Our church’s social action team, Voices for Justice, has been connecting with the New Sanctuary Movement in Philadelphia, here and there, since their good work intersects with our goals. They work out dignity, mutuality, community, and spiritual nonviolence as they make a place for the stranger in spite of our xenophobic federal regime. Thank God there are a lot of people who keep the light burning!
Tre Ford, a pastor with Bethel Church (out at Franklin Mills), is the Community Organizer & Congregation Liaison for NSM. He called us together for a prayer vigil at Love Park last Wednesday with the theme “Love Has No Limits.” He said,
After more than 40 weeks of consistently showing up at noon at 8th & Cherry [ICE in Philly], our work continues. On September 30, we will shift our weekly witness into an evening expression of prayer and unity at Love Park. This will be a special moment for our movement, and we want our clergy, congregations, people, and voices there. Please bring your people and come stand with us.
We did not fill Love Park. But we got a good number of people out at 6:30 to form a “sacred space.” It was not a “protest” per se. But there was a lot of protest in it and a group of winsome young teachers came prepared with some pithy posters they made.
The New Sanctuary folks are great at getting Christians and like-minded people out of their buildings and into the public in ecumenical gatherings. This is not small feat. They are persistent, insistent and overtly Christian/religious — right there in Love Park!
Love Park is a noisy place to create a sanctuary
The organizers hauled in a lot of sound equipment, but it was still hard to hear certain speakers. Who really knows how to use a microphone, anyway? We stood at the edge of the group and to the side, so we missed quite a bit. But the point was being present, not just being informed. I kept noting the challenges we faced as we cordoned off some sanctuary:
The Broad St. Beer Garden has been operating in the square around the “flying saucer” pavilion they will later inhabit. I finally realized that loudspeaker was them broadcasting quizzo questions. Quizzo is so distracting.
A man about 20 yards away near Market St. had such a booming laugh he was louder than the speaker. Astounding and infectious.
A passerby saw that an ecumenical peace band was set up and waiting to play, so he came into the group and shouted, “Play some heavy metal” a few times. My wife told him we wanted to hear the speaker, so he gave way. They were both mildly audacious.
A group of preschool and early elementary kids used our gathering as a maze in a serious game of chase. They darted through our legs so many times they seemed like part of the family. Yes, I looked around for their parents.
About a half hour into our vigil, servants from The Everywhere Project started setting up their tables and unloading their food and supplies on 15th St. to help the unhoused. Quite an undertaking.
There are many purposely-loud cars and wild tricycles with blaring music on our streets, as you know.
But we managed to do it
We have nice, quiet church buildings for a reason. Turning into the presence of God takes quite a bit of silence. But if we have turned and invited God to fully inhabit the holy center of ourselves, we can invite people into sanctuary almost anywhere. We’re like a special delivery. And, of course, where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus, God is in their midst. So I think we did all right. Among the well-turned moments I remember:
There were pastors and a rabbi involved. I know how busy they can be, so I was impressed. And I know from experience they usually decide what is going to happen and it is not that easy to fit into someone else’s program. They did well.
From what I could hear, a soft-spoken Haitian woman told TPS stories. In an unspeakable act of cruelty, the USCIS announced that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti officially terminated on July 27 following a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Mullin v. Doe) that allowed the Department of Homeland Security to end the designation. That means about 350,000 (!!) more people now being hunted by ICE.
A representative from Asian Americans United (AAU) couldn’t help but weep as she talked about accompanying people through the immigration injustice system. The ICE office in Philly is, essentially, in Chinatown. AAU provides case support for families impacted by ICE detention, connects individuals with legal resources, and distributes emergency aid. They were a primary coalition member pushing for the city’s “ICE Out” legislative package, which restricts ICE from entering city-owned spaces without judicial warrants and limits local cooperation with federal agents.
Then there was the interfaith band, full of joy and cajoling us to sing simple songs right out there in Love Park. Just getting themselves electrified and amplified was a deep expression of commitment and hope.
And I must give a shout out to Will O’Brien and Dee Dee Risher who were present. I went over to Will and reminded him that he had welcomed strangers to Philadelphia when we showed up at the offices of The Other Side in Germantown as soon as we arrived in town from California in 1995. Their magazine had been a guiding light for our Sierra St. Household and church planting efforts. Sadly, they had to stop publishing in 2004. I told my wife, “Those are people who have always lived out their convictions.”
Remembering our super-diverse collection of brilliant people and hangers on, like me, gives me hope. I’m encouraged, even though It has been a terrible year for people singled out for oppression by the government. I’m shocked, and I think it is important to stay shocked by how ruthless they are in principle and action.
In the face of that reality, many people are giving their lives to lead us. They are living out their convictions and revealing Jesus in the process. The gospel has always re-emerged after dark times, usually stronger and clearer than before. I am looking forward to that and praying for the tide to turn right now.
Gwen and I are getting ready to write an article that responds to some of the unreconciled relationships we recall and how forgiveness has worked in those places. I was reminded of this post from 2022 when the need to forgive was very fresh and Joe Biden had some issues with reconciliation to deal with too!
The Washington Post surprised me the other day with an op-ed featuring Warren G. Harding – the first president after World War I, who is most-remembered for the corruption in his administration. That’s him, above, throwing out the first pitch. So it has been a weird week. First, I liked Dick Cheney, of all people, for accompanying Liz to the Jan. 6 commemoration. Then I read WaPo and ended up admiring the super-capitalist, Teapot Dome president!
I did not know that Harding forgave Eugene V. Debs! He commuted the sentence of the Socialist who ran against him from prison! Debs’ crime was doubting-out-loud the validity of WWI — he called it a diabolical capitalist war (I guess I would have voted for him). For his free speech, the Woodrow Wilson administration threw Debs in jail with a dubious application of the Espionage Act. When Harding followed Wilson, he decided to forgive Debs, against the advice of his advisors. He even made sure the “traitor” came to the White House on his way home from prison, so he could meet him and form some kind of relationship.
Biden has been acting out a similar public drama for us all year. He’d love to forgive people. But he took the gloves off on Epiphany (which he also loves to to) and laid out Trump. For most of the year he had been restrained, trying hard to bridge the political chasm dividing the country. But that appears to be over.
Are you similarly conflicted by your own relational chasms? Do you rehearse snappy things you would say to your enemies in your head — the zingers you will never get a chance to deliver? What do you do when your offender will not apologize, much less reconcile?
Have you decided how you are going to handle the people who have undermined you, lied about you and then blamed you for what they did to you? Maybe you just wait to see what will happens when the drama starts.
You won’t have to wait long, apparently. A lot of us are having a lot of drama. All over the country divorces have gone up, families have been divided over politics, churches have split and pastors have resigned. You can’t look at the news, if you dare, without someone worrying about American “democracy” – which Eugene V. Debs did not think much of when he was jailed for saying something that 900,000 people voted for.
It can be hard to forgive sometimes, but if Warren Harding can do it, maybe we can too.
What if they don’t say they are sorry?
This is always the big question when it comes to forgiveness. What if the person who hurt me is not sorry? It is not uncommon for someone to protest like this when forgiveness is suggested:
I can’t let my guard down. That would be surrendering and acting like they were justified in hurting me. They would get away with their crime! I would be just as vulnerable to more of the abuse I just suffered.
I will not forgive until the other person: 1) knows that wrong was done; 2) feels an inner sorrow for doing it; 3) apologizes to me; 4) and makes amends. Then I’ll know it is safe to forgive and enter back into the relationship.
Most of us are taught to apologize from a young age along the lines of those last four conditions. Maybe you bit your sibling (well, I did, at least), said something cruel, pushed someone around, and a well-meaning adult intervened and told you, “Now, say you’re sorry.” As kids, those half-hearted apologies, sometimes followed with forced hugs, were enough to help us move on. But something changed as we got older. Aren’t apologies a little harder to come by, now? Aren’t the issues cutting a little deeper than, “She took my Sports Diva!”
What are you supposed to do when someone intentionally hurts you, rips your heart wide open, and then leaves you to pick up the pieces? What if they move on with their lives, and there is no well-meaning adult to come along and demand they apologize?
From our playground lessons, we’ve been conditioned to think forgiveness follows an apology. But things change and people forget how to apologize or think they are avoiding the problem by never having relationships deep enough to matter. We protest that someone is letting our hurt and their perfidy go unnoticed and all we hear is, “That’s your problem. Deal with it.” We get the unspoken message we’re wrong for being hurt. But living wronged with that prickly disconnection installed is a recipe for bitterness and it might even make us sick.
When hurt remains unforgiven, when the memory stays unprocessed, it sits in our hearts as if it is still happening. A lot of us are waiting for an apology in order to get some relief. Do you have anyone on whom you are still waiting? Is it fairly easy to get all worked up when their face pops into your mind or someone speaks about them fondly or you see them succeed? Jessica Harris wrote:
“My dad left our family when I was in elementary school. The pain caused by his abandonment ran deep. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that someone I loved could hurt me so badly when I didn’t do anything to deserve it. Then, as I got older, I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that someone I loved could hurt me so badly and not care.
