Category Archives: The Mission

Conversion: The smoking woman and the dejected church planter

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

Our dear friend from California visited last week to catch up and cheer up. She is such a great guest! She is a kind listener, so she got me telling stories from my early forties when I left her in California for the wilds of Pennsylvania. It was a time in my life when so much was changing! She teased out bits and pieces I had not considered for a while. For instance, she had not heard many specifics about the sufferings and joys of church planting.

First baptism six months later.

I told her a few stories, but I am not sure she got many accurate specifics. The older we get, the more we remember the results of an event or our interpretation of it, rather than remembering the basic who, what and when, etc. (Levine 2002). So a story I told her about a fulcral moment in my midlife history is true, but not in a scientific way. It feels a little like a story from my beloved The Little Flowers which, if not factually true, should be.  I told her I almost never told one important story. She suggested I should, so I am about to.

I gave the telling a trial run at my spiritual direction group. One of the members of our group was about to meet me at the time I was making the memory, a long time ago, now. He said, “I have never heard that story.” I think he was a little disappointed in me, since he had heard many more, less important stories. He suggested my children would benefit from knowing it, so in case I did not tell them, here I go.

The ineffectual church planter

When I came to Philadelphia to plant a church, I had a full head of steam and plenty of conviction. I even had the support of the Brethren in Christ, who generally saw urban areas as far off worlds, at the time. I had inspiration but I did not have a very specific plan. I intended to “make relationships” and let the church organically unfold. This did not go over well with my bishop who thought a phone campaign or some other methodology would work better. After I began, I thought he might be right.

My basic plan entailed walking the streets of downtown Philly and showing up at various street corners, schools and institutions looking for the people God had already contacted who I would gather to form a new church for a new generation. Before I established an office at 4th and South, this was a very dubious process. It was just me and God snooping around.

One day this snooping seemed especially fruitless and downright stupid. I was trudging back to our home in West Philly, head down, defeated. I had nothing. What’s more, I doubted every reason I had moved my family to this unknown place. “No one will talk to me; why would they? I’m not interesting; I’m too old to meet the people I’m looking for. I’m not cool. I’m not nearly as extraverted as I need to be. I’m shy about getting rejected for being overtly Christian. I’m fishing without a hook.”

By Roger Ge in the Daily Pennsylvanian

I did not want to go directly home because I was in a bad mood. It was like I had been hunting for my hungry family and did not have the skill or luck to bring home some meat. “We are all going to starve!” So I sat down in one of the secluded seating areas at Penn to sulk. Looking back, it was like I had a screen up between my mind and the Holy Spirit, because I just did not want to hear it. “Say what you will; I am not listening.” This was unusual, to say the least — I’m not sure I had ever done that. I sat there like I had a spiritual migraine, moving as little as possible, eyes squinted against the light.

The smoking student

Before long, a young woman sat down on one of the other benches to smoke. She was dressed in a mildly punk outfit, her hair bright red. I involuntarily flinched at her presence and curled away a bit. I tried to ignore her, but her smoke wafted my way. She distracted my pity party. But I stayed resolutely rooted in my disgust.

I was succeeding at being inert until she took the few steps across the seating area and stood in front of me, cigarette in hand. “Excuse me” she said. “I feel like you are someone I should be talking to.”

My first reaction was she was trying to help me, I looked so miserable. So I was embarrassed. But I managed to say, “OK. I’m Rod.”

She sat down next to me and looked at her feet. I remember her name, but I don’t recall the details of her story. I probably threw away the journal in which I recorded them. But it was a sad story. It was an afraid story. She was considering ending her life, she felt so alone and unloved.

I told her a bit of my story too. She was surprised I was a Christian and had no idea what a church planter was. But she could relate to how terrible my day was going. She said about my failure, “Maybe I am the only one available today.”

She wanted to hear about faith. “I have nothing else to lose,” she said. I don’t remember how I presented Jesus. And I don’t remember exactly how she received him.

My conversion

I do remember what meeting her did to me, however. I learned two lessons from that encounter which stayed with me for the next 25 years and still inform how I see myself and others.

The first was crucial: It really does matter how much I suck. I hope we have stopped saying “suck.” But it hit the nail on the head then. I was sitting there sucking as a church planter and God nudged someone into my lap. It is exactly what I had hoped would happen in one way or another. One of the reasons I have rarely told this story is my interpretation is too miraculous for me. I don’t like to promise God’s intervention because then I will have to explain Gaza, or Trump, or something. But I took her appearance as a sign. She might as well have been singing with the heavenly host.

The second revelation was equally important: I have no idea what God is going to do. It became inescapable that anything might happen, including things I had never before imagined possible —  things could happen even if I was resisting, or had given up hope! The worst kinds of situations were likely to be filled with God’s presence. Two losers being depressed at Penn save each other. It is so unlikely, it must be God.

I told my friend, I think I became a Christian that day, too – an actual, adult Jesus follower. I had been a pastor for years and had not been doing terrible things. But I had never quite experienced all those stories in the Bible: Thomas doubting then seeing, Peter sinking then reaching out his hand, Paul wandering into Philippi and meeting the only woman at the place of prayer, the Psalmist praying, like I sang in an old song, “From the ends of the earth I call to Thee, when my heart is faint.”

I was right about God’s ability to create something out of nothing. But being right is different from being present when it is happening. I was right about being less-than-able to do what I was called to do, but I was wrong about what God was able to do. I knew the stories about Gideon, the Samaritan woman at the well, and others, but I had never been like them very much, yet. They were probably fortysomethings.

I have forgotten many of the specifics of that day — and that whole year, to be honest. But I do remember the meaning of them. I embarrassed myself plenty of times and felt awkward and out of place countless times, but I was never likely again to think my mild suffering was useless. Sucking actually proved to be an advantage for the mission I was given.

And I became much more adept at expecting God to do the unexpected, even more than I asked or imagined, as Paul told the Ephesians. I was converted that day to a faith that relishes uncertainty, because I came to know God who does not live in my mind and principles. My hope is frail, my memory is weak, my imagination is narrow. God is someone else, altogether — and continues to pleasantly surprise me.

Why isn’t the election about climate action?: Your prefacts and gists

Climate, Psychological growth, The Mission, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The election has apparently boiled down to a discussion about the economy (which that doddering old fool, Joe Biden, led into the post-pandemic envy of the world), and the border (which is challenged but apparently better off under the present administration,

Click for SPLC bio of Trump propogandist Stephen Miller

even though Trump torpedoed the rare bi-partisan solution the Senate hammered out). Meanwhile, the existential threat to the whole world, climate change, is not even on the radar. How are our leaders not talking about the biggest issue we face and why are we allowing them to get away with it? We have our reasons.

The false prophets who rule the world, right now, or threaten to do so, could kill us all. So why do they do it, and why do so many of us keep listening to their lies? We seem to have very little capacity to see the wolves under all that sheepskin (Matt 7:15).

Controlling the airwaves

As Donald Trump has proven over and over, liars become powerful when they control the narrative. Back in the day, when our church was training an expanding pool of cell leaders, one of the hardest lessons to learn was what to do when a person dominates the evening’s conversation. A fledgling leader could easily let a needy or naughty person lead the group down an annoying or unhelpful path just because they could not figure out how to make them share the airwaves. The loudest person in a small group is often the de facto leader. Trump lies loudly. He knows that even when he gets attention for being bad, he is controlling the news cycle.

But why do so many people end up believing his loud lies, or forgive them, even after they are told the Haitians are not eating pets in Springfield Ohio?

Since Donald Trump’s successful playbook started surprising people in 2015, psychologists have been writing about why wannabe autocrats do what they do and why so many people commit to them.

We can see why Trump does it, he wants power. But why do people buy the big lie? There are reasons. Let’s not call them “good” reasons, but we have reasons for preferring something other than truth. [Here’s one article about that I’m using today].

