Category Archives: Doing Theology

Jesus will face your shame with you

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My most-recent favorite book is Face to Face: Knowing God Beyond Our Shame (2023) by Fr. Stephen Freeman. Freeman is an archpriest in the Orthodox Church in America so, for me, he adds an interesting lens to look at life in Christ. I admit I am more familiar with the “Orthodox” church of the first 500 years of Christianity than I am with the one growing up in the United States, so I am enjoying his helpful reframing of how we understand shame through informed by some very old theology with some psychology thrown into the mix.

Jesus enters our shame

The Bible beautifully describes how Jesus is healing our toxic shame and teaching us to endure the reformative and sometimes transformative value of our natural shame responses. Freeman says:

The drama of salvation is described in this divine reversal: God has come among us in Christ, emptying Himself of His glory. Instead of glory, He enters into shame—even the shameful death of the Cross. And entering into that shameful death, He destroys death and ascends in glory. He conquers death by death. He overcomes shame by shame.

That summary may sound a bit foreign to your ears, not because it is foreign to the Bible, but because most American Christians have been taught Jesus came to solve our sin problem. We’ve been taught that sin leads to death rather than death leads to shame and then sin. But look at two iconic pieces of scripture on the subject and see where the Bible starts the discussion:

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. — Isaiah 50:6 (RSV)

Jesus is the suffering one Isaiah was talking about. He did not hide from the shame we experience, like we do. Many newer English translations trade the word “shame” here for “insults,” keeping the experience about abuse from oppressors. But the older versions are more correct, I think. Because there is an inner experience of injury to the soul the Messiah is entering as well as an outer. The Orthodox Jewish Bible expands it well for us:

I [Moshiach] offered My gev (back) to them that deliver blows, and My lekhi (cheeks) to them that pulled out [the beard]: I hid not My face from kelimot (humiliations, shame) and rok (spitting, saliva).

Paul makes it clear that the Savior‘s main target for our redemption is our shame. Jesus frees us from our slavery to death and sets humanity on a corrected course toward the fullness of our glory. Jesus left his joy and freedom behind in order to become small enough to fit into our shrunken humanity, bound by the shame of our bondage. He did not dominate us with his splendor

but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
     he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross. — Phil 2:7-8

So please dial down the punitive theology

Since the lawyers and governmental types took over theology in the 1600’s, the preponderant image of the Lord’s work on the cross has been penal, meaning it is a courtroom drama. It says we are sinners who deserve to be punished and only God can stand in for us. He takes our blame because someone needs to be blamed. The most important thing is: who is right and who has rights.

The substitution analogy is not useless. But it breaks down if you push it too far, since it would mean the work of Jesus was about God not being able to let injustice pass unpunished, so he punished himself (or, as some object, abused his Son). What’s more, the actual perpetrators of sin do not receive the “justice” warranted since someone else took it. The Bible does paint the substitutionary atonement picture in serval places, but I think it was meant to be more metaphor than logistics. Paul, in particular, thinks law, in general, and the Mosaic Law, in particular, is a tutorial for something greater, not an everlasting rubric, since Jesus is the definition of the law and the law is love.

Rather than just solving the problem of sin and the resulting guilt, Jesus is entering our shame. In our era people have solved the problem of sin by acting shamelessly. Donald Trump is the flowering of that method. I have often said that Larry David was the prophet of that new “freedom.” But even though people have tried to change the subject, shame keeps bubbling up. My clients keep revealing to me how our trouble with shame will never be “rediscovered” after this generation is done with its version of fig leaves; it is an ongoing, core experience everyone has been weathering since childhood. It is setting the course of our relationships and coloring how we see ourselves. Freeman says,

We are unaccustomed in our culture to thinking of sin and shame as sharing a connection. We have been formed and shaped in the world of guilt and punishment. If we experience shame, we suppose, it is because other people are seeking to shame us. Thus we are likely to imagine that the shame in our lives is external, the result of social ills. If we fix society, our shame will disappear. This is not a surprising approach, given that our habits have long been directed toward sin as an external problem. But other people, regardless of our situation, are not our problem. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” He must not have spent much time alone.

We are carrying the problem — and it is not just about doing the right thing or not. Our problem is about not being in right relationship with God, ourselves and others. Our lack of communion with God leaves us ashamed of our fraudulence and incapacity.

It is death that shames us

Back when I was a boy Baptist, sin was that main topic. There was a list of things in the back of the hymnal we were to do and not to do if we intended to be a heaven-bound Baptist. The covenant included being “exemplary in our deportment” (which in our church included not dancing, smoking or card playing), and  abstaining “from the sale and use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage” (which is self-explanatory). Our leaders had been influenced by the “holiness doctrine” that purported to perfect us and we determined to be pure. I was ashamed of not being pure and I was not that bad before I was given the assignment!

The theology was so much about me choosing, the whole thing became more about my holiness than God’s! It took a long time to learn the Adam and Eve story is not about “You idiots, you disobeyed God and now you will be punished forever when you could have had the  Garden of Eden!” It is more about “You poor people! You got out of communion with God. You turned your backs and now you are dying. You were meant to live forever.” My shame was not about my inability to do everything right. It was about being out of communion with God. With my non-Christian clients I can help identify the shame, which is often hidden under self-destruction or avoidance. But it is hard to cure it if one goes at it on their own steam, even when your therapist loves you! Freeman says:

Sin is much better understood as disease, fatal in its consequences. Sin, in a form of shorthand, can be described as “death at work within us.” At its most fundamental level, sin is the rupture of communion. We were created for a life of communion with God. In our sin, we have severed that communion and become strangers to God. Indeed, we have become strangers not only to God but to creation, to other people, even to ourselves. In an interesting side note, the secular shame researcher Gershen Kaufman describes shame as “broken communion.” Shame itself is not sin (or even sinful). Rather, it is an emotional signal that accompanies severed communion. It is, therefore, one of the things that sin feels like.

In John 6, Jesus teaches us about the mystery of communion with Him.

 “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. . . . Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” — John 6:51, 53–56

I think my childhood teachers taught on these verses. But I think they were mainly talking , as usual, about how Jesus would raise us up on the last day if we trusted in his work on the cross. For me, and many others I suspect, most of what was happening in the mind of my teachers happened in the past. The communion ceremony was like the pledge of allegiance to the Christian constitution more than an emblem of the present communion we were experiencing and deepening. As I remember, if one didn’t “take communion” it usually meant they were too ashamed of themselves to dare. Ugh.

The shame of not being qualified to take communion due to sin and shame turns the Lord’s teaching on its head, doesn’t it? Jesus invites us to live, not die — the fact that we may be as good as dead right now is his main interest. No matter how much we think our good behavior or genius will keep us alive, we are all going to die — that is, we will be given over to the death we prefer if we do not commune with Jesus and live forever with him. Freeman says:

We were created to live in communion with God. His life is our life. When we read about the creation of Adam, we see that he becomes a “living soul” when God breathes into him. Without the life of God, we are dead clay. The warning regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is not a threat of punishment; rather, it is a warning that eating of it will result in death. To break communion with God by ignoring His commandment is to live as though we had no need of God. It is to spit His breath back at Him and demand that we live alone. The result is death, and with the alienation of death, we enter into its companion: shame.

Communion with God is a breath by breath, moment by moment, day by day, year after year experience of discerning and moving with the Spirit. Not doing that is the essence of sin and the seed of the frailty and worthlessness we experience as shame. I do think people perfect their capacity to be OK with their shame. But I say human life without God is, in the end, no life at all, even if some people purport to be happy with their self-selected nothingness.

If you sit down with your frailty, worthlessness or nothingness, you might feel an intolerable shame well up in the silence. Memories, faults, criticisms, or scorn might start collecting. Jesus will enter that place in you just as he willingly and lovingly entered humanity. His presence is divine therapy that heals our shame. As Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

***********

Today is Aidan of Lindisfarne Day! Connect with him at The Transhistorical Body.

 

A new church is emerging post-pandemic: Even in TEC

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Our church is reading an interesting sociology book by Christian Smith: Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America. We had a good discussion on Sunday, and I admire my pastor for bringing up what amounts to a delicate subject: your church is obsolete.  We agreed that our church, The Episcopal Church, has, generally, been obsolete for years. If it were not so well endowed we’d be in big trouble.

Nevertheless, we have strengths. Our church, in particular, is a small group of intelligent, hard-working and openly loving people. We’re mostly over 55 — but our pastor is 45 and my wife was having a conversation during coffee hour with a lovely member who is 5.

Two comments are sticking with me

I came away from our dialogue encouraged and stimulated. People said some interesting things.

  • “I belonged to the church for quite a while before I believed.”

In this day, especially, if anyone is going to become part of the church, belonging probably precedes believing.

  • “Why aren’t we writing our own songs instead of rehearsing the past?”

Our pastor noted the present hymn book of TEC was published the year he was born and has not been updated. My wife pointed out that the composers whose songs are in the hymnbook wrote from the zeitgeist and inspiration of their day.  I noted that the 1660 hymn we had just sung that morning probably sounded fresh in its century, but is it sure weird and boring now.

So Smith is helping us get into some good discussion. If anything is overdo in most churches, it is discussing what are we going to do, now, since our model for being the church is obsolete. It may have been misguided to begin with and that is WHY it is obsolete. Regardless, if we want to be the body of Christ with any integrity and purpose, we’d better come up with what were are called to do now.

Further dialogue will meet up with difficulty

I think most dialogue is good, even when it is bad. The fact it can uncover problems on the way to solving them, makes conflict-avoidant folks steer away from it. For instance, I have issues with the book we’re exploring and I feel reticent to share them. I’m not sure I respect Smith’s methods and conclusions. My issues  can be encapsulated in two words: traditional religion. Smith is a 65-year-old Roman Catholic professor at Notre Dame. So when he talks about “traditional religion” (throughout this book) he is smack dab in the middle of one. I think it shows.

