed, Anslinger wrote an article in the FBI Law Bulletin, linking marijuana to instances of rape, assault, murder, and madness. He called it a more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine when viewed with regards to causing crime and insanity (article).  In 1948 he told a congressional hearing, “Marijuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.”

This story should not astonish me. It is the American way. But I am still flabbergasted.

Now a war on the USAID

Musk and Trump with their war of words

In the footsteps of Anslinger and Nixon, young jackboots have been let loose in the “deep state” to root out corruption and anything that seems “woke.” The Nazi-tinged Elon Musk promotes the war like Harry Anslinger on Ex-Twitter, telling mostly outright lies in order to grab the power to gnaw the meat off the bones of the institutional carcass.

Ron Kraybill, a respected voice from the Mennonite branch of the family with worldwide experience, wrote about Musk’s assault on the USAID on Facebook last week:

You may think [our military might] makes us secure and safe. But a military presence that vast, often heedless to local populations who see no benefits to themselves, also earns us plenty of resentments, even when our warriors are not in combat. When our bombs, missiles, and shells kill people who see themselves as defenders of their freedom and homeland, or innocent civilians – well, how would you react if you were in the shoes of their families and communities?

One of the few things we bring to the world for the stated purpose of assisting the well-being of others is assistance channeled through USAID. In 2023 we spent $43.6 billion on USAID. For the military, $820 billion. That’s a ratio of about twenty to one in favor of weapons. Now Trump/Musk are ending even that tiny investment in the social and economic thriving of our neighbors on the basis of falsehoods. And we would like the world to appreciate us more?

As people later found out, Harry Anslinger didn’t even believe marijuana was as dangerous as he advertised — as he had been repeatedly told by researchers. But he did believe people of color were dangerous and he thought wielding power over the world from his important office was crucial. I suspect Musk and friends are much the same.

Marco Rubio said “foreign aid” was the least popular thing the federal government does when justifying Musk’s attack. It is true, the supremely capitalist country is wildly self-interested, so giving anybody anything seems illogical. In truth, the whole point of USAID is also about securing American interests. But at least it helps some people and shares the wealth a little bit. Among the many things the government does which I find immoral and detrimental, the USAID stands out as something a Christian could easily defend, even subject to the God-free Constitution, as it is.

War has a way of killing the winner

This post is another warning, in case you need one, to never surrender to powermongers, liars and the rich drunk with their wealth. They are the ancient enemies of goodness and charity. Proverbs 26:18-19 is picturing Trump:

Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows,
so is one who deceives a neighbor
and says, “I am only joking!”

In the U.S. the maniac has a vast arsenal of “firebrands and arrows.” He presides over a society imprinted with war and traumatized by the use and abuse of power. Lying is his native language and he deludes a host of followers who believe all his lies as a matter of faith — he’s a true wolf in sheep’s clothing, a devil disguised as an angel of light. The War on Drugs is followed by the War on Terror, the War on the Borderlands, and now the war on the government, which may soon be a war on us all, starting with the most vulnerable.

The vulnerable is who I hope to attend to in this troubled time. I hope the vulnerable find community in the church, where the Lamb of God sits on the throne, where love, even of enemies, heals war-torn hearts, and where truth reinforced by the Truth, himself, gives us courage to take our daily stand for goodness and charity. Like the resurrection demonstrates, the wins of murderous have a brief shelf-life.  Like Jesus says, the meek will inherit the earth.

Don’t hunker down. Expand your tent

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Life as the church, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

For many years, now, even before the pandemic, we have all been scrambling to find a new place in an upended world. Our institutions, from the federal government to the classroom, all seemed to be deteriorating, Our churches, associations, families, marriages feel threatened or unsustainable. More and more young people have begun to live alone, with the workplace as their main place to relate outside their bunker — and even then much of that relating has been consigned to a screen, sometimes in their bedroom.

Booming business for bunkers

Now that Trump has taken the helm, pardoned a slew of criminals and installed billionaires in new thrones (one, at least, giving a Nazi salute for the cameras), half the country is wondering what to do. And from what I hear, one of their solutions is to “go to their tents:” don’t watch the news, hunker down, shore up their family or small group of friends and try to survive. That is understandably defensive. And it is not a new response to a social mess.

But it is not the right time to go back to our tents. It is time to infect the society with truth and love.

The Biblical Trump

When Rehoboam, perhaps the Trump of the Old Testament, became king after his father Solomon died, he had a choice. He could lighten up on his father’s grandiosity or follow in his footsteps. Solomon had built an oversized kingdom on the backs of his people: high taxes and conscripted labor to build a lavish temple and palaces big enough for his many wives, stables and more. The people were tired of it. The king was a one-man 1% collecting all the wealth.

