Tag Archives: protest

Your conscience is in danger: The Bible can help

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Film/TV, Leadership, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , ,

I was energized as I walked along Market St. on a beautiful day last Saturday. We periodically shouted “No Kings!” and “This is what democracy looks like,” and it felt good to hear my voice right out loud — there in public, and all. At one point we caught up with a couple of people in blow-up unicorn outfits. It looked like they might be young parents on a date — instead of the baby, their stroller carried a boombox. It was nice.

As we exercised our bodies we were exercising our consciences. Both have a tendency to get flabby. The latter desperately needs the restoration of a daily exercise routine before it gets burned out completely by the conflagration of kooks and crooks dominating our lives right now.

The dark side of conscience

I have spent quite a bit of time studying sociopath spectrum of humanity in the last few months. These are the people, probably not more than 5% of us, who either have a broken or missing conscience.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) collects these folks under the description “Anti-social Personality Disorder” (ASPD). The ASPD person has a severely wounded, inactive, broken or absent conscience. Conscienceless behavior is their distinctive across the spectrum. They are shameless.

The TV loves these people. You’d think they are around every corner, mostly carrying knives — they are not. But they make for good stories because they are strange and frightening. And we all know we might meet one and suspect we share some of their traits. Think Joe Goldberg in You, Dexter Morgan in Dexter, Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish in Game of Thrones and Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, to name a few. Eric Cartman fits the description, too. They are more generally men, it seems, but women demonstrate the behavior, too. They are conscience-challenged, to say the least.

A conscience is the inner sense or faculty that allows a person to distinguish between right and wrong and guides their moral decisions. It acts as a moral compass, influencing behavior and causing feelings of guilt or pleasure based on whether actions align with one’s values and, importantly, fit in with one’s relationships. Hindus see this capacity as a seventh sense, beyond our five physical senses and beyond our ordinary awareness; it is “higher consciousness.” Contemplative Christians see it as spiritual awareness, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the place of intimacy with God and personal transformation.

Sociopath training

Conscience is considered a universal human ability, though its judgment can be shaped by experience and upbringing. It is what is happening in the deepest part of us, but not just that. Conscience needs a bond to form and to stay strong. That’s why many observers right now are wondering if we can fight off totalitarianism, since the opposition cannot unite. Postmodern, technology-isolated people have bonding issues.

Our bonding issues may have made us ripe for sociopathic manipulation. I think the  sociopaths are shaping our behaviors right now. The president is their leader. The innumerable lawsuits being filed are all about combatting behavior on the ASPD spectrum.

A sociopath cannot bond, most of the time. According to Martha Stout (The Sociopath Next Door),  leaders with no seventh sense, no inner awareness, no gut instinct for good, no spiritual connection can hypnotize the group conscience which leads to catastrophe.

ASPD leaders and ASPD-influenced systems make enemies “its,” not people, and see them as mere impediments to what is good, threats to safety and prosperity — and they find people to hate these “its” with them. Stephen Miller regularly strokes this proclivity in humanity. At Charlie Kirk’s funeral he said:

The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil, We will defeat the forces of darkness and evil. And we will stand every day for what is true, what is beautiful, what is good….

And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.

Why don’t we follow our individual consciences and follow sociopaths instead? Stout says we are programmed to obey authority even against our own consciences. Our basic instinct to bond and be acceptable in community can be turned bad. This has been demonstrated repeatedly, beginning with Stanley Milgram’s experiment to see if he could get college students to shock other undergrads who were getting wrong answers. They gave up their power to the authorities and shocked! A sociopath knows this tendency and plays it. Bullying works.

Protecting your conscience

If you are a Christian, you probably agree with the New Testament writers who teach that our consciences can be injured, and blunted — and if you develop a “hardened heart,” it can wreck your all-important bond with God. There is a lot of healthy discussion in the Bible about maintaining a conscience that resembles Jesus’ and stays open to the Spirit of God. But let me give you the teaching in just one little book: 1 Timothy.

But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions. (1:5-7)

The antidote to sociopath leaders may be as simple as dancing down the street in a unicorn costume — exercising stubborn joy (which, Jesus says, no one can take away from us), in the face of domination.

Paul reminds Timothy of heart, mind and soul — his spiritual awareness: pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith, as he stokes his courage to keep teaching the gospel. Timothy needs a strong inner life. Because it seems like he was up against some shameless, ASPD-type people who won’t stop talking nonsense and people are believing them.

This charge I commit to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith; among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. (1:18-20)

One’s conscience is in danger if it is not in good shape. The speaker at our beginning rally before the march chided us for being spiritually flabby, essentially. I took exception since I was, after all, in attendance. But she knew that one protest does not make a transformation. Sociopaths never rest. For instance, last week the White House hired Kurt Olsen, the Stop the Steal lawyer, to investigate the 2020 election (!). The resistance cannot rest, either.

