Red Letter Christians

Insisting on Healing May be the Death of Us

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 14:34:18 GMT

You go to the hospital for a routine surgery. Maybe having your gallbladder or appendix removed. Your doctors open you up and see that you have a giant tumor: cancerous, malignant, fatal if not aggressively fought. They sew you back up and tell you the news. “When can you do surgery? Can you remove the tumor? Do I need chemo? Radiation? What’s the plan?” you ask.

“Now is the time for healing and rest. You just had your gallbladder out. You’re tired. You’ve already been through a surgery. Let’s not rush it. Instead, let’s focus on healing. We’ll check on this next year at your annual appointment.”

You would, and should, be rightfully enraged. This is nothing to be trifled with, your very life is at risk. You are in grave danger. And there is hope, but only if you acknowledge reality and act to root out and destroy the cancer.

This is the situation we currently find ourselves in as a nation. The past few years have revealed deep sickness in America: racism, nationalism, mistrust, greed, exploitation. Calls for unity that do not depend upon accountability and honesty are–at best—premature and—at worst—a means of silencing the oppressed.

After George Floyd was murdered, Will Smith (leave it to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to lead us through these dark times) said, “Racism is not getting worse, it’s getting filmed.” It hit me in the gut. As a white person, I had been able to live most of my life blissfully unaware of the racism that permeates our country. I was not directly affected by racism, so I was able to ignore it. My privilege insulated me from reality.

A dear friend (who is Black) and I shared socially distant cheeseburgers several times over the summer and talked about the state of the nation, systemic racism, the role of white people in anti-racism work, and police brutality. I realized that I was just waking up to the reality she and her family have been living in for generations. She described fearing for her son’s and grandson’s lives every time she heard sirens. She described horrible interactions she has had with local law enforcement—the same local law enforcement that has only ever been a source of safety and protection for me. I realized what Black people have always known: there are two different Americas. The same systems that protect me, victimize people like my friend. This was an uncomfortable truth to recognize, but an absolutely essential one.

READ: This May Not be a Time for an Altar Call to Healing

White people, I get it. We are tired. We desperately want to return to a sense of normalcy and get back to life as usual. But we are tired because we are out of shape. Like a runner on the first day of track season, we are not used to this and we are heaving on the track, doubled over and out of breath, muscles cramping. We have lived life insulated from the harsh realities that our neighbors deal with every day. That does not mean we get to quit wrestling with the injustices that 2020 has thrown into the spotlight.

We must ask ourselves about the cost of a return to pre-2020 normalcy. The year was a brute (and 2021 is shaping up to be a monster, too), but it was not some freak accident or tragic aligning of the stars, but a revealing of cancer that has been eating away at America for centuries. Many of us have noticed it, now. Sure, we could choose to return to faux-blissful-ignorance, but to do so will be fatal. That peace would be short lived and worthless. Now that we have seen the cancer, we must get to work rooting it out and destroying it.

Christians are often among the worst at calling for unity in the aftermath of great injustice; there is a pervasive idea that Jesus was a really nice guy who wants more than anything for people to get along and have a good time. Like Tom Hanks in leather sandals. This is not consistent with the Jesus we see in the Bible. Jesus called out injustice when he saw it, and in no uncertain terms. When Jesus saw greed and corruption setting up shop in the temple, he turned tables. He tells the Pharisees—the religious elite of the day who thought they had the corner on God—that they are hypocrites who will not enter heaven. He calls them a brood of vipers. He calls for forgiveness, yes, but also justice, and never at the expense of the truth.

For people with privilege (this graphic from Sylvia Duckworth was helpful for me to identify my own privilege) this means that we must continue to call out racism, classism, homophobia, and untruths when we hear them in our circles. When we hear family members, coworkers, and friends spread misinformation, make racist/sexist/homophobic jokes, or say things that are, for lack of a better term, ignorant, we must speak up. We must sacrifice our comfort for the lives of our neighbors. Get used to the discomfort. It is, in the words of the late Rep. John Lewis, good trouble.

We must demand justice, too. We must hold the violent accountable and the liars responsible. We must demand truth. We must root out the cancer before we demand that wounds be healed and life returns to normal. We must be peacemakers, fighting for justice, instead of peacekeepers, desperate to return to the status quo. Like Jesus.

This May Not be a Time for an Altar Call to Unity

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 14:25:19 GMT

The manifesto of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol was written on the flags:

“JESUS IS MY SAVIOR, TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT.”

Trump flags and Jesus flags waved together commingled with nazi imagery, paramilitary gear, and confederate flags. Life-size homemade crosses marched alongside noose scaffolding platforms. These symbols of white supremacy, patriarchy, and religious nationalism are embedded in the larger Evangelical colonized message dating back to the Puritans: America is a Christian country with Christian values that is threatened by secular democracy. And when threatened, better call on Jehovah of the Old Testament to defend Jesus of the New Testament. Fight, bully, rage, shock, vandalize, militarize, terrorize, and kill– all in the Name of God.

This, this is what it means to take the name of God in vain.

Slogans like Take America Back, Save America, and, yes, Make America Great Again are all rooted in Christian nationalism, the hallmark of Evangelicalism. The narrative that America is in danger of losing its faith and needs to repent or lose its soul is old. The personification, while ludicrous, is an effective motivator that elevates the church, its leaders, and its politicians to savior status. It bundles salvation through the letter of the law and the power of politics rather than addressing the everyday needs of individuals. It attempts to codify a conservative moral agenda as a shortcut to changing the human heart. It equates evangelism with legislation by electing politicians and seating supreme courts justices who mirror a particular brand of Christianity. It trades compassionate service for political power under the guise of saving all of America.

READ: Why I Cannot Stay: A Letter to My Church

This dangerous narrative uses faith infused political language to sustain cult-like political loyalty. It rationalizes the Church’s partnership with politics. It becomes more dangerous when that power is threatened, or worse, taken away by free elections. It will justify any act in the name of God, even if it means defiling the name of God. The Evangelical Church is the modern day Roman Empire that has crucified the reputation of Jesus in exchange for power afforded by religious nationalism.

“So Jesus, aware that they intended to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself, alone.”— John 6:15

Here’s the thing, America doesn’t need saving anymore than Israel needed saving when it expected a messiah to save it from the Roman empire. The message on the insurrectionists’ flags is a dangerous narrative rooted in pride of converting thousands through political fervor rather than doing the humbling work of loving one’s neighbor or washing the feet of a stranger.

Jesus doesn’t bundle salvation or healing. He touches individuals. He speaks to the particular pain of each person. He restores the soul of the singular that then speaks to the wounds of the collective. He saves people, not countries. He intentionally separated from institutions of faith and state and disrupted the status quo that often left leaders debating, not praying. Jesus explicitly rejected the title of king and refused to be the messiah that Israel anticipated would save them from the empire. Instead he was a servant who would save them from their own distorted faith rooted in religious indoctrination.

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” Luke 12:49-51

The jarring reality is that this may not be the time for an altar call to unity.

This may be a time for separating the sheep from the goats.

This may be a time for recognizing division and reckoning with our own role in creating it.

It may be a time to take a clear stance.

It may be a time to separate from the church’s alliance with political power.

It may be a time to recognize truth and call out power-dependent structural distortions, manipulations, and traumas.

It may be a time to denounce the systemic racism, patriarchy, and religious nationalism tolerated through silence.

It may be a time to recognize division for what it is: an incompatibility of truth and injustice. A division ushered in by Christ himself.

Choose wisely.

What is In Your House?

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 21:41:57 GMT

We are living in uncertain and unprecedented times. Following the insurrectionist violence at the U.S. Capitol, many of us are wondering how the nation has lapsed into such utter chaos. While we knew stoking the flames of hatred would cause irreparable harm, watching on our TV and computer screens as an angry, mostly white mob stormed the U.S. Capitol was surreal, especially in a Democratic nation.

In this moment of deep division, people of faith must relentlessly advance a bold vision that is anchored in love, justice, and accountability. To do that, we must assess what it is that we each possess—that, when pooled together, can affect change. We each have something to offer, and the challenge becomes finding it and harnessing it. While no one person or institution has all that is needed in this moment, if we create space for one another’s genius and ingenuity, our society will have what we need.

It is in that spirt that I share this excerpt from my forthcoming book, “First and Only: A Black Woman’s Guide to Thriving at Work and in Life.” “First and Only” is a leadership resource for Black women who have found themselves in the position of being the first or the only. Unlike most leadership books, my work speaks to the unique challenges that Black women face and posits that a spiritual practice is a key to liberation and sustainability.

In some instances, technical mastery guarantees success. When it comes to Black women, technical mastery, or knowing how to do the specifics of one’s job, is the floor and not the ceiling for on-the-job advancement. It is like the entrance exam into law school: doing well on the test will help you secure a seat in the program, but you need to clear a different set of hurdles to become a lawyer. To get and feel good in that dream job, Black women need to heal childhood wounds, challenge systemic racism, and adopt a lifestyle that prioritizes our personal care and nourishment. But we also need to be clear about the gifts we possess; the things we do effortlessly yet brilliantly; and the skills, forged through life experiences, that help us thrive. We need to be clear about what is in our house.

This phrase “what’s in your house” is from 2 Kings 4:1–6 in the Hebrew Scriptures, or what Christians call the Old Testament. This passage of Scripture highlights a newly widowed woman’s complaints to the prophet Elisha. Creditors were harassing her and threatening to take everything she had, including her two sons, if she did not satisfy her debt. How many of us can relate to being hounded by creditors, unsure of where to turn or how to come up with money to satisfy our obligations? Probably many of us. Elisha responded by asking the woman, “What do you have in your house?” She told him all she had was a jar of oil. He told her to go borrow as many vessels from her neighbors as she could. She was to transfer oil from her jar into those vessels and then sell the oil to pay her bills.

It turned out that with one jug of oil, she was able to fill all the vessels she had collected. Each time she poured out oil, it was replenished. In fact, she had more oil than she could use; she didn’t have enough vessels to contain all the oil in her possession.

What is remarkable to me about this story is that the solution to the widow’s problem was within her reach. Such is the case with us. For every problem we face, God has already provided a solution. Sometimes we have gifts that we undervalue or overlook because we do not see their worth. Or other times we internalize society’s devaluation of our presence and our gifts.

READ: Black Women Cracking ‘Stained-Glass Ceilings’ With Jesus’ 7 Last Words

But each of us has something to offer; something that someone else needs. Some people were given the gift of words. They can communicate in a way that causes others to stop and listen. Think about some of the greatest orators of our time and the impact they have. Others of us have a passion for service. Their ability to care for others so they feel loved and appreciated can literally change lives. These are the people who run shelters, open their homes to people in need, and nurture and teach children.

Others are mobilizers, mobilizing people to action on some of the most pressing challenges. They host a party or call a gathering, and people come. They launch an organization, and people line up to join.

The key is to never lose sight of what’s in your house. Our liberation and the liberation of others is influenced by not only what’s in our proverbial house but also by our understanding of the gifts and skills that are uniquely ours. Regardless of what you face, you possess something that will help you overcome. It may seem like a small jar of oil to you, but it may just be enough.

Why You Must Know What’s in Your House

If you do not know what is in your house, you cannot develop a deep sense of self and an abiding confidence that will sustain you. If you do not know what is in your house, you will struggle with articulating your value and talents, particularly when it comes to negotiating in your best interest. If you do not know what is in your house, you may give away something that people are willing to buy. Or you may withhold that which the people around you need.