That ate away at my heart for years. The hurt remained unresolved as I waited for this man to return to my life and apologize for wrecking it. I thought my anger was my power. My ability to never forget was going to ensure I would never get hurt again. It was how I protected my heart.
That anger bled over into my other relationships. I became angry in general, always blaming it on my dad. If he would just admit he was wrong, my life would be better.”
I couldn’t tell that same story. But I have definitely had to work through similar hurts in the last few years. You probably have had some hurts too. My clients certainly share them every day: a trauma that is lodged in the memory and won’t go away, a loved one who betrayed their trust, an unscrupulous salesman or contractor who swindled them, a family member who hurt them but has since passed on. They still feel deeply about people who cut them deep but have never once breathed an apology. You might feel you have a right to hold a grudge, yourself.
What if anger is not strength?
Bitterness is an enemy of resilience. It is the opposite of joy isn’t it? It is the taste of poison. You cannot be strong and move forward with your life while still dragging around chests full of bitterness from your past like you’re Jacob Marley.
What kids rarely learn is that an act of forgiveness strengthens the heart of the forgiver as much as it frees the offender. Forgiveness is not, “I am OK with what you did.” It isn’t even, “I accept your apology.” It is, “I am not going to hold this in me or against you anymore.”
The point of forgiveness and apologies is ultimately reconciliation. It is great when an apology is extended by the person who committed the hurt; then they can be free of what they are dragging behind them. It is an everyday miracle when forgiveness is extended by the person who was hurt; then they can get over what the offender did to them. If those things happen, then two people who have freed one another can move on to work out how to live together in love, and creation is that much less ruined.
But even if you can’t get to reconciliation you can still forgive, and bring some kind of closure to a wound. Adults take charge of their traumas all the time. You can forgive even if there is no apology.
If you’re too hurt to forgive right away, take time to scab over. But try not to hold on too long. The anger you nurse is just the hurt hanging on. Being angry is not being strong. Forgiving brings strength that lets us really heal and move forward with life without waiting for someone to let us out of our bitterness prison.
Go ahead and forgive
Forgiveness is uncommon enough that it is actually studied — you can be a forgiveness expert. A growing body of research shows that best way to forgive comes from exercising the moral virtue of forgiveness, even if there is no justice or hope of reconciliation. When we are good, within reason, to an offender, we will reduce our anger, anxiety and depression and improve our self-esteem and hope (Robert Enright) — a good reason to forgive is to protect your health!
We dare not conflate forgiveness and reconciliation. People often do, but we dare not. Forgiveness is not dependent on reconciliation, restitution or justice. The offer of forgiveness can be unconditional, not dependent on the other’s response at all, including an apology. Forgiveness like that looks like Jesus, right? Reconciliation is much more likely if it begins with that kind of forgiveness.
Reconciliation, when at least one party is deeply and unfairly hurt, is the fruit of forgiveness and apology and is conditional; it depends on how the offending party or parties understand their hurtful ways and change. Reconciliation like that looks like what Jesus is trying to build, right?
A forgiver is motivated by their desire to be rid of resentment and act as good as is possible toward an offending person. If that person has no inner sorrow, never intends to apologize or to make amends, you don’t need to act as if they do. Yet, you can still have the intention to reconcile if the person changes and a relationship becomes safe. You can even show an outward quality of forgiveness, for example, by not talking disparagingly about the offender to others. If you do that, you’ll be working out Romans 12:18: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” If a person keeps abusing you, you can struggle for peace instead of just struggling against hurt. You don’t need to bear their responsibility.
Why not be healthy? If you reject forgiving because you conflate it with reconciliation, you deprive yourself of a chance to recover, lead a healthy psychological life, and even live a healthy relational life with others (if not necessarily with the offending person). Deep anger from injustices can lead to a lack of trust in general, thwarting potentially life-giving relationships.
How we think about forgiveness is important. If we make the mistake of waiting for an apology or holding out for an ideal reconciliation, we allow an offending person or a random act of cruelty dominate us for a long time, maybe even for a lifetime if the wound is deep enough. Forgiveness is a character trait healthy adults exercise. They can suffer the disappointment and loss of not being reconciled. They rely on faith, hope and love more than their capacity to create a preferred harmony. We are free to forgive, if we choose, regardless of the outcome, even if someone refuses to apologize.
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Today is William Seymour Day! Talk about a person who had a lot to forgive! He managed the trials with a radical faith fueled by the Holy Spirit! Read all about him at The Transhistorical Body.
Our church is reading an interesting sociology book by Christian Smith: Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America. We had a good discussion on Sunday, and I admire my pastor for bringing up what amounts to a delicate subject: your church is obsolete. We agreed that our church, The Episcopal Church, has, generally, been obsolete for years. If it were not so well endowed we’d be in big trouble.
Nevertheless, we have strengths. Our church, in particular, is a small group of intelligent, hard-working and openly loving people. We’re mostly over 55 — but our pastor is 45 and my wife was having a conversation during coffee hour with a lovely member who is 5.
Two comments are sticking with me
I came away from our dialogue encouraged and stimulated. People said some interesting things.
“I belonged to the church for quite a while before I believed.”
In this day, especially, if anyone is going to become part of the church, belonging probably precedes believing.
“Why aren’t we writing our own songs instead of rehearsing the past?”
Our pastor noted the present hymn book of TEC was published the year he was born and has not been updated. My wife pointed out that the composers whose songs are in the hymnbook wrote from the zeitgeist and inspiration of their day. I noted that the 1660 hymn we had just sung that morning probably sounded fresh in its century, but is it sure weird and boring now.
So Smith is helping us get into some good discussion. If anything is overdo in most churches, it is discussing what are we going to do, now, since our model for being the church is obsolete. It may have been misguided to begin with and that is WHY it is obsolete. Regardless, if we want to be the body of Christ with any integrity and purpose, we’d better come up with what were are called to do now.
Further dialogue will meet up with difficulty
I think most dialogue is good, even when it is bad. The fact it can uncover problems on the way to solving them, makes conflict-avoidant folks steer away from it. For instance, I have issues with the book we’re exploring and I feel reticent to share them. I’m not sure I respect Smith’s methods and conclusions. My issues can be encapsulated in two words: traditional religion. Smith is a 65-year-old Roman Catholic professor at Notre Dame. So when he talks about “traditional religion” (throughout this book) he is smack dab in the middle of one. I think it shows.
1) When he talks about “religion” (like in his book title), he’s actually talking about American faith, which means Christianity. Religion is a modern concept which reinforces the notion people have that “all religions are basically alike.” They think that because European intellectuals “identified” them and put them in the same category: “religions” in the 1800’s – genus and species, etc.
2) When he talks about “traditional” he seems to mean “mainstream” or “what the TV might say about it.” I think that term should have been obsolete a long time ago when it came to describing the church — at least in Christian circles. Now that I have met hundreds and seen thousands of Christians around the world, it is hard to nail down “traditional.” I think stereotypic Christianity, or enculturated Christianity, or hollow Christianity, or modern Christianity might all be obsolete. Jesus, however, is historically and presently hanging in there.
But the main thing Smith’s book is missing, in my opinion, comes from being so autobiographical. This book appeared in 2025. But he is really talking about what happened during his lifetime – forty years of studying the data. Much of what he is saying follows up on his books in 2000 and 2005 (George Bush). While I admire him for writing about most of the controversial topics of his day, I get the impression his latest book is kind of out of date. It is light on our recent past.
Any inspiration in a spiritual storm is welcome
I’m not prone to “going to church,” but discussing Smith’s book juiced my normal devotion to building the church. Two things I found missing in his book may be just what we dare not miss as we live out our lives as the body of Christ in the post-Trump era.
Transcendence may be the missing element
What people need to to find when they explore faith in Jesus is transcendence and belonging, not sociological data dumps and critical conclusions. Smith’s sociology, itself, actually sounds a bit obsolete. In an age of mistrust, he asks us to trust his very rational argument.
Experts will not save the church from becoming “obsolete,” which it will never be and is not now. The church in the U.S. Smith is painstakingly criticizing (objectively of course) undoubtedly needed to go as soon as Ronald Reagan pretended to be a part of it and Evangelicals bent the knee anyway. It needed to die when it became about power, not love and service – and martyrdom.
All our dialogue needs to consider how people’s lives are pre- and post-pandemic, now.
The pandemic changed everything. It was like the tornado-like storm in our part of town last weekend — it toppled dead trees that could not stand the wind. The pandemic damaged our societal infrastructure. And it undermined the fragile new growth of the next church.
As soon as Reagan became president, thousands of young people saw the handwriting on the wall and started building a new church; I was among them. They did well. I think I did well and hundreds with me. But we did well before the pandemic. It was amazing what that storm did to all those new expressions. The impact resembles what happened in the Black Plague in 1347 — that year marks the big outbreak of bubonic plague, which hung around for centuries, and you can still get it. People thought strangers caused caused the plague. Europeans said Jews were poisoning the wells. The church abandoned the public roles that made it a mainstay in the culture and people felt alone. Social disparities were exposed: the wealthy could escape to their country places but the poor (essential workers”) had to stay in their roles — just one example of many. The church had been a big part of what glued the society together and it came unglued.