It is possible that Hymenaeus and Alexander did not completely reject conscience out of some evil agency. They may have been born without the capacity to have a conscience because of amygdala defects, or their environment was so traumatizing it made them shameless in order to survive — and ASPD appears to be heritable, too.

When Paul “turned them over to Satan” he did not condemn them to hell. He just recognized their intractability. They needed something more than regular church community to teach them.

The word blaspheme, here and many places in the New Testament,  is a direct transliteration from Greek. It means slander, defamation, or reviling, especially against God, and includes speech that defames others. Hymenaeus and Alexander were not just impious, they were bond breakers, dividers, loveless.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. (4:1-2)

When the Spirit “expressly says” something we primarily hear it with the seventh sense, which is the main reason we should keep it in shape. The message is mainly tested in community, which is why we need to stay connected to discerning believers. That sense can be dulled. A conscience can even be cauterized so it becomes impermeable to grace, joy and love.

Lies are the poison of conscience. Donald Trump’s lies have their own Wikipedia page. They are the main tool of sociopaths who only care about “winning.” Jesus calls liars children of the devil. The capacity of A.I. and our media in general to spread lies is breathtaking. Hopefully you have some children whose consciences are not seared who can build a new society in the wild years ahead.

If you feel like you must be living in the “later times,” you might be right. Pundits, protesters, prophets and preachers are working overtime to stand against the present “hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.” I thank God for that. We need all the help we can get. Because, as Paul teaches Timothy, having a living relationship with God, which keeps our consciences soft and clear, is the daily, fundamental step, not just in our self-care but in the formation of a society worth living in.

No Kings on June 14: Biblical reasons to be on the street

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Cecily White, of South Philadelphia, holds up her daughter Nora White, 3, during the “No Kings” protest and march out by Independence Hall on April 19.Tyger Williams / Inquirer Staff Photographer

There is another nationwide protest against President Donald Trump on June 14. This time, it will take place on his 79th (!) birthday. The “No Kings” rallies will focus on Trump the man, his decrees (especially the illegal ones), his corruption, and his economic disruption. [See Inquirer}

For those who need it, there is a lot of biblical basis for protesting. The most obvious example is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. Together, they protested a command from Nebuchadnezzar to bow down and worship a massive, golden statue of himself. Trump, in his newly-gold-plated Oval Office bears a resemblance. The three men (and Daniel) knew the king’s command was putting a false God before the true God, so they refused to obey. Trump has posed as an anointed, God-protected ruler, so that is worth protesting as a Christian. His attack on constitutional rule and precedent is even more worth protesting as a dutiful citizen.

The number of June 14 events planned number over 2000 now, all over the country. They will overlap with the military parade in Washington. For that reason, organizers intentionally skipped planning for D.C. and are encouraging participants to travel to my fair city, Philadelphia, instead. I will be there.

 The organizers say on their website: “[The Trump administration has] defied our courts, deported Americans, disappeared people off the streets, attacked our civil rights, and slashed our services. The corruption has gone too far. No thrones. No crowns. No kings.”

What does “No Kings” mean?

I think “No autocrats” might be better — and I still have a right to say what I want in this country. My sign usually says, “Down with the oligarchs!” But “No kings!” is good. When the protests came around in April, Trump posted a picture of himself as a king just to mock us — that, in itself, is good reason to demand his ouster. Every day he wrecks the nation by acting with executive power he is not granted and daring the courts and Congress to keep him in the bounds of constitutional authority.

Scoundrels use wicked methods,
    they make up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
    even when the plea of the needy is just. — Isaiah 32:17

Americans did overthrow a king to be a nation. But I like to protest autocrats — not all kings have been autocratic. The American experiment in democracy is dead set against them, however.

Who is organizing the No Kings protests?

Several organizers are taking credit for the No Kings protests, including Indivisible, MoveOn, and the 50501 Movement. Mobilize helps coordinate.

If you need a biblical precedent for organizing protests against the government, here is one in honor of the Pentecost season from Acts 5: “We must obey God, not men.” When the followers of Jesus said that, they were honoring him well, since he never let any officials deter him, avoided and subverted them, and gave his ultimate statement when he burst through the official seal they placed on his tomb after they killed him. It does not matter what a country’s  government is, Christians are salt and light in it. If you are not shining light on Trump’s endless lies (for one thing), you’re losing your salt.

Indivisible is a progressive organization that launched in 2016 after Trump was elected to his first term as president. MoveOn is a progressive public policy advocacy group that has been around since the late 1990s. It’s known for its email mobilization campaigns and is one of the largest grassroots campaigning communities.