The elders, like the Episcopal bishop, and Catholic Archbishop preaching to Trump last week, asked Rehoboam to lighten up. He told them to come back later and he’d tell them what he planned. Then he went and talked to his cronies who lived with him in his bubble. They advised him to double down. In our context their advice would be, “Tell them they must say the election was stolen. Tell them you’re going to pardon bitcoin criminals. Tell them you want to conquer Greenland.” In Rehoboam’s context it was, “Tell them your pinky has more girth than your dad’s loins. Tell them, ‘If my dad set on you with whips, expect me to  set on you with scorpions.’”

The elders did not like his answer. Their response was so legendary the storytellers compiling the history could quote a song about it: “What share have we in David? / We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. / To your tents, O Israel! / Now, see to your own house, O David!” (Today we’d cue up Le Mis). They took the place name “Israel” with them and left Rehoboam with just the tribal area of Judah. The call, “To you tents, O Israel!” is reminiscent of how the tribes organized themselves in the encampments on the way from Egypt. It was like another exodus from an oppressive ruler.

I think a lot of the people I know are unwittingly or deliberately going to their tents. They are leaving Mark Zuckerberg’s predatory social media, boycotting Amazon, not touching anything smelling of Musk, turning their exhausted backs on Trump and the next outrageous thing he says or does. That’s understandably defensive. But I don’t think it is worthy of us.

The vision of an expanding tent

In the 580s BC, King Zedekiah of Judah chose the wrong ally. (Trump might be deciding, “Europe or Russia?” right now). Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and exiled the elite, including the prophet Ezekiel. Other citizens fled to Egypt. The Assyrians had previously done this to the Northern Kingdom in the 720’s BC. A prophet among the exiles in Babylon, speaking in the spirit of Isaiah, prophesied Israel’s return to the place of the ancestral tents. His vision is the antidote we need to the poisonous atomization to which we are tempted to surrender in our own exile.

In Isaiah 54 the prophet has God speaking to a “barren” people whose tents are empty of children. They are desolate, as you may well feel this week. Discouraged. Exhausted. Afraid. Instead of hunkering down in exile, he calls them to respond to a vision of something better, something only God can do.

Enlarge the place of your tent,
And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;
Do not spare;
Lengthen your cords,
And strengthen your stakes.
For you shall expand to the right and to the left,
And your descendants will inherit the nations,
And make the desolate cities inhabited.

Historically, the prophet is talking about returning to Israel, which the Persian Empire eventually allowed. But I think its broader meaning, a spiritual meaning, calls me to make a bigger tent, not a smaller one, because we need to gather ourselves and build something ancient and new to meet the challenges of the latest tyrants. We need to shore up or re-establish a community where the love of Jesus reigns.

To be honest, Trump Christians believe he is the new Cyrus returning them from exile and making a place for their tribe to again rule God’s chosen nation, the United States. I think that is a ruinous delusion; you can decide for yourself. I don’t think Trump or the U.S. is exceptional or chosen, just a decent port in the choppy ocean of history. We don’t need to fight for the control of the nation as much as we need to salt it with the grace we enact within and from our tent.

Jesus tabernacling

The ultimate guide for our ongoing exodus is Jesus, who is pictured as an expansive tent. The key verse in John uses an ancient image that calls us away from our division and isolation and empowers us to not only envision but practically extend our tent pegs in expectation of an ingathering.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:14

The more literal translations accurately trade “dwelt” for “tabernacled.” I agree it was John’s intent to reference the big tent, the “tabernacle of meeting” the Israelites set up during their sojourn where God met them. Jesus is the tabernacle where the world meets God face to face. Jesus is the tabernacle from where the people-God-calls-out of the world gather to meet in truth and love.

Now is not the time to isolate, avoid, wait or play defense. At least that is not Jesus’ strategy for the good life. Now is the time to relate: to God and to one another. The antidote to every disaster is to stick with God and love one another in practical ways. Many people know this and are making it happen, but you and I need to do it, too.

During the pandemic and because of the Evangelical/Catholic delusion about Trump, the church took a hit. You may still be out of church. You may have turned your back on Jesus altogether and explored the many alternatives cropping up. But many of my readers wish they could find some place to be the church with integrity and action. Exhausted as you may feel, now is the time to find it or build it.

We need the church now, as much as ever

Thirty years ago we planted a great church for the “next generation.” Little did I know what would hit us during the pandemic, and I thought Trump was just a brief, worst nightmare. It was a great sojourn for me and hundreds of other people.  Seeds of that work are still ripening even now.

Even though many churches have taken a hit, there are plenty of revived or reviving churches to join. My friend just joined a new church in Baltimore. If I were in Southwest Philly I’d sojourn with Salt and Light. If I were in Northeast Philly I’d probably be with Oxford Circle Mennonite. In my neighborhood near St. Joseph U., I’m part of the newly-expansive St. Asaph’s. I dare say most churches are not fully on the Trump bandwagon and certainly are not in favor of scaring undocumented people to death or tormenting trans folk. I think most believers know dominating others, lying, or having a devotion to violence and greed will never be OK. They want real stuff.

