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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the handwriting is on the wall

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

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

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

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

No one can read it.

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

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

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

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

His doubling down on lies was countered by SNL:

It may end badly for the billionaires

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

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

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

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

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

“Here is what these words mean:

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

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

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

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

There are always wise people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sanctuary: The government wants to approve our altars

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

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

According to Christianity Today:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The anti-sanctuary government

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our history of wrangling

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

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

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

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

Sanctuary is a core Christian distinctive

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

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

  • It’s in the Bible

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

  • Everyone is made in the image of God

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

  • Compassion and justice are fundamental

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

  • Telling the truth regardless of the cost is crucial

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

  • We must salt the society with truth and love

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

  • Offering sanctuary is worship

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

Can we listen to the Truth in Trumpland? We are so easily deceived!

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The prophets have been speaking. We should listen. In September of 2024 the Scientific American (of all things!) published an article titled “Meet the New Autocrats Who Dismantle Democracies from Within.” This was just before our billionaire oligarchs started to boldly dismantle the U.S. government.

I hear some people say, “Why isn’t anyone listening to the warnings everyone is shouting?” I think I’ve said that myself since Ronald Reagan was president. There are a LOT of great books, movies, articles and podcasts whose prophecies of doom are being fulfilled as we speak. Doesn’t anyone have an ear to hear?

It might be a little late, but I think people are beginning to listen. I keep hearing about it everyday.

Listening issues

To be honest, in general, most of us are not very good listeners. We’re kind of into ourselves and we are rather isolated these days.  Those realities are compounded by the fact we get fooled. We buy dumb stuff off TikTok. We can’t believe our eyes when things are appalling or out of order – “Did I just see Elon Musk’s four-year-old tell Donald Trump to shut up?” We wait and see. We are strangely trusting for being so cynical. We don’t have the energy to dig through the deceptions powerful people throw up to defend their designs for power. Proverbs has to tell us to attend to the obvious:

Enemies disguise themselves with their lips,
but in their hearts they harbor deceit.
Though their speech is charming, do not believe them,
for seven abominations fill their hearts.
Their malice may be concealed by deception,
but their wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. (Proverbs 26:24-26)

So the researchers of Scientific American came up with a study to prove the same old wisdom. Here’s a bit:

Rather than eradicating democratic institutions as leaders like Chile’s Augusto Pinochet or Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko did in the past, today’s established and emergent autocrats (as is the case of Maduro or Orbán, for instance) corrupt the courts, sabotage elections and distort information to attain and remain in power. They are elected through ostensibly free elections and connect with a public already primed to be fearful of a fabricated enemy. Critically, they use these democratic tools to attain power; once there, they dismantle those processes. Autocratic tactics creep into the political life of a country slowly and embed themselves deeply in the democratic apparatus they corrupt. Modern autocracy, one may say, is a tyranny of gaslighting.

We gathered a group of scholars who have looked at successful and failed autocracies worldwide in a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist, to identify common denominators of autocratic rulers worldwide. This research shows that modern autocrats uniformly apply key building blocks to cement their illiberal agenda and undermine democracies before taking them over. Those include manipulating the legal system, rewriting electoral laws and constitutions, and dividing the population into “us” versus “them” blocs. Autocrats routinely present themselves as the only presumed savior of the country while silencing, criminalizing and disparaging critics or any oppositional voice. They distort information and fabricate “facts” through the media, claim fraud if they lose an election, persuade the population that they can “cleanse” the country of crime and, finally, empower a repressive nationalistic diaspora and fund satellite political movements and hate groups that amplify the autocrats’ illiberal agenda to distort democracy.

We give into these people because we aren’t sure what is going to happen to us if we don’t. Look at the Senate who gave us Tulsi Gabbard last week! They know better, I presume. Only God knows their heart, but they can’t possibly believe Trump’s cabinet is good for the country! Maybe they are all evil, but I doubt it. They must be scared. They might be deceived.

They might be exhausted, too. Elon Musk is counting on us being exhausted as he marches through the “deep state” like Sherman destroying Georgia. We need to get some strength from God, every day, so the liars don’t destroy every sense of goodness in our communities.

A Hegseth is hard for us to resist

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signs a memorandum reversing the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg while flying in a C-17 operated by the 300th Airlift Squadron en route to Stuttgart, Germany, Feb. 10, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

I admit I was a bit exhausted. I could not believe my eyes. But I decided to highlight the Under-dictator of Defense, the unqualified Pete Hegseth’s immediate action upon being  seated on his throne. He renamed Fort Liberty, the former Fort Bragg in North Carolina, as Fort Bragg.