Knowing what is in your house is not just a nice thing to understand, it’s an imperative for Black women. Too often we are undervalued and under-appreciated. When we know what’s in our house, we show up understanding our value without relying on the external validation that may or may not come. We cannot wait for others to discover our gifts, nor can we place our esteem in others’ decisions to celebrate us. We must take inventory of ourselves, understanding that we have value by virtue of existing. The gifts we have are merely icing on the cake.

I hope 2021 is the year when we bring all our gifts to bear. I hope it is the year when we take up space and utilize all which we have been given. I fear that is the only way to right the wrongs in this country and ensure we can pass on a worthy future for our kids and grandkids.

Why I Cannot Stay: A Letter to My Church

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 17:01:47 GMT

I sat in your pews every Sunday. I shook your hands during greeting time, socialized in your hallways after the service, attended your small groups and Bible studies.

Every week, I took communion with you. I held in my hands the body of Jesus, broken. I brought to my lips the cup, his life, given for us.

One body, I thought, all of us.

But the week after the the killing of George Floyd, I knew I didn’t belong. Your silence stunned me. You said that you needed to stick to the text. You said you could preach only what you saw in the verses in front of you. To protect the Word, as if to keep it from being soiled somehow, you made a wide berth around the body of a man and went your way.

But Jesus was in the body.

Jesus is the body.

Your silence says that the Word has no words for our darkest moments. You claim to teach the Truth but cover its piercing light, allowing the church to become a sordid breeding place for name calling, guns, and conspiracy theories.

Until we believe that Jesus has something to say about all of life—about epidemiology and systemic racism, about policing and politics, about the way we vote and the way we engage on social media—until we believe that he has something profound and paradigm-shattering to offer, we will relegate him to Sundays. We will contain him in a placid face muttering mild admonitions to “be nice” and “love each other,” not allowing nail pierced hands to explode our conception of what a crucified life looks like.

Today, days after an attempted coup by people waving “Jesus Saves” flags and brandishing Bible verses, I am more sure than ever that I cannot return to your space. That day, the world witnessed the unholy marriage of evangelicalism and nationalism, of Jesus and Trump—a sickening ceremony now seared into my memory. The faces of those in the crowd, I could’ve met in any church dotting the interstates connecting our country together.

There is no use pointing fingers. That is not them. That is us.

We dragged Jesus—the one who died for us—into our tryst with Trump, while the church sat by with a nod and a shrug.

What we do to the least of these . . . the noose on the Capitol, that was for Jesus. I saw Jesus’ body mangled by the contortions necessary to sustain our quest for power. I saw Jesus’ body trampled so that we can step over each other in our own grasp at success.

Look.

READ: ‘Not Real Christians’: Communal Confession for a Faith Divided

Do we see his body beneath our bloodstained feet?

Do we see the faces of those fleeing with such reluctance from the pews of our churches? No need to pursue them with more Bible studies and events, with offerings of prayers or words. Simply look into their faces and see—Jesus is in the body. His body is sacred.

Perhaps we have grown accustomed to allowing the desecration of sacred spaces—women, expected to submit in abusive marriages just because their husbands did not technically commit adultery; children, unprotected from youth leaders, lured into church by fancy programs so that we could count how many we saved; asylum seekers detained like lost puppies in a pound; immigrants, denied the opportunities we breath like air—all while we enjoy the comforts of our home.

Jesus’ body lies at our door.

What is the gospel we are preaching?

We say that we want people to be saved. But, saved from what? For what?

I am afraid we are saving people into a gospel of niceness and comfort, a social club with its special language of worship and faith. We’re offering a nice Jesus—a Jesus who matches with the furniture.

Where do people go when they are hurting? Do we have only prayers and “trust God” to offer? The church doesn’t seem to have answers—not when another Black man is shot, or when hate is paraded, or when the world faces death daily dealt by an out-of-control virus.

Jesus’s body is hurting, and we dismiss him with a blessing.

It seems as though we have some kind of spiritual leprosy, where we feel no pain as our own digits rot away. Truth brings pain—healing pain. Truth shakes us to the core. It unearths our darkness. Truth should make us uncomfortable, should make us tingle with blood flowing through blocked veins. Truth disrupts. When a church does not speak Truth, it loses credibility. It satisfies the complacent and comfortable, but leaves the hungry . . . well . . . hungry.

So where do I go from here? I am not sure. All I know is I must keep looking for Jesus and his body. Because I too, am a part of it. I still love Jesus. I do not love what those who use his name have done to him. But I still love Jesus.

For now, perhaps I just need to stoop down to caress his calloused hands. I need to kneel and weep over his lacerated skin. And I need to look into his eyes, whisper, “I am so sorry,” and let the pain and the forgiveness in his face break my heart.

Because following Jesus is not a way to avoid pain. Jesus is the path to facing pain with courage. We have died with him, and now, it is his life that we are to live—his life of giving, of suffering, and of confronting our shame.

We hold in our hands his body, broken.

May that truth break us.

‘Not Real Christians’: Communal Confession for a Faith Divided

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 23:07:38 GMT

On January 6, 2021, an angry mob of white nationalists, some armed with guns, stormed the Capitol and rioted inside. Several Christians were in this group, seen waving flags and banners that proclaimed “Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my president.” There is also a video that has gone viral of a woman singing a Bethel song and dramatically repeating the words, “Jesus, Jesus.” It is no surprise that many faithful supporters of President Trump over the years have been conservative white evangelicals and their choice to engage in this “failed insurrection,” to use the phrase of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is both equal parts a commitment to their faith in Trump as well as Jesus.

However, many other Christians, including Christians of color, watched in horror as this act of terror unfolded. Beyond the trauma that it caused to many looking on, a number of people found themselves wrestling with how to feel about those bearing the same faith as them yet committing great evil. How are we supposed to talk about this event in which Christian complicity with American nationalism is unquestionable?

Divisions within Christian spaces have become entrenched and fortified over these past four years. We have witnessed the quiet exodus of Black and Brown Christians from evangelical churches. Many Christians of color have even made the choice to no longer identify as evangelical in order to separate and distinguish themselves from a group of Christians who seem largely committed to colorblindness and are unrepentant of their own racist rhetoric and views. Many Christians, who have chosen to speak up against the sins of Christian nationalism have lost friends and jobs, they’ve been shamed and worse. Now countless of us carry the weight of hurt and betrayal for the actions of white Christian nationalists in this country; and, undoubtedly, there is a long road ahead of finding racial healing from these wounds.

It’s for these reasons that it can be easy at times to denounce Christian nationalists and say “those aren’t real Christians.” But many not arrested probably attended church this past Sunday. They read the same Bible we do. They claim to love Jesus with all their heart the way we do as well. As Christians, we are quick to draw lines in the sand among ourselves, but do you think the world cares? Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists and more see us as a united whole. Fundamentalist, progressive, conservative, white, Black and Brown. There is only one Christianity. Despite the pain and the anger that many of us feel for fellow believers, we would do well to better embrace this view too.

READ: Capitol Storm: What Should Come as No Surprise

The more we come to see Christian nationalists as our siblings, the better we will be able to respond to their actions as a body of Christ. In the Bible, Christians are called to a communal faith and this includes communal confession. Nehemiah 1:4-7, for example, states, “Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps a covenant of love with those who love you and keep your commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.” Nehemiah uses the language of “we” and confesses the sins of all Israel before God. He doesn’t distance himself from disobedient Israelites. Rather, he owns their wickedness as his own and confesses on their behalf as well as his.

Likewise, Daniel 9:4-7 states, “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps your covenant of love with those who love you and keep your commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land. Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you.” Daniel speaks of Israel’s sins with a collective voice. He doesn’t say “they have been wicked.” Rather, “we have been wicked and have rebelled.”

What if we responded to the events of January 6 like Nehemiah and Daniel? The biblical model of communal confession challenges us to collectively own Christian complicity in the insurrection at the Capitol. Our Christian witness includes confessing the sins of Christian nationalists as our sins because the people of God communally confess sins they didn’t commit. We don’t excuse or condone their behavior. We must still raise our voices to denounce Christian pursuit of power and boldly denounce cycles of violence perpetuated in the name of Jesus. We also seek that justice be given to those involved in last week’s events. Nevertheless, we can still own and apologize to a watching world the sins that our fellow siblings have committed.

I’ll never forget the time a professor at Wheaton College apologized to a group of Germans for the bombing of Kristallnacht. At the time, as a 19-year-old college student, I was confused. Why would this man apologize for America’s actions? I thought to myself, “We were at war, after all.” But I later came to realize how profound his confession was. No, he hadn’t been a soldier during WWII. He had not flown over Leipzig or been personally involved in the bombing. But he understood the gravity and long-term consequences of these actions and its impact on German perceptions of Americans, and he owned that as his own. Our response to fellow siblings in Christ must follow suit.

In these days and weeks following the insurrection, we should pray, “God, we lament the loss of life, those injured, the destruction of property and the terror that was caused on January 6; and may the perpetrators be brought to justice.” We should also pray, “God, forgive us for our idolized view of this nation. Forgive us for those perpetuating the myth of Christian persecution in the U.S. Forgive us for the hateful, racist rhetoric, and violence we have committed.”

Let’s take ownership to right the wrongs of January 6’s insurrection. Let’s collectively clean up this mess, Christians. There are sympathizers around the country. Pastors and congregants alike must denounce Christian violence and nationalism in their respective town and church.

May God purify us as Christians. May God cleanse our churches from the sin, violence and hate of Christian nationalism. May God safeguard each of us from thinking we are above such actions. May each of us own and denounce the sins within the body of Christ.

Who Has Your Trousers? Keeping Company in the Darkness

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 13:00:44 GMT

I heard a friend tell a story once about a man at his church who struggled with mental illness. On his bad days, this man was known for leaving his house and arriving at church gatherings without his pants. I can imagine the stares on the sidewalk or on the public transit. I can imagine the hushed whispers and sideways glances and the clutching of small children that may occur in many church circles. But this particular church was invested in this man and created a space for him in their church family. This meant that one of his friends at church would kindly point out to him upon his arrival that he’d forgotten his trousers. Not only that—they came prepared with an extra pair to offer him so that he could be decently dressed.

These friends not only welcomed this man into their lives when he was vulnerable. They also thought about how they could creatively anticipate and provide for his needs. When we’re struggling, these are the types of people we need surrounding us. When we’re struggling with mental illness, they can be actual life savers.

I’ve spent time over the last few years researching people in church history who struggled with depression, but intertwined with their stories are those of their friends and family members who kept company with them in the dark. I cannot tell the story of Martin Luther without mentioning his wife Katie or his mentor Johann von Staupitz or his friends, like Philip Melanchthon. Hannah Allen was kept alive by coordinated efforts of family members, and Martin Luther King Jr. was kept company in many a sleepless night by friends and SCLC staff members.

The hymn writer William Cowper survived his own depression and suicide attempts because of a few key relationships in his life. Though we credit him with hymns like “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” or “There Is a Fountain” or with poems like “The Task,” in reality, these artistic and spiritual gifts to us would not exist without the encouragement of his friends and companions. Seeing the ebb and flow of his depression, John Newton invited Cowper to write a series of hymns with him to keep Cowper occupied and creative. Others did this as well. His friend Lady Austen told him the story of John Gilpin, which he then immortalized in a poem. His cousin, John Johnson, left copies of Homer out in plain view, in the hopes that Cowper would discover them and be inspired to begin his translation work again. Another friend requested letters of praise from clergymen to show Cowper the positive impact he’d had on the world. None of these things “fixed” William Cowper, but even when depression came in earnest, they stayed by this side, finding creative and sacrificial ways to support him.