Jesus is still tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth. We need to meet him personally and meet with him together with others for our mental and spiritual health, in order to experience our deepest loves and desires, and to keep the world from falling off the cliff of its own self-destruction. Maybe more than ever, we need to gather around Him, share our spiritual gifts and natural strengths, do our part in making the love that will not only benefit us but make a better future.

God bless you as you do the good you do in the school, workplace or neighborhood association. But “me against the world” will never be enough. It is likely to make you a minion of TikTok. The people of God need to be with God and each other in their basic tent of dwelling, their portable, flexible, developing homeplace, not only in their hearts, but in their face-to-face relationships and joint action. There is no time to lose by lamenting and laying low.

I rejoined the church two Lents ago. I started a new small group, and we are about to start another. I decided to give what I have to a local expression of the Body. It feels right. I feel a bit hopeful. And even in my uncertainty, I feel like I’m in the tent where I belong. What is God giving you to be and do to meet the challenge of this wild time in history? I doubt the call is, “Go to you tent.”

***********************

Today is Mahalia Jackson Day! Check in with her at The Transhistorical Body.

Which industry enslaves you best?: 1 Cor. 7:21-23

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , , , , , , , , ,

Were you a slave when you were called?
Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so.
For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person;
similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave.
You were bought at a price;
do not become slaves of human beings.
1 Cor. 7:21-23

What did your family or friendship circle talk about over the holidays? At our Christmas brunch, for a few minutes the conversation turned to slavery.

The education industry

I have a grandson ready to enter college (and highly qualified to do so!). The biggest question is: how much is it going to cost and how much debt is going to be accrued? I asked, in an apocalyptic tone in line with our times, “Can you avoid becoming a debt slave?” After all, Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

President Biden tried to give borrowers some relief by plugging some holes in the leaky federal student loan system, like the  one leaking out the loan forgiveness built in for public service. He was not too successful, with the Congress and Courts as they are. Here’s a story about it from The Hill:

Lisa Ansell, an educator from California, was one of the people who got their loans cancelled in 2021 when Biden made those changes, after she was denied eight times.

“I should have been eligible for public service loan forgiveness in 2017, which would have been the first cohort, because public service loan forgiveness was signed into law in 2007. I applied in 2017 and, of course, I was denied, no valid reason. We know that the Department of Education likes to invent reasons to prevent people from receiving their lawful cancelation,” said Ansell, the California chapter president for Student Loan Justice.

Ansell said she was relieved, but “what I felt was anger and resentment because I had been kept in indentured servitude to the Department of Education for close to five extra years, and because of that, I was never able to save up any money.”

While Biden forgave the most student debt of any president, his efforts affected only a small portion of the 45 million borrowers.  (The Hill)

These stories are so painful for us Boomer college grads! My excellent college education in California was completed before the state stopped considering it an investment in the future. The school debt slavery so many experience now all started with Governor Ronald Reagan.

When Reagan assumed office in 1966, he changed the course of the state’s higher education system. In his eight years, he cut state funding for college and universities and laid the foundation for the tuition-based system there is today. Once he became president, he continued his quest. {Great article describing in in the UC Irvine Campus Newspaper from 2023]. The “intellectual curiosity” to which the university was devoted created protesting Berkeley “brats” he said. He preferred a campus-as-business model working to create more profiteers — at least the few who could make the cut.

Since Reagan, college has gotten more and more expensive. It is amazing, really. Just think, the average American saved $5,011 in 2022. That means it would take them about 75 years to save up enough cash to send one child to a top-rated U.S. university. If your child wants to go, you’ll either need to get very rich or sell her to the debtors. (CNN 2023)

The average tuition at U.S. private colleges grew by about 4% last year to just under $40,000 per year, according to data collected by US News & World Report. For a public in-state schools, the rise was less, about 1%. But it always goes up. Another take on the stats sees that small rise as a glass half full, since 20 years ago it climbed 68%!

At highly rated or selective schools, which are most likely to get you the lucrative job or your chance to be part of the 1%, the price tag increases substantially. Harvard University charges about $58,000 in tuition and fees, per year, for undergraduate students. When you add in housing, food, books and other cost of living expenses, Harvard says you should expect to pay over $95,000.

We’re used to being rolled over by the “anti-socialists” who believe the rich deserve to rule (just like Proverbs lamented above, perhaps with a picture of Elon Musk in mind),  so we  kind of think it is common sense for slavery to debt to be part of getting an education. This guy explains how it happened to us:

While we were at it (Merry Christmas!), we enumerated other systems that have gone through the same kind of process until what was once a sphere of the “common good” has ended up in the hands of people skilled in making profit/slaves. I just want to touch on them.