1) When he talks about “religion” (like in his book title), he’s actually talking about American faith, which means Christianity. Religion is a modern concept which reinforces the notion people have that “all religions are basically alike.” They think that because European intellectuals “identified” them and put them in the same category: “religions” in the 1800’s – genus and species, etc.

2) When he talks about “traditional” he seems to mean “mainstream” or “what the TV might say about it.” I think that term should have been obsolete a long time ago when it came to describing the church — at least in Christian circles. Now that I have met hundreds and seen thousands of Christians around the world, it is hard to nail down “traditional.” I think stereotypic Christianity, or enculturated Christianity, or hollow Christianity, or modern Christianity might all be obsolete. Jesus, however, is historically and  presently hanging in there.

But the main thing Smith’s book is missing, in my opinion, comes from being so autobiographical. This book appeared in 2025. But he is really talking about what happened during his lifetime – forty years of studying the data. Much of what he is saying follows up on his books in 2000 and 2005 (George Bush). While I admire him for writing about most of the controversial topics of his day, I get the impression his latest book is kind of out of date. It is light on our recent past.

Any inspiration in a spiritual storm is welcome

I’m not prone to “going to church,”  but discussing Smith’s book juiced my normal devotion to building the church. Two things I found missing in his book may be just what we dare not miss as we live out our lives as the body of Christ in the post-Trump era.

  • Transcendence may be the missing element

What people need to to find when they explore faith in Jesus is transcendence and belonging, not sociological data dumps and critical conclusions. Smith’s sociology, itself,  actually sounds a bit obsolete. In an age of mistrust, he asks us to trust his very rational argument.

Experts will not save the church from becoming “obsolete,” which it will never be and is not now. The church in the U.S. Smith is painstakingly criticizing (objectively of course) undoubtedly needed to go as soon as Ronald Reagan pretended to be a part of it and Evangelicals bent the knee anyway. It needed to die when it became about power, not love and service – and martyrdom.

  • All our dialogue needs to consider how people’s lives are pre- and post-pandemic, now.

The pandemic changed everything. It was like the tornado-like storm in our part of town  last weekend — it toppled dead trees that could not stand the wind. The pandemic damaged our societal infrastructure. And it undermined the fragile new growth of the next church.

As soon as Reagan became president, thousands of young people saw the handwriting on the wall and started building a new church; I was among them. They did well. I think I did well and hundreds with me. But we did well before the pandemic. It was amazing what that storm did to all those new expressions. The impact resembles what happened in the Black Plague in 1347 — that year marks the big outbreak of bubonic plague, which hung around for centuries, and you can still get it. People thought strangers caused caused the plague. Europeans said Jews were poisoning the wells. The church abandoned the public roles that made it a mainstay in the culture and people felt alone. Social disparities were exposed: the wealthy could escape to their country places but the poor (essential workers”) had to stay in their roles — just one example of many. The church had been a big part of what glued the society together and it came unglued.

Covid is not the bubonic plague, but the experience sounds quite similar, doesn’t it? The enculturated church fractured with society. I was personally shocked and dismayed at how the new, unenculturated churches started fighting and splitting, not just my own. They threw out great leaders and installed leaders who resembled the powermonger Trump. Good grief, the country elected Trump! (maybe). I  think Smith’s whole book basically leads up to the tragedy of Covid.

He observes how the church is diminishing, mainly tracking membership and attendance over his lifetime. He’s kind of shouting from the deck of the Titanic — for every 100 new Catholics, 800 leave the church. If he evacuated his viewpoint, he could just as easily tracked the groundswell of attention to what is transcendent during his lifetime. The emerging churches were all focused on transcendence and community, just what his studies show the obsolete church is missing. They got knocked out by the pandemic and the subsequent tsunami of social fragmentation caused by the unmasked sociopaths in charge. But that desire is still there.

Even our little group in TEC was saying “emerging things.” Belonging and finding one’s path into transcendence, into an actual, personal experience of the Spirit and eventually into a life in love with God is just what the church, nontraditional, of course, disempowered and marginalized, was doing all along. And that is what it is still doing wherever it gets a chance. It is getting a chance right now, since the previous church that Smith eulogizes is quickly dying out, even if it has an endowment and Pete Hegseth thinks he’s protecting it.

Are there really good billionaires?

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Life as the church

Yes, I know you can make an argument for how someone can be “good” in some way even though they are a billionaire. Yes, I know it is a fallen world and strict accountability for anything is going to run into ethical thorns.

But, come on, if you had 5 million dollars (and how would you ever get that?), you would consider yourself free from worry for life (unless you invested it all in Trump crypto). A person with only ONE billion dollars has 200 times your $5 million. Elon Musk has 700 times one billion! It is staggering, right?

There should not be a democracy in which billionaires accompany the president to China instead of elected representatives of the people.

There should not be a system in which people become billionaires, at all. We live in such a system and it is not from the Lord.  I added “it is not from the Lord” because people seem to think capitalism descended from heaven — it just is what it is, so you can be good or bad in it. No, an economic system might be used well, but ours is a human conception run by sociopaths, for the most part. The poster child is the president.

I will do a little bit to convince you of that in a second, but first, the complaining.

I got to writing this piece because the women of Indivisible, of all things, posted a picture of “Good Billionaires Who Give Back.” Think about that.

  1. Did you give the billionaires your money so they could give it back? I doubt it — at least not on purpose.
  2. Do you really think the billionaires “earned” their billions like you do or they “made ” it out of the thin air of their genius? I doubt it.
  3. Don’t you think they took it? Their “giving back” is reparations, at the very least. They schemed and competed and defeated and cornered markets up in their higher echelons of “finance” where we do not have the money to pay to play.

Elon Musk once provided some bullet points for how to get rich like he did:

  • Focus on usefulness: “It’s better to approach this from the standpoint of saying… what are some useful things that you do that you wish existed in the world?”

I suppose the world really needed Warren Buffet’s multibillion dollar holding company focused on making money by acquiring undervalued entities to get a snowball of wealth-building moving.

  • Solve hard problems: “You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve.”

I suppose Tom Steyer’s Fallon Capital Hedge Fund “casino” for the ultra-wealthy operating on the edges of ethicality in fossil fuels and private prisons really solved a societal problem. I think it only solved how to make more money regardless of the consequences.

  • Embrace persistence: “Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.”

Several of the “good billionaires” listed got their billions without lifting a finger — no persistence necessary. With the Federal government acting as a subsidiary of the billionaires, no one is going to force a billionaire to do anything. Bush and Obama just bailed them out, since they were too big to fail, too big to hold accountable.

Is Jesus making a list of good billionaires?

From the perspective of Jesus’ teachings, calling someone a “good billionaire” is problematic, at best. The Gospels make it clear that the accumulation of extreme, hoarded wealth is deeply opposed to the kingdom of God. Whether a billionaire is “saved” is up to God’s justice and grace, so if that’s the definition of “good” than so be it. But if good is living according to what Jesus says and demonstrates as good, then “good” and “billionaire” are contradictory.

What Jesus said about wealth is well known. I grew up with people who always had a “but” right after they said what Jesus said about wealth. But we all know.

  • Wealth is a tempting idol. You cannot serve both God and wealth (Matthew 6:24). Billionaires need to serve wealth-making to become billionaires.
  • Living in the kingdom of God as a wealthy person is almost impossible. The famous story of the rich young ruler has driven many Christian parents to be very anxious when their 17-year-olds read it, since they were preparing them to make it in the world as it is. Jesus explained, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).
  • It is better give than to receive (or take, or make, or hoard). In the exchange with the young man, Jesus told him to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor, prioritizing radical charity over material security. In other places he says “Don’t build bigger barns. Don’t lay up treasures on earth. Give what you have been given.” He is not mysterious about this.

Many theologians and ethicists argue that it is structurally impossible to be a “good billionaire” according to Christian ethics.

  • Nothing is good about systemic inequality. Critics argue that possessing billions of dollars while billions live in poverty amounts to hoarding resources, which fundamentally violates Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself.

Patricia Chan is in the list above. She co-founded the Chan/Zuckerberg Initiative with her husband, the famous Mark, pledging to put 99% of their Facebook shares in this LLC. Their mission is science, education, and opportunity — housing affordability, criminal justice reform, and immigration reform. They want to “build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone” and to “advance human potential and promote equality in areas such as health, education, scientific research and energy.” Sounds like the work for an elected government not super rich 40somethings. It also sounds like you put 99% of certain funds in an LLC, but you still control it all as a profit-making possibility.

  • They are robber barons. Critics also say no one can legitimately acquire a billion dollars without some degree of labor exploitation, market manipulation, or systemic extraction.

George Soros made his fortune primarily through aggressive global macro investing and currency speculation as a hedge fund manager. His Quantum Fund made his wildest trade in 1992, when he correctly bet the British government would be forced to devalue the pound. You may not know how this works, but by heavily shorting the pound with borrowed money, his fund single-handedly forced the UK out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and made an estimated $1 billion in profit. He’s “the man who broke the Bank of England.”

Can their be a democracy when a billionaire has such power? Making the most money is the law of the system and they pull the triggers.

The same logic that says “guns do not shoot themselves” and “the unborn have a right to life” says that individuals have a responsibility to be good. All people need to steward their money and do good with it. If some end up billionaires, that’s due to their goodness.

To be fair, it can be (and is) argued that wealth itself is not inherently sinful.

  • What is in your heart matters. They point out that the Bible does not focus on how much money one has, but whether or not you love it (1 Timothy 6:10). If you don’t read the Old Testament through a New Testament lens then wealthy figures like Abraham and King Solomon are “blessed” rich people (but not the non-Jew, Belshazzar!).

Elon Musk is respected among Evangelicals for just such a reason, he has purportedly good motives and good ends in mind. They respect him despite him being well-known for stiffing vendors, skipping office rent payments, and pushing testing and manufacturing timelines past regulatory limits.