READ: A Year of No Thanks

Once, during an episode of depression, Cowper managed to get himself out of bed long enough to walk to John and Mary Newton’s house. He didn’t leave for sixteen months. What a house guest. Many would cripple under the sudden prolonged household addition or the effects of debilitating depression. But John said this about his friend: “The Lord has given us such a love for him … that I am not weary, though to be sure his deliverance would be to me one of the greatest blessings I can conceive.” Another time, when depression had him frozen, his lifelong companion, Mrs. Unwin, who herself was recovering from a stroke, requested his help to take a walk, since she knew the fresh air would do him good. And the stories only continue.

When I hear these stories of faithful, sacrificial, life-giving friendship, I think of the people who have kept company with me in my own darkness. Of the mentors whose door was always open for a home-cooked meal or the quiet peace of their prayer room. Of the friends who endured dreary and despairing emails and who did not flee from my tears. Of the ones who continued to check in and quietly listen when it felt like all I had to share was sorrow, and the ones who provided spaces to escape life’s heaviness through cups of tea and board games and outdoor adventures. I think of the pastor whose message of grace was like salve to my bleeding heart, and of those fellow sufferers who bravely shared their stories with me. I think of the ones who encouraged me to find a new counselor and who talked with me through my misgivings about medication, of those who let me sit in silence and those who prodded me out of it. They continued to welcome me into their lives when I was, as Hannah Allen phrased it, an “uncomfortable guest.”

I know many of us who struggle with things like depression and anxiety and other mental health ailments have plenty of stories to tell about people who were not helpful. Much harm has been done by those we should have been able to trust—or by those who had no business inserting themselves into a place of tender pain. There is a time and a place for these stories, so that we can all learn how to be a better support and encouragement to one another.

But we miss a beautiful part of our stories if we only tell the stories of the people we’ve had to endure instead of also telling the stories of the people who were key players in our survival. These are the people who surround us with unconditional love and support while we’re still in process. They know how to care for themselves so that they are positioned to care for us for the long haul. And they know that though this pain is part of our story, it is not all of our story, and they keep company with us in hope that even in the darkness God is present.

Do you know who these people are in your life, those people who help you to avoid crises if possible and to survive them when they come? Thank God for them—and maybe thank them too. Everybody needs someone who can come prepared with an extra set of trousers. Who has yours?

This excerpt is taken from the recently released title, Companions in the Darkness which looks back into church history and finds depression in the lives of some of our most beloved saints, including Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr. Drawing on her own experience with depression, Gruver offers a wealth of practical wisdom both for those in the darkness and those who care for them.

The Cost of Believing Liars

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:28:18 GMT

Believing liars has consequences. This was abundantly clear on January 6. Tens of thousands of people who believed Trump’s lie that he won the presidential election but was “robbed” of the victory through massive voter fraud converged on Washington, D.C. to “stop the steal.”

Those who trusted the man who has proven himself to be the most prolific and vicious liar to ever to step foot into the White House burst into the Capitol Building, creating chaos and leaving several people dead. Because they trusted his lies, they viewed themselves as patriots and defenders of election integrity. But in fact they were enemies of democracy, attempting to overthrow a free and fair election.

Other liars have quickly stepped up to mask the guilt of the Trump supporters. Without any credible evidence they have falsely claimed that other actors were the real criminals. Rabid Trump supporter, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) suggested members of antifa had secretly infiltrated the group to cause the chaos. Leading Fox News prime time stars also made the baseless claim that antifa members inserted themselves in the Trump crowd and that they were the real cause of the invasion of the Capitol.

Not to be left out, well- known right-wing evangelical leader and dependable Trump supporter Franklin Graham likewise speculated without evidence that it was those somehow affiliated with antifa, not the MAGA gang, that attacked the Capital Building. Eric Metaxas, who has been regarded as an evangelical intellectual, baldly lied by saying, “There is no doubt Antifa infiltrated the protesters today and planned this.”

All of these people have for years been eager aids in perpetrating Trump’s stream of lies. And now they are working hard to shelter the Trump supporters from being responsible for the harm they have done. And those ordinary folks on the right who have been quick to believe all Trump’s previous lies and those of his surrogates are again readily believing the liars who are scapegoating antifa to shift blame from the Trump devotees who converged on D.C.

The most dependable of supporters in the MAGA coalition have been white religionists, primarily but not exclusively evangelicals. These are people who traditionally regarded truth telling as a high value. They have often cited from the Ten Commandments, “You shall not bear false witness,” as well as the words of Jesus, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” Many of their leaders have railed against liberals, accusing them of ethical relativism.

READ: Is Killing Lisa Montgomery the Best Version of Justice We Have?

But especially during the Trump years, they have proven themselves to be the real ethical relativists. They have echoed Trump’s cry, “Fake news!” every time reliable, internationally respected news sources contradict the claims of Trump and other politicians with whom they have aligned themselves. They have condemned scientists and other renowned experts by derisively calling them “the elite,” preferring instead to trust right-wing pundits and conspiracy theorists.

Trump supporting evangelicals have shown that while they may be honest in their personal lives among friends and family, their commitment to truthfulness in public affairs is absent. Their ethical relativism allowed them to compartmentalize their attachment to honesty. “Truth” is whatever serves their interests and protects their partisan political loyalties. This is what allowed Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition to say, “There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump. No one!” Such words do not represent a people of the truth but a people of the lie who seek power or security at the cost of integrity.

Regardless of what they may claim, Christians of this sort are not, to cite the words of Jesus, “salt and light,” influencing the world for good, but agents of darkness and deceit. White evangelicals and other Christians who have willingly embraced the lies of Trump or his surrogates and who have chosen to dismiss the apparent truth have discredited themselves before the nation and the world. They share responsibility for the deadly and destructive insurrection of January 6. And they shouldn’t be surprised that their trust in the lies of Trump leads many people to distrust them about Jesus.

Is Killing Lisa Montgomery the Best Version of Justice We Have?

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 16:39:44 GMT

[CW: Rape, abuse, torture]

This week, after people died at the U.S. Capitol, in the middle of a pandemic and with the promise of new impeachment hearings, President Trump is planning to execute three more people.

Continuing a killing spree that began in 2020 after 17 years without a federal execution, Trump will have carried out 13 executions in his last 7 months as president. No president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had that many executions, and Roosevelt didn’t kill that many people so quickly.

The man who announced to the world, before he was president, that he could shoot someone on 5^th Avenue and get away with it — to the amens of “pro-life” evangelicals — turned out to be serious. Trump has been carrying out executions at a rate that we have not seen since the 1800s. Don’t miss that: We haven’t seen anything like this in over 100 years.

One of those slated for execution is Lisa Montgomery. If the execution goes forward, Ms. Montgomery will be the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.

As I studied and read about her life, I felt sick to my stomach. As early as 3 years old, Montgomery lay in bed next to her sister Diane as she was raped by their babysitter, a man who was supposed to watch over them.

At age 11, her stepfather began raping her, repeatedly, weekly. He built a torture room for her beside their trailer in Oklahoma and cut a hole in the wall of his trailer so he could spy on her. He raped and sodomized her with regularity, at times slamming her against the floor so hard she suffered traumatic brain injury, now confirmed by MRI medical reports.

As she grew into a young woman, her stepfather invited friends over to gang rape her, oftentimes in that little torture room he created for her — there were times she was raped for hours at a time, urinated upon. Her mother did not defend her as sick, seditious, evil things were done to her — quite the opposite, her mom held her at gunpoint and blamed her for the problems and offered her daughter for sexual favors to pay handymen working on their house.

At 17, Montgomery was pressured to become engaged to her stepbrother, who continued the cycle of torture and abuse. She was involuntarily sterilized. The tortures she has endured fill a 184-page legal document.

No one stepped in — no social workers, no child protection workers, no teachers, no police, no pastors — no one. Her family failed her. Society failed her. The church failed her.

READ: Capitol Storm: What Should Come as No Surprise

After years of this nightmare of a life, Montgomery went to the home of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a woman she met on the internet, apparently to buy a puppy, but she ended up killing Stinnett. In a psychotic episode, Montgomery strangled her with a rope and cut the eight-month-old fetus from Stinnett’s womb and took it home with the intention of raising the baby as her own. It was an unimaginable act of horror by a woman who had experienced a life of unimaginable horrors.

Any reasonable person who hears about this crime is appalled — we should be worried if we are not deeply shocked and saddened. Most people I’ve told say something like: “How could anyone in their right mind do something like that!” I can’t count the times I’ve heard someone say, “That woman is crazy.” And that is the point. No one in their right mind would do something like this.

When people hear more about Lisa’s life, they start to understand a little more how someone could do such an unthinkable act. No one defends Lisa’s actions or suggests she should not be institutionalized.

The real question is not whether Lisa Montgomery is mentally ill, but who we are — who we want to be as a nation. Is the best answer to what we know about Montgomery to kill her? Is that the best ending to such a terrible story? Is that the best version of justice we have?

When we think of the death penalty, we like to think that we are executing the worst of the worst, but the truth is, in the words of Sandra Babcock, one of the experts who has worked with Lisa: “Lisa is not the worst of the worst — she is the most broken of the broken.”

She’s also the poorest of the poor. Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t get the death penalty. Charles Manson died of natural causes in prison. Harvard-educated Ted Kaczynski is still alive. Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to die on Tuesday.

As a Christian, I cannot help but think of Jesus’ interactions with women, especially those who were abused and broken and demon-possessed. Women perhaps not that unlike Lisa Montgomery. He healed a Syrophoenician woman whom many people did not even consider to be human but numbered among “the dogs.” Jesus sat with a Samaritan woman who had been with six different men and was so ashamed that she walked to get water in the heat of the day to avoid the crowds.

There is the woman who was about to be executed. Jesus interrupted her execution.

In the scene from the Gospel of John, a woman is dragged before the entire town, humiliated in public, her execution, duly ordered by law, imminent. Men are armed with stones and ready to kill her.

Jesus enters the circle of armed men, and he writes in the dirt. We don’t know exactly what he wrote, but he looked up and said to the men, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” At other times he taught that if you’ve looked at someone with lust in your eyes, you’ve committed adultery in your heart. If you’ve called someone a fool, you’re a murderer.

All the men scatter, and we are left with just Jesus and the woman. Jesus says to her, “Where’d they all go?” The message is clear. The only one who has any right to throw a stone had absolutely no desire. The closer we get to God, the less we want to throw stones at other people.

None of us is above reproach and none of us is beyond redemption. That is a core truth of the Christian faith. And it is a truth that is undermined every time we execute someone.

Jesus himself said that he did not come for the healthy, but for the sick. Lisa Montgomery is sick. According to Jesus, we are, too. We may not have killed anyone, but that doesn’t give us the right to execute someone who has. As my friend Sister Helen Prejean often says — the question becomes not simply “does someone deserve to die,” but “do we deserve to kill?”

Killing is wrong no matter whether it is done by a criminal or by a mentally ill woman or by a governor or by a president.

We can do better than killing to show that killing is wrong.

The story of Lisa Montgomery can have a better ending than execution.