Covid is not the bubonic plague, but the experience sounds quite similar, doesn’t it? The enculturated church fractured with society. I was personally shocked and dismayed at how the new, unenculturated churches started fighting and splitting, not just my own. They threw out great leaders and installed leaders who resembled the powermonger Trump. Good grief, the country elected Trump! (maybe). I think Smith’s whole book basically leads up to the tragedy of Covid.
He observes how the church is diminishing, mainly tracking membership and attendance over his lifetime. He’s kind of shouting from the deck of the Titanic — for every 100 new Catholics, 800 leave the church. If he evacuated his viewpoint, he could just as easily tracked the groundswell of attention to what is transcendent during his lifetime. The emerging churches were all focused on transcendence and community, just what his studies show the obsolete church is missing. They got knocked out by the pandemic and the subsequent tsunami of social fragmentation caused by the unmasked sociopaths in charge. But that desire is still there.
Even our little group in TEC was saying “emerging things.” Belonging and finding one’s path into transcendence, into an actual, personal experience of the Spirit and eventually into a life in love with God is just what the church, nontraditional, of course, disempowered and marginalized, was doing all along. And that is what it is still doing wherever it gets a chance. It is getting a chance right now, since the previous church that Smith eulogizes is quickly dying out, even if it has an endowment and Pete Hegseth thinks he’s protecting it.
Fan favorite at the Juneteenth Parade 52nd and Girard
This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
Frederick Douglass ca. 1852
Frederick Douglass could not, in good conscience, celebrate July 4th. He celebrated July 5 as his declaration day instead. July 5 became Emancipation Day in New York State when slavery was officially over. It was the day after everyone completed the gradual process of becoming free in 1827. Douglass was 8 years old when it happened, still 11 years away from escaping slavery in Maryland and landing in New York.
Once liberated, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in New York and Massachusetts. In his iconic July 5 speech, given in 1852 to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, he said:
I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
Douglass is still an inspiration. The U.S. no longer has chattel slavery. But there is a lot left to mourn. So I am leaning into Juneteenth and letting whatever the oligarchs decide to give us for July 4th up to them.
We’ve been whitelashed back into having yearly white supremacy parties on the 4th and I don’t want to be part of it. Even though Philadelphia is right at the center of this year’s celebration, as usual, I’m not feeling it. From what I hear from a lot of people, the whole 250th is sort of “meh.” What country are we talking about and what freedom is likely to be left by #251?
Memorial Hall on opening day
Philadelphia 1876
Philadelphia has always been at the center of major patriotic observances — since 1776, of course. The remnants of the spectacle organized for the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence in 1876 can still be seen in Fairmount Park.
The remnants of Reconstruction after the Civil War, when freedom was won for everyone, were already being torn down in favor of “progress” by that year. Though the decade after the Civil War elevated former slaves and empowered black people in general, by 1875 the winds had shifted, and the former enemies from the North and South were ready for reconciliation.
Frederick Douglass was there on the first day of the big event in Philly. He was invited to sit among the dignitaries on the main platform as President Grant spoke about the “Progress of the Age.” He was not invited to speak; the greatest orator of the day was reduced to window dressing. He almost didn’t make it into the event. First, he had to pass through the crowd gathered outside the gates before the exhibition opened. Then, once he got to the entrance, the Philadelphia police refused to admit him. They did not believe that “a n****r” would be allowed among the dignitaries. Senator Conkling of New York spotted him and got him over the line.
A year before, in the summer of 1875 on July 5 in Anacostia, Douglass predicted that day to a crowd of black listeners. He said:
“Men cannot, ought not and will not quarrel and fight forever,”…So sure as the stars shine in the heavens, and the rivers run to the sea, so sure will the white people North and South abandon their quarrel and become friends. The whole American horizon is already fringed with the portents of this coming union. Boston, Lexington and Bunker Hill have already sent forth their silvery notes of peace and unity to the whole nation, and next year Philadelphia, the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence, will lift to the sky its million voices in one grand Centennial hosannah of peace and good will to all the white race of this country.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. of Princeton says: “He understood what was happening: the centennial celebrations would tell a story of the nation that rejoiced in reunion, and that reunion required the erasure of Black people. The event would be a national affair in which the “silvery notes of peace and unity” from sacred places in our national history would render the true cause of the Civil War invisible in a national ritual of disremembering. The country would revel in its technological advancements, as capitalists celebrated America’s economic resolve despite the Panic of 1873, and as white people reasserted the superiority of white Anglo-Saxon blood. An idea of America, alabaster white, would rise from the ashes of war and Reconstruction.”
Does that sound familiar to you, too?
Philadelphia in 1926
The 1926 extravaganza to celebrate the sesquicentennial was also scheduled for Philadelphia. This time the country was still recovering from WW1 and the Spanish Influenza epidemic. What’s more, although holding the event was procured in order to make Philadelphia look less squalid and corrupt, the whole project was squalid and corrupted.
You can still see remnants of the fairgrounds in FDR Park. The rest is covered by today’s stadiums. If you travel on Vare Ave. to beat the traffic on 76 sometime, remember it is named after Rep. William S. Vare and his brothers who were called the “Dukes of South Philadelphia.” They organized most of the kickbacks and political patronage.
President Calvin Coolidge was there on July 5th, since July 4th was on a Sunday and some people still thought opening the celebration on Sunday was unseemly. He had a prophecy to deliver:
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp.
Coming later in the year, Mayor Kendrick initially approved a “Klan Weekend” on September 9-11. Thousands of the 250,000 Klan members in PA planned a massive parade down Broad St. and a cross-burning at the fairgrounds. The public outcry was so great they were denied their permit, but they held private meetings and hovered over the city. Inspired, in part, by the successful film The Birth of a Nation, the Ku Klux Klan had reemerged in 1915 “to unite white male persons, native-born Gentile citizens of the United States…to maintain forever white supremacy…and {the} ideals of pure Americanism.”
Almost 200,000 black people lived in Philadelphia, in 1926. They had lived through the European War over the spoils of colonialism which spent millions of lives to decide which white nation would rule the world. Imagine your Mayor thinking it was fine if the Klan claimed Broad St and dominated the Nation’s celebration of freedom! W.E.B. Du Bois had named the monster they were up against in 1910 in “The Souls of White Folk:”
It is curious to see America, the United States, looking on herself, first, as a sort of natural peacemaker, then as a moral protagonist in this terrible time. No nation is less fitted for this role. For two or more centuries America has marched proudly in the van of human hatred,—making bonfires of human flesh and laughing at them hideously, and making the insulting of millions more than a matter of dislike,—rather a great religion, a world war-cry: Up white, down black; to your tents, O white folk, and world war with black and particolored mongrel beasts!
Sounds familiar, right?
Parade on the ParkwayJuly 4th Coalition counter parade through North Philly
Philadelphia 1976
Plans for Bicentennial celebration in Philadelphia did not go completely as planned — but there was a 50,000-pound Sara Lee birthday cake served at Memorial Hall the week before! Plus, there was plenty of ceremony to reassert the nation’s myths. For instance, on July 3, six wagon trains totaling 200 wagons, which had traveled for months from all over the nation, converged at the newly-formed Valley Forge National Park in front of a crowd of nearly a half a million people.
On July 4th, a ceremony on the new Independence Mall featured President Gerald Ford — the wounds of Watergate and the evacuation of Saigon still fresh. Governor Milton Shapp and Mayor Frank Rizzo were on the platform. Charlton Heston was master of ceremonies. Following the ceremony there was a five-hour parade featuring floats from every state and 40,000 marchers. An estimated two million visitors came to Philadelphia to attend these events.
Meanwhile, the July 4th Coalition led a counter-parade through North Philly on the same day. Puerto Rican socialists, Vietnam veterans, women’s rights advocates, Black liberation groups like the Black Panthers, and unemployed workers joined into one march that proceeded west along Lehigh Avenue and into Fairmount Park at Oxford Street, ending with a sprawling concert and cookout on the fairgrounds built for the 1876 Centennial. They took issue with the Bicentennial Corporation’s progress narrative and illuminated all the forms of oppression that remained alive and well in the late seventies.
Gil Scott-Heron, “the Godfather of rap,” was formed in the Philadelphia area. Here’s what he had to say about the Bicentennial:
America has got the blues and it’s a bicentennial edition
America has got the blues
It’s got the blues because of partial deification
Of partial accomplishments
Over partial periods of time
Halfway justice
Halfway liberty
Halfway equality
It’s a half-ass year
Here’s the full piece:
It all sounds very familiar, partly because the protest has been the background music of my adulthood and fundamental to my Anabaptist Christianity.
Philadelphia 2026
Now, for the Semiquincentennial, we have Trump putting his name on everything and renaming places — which had just been renamed, after Civil War traitors — again. It has been a hard slog to get some semblance of Declaration-of-Independence-equality for everyone in the U.S. over the country’s history. But even given the progress, it is hard to stomach what the present Administration and Supreme Court have done to reaffirm and protect white supremacy on the eve of the 250th.
Rigging the vote
Gutting the Voting Rights Act: The Supreme Court made it significantly harder to challenge discriminatory election maps that dilute the power of minority voters.
Race-Conscious Redistricting Limits: The Court struck down maps specifically drawn to address racial imbalances in states like Louisiana, setting off a wave of gerrymandering.