Four reasons people follow false prophets

See what you think about this explanation:

  • We believe “pre-facts.” We are generally preoccupied with what might happen (we spend a lot of time “what-iffing”). It is good habit for surviving. There may be no cars in sight, but we still teach our kids to look both ways because, “You never know.” So we believe a car might run us over. That’s a pre-fact. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is true. It could happen. When we believe something might happen, if someone says it is happening, even if it isn’t, we will likely believe them, or forgive them for lying. Fearsome immigrants in the heartland could be eating beloved pets — or they might, you never know.
  • As a result, we get on unethical bandwagons. If we believe someone’s lies will become true, we reserve the moral condemnation they deserve. In one study, participants who were primed to believe a lie was likely to become true were less likely to hold others accountable for spreading lies on social media and more likely to share disinformation themselves. The stronger the gist was felt to be true, the stronger was the prefactual effect.
  • We become committed to the gist despite the facts. When participants imagined prefactuals more vividly and believed there was a good chance of the facts changing, they were less likely to judge lies as unethical, because they experienced the gist of the statement as true, even if the facts weren’t quite right.
    ……It is astounding, isn’t it, how the Mosaic Law flies in the face of every nation’s fear of being overrun or polluted by strangers. Leviticus 19:34 says, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” That never seems to go with the gist.
  • Our fears compel us to preserve a lie that fits with our bias. We like to think we are rational, but unconscious things motivate us all the time. If we are focused on the what ifs, negative or positive, we are motivated to “go with our gut” which is often a pre-factual “gist.” We all deny unwelcome truth and adjust the facts to conform to preferred outcomes.
    ……In Western cultures, especially, “motivated reasoning” is a mechanism people commonly use to preserve a favorable identity. To maintain positive self-regard, we (unwittingly) discount unflattering or troubling information that contradicts our self-image. It’s a way we avoid or lessen the distress we feel when we get information that makes us uncomfortable — instead of naming the wolf, we dress it in sheep’s clothing. It’s easier.

I can’t stop thinking that Donald Trump might win the election because enough of us prefer his delusional presence, which distracts us and confirms our own wishful delusions. We prefer going with his lies to dealing with the climate terror facing us and the painful changes every society needs to make to save the planet. After all, accepting that climate change is real portends unpleasant environmental consequences and would require most people to head them off by making significant changes in lifestyle. Changing one’s mind and changing one’s lifestyle is hard work; people prefer mental shortcuts—in this case, having the goal fit their ready-made conclusions.

Undermining climate action

Instead of having anything helpful to say about the recent hurricanes in the South, Trump kept himself in the news by suggesting FEMA was going to deprive Republican areas of aid. State officials, red and blue, immediately debunked the lie, but his narrative fit the gist many people live in – a pre-factual world where something is coming to get them, the government, Venezuelan rapists, or trans-loving Army colonels.

The most discomforting reality, however, is blowing in with the latest storm. In case you missed it, the increasingly powerful “El Nino” climate pattern has reduced the flow of the Amazon River in Colombia by about 90%. In Ecuador, which relies almost entirely on hydroelectric power, people are enduring energy cuts of up to 14 hours per day, knocking out the internet and sapping the country’s economy.

In Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, the government is cutting water to residential homes at regular intervals and the mayor has suggested that people “bathe as a couple” to reduce consumption.

A drought-stranded boat in the Solimoes River in Brazil, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon River. Credit: Bruno Kelly/Reuters

Long sections of the Amazon River have turned into dry, brown beaches, and officials are dredging sections to make them deeper. In Brazil, wildfires fueled by searing heat and prolonged dry conditions have consumed vast swaths of forest, wetlands and pastures, with smoke spreading to 80% of the country. It has led to canceled classes, hospitalizations and a black dust coating the inside of homes. (NYTimes)

A drought covering large parts of the Amazon rainforest is especially worrying because it is the globe’s most important carbon sink, absorbing heat trapping gases.

Carlos Nobre spearheaded the multi-disciplinary, multinational Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia that revolutionized understanding of the Amazon rainforest and its role in Earth’s ecology.

Carlos Nobre, the climate scientist, says dryer conditions diminish the forest’s ability to take in those gases, worsening global warming. The less rain means less effective trees taking carbon out of the air. Then they burn, adding carbon to the air.

Nobre notes that the recent drought has crossed several unsettling milestones: never has so little rain fallen in the rainforest, never have dry conditions lasted so long, and never has such a vast region of the jungle been affected.

The drought comes amid another worrisome moment: In January, for the first time, the planet’s average temperature hit 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels for 12 consecutive months. Temperature levels beyond that would lead to consequences that would make it challenging for societies to cope, to say the least. Nobre confirms that many scientists and policymakers did not expect the globe to hit that mark for years. They are worried the earth’s warming is accelerating. “We are scared,” he said.

Keep your feet on the way of Jesus

People cherry pick the Mosaic law to find things that are ill-applied to postmodern culture.  It is like a party game or it makes an amusing meme to pass around on social media. Meanwhile they ignore the revelations that contradict their pre-factuals. That’s why the law had to tell people, “Don’t kill or ostracize the stranger, treat them like God treated you when you were a refugee in Egypt.” And why Jesus, the fulfillment of the Law, says, “No, don’t just love people who love you. Love one another as I have loved you.” We strain out some gnat of preferred gist and swallow a camel of lies about reality. Save us, Lord.

Right now the false prophets are loudly leading us to ignore the most important truths about our life together on Earth. They help us occupy ourselves with fantasies which fit our warped views of ourselves. Even those of us who know this are flummoxed about what to do. We scroll screens to calm our anxiety and withdraw from difficult community-building right when we are most needed.

I have not managed to changed the U.S. political system – I’ve tried, but it got worse under my watch. I have reasons to give up. I could not even make significant change in the church – what we did was great for a season, but it got blown away. I have reasons to be cynical. But I still feel obligated to walk with Jesus, the way, the truth and the life and trust God, step by step, no matter what storm arises.

The liars are providing delusions. We’re set up to believe things that confirm our alternative facts about ourselves and preferred futures. The overwhelming info machine in our hands is not helping. Even so, many more of us need to invent and support radical climate action or there will be little future to enjoy. I think Jesus would like to help us with that.

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

If you want to read more of what I’ve written on climate action, here’s the link.

Save us from the serious authoritarian, Lord!

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

Gov. Whitmer of Michigan went to Kalamazoo County last week to survey damage from the tornadoes that destroyed seventeen mobile homes and damaged 173 more. The state had just passed a law to require mobile homes to be anchored in a sturdier way, since storms have become more severe. “It’s undeniable,” the governor said. “We’re seeing intense impacts from climate change….We’ve got to continue to evolve…(We need to) think about how do we protect one another and combat these impacts.”

Meanwhile, in neighboring Wisconsin, their senator, Ron Johnson, recently entered the World Climate Declaration into a Senate committee record. That statement says there is no climate emergency and aspects of climate change are actually beneficial. You can read the rebuttal here from a couple of years ago. Some people trace the disinformation in the declaration to oil companies (like the Koch conglomerate), which would not be surprising.

I don’t want to get into that argument, even though a lot of us are amused by endless wrangling. I just bring it up to ponder what is really happening these days. I’m still wondering if I am up to the demands of 2024. For instance, my church is about ready to enter their annual summer slowdown. It’s a thing. I have my own summer festivities lined up, too. My clients often take much of the summer off from their psychotherapy! Yet I keep getting info, like it or not, that something important is brewing. You can see it underneath Gretchen Whitmer fighting someone for the authority to name the impact of unusual tornados. Maybe we are too sleepy.

Are people really trying to take over the country sans election?

One of my friends sent me a podcast from the Meidas Touch Network, which three brothers started during the pandemic and now has billions of views on YouTube. It was an interview with Steven Hassan, a psychotherapist who has dedicated his career to undermining the many ways people are lured into cults. He, himself, was a member of the Unification Church (the Moonies) for 27 months. He was proselytized when he was getting a poetry degree in college. I would not recommend the podcast to you, just because I don’t trust garage-born internet sensations (although Mr. Beast keeps trying to win my favor). But it did bring up some things I had to look into.