This piece first appeared at religionnews.com.

Capitol Storm: What Should Come as No Surprise

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 19:43:52 GMT

I started out my Wednesday morning listening to election results trickle in from Georgia and had hope, that flighty bird who has been so hard to spot over the past year. By the end of the day, I was sitting in silence watching a mob of white supremacists storm the Capitol building, overcome by a cocktail of rage, horror, and disbelief. I should not have been shocked by anything I saw.

Wednesday’s events in the Capitol should come as a surprise to no one. The President of the United States specifically asked his supporters to behave this way. His half-baked call for peace, in which he also told the rioters that they were special and he loved them, was far too little, far too late.

Trump is symbolic of the problems plaguing America—a figurehead of fascism. But, for the privileged, the problems themselves have been lurking just out of the spotlight throughout American history. Are we really surprised that a country founded on colonization, slavery, and genocide is still home to millions of entitled white people? Black, Indigenous, People of Color —who have warned of this from day one—aren’t. The rest of us shouldn’t be.

I have heard countless white friends bemoan the state of the nation over the past four years, appalled and surprised by the ugliness that has characterized the past half-decade. The division and hatred are nothing new, though; they are just coming out of the shadows. They have always been here, we have just gotten really good at ignoring them.

Emboldened by a leader who mocks the disabled, encourages police brutality, and brags about committing sexual assault, are we at all surprised that ableism, racism, and misogyny are thriving in America? Trump’s rhetoric has validated the worst in us and emboldened people to flaunt their most shameful prejudices like trophies. He is to blame, certainly, for his role in inciting hate and violence, but the work is far from over, even after Trump is out of office.

Trump revealed an America that already existed: one in which latent racism, covert homophobia, and hush-hush sexism are the bread and butter of society. He did not introduce these prejudices. He stoked the flames, but he did not light the fire. We have been smoldering with hate and violence since our founding. We have, as a whole, largely looked past the uglier parts of our history, choosing instead to celebrate our best moments and conveniently sweep the rest under the rug.

READ: True Prophecy in an Age of Deception

History, in our case, has been written by the powerful. Those who have power have wielded it to oppress and abuse, and have for centuries too long gotten away with it. The current upheaval in America that so many of us have mourned is a long overdue reckoning for our sins; this is accountability. People who have historically held positions of privilege are being challenged, and they are angry; they will not give up their unjustly held power without a fight. Even those of us who believe ourselves young enough to claim innocence for the sins of our forefathers have nonetheless benefited from the oppression on which America was founded: we live in the house that slavery built, on the stolen, blood soaked land of indigenous people. This is an uncomfortable truth, but a truth nonetheless.

Let us not soon forget the violence and vandalism that we saw in our nation’s capital yesterday.

Let us not be deceived by baseless conspiracy theories that have no root in truth or reality.

Let us acknowledge our complicity in a system that has profited off of the exploitation of the vulnerable and marginalized.

Let us tell our children the truth about what happened this week at the Capitol: white supremacists and domestic terrorists, deceived and deluded and power hungry, attempted to violently overthrow the government. They faced very little opposition.

Let us listen to the voices that we have for too long silenced.

Let us be humble enough to admit our wrongs and own up to our own involvement in oppression.

Let us not call for unity at the expense of truth and justice. That unity is a straw-man, shabby and false and worthless. Any unity worth pursuing must be based in acknowledgement of the truth, accountability for wrong, and dedication to our fellow humankind.

Let us be peacemakers, not peacekeepers.

Hope, Homelessness, and COVID-19

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 23:51:04 GMT

Names of individuals have been changed for their privacy.

I urged Avery to gather his belongings—a tent, a gym bag of clothes, and disintegrating grocery bags—as thirty-one police vehicles sped by with a dozen officers in full riot gear hanging off the side. The Center, a non-profit homeless services hub where I work, sits a short block away from Hollywood Blvd. Thousands had gathered there to protest the murder of George Floyd, which had taken place just days earlier. The police had selected The Center’s home, the less-conspicuous Selma Avenue, to stage their response. As the afternoon wore on, I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but Avery had been uneasy all day.

Avery had been matched to a hotel under the new state initiative “Project Roomkey.” California had released funding for its cities to master-lease hotels, otherwise vacant because of COVID-19, as temporary housing for people experiencing homelessness considered especially vulnerable to the virus – due to age and/or pre-existing health condition(s). The program was enthusiastically embraced in Los Angeles, targeting 15,000 unhoused Angelenos for placement.

After all was said and done, though, only 6,000 rooms were acquired. As it turns out, although hundreds of hotels took financial handouts from the City of Los Angeles to mitigate their losses, many decided it would adversely impact their brand to accept these particular guests. For its part, the city lacked the fortitude to make participation in the initiative a condition of accepting the stimulus. Experiencing this in real time, knowing the names and stories of many of the 9,000 vulnerable people who wouldn’t get a room, my mind went often to Isaiah 5:

“Woe to you who add house to house
    and join field to field
till no space is left
    and you live alone in the land.

The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing:

‘Surely the great houses will become desolate,
    the fine mansions left without occupants.’”

These larger machinations were far from my mind that day in Hollywood. No matter how many rooms there were or weren’t, Avery would be getting one of them . . . if we could get him to go. When we broke the news the day before that he’d been matched, he was ecstatic, promising to be at our gate the next morning, ready to go, “with bells on.” Today, though, at the worst possible time, he was having second thoughts.

When we met in the morning to discuss transportation to the hotel, he told me he didn’t want the room anymore. Having worked in this field as many years as I have, and knowing Avery for all of them, I knew this wasn’t necessarily a final answer. So often when services are offered to people experiencing homelessness, timing is everything. Not only do the services actually have to be desirable, but they have to be offered in the right way, at the right time, and by the right person. Change of any kind takes patience.

Balancing a trauma-informed approach with the urgency of this opportunity, I waited a couple hours before asking again. Again, he said no. After waiting another hour he still said no, but this time he asked me a couple questions about the hotel: “You said the rooms are private?” “Can you show me the picture again?” Something was shifting. Light was creeping in.

READ: La’s Skid Row Doesn’t Need Sean Feucht’s ‘Revival’

COVID-19 had been raging for a couple months, and it seemed like any moment it would infiltrate the homeless population and spread like wildfire. Months later, we’ve come to see that it never really did, and can only speculate as to the reasons. Certainly, local efforts like Project Roomkey, as well as COVID testing performed by outreach teams like The Center’s played a role. It also may come now to the nature of the virus and what we know of its spread. People living isolated and outdoors are uniquely situated to avoid catching COVID-19.

But although unhoused people are largely not dying of COVID, deaths among people experiencing homeless have skyrocketed during COVID-19. In fact, the same conditions diminishing the virus’s impact—isolation, living outside—are proving lethal as the rest of the world has become more insulated. Public parks and libraries have been shuttered. Volunteer-run food and clothing resources have dried up. Restaurants and coffee shops that may have offered refuge before are only “pick-up” now. Poorly phrased “Safer at Home” orders must have especially stung for the 60,000 “home-less.”

Noon arrived, and Avery finally said yes. I left him to finish packing, but when I returned 30 minutes later, the doubt had crept back in. “No, thank you,” he told me, “but I just can’t do it.” He had spent decades on the streets, been in and out of program after program. Why would this one be any different?

I needed backup. Avery’s friend Paul, who had been matched to a room at the same hotel but a much later intake, was nearby killing time and waiting for his transportation. I called the site to let them know what I had in mind, then approached Paul and filled him in on Avery. Then I pitched him my plan.

“Paul, what if I sent you and Avery together in an Uber?” (Our COVID policies did not allow us to transport clients ourselves, and certainly not multiple at a time in our vehicles.) Paul agreed, and we presented the plan to Avery. The tension in his shoulders released as a wave of relief came over him. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Housing First” is a methodology for ending homelessness that has been around for decades, but still remains largely under-practiced. If you can move people indoors and provide a sense of safety and shelter, addressing the root causes of someone’s homelessness becomes much easier. When a person feels safe and secure, so many other things can fall into place. Your case managers know where to find you instead of having to drive around looking for you. You can get medical and mental health care more easily, keep your prescriptions behind your locked door, and get regular sleep. You have an address to put on job applications and a bathroom to get cleaned up in. Many cities and even countries have effectively ended homelessness using a more robust and evidence-based version of this model.

The primary reason we don’t practice this approach on a universal scale is because, frankly, we aren’t convinced that people experiencing homelessness deserve it. Contrary to what you might think, Housing First is actually cheaper than our current approach. The amount of money we spend policing, jailing, hospitalizing, and cleaning up after people experiencing homelessness is vastly higher than the cost of housing them with wrap-around case management. Certainly, there would be bureaucratic hurdles and community resistance if we were to truly embrace this approach, but those are challenges we could address if we wanted to.

Instead, we perpetuate myths about homelessness that embolden our stance against policy that will set them free. We stay secure in our implicit and explicit beliefs that certain people have opted out of deserving our compassion. But I am reminded of Romans 2:4, that “God’s kindness leads us to repentance.” Meaningful change and transformation in anyone’s life always begins with grace; and grace is, by definition, uninterested in whether or not we deserve it.

The car arrived and took Paul and Avery, together, to their temporary home. I jumped in my car and sped out of Hollywood to avoid being trapped by blocked-off streets and escalating unrest. I would later watch news coverage of the protests and see that the police had commandeered The Center’s parking lot to stage their basecamp, mere feet from where Avery’s tent had been.

Paul and Avery were given adjacent rooms. When I checked on Avery the next week, he thanked me over and over again for “making” him go. I reminded him that it was all his doing; that all I did was give him enough space and time to work up the courage he needed. So often, that’s all people need: someone who knows them, knows how to ask the question, knows when to press and when to back off, and is committed to sticking it out with them until the “right” opportunity falls into place.

COVID-19 has amplified these realities more than it has created them. A study conducted by the California Healthline based on LA County Coroner-Medical Examiner records in 2018 assessed life expectancy for people experiencing homelessness to be fifty years of age, more than twenty years below that of housed individuals. Homelessness is, in many ways, a death sentence, and was before COVID-19. But as with so many of our societal ills—such as income inequality, the cost of health care, and systemic racism—COVID-19 did not create the crisis, but certainly magnified it.

Our response to the homelessness crisis during the pandemic may light the way for how to continue addressing it once the threat of the virus has passed. We are experiencing in real time what it might have taken decades to build the courage to try. In this there is hope, even if it feels late. So many have been advocating for these proven solutions for years, and how many have we lost in the waiting?

My prayer is that we learn to listen to our neighbors experiencing homelessness earnestly, early, and patiently; that we become better practitioners of grace, recognizing and responding to the needs of the vulnerable long before they become dire. I pray for resilience and protection for all those who have waited so long for salvation and will wait longer; and for those for whom it was too late, we pray for forgiveness.

For Paul, who is already back on the streets because he wasn’t ready; for Avery, who just graduated from Project Roomkey and into his own apartment; and for everyone else on their first, second, or hundredth chance, we pray.

La’s Skid Row Doesn’t Need Sean Feucht’s ‘Revival’

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 03:55:44 GMT

The New Testament charges Christian pastors to be shepherds of people and to protect their flocks from harm. This weekend, a popular Christian musician’s quest to protest California’s coronavirus restrictions will introduce a new spin on this principle for a group of Los Angeles pastors: protecting their flock from other Christians.