Dumping DEI
Banning Systemic Discrimination Tools: The Trump administration aggressively dismantled the use of the “disparate impact” standard—a key tool used for decades to challenge seemingly neutral policies that end up disproportionately harming minority groups in housing, employment, and healthcare.
DEI Restrictions: Executive orders have been implemented that severely limit or outright ban diversity and equity training across federal agencies, government contractors, and grant recipients like UPenn. The chilling effect remains.
Sacking safeguards
Workplace Equality Enforcement: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was directed to stop investigating certain complaints regarding company policies that inadvertently harm specific demographic groups.
Education and Discipline: Civil rights guidance meant to address race- and disability-based discrimination in school discipline policies was rescinded.
Limiting Affirmative Action: The Court struck down race-conscious admissions programs at colleges and universities, dismantling decades of precedent aimed at rectifying historical educational inequities.
Dismantling Civil Rights Offices: Funding and personnel have been severely reduced across federal civil rights offices, including those in the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, and Justice.
Eliminating Inequality Data: The administration has rolled back data-collection efforts previously used to track disparities in environmental hazards, special education, and racial inequality. [For a detailed breakdown of these policy changes, you can explore the ACLU’s Report on Anti-Discrimination Law.]
Whitening citizenship
Threats to Birthright Citizenship: Legal challenges and administrative efforts have targeted the 14th Amendment, threatening the automatic citizenship of children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.
Language and Ethnic Profiling: The administration rolled back requirements for language-assistance services for people with limited English proficiency and adopted practices that effectively treat ethnicity and accents as legitimate reasons for immigration stops.
All these actions have been played out with a soundtrack of Trump, Hegseth, and Miller, et al, spouting off reasons the government has had enough of all this whining about equality: “Y’all have freedom because we say so, and we will tell you when you exercise it too much.”
There is a lot more of their wreckage that could be listed, and they are just getting started combing through the nooks and crannies of government and society looking for threats to whiteness. On July 4th (and every day) we are supposed to pretend America is just and good, a beacon of light to the world, and forget about what happens right before our eyes. Such pretending is essential to the national myth that forms our patriotic religion.
So I am focusing on Juneteenth. And I will again say there is no room for slaveholder religion in the Church of Jesus Christ. We’re all poor in the eyes of God and that, if nothing else, is a great equalizer. Whether you believe that or not, Juneteenth, when we all were technically as free as any other citizen, is the real Independence Day for the U.S., at least until it gets to a better one.
Columba Day was June 9, but I think the famous “apostle to Scotland” needs a few more minutes in the spotlight. He may be even more Christian than we already thought.
His traditional story was passed down to us written within the general framework used for about 9000 years, now; it says the powerful deserve their power and have a right to acquire the excess we produce to use as they see fit, mainly to go to war and protect their own power. But if Columba’s story is retold within a Christian framework where individuals have freedom and communities are places for love and sharing, as we were created to experience, the story can be told more truthfully.
This 12th century drawing may be the oldest depiction.
Several of the famous stories about Columba (like how he stopped the Loch Ness monster) should inspire us to stand up to the monsters impeding the mission required in the present day. It is not just the warriors who “make” history. The community builders and family keepers, like most of us, are much more relevant. Like so many old stories these days, Columba’s story (and yours, probably) begs to be retold truer.
As you will see, how Columba stood up to the power-hoarding, private-property elevating people of his day should inspire us to stand up against the billionaires who are the newest perpetrators of an age-old fraud. In truth, cooperation built the world, not conquest. Columba was living according to his own version of the Jesus-inspired economic bill of rights.
I encourage you to make up your own mind about my retelling, since that is what historians do. They always have a point of view – and you do too, even if you think you have no view at all. The view from which the story of Columba is usually told is about how rulers duke it out to own the most and to keep their positions of dominance — and that’s the way it is. The tired, old story tells us we will be punished if we don’t conform, or at least cause too much trouble. But does it tell the whole truth?
Here is the traditional telling of a famous story about Columba (with bullet points!). It is usually titled:
The first copyright law
In 561, Columba secretly copied a rare, religious book belonging to his former teacher, Finnian. When a king ruled “to every cow its calf, to every book its copy,” war broke out over the stolen copy.
The Gift: Columba visited his old teacher, Finnian, in Ireland. Finnian had a beautiful new Psalter (a book of Psalms) which he let Columba use.
The Theft: Columba loved the book so much he secretly stayed up late at night in the church, copying it by hand.
The Discovery: Finnian caught Columba in the act when he was well on the way toward completion. He demanded that Columba give him the copied book.
The Refusal: Columba refused to give him the copy, claiming it belonged to him because his own hard work made it.
The Ruling: Both men went to High King Diarmait mac Cerbhiall to settle their dispute. The King made a famous ruling: “To every cow belongs its calf, and to every book belongs its copy.”
The War: Columba was very angry about losing his copy. He went back to his home clan and started a war against the King. Thousands of men died in the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne in 561.
The Exile: As a punishment for causing so much death, Columba was sent away from Ireland. He sailed to Scotland and started a new church on the Island of Iona, vowing never to return to his home and determined to fulfill the charge by his overseer to convert as many people as died in the battle.
Here is how the story might just as well have happened if the hierarchy had not put itself in charge of writing history. It could be titled:
The word of God belongs to everyone.
In 561, Columba set out to copy a psalter Finnian had locked away from the community-at-large — Finnian being like Gollum protecting his “Precious.” Columba discerned that such a book should belong to everyone, especially since books were scarce and literacy was the key to opening up new worlds. Finnian brought him before the authorities for stealing his book. When Columba lost the legal battle before the corrupt court, his clan rushed to his rescue. He escaped. Ashamed of the bloodshed he had caused, he exiled himself and gave his life to saving as many people in Jesus’ name as had been killed in his.
The Precious: As a trusted graduate of Finnian’s school, Columba was given access to a beautiful Psalter Finnian prized and kept away from the general public.
The Plan: Columba did not think the book should remain locked away and owned by Finnian. He wanted a copy to learn from and to share. So he secretly stayed up late at night copying it by hand.
The Discovery: Finnian caught Columba in the act. He demanded that Columba give him the copied book.
The Refusal: Columba refused, claiming the copy belonged to him because his own hard work made it, just like the Psalms belonged to everyone to whom God gave them, as well as to all the scribes, scrolls makers and teachers who passed them down through generations. Finnian’s position did not give him the right to own the Psalms.
The Ruling: Instead of resorting to violence, the men went to High King Diarmait mac Cerbhiall to settle their dispute. The King made a famous ruling: “To every cow belongs its calf, and to every book belongs its copy.” In this case that meant: “If you own the means of production, you control everything it produces. If you copy the book, you essentially work for the owner.” Note that Finnian did not author the book, he just owned it, a bit like A.I. collecting all the works of history (including this little piece of writing) and then charging you to access and use it.
Yet another battle: Columba was upset about losing his copy. He was also angry that he and others who needed the book were restricted to whatever pieces Finnian wanted to give them. He went back to his home clan in a rage and they jumped to his defense without being asked, since that has always been how nonbelievers settle problems, and since it was an excuse to take power from the king. Thousands of men died in the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne.
Leaving home: As usual, whoever stands up against the status quo is shamed and scapegoated. Columba was made an outcast for being disobedient and causing conflict. So he determined to leave his homeland. A substantial group of men discerned what was really going on and set sail with him for parts unknown. They shook the dust of Ireland off their feet and went to build something new. Columba was ashamed his clan’s warfare, sad to be labeled as an unrepentant rebel, and lonely for his devoted family, but he went off to discover the fullness of what God had been doing when he first dared to quench his thirst for the psalter.
Columba’s new way
Click the picture to learn about a voyage that replicated Columba’s
When the band got to Iona they built a new kind of settlement on the rocky little island. It set the character of what would influence the whole area from then on (and until now!) – a community in mission, open and expansive, full of beauty, not closed and controlling. Iona became the “cradle of Christianity” in Scotland. It also served as a great lighthouse of learning.
It is telling that one of the most famous accounts of their mission includes Columba stopping the Loch Ness monster from devouring one of his comrades. He’s another hero travelling in a band like Frodo, who overcame the temptation of the ring of power, who did not become a new version of Gollum. The symbolic monsters of the past, like dragons, resemble the monsters of today, which guard their territory with fire from above or terrors from the deep and hoard gold.
The new community on Iona built a strong center for education. They copied rare religious and historical books by hand. Their beautiful writing and art changed early European history. By 800, the community began creating their masterpiece: the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript containing the four Gospels. It is still regarded as one of Ireland’s national treasures, celebrated for its intricate Celtic knotwork, vibrant colors, and inspired drawings. The book was moved from Iona to the Abbey of Kells in County Meath, Ireland, to protect it from Viking raids around 806. In 1661 it was presented to Trinity College in Dublin for safekeeping where it still remains and where I saw it.
It is telling that the mission which was sparked by a book became famous for a book. It is also telling that Trinity College has monetized their possession of the book by providing an “experience” which gives tourists a way to pay for as little time as possible with books and focus on their feelings about them. The College resemble Finnian. As usual, normal people get the sizzle while the owners get the steak.