  • The more one has the more is required. If a billionaire sees themselves as “managing” the wealth they have been given rather than owning it, and uses their resources to create jobs, fund charities, and uplift the marginalized, their wealth can be used for good.

Iranian-American Pierre Omidyar has a reputation built on this premise. He and his wife, Pam have given $1.2 billion dollar to impact investments and nonprofits since 2004.

The answer is “no.” Billionaires are not good. 

Jesus did not say that wealthy people are automatically condemned (regardless of the tenor of this post). He did not say it is theoretically impossible for them to be saved.

But with every teaching, parable and example he showed how difficult it is for rich individuals to remain humble, detached from their possessions, and reliant on God. When God was revealed in Jesus, his self-giving, impoverishing servanthood lead him to the cross, not a transhuman search for A.I. eternal life.

It is self-giving love that is good. But it won’t make you a billionaire. According to Jesus, wealth is a massive spiritual burden, and a “good billionaire” would have to actively sacrifice their fortune to the service of others to fulfill His teachings. As is regularly noted, men without a conscience make the best billionaires and those who retain one often have to smother it to keep their power or satisfy greedy stockholders.

 

a friend chimed in elsewhere:

What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?

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It is hard to know “what to do” with anyone, of course. But we are going to do something, regardless. So we should get it as right as we can.

When it comes to what we’re going to do with corrupt leaders, and I can name a few, there are many wrong ways to go. But every way makes a difference. You matter. And if this is how you think about that: unfortunately, you matter.

I think the last sixteen months have been a whirlwind of wrongness. So I am writing to add to the opprobrium which is daily launched in the direction of wrongdoers. We all might be a little wrong; but don’t worry, the Bible will help you.

Prophesying to the drivers in Ardmore

The first answer to “What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?” should probably come from Jeremiah: TELL THE TRUTH, as in PROPHESY!

This is a part of the Bible that especially inspired me last week:

The wise shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed and taken;
since they have rejected the word of the Lord,
    what wisdom is in them?
Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
    everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
They have treated the wound of the daughter of my people carelessly,
    saying, “Peace, peace,”
    when there is no peace.
They acted shamefully; they committed abomination,
    yet they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
    at the time when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
            says the Lord. — Jeremiah 8:9-12

The first answer to the question presumes people who follow Jesus would not take corruption lightly any more than Jesus did. He was especially direct with the Pharisees, who thought they were “conservative.”

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside also may become clean.”

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of uncleanness. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” — Matthew 23:25-8

But we can’t presume most of the Christians in the U.S. will take corruption seriously, can we? They seem to think they are serious about the Bible but they are taking Trump’s corruption very lightly, even encouraging it as a means to return the country to “greatness.”

So when we ask “What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?” we have to start with:

They regularly follow them

They sing “It is well with my soul” – the corrupt leader is restoring order in the name of Jesus. And if that order makes me richer and corrals people I secretly hate, all the better.

What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?

They pretend they do not exist

I think this is more prevalent. American Christians, by and large, retreated into having a private faith a long time ago. They are not Jeremiahs!

They sing: “It is well with my soul” —  My faith is a soul matter, not a public matter. I don’t get involved with politics.

To be clear, as American Christians are pretending, by and large, they are swallowing a boatload or corruption. Pretending is not inaction, it takes quite an effort to quash reality!

  • The most damning Epstein files are still hidden.
  • J.D. Vance is fronting a push to combat fraud in public services by illegally withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments from California.
  • Trump has fired or demoted twenty inspectors general during his terms—the people who are key to oversight. In 2024 alone the people he has since fired or sidelined identified more than $50 billion in waste and abuse.
  • Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 70 donors or allies who were convicted of fraud. One, Philip Esformes, was convicted of stealing $1.3 billion from Medicare.
  • The Trump family has pocketed over $600 million through cryptocurrency enterprises this year.
  • Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. have invested in a drone manufacturer that is trying to sell weapons to Persian Gulf countries currently at risk from the war their father started in Iran.
  • The Pentagon recently awarded a $24 million contract to a robotics startup for which Eric is the “chief strategy advisor.”
  • Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has acted as a chief negotiator for the U.S. in the Middle East. at the same time he has been trying to raise $5 billion from investors there for his investment firm.
  • Corporations and billionaires have dropped millions of dollars in donations for Trump’s ballroom where the East Wing used to be and his proposed presidential library in Miami.
  • Trump had raked in more than $2 billion for his projects or causes, more than half a billion of it from 346 people who each gave at least $250,000. Some of those people have received presidential pardons, others have been given jobs, and all have received access to the president.
  • Trump is using the planned Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event to be held on his birthday on the White House lawn as a new way for donors to funnel money to him. Ringside seats have been selling for $1 million or more. Neither the White House nor the UFC will comment on where the money is going.
  • Trump took seventeen CEOs with him to China, along with his son Eric, who runs the family business. Paul Krugman said, “He might as well have been walking around Beijing with a sign that says—in block capitals, of course, this is Trump—BRIBE ME.”
  • Miami residents are suing Trump and others to stop the construction of Trump’s presidential library, charging that state officials violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause when they transferred almost three acres of prime waterfront land, worth between $67 million and $300 million, to Trump’s library foundation for $10. Trump has already said he wants to build a hotel on the site rather than a traditional library.
  • The Department of Justice was working with Trump to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after a contractor during Trump’s first term leaked tax returns from thousands of wealthy individuals to the media. They want to settle before it goes to court, where he will probably lose
  • Trump offered to drop the lawsuit in exchange for the government’s establishing a $1.7 billion fund to compensate his allies who claim they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the DOJ —  this includes nearly 1,600 people convicted of committing crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, people Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of shortly after he took office in January 2025.

What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?

They manage them

They take a lot of responsibility for the world. So Christians work very hard to make sure Jesus is not shown up to be powerless and make sure they don’t get in trouble for doing a bad job. People with a narcissistic wound control or manipulate others to protect their fragile egos and avoid their shame — they manage them, all the time. There is an epidemic of such woundedness in the church.

They sing: “It is well with my soul” – I can make others well like I should be.  I need to keep things under control. Everyone needs to stay safe.

This grandiosity regularly falls apart. Since there are too many plates to keep spinning and they are the only ones they trust to spin. Besides, the corrupt people often have no conscience, so managing them is more like feeding them your power.

What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?

They undermine them

They sing “It is well with my soul” – I am on the frontline of justice

I don’t think justice is the solution to all the earth’s problems. But without that first step, it is hard to get anywhere else. Our efforts need to be as endless as God’s.

But we need to be honest, people wrestling for power, even in the name of justice, never have rest for their souls. Feeling unwell about something can be addctive. Just witness the work of Climate Defiance, one of my favorites activist groups. This is from last week’s newsletter:

We absolutely NAILED Xavier Becerra. We ruined his whole event. It was so beautiful and so brutal all at once. It was so necessary. You must watch. You can see it here.

Our protest was not just an act of public humiliation. It was an act of JUSTICE.

If you’re just tuning in, Big Oil Becerra is the front-runner for Governor of California. He wants the prestige. He wants the power. We must stop him. Here’s why:

He took $39,000 from Chevron – the maximum contribution. It’s their first time getting involved in the governor’s race there in a decade. Then he defended the legalized bribe, proclaiming, verbatim “they’re not the bad guy.”

Are you serious?

Is it giving kids asthma that he’s ok with? Or spreading climate misinformation? Or searching for new oil reserves when current ones contain enough carbon to make earth unlivable? Which of these things specifically is he ok with? I would like to know.

He then doubled down. He said: “Does everybody here drive an electric vehicle? You need Chevron, I need Chevron, my people of the state of California need Chevron.”

Jesus. Electric vehicles were invented in the 1800s. Companies like Chevron are the main REASON we are not driving them. They have poisoned our political system and blocked the transition.

What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?

They overthrow them

It started with the Roman Empire and kept going in response to every empire-builder since. Yes, so-called Christians have often been on the wrong side. We get sucked into power struggles, too. But wherever there is prayer and community, Jesus-followers are a burr under the saddle of corrupt rulers.

They sing: “It is well with my soul” – I am well and I feel it. You can’t keep me from the love of Jesus no matter what you do. Being well with Jesus allows me to turn my cheek and so turn the world upside down.

Tennessee Democrats locked arms on the House floor in protest of a the redistricting vote that split the state’s only majority-Black Democrat Congressional district on May 7, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee.

I suspect most of the Tennessee reps protesting the racial gerrymander of Tennessee voting districts are church people. Their two outspoken young leaders, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were immediately juxtaposed with pictures of Martin Luther King on social media when they got carted off the statehouse floor . They were just saying, “Since the Confederates rule in Washington right now and they say there is no racial discrimination under the law, regardless of the Voting Rights laws that have ruled since the 1960’s, we cannot be silent.” In the picture, Jones’ sign says it all.

What do Christians do with corrupt leaders?

They are a resistant alternative to them

They sing: “It is well with my soul” – Life is worth living and Jesus says I am worthy of living it. We are made to make something which is fit for Jesus and which can withstand the tribulations of the present. I’m referencing Ephesians 4 and 5:

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be associated with them, for once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness; rather, expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly,  but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil — Ephesians 5:6-16

I am astounded that Canticle: A Novel by Janet Rich Edwards has actually been a NY Times editors choice. I enjoyed reading it for another look at one of my favorite centuries: the 13th and one of my favorites places: Bruges. What’s more it centers on some of my favorite Christians; the Beguines.

I was encouraged by the book, but even more encouraged that people were talking about  it and what it means to know God and live life as a member of his people. The grassroots devotion of the Beguines and their male counterparts, the Beghards upended their society and the corrupt church ruling it. Over and over again, the Holy Spirit has stubbornly inspired Jesus followers to risk losing their place in the corrupt system which corrupt men  made for them and risk following Jesus with all they’ve got. We create an alternative society to the passing away world.