As California continues to lead the world in coronavirus cases and deaths, and as the state’s hospitals are filled beyond capacity, the musician, Sean Feucht, has announced a three-day “outreach event” that will include a visit to LA’s Skid Row, a 54-block area of downtown that has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country.

It’s the latest stop on Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” tour, in which he travels the country holding events that gather thousands of maskless “worshippers” in public spaces in defiance of quarantine regulations. The opportunistic stunt has gained Feucht a cover story in Rolling Stone magazine titled “Jesus Christ Super-spreader.”

Several pastors in Southern California, including pastors such as our co-author Stephen who serve the homeless community, have responded by organizing a blockade, literally putting their cars and bodies in the way of the maskless crusade. In an attempt to defend his event, Feucht accused these pastors of preventing him from “bringing Jesus to the streets of LA.”

Dear Sean: Jesus is already on Skid Row.

Jesus lives on Skid Row in the hundreds of homeless people who take shelter there. Just as Jesus was born in a manger on Christmas because there was no room at the inn, the people who live on Skid Row are here because they have no place else to go. Just as Jesus was homeless 2,020 years ago on Christmas night, he is still homeless today in Los Angeles.

Stephen and other ministers work every day to protect Skid Row and its residents, not with the hope of bringing Jesus to Godforsaken places, but to find Jesus in a place many Christians would rather not live, like Skid Row. It’s offensive that people would come into his neighborhood with disregard to the health of his community.

READ: When Legal is Unjust, Prophetic Resistance is Required

Feucht likes to spin the authorities’ coronavirus measures, and opposition to his tour, as religious persecution. It’s not. The social distancing and stay-at-home orders are not about a secular, liberal state trying to keep Christians from worshipping, but about a state trying to protect its people.

Christians, who worship a savior who left the comfort of heaven to suffer even to the point of being executed, might be expected to be able to sacrifice in this crisis. Instead, Feucht’s Christian witness is to be upset about having to wear a mask.

The basis of Feucht’s protest, however, is not biblical, but constitutional. But even James Madison, the “father of the Constitution,” knew that freedom can be abused. Madison put it plainly: “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty, as well as the abuses of power.” In other words, one person’s “right to go maskless” can endanger another person’s right to live.

Christians, or course, look to a higher authority than the Constitution in the Bible. There’s a verse in the Book of Corinthians that is particularly relevant to all this: “Be careful not to let your freedom become a stumbling block to those who are weak.” Yes, freedom can be abused.

The biblical prophets rebuked worship that was not rooted in love and justice and compassion for the most vulnerable. The prophet Amos said that worship can just be “noise” to God, and that there are times God would rather not listen to our singing when our actions hurt the poor. The New Testament says that we can have faith to move mountains, and do all sorts of miracles, but if we have not love, it is all meaningless, like an empty gong or clanging cymbal.

Rather than clang an empty gong, Stephen and his colleagues have worked to reduce the spread of the virus on Skid Row by setting up hand-washing stations, distributing hygiene products and promoting mask-wearing. At their Friday worship services, they’ve created strict protocols for how they distribute food and how to gather safely. At one point, they even stopped meeting altogether.

For them, it’s not about religious freedom. It’s about loving our neighbors … and protecting the most vulnerable.

If Feucht really cared about the people on Skid Row — a passion he never expressed before the pandemic — he might help support these efforts, instead of defying them by holding a maskless concert in the middle of a tent city. It’s not just insensitive — it is un-Christlike.

If Feucht doesn’t want to listen to us, perhaps he’ll listen to Jesus, who said, “What you did to the least of these, you did to me.”

Sean, what you do to the folks living on Skid Row, you’ll do to Jesus — who got there first.

This piece, which first appeared at ReligionNews.com, was co-authored by Shane Claiborne, David Gibbons, and Stephen “Cue” Jn-Marie. Claiborne is an activist, author and co-director of Red Letter Christians. Gibbons is an investor, author, adviser and the founding pastor of Newsong Church and the X Global Network of activists. He can be contacted @davekgibbons. Jn-Marie is founding pastor of Church Without Walls and is a community organizer in the LA area.

When Legal Is Unjust, Prophetic Resistance Is Required

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 13:00:56 GMT

These past weeks in the USA we are witnessing grave injustices committed legally (and illegally), exposing the fallacy that legal = just. Presidential pardons of soldiers and US Government contractors guilty of war crimes, billions of dollars in benefits for the rich and powerful tucked away in the 5,000 + page Congressional Relief Bill, and Federal death row executions grieve me deeply, demonstrating the ongoing relevancy of the words of OT prophets:

“Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; For truth has stumbled in the street, and uprightness cannot enter. Yes, truth is lacking… Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in his sight that there was no justice” (Isaiah 59:14-15).

In the 26 years I’ve visited inmates as a jail chaplain, I’ve seen grave injustices committed by our legal system against individuals and families that are technically legal. Prosecutors routinely file charges that are higher than what evidence warrants, with intimidating threats that additional charges might be forthcoming. Once someone has a criminal record, “points” are added to a defendant’s “score,” upping the minimum amount of time in jail or prison people can expect to serve if found guilty. An example from this week involves a man I’ve befriended and pastored for 25 years, who is currently facing 240 months in prison for 4-5 “controlled buys”—sting operations where he was caught selling small amounts heroin. This excessive amount of time is due to his points, based on the Sentencing Reform Act (SRA) of 1981, Washington State’s version of sentencing guidelines that vary from state to state— “reforms” that underlie mass incarceration of indigent people like the world has never seen.

Bail is calculated and set based on current charges and people’s points; and it can get really high (and sometimes it needs to be). While defendants are usually legally eligible to post bail or seek a reduction in bail before trying to bail out, only people with financial resources can actually bail out and leave custody, fighting their case as “innocent until proven guilty.” Those who fight charges while incarcerated are clearly at a disadvantage—losing their employment, bringing hardship to their families, and looking guilty during court appearances in their jail-issue clothing. The presumption of innocence, fighting charges from outside the jail, and effective legal defense is largely a privilege of the rich.

READ: Subversive Peace for the Christmas Season

Those unable to post bail usually cannot afford a private defense attorney, meaning they must qualify for a court-appointed public defender. While there are many excellent public defenders, most have heavy caseloads, lacking time and finances to represent a defendant as effectively as a high-powered (and expensive) private attorney, especially in a trial. Being found guilty by a jury means judges are required to sentence the convicted within a required minimum-maximum range— which is usually much higher than the sentences offered by prosecutors in plea agreements. This puts pressure on poorer defendants and people of color to plead guilty, even to crimes they haven’t committed, rather than go to trial. The prospect of standing trial before a possibly mostly-white jury, insecurity over a public defender’s capacity to defend them, and inability to afford a private trial attorney cause many to agree to lengthy prison sentences people with money can usually avoid. In this way millions of men and women from the poorest social classes in America have been legally sentenced to excessive and unjust time in prison, often with big fines and years of probation included.

There’s so much more that can be said about the grave injustices rampant in US legal systems, which are compounded for anyone held in immigration detention, where public defenders are not provided. Re-entry presents near impossible challenges, as ex-prisoners face the stigma of labels such as “felon,” “ex-con,” crippling debt to pay back child-support, restitution and other fines– with driver’s licenses often suspended until payments are made.

That President Donald Trump can legally act above the rule of law that ordinary citizens are beholden to, overturning legal convictions in order to free his friends (who already had minimal sentences due to well-funded, expert defense), exposes the gross inequities present in American society, making a mockery of justice. The pardoning of US Special Forces soldiers guilty of extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the more recent pardon of the four US Government contractors working for Blackwater, who committed war crimes when they killed 14 Iraqi civilians at a traffic stop in 2007, shows the world that US soldiers with friends in high places can get away with abuses of authority and murder. That the founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, is Donald Trump’s Education Secretary’s Betsy DeVos’ brother, is another sign that corruption is rampant in the highest places of US government—a serious undermining of legitimate legal authority and rule of law.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe in power of God’s mercy, grace, and love manifested in actions like pardons, debt forgiveness and enemy love. I am not an advocate for punishment through prison sentences, sanctions, and violence. However, if forgiveness is to mean anything to the forgiven and lead to any significant change, it must include confession, deep repentance and lead to conversion and even reconciliation—and it must be available to all.

Jesus exposed and actively resisted the legal injustice inflicted by the law-enforcers of his day. He broke religious/cultural laws openly and regularly, actively removing sanctions viewed as punishments when he healed the sick, cast out evil spirits, defended the accused and befriended outcasts. He publically reprimanded law-enforcers who deprived the most needy people of healing and inclusion through Sabbath and purity laws. He brought justice to the least, and was persecuted to the point of death by execution.

Jesus undoes penal justice through taking the curse of the law upon himself on the cross, canceling it forever in his death and resurrection. Jesus’s arrest, conviction, and death expose legal human justice, with all of its religious justifications for what it is—unjust and even evil:

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

Today the darkness of legal injustice must be exposed, as equal to and even worse than illegal injustice. We just strive to bring together what is being ripped apart, reforming legal systems so they are equitable and just so as to benefit the poorest and most marginalized of the earth. Deep reformation is needed in our legal system from the highest presidency to county courthouses to reverse the trend towards increasing mass incarceration. A national moratorium on executions is urgent now, especially for those scheduled to die before January 20. Get involved here.

“Remove the evil of your deeds from my sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Is 1:16-17).

As we begin 2021, may we commit to bring together truth and justice like never before, including confession and repentance–the essential ingredients to God’s life-transforming, saving pardon. Only then will personal and social change result.

Subversive Peace for this Christmas Season

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 22:09:22 GMT

Throughout the Gospel and the second volume of Acts, the author of Luke sets up a distinct contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. He specifically sets up this contrast between the kingdom of Rome, the primary political entity in Israel and the greater Mediterranean region, and the kingdom brought about through the coming of the Messiah. The unfolding drama of the Gospel presents this contrast from the outset.

In Luke 2, the familiar story of the birth of the Christ child subtly, but poignantly sets up this contrast. As the story opens, Luke informs us that Caesar Augustus has issued a decree for a census throughout the entire Empire. This seems to place the spotlight on Caesar and the Roman Empire. Luke does this because he desires his readers to think of all that Caesar Augustus the Empire he established represents.

Caesar Augustus was considered one of the greatest leaders of Rome. Tradition states that Augustus’s birth was proclaimed as good news because of the coming of a savior. He was also proclaimed as Lord. His reign brought to end the many civil wars that had plagued the Roman Republic. During his reign the Empire enjoyed an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity. This peace came to be known as the Pax Romana – Peace of Rome. This peace, as with many kingdoms of this world, was upheld through military might. It also was not true peace as there remained squabbles and small rebellions throughout the Empire. People did not experience the true harmony, compassion, and provision that should come with peace. Rather, they experienced oppression, heavy taxation, and limits upon their ability to flourish. The author of Luke secretly highlights this by mentioning the census. These censuses were used for one purpose: to have a count of the subject peoples in order to evaluate taxation. In other words, they served as tools in order to further establish the authority of Rome.

Luke quickly shifts the spotlight from the grand halls of Roman power and enforced peace to a different kingdom in which true peace can be experienced. As the scene at the manger in Bethlehem unfolds and the various characters take their places the peace that God intends for all people emerges. Joseph takes his betrothed Mary for registration in response to the decree of the Roman Empire. While there, Mary gives birth to her firstborn—the labor we celebrated once again last week.