I wrote on Facebook:

The United Daughters of the Confederacy were responsible for many of the monuments to confederate soldiers erected in the 1920’s, when Fort Bragg was built. Now Hegseth is re-writing the unwriting of the rewritten history of the Lost Cause, the misinformation campaign of the Jim Crow era. I’m sticking with Fort Liberty and the Gulf of Mexico. We can at least not conform to the intellectual fog machine.

He’s acting like they are naming the base after a decorated WW2 private (wink) which only compounds the nonsense. …Come on, Senate! Are you really going to subject the country to a slew of petty, racist dictators?

I also wrote a version of my post to my senators and representative, as well as Senators Young, Kennedy and Lankford.

Did anyone listen to me? I didn’t get 5000 likes. But I’d say, “Sure they listened. Because the Spirit of God, Jesus the Truth, is praying for us in ways too deep for words.” We are notably deludable, but we also have a way of spotting lies, even if it takes a while. The psychological skill of spotting lies can be improved, and the spiritual ability is built in and Spirit-nudged. You can usually tell when you are lying, after all.

In the case of gaslighting about Fort Liberty, the 2021 defense budget directed that nine military bases that honored Confederate rebels would be renamed after review by a commission of retired senior military officers and civilians.

The commission said in a 2022 report that it purposefully did not choose different honorees with the same last name as the Confederate figures. Mr. Hegseth’s decision did the opposite, swapping out Braxton Bragg in favor of Roland L. Bragg. (Although the caption from the DOD site above belies that switch).

The 2022 report noted that Braxton Bragg had a plantation stocked with slaves and is considered to be “one of the worst generals of the Civil War.” Roland Bragg was a private who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and won several medals.  But the main thing about him, for Hegseth’s purposes, is his name was Bragg.

This is what the liars, do. They make a statement which is obviously a lie they can deny is a lie and tell everyone to swallow it. I’m going to remember the name is Fort Liberty.

Relanguaging

Meanwhile, after listening in on Tulsi Gabbard territory at the NSA, Judd Legum got on X to report on a memo: “The administration has continued its efforts to eliminate, and maybe eventually outlaw, ‘woke’ language….it is working to remove 27 disfavored words from all agency websites and documents. The 27 dirty words are:

  • Anti-Racism
  • Racism
  • Allyship
  • Bias
  • DEI
  • Diversity
  • Diverse
  • Confirmation Bias
  • Equity
  • Equitableness
  • Feminism
  • Gender
  • Gender Identity
  • Inclusion
  • Inclusive
  • All-Inclusive
  • Inclusivity
  • Injustice
  • Intersectionality
  • Prejudice
  • Privilege
  • Racial Identity
  • Sexuality
  • Stereotypes
  • Pronouns
  • Transgender
  • Equality”

My friend Lou said “I suggest they remove Christlikeness also so as not to confuse their intentions.”

Dominating communication, right down to what can and cannot be said Is the deceiver’s playbook.

How do we do the truth?

I seem to be quoting James a lot these days: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (1:22)

If we are bad at listening and easily deceived, if we even deceive ourselves, we might be even worse at doing the truth in love! But it is certainly time to try again.

The U.S. government is not the arbiter of God’s will. Jesus does not require it to save the world. It is a dispensable tool, whoever uses it. Right now, however, it is filled with false prophets asserting they are Christians called by God to take over the seats of power so true righteousness can be installed. It takes about five minutes of thought to suspect they are deceivers. For instance, Elon Musk is working to eliminate the agencies that were investigating his companies and likely finding a way to sell armored cybertrucks to the State Department. His minions fired the people who oversee the U.S. nuclear arsenal the other day and had to call them back.

In the face of the Corinthian superapostles Paul boldly wrote his truth.

I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. (2 Corinthians 11:12-15)

I’m going to keep doing what I am doing too. I feel moved to build a community in Christ full of truth and love. And I will be at City Hall at noon today to demonstrate I can see the deception and demand change.

And I am going to keep listening. The Spirit of God is moving in the world right now. The logjam of Evangelical nonsense is being exposed and is about to break. I can’t predict a great American economy once it gives Ukrainian territory to Russia, or whatever Trump does. But I think I can predict a renewed church finding its courage and voice and providing an alternative. Many of you are probably the reasons I have such hope. God bless you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The War on Drugs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now a war on the USAID

Musk and Trump with their war of words

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

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

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

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

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

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

War has a way of killing the winner

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

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

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

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

Don’t hunker down. Expand your tent

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

Booming business for bunkers

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

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

The Biblical Trump

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

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

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

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

The vision of an expanding tent

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus tabernacling

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

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

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

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

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

We need the church now, as much as ever

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rulers need slaves: Chains shall He strike

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For, some reason, when I sang “O Holy Night” for my sister on Smule the other day, I changed a word in the third verse. Instead of “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,” I sang, “Chains shall he strike!” I think the line could have been translated from French either way. But I  may have had a  “Freudian translation slip.”