The 50501 Movement stands for “50 protests. 50 states. 1 movement.” That’s the group I have followed most closely. 50501 came together on Reddit, as people began discussing mobilizing and protesting against Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who used to be a Trump confidant and adviser, and a proponent of the administration’s policies. Word circulated across social media until the group’s first protest took place on Feb. 5 and involved demonstrations outside of state capitol buildings and city halls.

It’s also the group responsible for the series of No Kings on Presidents’ Day protests that took place nationwide in February, including in Philadelphia, and the Hands Off protests that happened in April.

Military fantasies

Though the military parade — which formally celebrates the Army’s 250th birthday — is taking place on his birthday, Trump has denied claims that the party is for him. “My birthday happens to be on Flag Day,” Trump said during a Meet the Press interview last month. “I view it for Flag Day, not necessarily my birthday. Somebody put it together. But no, I think we’re going to do something on June 14, maybe, or somewhere around there. But I think June 14. It’s a very important day.”

In Trump speak, that means it is a birthday gift for him.  Whenever he says he doesn’t know anything about something, you can be sure he does. Here is the equipment rolling in (starts at about :24)

The spectacle is minimally projected to cost $45 million. It is a visual aid for the power grab Trump has enacted. The No Kings organizers say, “This display of might is intended to intimidate opponents and solidify his image as a strongman on our dime.” They also criticize the parade’s high costs — which will be funded at least partially by taxpayers — coinciding with the administration proposing to slash SNAP and Medicaid funding, among everything else.

The parade 

The parade will kick off a year of celebrations for the Army’s 250th birthday, according to the White House. There will be about 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and 50 helicopters on a route from Arlington, Va., to the National Mall, the Associated Press reported. There will also be a fireworks display and a daylong festival on the National Mall, according to an Army spokesperson.

It will be the first military parade in recent history, something Trump has publicly voiced a desire for since his first term as president. He initially proposed having one after seeing France’s Bastille Day celebration in 2017. But one would be hard-pressed to deny he imagines being Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un reviewing the troops. Earlier plans were shelved after estimates found that parade would cost nearly $100 million and be logistically complex. $16 million of the present estimate is allotted for street repairs after Army tanks roll down the old D.C. streets, which were not engineered for military parades, of course. NBC reports the Army is taking preventive measures to outfit the tanks in materials intended to lessen the damage.

Why no protests called for D.C.?

To be clear, many people will be protesting in DC. I haven’t heard of mass plan to lay in front of the tanks yet. But the national organizers went through months deciding to not organize for DC, partially because they feared Trump would use it to call for martial law.  Some people say sending troops to L.A. is the beginning of militarizing the country, anyway.

The organizers say, “On June 14 — Flag Day — Donald Trump wants tanks in the street and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday. But real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else. Instead of allowing this birthday parade to be the center of gravity, we will make action everywhere else the story of America that day: people coming together in communities across the country to reject strongman politics and corruption.”

Instead of a formal No Kings event in D.C., organizers are encouraging people to go to events  scheduled in every state on June 14, with flagship events occurring in Philadelphia, Chicago, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Houston. For supporters of the movement who are limited to the D.C. area, organizers suggest getting involved with a separate partner event called D.C. Joy Day, a celebration of the local community.

The Philly event is happening from noon to 3 p.m. beginning at LOVE Park and marching to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Take public transpo.

To find out about your area, check the No Kings website. It has a map of every June 14 event on its website (www.nokings.org/#map). The 50501 Movement is also posting forthcoming  events on its Instagram page.

If you still need some biblical encouragement to take to the streets, just take a look at the Budget proposal Trump is feverishly trying to get the Senate to pass. It is inspiring: [link to Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]. Proverbs 14:31 states, “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” That will be my main motivation for being on the street. If I am just simply saying “no” to an old man and his billionaire cronies who will waste money ineffectually bombing Houthis but will not maintain the present minimal attention the government pays to hungry children without adequate medical care, that will be enough.

 

Today is Columba Day! Royal who became a monk, then a thief, then a navigator, then a missionary, artist, and leader. A big man with a big life. Meet him at The Transhistorical Body.

Six Things I Did in My Twenties that Made All the Difference

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When I was on retreat last week I had a moment of wonder as my memory wandered back to my twenties. Some days I remember myself as the world’s dumbest 21-year old! So many of my present twentysomething friends seem so much better off than I was! As far as my soul is concerned I think it was like I was a spiritual refugee in my twenties who washed up onto the shores of Christianity. I made some big mistakes as I haltingly made my way into the strange new land of Jesus. But the good thing is that I also did not know that I shouldn’t adopt what appeared to be the best things about the ancient culture of my new homeland. I just kind of did things without a lot of insight or direction as I settled in. I “somehow” happened upon things that proved to be astoundingly important. Here are six things I did that have shaped my life for the better ever since.