Then a curious scene emerges in the shadows of Bethlehem. Somewhere on the outskirts of town a group of shepherds have gathered. Shepherds were a despised people within Israel due to the fact that shepherds’ work often precluded them from participating in religious activities. Shepherds were among a select group of social reprobates who could not serve as witnesses or judges in a trial. They were generally viewed as vagabonds and thieves. They are a people often rejected and ignored by the world, left to their duties of tending sheep. It is to this group of social outcasts that God chooses to make an announcement of astonishingly good news—good news in which God declares a true peace that subverts the ways of the Empire. By coming first to these shepherds with this message of good news, God declares that this good news, this peace, is for all people, especially those cast out from society.

READ: Kingdom of God, Kingdoms of Men

Luke chooses to announce the good news by deliberately contrasting Christ the Lord with Caesar Augustus. As mentioned, tradition developed that Augustus’ birth was declared as good news. Augustus was also declared as Savior and Lord. The angel that appears to the shepherds uses the same phrasing. Thus, Luke subverts the Empire, declaring the Christ child as the true king. The good news is that Christ is Savior and Lord, not Caesar Augustus and the militaristic, domineering, destructive policies that came through the kingdom over which Augustus ruled.

After the initial message from heaven in which an angel announces the good news that Christ is the Lord and Savior that the world needs, a large group of the heavenly host appears, declaring God’s kingdom action through the advent of the Christ. That kingdom action is to bring peace on earth. This is not Roman peace enforced through violence, but God’s peace given through the gift of the Messiah, who will sacrifice himself for all the earth.

This peace arrives in the form of an innocent child. Through the work, grace, and love of God, this child grows to bring the kingdom of God to fruition. This kingdom is realized through the willing sacrifice of the Christ on the cross. Through this act, the Christ brings about reconciliation between God and humanity. The peace we need is established. This kingdom is also established through the formation of an alternative community, a community that should stand for God’s peace in the midst of a world, of many kingdoms that seek to create a false peace through dominance, self-centeredness, militarism, and destructive choices. Christ the Lord, establishes this community, which has come to be known as the church so that this blessed people might bring about the peace sorely needed in this world.

Those of us who claim obedience to Christ the Lord must discover how to live in an alternative manner. Rather than adopting the patterns of the kingdoms of this world—kingdoms like Rome that rule through division, oppression, and militarism—we need to adopt the patterns lived out and declared by Christ our Lord. We need to view the humble self-sacrificial attitude of our Jesus and discover how to live this out in our world.

God came to live among us in order to bring about peace on earth for all people. The kingdoms of this world and loyalty to those kingdoms will never bring about God’s peace. Instead, we must bow to the Christ, like lowly shepherds. Even though we might be cast out from the powers of this world, we can come and worship. Then we, like the shepherds finding the acceptance of God’s grace and peace, can glorify and praise God.

Our acts of worship can then be lived out through sharing the good news of God’s peace, of God’s kingdom with all whom we encounter. Instead of sowing attitudes that bring about division and hatred we sow attitudes that reconcile people, drawing them into healed relationships. Instead of following after leaders who enforce “peace” through their violence and rhetoric, we follow our Lord and Savior who guides us into the peace he establishes.

How Being Awakened to Death Can Help Us Live

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 01:36:38 GMT

When I travel, I seek out cemeteries during daily exercise, for the quiet they offer as much as for the history chronicled there. Grave markers can say a lot about a place, its past and its culture etched into granite. Headstones also tell stories about life and death, compelling me to reflect on the people buried beneath.

Back in March, when the Covid pandemic was beginning to unfurl in the United States and the news about its destruction felt so dismaying, I found comfort walking my dog through our town’s pioneer cemetery each day. Such an act might seem macabre, save that the gravestones there gave me hope in humanity’s resilience, the cemetery a reminder that people have been living and dying in my hometown for more than 150 years.

In this practice of cemetery walking, I share infinity with Christina Peterson, author of the fabulous new book, Awakened by Death: Life-Giving Messages from the Mystics. Like Peterson, I see the space devoted to death as also symbolic of life: in cemeteries, we are confronted with the beauty of being alive, and the mystery that comes with death. It’s a mystery our culture often refuses to face, Peterson argues; and while her book was written almost entirely before the Covid pandemic, this contemplation of death—our cultural refusal to face death, the transformative power that accompanies those who do—is prescient, Peterson’s voice prophetically calling us to “awaken to death” as a way to live more profoundly.

Now more than ever, we need this voice, because we are surrounded by death. And yet, too many persist in denying the deadly virus. Since my cemetery walks in early spring, more than 300,000 fellow Americans have died of Covid. In some states, the death rate is numbing; in South Dakota, for instance, one in 800 residents have lost their lives to the coronavirus. For black and brown people, the rates of death from Covid are disproportionately higher than for white people, who benefit from structures that preserve health, including having easier access to life-saving health care.

What has astounded me most about the 2020 pandemic is this denial, a willingness to sacrifice elderly and vulnerable populations to death, presumably so that others—luckily younger and healthier and with access to health care—can freely live. Conversations about mask mandates and social distancing turn on this presumption that some deaths are less significant than others; churches who persist with in-person meetings convey that their religious liberty is more important than protecting their vulnerable congregants, who are welcome to worship alone and at home until the pandemic has ended.

READ: Oh God, Where Are You Now?

I am astounded, but I have also been enraged: at those who deny Covid’s deadliness, yes, but also at those who have politicized this pandemic, transforming even the simple sacrifice of wearing a mask into a statement about one’s freedom and one’s unwillingness “to live in fear.” What seems like fearlessness to others feels like recklessness to me; what seems like expressions of liberty to others feels like selfishness. Most days, I see this while scrolling through social media, angry at the folks who question Covid’s reality, including people in my home community who rail against a governor for instituting mask mandates and lockdowns to deal with skyrocketing Covid numbers.

Perhaps instead of rage, though, I need perspective and empathy, and Peterson’s book offers me this, in spades. What I appreciate most about Awakened by Death is Peterson’s ability to put our relationship with death into historical contexts that starkly reveal our current cultural discomfort with death. Early mystics encountered God in a time when death surrounded them, the Black Death being only one of many ways those in the Middle Ages might meet their end. Peterson explores the art and literature from that era, as well as the words of Christian mystics who grappled with death directly, seeing this grappling as a way to draw closer to God, rather than avoiding the mystery of death altogether.

Awakened by Death also traces the shifting responses to death that have occurred in America over the last few centuries. Even architectural design once acknowledged the presence of wakes, where families would care for and honor a dead body in a home; over time, this sacred and familial ritual has been abrogated by far more austere funeral homes, where bodies can be embalmed and prepared with make-up to look still alive but sleeping.

Too often, our collective fear of death means we marginalize those who are suffering and on the precipice of dying. Aging bodies are reviled because they signal a kind of entropy; we are a culture obsessed with youth, Peterson writes, as a way “to numb ourselves against the mystery of our eventual decay.” We are conditioned to long for the certainty that death can be held at bay, rather than facing the uncertainty that life offers us, our end an enigma knowable only to God.

As I read Peterson’s deeply reported exploration of death, I was challenged to interrogate my own angry response to the pandemic, my lack of compassion for anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers and all those who persist in behaviors that have prolonged this pandemic, putting my loved ones at risk. Those who deny Covid’s deadly reality, or who insist that the vulnerable stay home so that everyone else can live, reflect an unwillingness to contend with sickness and death; an inability to look at and name human suffering; perhaps even an insistence that one’s own body will not succumb to the disease, despite all countervailing evidence suggesting we don’t fully know how Covid attacks people, or who will be stricken. This perspective suggests that even wearing a mask might be too much a symbol of our finitude, a reminder that we are all frail, all vulnerable. Denying the mask is not so much a response borne of freedom, but of fear.

Peterson’s Awakened to Death compels me to consider my own uncomfortable relationship with death; more significant to the moment, her words challenge me to transform my rage to empathy for those who claim they will not live in fear of Covid and death. I must wonder: are they paradoxically so afraid of illness and death they cannot—will not—accept that Covid has the power to kill them? What might happen if they accepted the reality of death, and do everything possible—even curtailing their personal liberty for a time—to make sure that others might live?

My aging canine has taken her own turn toward death, and we no longer take walks to the cemetery together. Yet Peterson’s Awakened to Death has given me hope in the same way springtime walks had, affording me insight into the resilience of humans throughout history and reminding me that our understanding of death—as our understanding of life—is itself transient.

In her epilogue, composed in spring 2020, Peterson writes that “the prophets and mystics of our church are needed more than ever, offering a theology that cares for the body, for our neighbors, for the earth, words that give truth, but also offer the strong flames of hope in such a frightening time.” Peterson’s book itself offers this prophetic voice, convicting me that in being awake to death, we can more certainly save others’ lives, as well as our own.

Oh God, Where Are You Now?

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 13:00:23 GMT

Editor’s Note: CW Suicide. If you are thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, the Suicide Prevention Lifeline network is available 24/7 across the United States. Call 1-800-723-8355.

Have you ever found yourself in utter physical darkness? Perhaps in an inner room when the lights go out? Or in the wilderness on an overcast night? Darkness presses in upon your eyes, and no matter how wide you stretch them, or which direction you turn, not one pinprick of illumination appears?

But, as you wait and listen, breathless in the still, another kind of “seeing” begins to take place. Your attention, usually so firmly centered behind your eyes, seems to rush, not only to your ears and fingertips—those “natural” reception centers—but also to a deeper set of senses that now become active as your body sends out previously unknown tentacles of awareness, perception, and recognition.

Suddenly, you find you’re not alone. The wall beside you . . . the tree behind you . . . the sky, the ground, your breath, they all become intensely tactile, full of pulsing energy. Stripped of physical vision, your surroundings become almost more intimate and real. You are awake in a new way.

This phenomenon is not unlike the intimate connection of Presence that somehow seems to arrive when we feel abandoned by God—or at least ‘God’ in the way we have known God up until now. If you’re on any kind of a spiritual journey, there inevitably comes a day when all the usual “lights” go out. God seems to stop answering. You find yourself suddenly alone.

Perhaps, like Christ, you experience abandonment of the usual supports. The social structures of government and church fail you (perhaps there’s a pandemic and vast social/political unrest). Friends and family, lost in their own fears, abandon you. You lose your job, a loved one dies, you experience painful poverty and provision doesn’t arrive. You fear the days, and anxiety fills your nights.

Then, even God drops out of view. You beg for a reprieve, longing for just one prayer to be answered—the foreclosure of your home not to go through, your marriage to survive. But the door seems locked and bolted. You search the dawn daily for new answers, but none arrive. The “lights” have all gone out, and so . . . you wait in the dark.

And then, after a time, a new kind of seeing begins to emerge. This time, from within. An awareness that comes through a deeper set of senses, that have now been summoned awake. An intimate knowing, closer than breath:

“I am not alone. You are here with me. Perhaps, somehow you even are me.”

Left all alone, with no outer ones to wrap their arms around us, we turn to our deepest self. Our attention that has always been firmly concentrated on looking out, or even up, now looks within. And there, surrounding our truest self, in our deepest heart, is God.

Maker. Source. Union. One—with us.

There is one more important thing to say about this place: the fear that it will last forever can feel excruciating. I won’t sugarcoat it: in my life this dark time lasted for about seven years. That’s a long time. There were moments, no months, when I just wanted to end my life because I couldn’t see an end to the barren space, and I wasn’t sure I could endure it anymore.