Click for Mom’s favorite version (Andy skips the verse in question)

I think I wanted a more violent image. I’m mad about the enslavers enslaving. I was trained as a systems psychotherapist, in part, and the system is not on my side. Our leaders are more interested in profit than health. If I hear right, they think profit is health — even our health system must return a healthy profit for us to be healthy, even if it makes us unhealthy. I’m upset about all the examples of young people, especially, ensnared by things they will find hard to escape and which may, like a slaver, use them up and throw them away. Those chains and chainers need to break!

The latest enslavers

Within my clientele and relationships, here’s evidence of enslavement. They often willingly collude with their masters, but there are masters, just the same, scheming to dominate them and use them.

  • Microchips: In general, machines that deliver the internet have taught us to serve them. For instance, I walked out of the house without my phone, again, when I went to worship today. And again, I kicked myself because it is the key to me getting back safely! The King of Apple was down at Mar-a-Lago the other day to make sure it stays that way.
  • Porn has colonized teenage boys (and younger). The Progress Action Fund put out an ad telling young men that pervy old Republicans were going to invade their masturbation time by restricting porn. It seemed like an emergency to them. The porn industry is unregulated because it is deemed free-but-not-harmful speech, but it is a freedom stealer.
  • Gaming and social media have eaten up many a client’s time and self-esteem. The games are designed to keep us playing (and buying or adding to ad views). The social media platforms are designed to connect us to products – and become one to be exploited ourselves. Prominent Silicon Valley creators are well-known for limiting their children’s access to technology and social media, essentially not allowing them to become addicted, because they know what their creation has become.
  • Gambling: The newest enslaver I hate is online sports betting and other gambling. There is absolutely no benefit  to luring people into the “fun” of giving their money to ever-available casino. The oligarchs call it de-regulation. I tune into a news story and before I get there NBC  gives me a pitch for Philly Harrah’s (in Chester). I watch the Eagles and Jamie Foxx will be onscreen constantly luring me into the latest scheme.

  • Drugs: Everyone uses drugs. Some of the substances are needed and I thank God for them. But there is so much avoidance-using! And I’m surprised we still think recreation drugs are fun after an opioid epidemic — which is capitalism at its most obvious. What’s more, I’m discouraged with how many people think pot and booze enhance their life — put them to sleep, wake them up, make them someone else, etc. Sounds like a prison guard, right? And hallucinogens have become big business — especially now that the FDA approval process is deep-state “socialism.” If you ever watch commercial TV, you can’t miss how often we are promised freedom from any malady we can imagine via a weirdly-named new drug, along with every side-effect we can’t imagine.

Slaves are needed to protect capitalism

I refuse to blame individuals for how they “use” all these things. The oligarchs are using them. Capitalism is not a freedom-loving economic system; it needs slaves. Our socialism for the rich means Elon Musk can buy elections and function as an unelected, unappointed, unaccountable government agent, right there in the Presidential box at the Army-Navy game. Billionaires are able to create a government-adjacent slush fund (inauguration / transition fund) for the billionaire-in chief. Do you imagine they will allow anything to steal their riches, like your real, systemic freedom?

There is always an enslavement scheme in the back pocket of every billionaire capitalist or oligarch in any system.  Saying that out loud might sound crazy — that has been suggested before about me for other reasons, so you decide. But let’s remember, when the U.S. went to war over freeing slaves, someone had been teaching that slaves should appreciate how the masters supply them beneficial work. They claimed the Bible taught slaves to obediently stay in their place. In fact, it was taught slaves try to escape because have  a mental issue — much like homeless people are described today, or anyone else who lives outside the system.

Samuel Cartwright of Jackson Mississippi (1779-1863) invented a disease to explain the cause of runaway slaves. He called it Drapetomania — the “disease” that caused slaves to irrationally run away from their awesome plantations, not considering the death-dealing infection the plantations were themselves. People made wealthy by the system often patted themselves on the back for bringing civilization to savages and lifting them out of poverty. Job creators.

From the perspective of people who supported slavery and were supported by it, preserved it was necessary to save the country. It is the economy, stupid. George Fitzhugh wrote in  Cannibals all! or, Slaves without Masters (1857):

We warn the north, that every one of the leading Abolitionists is agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain ulterior ends, and those ends nearer to home.

They know that men once fairly committed to negro slavery agitation – once committed to the sweeping principle, “that man being a moral agent, accountable to God for his actions, should not have those actions controlled and directed by another,” are, in effect, committed to Socialism and Communism. To the most ultra doctrines of Garrison, Goodell, Smith and Andrews – to no private property, no church, no law, no government, — to free love, free lands, free women, and free churches.

I had never read that until recently. But I have heard the principle espoused in one way or another my whole life, like in the last election. I’ve heard it preached.