As a result of looking, I would recommend we all have an educated opinion about what is happening in the country! I do not believe democracy will save the world, even if it has done a great job since World War 2. And capitalism is really kind of degenerative. But I do think the authoritarian types who are taking over governments, school boards and condo associations (and maybe your Mother’s Day celebration) are even less likely to save the world, even though they are saying they are going to do just that.

For instance, Trump did say he was going to save America when the eclipse came around:

I don’t think Trump really believes much of anything except Trump. But there are many people who seriously believe in some version of an ascendant, anti-democratic philosophy, which they think Trump can help put into action. They are better organized and funded all the time. You can see their influence in almost every discussion we have these days at almost every level of society.

For example, I just want highlight two authoritarian movements which are publicly and vocally calling people to join their intention to conquer the world for Jesus. Seriously.

Moonies

Steven Hassan was on the podcast because he had firsthand experience of how someone can be lured into an authoritarian organization and become a foot soldier for the cause. He followed Sung Myung Moon, who presented himself as the second coming of Jesus; that’s the unifying “truth” of the Unification Church.

Sean Moon with his “rod of iron”  and bullet crown in Rolling Stone (Click pic for article)

I talked about “Moonies” the other night at a dinner party with twentysomethings and one of them leaned over to an older person to ask, ”What is a Moony?” I honestly had not thought of them much, either, until a few years ago when I found out they had a church/compound not far from my former house in the Poconos. After Father Moon died, his wife and sons had a fallout (sounds a bit like Sunni and Shia and every other power struggle after the founder is gone).

The sons claimed leadership and moved headquarters to Pennsylvania. Sean Moon and his wife founded the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary near Newfoundland. The Pocono Herald heard about it and voiced the neighbors’ concerns. The church recently bought properties in central Texas and eastern Tennessee for retreat, self-sufficient agriculture and firearm training.

Key scriptures for them include Psalm 2:8-9

Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession, You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.

They think this is their mandate to bring the world under their rule. It is all on their website. Part of their statement of belief includes a “constitution” for the unification of humankind under God’s law. Here is the prologue:

Constitution

In the beginning of human history in the Garden of Eden, God’s original world of freedom, liberty, conscience, and relationship with God was to be established. It was to be a world where the powerful archangels were to be the servants of the children of God. However, due to the Fall, Eve committed adultery with the Archangel and tempted Adam into sinning against God. Thus, the world of Satan’s domination over mankind was established. History has shown centralized powers, either governmental, religious or financial, use artificial structures and power to rule over mankind, sometimes taking freedoms gradually and sometimes eliminating them by brute force. God’s Kingdom on Earth must be established where the artificial structures of power, representing Satan, shall never again rule over mankind and humanity.

The Constitution of the United States of Cheon Il Guk is not an ecclesiastical Constitution of a church or religious body, but is a Constitution for an actual, sovereign nation which will be the literal culmination of God’s Providence. Read it at http://www.sanctuary-pa.org/constitution.

These are not the only people working at this. But they are the ones in your back yard, Philadelphia.

Dominionists

The Speaker of the House is often called a “Christian nationalist” (here by another member of Congress). No one wants to be called that, since it would not help the cause. But the title has fit a number of politicians for decades. Ted Cruz is at the top of the list. Cruz’ father was a leader in the “Dominionist” movement that got going in the 1960’s and 70’s with R.J. Rushdoony. Here is a Christian Century article that tells you all about it. If you want to hear about the more radical, Pentecostal version, Salon wrote about it extensively in February.

There are many people who are “apostles” of this new movement, which is determined to take the reins of U.S. (and world) government for Jesus. Paula White was praying for Trump to succeed on January 6. Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, is often seen as working towards Texas implementing a new order along the line of Dominionist principles.

Hurches in Israel funding a mobile ICU. Being grafted on to Israel lays the foundation for Christ’s return, he teaches.

Larry Hurch and New Beginnings Church in Bedford, Texas (between Dallas and Forth Worth, of course) is a well-known pastor who is also leading the charge. In the church’s statement of beliefs they teach:

We believe through the redemptive work of our Lord, our enemy, satan, is a defeated foe. That by the power of the 7 places Jesus shed His blood every sin can be forgiven, every generational curse can be broken and every covenant blessing can be restored.

The “power of the 7” refers to Seven Mountains Dominionism, also known as the Seven Mountains Mandate or 7MM. It has become a more prevalent manifestation of “Kingdom Now” theology since the early 2010’s. The mandate proposes there are seven “mountains” that Christians must control to establish a global Christian theocracy and prepare the world for Jesus’ return: government, education, media, arts and entertainment, religion, family, and business. The mandate is based, among other things, on two Bible passages:

In the last days / the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established / as the highest of the mountains; / it will be exalted above the hills, / and all nations will stream to it.  — see Isaiah 2:2-3

The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come. This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits.  — see Revelation 17:1–18

There may be a dominionist constitution out there. I have not seen it yet. But there is no doubt the growing movement wants to “establish God’s kingdom” now. And they don’t mean “in your heart.” A think tank called The American Vision is one of the organizations which would be delighted to provide you with a “restorationist” worldview. Their website can tell you a lot, also this article from the Texas Observer about them.

What does one do?

In the podcast, Steven Hassan repeated the common image, “Cancer cells are selfish. They will kill their host.” The authoritarian movements seem cancerous to me. The host is the wildly successful United States and its very fruitful church. The reformation of Christian theology into a lust for power has always been cancerous, if common. It is a wonder the church survives at all. It may not survive here in the near future if we take the year off.

It is hard to say how many of these movements are springing up. There is a zeitgeist you can probably feel when you are in a meeting and you are not saying anything because you don’t want to confront some potentially violent bully. I think we need to have an opinion about this zietgeist. We need to say something.

I think I had better be more serious about standing up to bullies and out-organizing them when it comes to building community. Just this week a member of our condo association board was called a “predator” by a woman who was threatened by him when they were arguing about an association matter. He threatened to bring a lawsuit if she did not offer a public retraction on the bulletin boards of our complex, doubling down on the bullying. Sound familiar? It is a trickle-down leadership style. I’m not sure of all I can do about it, but I will definitely dare to ask God what might be my next steps.

In all of this, I think we can be at rest without flaking out (do we still say that?). Hope is a state of being, not just an outcome. Peace is trusting in God, not just in what comes after we’ve solved all the problems. Love is the ground of reality, the engine of each day, not just a reward for being good or performing well. We’re not meant to live off the crumbs falling from the owner’s plate or by whatever we can seize for ourselves, we’re already a cookie.

Emergence: New discoveries and new books enrich how we see the work of God

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

When you are feeling good, like after being in the park last Wednesday or Thursday (!), you probably feel like something good is “emerging.” Maybe you feel like Tony singing “something’s coming” in Westside Story.

Emergence is a constant we feel inside and experience coming at us. It is like catching a wave rippling through the universe and finding yourself moved to a new place. One of my clients said their therapy process led them to a new place of peace and understanding —  and they had no idea how they got there. But they felt, finally, like something new was possible. It is likely that something will “emerge” tomorrow. It will seem to come from out of no where.

President Garfield

The three books I’ve been reading (not always a good idea) have each encouraged me to think about “emergence” in one way or another. The first one moved me because it seems like the United States is never going to emerge out of the dreadful sin of racism and all the other hatred which laid in wait to be stirred up by Trump and his cronies. The book is President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier (2023).

Garfield colorized

I did not know how much I would relate to Garfield’s life! How he ran away from and ran into racism and hate during and after the Civil War sounds like a replay of what’s been happening since 9/11! Can the United States possibly be tempted to disenfranchise and otherize entire classes of people in the old name of white supremacy? This week it is a debate about Venezuelans.