The main characteristic that made Columba’s community distinct was their Celtic way of clan life enriched by the radical sharing demonstrated in the New Testament [An Anglican bishop considers how to make it work now]. Iona was egalitarian and planted new communities like itself. These days, “successful” churches, in general have no practical connection to its locale. It is a destination, a program, a product, not a collection of people who live and work together. The community on Iona was different. The missionaries did not conquer the Picts; they moved in with them, became friends, and shared their lives.
Columba is a leader like people in a long line stretching back to Jesus who refuse to live according to the rules of the domination system and the myth of redemptive violence. Constantine may have co-opted the church, the early medieval church may have adopted the Roman model of governance and hierarchy and conquered the Celtic church in its name, but there are always people who see through the lies.
Trump may have co-opted the Evangelicals with the promise they will rule with him, but that unfulfilled promise is already part of the collapse of the latest regime, perpetrating the old fraud. I pray we replace it with a government which functions within a true economy, as a means to distribute the excess we create in an equitable and mutually beneficial way, a government inspired by the truth and love in Jesus and wherever else it can be found, not infected with the repetitive and damned self-destruction perpetrated by would-be kings. We all need a truer story to live by.
It is hard to know “what to do” with anyone, of course. But we are going to do something, regardless. So we should get it as right as we can.
When it comes to what we’re going to do with corrupt leaders, and I can name a few, there are many wrong ways to go. But every way makes a difference. You matter. And if this is how you think about that: unfortunately, you matter.
I think the last sixteen months have been a whirlwind of wrongness. So I am writing to add to the opprobrium which is daily launched in the direction of wrongdoers. We all might be a little wrong; but don’t worry, the Bible will help you.
Prophesying to the drivers in Ardmore
The first answer to “What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?” should probably come from Jeremiah: TELL THE TRUTH, as in PROPHESY!
This is a part of the Bible that especially inspired me last week:
The wise shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom is in them? Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to conquerors, because from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of the daughter of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. They acted shamefully; they committed abomination, yet they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord. — Jeremiah 8:9-12
The first answer to the question presumes people who follow Jesus would not take corruption lightly any more than Jesus did. He was especially direct with the Pharisees, who thought they were “conservative.”
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside also may become clean.”
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of uncleanness. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” — Matthew 23:25-8
But we can’t presume most of the Christians in the U.S. will take corruption seriously, can we? They seem to think they are serious about the Bible but they are taking Trump’s corruption very lightly, even encouraging it as a means to return the country to “greatness.”
So when we ask “What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?” we have to start with:
They regularly follow them
They sing “It is well with my soul” – the corrupt leader is restoring order in the name of Jesus. And if that order makes me richer and corrals people I secretly hate, all the better.
What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?
They pretend they do not exist
I think this is more prevalent. American Christians, by and large, retreated into having a private faith a long time ago. They are not Jeremiahs!
They sing: “It is well with my soul” — My faith is a soul matter, not a public matter. I don’t get involved with politics.
To be clear, as American Christians are pretending, by and large, they are swallowing a boatload or corruption. Pretending is not inaction, it takes quite an effort to quash reality!
J.D. Vance is fronting a push to combat fraud in public services by illegally withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments from California.
Trump has fired or demoted twenty inspectors general during his terms—the people who are key to oversight. In 2024 alone the people he has since fired or sidelined identified more than $50 billion in waste and abuse.
Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 70 donors or allies who were convicted of fraud. One, Philip Esformes, was convicted of stealing $1.3 billion from Medicare.
The Trump family has pocketed over $600 million through cryptocurrency enterprises this year.
Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. have invested in a drone manufacturer that is trying to sell weapons to Persian Gulf countries currently at risk from the war their father started in Iran.
The Pentagon recently awarded a $24 million contract to a robotics startup for which Eric is the “chief strategy advisor.”
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has acted as a chief negotiator for the U.S. in the Middle East. at the same time he has been trying to raise $5 billion from investors there for his investment firm.
Corporations and billionaires have dropped millions of dollars in donations for Trump’s ballroom where the East Wing used to be and his proposed presidential library in Miami.
Trump had raked in more than $2 billion for his projects or causes, more than half a billion of it from 346 people who each gave at least $250,000. Some of those people have received presidential pardons, others have been given jobs, and all have received access to the president.
Trump is using the planned Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event to be held on his birthday on the White House lawn as a new way for donors to funnel money to him. Ringside seats have been selling for $1 million or more. Neither the White House nor the UFC will comment on where the money is going.
Trump took seventeen CEOs with him to China, along with his son Eric, who runs the family business. Paul Krugman said, “He might as well have been walking around Beijing with a sign that says—in block capitals, of course, this is Trump—BRIBE ME.”
Miami residents are suing Trump and others to stop the construction of Trump’s presidential library, charging that state officials violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause when they transferred almost three acres of prime waterfront land, worth between $67 million and $300 million, to Trump’s library foundation for $10. Trump has already said he wants to build a hotel on the site rather than a traditional library.
The Department of Justice was working with Trump to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after a contractor during Trump’s first term leaked tax returns from thousands of wealthy individuals to the media. They want to settle before it goes to court, where he will probably lose
Trump offered to drop the lawsuit in exchange for the government’s establishing a $1.7 billion fund to compensate his allies who claim they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the DOJ — this includes nearly 1,600 people convicted of committing crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, people Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of shortly after he took office in January 2025.
What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?
They manage them
They take a lot of responsibility for the world. So Christians work very hard to make sure Jesus is not shown up to be powerless and make sure they don’t get in trouble for doing a bad job. People with a narcissistic wound control or manipulate others to protect their fragile egos and avoid their shame — they manage them, all the time. There is an epidemic of such woundedness in the church.
They sing: “It is well with my soul” – I can make others well like I should be. I need to keep things under control. Everyone needs to stay safe.
This grandiosity regularly falls apart. Since there are too many plates to keep spinning and they are the only ones they trust to spin. Besides, the corrupt people often have no conscience, so managing them is more like feeding them your power.
What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?
They undermine them
They sing “It is well with my soul” – I am on the frontline of justice
I don’t think justice is the solution to all the earth’s problems. But without that first step, it is hard to get anywhere else. Our efforts need to be as endless as God’s.
But we need to be honest, people wrestling for power, even in the name of justice, never have rest for their souls. Feeling unwell about something can be addctive. Just witness the work of Climate Defiance, one of my favorites activist groups. This is from last week’s newsletter:
We absolutely NAILED Xavier Becerra. We ruined his whole event. It was so beautiful and so brutal all at once. It was so necessary. You must watch. You can see it here.
Our protest was not just an act of public humiliation. It was an act of JUSTICE.
If you’re just tuning in, Big Oil Becerra is the front-runner for Governor of California. He wants the prestige. He wants the power. We must stop him. Here’s why:
He took $39,000 from Chevron – the maximum contribution. It’s their first time getting involved in the governor’s race there in a decade. Then he defended the legalized bribe, proclaiming, verbatim “they’re not the bad guy.”
Are you serious?
Is it giving kids asthma that he’s ok with? Or spreading climate misinformation? Or searching for new oil reserves when current ones contain enough carbon to make earth unlivable? Which of these things specifically is he ok with? I would like to know.
He then doubled down. He said: “Does everybody here drive an electric vehicle? You need Chevron, I need Chevron, my people of the state of California need Chevron.”
Jesus. Electric vehicles were invented in the 1800s. Companies like Chevron are the main REASON we are not driving them. They have poisoned our political system and blocked the transition.
What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?
They overthrow them
It started with the Roman Empire and kept going in response to every empire-builder since. Yes, so-called Christians have often been on the wrong side. We get sucked into power struggles, too. But wherever there is prayer and community, Jesus-followers are a burr under the saddle of corrupt rulers.
They sing: “It is well with my soul” – I am well and I feel it. You can’t keep me from the love of Jesus no matter what you do. Being well with Jesus allows me to turn my cheek and so turn the world upside down.
Tennessee Democrats locked arms on the House floor in protest of a the redistricting vote that split the state’s only majority-Black Democrat Congressional district on May 7, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee.
I suspect most of the Tennessee reps protesting the racial gerrymander of Tennessee voting districts are church people. Their two outspoken young leaders, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were immediately juxtaposed with pictures of Martin Luther King on social media when they got carted off the statehouse floor . They were just saying, “Since the Confederates rule in Washington right now and they say there is no racial discrimination under the law, regardless of the Voting Rights laws that have ruled since the 1960’s, we cannot be silent.” In the picture, Jones’ sign says it all.
What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?
They are a resistant alternative to them
They sing: “It is well with my soul” – Life is worth living and Jesus says I am worthy of living it. We are made to make something which is fit for Jesus and which can withstand the tribulations of the present. I’m referencing Ephesians 4 and 5:
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient.Therefore do not be associated with them, for once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness; rather, expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil — Ephesians 5:6-16
I am astounded that Canticle: A Novel by Janet Rich Edwards has actually been a NY Times editors choice. I enjoyed reading it for another look at one of my favorite centuries: the 13th and one of my favorites places: Bruges. What’s more it centers on some of my favorite Christians; the Beguines.