Chains shall he break

I know the third verse of “O Holy Night” has issues. Singing “For the slave is our brother” is benevolent, but of course it is sung from a place of privilege. The slave is not singing with him. And women are excluded. It was written in 1843, after all!

But we mustn’t throw out the sentiment with its dirty bathwater. Jesus is the anti-capitalist of all time. It is his intent that we throw off our masters. I’m not going to get into whether capitalism, socialism or fascism is the better system, since I think  they are all oligarchical. And regardless of the system, people under oath to save the system — who would kill to save it — the leaders/owners/dictators, are often saving themselves. They are as good as gods. Regardless of them all, Jesus is, in truth, without rival.

“In his name all oppression will cease,” no matter what the system. The system is not God; it is not our master. Jesus is Lord. And if you think economics Trumps Jesus, you’re right where the masters want you. If you mindlessly consume their latest scheme to dominate you, you are not free.

But does anybody pray?: Many encouragements to do so

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, ,

I ended my service to Circle of Hope as an itinerant, teaching in the meetings of our various congregations. This message was delivered to Frankford Ave at the beginning of Lent, 2018.

I was on retreat this past week, partially to get myself ready for Lent. As I meditated on my journal from the last quarter, I was astounded. For one thing, the Eagles won the Superbowl and the city was inexplicably happy! Maybe even you were happy for a second!

The second astounding thing: I was sick for six weeks. I had a whole Advent of sickness. In December, I went to a huge conference in California. (Yes, that is an intro video by the Dalai Lama). I coughed through the whole conference so loudly and deeply that psychotherapists would turn around and give me concerned looks — probably that blonde woman right there in front of me above. But did I pray? Well yes, I did. It was strange sickness. It was tempting not to pray, to just rely on the miracle of Nyquil and then fall into despair when Nyquil let me down and I was coughing in the night sitting up in a chair because laying down smothered me. It turned to bronchitis and I bet I had some pneumonia.

Then Gwen had an accident as a result of catching flu. She fell in the bathroom and fractured 7 ribs. We ended up in ICU health hell. I had to wear a mask for days. The hospital was much worse than I expected. But did I pray? Well yes. But, surprisingly, it was off and on. It seems like my disciplines are much better when I am on vacation or on retreat, not living my normal  life. Surprisingly, If there is a problem, one of the first things to go might be prayer — this is not totally true, of course, but I have found it oddly true of me — and it may be true of you. Gwen, on the other hand, prayed a lot. She had a whole season of rib repair and pain in which to do it. If your life is being changed, you need God, right? Better pray.

Just how weakly constituted, wicked, and selfish we really are is often revealed when we are under duress. I feel bad so I lash out or blame. I feel bad so I withdraw or get resentful. I feel bad so I wait for somebody to come and find me and love me; if they don’t, I go into anger and despair, just like I must have reacted when my mother was talking on the phone instead of changing my diapers (there were only “land-line” phones). What do you do when you feel bad? Ask your husband or wife, if you have one; they can probably tell you. Ask your office mates or team members; they probably have an idea. But do you pray?

That is the question

So that is my main question to you tonight. Do you pray? And it is my question to the whole church. Does anybody pray? A whole Lent is laying before us, a whole prayer season. But will we even do it? Why or why not? Big question.

2018 is going to be wonderful in so many ways. You were announcing it a while back. You will have a new building façade to go with your new neighborhood. Circle Thrift thrives even after a hold up. Your losses from last year have opened the door to newness this year.

But 2018 it is going to be hard, too. Trump is president, and whether you like him or not, he creates havoc and possibly war – or so an 80 billion dollar uptick in military resources might imply. We will have a midterm election and people will think it is the most important thing in the world. The 1% will still be stealing all the money, leaking oil out of their pipelines (like the biggest one ever happening right now off the coast of China), seeing how little they can give us (like healthcare) for as much as they can get in profit, and maybe the general economy will run hot, but maybe it will drop, and we will be left holding the bag, not the 1%. Marginalized people will be exploited, deported, murdered. We, I hope just not you, will have relationship problems, physical problems, employment problems, kid problems, church problems, faith problems, But will you pray?

I think the key issue of getting into the deep water with Jesus and finding that you can have a sustainable life of faith, hope and love is all about prayer.

What is prayer?

When I keep saying the word “prayer” tonight I mean it as an umbrella term. Prayer is all the ways we communicate with God and I immediately need to add, all the ways we commune with God, and connect with God.