In 2019, I thought we might actually emerge into new territory. People seemed to be susceptible to enlightenment in new ways. I hoped that white people, mainly, would repent of our sin and we’d come to new reconciliation. But the exact same thing happened as it did in 1876 when tired out, threatened men, tabled the issue in honor of profit protection and their own power – and those were the nice ones. The mean ones planned violence – and don’t imagine a new KKK is not possible! It seems like we periodically push the boundaries like the alien in John Hurt’s body, but some things never quite emerge.

I think James Garfield felt discouraged, too. He could feel the possibilities. He road a wave quite a way from his log cabin, preaching and teaching in the Ohio Reserve, clear to the Congress and then to the White House.

In 1878 Garfield quoted Junius Brutus from Coriolanus in his diary, “Let’s carry with us eyes and ears for the time / But hearts for the event.” The “event” was the emergence of something better. Coriolanus represents the arrogant old guard hurtling to a fall, and Garfield the plebian, idealistically undermining their surety. Ironically, the man who assassinated President Garfield three years later was angry with him for not rewarding him with a job from the spoils system Garfield had spent most of his career trying to eradicate. I picked up this book because I often wondered what it might have been like if he had not been killed. What was trying to emerge?

Nancy Abrams

A much more profound book is by a philosopher of science married to the famous cosmologist Joel R. Primack: A God That Could be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet (2015) by Nancy Abrams.  Abrams essentially made a god for herself out of “emergence.”

Mysteries abound and are simplified for public consumption when Abrams and Primack get a hold of them. I won’t even try to summarize their science-shattering revelations. But this video will help you (below). I hardly ever watch a long video, but this one is engaging and enlightening, especially if you want to keep up with the revolution of understanding our new space telescopes have provided.

Their exciting new theory is that stars are about 1% of the 99% of the universe we cannot see. “Cold dark matter” is interacting with “dark energy” creating something that looks like a web or like a picture of a cell in our bodies.

Abrams and Primack

Nancy was not troubled by the lack of God in their groundbreaking models until she entered a 12-step program for eating disorders and realized that, as an atheist, she had no way to connect with the “higher power” that was supposed to help her with her struggle. That got her thinking, “I had this sinking feeling that I had never really tried to understand God.”  Her book answers her question, “Can anything actually exist in the universe as science understands it that is worthy of being called God?”

What she comes up with is “emergence.” She describes it as something “new and radically unpredictable” which arises out of a collective. One example of emergence is the complex global economy that arose from local buying and selling. Another example is the way a swarm of ants can build an anthill even as no individual ant can understand how that might be done. She sees the universe working that way and that is her higher power.

For humans, God, she believes, is a phenomenon that emerges from our collective human aspirations. “We need to redefine God,” she said. “The emerging God is not king of the universe; it’s humanity’s bridge to understanding the universe.”

Boiling down her thoughts this way does not do them justice and does not describe the wonder of seeing how the universe has “emerged.” As she was teaching, my thoughts turned to questions about how slavery and the Civil War “emerged.” And how in 2019 a wave of power struggle upended my church and so many other collectives and institutions. Now we are all worrying about what will emerge from the wonder of A.I. I’m not known for focusing on the dark side of the dark matter. But I do admit it is there. If you are James Garfield or Nancy Abrams, you are expecting goodness and development or at least inevitability to emerge. I would like to be a point of light, myself.

Ray Anderson

Ray Anderson

The third book comes from a professor I knew of when I attended his seminary, Fuller. Ray Anderson died in 2009, but I am just getting to one of his last books: An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches (2006). I never thought of the church we planted as an “emerging” church, but I think Anderson would have.  His ideas sort of bring Garfield and Abrams into the ongoing work of God I have experienced, as I think they experienced too. We all looked out into the stars and felt a shiver of wonder at what is coming, what seems to be moving, and how we are caught up in life.

Anderson loved the emergence he saw in the church. But he wanted to write a book to supply some underpinnings he thought the movement was missing. Beware, I’m going to boil down another philosopher; here goes. He saw the emerging church of the 2000’s as another expression of the Spirit, like we see the energy of the first church of Antioch escaping the gravitational pull of the mother church in Jerusalem. Here is how Brian McClaren asked his question in the intro:

Are we going to follow an Athens-based faith, where our message is domesticated and diluted by new cultures it encounters? Are we going to follow a Jerusalem-based faith, where our message is tamed and contained by a dominant culture from the past? Or are we going to follow an Antioch-based faith, where our message never loses its wild, untamed essence (flames of fie, rushing wind), but like a spring of living water or vibrant new wine, it always flows and is never contained in new forms?

The aspiration of the last sentence sounds like Garfield’s Disciples of Christ heart and Abrams’ brilliant insight: emergence.

Anderson distinguishes between what is “emergent” and what is “emerging.” When Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch to investigate what was going on, he was caught up in the emerging church that represented the newness their faith represented. The powers in Jerusalem rejected the Church’s “emergent” message of resurrection life and scattered the believers all over the world. Antioch was the fertile place an “anthill” formed, and soon ants were in every kitchen of the Roman Empire. To the honor of the Jerusalem elders, when Paul and Barnabas came back to report, they blessed them even if they did not become them.

That “untamed essence” is what Garfield, Abrams and Anderson all see and want to move with. Me too. I can see emergence in the past and I want to move with like-minded aspirants to see the best of the future.

I think it is a bit ironic for Abrams’ to rest her new faith in the latest discovery of science, which always thinks its latest revolution is the last one.  But what she is feeling about what she is seeing resonates with me. From the detritus of the last few years, I keep seeing “ants” aspiring together and bringing forth new things. Dare I say that the aspirations of David Hogg and his fellow survivors of the Stoneman High shooting finally resulted in the Office of Gun Violence Protection President Biden announced last week? Is my energetic local pastor, committed to the emergent gospel, going to build an emerging church on the crumbling foundation of the old? Something’s coming! I hope to move with that “dark energy” that makes for starshine.

You might be a green martyr sprouting despite your wound

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I was surprised to find my favorite Tweeter, Dan White, featured in an interview in the New York Times: “A Pastor Ripped Apart by Our Divided Country” (First Person, July 21, 2022). There he was sprouting in an unusual,  new place like an Anabaptish weed.

Dan and his wife now direct the Kino Center in Puerto Rico. He was well known as a pastor and a teacher of pastors. But in the last few years he has become well known for being an ex-pastor. Maybe history will see him as one of the martyrs for their third-way faith. I think there are a few of those martyrs from my former church looking to sprout somewhere. They are among the hundreds of U.S. pastors and others who have been traumatized by the spasm of power grabbing convulsing the U.S.

Dan White was an innovative, fearless church reformer himself, but his unifying message was drowned in the sea of division and combat that has flooded the world and the church. I was talking to another pastor, another victim, last week and the only reason he could see for his plight came from a line from the Bible: people are subject to the “ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient” (Eph. 2:2 NRSVA). There is “something in the air,” isn’t there!

Talking about “martyrs” may seem an hysterical way to talk about people like Dan White. But Christians have experienced martyrdom in one way or another in every age of the church as they speak up about their faith. Tertullian is famous for saying in the year 197, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” The treatment of my spiritual ancestors, the radical reformers of the 1500’s and before, is collected in a famous book called the Martyr’s Mirror. Martin Luther King was a martyr, along with John Lewis. Today, Jesus followers in India are being hounded by Hindu nationalists; and U.S. Christians are often hounded by Hinduish media myth makers.

Red, white and blue/green martyrs

As I was meditating through Margaret Guenther’s Book, Toward Holy Ground, I was intrigued by her reference to different colors assigned to different types of martyrs throughout Christian history. She was mainly interested in helping me affirm how wonderful it is, as an older Jesus follower, to discover the “marvelous freedom of living deliberately yet carelessly” as a “green” martyr who knows “the heroism and the sanctity of faithfulness to the ordinary,” who appreciates the discipline of the craftsman and has learned the patience of the harvester.