I was encouraged by the book, but even more encouraged that people were talking about it and what it means to know God and live life as a member of his people. The grassroots devotion of the Beguines and their male counterparts, the Beghards upended their society and the corrupt church ruling it. Over and over again, the Holy Spirit has stubbornly inspired Jesus followers to risk losing their place in the corrupt system which corrupt men made for them and risk following Jesus with all they’ve got. We create an alternative society to the passing away world.
This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, the most radical Sunday of the year. It should launch us into planting seeds of hope whether the soil is rocky or not because one of those seeds is very likely to take root anyway. Pentecost should cause us to look at our lives and our church and reimagine them in the light God sees us, full of love and potential, poised for creation. Pentecost, at the very least, should wake us up from the stupor-inducing rule of the present oligarchs.
We endured the 20+ hours it took to get home from our wonderful trip. Then we walked in the door. A big fat snow storm. A frozen pipe oozing water down the back wall and creating nasty ice sculpture. An innovative toilet not functioning and bilge puddling from between the basement tiles. Trash and mail piled up. And, of course, there was the love-starved cat.
Once we returned, the cat stuck to us like glue all night and day. So I thought she was sticking when I took out the trash. But she darted out the door and into the frigid night and falling snow unbeknownst to me. I suppose I was less careful since, “What cat would go out in a blizzard?” We were cuddled up in our blankets for a long time until we noticed there was no longer a cat on top of us.
I guess you don’t know how much you need to trust God until you need to. We were beside ourselves. We love the cat almost as much as she loves us. We looked through every nook and cranny of our new, little house and could not find her. She had fooled us before, so we waited for her to appear from out of nowhere. Then we looked outside. Then we tried to go to sleep and wait for her to come out. I said, “We’ll just have to give her to God.” I admit I was not completely satisfied with that prayer. But where else can you go when you have nowhere else to go?
The angel
I tried to go to sleep but it did not work out. So I got up to do some more post-trip sorting out. About 2am, while I was typing, I heard someone shout at me from our back alley, which had never happened before. It looked like our neighbor, so I went out in the falling snow in my robe. “I’m looking for your cat,” he said. I had texted his roommate and everyone else in range, to sound the alarm. He went on to say, “I’m kind of the neighborhood ‘cat shepherd’ and I don’t want to lose another one.”
So we all started looking as the snow poured down – all around our block, under cars, behind bushes. Nothing. I went back to our porch to start over for the umpteenth time and I heard a cat. It was ours. She was settled into a cat shelter the neighbor had made out of a storage container. He was overjoyed and began to cry and admitted he was a little drunk.
So when I gave the cat to God, did that result in the arrival of a drunk angel to connect me with my beloved? My answer is “Yes.” You decide for yourself. You decide if it was right for me to feel like I was George on the bridge meeting the semi-competent Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Angels in any condition are needed
The whole experience made me think we’d all better become adept at turning to God when we are desperate. Troubling times keep troubling up, after all.
A woman in Northeast Philly captured the moment on her security camera when she was walking her dog and her neighbor unwittingly unleashed three pit bulls from his house. They attacked her dog and bit her mercilessly. I don’t know whether she called Top Dog to save her (link in case you don’t live in Philly). But even if she did, she’ll need deeper healing and help than any lawyer can provide.
When Liam Arias and his father, Adrian were whisked out of Minnesota and locked up in Dilly, Texas, all sorts of angels appeared. Representative Juan Castro personally escorted them home when a judge ruled against the “perfidious” power-grabbing ICE keeps acting out. Having met a few refugees, I can tell you they have to trust God because they have so little hope.
Every day in this terrible time the cat is out in the snow, the dogs are out of their cages and armed men might appear in the neighborhood without a moment’s notice. Most of us are desperate enough to ask for help. Let’s start there with trust, not just end up there when there is nowhere else to go.
You may not believe God will help you or believe God is with you even if there is no hope for you. But it is still true: Jesus will be there and is there. Before I was even able to wonder why I was doing it, my Sunday school teacher got me to memorize how Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” I did not get the “Lo” or the “end of the age” or even “unto.” But I somehow understood “I am with you always.” And I have never forgotten.
I admit I often think I am responsible or to blame for a lot of the bad things that happen to me and I get frustrated because I don’t know how I am going to fix the war in Ukraine. But when I am afraid my loving cat is going to freeze to death, my thoughts naturally turn to God. And there God was in my drunk neighbor. I’ll concede that actual angels may have been helping too. But until Gabriel, or whoever, appears to me, I’ll take an angelic human or whatever goodness God shares with me next. I think we all have some angel in us. We should be quite useful to each other in desperate times.
At the CAPS East Conference last week, I presented my research on sociopaths. I have been collecting it all year. If you follow this blog (thank you!), you have probably run into some of what I have learned. If you want to get into the finished product with me (and I wish you would), I have put links to my previous posts at the end of this one, along with a link to the powerpoint I used in my presentation, which includes the reference list.
It all started with Trump’s portrait.
Like I keep saying, when I first saw Donald Trump’s “official portrait” I marveled at the audacious grandiosity of it. There is no hint of humility or welcome in it. It is designed to intimidate. It matches his endless talk about “winning.” I admit I ignored it. I laughed it off.
But after his re-election, I decided I needed to turn back and face what we are all facing in that face. Now we know how disorienting and frightening it is to be dominated by a sociopathic president. When I started researching it, I mostly knew the stereotypes associated with sociopathy — which I just learned how to pronounce properly after church a couple of weeks ago during the coffee hour. I think I began by googling, “what is the go-to book about sociopaths?”
I found the book and started with it: The Sociopath Next Door. Martha Stout’s classic from 2005 reads like a prophecy these days. It is academic enough. But its strongest point is its collection of case studies which prove her point: you might run into a sociopath next door and there are responses you should have ready when you do.
Barry Goldwater, Mary Trump’s Book, Anton Ashcroft
Can you diagnose someone you’ve never met?
I just suggested Trump is a sociopath. People asked me if I were afraid I had offended someone when I did the same at the conference. The president already has us scared to exercise our consciences in the face of the uncertainty of what my happen to us! I was not afraid to present my arrangement of evidence-based psychological study integrated with my Christian practice.
The most arguable thing I did was suggest Trump fit the definition. Because I agree that a professional cannot effectively diagnose someone they have never met. At the same time I also agree with people who say that diagnoses, in general, are rather suggestive and subjective even when one does know a person. I also agree with thoughtful people who say the ethics about diagnosing public figures may be outdated.
The APA formally added the Goldwater Rule to the ethics code in 1973, some time after Barry Goldwater won his libel case against Fact Magazine. Fact published a survey of psychiatrists regarding his mental fitness to be president. He was not found to be fit. He lost by a landslide in 1964.
Like many ethics rules, the Goldwater Rule is roundly debated, especially when it is seen in light of a psychotherapist’s general duty to give warning when they know or even suspect sexual predators and murderous people are likely to act. With A.I. and years of constant exposure, writings, and history we can access about people like Donald Trump, things may be different than in 1973. Unlike most people on the Anti-social Personality Disorder spectrum, Trump does all his sinning brazenly, like tearing down the East Wing of the White House last week.
We have a lot of evidence for Trump’s sociopathy. For instance, Trump’s niece, Mary, a clinical psychologist, wrote the book (pictured above). She and Michael D’Antonio, a biographer, provide quite a bit of evidence for Trump being a sociopath. For instance, his mother was sick for a year when he was 2. His father Fred trained his sons to be “killers,” no empathy or vulnerability allowed. In the Art of the Deal Trump recalls giving his music teacher a black eye as an elementary kid. He was banished to military school at 13 where he was a loud-mouthed bully. George Conway put all the evidence together in an ad sponsored by his Anti-Psychopath Pac. (Access via Bing. I think he is banned on Google).
Anton Ashcroft (seen above), working in forensic psychology in 2016, wrote Donald Trump: Narcissist, Psychopath or representative of the people?He claims, though he has never met Trump, it is his duty to warn people before they normalize his behavior. Your conscience will have to be your guide when his evidence calls for your conclusion.
2016 seems like a long time ago, now that Trump is fomenting a war with Venezuela and Mike Johnson refuses to let the House of Representatives convene. Ashcroft’s resistance is to a bygone ethics which presume an orderly set of institutions and common assumptions about propriety. Those presumptions are gone, it seems. So his diagnosis may be more relevant than ever, now that the traits of 4% of the population, many of whom are in prison (unless Trump has pardoned them), are being worked into the government, into world society, and into our individual lives.
No one has ever known what to do when the people on the sociopath spectrum — the People of the Lie as M. Scott Peck named them, get into power (which they normally don’t). People either try to avoid them or kill them. But killing them is not an immediate option for me. So I have been trying to understand them, at least, and discerning the most helpful responses God can suggest.
The research leads to the right questions
Martha Stout’s book is a plea to people of conscience to recognize and resist the ruthless among them. Her book formed the heart of my presentation. She helped me learn how NPD, ASPD, sociopathy and psychopathy form a spectrum of disorders coming into prominence in this “age of monsters.”
Counselors and educators can provide a truth-telling service to the unsuspecting society who cannot fathom the lack of conscience and single-minded will to power this 4% of the population suffers under.