So, in my definition there are a lot of subheadings under the heading prayer, some of which you may be more adept at and familiar with than others:

  • We can sing a prayer: “Oh Lord hear my prayer.”
  • We can speak a prayer out loud, either together or in private: “Have mercy on me Lord.”
  • Prayer is intercession: I pray “Help Gwen, she is sick.” (Try it personally, right now:  “Touch____they need you.”)
  • Prayer is asking for something, supplication: “Help me. I am needy.”
  • Prayer is worship, which is kind of a category all its own: “I praise you Lord.”
  • Prayer is contemplation – silence, thoughtless. Communing in the deep silence of God. (Try that for ten seconds, right now).
  • Prayer is meditation – mindful, thought-concentrated. You hear a lot about this, because it is how we “pray without ceasing.” I think it is a good. (Try it. Meditate on something I have said so far, right now). Or just become quiet and let God show you something  you need to see or hear right now. Or just be loved. Be touched. Be led. Be turned toward God.

There are a lot of ways to pray. But do you pray? Maybe not – I am not judging you, but I am obviously exhorting you to do it. It is the entry point to the deep, healing, joyful, sustaining life of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is us participating with the Spirit alive in us by the resurrection of Jesus.

Will we get into it?

I like swimming across the lake at our family retreat in the Poconos. But I often don’t like getting into the lake. I am not really a jumper or diver by nature (although that is what I eventually do). You know those people who throw down their towel at the beach and just run in — never been one of those.  I’m not even really a slider (but sometimes I try that) —  sit on the edge of dock, stick a toe in, slowly get acclimated. I tend to push those people in — it is just taking too long — it seems like torture. So I have a getting in problem when it comes to the lake.

So I understand why some of us rarely, if ever, pray, even though we want to be Jesus-followers and we are devoted to God. We have a getting in problem when it comes to prayer. Prayer is like the deep water of faith. We have to get in it. But it is kind of a shock to the system to pray, like getting into a cold, mysterious lake. I like it when I am in there, even though I am kind of afraid what might be under the surface. But I have to get in. We need to keep getting into the deep water of prayer. It may not be a problem for you. But I haven’t met too many people for whom it is not.

I think we are great at helping people get into prayer. We have Sunday meetings to jump in. We have cell meetings to ease in. But some people are still squeamish about these meetings. They are avoidant or standoffish because they don’t want to get into prayer — that water feels too shocking. “It might be too cold or too something. I will get wet. I don’t know how to swim well. I did not bring a hair dryer. I’m too wicked to be seen in a prayer suit.”

We also offer people a lot of resources for how to pray alone. That is a very important discipline to nurture : how to be one on one with God,  But does anyone do it?

What is happening with you when you pray.

Even tonight? What has been happening? I hope you have been looking at how you work.

As I close up, let me give you a few pointers for how to begin or keep praying by using this very famous psalm. You can tell that my goal is to get you praying, not just talk about praying so you can fail or succeed at applying my principles, later.

A lot of you already know this prayer in the beautiful old language of the 1611 Bible commissioned in England by King James. Let’s pray it together right now.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. — Psalm 23 King James Version (KJV)

It is a premade prayer you can use. Six lines. Easy to memorize. I have memorized it, but I have my own version made up of all the different translations I know. I pray it in the night when I wake up anxious and I need to focus on something other than on what I am focusing. I turn it into “You are my shepherd, Lord,” for one thing.

Here is a version from the New Revised Standard Version. I like this version of the Bible because it gets rid of unnecessary male pronouns for God and is still quite beautiful. In this psalm they did not change it because the writer is a male shepherd and he has traded his leadership for God, seeing himself as a sheep. But do what you like, if you are a female shepherd. If you let the world’s identity politics keep you from getting into the water,  that is sad.

Pray it out loud.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

Now let me end by trying to keep you thinking about how this prayer works so you can let it lead you into the deep water and keep praying. It has lovely, basic things to teach.

  • The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Prayer is a constant changing of mind. The shepherd/psalmist accepts that the tables are turned. He is like one of his sheep and God is the loving, attentive shepherd. Even deeper, God, who is like my shepherd, cares for me personally. I am not just part of the herd. I shall not want. I will have what I need. Some of us need to begin all our prayer with that line, since we don’t show up that deeply yet. This is God; this is me. God is my caregiver; I am beloved. God is listening for me; I am praying.

  • He makes me lie down in green pastures;
    he leads me beside still waters;
    he restores my soul.
    He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.

Prayer is turning toward the presence of God. God is with me. In Jesus, God is even more completely with me, no one is left out. Jesus is one of us. Even if you were only like a sheep,  green pastures and still waters sound wonderful. If you are a human, a restored soul and a right path sound wonderful.  Prayer brings us to those places. God is with us. So we turn to prayer.

I think this is the heart of getting into the deep places right here. See if you can dive in, or ease in, or find a way into the water.

  • Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
    I fear no evil;
    for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff—
    they comfort me.