This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, the most radical Sunday of the year. It should launch us into planting seeds of hope whether the soil is rocky or not because one of those seeds is very likely to take root anyway. Pentecost should cause us to look at our lives and our church and reimagine them in the light God sees us, full of love and potential, poised for creation. Pentecost, at the very least, should wake us up from the stupor-inducing rule of the present oligarchs.

We need furious peacemakers: And they appear to be out there.

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Ben Rhodes, who was Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting (whew!) from 2009 to 2017, was a close confidant to President Obama and a key foreign policy advisor. In his NY Times opinion piece last week, he regretted a lot of what he did.

He looked at Trump’s latest expenditure of bombs and laid part of the blame for it on the tepid and toothless response of Democrats. He imagines some Congressional logic for why they were generally feckless:

[W]hat if Mr. Trump bombs Iran, and the regime collapses and is replaced by something better? You could feel this calculation within the Democratic Party as the war began — a hedging that only dissipated when the war’s brutality and insanity became clear. Behind it is a perverse logic: Both Iranian strength and Iranian weakness can justify war.

To be fair, the blame for this dynamic extends far beyond elected officials, to commentators who are at turns jingoistic, credulous of fearmongering and inclined to cover any harm done to Americans or our interests around the world as a political crisis; to think tanks that cast events particularly in the Middle East as problems that can be solved by U.S. intervention; to an entertainment industry that often valorizes American military and intelligence operations; and to people like me who have filled the ranks of Democratic administrations.

We’ve all been in a world of “what if” since Covid, so we can probably relate to the skittish Dems. Anxiety rules.

But “what if” is not the only rule that leads the opponents of Trump to be less than furious — like I wish they would be. You can see those rules in Rhodes’ writing: “calculation…hedging…perverse logic…our interests…problems that can be solved…entertainment industry…intelligence operation.” When we host the 250th anniversary of the Declaration this year, those words could be the key words to describe the new American experiment – put them on a banner over a background of a Minuteman, perhaps, to achieve the appropriate irony. I suppose we could include “brutality” and “insanity,” too. That’s what the country has perfected and who knows what it might do next?

Where are the peacemakers?

I know there are a lot of Christians who are out on the front lines boldly harassing ICE and telling the truth about the world and Jesus.  The aging clergy in Philly (and I can still be included in that group) have been out and getting arrested for their actions. At the end of March, twelve of them got in good trouble for blocking the ICE driveway at 8th and Cherry [Inquirer].

They are so loving, the officers smile at them when they help them get up off the street. Love will win if anything good wins.

But we could use some more furious love. Over 225 million people in the U.S. identify as Christians. That percentage used to be declining but apparently isn’t anymore. You’d think at least 100 million or so would actually be like Jesus. What if they were? That would be potent.

Paul says Jesus in our peace. That peacemaking got him killed. But a lot of people just make his peace an inner sense of peace with God and only as outer as getting along with others in whatever church they can manage to stay in.

Jesus is quite a bit more furious than that. Just read Matthew 23, where he tags people who preserve their own power with a perverted reading of the scripture as a “brood of vipers.” A bit later, he contrasts himself as a mother hen longing to brood over Jerusalem, to protect her children. There is nothing more furious than a mother separated from her children.

Or go back a few pages in Matthew to chapter 18, where Jesus says, 

If any of you cause one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things are bound to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!

That is furious stuff. He must be especially inflamed right now. How in the world could any Christian support the brutality and insanity of the Iran War and defend the sociopath president undermining the whole world with it?  Jesus knows that sins are going to come, but his followers should do their best not to cause or cooperate with  them! They certainly won’t be praying for them to occur with Pete Hegseth and his nationalist pastor/mentor!

Furious peacemakers are out there

I hope the Christians are catching up. Maybe they will be out in force for May Day Strong. In the meantime, other prophets are doing their duty. Here are two of my favorites, in case you don’t know them, yet.

Briefly, start with Matthew Cooke. Cooke is not a Christian; he’s more of a Star Trek, Jesus-adjacent humanist. But he still gives some of the best sermons I have heard about what needs to happen in the world today. He is a furious, filmmaking, philosophizing peacemaker. I don’t sign up for a lot, but I don’t want to miss what he comes up with [Survivor’s guide]. Take a minute to listen as he preaches about taking back the future.

An even better example of what a furious Christian peacemaker should probably sound like is the politician Ben Rhodes was writing about in the Times: Graham Platner of Maine. He’s lightly Jewish if anything more than atheist. But his morality is spot on.

As a 20 year old, Platner had his first epiphany when he was constructing a patrol base near Falluja. A mortar round fired by Iraqi opponents killed the families of the troop’s local co-workers. He said, “There’s this thing I often think about. Those kids were killed because we were spending money to build this base that probably doesn’t exist anymore. [I thought] ‘How horrifically wasteful this is.’”

I agree. Since Sep. 11, 2001 the U.S. has spent more than $6 trillion fighting wars that killed over 7,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of civilians, inflicting trauma on innumerable people. The country is responsible for destruction which has displaced tens of millions of people. The refugees who sought safety in the Eurocentric countries fueled a right-wing backlash to democracy. And what was built in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and now Iran? What could have  been built at home with those trillions of dollars? Just writing that burns me up.

Platner is with me. Visceral outrage infuses his opposition to the war in Iran: “Nobody is going to be able to convince me that what I did in Iraq and Afghanistan did anything for the people of Sullivan, Maine.”…“I don’t want other young Americans to go through what I’ve been through. And I don’t want to send other young Americans to inflict the horror that I had to inflict on people.”…“I don’t know a single guy I served with who thinks this thing in Iran is a good idea.”…[The reason] they were big Trump supporters — he was the antiwar or ‘America first’ candidate.”

Credit…Mark Peterson for The New York Times

“Here in the real world, most people get it,” Platner says of his campaign events. “Do you think this country should spend more on schools and hospitals and less on bombs? A lot of people are like, yeah, that’s pretty obvious.”

And yet the wars keep happening. The money keeps flowing to defense contractors. Traders, even in Congress, keep profiting from bets on the rise and fall of oil prices while the working class can’t afford to pay for a tank of gas [more here]. Insiders make ghoulish bets about the war on prediction markets while children are killed by American weapons in Iran and Lebanon.

Platner says, “We are so broken emotionally when it comes to our politics that we’ve literally created this story that it’s inherent in being a competent political leader to kill civilians. If you’re not willing to do some hard things and drop some bombs, then you’re not up to the task of power. I think it’s the opposite. You’re not up to the task of being in power if you do not think about the cost of violence. If that’s not at the front of your mind, then I don’t think you are morally in the right place to be in positions of power.”

Most of us know the forever war started by Bush has been destroying America from within, like an organism that must keep growing to survive. It fills the citizens with fear of outsiders and contempt for one another. War does the worst to societies. Once you normalize obliterating people abroad, people don’t value others at home, or even themselves.

They sound like Jesus

Cooke and Platner sound an awful lot like Jesus to me. They are rightly furious. Go back to Matthew 23. Isn’t the  blindness and delusion of American leaders just what Jesus is talking about?

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside also may become clean.”

Just remember, Trump took the slavery placards off of Washington’s House on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of uncleanness. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

I would not say Jesus sounded like Graham Platner when he was facing off with the radical Pharisees who dominated the Sanhedrin. But I’m pretty sure Jesus would have called him out of the crowd to be a disciple. He’s kind of there already.

Being outside of God: Thoughts on being in

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I attended a psychology conference recently with a large contingent of Evangelicals among the presenters and participants. All day long, as people explored the meaning of faith, there was an intrusive theme I kept hearing, “I am on the outside getting in.” God may be welcoming us in. Or we may be struggling to get in. But the existential reality with which most seemed to agree is that we are all on the outs with God.

I felt outside of their “outsideness.” My “other” existential reality never dawned on me so acutely. I have not stopped thinking about it ever since. I really do feel I am in with God, in Christ, right now. Undeservedly but absolutely inside.

All weekend long I kept taking issue, in my own thoughts, at least, with the extreme sense of autonomy some people were stuck with. It is a dilemma. For psychologists, autonomy is a fundamental truth to be protected. For Christians, it is a good thing but not THE thing.

Autonomy

You can get a definition of “autonomy” by watching The Pitt. The doctors on that TV show are protecting it all the time; it is a main element of their ethics. They painstakingly hold back their opinions and even advice so the patient can exercise their freedom to choose. On one episode the ER gave a dying woman a long time in a scarce bed to make up her mind about how she was going to die.

As a result of all this painstaking, the doctors end up very much like God, I suppose, letting us unfold without bossing us around. Of course, the opposite is true, too. The doctors are often portrayed as having no choice at all, constrained by science, protocol, profits and time. They are constantly complaining about being trapped by the needs of the emergency room, enslaved to their paperwork, and subject to their foibles and their relationships. They seem to feel they have no autonomy at all.

The definition of autonomy is, simply, the capacity to think your own thoughts and take action on them, not be dominated by someone else and enslaved to their will. We’re all committed to it, all feel we don’t have enough, and all feel subject to something or someone that thwarts it all day.

As a psychotherapist, much of my work is to help people exercise their autonomy to think and feel as they desire and make new choices accordingly.  Mostly, my clients want to be free of what ties them up so they can love and be loved, and so they can contribute to society and receive from others.

The Evangelical clients tend to have a further dilemma, because they believe if they think anything but God’s thoughts it is a sin, and if they feel their feelings (most of which are immoral or prone to be), it is likely a sin. They seem to be determined to take orders from Jesus the King, which releases them from the need to listen to themselves and change. It is a theological nightmare. They are strangely condemned to be in charge of their future, very autonomous and alone, but they are totally subject to someone else’s will, which is quite beyond their ability to accomplish but which is a life and death matter to accomplish, nonetheless.