The original impulse of assigning different colors of martyrdom mainly had to do with different ways people “died daily” with Jesus. The colors mainly had to do with the way people expressed their religion – not the idea of “religion” born during the Enlightenment and subsequently expanded during the reordering of philosophical frameworks according to the scientific method (see here), but religion in its original sense of living under a “religio,” a rule (which is becoming popular again these days). The witness that leads to martyrdom is almost always more about how one lives than what one says.

The early Jesus followers had a rule of life which was so distinct from their society they were tagged as “Christians.” Their various rules came up against Roman and other rulers and got them killed. A Christian martyr gets in trouble because she follows the Ruler as a rule, even if she breaks the rules of the power of the air.

When Christianity started morphing into the government in the Roman Empire, Jesus followers sat in the seat of power and often found it practical to align with the “spirit at work among the disobedient.” So some Jesus followers longed for the experience of being beyond what the powers considered normal. This is a common development in spiritual enterprises; if you don’t keep transforming, something’s gotta give. For instance, the Benedictine monastic order started off as a brilliant adaptation to the chaos of the 6th century. Two hundred years later it was still going and expanding! But it needed reforming. Odo of Cluny helped do that. His reforming monastery ended up as one of the most influential institutions in Europe for another 500 years! But it got stagnant and corrupted, too. French revolutionaries were so sick of what the church had become, they literally tore down the huge church building in Cluny. (I saw the remnant). Something seems to be ‘giving” right now in the U.S., as well.

Red

We all understand red martyrs. Red stands for blood. I grew up in my non-Christian home schooled by old movies about martyrs like Quo Vadis. That clip still gets my own blood stirred up.

White

By the 3rd  and 4th centuries, some Christians missed the clarifying threat of red martyrdom. Their impulse to go beyond what had become normal created “white” martyrs. Jerome (347-420) created this new category of martyr “for those such as desert hermits who aspired to the condition of martyrdom through strict asceticism.”

In Medieval Europe the impulse of the desert fathers and mothers was woven into most religion. So people looked farther, like the first monastics did. It became very popular for people to go on pilgrimages to visit the sites or relics of martyrs, putting themselves in the danger of not being able to get home or dying on the road. For instance, my hero, Francis of Assisi, made a pilgrimage to Egypt in 1219 in an attempt to convert Sultan al-Kamil and put an end to the 5th Crusade

Green

The Celtic Church added  the category of “green” martyrs (or blue), basically “glas.” Irish doesn’t really have a good cognate for green or blue in translation and “glas” is much more descriptive than either (see here). Glas is more specific to a place or natural phenomenon and less distinct as a concept, which is one of the reasons Celtic Christianity appeals to me. Glas martyrs experienced a kind of martyrdom by devoting themselves to practical rules in their own place, maybe even attached to a place, like Cuthbert wading into the water every day to pray (according to Bede), or monks living on Skellig Michael (which is glas in the picture above).

The martyr colors need an update

The red martyr has the feel of “I need to stand firm in an evil day” (Eph. 6:13). Red martyrdom usually comes upon people rather than them seeking it, like what happened to the kind people killed by Dylan Root. There are still red martyrs. Coptic churches are blown up. The Chinese government threatens the burgeoning church there. Inequities and violence sap the capacity of many brilliant servants in the U.S. I think a pastor, like Dan White, or anyone whose ministry is ended or hobbled by the power-hungry authoritarian elements rising up everywhere could be considered a red martyr. They are not killed, perhaps, but they are traumatized and often neutered.

The white martyr has the feel of “I’ve got to get out of this place” ( 2 Cor. 6:1-7:10). People are leaving the church in droves, looking for something more and getting out from under dominating leaders and moribund thinking. Any church leader who is mostly focused on getting or keeping power probably has a philosophy about to become moribund. In the U.S., people leave churches or kick out their leaders because their white supremacist/heteronormative denomination won’t change their hurtful theological statements; then people leave the newly cleansed churches because they have to toe the line to a legalistic application of the new theology, which is also non-inclusive and power-driven. Evacuations from church war zones reflect the spirit of the white martyrs of old who could not not tolerate the worldliness of their church.

The original white martyrs fled to the Egyptian desert. Their medieval imitators “fled” on pilgrimages. Americans go on some great pilgrimages, too (as you know I do). But I think their best contribution to white martyrdom is creating alternative communities in self-defined “wildernesses” in which to flee (I have done a bit of that myself). In an anti-institutional age (for good reason) people get out by getting small and getting communal. I know many people who have exited their church but held on to the small group where they got most of their face-to-face faith. Sometimes people get very small and intimate. As a newly-credentialed spiritual director, I know first hand that new spiritual directors are rapidly being minted for a lot of one-to-one Christianity (SDI has 6000 members!). Like Jesus followers have often done, people are escaping the ruins of old institutions and chaos.

Green martyrs have the feel of “This is not radical enough for me” (1 Peter). That’s not “radical” in the sense of extreme (although extremists have a similar motivation) but radical in the sense of intense, focused, true, basic. I think there are a lot of new green martyrs these days, looking around town for community, looking for a good rule of life in step with the Ruler. The church is not what is used to be even three years ago! Many people  I know feel a new freedom, a new sense of urgency, new inspiration. Their old way of life did not survive Covid or survive the evils associated with the ascendance of Christian nationalism. The expression of their faith is experiencing the renaissance of starting from scratch and imagining being faithful in their new surroundings.

Maybe Dan White is a green martyr out of necessity, cast out of the institution he created, living on his island, collecting the like-minded and like-wounded, appreciating the sacred in the ordinary, crafting something beautful, and harvesting his small garden — a green martyr despite his wound. Maybe nurses and teachers, Christian or not, should be considered green martyrs since they devote themselves to the common good in a specific place without recognition or pay even when the spirit of the air tries to tear down what they build up every day. Maybe you are a green martyr despite your wound and you should secretly wear the name to get some comfort as you stick with a day-to-day faith which is basic to you but hard to plant in a post-Covid world.

In appreciation for Ron Sider

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Ron Sider was a large influence in my life, especially as a twentysomething seminarian. His seminal book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (1978) changed my viewpoint and helped make me a lifelong advocate for the poor. He even influenced our intentional community’s vision to devote ourselves to caring for the hungry.

In seminary I wrote a paper that compared his book to Vernard Eller’s The Simple Life: The Christian Stance Toward Possessions (1973), in which I found myself more committed to Eller’s premise than Sider’s more-evangelical stance. But Sider continued to influence me theologically and relationally, as I ended up in his first denomination and in his home town. Meeting him for the first time was a thrill.

In honor of his good, long life I thought I should republish a book review I wrote with Jonny Rashid in 2017 for a Brethren in Christ publication.  It demonstrates how he kept fresh and engaged for over sixty years in the cause of keeping the American church, in particular, accountable for our social action. Rest in peace good teacher and partner.

Book Review: The future of our faith: An intergenerational conversation on critical issues facing the church.
By Ronald J. Sider and Ben Lowe. Brazos Press. 2016
Reviewed by Rod White and Jonny Rashid

Ambitious people flock together

Ron Sider and Ben Lowe demonstrate their admirable ambition for the life of the church throughout The future of our faith: An intergenerational conversation on critical issues facing the church — the latest of the more than thirty books Sider has published. When some of us read it, we may feel pale in comparison as they marshal their experiences, drop names, and demonstrate their points with great acumen. Ron, especially, has amassed a wealth of knowledge and connections during his stimulating intellectual, ecumenical and literary life. He’s had quite a journey out of a little BIC church in southern Ontario! The Future of Our Faith is an extravagant title but don’t let it intimidate you. It is really about two caring people who are brilliant enough to deserve attention as they demonstrate the kind of dialogue that might stem the American church’s swift decline as it meets the next generation.

We share similar convictions about the next generation of the church and the dialogue that holds it together in love.