 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Prayer is turning into the discomfort and away from the evil. Oh my goodness! I had to pray this prayer when Gwen was hooked up on a hundred machines in ICU! It felt like such a dark valley. But I was comforted as I faced that darkness with God.

Sometimes I pray that second part in hope, not in full feeling. My cup is up and Jesus keeps filling it, but I need to turn again and again, because my cup seems to have a hole in it. I wish it were not so, but I wake up hungry and frightened. People I expected to love me don’t love me. Institutions I thought would be on my side do not protect me. I need to pray: the Lord is my shepherd, he restores my soul, even in this dark valley.

Prayer is turning into that reality and sitting down at the table, day after day, and experiencing, eventually, how God is with me, taking care of me. I have many fears and opponents, but God is on my side. So pray.

  • Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
    and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long.

Prayer is turning into hope and the promise. If you read this like it is just a fact, you might never pray it. How can the psalmist know that goodness will follow him? What if something terrible happens?

If you wonder that, too, go back to the first part of the psalm and pray it again. Turn into it.

  • Change your mind.
  • Turn into the presence.
  • Turn into the discomfort and away from evil.
  • Feel the comfort and the goodness.

Then you pray this last line. Maybe this final stanza should have been preceded with an “Ah.” The psalmist got somewhere. “Ah! Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Oh yes! I will dwell in the house of God, like a child of God, my whole life long, forever.” So I pray.

So wonderful! Of course everyone prays!

Try diving in to that last part. So hopeful. So trusting. So not like the world usually is. Pray it again, slowly. Maybe do it again until it sinks in.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long. 

For me during the past few months prayer has been all about the turning. Even during this evening I have been more aware than ever, I think, that I need to keep turning.

  • Turning away from how my mind usually works and diving in.
  • Remembering how wonderful it feels to swim freely in the water and not resisting the entry.
  • Turning to face what I fear and believing God will comfort me and seat me at the table as a beloved child.

Ah.

 

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Today is Odo of Cluny Day! Europe was not the same after he ignited a reform movement in the 900’s that influenced the continent for good.  Get to know him at The Transhistorical Body.

Listening in the era of lies

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

We were all a little confused about lying before Trump came on the scene — if you can remember a time when he did not dominate the air. Even when we were lying, then and last week, most of us wondered if it was the right thing to do. But we also had our reasons to do it.

Psychology will back us up; there are many reasons humans lie. There is bound to be an evolutionary psychologist out there who has “proven” we survived as a species because we are so good at deception. We’re still conflicted about it, however.

Science implies there are facts and there are unproven hypotheses — and we should be on the side of facts, since they are real. But all us humans, if we think about it, know it is difficult to tell one straight truth about ourselves, we are all so complex. At least once a week, I dispute what my wife claims to have said to me — and she may claim it was just an hour ago!

But she, and the rest of us, can’t really prove much of what we assert, even when it comes from the depths of us. And when we look around, it is difficult to have a sure grasp on what is true about almost everything else, the universe feels so mysterious and beyond our complete understanding.

Now we have Trump, ready to impose a reality of his own making – science, common sense, and morality be damned. Some people are gleefully adopting a life of lying and have become, with him, a relentless wave against the common institutions and assumptions Americans hold.  Punditry dashed to their computers to explain how Trump won, even though he is a proven, unrepentant prevaricator. How could anyone elect a proven liar? F.D. Flam wrote in Bloomberg:

Trump won with surprising decisiveness, despite his evasiveness and failure to justify his extraordinary claims. It’s tempting to conclude that we live in some kind of post-truth society. Perhaps, instead, we live in a society obsessed the truth, but we’ve lost our appreciation for explanatory depth and different perspectives. At the same time, we’re just as persuaded by a speaker’s confidence as ever.

Most of what passes for “telling it like it is” comes down to Trump making completely subjective judgments with a tone of certainty — that some of his enemies are “losers” or “morons” or “low IQ” or that one of his rivals somehow has a face that’s not fit for office. Some might call this brutal honesty, but there’s nothing honest about it. The Week Magazine calls it “maniacal overconfidence” which “sounds to some people like forthrightness.” In that sense, he is telling it like it is — in his own self-serving head.

In my territory, I can’t ride down the elevator or go to a party without hearing how hard it is to be one of those morons and losers. “Maniacal overconfidence” seems like an overly sweet way to characterize what Trump is full of.