We need to clarify what we are dealing with.
The definition of these people has become a bit muddy.
Is there really no cure for Anti-social Personality Disorder?
The idea of conscience needs to be clearer.
Are the assumptions about conscience fading with the diminishing influence of Judeo-Christian morality?
The factors, other than immorality, which cause sociopathy, need to be better researched and known.
Treatment options and interventions need to be more available to therapists, parents and law enforcement.
How do we respond to a person who has no guilt or shame, even biologically? I offered eight ways to respond and zeroed in on protecting our individual and societal consciences. I also highlighted the increasingly prevalent strategy of domination people on the ASPD spectrum use called DARVO — V.P. Vance has become as expert.
The definition of “sociopath”
I use the term “sociopath,” even though “psychopath” might work just as well. Neither term has a well-differentiated definition and neither appears in APA’s DSM – the repository of approved definitions for psychotherapists and researchers. But both terms are titles for ongoing study on the disorder. The American Psychological Association (APA) developed the term Anti-social Personality Disorder (ASPD) because the terms sociopath and psychopath stigmatized people who got labeled that way.
Here are the criteria for ASPD: 1) failure to conform to social norms, 2) deceitfulness, manipulativeness, 3) impulsivity, failure to plan ahead, 4) irritability, aggressiveness, 5) reckless disregard for the safety of self or others, 6) consistent irresponsibility, 7) lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person.
Martha Stout adds color to the list to make it clearer: 1) sociopathic charisma, 2) a grandiose sense of self worth, 3) the need for stimulation, risk taking, 4) pathological lying, defrauding, 5) callousness, no empathy, the inability to bond.
What do we do with a sociopath?
I say we have one planted in the White House and he must be removed before the weed comes to its inevitably rotten fruit. He is shamelessly pasting his picture over our lives. He would like to carve himself in Mt. Rushmore, put a Trump Arch in Washington DC and receive a Nobel Peace prize for settling conflicts he did not settle, even as he creates conflict that makes the whole world unsettled. His lies have a Wikipedia page.
When we encounter people on the ASPD spectrum in our daily lives, even if we are not certain, we must do our best to discern the motivation behind their behavior and respond to them as they are, not according to their deceptions or our idealizations. We must attend to our personal health and the health of society. We might not have all the solutions or have the power to effect the necessary changes — but our voices matter; our responses matter. Having a clear conscience before God and others matters.
We can have some empathy for the conscienceless and imagine the horror they would experience, if they had the capacity to do so. Martha Stout says:
Imagine — if you can — not having a conscience, none at all,
no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do,
no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members.
Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken…
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most likely remain undiscovered.
How will you live your life?
What will you do with your huge and secret advantage?
We can love sociopaths with everlasting love. We might be able to help them. But don’t offer sociopaths pity and don’t waste your time shaming them (which is essentially negative pity). Never assume they are like you, with your guilt, shame and doubts; they are not. Keep asking, “What are they doing with their huge, secret advantage?” And tell the truth about your answers — to yourself and to everyone who will listen.
The slides for my presentation, which include the references are here:Google Slides
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Today isKolano Sabia Day! As a person among the royal families leading the “Spice Islands” he represents a fascinating story of colonial evangelism — its sordid beginnings and its lasting impact. Get the story at The Transhistorical Body.
I was energized as I walked along Market St. on a beautiful day last Saturday. We periodically shouted “No Kings!” and “This is what democracy looks like,” and it felt good to hear my voice right out loud — there in public, and all. At one point we caught up with a couple of people in blow-up unicorn outfits. It looked like they might be young parents on a date — instead of the baby, their stroller carried a boombox. It was nice.
As we exercised our bodies we were exercising our consciences. Both have a tendency to get flabby. The latter desperately needs the restoration of a daily exercise routine before it gets burned out completely by the conflagration of kooks and crooks dominating our lives right now.
The dark side of conscience
I have spent quite a bit of time studying sociopath spectrum of humanity in the last few months. These are the people, probably not more than 5% of us, who either have a broken or missing conscience.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) collects these folks under the description “Anti-social Personality Disorder” (ASPD). The ASPD person has a severely wounded, inactive, broken or absent conscience. Conscienceless behavior is their distinctive across the spectrum. They are shameless.
The TV loves these people. You’d think they are around every corner, mostly carrying knives — they are not. But they make for good stories because they are strange and frightening. And we all know we might meet one and suspect we share some of their traits. Think Joe Goldberg in You, Dexter Morgan in Dexter, Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish in Game of Thrones and Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, to name a few. Eric Cartman fits the description, too. They are more generally men, it seems, but women demonstrate the behavior, too. They are conscience-challenged, to say the least.
A conscience is the inner sense or faculty that allows a person to distinguish between right and wrong and guides their moral decisions. It acts as a moral compass, influencing behavior and causing feelings of guilt or pleasure based on whether actions align with one’s values and, importantly, fit in with one’s relationships. Hindus see this capacity as a seventh sense, beyond our five physical senses and beyond our ordinary awareness; it is “higher consciousness.” Contemplative Christians see it as spiritual awareness, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the place of intimacy with God and personal transformation.
Sociopath training
Conscience is considered a universal human ability, though its judgment can be shaped by experience and upbringing. It is what is happening in the deepest part of us, but not just that. Conscience needs a bond to form and to stay strong. That’s why many observers right now are wondering if we can fight off totalitarianism, since the opposition cannot unite. Postmodern, technology-isolated people have bonding issues.
Our bonding issues may have made us ripe for sociopathic manipulation. I think the sociopaths are shaping our behaviors right now. The president is their leader. The innumerable lawsuits being filed are all about combatting behavior on the ASPD spectrum.
A sociopath cannot bond, most of the time. According to Martha Stout (The Sociopath Next Door), leaders with no seventh sense, no inner awareness, no gut instinct for good, no spiritual connection can hypnotize the group conscience which leads to catastrophe.
ASPD leaders and ASPD-influenced systems make enemies “its,” not people, and see them as mere impediments to what is good, threats to safety and prosperity — and they find people to hate these “its” with them. Stephen Miller regularly strokes this proclivity in humanity. At Charlie Kirk’s funeral he said:
The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil, We will defeat the forces of darkness and evil. And we will stand every day for what is true, what is beautiful, what is good….
And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.
Why don’t we follow our individual consciences and follow sociopaths instead? Stout says we are programmed to obey authority even against our own consciences. Our basic instinct to bond and be acceptable in community can be turned bad. This has been demonstrated repeatedly, beginning with Stanley Milgram’s experiment to see if he could get college students to shock other undergrads who were getting wrong answers. They gave up their power to the authorities and shocked! A sociopath knows this tendency and plays it. Bullying works.
Protecting your conscience
If you are a Christian, you probably agree with the New Testament writers who teach that our consciences can be injured, and blunted — and if you develop a “hardened heart,” it can wreck your all-important bond with God. There is a lot of healthy discussion in the Bible about maintaining a conscience that resembles Jesus’ and stays open to the Spirit of God. But let me give you the teaching in just one little book: 1 Timothy.
But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions. (1:5-7)
The antidote to sociopath leaders may be as simple as dancing down the street in a unicorn costume — exercising stubborn joy (which, Jesus says, no one can take away from us), in the face of domination.
Paul reminds Timothy of heart, mind and soul — his spiritual awareness: pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith, as he stokes his courage to keep teaching the gospel. Timothy needs a strong inner life. Because it seems like he was up against some shameless, ASPD-type people who won’t stop talking nonsense and people are believing them.
This charge I commit to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith;among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. (1:18-20)
One’s conscience is in danger if it is not in good shape. The speaker at our beginning rally before the march chided us for being spiritually flabby, essentially. I took exception since I was, after all, in attendance. But she knew that one protest does not make a transformation. Sociopaths never rest. For instance, last week the White House hired Kurt Olsen, the Stop the Steal lawyer, to investigate the 2020 election (!). The resistance cannot rest, either.
It is possible that Hymenaeus and Alexander did not completely reject conscience out of some evil agency. They may have been born without the capacity to have a conscience because of amygdala defects, or their environment was so traumatizing it made them shameless in order to survive — and ASPD appears to be heritable, too.
When Paul “turned them over to Satan” he did not condemn them to hell. He just recognized their intractability. They needed something more than regular church community to teach them.
The word blaspheme, here and many places in the New Testament, is a direct transliteration from Greek. It means slander, defamation, or reviling, especially against God, and includes speech that defames others. Hymenaeus and Alexander were not just impious, they were bond breakers, dividers, loveless.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. (4:1-2)
When the Spirit “expressly says” something we primarily hear it with the seventh sense, which is the main reason we should keep it in shape. The message is mainly tested in community, which is why we need to stay connected to discerning believers. That sense can be dulled. A conscience can even be cauterized so it becomes impermeable to grace, joy and love.
Lies are the poison of conscience. Donald Trump’s lies have their own Wikipedia page. They are the main tool of sociopaths who only care about “winning.” Jesus calls liars children of the devil. The capacity of A.I. and our media in general to spread lies is breathtaking. Hopefully you have some children whose consciences are not seared who can build a new society in the wild years ahead.