I learned to live simply on purpose.

I was very poor. But I decided to stay that way on purpose. My cause was world hunger, apart from the mission of the church. Every extra penny I could get was designed to go to people who were starving. I became committed to not eating up other people’s resources in general. I ended up learning about the historic Christian discipline and even spiritual gift of voluntary poverty. It seemed strange then and it does now. But I managed to miss ever being tempted to live off fast food or to waste money on things that were meaningless. My resources have been purposefully used and that feels good.

I received the Spirit.

I was also poor in Spirit. “Receiving the Spirit” is what Pentecostals tell you to do to have a REALLY personal relationship with Jesus. I kept shooting for that no matter how uncool it seemed (and it did). A lot of Pentecostals are weird. But the best of them are radicals. If the Apostle Paul says “Be filled with the Spirit,” they are going to go for that. As I look back on it, some of their theology is so wrong that I’m glad I wasn’t paying very good attention! What I got was that I could and should have some experience of God’s Spirit in my life. I opened up to that and I met God personally. I thought it was thrilling then. I did not realize just how much more experience there was.

I conformed my lifestyle to the Bible.

“My lifestyle” is a pernicious phrase, it is so egocentric. But I was very egocentric in my twenties. I was forming my “lifestyle.” I was determined to be the best Christian possible and my teachers were all about the Bible. Thank God for teachers who got me to study the Bible! I’m not sure how they did it, but I sure thought knowing the Bible was crucial. I spent something like seven years doing 2PROAPT (which I still recommend to people) as my daily act of devotion. I got the basic material down. I must have pondered almost every line in the New Testament and tried to “apply” each of them “to my life,” as we said. I did not understand everything I should do about the Bible. But I filled my mind with the raw material of transformation that I have been using ever since. What’s more, I had a life-forming dialogue with the Bible writers about what is important and how I should live that formed my ability to keep having that dialogue.

I got married and had children, in that order.

These days, people are either wiser or more controlling, I can’t tell for sure. They wait a lot longer to get married. I did not wait. At age twenty, if I was dumb or dumbstruck about anything, it was the blessing of Gwen. And, I must admit, I became her very dumb husband at twenty-one. I knew very little about sex, myself, relationships, intimacy – name anything that would make me a decent partner. But being married improved me when I was available to be improved. Love shaped me instead of my career or my personal desires. Add the children on to that (I had four by the time I was 29) and that just deepened the requirement for me to learn how to love someone and to be responsible for something other than what moved me or pleased me. I don’t think I was too conscious of the benefits of my choice, but, as it turns out, it was nice to get a head start on being a grown up.

I lived communally.

In my late twenties we formed an intentional community that lasted for eight years and often had upwards to twenty people in it. Within that group of dear people I did some of my deepest formation and some of my stupidest things. It was a wonderful, irreplaceable experience. Even the people I lived with who are now geographically distant still feel like relatives. I think that is how the church should be. We took Acts 2 (see “I conformed my lifestyle to the Bible,” above) and decided to do it. Our “household” was a great environment in which to practice simplicity, too. Looking back, I think it was best for doing theology. We sat with each others for hours figuring out what God wanted us to do. Each year we would re-write our “statement of formation;” they are one-page works of theological art. When I was getting my first license with the BIC, I sat down with my household and asked them, “Here are the questions they are asking. What do I believe?” They could tell me. Christians don’t do much that is more countercultural than submitting themselves to love. Doing that with intention in my twenties shaped me.

I protested things.

It might be that if you never get over the edge to become a protester in your twenties, you lose the capability. Living simply in community was something of a protest in itself. Being Pentecostal was a statement, too. But I am talking about coming up against political philosophies and government actions that steer people toward destruction. I wanted to do something about hunger. I got (symbolically) arrested for trespassing on the weapons testing site in Nevada a few times. We picketed a new abortion clinic. We complained about Ronald Reagan. I evangelized, which, in itself, is a direct confrontation with the powers that be. I am glad I “got over the edge.” Getting over my fear of being vocal about my faith needed to get an early start. I think it helped to develop the habit of pushing against my fears before my brain hardened into the  habit of not doing faith that way.

There are probably more things that could be noted, of course. You are probably doing other things that you will note later. These are just the things that came to mind last week. I offer them as encouragement to my many 20something friends, many of whom are so much more mature than I was. I hope you don’t give up. If you are doing something that seems crazy for Jesus, now, it might be the very thing that will have made all the difference in thirty years. Do the best, most spiritual, most Christ-following thing you can think of doing with the capacity you have. You are equipping yourself to keep doing the word for the rest of your life. If you’re not twentysomething anymore, at least we’re not dead yet – neither is Jesus. Maybe some wild or difficult thing we are doing for love or truth right now will be very memorable in a few years!

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