The voice of Jesus

I’m not a pundit, of any merit, at least. But I had to make a few contributions to what people were saying on Facebook and such after Trump won. I was mainly concerned that we all confront the lying before we all conform to it, since it is alarming how quickly the media adapted to “Mr. President” as if he were introducing a new normal. For Christians, I think not conforming comes down to pondering John 8 again if we want to hang on to truth and love, as I do. I still believe in the promise from Ephesians 4: 14-16:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Paul obviously couldn’t care less about what society finds normal. I think he is channeling Jesus, as we all aspire to do if we follow Christ. That’s Jesus, who says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

In John 8, Jesus is having an amazing dialogue with religious opponents who are absolutely sure they are living out the truth as best as anyone can. They are just as sure they are speaking God’s truth as Donald Trump is sure he was spared the assassin’s bullet so he could personally make America great again. Most of us are so unsure about the truth and too sure alternative facts cause conflict, we don’t get into it with people on elevators or at  parties, even though Jesus apparently would. He tells his opponents:

You don’t even understand what I’m saying. Do you? Why not? It is because You cannot stand to hear My voice. You are just like your true father, the devil; and you spend your time pursuing the things your father loves. He started out as a killer, and he cannot tolerate truth because he is void of anything true. At the core of his character, he is a liar; everything he speaks originates in these lies because he is the father of lies. So when I speak truth, you don’t believe Me. —  John 8:43-45

If your first thought after reading this was, “Do I even believe there is a devil?” that’s OK. There is so much theologizing generated by John 8, we might never get done with it. Stick to what Jesus is asserting, don’t stick with your own defensive response. I think the point is, “You need to hear my voice or you will never hear the truth.” Negatively, that is, “If you pursue the things the father of lies loves, everything you say will come from that core.” We’ve got to ponder that before lie-lovers control us inside and out.

Listening in the day of lies

I don’t think Donald Trump is new. He is just the terrible bloom of a society adapting to the media and providing false-self images for it to feed on.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan won every electoral vote except for Minnesota’s, the home state of Walter Mondale. For his first term, he had handily beaten an actual Christian trying to be president with the Iran hostage deal. He later did one of his masterful jobs of lying when he explained the Iran-Contra mess. Reagan was the beginning of all sorts of evils, but his main legacy is using the screen so well. We used to watch him speaking and say, “He is lying, but people forgive him because he looks like he believes it. I’m tempted to believe him myself.”

I did not believe him. He galvanized my faith to stick with The Way The Truth And The Life no matter how effectively the father of lies carpet-bombs my consciousness.

Fortunately, people in my feed were trying to keep me listening last week. I appreciated how Bryan McLaren summed up the process of listening to the Truth and hanging on to it in the middle of anxiety. He really takes himself seriously, as we probably should too.

@brianmclaren

If you’re afraid, anxious, tired … election. #terrified #tired #trump #harris

♬ original sound – Brian D. McLaren

I don’t think we can listen to the voice of God unless we can learn to hear what is in the silence. So this is one thing I posted. I love how this little tune is usually repeated, second verse same as the first. It makes us wait, slow down, and enter the peace that passes understanding. That is where we are most likely to hear from God.

I also don’t think we can hear the voice of God unless we talk back to, or shout back at, the voices that compete for God’s place in our thoughts and feelings. If we don’t step up, we could be “blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Then Jesus might say, “So when I speak truth, you don’t believe Me.”

Fortunately, several of my friends were not having it. Their minds turned to a defiant song we used to sing in our old church. I dug out a recording from Internet Archive.

Click the picture to go to the song

That song is good shouting back. Sometimes we sang it in a group of 100 or more. It was a good way to reroute some neural pathways.

I am not sure there has ever been a day of lies like this one, since there has never been the kind of media which surrounds us and trains us. But maybe I’m taking myself too seriously, too. After all, Jesus was talking about people who were in such unwitting collusion with the father of lies, they could not recognize the Son of God, for whom they were purportedly waiting, even when he was talking to them face to face!

I feel sorry for those guys. And I feel sorry for us, too, since were are inevitably a lot like them and lying is still extremely typical of human beings. Our media has made it a worldwide industry. But if McLaren is right, and I believe he is, from all the lying the Truth is born again and again.

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

Today is Lucretia Mott Day!

Speaking of someone who was “not having it!” She is a premier example of standing up for truth and justice.

Visit her at The Transhistorical Body.

Wrangling about law when “nothing is written”

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Film/TV, Psychological growth, , , , , ,

One of my favorite scenes in the masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia, shows what happens after Lawrence returns from his journey across the Nefud desert. He has just accomplished the impossible by taking the Ottoman port of Aqaba from the desert side.  Having returned across the deadly, scorching expanse, he is told one of his companions, Gasim, fell off his camel and was left behind. He is advised any attempt to save him is futile — Gasim’s death is “written.”

Lawrence goes into the desert to find Gasim.  I give you the long version of the scene of his return just to celebrate the cinematography and score. It is worth your four minutes just to watch David Lean humanize the abstraction of sand and sky.

Later on that night, after Lawrence has rehydrated and awakened in time for dinner, Sherrif Ali, in all humility, says, “Truly, for some men nothing is written unless they write it.”