For instance, the last verse of the version of O Sacred Head Sore Wounded we sang on Good Friday had this final verse:

My days are few, O fail not, with thine eternal power,
to hold me that I quail not in death’s most fearful hour;
that I may fight befriended, and see in my last strife
to me thine arms extended upon the cross of life.

Did I hear the theology right? This seems to be the gist of it: “I need God’s power to hold me (I pictured a tractor beam) because I am on the other side of death; I’m outside of the place Jesus lives. I have to fight to stay on my quest to be inside, where Jesus, one day, will greet me with open arms.

My friend protested on Facebook on Good Friday: God doesn’t love us because Jesus died. Jesus died because God loves us. Even though this is common New Testament, many of the Christians at my conference were still working out a transaction. Jesus died for me, so I have to die for him to seal the deal and get into eternity. Jesus died for me so I could gain the power to do my assignment and so be good enough to get into heaven.

To sum it up: Evangelical Christians often feel “outside” God’s presence due to a performance-based spirituality that equates grace with legalistic obedience rather than a free gift. This mentality stems from a “sin-fixation,” whereby believers constantly scrutinize their actions to measure their spiritual standing. This approach often leads to a cycle of shame, where failing to meet high behavioral standards feels like losing God’s favor, creating a perpetual need to get back in.

Let’s unpack the elements of that a bit.

Performance

A twenty-something friend told me she could not attend Jr. High summer camp as child because she had not yet spoken in tongues. She faked it. I still marvel at this. How could someone make the ecstatic experience of tongues, totally uncontrollable by definition, into a criteria for getting into camp? I understand the delight of having the Holy Spirit “come upon me.” And I think tongues were, in the Bible and continue to be, a sign of God’s presence. But make the experience a general rubric for goodness or acceptance? Teach the junior highers the need to perform the trappings of faith well? 1 Corinthians is an argument against people who would do such a thing. But if we are all outside, we will likely invent a criteria for getting in —  and, unfortunately, for keeping people out.

Measurement

Many evangelicals define their standing with God by how well they obey set rules—such as church attendance, tithing, and avoiding specific sins. When they “stumble,” they feel as though they have fallen out of grace, confusing sanctification (the process of becoming like Christ) with justification (being declared righteous). People measure their sanctification to prove their justification as if they were in charge of their salvation!

I went to a conference session by a Christian Psychologist (who I love) and he was using research models to measure love, since why should God be outside the religion science has made for itself? It was a nice attempt to put measurement back where it belongs.

Self-control

An intense focus on personal sins can lead to “creeping legalism,” where believers spend more time obsessing over controlling sin than experiencing the freedom of grace. This “sin-fixation” results in a constant need to apologize for being human, leading to a feeling of being “outside.” It often results in the need to control oneself, others and the world which never goes well.

Self-control is one of the fruit of the spirit. There is a long history of people using the word to keep themselves undefiled, especially by sexual impurity – because they want to get in. But a more accurate meaning of the fruit is: the healthy empowerment one feels when they experience autonomy, the gift of being one’s true self. In Greek philosophy, self-mastery was basically the best one could do, it was the best to which one could aspire in a cosmos full of impersonal, often irrational gods. But Christians live in a world given by a Creator who loves them and leads them, day by day. Self-control is the calm capacity to give as grace has been given to each of us.

Permission

Some evangelical teachings can create a mindset where grace is viewed as permission to sin, but simultaneously, “unmerited favor” feels fragile and easily lost. People are in a balancing act between feeling good about where they are and waiting for the other sin shoe to drop. This dichotomy leads to anxiety about one’s standing with God. The idea is, “Once I’ve given in to sin I am tainted.” This leads some people to fake being in, even when they feel tainted. It leads others into self-exile, since they know they will never be fully in.

One serious teen I knew became a Christian and showed up exhausted to talk to me one day. When I asked him why he looked so tired, he finally revealed. “I have to stay awake because I have a lot of sins to confess. I especially don’t want the sun to go down on my anger.” He really loved the idea of not getting away with anything, but he could not permit God be in charge of the forgiving. He was perpetually in charge of making the right choice to get permission to come in.

Promises

The gap between the promise of a transformed life and the reality of human brokenness creates a sense of disillusionment. The idea is, “If all the promises are not being fulfilled in me, I must be out.” Validating their own authenticity according to God’s performance can make it difficult for believers to accept they are already “inside” God’s grace. Especially when we are sick in body or mind, we assess our well-being according to what we think ought to be true. For many believers, any sin or suffering mars their perfection in Christ.

Assessing ourselves according to how well the promises of God are realized in our life is a recipe for being perpetually out of the exquisite feeling of swimming in the ocean of grace into which we were launched at birth. If the test tube truths the religion of science teaches dominate us (which are often disappointing in their own limited universe), God is regularly disappointing and we are usually disappointed or disappointing, depending on how we respond. We can end up loaded with a false guilt about how bad I must be for God not to fulfill in me what he fulfills in others!

Obedience

Dallas Willard explains how many Christians mistakenly see Christ’s teachings as laws to obey to gain grace, rather than as reflections of the life that comes to them through the new birth. This fundamental misunderstanding keeps believers striving to “get in” to a kingdom they are already part of.

This misunderstanding is so universally assumed that the TV show The Good Place could have it as a central premise. Kristen Bell does not believe she should be in the (what comes to be revealed as an ersatz) “good place” because she is selfish. It seems almost everyone is convinced that salvation requires being good enough to deserve it and obedience to arbitrary rules is key to achieving it.

In Christ

I guess I should not blame the Evangelicals for falling into heresy, since it seems like from the Middle Ages onward, Europe was a long road to re-centering humans. Christianity was reduced to a penance system long before they got there.

DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man put’s the idea of the dangerous kind of autonomy into a picture. The circle represents divine or spiritual perfection (cosmos), while the square represents the material, earthly world. By bridging both, the figure highlights the human body as a microcosm of the universe. Humans are central, especially men.

According to DaVinci’s chart, I am autonomous. I am innately free to choose. In relation to God, I am exiled or welcomed in. I relation to others I can make relationships or end them.

But how did I get out of relationship if I were never in? From the beginning to the end of the Bible (the Evangelicals purportedly love), our sense of being out is a matter of being removed from where we were. Being in with God is our natural human state.

Paul is always referring to being “in Christ.” The phrase is a spatial metaphor which signifies the believer’s renewed sense of being safe at home as opposed to their previous uncertainty before faith and baptism. Being our true selves in Christ or our false self in our autonomy is Paul’s version of being  in our out. The way Paul sees it, Jesus was at the creation of the world and we all bear his image. And according to Jesus, we are all are touched and called into abundance by God’s love. We are all in the love of God whether we think we can choose that or not. God sees us according to who we are in Christ. We have the freedom to turn away. But that is not natural or inevitable.

Being outside where nothing but the power to do “righteousness” proves our worth and where our successes give God the glory he craves results in the psychopathic Pete Hegseth and the infamous prayer he prayed at a meeting last week:

“Almighty God, who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle, you who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old, making her land a desolation where none dwell, behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous.”

I think it takes little convincing to admit “the peace of the righteous,” as Hegseth describes, has nothing to do with Jesus and nothing to do with peace. The U.S. has NOT been at war, undeclared or declared, for about 15-20  years since 1776. If you can’t get into heaven, you make yourself a god on the earth, right? At least that is what a lot of people who would like to follow Jesus are struggling with in the United States.

Ozzy Osborne brings it to the War Pigs: The prophecy lives on

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During the Grammy memorial for notable members of the music industry lost in 2025, a group of all-stars paid tribute to Ozzy Osborne, maybe the most notable of them all. The song they chose to play is notable, too: War Pigs.

A long-gone YouTube creator connected a video to War Pigs that is the most-viewed version of the song, now at 108 million since 2014! — that’s the year Russia seized Crimea and “insurgents” blew up buildings in Donbass, the Taliban insurgency continued, and the Syrian civil war raged — the fingers of the U.S. and Russia in all of them. I think her video is quite moving [link].

The film the YouTuber repurposed is a 2009 work from a German film school named Motherland — it shows what music can do to bring your film to life. The original soundtrack is kind of limp [link]. She did not bother crediting the filmmaker when she substituted War Pigs, but likely received the income from the 30 million more views it got lately. But I’m not sure how YouTube works.

The other day, my grandson, the rock and roll drummer student, was part of the Black Sabbath tribute at his concert. They played War Pigs. I admit, Christian that I am, “black sabbath” has never been my favorite name for a band. But I can forgive them for trying to distinguish themselves with the name in 1969. If you want to see the originals play their hit, here they are in 1970.

At the concert, I was predisposed to grinning and bearing the song. But the lead student singer was actually rather good and I caught wind of the words into which I had never tuned.

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death’s construction

In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh Lord! Yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’til their judgment day comes
Yeah!

Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs at the power
Hand of God has struck the hour

Wow! Just like Amos!

Day of judgment, God is calling
On their knees the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh Lord! Yeah!

Oh Lord! Yeah! The rock students reminded me of the Old Testament prophet, Amos, laying out the war pigs that surrounded the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. And he did not spare the homeland either! Amos’ list is a recitation of what the war pigs have always done. And it is what they are doing right now, only now with the most destructive weapons ever, directed by A.I.!