When I (Rod) was asked to write this review, I immediately thought it would be good to write it with Jonny. The book is trying to bridge differences between young and old, new and seasoned, and is interested in bridging the divides that societal labels reinforce. Ron appreciates the multicultural Oxford Circle Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, where we live. Ben’s church, the Wheaton Chinese Church, is consciously working at a multicultural oneness. Jonny and I also represent the ambition, the age difference and the discipline of connecting people in the love of Jesus who might normally be at odds..

This book gravitates toward getting involved in the bigger issues on which both men have been concentrating. Both men mainly address their concerns through parachurch organizations, which are mostly driven by their personal energy. Jonny and I have been concentrating on the same issues in our community context, relying on our mutuality to take us where we need to go. I think we are the church they are looking for when they keep pointing out how lost the evangelical church has been since it first started hearing from Ron in the 1970’s.

These are their concerns, in brief

Ron Sider is concerned about evangelism surviving as millennials embrace social action more than biblical principles, truth in the postmodern era, the foundation for marriage where it is deteriorating, and having a gracious debate on homosexuality. Ben Lowe is concerned about having lifestyles that reflect faith, good political engagement, reconciling divisions in the church, and caring for creation.

There is little disagreement between them. Ron sounds like an engaging and aware 70-something who is going to die trying to make a difference. Ben sounds like an orthodox, been-burned 30-something who likes to push the boundaries of his background in order to do good.

Jonny and I do not disagree with each other much either, if at all. We agree to agree. But our agreement is forged in the fires of dialogue, which is mostly missing in the church, The BIC Church has spent a decade eradicating meaningful dialogue from their General and Regional Conferences (which are now more accurately labeled “assemblies”) as well as in general principle and practice. If this book has any wisdom to share, it is that such a move is the exact wrong direction for the future of our faith.

Jonny and I decided we could best serve you if we modeled the structure of the book and each chose a teaching to share and then responded to what the other said.

Rod’s thoughts on a big assumption

I do not think there is much wrong with this book. It might be a bit hard to read for people less aware of evangelical organizations; the authors are steeped in the subculture and in evangelical academia. But they are good writers who break it down well. They want to talk about key issues and they succeed in doing that.

What I will say has to do with their assumptions. They note an intergenerational tension in the family of God over what it means to be faithful today, and how we need to find a better way to sort these things out. This is true. But the problem might be that evangelicals (and church people in general) can’t stop talking about themselves. This book assumes people can talk to each other in the church about the intergenerational tension when one generation is quickly exiting the building.

Last summer, the Mennonite Review included a review of Robert P. Jones’ The End of White Christian America. That book summarizes what Sider and Lowe are combatting. “Younger people today are simply less interested in religion. Looking at the numbers, Jones says the proportion of Americans who are white mainline Protestants and white evangelicals today is 32 percent, down from 51 percent in 1993. The reason for this change? More and more Americans are leaving organized religion, with 20 percent today considering themselves religiously unaffiliated. Many of the unaffiliated are young adults, who are less than half as likely as seniors to identify with a church. This rejection of organized religion by youth, Jones says, is a ‘major force of change in the religious landscape.’ Looking ahead, ‘there’s no sign that this pattern will fade anytime soon,’ he says. “By 2051, if current trends continue, religiously unaffiliated Americans could comprise as large a percentage of the population as Protestants.”

We started working on this crisis of faith twenty years ago and most of our church members are millennials. It is not easy to evangelize among them when the vast majority of what is left of the evangelicals vote for the godless Trump who epitomizes what Lowe laments as faith without lifestyle. Plus Pence represents the narrow agenda of the religious right while climate change action is rolled back and minoritized people are targeted for police action. Sider and Lowe may be talking to a church that ceased to exist ten years ago.

Jonny’s response

I also do not find much issue with the text and I am grateful for Ron and Ben’s contribution. I think it will be good for those that need to read it. As I will say below, the assumptions are a little too vague and broad. I am unsure the audience of the text is listed specifically enough, and at times I think the strokes the authors paint with are too broad. But they definitely have their place, especially when considering popular (and vocal) evangelical audiences.

Jonny’s thoughts on priorities

As a 31-year-old pastor, it was quite an interesting experience Sider and Lowe speak to me about my priorities. As it turns out, Sider wasn’t far from the truth when he listed what my generation thinks is important, but I think one thing they may also find important is not being generalized. Across race, class, and regions, I think young Christians have a myriad of priorities. I think that the generalizations the authors made about millennials were particularly germane to a city-dwelling transplant in the Northeast U.S., but I do not think they would translate well to say, black people, suburban folks, or even millennials I know in the Midwest and the South. Since Jason Fileta wrote a sidebar in the text, I will note, that millennial Egyptian immigrants–like him and me–would likely “side” with Ron on many of his issues, and might actually need to learn something from Ben’s chapters.

Rod and I have had many robust discussions over the years in which I was on the side of the “older” generation and he the “younger.” The stereotypes (or “generalizations” to put it more mildly) simply have not been true in my experience. As it turns out, many millennials I know, are not interested in politics, race, or the environment; while many older folks I know are progressive on issues like gay marriage, are steeped in postmodernism, and are on the front lines of our political witness. Bifurcating the audience may cement them in their stereotyped places (or create more conflict between the groups).

As a millennial, the main thing that develops my faith is being taken seriously by my elders, especially in Circle of Hope. I was only 24 when I planted the church with fifty comrades six and a half years ago! When older leaders took me seriously, I took them seriously too. Our divisions, if any existed, were erased by working toward a common vision together.

But let me conclude by saying, I think this book does a service to the church by undoing many of the stereotypes unbelievers, from every generation, have about it. Like Rod noted already, the loudest Christians in our country are making it hard for us to prioritize issues like evangelism and truth, as well as debunk misunderstandings about how Christians see the environment and U.S. race relations.

Rod’s response

Jonny points out what might be a flaw in the book’s premise and in evangelical thinking. The authors seem to be speaking mainly to their subculture but they make universal assertions. That being said, it is good to know that Ben Lowe, in particular, is working hard at bridging the divisions. He even ran for Congress as a pro-life Democrat! His book Doing Good Without Giving Up reminds us, as C. S. Lewis put it, we don’t get second things by placing them first; we get second things by keeping first things first. As Christians, we don’t just aim at change; we aim at faithfulness, and out of faithfulness comes fruitfulness. Ron Sider also has an impressive history of not giving up — even writing this book in his 70’s! Ben Lowe is similarly inspirational (as is Jonny Rashid!)

We are glad to share their conclusion

As they summarize their work, the authors share an inspiring conclusion we could all share. “We come from different contexts and perspectives, and often struggle to understand or relate to one another. Overcoming this involves intentionally reaching out, opening up, and being vulnerable. It takes humility, patience, and sacrificial love. It may often be hard, and sometimes we’ll get hurt. But it’s still both possible and worthwhile. We all have weaknesses, prejudices and blind spots, both as individuals and as generations, often it’s our differences that help draw these out into the light where we can deal with and grow from them….The reality is that what separates us is far less significant  than what binds us together. Or rather, who binds us together.”

Resources for Understanding and Impacting the Borderlands

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Saulo Padilla at the wall.

I am going to use this entry to collect resources I have for understanding and experiencing the tragedy and grace happening at the border in Arizona. The area on both sides is called the “borderlands” since it has a character and government all its own. On the American side the military presence of the U.S. and an array of Christians, mostly, who alleviate its cruelty meets the power of the cartels on the Mexican side, who have taken over immigration and made it human trafficking. The shadow Mexican government is also met, mainly by Christians, who care for people caught in the many crises that bang up against the U.S. wall.

Each of the headings is a link to one of seven blog posts I wrote while on the learning tour. Click the title to go to that page. On each of those posts are more specific resources connected to what we were learning each day. Below are general resources.

1. Fridays for the Future #6 — Phoenix/Tucson the most unsustainable: It’s about water

As far as I can tell, now that I know some, Tucson residents are as in denial about their unsustainable sprawl as my research indicated.