If you’re in that space now, please know there is life after this place. Rebirth will come. God’s promise of resurrection is true. Don’t give up. You are close to the land of living; and Life—the Source—is with you, always.

Kingdom of God, Kingdoms of Men

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 13:00:02 GMT

After I turned 18, my parents scheduled an appointment with my church’s pastor to counsel me on my new voting privileges. The year was 1984. I was counseled to vote for Ronald Reagan.

I don’t remember his reasons, something about the Republican party being the “best for the nation’s stability” while adding that voting Democrat “for local elections was acceptable.” It’s possible they all knew, even before I did, that this wouldn’t comport with my conscience. This “meeting” was a preemptive strike. It didn’t work. I did not vote for Reagan. (I didn’t vote for Mondale either, but that’s another digression.)

Those like me who grew up in the Evangelical tradition were conditioned to take comfort in certainties and dispel doubt with platitudes. This brand of Christianity specializes in bumper sticker confidence to quell questions about anything from scriptural literalism to cultural relativism. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” This is a literal bumper sticker.

The Evangelical Church and the Republican party bonded over caterwauling about family values and sanctity of life, even as leaders from both institutions failed to maintain the righteous standards of their own hypocrisy through public scandal in both camps. Yet the bond of religious nationalism grew so strong that Jesus became an inconvenient third wheel with his “love all, judge not, do good, welcome strangers” ethos. Better to call on the Jehovah of the old testament to validate war, imprison refugees, and create laws that enforce judgment on lifestyle identity, moral choice, and human desire.

Religious nationalism reached its zenith in this election cycle when Vice President Mike Pence actually altered sacred scripture and replaced “Jesus” with the American Flag in his RNC address this summer. “So let’s run the race marked out for us,” said Pence. “Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents.”

According to Pence’s own Evangelical theology, manipulating scripture to fit a political message would be akin to blasphemy. But more importantly, it crystallized the final consummation of church and state. The Evangelical Church’s support of a president who counters the life and teachings of Jesus actually makes sense when you take Jesus out of the equation. Then you can ignore the cruel, feckless, truthless, despotic, violent, abusive, petty, vindictive language of a dangerous charlatan who promises the Church what it wanted all along: power of judgement over others.

Yes, it would all be worth it to just get a conservative supreme court majority that would legalize the Church’s legalism. In fact, it was needed so badly, people were willing to make sure the president elect was “converted” before inauguration. The photo opts are cringeworthy. Thus the Church, a presumed sanctuary of peace, has allied itself with a force that continues to cultivate chaos to co-opt power.

As the Sunday School story goes, Samuel, prophet and last of the judges, led Israel until the people demanded a king lead them instead. God, through Samuel, warns the Israelites of the dangers of adopting the institutional structure of the surrounding kingdoms of men. Samuel and God reluctantly acquiesce, and Israel trades their prophetic judge for a warrior king, Saul. The church uses this story as a warning against aligning itself too closely with what is called “the kingdom of men” over the “kingdom of God.”

In a curious reversal, the Evangelical Church has courted a corrupt king in order to secure more judges. What neglectful irony, that a significant portion of the Church has supported this presidential anti-christian, in order to appoint judges to the highest court of the “Kingdom of Men,” while ignoring a central tenet of the Kingdom of God to “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” It preaches that only God can judge the human heart, while using political power to judge the moral will of all.

This craving of supreme, earthly, judgmental power explains the Evangelical Church’s political allegiance. At the Walk of Prayer, called “The Return,” in DC recently, leaders called for America to repent. Well, Church, it is time to look in the mirror, to “return.”

READ: True Prophecy in an Age of Deception

Repent for silence regarding abuse of political power.

Repent for silence regarding the use of violence by those who are to keep the peace.

Repent for silence regarding structural racism, xenophobia, and torture of enemies.

Repent for investing in the kingdom of powerful people in exchange for sharing that power.

Repent for the political support that was zealously given to power that further hurt those on the margins: immigrants, poor, homeless, indigenous, LGBTQ.

Repent for your exclusion of those who identify as LGBTQ who have every right to experience the full grace and love of God without any regard to sexual orientation.

Repent, Church.

How does this happen? Get a divorce. Leave the party of politics. File for separation. Return to your first love: Love your neighbor as yourself. Let your counselor be the First Amendment of the United States Constitution: the separation of church and state. Get back to the business of loving your neighbor instead of judging your neighbor. This should actually come as welcomed news for constitutional originalists, as “separation of church and state” is a key component to The First Amendment, a conveniently ignored tenant.

Continued allegiance to a president and party that requires a systematic dismantling of the very principles that Christ lived and died and rose again for will result in crucifying him all over again. And this time, his blood will be on the steeple of every church that promoted political agendas to gain access to the kingdom of men.

Emmanuel Understands Limitations

Sun, 20 Dec 2020 13:00:07 GMT

We are isolated, following the necessary orders to stay in our own spaces, confined in ways which chafe at our privilege to come and go as we please.

When Jesus took on the form of a human body, he did so fully accepting the limitations this would entail. He chose to become confined to movements of a physical body. The God who hovered over the surface of the deep in Genesis, who had ridden the clouds as a chariot, and who has unlimited power and freedom, gave it up to be one with us. As we sit in our homes, gazing longingly out the window, grieving all we have lost, it seems paltry in light of the kenosis – the emptying – of Jesus.

While rulers in Palestine at the time of Jesus’s coming clutched their power, the King-over-all was laying his down. He ushered in a new order, an upside-down kingdom. Instead of clinging to authority, he gave up all his advantages and rights as God in order to show us a new way.

We cannot even imagine the one who breathed life into the first human, gasping for breath at birth. As he did so, did Jesus remember watching as Adam took the first inhale? Or in his giving up, did he also relinquish this great storehouse of knowledge and memories?

How did it feel to go from painting the skies as the sun greets the morning, to learning how to write his name with stubby little boy fingers forming crude letters?

Jesus who existed outside of the restrictions of time, now confined to a small, uncoordinated body, having to grow within time’s slow rhythm. How hard must this have been for one who ruled over the distant galaxies, who created the platypus, and who stocked the oceans with myriad diverse and marvelous creatures.

Jesus relinquished his rights and privileges as God and chose to live as a human (while still remaining fully God). He lived within our human boundaries, choosing weakness and insignificance instead of his rights as King of Kings. “He is God-in-descent, God stepping into the context of humanity.” He willingly laid down all the things which separated him from us, and came to learn what it is to be us. He became the God who “moved into the neighborhood” as Eugene Peterson puts it.

READ: Midwives of a New World

These limitations became the very way Jesus was able to reconcile us to himself. It provided a way for him to know us fully. He could have come any way he wished, but he chose a body, much like our own. In doing so He gave great value to the human form. In a body, he could experience all of the sensations common to us. He did not remain distant from skinned knees, slivers, the stomach flu, the taste of salty sea air, and the feeling of sand between his toes. He felt it all. He also felt the pain of stakes driven through his wrists, and lungs gasping for breath. He gave his body for us. The motivation behind this is love. Jesus willingly embraced our restraints, gave up his power, to show us love.

We are angry and irritated with closing borders, limited flights, and mandatory quarantines. We are tired of wearing masks and remaining distant, and many of us will not be able to gather with our loved ones this Christmas. I wonder how much are we willing to relinquish our rights and freedoms out of love for another. Could we, as the people of Jesus, model the humility he showed when he gave up the treasures of heaven for us? Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me”. There are no half-hearted measures. The Kingdom of God is built by those who follow Jesus’s upside-down way. We will be the first to release our rights in order to protect another, to choose limitations so others’ lives can be spared. When we think we are being asked to give up too much, will we look to Jesus as our measure?

Instead of reacting out of our entitlement and frustration at how things are, we can choose to accept the confines of this season as a way forward. These restrictions can be tools in the hands of God as Jesus realigns us to his way. A season of refining, of stripping bare, so that we could live in complete dependence on the God who chose limitation for us.

Hope’s Beautiful Daughters

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 13:00:20 GMT

“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” -Augustine of Hippo

Donald Trump may have lost the election, but it looks like Trumpism is here to stay. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined a well-defined ideology characterized by nativism, white supremacy, and conspiracy theories, embraced by American Evangelical leaders. Now “Patriot Churches” are a thing. In reading their propaganda, I see no Jesus. Their platform is just an extension of the Religious Right’s crusade to condemn the LGBTQ community and maintain the power of the status quo. Hate didn’t disappear with the election results; it’s just flexing its muscles within the sanctuary walls.

“You can’t go home again,” is the sad reality for many Ex-vangelicals like me.

In these past few weeks, I’ve been giving a lot of thought and prayer into what comes next. Like most Americans, living through 2020 has left me exhausted. Almost seventeen million Americans have been infected with COVID-19, and over 300,000 have died. Black people continue to be disproportionately murdered without consequence. Poor children continue to go hungry. The rich continue to grow richer, and with the spread of COVID out of control, the number of “less fortunate” Americans is increasing exponentially.

So what’s a Christian to do?

That’s what I will be exploring in the next few weeks. Certainly, the election results are eliciting reactions from both sides. But as a follower of Jesus Christ, I should have a default behavior. Hope used to be my baseline response. I wore my innocence and trust in Christianity like a sparkly garment, woven from the shimmering threads of my relationship with Jesus and life as part of a church. After three years of believing the Evangelicals would come to their senses, Hope’s daughter Anger blew in from out of town. She surprised me with her power, ripping the fabric of my beautiful cloak away and exposing the reality of politics and religion. She and I left the shredded remnant hanging by the sanctuary door.

Months later, my former church family is still married to Donald; together, they’re birthing Patriot Churches. I’m afraid the massive damage to the Evangelical establishment cannot be undone. The wreckage of relationships smokes in the ruins. Sunday mornings are now spent at the supermarket. With COVID running rampant, it’s hard to form new social groups, and the loneliness is exacerbated by isolation. It’s tempting to throw in the towel on finding a new Jesus-based community.

However, I haven’t given up just yet. Recently I was listening to a podcast from a fellow Christian outcast, and he shared the Augustine quote about Hope’s daughters.

Without meaning to, I had invited Anger to spend the last year helping me cope with this tragedy. Her power helped me reach beyond my technological limits and find ways to fight on a national level. She coaxed me out of my comfort zone as well as my tiny little town. I am grateful for the time we spent together, but I believe I have learned everything she had to teach me.

Now I’m inviting her sister, Courage, to come stay for a while.

Courage’s broad following is nothing new, but she’s breaking fresh ground among Ex-vangelicals. Many former believers have given up on Christianity, but we must fight devolving into sofa spuds. We who are still on firm footing with Jesus Christ must pray without ceasing for new direction. Young people are this disaster’s greatest casualties. My husband and I hear from them all time: kids from our Sunday School classes, now in their twenties and thirties, who watch in disbelief as their parents continue to follow the pillars of Evangelicalism-turned-Trumpism. All we can tell them is this:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”- Hebrews 13:8 NIV

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things through his powerful word.”- Hebrews 1:3 NIV

We ask them to keep talking to God. We urge them to keep reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s life and teachings. We pray for them. And if we don’t give up, hopefully they won’t either.