  • they have threshed Gilead
        with threshing sledges of iron. (1:2 – Israel in Lebanon)
  • they carried into exile entire communities (1:6 – ICE)
  • he (Edom) pursued his brother with the sword
        and cast off all pity;
    he maintained his anger perpetually
        and kept his wrath forever. (1:11 – sounds like all sides in Iran)
  • they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead
        in order to enlarge their territory. (1:13 – Russia in Ukraine)
  • he (Moab) burned to lime
        the bones of the king of Edom. (2:1 – U.S. and Israel kill Iran’s leaders)
  • they (Judah) have rejected the instruction of the Lord
        and have not kept his statutes,
    they have been led astray by the same lies
        after which their ancestors walked. (2:4 – all, especially the U.S.)
  • they (Israel) sell the righteous for silver
        and the needy for a pair of sandals—
    they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
        and push the afflicted out of the way (2:6-7 – the 1% and minions)
  • you (Israel) made the nazirites drink wine
        and commanded the prophets,
        saying, “You shall not prophesy.” (2:12 – look in the mirror)

I am not blaming the wars of humankind on you with that last parenthesis, but I know I have colluded with people who want to still the voices of prophets. I didn’t even listen to Black Sabbath until 2026!

We should all be out on the streets shouting with Amos and Ozzy Osbourn every chance we get. But let’s be honest; when the news channels treat a No Kings Day like it is just a brief traffic tie up or a long line at the airport and we put up with that, we’ve already colluded with the war pigs by fitting our prophecy into the oligarchs’ business plan. When we politely argue about the Iran debacle on Facebook like there are two sides to a war pig, we are just acclimating to the same old slavery.

Jesus before Pilate — Jean Fouquet, 1470

Jesus is prophecy in action

What does Jesus say to a war pig? We have scant evidence because he spent most of his time with marginalized people (take note, Empire-trained American Christians!). But my favorite example is when he has a moment with Pilate — the Roman representing the biggest herd at the trough in the Lord’s time, who is apparently slightly nervous about his imminent murder of the Son of God.

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”  Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” — John 18:33-36

He’s saying, “It is the people I came to save who keep fighting for the kingdoms of this world.” Oh Lord. Yeah! Thank you Jesus! Your kingdom is not from here!

In a few days after talking to Pilate, Jesus rises from the dead (April 5 this year, if you’re just getting to know him). By the end of the New Testament John has his amazing vision and there is Jesus, the wounded lamb, sitting on the throne! There is a prophecy for you!

Let’s keep talking, doing our art and marching. Even if we feel like lonely Amos (even when we’re in step with millions, around the world), let’s force ourselves to keep telling the truth about the war pigs. They are eating people alive! Don’t just do what you can do because justice should be done. Do it because we want God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, an endless will to bring life from death and love to hate.

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Today is Joachim of Fiore Day! Speaking of prophets! This one is more influential than you know. Visit him at The Transhistorical Body.

We’re letting gambling wreck sports?

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

One of my friends said last Monday, “Did you notice I am not wearing green?”

I said, “No.” I honestly had not noticed anything he was wearing.

“This is the first game day in 20 years I have not worn our colors. I’m not even going to watch.”

“Huh?”

“It’s the gambling. I just can’t be sure that anything about the game it true anymore. People are betting on players and even plays. There are just too many good reasons to cheat. I’m done.”

I felt clueless. I thought sports betting was out of control. But I already hated gambling because my mom and dad lived out their retirement near Las Vegas. I can feel Vegas suck the life out of me when I am just passing through. But I have become accustomed to zoning out during the new betting commercials. I know they are over when I hear “Please play responsibly” or “Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.” In Australia they are getting strict about all sorts of life-sucking  “games,” so their tag line is “Chances are you’re about to lose”.

Gambling Stats

I decided to do some research about what is really happening and found out quite a bit I did not know.

The Americans Gaming Association reports that Americans have embraced gambling (they say “gaming”). More than half of all American adults (57%) participated in some form of gambling in 2024-5. 30% gambled at a physical casino, while 21% placed a sports bet. It is a boom time for “gaming.” 90%  of Americans find casino gambling to be acceptable for themselves or others, and 62% now find gambling to be personally acceptable.  134 million American adults, or 53% of the population, visited a casino for gambling or other entertainment purposes in the past 12 months, the highest level of casino visitation on record. Legal Sports Reports gives you more.

In February, a Siena Poll  found that by 50% to 34% Americans support online sports betting being legal in all 50 States. But 65% think it will create compulsive gamblers. 58% say the Federal Govt. should regulate to protect consumers. 63% support the SAFE BET Act. 52% have “chased” a bet (meaning they placed additional, often larger, bets in an attempt to recover money lost from earlier wagers). 37% were ashamed after losing. 20% lost money they couldn’t afford to lose. 34% know someone with an online sports betting problem. Only 9% ever sought help with problem gambling — as SNL said a year ago, that’s because it is “somebody else’s” problem.

A majority of people in the U.S.A. are apparently going with a culture laced with gambling. But, like my friend, some people are getting concerned. For instance, 500 sports gamblers were polled in November in Connecticut; the majority believe corruption is more widespread than just the recent NBA scandal and think advertising for sports gambling leads to incredibly risky betting behavior, or even addiction. A New Yorker article from October noted how the “prop” bet leads to disaster (that is, a bet on a specific occurrence or statistical outcome within a game that does not necessarily affect the game’s final score or margin of victory). This YouTube from Bloomberg lays out the dangers. Trump’s posthumous pardon of Pete Rose for betting on baseball shows how gambling is even reaching into the past to become normalized.

What do Christians say?

Christianity Today kinds of hems and haws since the Bible does not directly name gambling as a sin. They say, “Online gambling isn’t necessarily sinful, but it’s certainly not a careful use of the wealth God has given us.”

Conservative Christians in the UK say: “There are three legitimate ways in which wealth may change hands – by giving, by working for it, or by genuine exchange (including taxation): anything else is virtual theft and so a breaking of the 8th commandment.” As has been said: “Gambling is a kind of robbery by mutual agreement; but it is still robbery, just as dueling, which is murder by mutual agreement, is still treated as murder.” Of the three impulses behind gambling – the desire for gain, the desire for a thrill and the desire for competition, the moral and ethical problems are focused on the desire for gain.

  1. Gambling directly appeals to covetousness and greed “which is idolatry” according to the Apostle Paul (Colossians 3:5). Gambling breaches the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 10th commandments. It enthrones personal desires in place of God. Jesus warned: “you cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). A greedy and unrepentant person is an idolater who cannot obtain salvation (Ephesians 5:5).
  2. Gambling directly depends on other people incurring financial loss. Jesus said that you should “do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). But gambling depends on doing to others what we would not have them do to us.

Conservative U.S. Evangelicals in the Gospel Coalition say: Sports betting perpetuates the sins of idolatry, greed, and dissatisfaction with God’s provision. It feeds on vices rather than virtues and godliness. It’s highly addictive. With the ease and convenience of a smartphone app and a credit card, sports betting has become yet another dopamine-inducing “scrolling” activity alongside social media platforms, online pornography, and other addictions just a few clicks away. As a vice disproportionately targeting young men, sports betting has the potential to imperil their current and future ability to love and lead families because of devastating debt. Sports betting is another assault on families already besieged by a litany of negative cultural pressures and obstacles….Don’t be fooled by how destigmatized sports betting has become. Just because you can now do it on your phone from the comfort of your suburban living room, as opposed to in the dimly lit, smoky Vegas casino, doesn’t mean the dangers are less real. The less seedy, more acceptable “brand” of sports betting today is what makes it so concerning.

The Southern Baptists are alarmed: “Gambling factors out God.” The 2017 SBC Resolutions Committee, proposed a resolution adopted by the Convention “on the sin of gambling.” Also, the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission released a publication called Pay to Play: A Practical Guide to Addressing Gambling in the Church. The director says, “We worked hard to produce a theological and practical guide—in addition to an in-depth white paper—that we think will be helpful to pastors as they navigate this growing epidemic.”

Meanwhile, gambling advertising becomes more entertaining, ubiquitous and brazen. For instance, into what are these happy, robotic, multicultural lemmings/bike riders being translated?:

Why is nothing done?

My friend said, “This is a big mess. It has ruined sports for me. Why isn’t anything being done?”

I hadn’t thought about that, so I asked A.I.  Here is the gist of what that know-it-all collected with my gist thrown in.

“Sports betting has not been banned despite its negative effects primarily due to the significant economic benefits for states and the argument that regulation is more effective than prohibition. The complex issue involves a balance of individual freedoms, economic incentives, and social concerns.”

That’s the bottom line. You have to wonder why the government of the people sees the vices of the people as a way to stay in business. I think there is something immoral about that business model, don’t you?

Americans apparently love gambling. It all got started with the lotteries. To be honest the ancient Chinese had a lottery that helped build the Great Wall. But as far as the U.S. goes, the first legal lottery was started by New Hampshire in 1964.

When the Supreme Court overturned Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) with Murphy v. NCAA in 2018, it served to open the floodgates for all forms of gambling. The ruling stemmed from a legal challenge initiated by the state of New Jersey, led at the time by Governor Chris Christie. New Jersey argued that the PASPA violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine, which prevents the federal government from forcing states to enforce federal laws or maintain existing state laws.

In the 6-3 majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own”. The Court said the PASPA unconstitutionally dictated what state legislatures could and could not do, thus infringing on state sovereignty. Justice Breyer said he would have preferred New Jersey get a “pyrrhic victory”— winning the right to authorize betting but still being barred from having private businesses run it, in order to respect Congress’s broader goals.

Now there is a multi-billion industry to contend with since many states (though not all, including California) rushed to legalize gambling and reap the revenue. I call it creating  a “fool tax,” to be honest, or receiving an invitation to ruin from your governor.

Key reasons why nothing has been done to ban sports betting include:

  • It is a big money maker for States. Legal sports betting generates billions in tax revenue for state governments, which can be allocated to public services like education and infrastructure. This financial incentive makes it difficult for states to roll back legalization efforts. New York, for example, collected over $876 million in tax revenue from sports betting in 2023. This is probably the main reason sports betting is running rampant: the governments are addicted.
  • Our governments are dominated by rapacious corporations. The sports betting industry, with major players like FanDuel and DraftKings, has a powerful lobbying presence and has deeply integrated itself into sports media and culture through advertising and sponsorships, making it an “indispensable” part of the sporting experience. This is the second big reason. Our pirate capitalism sees a victim, milks them dry and leaves the carcass.