2. Education in Agua Prieta

I later got to know more about David Bonilla. He was an intelligent, kind beginning to our exploration of the borderlands, the first of many amazing people making a difference.

Root Causes

Webpage:
Migration Root Causes – MCC US Video
https://mcc.org/safe-refuge

Article:
Indigenous diaspora: Leaving home and the journey across Mexico

Podcast:
Aviva Chomsky on the Real Root Causes of Migration

3. Twentysomething migrants out in a cruel world

I had dinner with a young family of migrants in a shelter designed for their care. They gave me a personal picture of what is happening.

The Migration Experience/At the Border

Article:

How climate change is fueling the U.S. border (3 part series)
Border Patrol Leaves Migrants In Remote Town As Deaths Rise
https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/landless-mayans-coups-and-death-squads

Podcast:

The Out Crowd I: Goodbye, Stranger (thisamericanlife.org)
On Being: Luis Alberto Urrea-Borders Are Liminal Spaces

Books:
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Rigoberta Menchu – Nobel Peace (Book)

Film:
Harvest of Empire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gW84cAN2Pw

Short Youtube Videos:
Guatemala, the CIA and United Fruit Company
Banana Republic: Guatemala, CIA and UFC

4. The two sides of the border wall

One of the main reasons I went to the borderlands was to see where Jesus was there. This was a good day for sensing the Lord’s presence in one of the wounds of the Earth.

Border Militarization and Deterrence

Website:
 The Birth Of Border Militarization
100- Mile Border Enforcement Zone

Article:
Failing To Bring Back The Dead
La Frontera: Artists Along The U.S. – Mexico Border

Podcast:
Beyond the Wall: Reflections From A Former Border Patrol Agent
The Out Crowd II: Take the Long Way Home (thisamericanlife.org)
NPR: When Migrants Die, Many Bodies Remain Unidentified

Books:
Intercultural Church: A Biblical Vision for an Age of Migration: Safwat MarzoukSafwat Marzouk
The Devil’s Highway
The Death And Life of Aida Hernandez

5. The legal razor wire on the other side of the wall

I helped migrants during the 2-5am shift at the immigrant center at the port of entry where people can come after they have been caught and summarily removed from the U.S. Then I learned about the lawyers who are trying to help them as they hold the U.S. accountable.

Border Crossing/Sponsorship/Detention

Video: Locked in a Box
Title 42 video: https://www.facebook.com/jorgeramosnews/videos/175798981046625

Podcast:
 Seeking Asylum: Reality at the US / Mexico Border

Books: Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants

6. Fridays for the Future #7: The Climate Wall

We met Todd Miller who has spent a lot of energy looking at the borderlands. He even wrote a book about how climate change  is creating immigration issues.

7. Death in the harsh desert

On the way to Sasabe we got into the desert ourselves to see and feel the desperation and courage of migrants – and to see how many of them die.

2020 open letter on migration from MCC U.S. executive director J Ron Byler.

 

Death in the harsh desert

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On day six of our MCC learning tour of the Borderlands in Arizona, we spent a stirring time with Brian Best, one of the Tucson Samaritans. They are devoted to saving the lives of migrants who are making their way through the treacherous Sonoran desert. We took a dirt track off the two lane highway to Sasabe and were soon off the beaten track. The following video gives you an idea of the terrain a migrant has to get through without getting caught by the border patrol.

Our group was ending a time of prayer and remembrance around a cross placed by artist Alavaro Enciso on the spot closest to a reported death of a migrant. Thousands of deaths have been verified since Pima County started carefully tracking twenty years ago; many more people have never been found.

A baby cholla invaded my shoe

Brian Best gave us three hours to get a taste of what it is like to try to make it into the US. For one thing, almost every plant has stickers. I stepped near a baby cholla and spent the next hour getting spines out of my foot and shoe. It takes days to get through the desert and no one can carry as much water as they need. It might be safer to travel by night but hard to navigate and avoid the dangerous plants. There are rattlesnakes, coyotes, scorpions and other animals you need to avoid. It is very likely you don’t have the best clothes or supplies because you can’t afford them. It is quite cold at night and very hot in the day. It is a miracle anyone gets through.

As soon as we exited our van to walk with Brian, we saw a backpack laying on the ground, and then a pile of camouflage shirts and hats nearby. From the bushes we extracted two little satchels we saw. One had three phones in it. Brian’s best guess was the Border Patrol tracked the migrants with hilltop cameras and drones until they emerged at a convenient place to nab them.

My heart broke for these poor, desperate, invisible young men. Most people do not care about them. But they deserve to be remembered like anyone else. I took comfort that God sees and loves them, just like you. But I suffered over the fact that most Americans don’t see migrants as people and feel obligated, for economic reasons, not to love them.

Further resources

In Sasabe we visited the recently-opened welcome center for migrants, Casa de Esperanza, a project of Salvavision. Sasabe is a sleepy little desert town, but it is still a point of entry for migrants and a place where removed people are set loose. While we were there we were treated to snacks in the Super Coyote convenience store down the street.

Sasabe is the starting point for the annual Migrant Trail experience, which you can join. One of our MCC leaders for our tour, Saulo Padilla, walks the trail every year. He would be glad to tell you all about it. (Read Open Your Arms: An Invitation)

Saulo Padilla 
MCC US Immigration Education Coordinator
saulopadilla@mcc.org
574-304-9196

The next day we had another feast at the Tucson table of compassion and activism. We met John Fife, one of the originators of the Sanctuary Movement, which has spread much further than sanctuary churches. (More history)

Fridays for the Future #7: The Climate Wall

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On day five of our learning tour in the borderlands in Arizona we met Todd Miller (toddmillerwriter.com). He has been writing about the borderlands for many years and filled us with useful, if a bit terrifying, info.

Miller wrote Storming the Wall: Climate change, Migration, and Homeland Security in 2017 and co-authored Global Climate Wall last month for the Transnational Institute (tni.org). I was glad to meet him. What follows is a version of what he is trying to get everyone to hear.

Climate change drives migration

Guatemala provides a good example of how the changing climate is impacting immigration and what the wealthy countries are doing about it.

As soon as the floodwaters of Hurricane Eta began to recede in November of 2020 people began to head north. 339,000 Guatemalans were displaced by natural catastrophes in 2020. Many people became desperate. They felt they had to face the walls, armed agents, and surveillance systems deployed by the U.S. — and forced on other countries, starting with the heavily enforced border in southern Mexico, to have a chance to live.

The U.S. Government knows environmental catastrophe and displacement within and migration from Central America are linked, whether caused by flooding or drought. In September 2018, after a year of severe drought in the region, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Kevin McAleenan told the press, “Food insecurity, not violence, seems to be a key push factor informing the decision to travel from Guatemala, where we have seen the largest growth in migration this year.”

U.S. climate scientist Chris Castro said Central America is “ground zero” for the impact of global heating impact on the Americas. “It’s a paradigm of the wet gets wetter, the dry gets drier, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Everything gets more extreme.” There is an ever-widening swathe of land populated by subsistence farmers where rain has become less reliable.

Then came 2020. At the end of a year dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic came two back- to-back category four hurricanes. By January 2021, the World Food Programme calculated that those experiencing hunger nearly quadrupled from 2018 to 8 million, and 15% of people surveyed were making concrete plans to migrate north, twice the 2016 level. In 2020, in Honduras alone, almost a million people were displaced because of climate-related causes. This was only only a glimpse of what was happening worldwide with over 30 million people displaced by such events, three times more than those displaced by conflict or war in the same year.

Mexican police corral migrants after they cross the Suchiate River in January 2020

The response of big polluters? Invest in border security

In response the climate disaster and the migration it causes, wealthy countries are building security walls. I have now seen the incredible investment in border security at the US border with my own eyes. All over the world, the largest greenhouse gas emitters are also the world’s top border enforcers. Besides the US, countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany and the UK, as well as the European Union and its 27 member states, are constructing walls, deploying armed agents, erecting sophisticated and expensive surveillance technologies and biometric systems, and unmanned aerial systems, often in collaboration with a burgeoning global border industry. Globally, 63 border walls have been built, with 9 new ones announced, up from six when the Berlin Wall fell and South African apartheid was dismantled in 1989. This wall-building has accelerated since 9/11, and particularly since 2010. The US is funding and forcing Central American countries and Mexico to reinforce the US border by militarizing their own.