READ: True Prophecy in an Age of Deception

Leaving Anger for Courage

I want to spend more time learning from people who lived out real courage. In searching for a quote, I discovered Mary MacLeod Bethune (1875-1955). Mrs. Bethune was an American stateswoman, educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, civil rights activist, and a national adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Known as “The First Lady of the Struggle,” this daughter of slaves changed the world in a time when women of color had no voice and, seemingly, no power.

She said, “We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.”

I suspect Mary MacLeod Bethune spent time in Anger’s company but used what she learned with Courage against what must have appeared to be impossible odds. I, on the other hand, am a white middle-class American. To give up the fight, no matter how dark the forecast, would be a self-centered and lazy waste of my God-given gifts and an insult to the brave warriors who have gone before me. The American Evangelical landscape appears littered with broken relationships, and our leaders have revealed their all-too-human quests for power. But Jesus is still King. His Word still stands. His glory still shines. His power still conquers. And most importantly, His grace still covers us—me, Religious Right leaders, Trump-supporting neighbors, estranged family members, all of us who have lost something in the fight.

As we approach winter’s coldest days, I have sewn a new cloak to wear. This one’s not sparkly with the naïveté of 2016. Instead, she’s heavier; woven with a fresher awareness of racism, threaded with dark strands of rebellion I wear in solidarity. Her rainbow buttons serve to remind me that all of God’s children deserve equal rights and to be part of a family. The collar is ratty and torn, stained with the blood of the desperate and ripped by razor wire. This isn’t a coat I would have worn to church four years ago.

But I should have. Jesus would love this coat, and his opinion is all that matters.

True Prophecy in an Age of Deception

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 21:22:22 GMT

Fear and anxiety abound in these days of global pandemic, a US presidential election, natural disasters related to climate change, and economic insecurity. People are searching for explanations, advice as to how to best prepare, spiritual direction, and prophetic counsel. There’s a vulnerability to deception, and false prophecy abounds, visible in declarations endorsing candidates, conspiracy theories like QAnon, and political promises and prognoses. Jesus offers strong warnings to his disciples:

“See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.” (Mat 24:4-5)

These “many” who come in Jesus’s name who “mislead” can include those who claim to be Christian prophets themselves—even a majority of them.

In a number of places in the Old Testament hundreds of “court” prophets stand with Israel’s King, over-and-against a lone prophet who speaks for God. Each king of Israel was anointed by a prophet and called Messiah/Christ (meaning “anointed”). God’s prophets brought words of challenge, direction, and rebuke—unless they were co-opted, which has largely happened now in the USA.

King Ahab gathered together 400 prophets, who prophesied success and counseled war. The lone, largely unknown prophet Micaiah is then consulted, who prophesied that Ahab would be killed in the battle—which subsequently happened (1 Kgs 22:6, 13-17, 37). Amos, Jeremiah, and others too stood alone, vastly outnumbered before a majority of prophets who stood with Israel’s king– a warning to not trust the validity of prophetic declarations based on who is all agreeing. God’s Kingdom does not operate based on majority opinion.

Ezekiel is called by the Lord to expose and prophesy against false prophets with words that ring true today.

“Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy from their own inspiration, Listen to the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God, ‘Woe to the foolish prophets who are following their own spirit and have seen nothing'” (Ez 13:2-3).

“They see falsehood and lying divination who are saying, ‘The Lord declares,’ when the Lord has not sent them; yet they hope for the fulfillment of their word” (Ez 13:6).

Jeremiah too, strongly critiques Israel’s false prophets:

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord’” (Jer 23:16).

“They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord has said, “You will have peace”’; And as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’ “But who has stood in the council of the Lord, that he should see and hear his word? Who has given heed to his word and listened” (Jer 23:17-18)?

In Ezekiel 14 idolatry is identified as blocking prophecy. Ezekiel critiques the people and prophets who hold idols in their hearts, that keep them from seeing and hearing from God.

“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all’” (Ez 14:2-3)?

Setting up an idol in our heart can easily happen whenever we elevate anything or anyone other than the revelation of God in Jesus to a place of prominence in our hearts. Materialism, nation, ethnicity, money, self, political party, ideology can all become idols. Human leaders are often deified, and Scripture prohibits this idolatry.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them” (Exodus 20:2-5).

Endorsing, pledging one’s allegiance, and putting undue hope and trust in a human leader counts as “worshipping and serving,” and idolatry that must be named and renounced. Jeremiah’s words ring as a highly relevant warning at this moment in America.

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Cursed is the person who trusts in humankind and makes flesh their strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For they will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant'” (Jer 17:5-6).

Jesus himself warns against going after human leaders who claim to save.

“Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.”

The equivalent of saying “I am the Christ” is to say something like: “I am the one who will make you [or America] great again,” or “I am the one who will bring you prosperity.” Prophesies circulating now stating that a particular candidate will bring America (or any nation) back to God” or be the Jehu to rid the land of Jezebels mislead and must be exposed as false.

When Christians publicly endorse or prophesy in favor of a political leader, candidate or party as God’s choice, regardless of the values they embody, there’s a slippery elevation of that leader into a savior or Christ status, and their values (USA, constitution, constituency) easily becomes the false presence of God’s Kingdom.

READ: Love is the Most Important Command

When any thing or person takes the place of total devotion to Jesus as Savior and Christ in a believer’s heart, then people will prophesy “from their own inspiration,” “following their own spirit,” “of their own imagination,” “in the stubbornness of one’s own heart.” If false prophetic words end up being seen as fulfilled, then the body of Christ will be in even more danger of going further into deception and entering a false presence of God’s Kingdom.

Jesus states bluntly: “Do not go after them” (Lk 21:8)

The way forward into faithful adherence to God’s counsel begins with a commitment to total trust in only God, as Jeremiah states:

“Blessed is the person who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For they will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit” (Jer 17:7-8).

God’s Word through Ezekiel to those with idols in their hearts is bold and clear:

“Thus says the Lord God, ‘Repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations’” (Ez 14:6).

Ezekiel himself models a prophetic posture that is rooted in the following commitments.

1. Rootedness in a community of exiles. Ezekiel’s ministry is “among the exiles” by the river Chebar in Babylon (Ez 1:1) and not “among the powerful” at the top. Court prophets were informed from above, by news sources friendly to the privileged. They told the king and the people what he and they wanted to hear. In contrast, Ezekiel spoke from his friendship with slaves, prisoners and the excluded—who were experiencing firsthand the failures of the dominant powers. This gave him a perspective “from below.”

2. Divine revelation. The heavens were opened over Ezekiel, enabling him to receive visions from God, rather than ones inspired by his own spirit. The Word of the Lord came to him personally, right where he was among the exiles (Ez 1:1-2).

3. Perceiving God in human form. When Ezekiel caught sight of the heavenly throne, upon which there was “a figure with the appearance of a man” (Ez 1:26), and “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord,” he was completely humbled, writing: “I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking” (Ez 1:28).

4. Hear God for yourself. Ezekiel heard the voice speak to him personally: “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!” This was followed by God’s Spirit empowering him to do so: “As he spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet and I heard speaking to me” (Ezek 2:1).

5. Being sent by God. Once standing at attention before the voice of God, Ezekiel was then positioned to receive his sending, with precise instructions. The distinctive mark of a true prophet is being sent by God.

6. Speaking God’s Words on difficult missions. “Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, I am sending you to the sons of Israel [the people of God], to a rebellious people who have rebelled against me; they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. I am sending you to them who are stubborn and obstinate children, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God’” (Ez 2:3-4).

7. Faithfulness despite opposition. “As for them, whether they listen or not—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

8. Fearless obedience. God tells Ezekiel: “neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their presence, for they are a rebellious house. “But you shall speak My words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious” (Ez 2:6-7).

9. Continuous receiving of spiritual nourishment from God’s Word. “Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.” Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me; and lo, a scroll was in it”(Ez 2:8-9).

10. Ongoing empowerment by the Spirit. Ezekiel is then led by the Spirit to bring God’s distinct messages to places where God sends him (Ez 3:12).

Jesus himself outlines the future, with no illusions of glory or prophesies of nations becoming great. Matthew 24 presents a highly relevant prognosis for our times.

“You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Mat 24:6-14).

Now is the time to offer our total devotion to God, standing before God to receive direct counsel, messages, and be sent on missions. May we be careful to not be misled in these perilous times, listening instead to God’s distinct communications. May we fix our eyes on Jesus, the only Christ and Savior of the world. May we attend to the preaching of Jesus’s message of the kingdom “to the whole world as a testimony to all the nations” as our primary mission until the end.

Love is the Most Important Command

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 20:51:25 GMT

This is my command: Love. – John 15:17

With this one statement, Jesus made it all really simple. It was never about following the rules. It was never about trying to be good enough. It was never about being right or having it all figured out. Jesus told us to love.

He told us that love is what it’s always been about. All the Law and the Prophets and every command issued from the mouth of God was about love—love for God and love for others, which always go hand in hand. (Matt. 22:37-40)

But we have a way of taking something so simple and complicating it. We argue about the right interpretation of words on a paper. We argue about the proper way to worship. We argue about who is most deserving of the glory. We argue about who should be kept out. We don’t seem to believe that it could really be so simple.

Or maybe it’s just that the simple command demands too much from us. It seems easier to check off the boxes. It seems safer to draw distinct lines around who is in and who is out. It seems more secure to build our own tower to heaven.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13

In this passage, we hear what real love is like. Real love requires sacrifice. It requires that we give of ourselves, that we lay down our desires and our comfort for the sake of others. Love is not a just a fuzzy feeling that is meant to satisfy us. Love is an action that reflects to the recipients their worth. It shows them that they are worthy of our time, our resources, our acceptance. Love involves risk. It can be challenging and messy.

Maybe we fear that love is a zero-sum game, that if we give of ourselves there might not be anything left for us. But love is not about self-abnegation. Love is about upholding the image of God within me and also within the other. Love is what leads to my flourishing and to yours as well. Love is what sets us all free. It’s how we experience the new life that Jesus promised.

READ: God’s Up to Something: Laboring in Expectation

Jesus came to put this self-giving love on full display. He came to show us how God loves us so that we might learn how to love others. Jesus’s love was broad and inclusive. It was extravagant and surprising. It encompassed the “sinners” and the “saints,” those who thought they were holier than thou and those who seemed to be too far gone. His love melted hearts of stone, and it threatened long-held power structures. His love was revolutionary.

That’s the same love that we are called to live out. That’s what it means to follow Jesus. Love should be our greatest motivator and the most steadfast guidepost to which we always return. If we live our lives learning what it means to love, I think that will be enough.

We can’t manage this love on our own. We cannot give what we have not received. It’s not about earning and striving. Rather, it’s about receiving the truth that we are loved just as we are. It’s about living in the reality that God loved us so much that he gave everything to be with us and to set us free. It’s the embodiment of that truth that allows us to love others. We love because we are loved, and we recognize that everyone is just as worthy of love as we are.

If a day comes when we stand before God and give an account of our lives, I don’t think we’ll be asked which denomination or political party we claimed. I don’t think we’ll be asked where we landed on atonement theory or if we believed that creation really happened in a literal seven days. I think the question that we’ll have to answer is: “Did you love?”

Did we believe Jesus when he said that love was the most important command? Did we give of ourselves to make sure that others had what they needed? Did we welcome the stranger? Did we feed the hungry? Did we uphold the dignity of God’s image in the prisoner and the immigrant and the trans woman? Did we love our enemies even when it cost us something?

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:13