If you feel like you must be living in the “later times,” you might be right. Pundits, protesters, prophets and preachers are working overtime to stand against the present “hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.” I thank God for that. We need all the help we can get. Because, as Paul teaches Timothy, having a living relationship with God, which keeps our consciences soft and clear, is the daily, fundamental step, not just in our self-care but in the formation of a society worth living in.
Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — key bros in the “PayPal Mafia” who went on to lucrative projects after PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002, have now gone on to government-breaking so they can perfect their power-grabbing. Thank God people are talking about Palantir all the time!
The unexpected consequences of the bros’ brazen tech-authoritarianism is an outbreak of creativity on the part of the resistance. For instance, Governor Newsome’s Trumpesque Tweets are a hilarious and creative way of asserting California’s right to exist without thugs in their faces (as they experienced when Newsome spoke about redistricting the other day). Old ladies fomenting “Be Brave Day” last Friday is anther version of resistance; they were saying “No! We exist.” The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church titled his Fourth of July message: “Once the church of presidents, The Episcopal Church must now be an engine of resistance.” That’s unexpected!
There are a lot of smart, energetic people out there creatively resisting! They are not shutting up (even though you can get fired for saying the wrong thing — like my friend was fired from her job last month for being outspoken about starving Gazans). For instance, two months ago Tad Stoermer decided to speak up and made this video about the difference between protest and resistance. It finally caught up with me as it wound its way through the algorithm. He insists the present broken time is not calling for reform but for creative transformation.
Existence is resistance
Back in 2011, “existence is resistance” became my new favorite phrase. I learned it from Palestinians, like those from Stop the Wall, and from the Christian Peacemaker Teams in At-Tuwani, south of Hebron. They were creatively resisting. They certainly did not expect Israel to reform (and it did not!); their only hope was transformation. And that begins with their insistent existence. Their continual “No!”
In At-Tuwani, our MCC Learning Tour delegation met a woman from Switzerland who had been living in the village for six years as part of CPT’s work of support. That’s committed resistance. She was about ready to return to Europe, since the villagers were organized enough to do without the protection of witnesses from the U.S. or Europe.
At-Tuwani was in “Area C” of the apartheid system Israel was perfecting in its occupied territories. That means the village was under direct military control. Living in Area C meant that almost anything could happen to a Palestinian for “security” reasons (some say the U.S. is following the Israeli model now). It meant one’s rights were adjudicated by military justice. Practically, it meant one’s land was subject to seizure and the housing developments being planted on your grazing and farm land could supplant your long-held practices – and would be protected by the military (which, by the way, is still protected by the United States). The village was something of a showcase for people devoted to nonviolent resistance. They have been dedicated to the proposition that existence is resistance (and they are still hanging in there).
at-Tuwani 2011
We listened to one of the village’s activists talk about the awakening that caused him to be a leader in direct nonviolent action. When the nearby Israeli settlement was built, it disrupted all the village’s ways. The “settlers” commandeered farmland and claimed grazing areas for their use. One day they beat the man’s mother when she dared to graze sheep in land they were trying to control. As we looked over the village he described how he had participated in securing its ongoing existence against the constant pressure and harassment of the Israeli settlers, military and bureaucracy. Their existence is resistance.
Slaves of Christ
It seems like the Church is usually in need of a refresher course on being an engine of resistance. It is usually the oppressed of the world who can provide the seminar.
In 2017 our old church did some refreshing theology. As I look back on our work from the era of Trump 2.0, I like our thinking even more. Our work came to some truth about our calling to resist antichrist powers — which the Church had been downplaying right down to the way it translated the Bible!
We were concentrating on Paul’s “two-tiered” theology applied to our “social action.” You can see my treatment here in this article.
One of the places where we could see Paul’s thinking was when he related to slaves. In our day, when people are into the idolatry Trump preaches, in which young people are chained to their survival jobs and debt, when white supremacists are trying to re-enslave African Americans, and in which we are all tempted to bow in fear before the Tweeter-in-chief, we may need to think about freeing the slaves more consciously than ever.
Be small
First, if we want to get anything out of Paul’s thoughts on slavery, we have to remember that when he speaks to women, Gentiles and slaves seriously as members of the church, his respect is subversive. Some of us forget, as we turn our “imperial gaze” on the “others” who are so-called “minorities” and so marginalized, that Paul is writing as one of those “others.” He and his little groups of persecuted misfits who are beginning to infect the Roman Empire are not speaking from a position of privilege and power. His view is small; he has become small; the people in his church plants are the “others” in their towns and villages. So he writes from “under” not “over.”
One of the first tasks in understanding him is to let go of any imperial outlook, the supposed privileges of being an American citizen, the protection of the huge military apparatus, even the exceptionalism of being a better Christian than others, and become small enough to need a Savior, to act as a slave of Christ.
Bible translators during the Reformation. And subsequently, undermined our understanding when they decided that rendering the common Greek word for “slave” as slave was too demeaning, so they tidied things up by using the word servant, instead (which is a big difference). Philippians 2:7 in the KJV is a good example. There Paul describes Jesus as taking on the condition of a slave. But the KJV calls him a servant. I think Paul meant what he wrote. It is much more realistic, to see how humankind oppresses Jesus than to see Jesus as serving up salvation to us as we decide whether we want it or not. In order to hear what Paul, the slave of Jesus, is teaching, we’ll have to get into his slavish shoes.
Practice slaving
Once in Paul’s shoes, we can see what he is talking about. His thoughts are a lot bigger than whether a person is going to gain social or political freedom. That achievement would be frosting on his hope cake. The cake is being freed from the need to be freed from what humans do to you and being a grateful slave to the salvation that Jesus is working into us. Here’s just one example of how he thinks:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” – Colossians 3:23-4.
That last clause could better read: “It is for the Lord (master) Christ you are slaving.” That is his first-tier thinking. He knows a truth, the Truth, the world does not know and he is living in it, no matter who he is in the eyes of the world or according to its ways.
Everyone who is thoroughly trained in democratic equality and the centrality of human choice (the general God-free zone of Western thought these days) is likely to think those lines are heresy; it might even feel icky to read them, taboo. Slaving?! Paul has none of those qualms. He finds it an honor to be a slave in Christ’s house as opposed to being a ruler in a house of lies. God is a “master” beyond anything Hobbes, Rousseau or Ayn Rand could imagine. You can see that he is not interested in reformation, he’s experiencing transformation.
So when Paul goes on to talk to slaves, getting into the matters of their everyday lives, as they are locked in their situation with masters, benign or despotic, he has a variety of options for them. His first tier thinking makes them completely free to do the best they can with what they’ve got in the day-to-day, passing-away, fallen world. So he says to his brothers and sisters in Colossae:
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord…. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.” — Colossians 3:22, 25
Note that Paul is likely writing his letter to Colossae from house arrest in Rome. His slavery to Jesus has resulted in becoming enslaved by the Romans. So he can write from personal understanding. Basically, being a good slave who resists the master by obeying out of love and freedom instead of fear is good Christianity. It is possible to exude “no” when you are doing a submissive “yes” according to Jesus. Elsewhere, of course, Paul advises slaves to get free if they can. And he tells Philemon to treat his runaway slave as a brother, or just charge him whatever it costs to set him free.
There are no disempowered people in Christ, even our suffering has the power of grace and love in it. A slave in the world is God’s free person. A free person in the world is God’s slave. This is hard to translate for people who believe the delusion that law makes them free and rational rules and education will prevent suffering. Paul might respond to such ideas, as he did, and say, “Though I am blameless before the law, I am God’s prisoner, a lifelong felon freed by grace.” Similarly, no Jesus followers merely work for human masters, we do whatever we do with the Lord. Even when oppressed, we experience the hope that we will have our reward and the oppressors will get theirs.
How do we take action?
So what do we do in the face of the oppressive masters beating down on us and the world? Pray harder, safe in our salvation? Absolutely. But that is not all. You’re probably taking action in many creative ways.
Our old church summarized what we do in our statement of our mission and put it on a t-shirt:
Loving the thirsty people of our fractured region,
we keep generating a new expression of the church
to resist and restore with those moved by the Holy Spirit.
We resist. I am Christ’s slave. That is a defiant statement of resistance. My existence is resistance. I will never be a slave to a human, no matter what one does to me: buy me, imprison me, or take away my livelihood. I will always belong to the Lord, forever. And, as he demonstrates, in a very real sense, Jesus will always belong to me, forever. He has made Himself our slave.
We restore. I am an obedient slave. My work is well-ordered. Jesus is the Lord of all and we are making that known and effective, day by day. We restore by reorienting people’s identities to align with their salvation. We restore by relentlessly loving in the face of hate and indifference. We restore by telling the truth in the face of lies. We restore by sharing our resources and making peace. And, I think most important, we restore by practicing the kind of mutuality that creates an alternative community that is not allied with the powers that dig up the world and destroy connections between God and people like hurricanes blasting through our village.
Our existence is the foundation of our resistance. We can only hope that the country will be put to right soon. But even if it isn’t, we know who we are and what to do. Being knit together in the love of Jesus is more important than ever, isn’t it! Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are intent on taking over the world and believe they deserve to! What else would we do but resist?
What if anger is not strength?