The rest of the main reasons are more speculative and moral. These reasons change if people we more educated, healthier and less subject to corporate domination.

  • Prohibition does not work very well. The historical failure of attempts to ban popular, but potentially harmful, activities (like alcohol during Prohibition or the War on Drugs) suggests that an overarching ban would not eliminate sports betting but merely drive it into an unregulated, illegal black market. $150B was illegally gambled on college sports, alone, in 2018, before the Supreme Court decision. The American Gaming Association (AGA) argues legal markets bring consumers out of predatory illegal operations and provide transparency and consumer protections. It remains to be proven that legal markets are less predatory or more transparent.
  • Regulation is seen as a better approach. Instead of a full ban, the prevailing approach in the U.S. has been state-level regulation following the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to overturn the federal ban. This allows states to implement consumer protections and allocate funds for problem gambling treatment and research. Critics justly argue such measures are often inadequate. By the time the corporations have brainwashed the public, warnings by governments seem faint, at best. Public health of any kind is poorly funded.
  • Americans think you should have the right to harm yourself. Proponents of legal sports betting argue that adults should have the freedom to choose how to spend their money and time, provided they do so responsibly. “Responsible gambling” is an oxymoron to many Christians. But such reasoning prevails when it comes to gun control, cannabis, and, apparently, murdering Venezuelans. The saying, “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission” is becoming common sense.
  • The people want it. There is a significant public appetite for sports betting, with millions of Americans participating in the activity. Legalization acknowledges and caters to this demand. But “want” in the U.S. is determined by what consumers buy in the economy as designed by the dominant corporations. They have also wanted processed food, gas guzzlers and McMansions, to name a few products that were not in society’s or their own best interests. We psychotherapists would generally contend that people “want” a lot of things for reasons they do not fully understand and often do not want when they do.

I think gambling preys upon desire and calls it a “game.” It is only fun when it does not include money. When it is a for-profit enterprise, gambling is always a scam — I’m with the Australians, “You are about to lose.” It is a “thrill” when it is risky, but satisfying that desire usually just leads to needing more thrill to avoid dealing with one’s true needs or desires.

The fact that this deregulation is happening when most of the betting is happening on a phone app makes gambling even more damning. The internet feeds on desire. Digital platforms thrive by exploiting human wants—for connection, information, status, or novelty—using algorithms to trigger dopamine hits, creating endless loops of seeking, consuming, and craving that drive engagement, problematic use, and consumerism, turning desires into constant, often unfulfillable, digital appetites. The online world capitalizes on our innate needs, turning them into addictive patterns through self-presentation, fear of missing out (FoMO), and hyper-stimulation, shaping our search for fulfillment in ways that benefit platforms more than users.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV). This applies to the CEOs of gambling corporations and the government officials who enable them. It applies to the inherent corruption of the end users and the self-deception capabilities within human nature. Our desires and motivations are often untrustworthy and self-destructive. We need God in the middle of our gambling and a society that looks out for our hearts and health, not just our consumption habits.

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Yesterday was Catherine Doherty Day! Get to know the “Baroness” who became an anti-racism activist and spiritual director. She was Thomas Merton’s spiritual mother.  She is celebrated at The Transhistorical Body.

Your “values” might be undercutting your God-given worth

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

When I served as a pastor, I often had a tough time with my leaders in the Brethren in Christ Church — not because we did not love each other, but because I groaned under their direction. Granted, I was theological friends with Christians like bell hooks who were preaching an ethic of love and I pondered making friends with Buddhists. What’s more, I was rather vocal about the antichrist ethics of capitalism and attempts by the U.S. to dominate the world militarily and economically. So I made them groan a bit, too — I think they thought I was very liberal.

The beautiful BIC

I, on the other hand, regularly told them, when I got the chance, that I thought they were the ones who were very “liberal,” in that they readily adopted post-Enlightenment philosophies as the basis for their theology. Even though they were supposedly rooted in antiestablishment Anabaptism, they relentlessly “left the farm” (as they liked to say), to more effectively compete in the present “marketplace” of ideas. They succeeded, to an extent, in growing churches filled with enculturated Christians.

My disappointment with the BIC, by whom I am ordained and licensed, was activated again when one of my spiritual direction clients brought up their personal “values.” I was literally triggered by the term and maybe went just a little beyond the bounds of my usual restraint. Let it suffice to say my appreciation for my companion was too great to let them stay subject to a word that has infiltrated the church and undercut our faith for over 140 years, now.

BIC Values

The subject of values was a main point of dispute for me with my leaders. I did not organize any marches, but I am sure I spoke up much more than they preferred.

In the year 2000 a General Conference of the Brethren in Christ adopted a new identity statement enumerating our “values.” That word may be the least Anabaptist, Pietist or Wesleyan one they could have chosen to describe our basic beliefs. I would have preferred “distinctives” or “aspirations” or “convictions.” Instead we got the straight business-plan title “Core Values” without too much thought as to why. (They are still being used). I assume they thought my critique was “urban.”

Each statement is fine, even if they do have the tortured sound of being committee compromises. But by calling them “values” they undermined my attempts to introduce radical Christianity to people who had lost it or never had it. The prospective Jesus followers I met already had “values.” But they had lost “virtue” or any sense of transcendent “morality.”

The word “values” got a new definition

When I was in college, I often saw students carrying around a big fat paperback of Friedrich Nietzsche philosophy. He is the father of the modern, abstract use of the word “values,” in the sense of moral or social principles. His thinking was popularized in the early 20th century by sociologists and anthropologists, notably Max Weber.

Nietzsche in 1882

Nietzsche was a pioneer in undermining the traditional Christian thinking that dominated Europe. He was definitely thinking outside the box. Before he went officially “mad,” probably due to the same kind of brain disorder that affected his father and brother, he famously wrote of the “transvaluation of all values” (Umwertung aller Werte). That meant he was cheering along the process of revaluing what was valuable. He was the man who said “God is dead,” meaning that in the modern era, belief in God and the accompanying Christian morality had lost its power and influence in society, leading to a moral vacuum humanity would have to fill.

He challenged traditional classical and Judeo-Christian virtues and asserted these moral standards were human-created rather than transcendent truths. It was in the 1880s that Nietzsche began to speak of “values” in the way we now use the word to talk about the moral assumptions and attitudes of a given society. He used the word consciously and repeatedly, to demonstrate the momentous transition human history had made. He thought describing the “transvaluation of values” was revealing the revolution which was underway, a revolution against both the classical virtues and the Judaic-Christian ones – against the very idea of a transcendent morality.

Others developing value theory (“axiology” after the Greek word for “worthy” or “deserving”) immediately pushed back, arguing for the objective existence of values, independent of human desires. But by the time Theodore Roosevelt used the word in the early 1900’s, it is well on its way to describing relativized beliefs that are socially constructed. The beliefs of the world were moving toward what we have today where, as Nietzsche noted, the powerful often have and impose values which normal, weak people do not come up with on their own. The transcendent morality revealed in Jesus was replaced by the survival of the fittest ideas. Now Donald Trump is a value unto himself and, even among the poor, the enrichment of oligarchs is of utmost importance, as they say it should be, even as they attempt to recreate the world in their image.

What we “value” could be deadly

Who would have thought the Brethren in Christ would become the handmaidens of Nietzsche?

Values, as we now understand that word, do not have to be virtues; they can be personally-sourced beliefs, opinions, attitudes, feelings, habits, preferences –- whatever any individual, group, or society happens to value, at any time, for any reason. One cannot say of virtues, as one can of values, that anyone’s virtues are as good as anyone else’s, or that everyone has a right to their own virtues. Only values can claim such moral equality and neutrality. This impartial, “non-judgmental” (as we now say) sense of values –- values as “value-free”–- is now so firmly entrenched in our vocabulary and sensibility that one can hardly imagine a time without it.

My issue with the use of “core values” to describe our discipleship had quite a bit of Teddy Roosevelt pragmatism in it. I still think most Christians in the U.S. are heavy on principle and light on action. Their faith is proving unsustainable as we speak. That’s why I like bell hooks’ ethic of love so much — it is all about how you live, not just what you think or believe.

It is hard to see belief systems in the New Testament at all; the writings are all about creating something by the power of the Holy Spirit; they are more about following Jesus than worshipping him at a distance, if we choose to do so. It is ironic that the powerless of the world regularly claim their freedom by not “drinking the kool-aid” of anyone imposing some principle on them when that very act shows how they “drank the kool-aid” of reducing themselves down to a set of personal values. All the while they could have been following Jesus who actually is a law unto himself, and who faced his detractors, imprisoned in their sense of worth, with “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”

What if I don’t value billionaires?

The people I have served were much more moved by the valuation of the “invisible hand” than the conviction of the Holy Spirit. What most people value these days is almost totally subsumed under making a good deal. My cousins asked me at most Thanksgiving dinners, “How is the church business going? Is your church getting bigger?” Advice columnists ask, “Are you better off with him or without him?” Put that last phrase into AI and it says, “Ultimately, the decision is personal and should prioritize your own happiness and well-being.” That is about all we’ve got these days: what I value, more or less.

Our government is littered with big hands grasping at a diminishing public trough. What if I don’t believe they are really job creators? What if I don’t value the way they assign my value? What if Jesus, the great I AM, makes me who I am?

Ellen Meiksins Wood observed, that a capitalist society is a society in which social relations are “embedded in the economy” rather than the “economy being embedded in social relations.” What she meant is we cannot account for the complexity of the capitalist mode of production as if it were an expression of human motives, desires and values. Capitalism is not simply an expression of the human tendency to “truck, barter and exchange.” Now it is a power that compels us to govern our whole lives in a transactional and commodifying way. It is not merely a matter of free people making choices, it is a compulsion, so much so, that a popular slur by our rulers is calling someone a “socialist.”