I think it is safe to say Lawrence was teaching Ali to think, “Everyone decides their own fate. No one’s destiny is predetermined.” And “I’ll be damned if I let that man die.” I hesitate to disagree with Hollywood, but Lawrence is wrong even if he is brave. I don’t think it is “me, or us, against the world.” If nothing is “written” it is not because men rule  the world, but because  the world is alive with the Spirit of its Creator and is growing in grace (or in spite of it). We should be beyond arguing about what is merely written by now. But we wrangle.

Daily Mail captures Johnson at the courthouse

The fight for what is written

Last week the spectacle of Trump in court continued, with Mike Johnson, himself, attending in order to subvert the gag order (possibly in the name of Jesus), with Matt Gaetz tweeting in the ex-president’s honor, “Standing back and standing by, Mr. President.” For those guys “nothing is written until they write it,” for sure, as far as I can see.

For the prosecutors who dare to bring Trump to trial, “It is written, in the law. And no one is above it.” The law is god in a pluralisitc democracy and the prosecutors want it known the assaulters are crashing up against the stone of the legal code.

We’re having a national crisis about the law. But all those Christians involved in this battle should remember that law is just a tutor (disciplinarian, guardian, etc.) to teach us how to exercise our freedom to live in grace. Isn’t that the clear New Testament teaching? Subvert the law or apply it, it can’t kill you or save you, at least not forever.

The temptation to fight for or against what is written is everywhere, it seems.

  • Right now, many people are so afraid, they are reverting to certainty and order. Jesus Collective devolved into a teaching platform instead the catalyst for a movement. They may have fallen off their camel in the desert.
  • My former denomination has vainly tried to quash a book people have written about their experiences of being LGBTQ in their branch of the Church, cast out, and abused by what someone said was “written.” This contrary book was written by people who refused to leave someone in the desert, refused to be confined to principles imposed in the 1600’s.
  • My HOA leaders keep trying to shore up what went wrong with the past management of our old building instead of starting here and now and working together for the future. Like I said last time, someone threatened a lawsuit because of some words thrown their way! There are many lawyers scheming away.
  • My church splendidly presents ancient humans with lovely words each week and performs classic chants with great voices and instruments. They are heirs of someone else’s invention instead of inventing like the heirs we are. I think we may love being ruled by the liturgical rules.

You have your own examples, I’m sure. I think I am effectively tired, again, of everyone who teaches, “It is written.” I’m a Jesus follower, so I am mainly talking about church leaders, pulpiteers and dueling factions splitting up the Methodist Church, etc., who are wrangling over words, litigating righteousness constantly, sometimes like Trump, sometimes like the  prosecutors, but rarely in grace.

Don’t we resist bad teachers intuitively?

That is a wishful question, of course, since we follow tracks that are bad for us all the time. We believe the voices in our head defending us against what we thought might kill us as a child! We all have our own laws we follow. But don’t most of us also have an operable b.s. detector?

If we connect with Jesus at all, the Holy Spirit will be helping us detect what might really kill us.  The main way God does that is to bear witness in our own hearts, souls, minds and strengths that we are God’s adopted children in Jesus.

We tend to settle for much less than that wondrous place in the world. Nevertheless, I think we all know about it at some level. I think I felt the following truth before I read it in the Bible when I was seventeen for the first time, as a relatively aware adult:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption [into the full legal standing as an heir]. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. — Romans 8:14-17 (NRSVUE)

I’ABBA, FATHER! – The Place of Praiseve always resisted the heresy of power-hungry men saying they love the Bible and then undermining the fundamental truth Paul taught. Nothing in the New Testament was written about how we should live  which was not first written by the Spirit witnessing to us, just like God taught Paul. Our organic relationship with our loving-parent-of-a-God is the central example Jesus wants to demonstrate. We’re not an application of principle, nothing is merely “written;” the Spirit is writing. We’re not unforgiveable, merely the sum of what we can make of ourselves, we’re all imminent miracles.

I have to admit, I’ve got that power-hunger in me, too. I also often feel I, alone, must solve the problems I face. We were talking in a meeting of psychotherapists not long ago about clients who struggle so hard with their view of themselves, views that have a repeating narrative, something “written,” making ruts in their brains.   They come up against certain situations and a voice comes from nowhere, it seems. It could insist, “We never cause conflict. It is deadly.” Or worse, “You are unlovable. Don’t bother.” You probably have stories that repeat in you, too.

Yet In the surprisingly psychologically-sound Romans 8 (only surprising to people who think humanity has progressed until they and their pleasant splendor is possible), we are reminded, or promised, what every one who shares Christ’s death and resurrection knows. Nothing is “written,” at least not in stone. Everything is a new creation in Jesus. We’re changing and growing in grace. The Spirit of God is creating us right now and we’re creating right alongside.

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.