It seems that there is no limit to spending on national borders and immigration enforcement. US spending on militarizing its southern border and detention and deportation of immigrants has nearly tripled since 2003 from $9.2 billion to $25 billion today. Yet the world’s richest countries have failed to meet even their inadequate promises of money to tackle the impacts of climate change in the world’s poorest countries. The ratio of U.S. Border spending to climate financing, for example, is 11 to 1, based on the annual average between 2013 and 2018.

We are living in a world in which walls, border patrols, Black Hawk helicopters, unmanned aerial systems, motion sensors, and infrared cameras are placed between the world’s highest emitters and the lowest ones (like Guatemala), between the environmentally relatively secure and the environmentally exposed. The U.S. is exporting border protection to Central American countries in an attempt to deter people before they get too close.

This expanding global border regime is increasingly built by private industry. This fuels a lucrative border security industrial complex. Many of the same companies that the US, the EU and Australia have contracted to fortify their borders and detention systems also have been hired by fossil fuel companies in order to protect oil pipelines and other parts of the industry. The company G4S, for example, not only has contracts with the CBP to provide armed and armored transport for migrants arrested near the US–Mexico border, but also provides protection services to Royal Dutch Shell, the seventh largest corporate emitter of green house gas worldwide.

Rhetorically, political leaders from the world’s highest emitting countries are aware that the poor bear the burden of suffering. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for example, says he knows that the “consequences are falling disproportionately on vulnerable and low-income populations. And they’re worsening conditions and human suffering in places already afflicted by conflict, high levels of violence, instability.” With such awareness, one might assume that US national budgets would reflect the will to alleviate the suffering Blinken describes. Instead, the United States – and many of the other high-emitting countries – pour increasing money into border and immigration enforcement.

At the end of the day, budgets speak much louder than rhetoric. In the present status quo, tens of thousands of people from Guatemala and beyond will face the armed guards and gates of the United States, as thousands of others face the rough Mediterranean waters around Fortress Europe.

The Bible consistently tells us that how we treat the stranger is a measure of our right relationship with God. How the rich treat the planet creates strangers on their doorsteps. What would the Lord have us do?

Further Resources

One of the big moments of this day on our learning tour was visiting Casa Alitas. This mission started when someone found an immigrant released from custody and wandering around the bus station in Tucson, where they had been dropped. Women, especially, started inviting these strangers into their homes. They got a house where they convinced the authorities to drop released people. They outgrew it and moved into a soon-to-be-demolished monastery. The country eventually gave them a large, unused part of the youth detention center. I was moved to tears by the generosity and service of these inventive, compassionate people! Over 400 volunteers make their mission effective. One of them became an MCC worker and the leader of our tour. You might like to know her:

Katherine Smith  
Border & Migration Outreach Coordinator
West Coast Mennonite Central Committee
Tucson, AZ
Cell: (520) 600-1764
katherinesmith@mcc.org

Valarie Lee James found a manta buried in the desert sand near Tucson. It is the all-purpose cloth Central American women often embroider and then use to keep tortillas fresh or any other regular purpose.  It was a shockingly personal item to find. She then found another and another. She cleaned them, honored the, and turned them into art installations. One of which is in a permanent museum collection in Sweden. She then encouraged migrant women by engaging them in their art. She then realized their art could support them and other causes. Thus, their is an Etsy shop called Bordando Esperanza (hope embroidering/crafting).

The legal razor wire on the other side of the wall

The Mission, , , , , ,

I actually fell asleep in the back set of the van yesterday and missed my second visit to Bisbee Arizona!

I was sleepy because I volunteered to help with the 2-5am shift at the Migrant Resource Center, which is right at the exit of the border crossing. It is a project that began in the Church and remains a wonderful place of mercy for tired, scared and often bewildered people. We had sandwiches, coffee, blankets, a place to nap and a few supplied for about 80 people by my count. I helped one young man find a new pair of pants since his had been ripped on the razor wire. I also found him some new outerwear since his coat was full of thorns. Most of the mostly men waited to be retrieved by their smuggler and taken to a cartel “safe house.”

I was glad to be awake enough to meet Noah Schram of the Florence Project out of Tucson, now 120 lawyers and trained people advising and defending people in the immigration process. One of us jokingly told him we were on our learning tour trying to make sense of the U.S. Immigration process. He laughed too, because no one can really do that.

Right now Title 42 is still in place. It was one of Trump’s executive orders that effectively closed the border. In the name of public health no one was allowed in when they went the legal route of presenting themselves at the port of entry and there was no means to appeal. All the lawyers note this is against the international agreement on refugees to which the U.S. is a signer.

People still get in, however. They evade capture when they scale the wall or they manage not to die of thirst or exposure when they cross where the wall ends far out into the desert. Many do die and their remains quickly dry up; no one knows how many.

Those who cross and are captured from certain countries can get through an asylum loophole since Mexico will not take anyone back who is not from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador. Unaccompanied minors get dropped off and get through the port of entry now under Biden’s rules. If a family with a young child is caught in the desert they usually get through.

Getting through and into the legal process of gaining asylum means going to the detention center part of a prison. There 14% of the migrants will get representation to help make their case to the immigration judge. Imagine being in your twenties, fleeing your impossible or violent situation, making it through the longest trip you’ve ever taken under the thumb of the cartel, making it over the wall or around it and through the desert, being caught by the military presence in the United States, taken to a prison, then getting into a bureaucratic and legal fight which is done mainly by English speakers!

That’s where Noah and his people come in, God bless them. The system is not designed to welcome strangers, just repel them. The judges are rarely impartial, taking the side of the unrepresented; many of them function more as another prosecutor. When I read the Bible these days I see how much of it is written with such injustice and lack of compassion in mind.

Further Resources

Noah Schram in making such good use of his law degree! The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project is on of many such projects along the border. Every immigrant needs an advocate to get through a system designed to trick them, detain them, and thwart them even when they are in line with international and U.S. law.

The 1951 Refugee Agreement is still in place.

The United States has long guaranteed the right to seek asylum to individuals who arrive at our southern border and ask for protection. But since March 20, 2020, that fundamental right has been largely suspended. Since that date, both migrants seeking a better life in the United States and those seeking to apply for asylum have been turned away and “expelled” back to Mexico or their home countries. These border expulsions are carried out under a little-known provision of U.S. health law, section 265 of Title 42, which the former Trump administration invoked to achieve its long-desired goal of shutting the border. The Biden administration has continued using this provision, and over 1.2 million expulsions have been carried out since the pandemic began, even though ports of entry remain open with nearly 11 million people crossing the southern border every month and thousands flying into the United States every day. (full article from the American Immigration Council)

The Department of Justice contributes to non-profits like FIRRP through its Legal Orientation Program. Only 14% of people seeking asylum are represented however. We spoke to one of them who somehow connected with people from a Tucson church visiting  Eloy. It took TWO YEARS for her unjust detention to be ended, but she made it. Now she has started a business.

Why do the authorities release people without their shoelaces? What in the impact of the Migrant Protection Policy (MPP)? (Anchorage Daily News)

Immigration court judges are not impartial. The system in broken. (NYTimes)

On this day we also visited the brick-making neighborhood of Agua Prieta, Sonora, to see DouglaPrieta. It is a project begun by women seeking more dignity to make their own way in the world. It is a mutual teaching center for backyard farming, sewing, carpentry and other skills. What we witnessed was how good a training center it was for disempowered women to become leaders and builders. They even made their own adobe bricks to make one of their buildings! I bought some of their work to take home.