Under capitalism, many other aspects of human nature — such as the need for love, solidarity, and individuality — are secondary to the values associated with profit-seeking, or, if being kind, with “personal satisfaction” or “self-realization.” The word “values” is loaded with monetary value, quid pro quo, even with an evaluation of empathy as too weak to be sustainable.

I think the word “values” is loaded with the worst kind of autonomy: Godless, loveless, aloneness. The thoughts that: “I am responsible for what is important,” “I assign worth,” “My everyday choices to consume one thing over another is what gives me an identity” are overwhelming and subjugating. Thus the BIC reduced themselves with their “core values” to another set of choices, a product. It did not set itself apart from the world, it willingly adapted itself to the principles of the world.

But let’s remember after all this: Jesus is greater than our core values. There were undoubtedly many people in the crowd he confronted in John 8 who did not hear him and just “write him off“ with, “You have a right to your own opinion.” They followed him. The BIC is full of those kind of people, too.

Time to perfect resistance

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Peter Thiel and Elon Musk — key bros in the “PayPal Mafia” who went on to lucrative projects after PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002, have now gone on to government-breaking so they can perfect their power-grabbing. Thank God people are talking about Palantir all the time!

The unexpected consequences of the bros’ brazen tech-authoritarianism is an outbreak of creativity on the part of the resistance. For instance, Governor Newsome’s Trumpesque Tweets are a hilarious and creative way of asserting California’s right to exist without thugs in their faces (as they experienced when Newsome spoke about redistricting the other day). Old ladies fomenting “Be Brave Day” last Friday is anther version of resistance; they were saying “No! We exist.” The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church titled his Fourth of July message: “Once the church of presidents, The Episcopal Church must now be an engine of resistance.” That’s unexpected!

There are a lot of smart, energetic people out there creatively resisting! They are not shutting up (even though you can get fired for saying the wrong thing — like my friend was fired from her job last month for being outspoken about starving Gazans). For instance, two months ago Tad Stoermer decided to speak up and made this video about the difference between protest and resistance. It finally caught up with me as it wound its way through the algorithm. He insists the present broken time is not calling for reform but for creative transformation.

Existence is resistance

Back in 2011, “existence is resistance” became my new favorite phrase. I learned it from Palestinians, like those from Stop the Wall, and from the Christian Peacemaker Teams in At-Tuwani, south of Hebron. They were creatively resisting. They certainly did not expect Israel to reform (and it did not!); their only hope was transformation. And that begins with their insistent existence. Their continual “No!”

In At-Tuwani, our MCC Learning Tour delegation met a woman from Switzerland who had been living in the village for six years as part of CPT’s work of support. That’s committed resistance. She was about ready to return to Europe, since the villagers were organized enough to do without the protection of witnesses from the U.S. or Europe.

At-Tuwani was in “Area C” of the apartheid system Israel was perfecting in its occupied territories. That means the village was under direct military control. Living in Area C meant that almost anything could happen to a Palestinian for “security” reasons (some say the U.S. is following the Israeli model now). It meant one’s rights were adjudicated by military justice. Practically, it meant one’s land was subject to seizure and the housing developments being planted on your grazing and farm land could supplant your long-held practices – and would be protected by the military (which, by the way, is still protected by the United States). The village was something of a showcase for people devoted to nonviolent resistance. They have been dedicated to the proposition that existence is resistance (and they are still hanging in there).

at-Tuwani 2011

We listened to one of the village’s activists talk about the awakening that caused him to be a leader in direct nonviolent action. When the nearby Israeli settlement was built, it disrupted all the village’s ways. The “settlers” commandeered farmland and claimed grazing areas for their use. One day they beat the man’s mother when she dared to graze sheep in land they were trying to control. As we looked over the village he described how he had participated in securing its ongoing existence against the constant pressure and harassment of the Israeli settlers, military and bureaucracy. Their existence is resistance.

Slaves of Christ

It seems like the Church is usually in need of a refresher course on being an engine of resistance. It is usually the oppressed of the world who can provide the seminar.

In 2017 our old church did some refreshing theology. As I look back on our work from the era of Trump 2.0, I like our thinking even more. Our work came to some truth about our calling to resist antichrist powers — which the Church had been downplaying right down to the way it translated the Bible!

We were concentrating on Paul’s “two-tiered” theology applied to our “social action.” You can see my treatment here in this article.

One of the places where we could see Paul’s thinking was when he related to slaves. In our day, when people are into the idolatry Trump preaches, in which young people are chained to their survival jobs and debt, when white supremacists are trying to re-enslave African Americans, and in which we are all tempted to bow in fear before the Tweeter-in-chief, we may need to think about freeing the slaves more consciously than ever.

Be small

First, if we want to get anything out of Paul’s thoughts on slavery, we have to remember that when he speaks to women, Gentiles and slaves seriously as members of the church, his respect is subversive. Some of us forget, as we turn our “imperial gaze” on the “others” who are so-called “minorities” and so marginalized, that Paul is writing as one of those “others.” He and his little groups of persecuted misfits who are beginning to infect the Roman Empire are not speaking from a position of privilege and power. His view is small; he has become small; the people in his church plants are the “others” in their towns and villages. So he writes from “under” not “over.”

One of the first tasks in understanding him is to let go of any imperial outlook, the supposed privileges of being an American citizen, the protection of the huge military apparatus, even the exceptionalism of being a better Christian than others, and become small enough to need a Savior, to act as a slave of Christ.

Bible translators during the Reformation. And subsequently,  undermined our understanding when they decided that rendering the common Greek word for “slave” as slave was too demeaning, so they tidied things up by using the word servant, instead (which is a big difference). Philippians 2:7 in the KJV is a good example. There Paul describes Jesus as taking on the condition of a slave. But the KJV calls him a servant. I think Paul meant what he wrote. It is much more realistic, to see how humankind oppresses Jesus than to see Jesus as serving up salvation to us as we decide whether we want it or not. In order to hear what Paul, the slave of Jesus, is teaching, we’ll have to get into his slavish shoes.

Practice slaving

Once in Paul’s shoes, we can see what he is talking about. His thoughts are a lot bigger than whether a person is going to gain social or political freedom. That achievement would be frosting on his hope cake. The cake is being freed from the need to be freed from what humans do to you and being a grateful slave to the salvation that Jesus is working into us. Here’s just one example of how he thinks:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” – Colossians 3:23-4.

That last clause could better read: “It is for the Lord (master) Christ you are slaving.” That is his first-tier thinking. He knows a truth, the Truth, the world does not know and he is living in it, no matter who he is in the eyes of the world or according to its ways.

Everyone who is thoroughly trained in democratic equality and the centrality of human choice (the general God-free zone of Western thought these days) is likely to think those lines are heresy; it might even feel icky to read them, taboo. Slaving?! Paul has none of those qualms. He finds it an honor to be a slave in Christ’s house as opposed to being a ruler in a house of lies. God is a “master” beyond anything Hobbes, Rousseau or Ayn Rand could imagine. You can see that he is not interested in reformation, he’s experiencing transformation.

So when Paul goes on to talk to slaves, getting into the matters of their everyday lives, as they are locked in their situation with masters, benign or despotic, he has a variety of options for them. His first tier thinking makes them completely free to do the best they can with what they’ve got in the day-to-day, passing-away, fallen world. So he says to his brothers and sisters in Colossae:

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord…. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.” — Colossians 3:22, 25

Note that Paul is likely writing his letter to Colossae from house arrest in Rome. His slavery to Jesus has resulted in becoming enslaved by the Romans. So he can write from personal understanding. Basically, being a good slave who resists the master by obeying out of love and freedom instead of fear is good Christianity. It is possible to exude “no” when you are doing a submissive “yes” according to Jesus. Elsewhere, of course, Paul advises slaves to get free if they can. And he tells Philemon to treat his runaway slave as a brother, or just charge him whatever it costs to set him free.

There are no disempowered people in Christ, even our suffering has the power of grace and love in it. A slave in the world is God’s free person. A free person in the world is God’s slave. This is hard to translate for people who believe the delusion that law makes them free and rational rules and education will prevent suffering. Paul might respond to such ideas, as he did, and say, “Though I am blameless before the law, I am God’s prisoner, a lifelong felon freed by grace.” Similarly, no Jesus followers merely work for human masters, we do whatever we do with the Lord. Even when oppressed, we experience the hope that we will have our reward and the oppressors will get theirs.

How do we take action?

So what do we do in the face of the oppressive masters beating down on us and the world? Pray harder, safe in our salvation? Absolutely. But that is not all. You’re probably taking action in many creative ways.

Our old church summarized what we do in our statement of our mission and put it on a t-shirt:

Loving the thirsty people of our fractured region,
we keep generating a new expression of the church
to resist and restore with those moved by the Holy Spirit.

We resist. I am Christ’s slave. That is a defiant statement of resistance. My existence is resistance. I will never be a slave to a human, no matter what one does to me: buy me, imprison me, or take away my livelihood. I will always belong to the Lord, forever. And, as he demonstrates, in a very real sense, Jesus will always belong to me, forever. He has made Himself our slave.

We restore. I am an obedient slave. My work is well-ordered. Jesus is the Lord of all and we are making that known and effective, day by day. We restore by reorienting people’s identities to align with their salvation. We restore by relentlessly loving in the face of hate and indifference. We restore by telling the truth in the face of lies. We restore by sharing our resources and making peace. And, I think most important, we restore by practicing the kind of mutuality that creates an alternative community that is not allied with the powers that dig up the world and destroy connections between God and people like hurricanes blasting through our village.

Our existence is the foundation of our resistance. We can only hope that the country will be put to right soon. But even if it isn’t, we know who we are and what to do.  Being knit together in the love of Jesus is more important than ever, isn’t it! Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are intent on taking over the world and believe they deserve to! What else would we do but resist?