Healthcare / insurance industry

There are many reasons healthcare is so costly (link). But the big ones in my mind are mergers and insurance. Big health systems have eaten up smaller rivals until they can basically charge what they want.

Worked into the fees they charge are paying off insurance companies for fear of malpractice claims. So insurance companies have their hands out all along the way, as Luigi Mangione pointed out. On average, a single person will pay $12-25 a day to the insurance slaver or they will be personally liable for the astronomical cost of a hospital visit or procedure, which will be allowed by the master, or not.

Like with universities, healthcare is a good investment for profiteers, since everyone needs it. An investor can be assured that profits are available since the cost for drugs and medical care can go up to whatever can be tolerated by raising the cost of insurance. My insurance toll goes up every year.  A recent stay in the hospital for a family member for a one-night surgery cost over $100,000.

Porn industry

The average age reported for first viewing pornography is 12. Almost half of the reporters (44%) went looking for it, while slightly more than half (58%) encountered it accidentally. It is hard to miss. The total adult entertainment revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate  of 5.3% from 2024 to 2030, reaching nearly $248.18 billion by 2030.

There are legal arguments about what is obscene and so regulatable. But from listening to my twentysomething clients, the porn industry is not a discussion about personal choice, it is a slaver. Like any other addiction, there is an introductory path on the way to enslavement and profit engineered by an industry. Monetizing sexual desire is a growth industry. Under the spell of profit, people tend to think that is self-evidently appropriate.

Phones/gaming/social media industries

I got an ad for Royal Match on Bible Gateway (!) as I wrote this. That seemed about right.  We’re all getting squished or drowned no matter where we look and we have to complete some crazy puzzle (and fast!!) or someone is going to die. Our movies, games, and notifications are all full of this anxiety. That anxiety is not our fault, no matter what the powers that be tell us.

It is profitable, somehow, to produce endless ads for this game and loop us into it. The ads are incessant lures to get me hooked so I play the game on the subway instead of relating. Then the phone can report how much time I’ve spent with it every week and I can worry about that. There is nothing benign in our “economy.” No tools are provided for mere creation, we are the host for giant corporations to drain. The phone is like Neo connected to the Matrix.

The prophets made that movie in 1999! Lots of people listened to them, but they got rolled over anyway (maybe the medium is the message). Besides, even by 2011, only 35% of Americans owned a smartphone. But by 2024, 91% of them did. Now we are enslaved to it. I can’t leave the house without it, I might need to satisfy a 2-step verification to get to my money or need Siri to tell me where the nearest Chipotle is.

Sorry

I’m kinda sorry I want you to be ramped up with me.

I will look for something more uplifting to talk about next time. I know most of us are upended by Santa Ana winds in January spreading fire in L.A. Trump is setting Canada and Denmark on edge for some reason. And Jimmy Carter is dead. Anxiety is in the air and we need some relief.

But seeing what we are up against at least gives us some juice to move with the ever-rebellious Paul, and not bend the knee to the norms of a sin-fueled world. “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings.”

Ronald Reagan opened the door to the American henhouse and the foxes are finally in charge of it, now — in Paul’s time, it was Rome eating up the world. But as Paul and Jimmy Carter exemplified, you don’t need to offer yourself up to be breakfast. You might even change the world, as a result.

Spiritual Bypass — a new resource article

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction,

In John 8 Jesus proclaims he is the light of the world. His presence is a challenge to all who listen to Him. John records he said to the “Jews who had believed him . . . ‘the truth will set you free’” (John 8:31-32). But there were many others who were not set free. Many very religious people had a difficult time unseeing what they saw was obvious: they were already free. They responded to Jesus, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” (John 8:33).

Often the truth about ourselves is the hardest truth to see, particularly when our view of the self is consciously and unconsciously tied to our religious practice and belief. The Jewish leaders saw themselves as descendants of Abraham. With this firm understanding of who they were in the world intricately intertwined with their religious practice and belief, they could not consciously imagine that they were not already where they ought to be. Nevertheless, Jesus insists each of them is “a slave to sin” (John 8:34).

They were caught in spiritual bypass. When religion is used as a defense, it is twisted to help us avoid a deeper truth. As a result, it might cause us to miss seeing reality facing us in our own backyard. Jesus presents a new way.

That should get you started.

I reduced an academic paper Dr. Gwen White wrote in 2005 for my many clients who are facing the interesting and challenging reality that they use their faith as a defense against facing their psychological needs and, surprisingly, entering their next stage of spiritual growth. In the article I’ve provided a link to the original paper housed at CircleCounseling.com where you can find the referenced work, an extensive bibliography ,and a case conceptualization. 

To continue reading, please select the “Spiritual Bypass” link from the right column or follow this link.