For Christian Activists: "Faith in the Face of Empire"

Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire:
The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes

During Lent 2020, as I am looking for ways to understand what the way of Jesus might tell us about how to save the planet, I have returned to Mitri Raheb's book, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes. I've previously written about Mitri's book -- see: How Shall We Live in the Face of Empire? (Reading Mitri Raheb). I am reminded once more what a vital resource it is for Christian activists.

I've boiled down six takeaways from the book:

(1) The lure of Empire: Faith in the Face of Empire is a wake-up call that today -- as in the days of Jesus -- it is practically a full-time job to keep from getting sucked in to a life defined in terms of the world's empires of power. Some of the ways that happens is through collaboration and accommodation, but it can also happen when we think we are meaningfully resisting or rebelling.

(2) Community: Note to self! Pay attention to the distinction between getting wrapped up in politics and contributing to a new, better way of doing community (polis).

(3) The margins: What might happen if, instead of devoting my time and attention to people with the most power, I devoted my time and attention to people who are sometimes considered "marginal"?

(4) Diversity: Renew my commitment to seeing diversity as a source of strength. (Beware of the temptation to think being strong comes from presenting a monolithic front!)

(5) Live in tension: Can I respond to the call to live in the tension between "the world as it is" and "the world as it should be"?

(6) What's the job? Mitri suggests that the real job for me (and for all of us) is to be an "ambassador of the kingdom" -- i.e. what Jesus was talking about when he said, "The Kingdom of God is at hand."

All six takeaways directly contradict mainstream habits prevalent in US society today. Notably, a common thread in many of these is the importance of not getting seduced by the appeal of force. In certain ways, these takeaways can also feel counter-intuitive to people who consider themselves "activists," and who are struggling for effectiveness and success in struggles for in social justice, liberation, and change.

Maybe these six takeaways could be the basis for generative discussion about, for example, how the faith community might participate in the "Back From the Brink" campaign.

More: See Want to "Save the Planet"? What Might We Learn from the Way of Jesus?


(Here's a link to posts about the time I spent at Mitri's center in Bethlehem in 2015: Faith in the Face of Empire: A journey in search of hope in the land of conflicting narratives. There is a good bio of Mitri Raheb on Wikipedia.) 

What Will Our "Salvation Story" Look Like?

Joe and Rachel at the "Fiery Furnace" formation in Arches National Park, Fall 2017.

If we get out of this mess, will it be through our own doing? Or will it be through salvation by God?

Each year, on the day before Easter Sunday, many churches hold an Easter Vigil which includes stories of people's salvation throughout the ages with the help of God.

My favorite of those stories is always the one about the "the fiery furnace" -- and God's protection of the faithful Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the wrath of King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:1-68). Of course, I also like the one about the Noah finally finding dry land after the flood; and I like the one about Jonah getting spit up by that whale after three days; and I like the one about the Jewish people escaping across the Red Sea with the Egyptians in hot pursuit.

But I think the reason I like the fiery furnace story so much is that it is simultaneously so surreal and so direct. It's a story of unbelievable horror -- and also of a horror that we have all faced every day since August 6, 1945.

I went through a different sort of fiery furnace experience, myself, during the summer of 2017. I was diagnosed with lymphoma and had to start immediate chemotherapy. I kept telling myself that it might feel like they were putting fire in my body, but I was going to come out the other end alive. 

Baptism by fire: first night of R-CHOP, June 2017.

Within six months, the lymphoma was under control and I was able to go to a reduced treatment regime. We even managed to go on some trips. I was struck by how far I had come in a short time when we we posed happily in front of a rock formation called the "Fiery Furnace" in Arches National Park, in Utah.

And I wondered: did I owe my salvation in that time of trial to God? Or to people? Or to both?

World nuclear arsenals are currently estimated at over 14,000 warheads. Will we achieve salvation from this existential threat? Are we waiting for God to do it for us? Can we do it without God? How are we imagining this story of salvation -- if there is one -- will go?

These are some questions that I will be thinking about on Easter Eve, April 11, 2020.


More: See Want to "Save the Planet"? What Might We Learn from the Way of Jesus?

The Woman at the Well: Important Conversations to Save the Planet

Conference for defense contractors

As an opponent of nuclear weapons, and as a proponent of nuclear disarmament, I am inclined to seek out people who think like me: other opponents of nuclear weapons, other proponents of nuclear disarmament.

Given an opportunity to travel to a meeting or conference or rally, my first question tends to be, "Am I likely to run into 'my people' there?"

It's a reasonable enough impulse. This is hard work. We all need to draw strength from others who are committed to the same cause. And, as a practical matter, it's important to be together in the same place from time to time, in order to make plans and coordinate efforts.

Recently, though, I've been thinking a lot about the story of the woman at the well (John 4:5-42). It's a story about what happens when people who are not very much alike have an encounter with each other. It's based on particular conditions that existed 2,000 years ago; but it's also about what's happening right here - now, today.

I notice three important things happening in the story:

* Jesus is talking to -- gasp! -- a Samaritan

* Jesus "tells her everything she's ever done"

* the two of them eventually get around to the main thing: the desire for "living water"

From this story, and from the Good Samaritan, I've heard many times that Samaritans were a group of people that Jesus' Jewish audience would have considered "off limits." I'm finally beginning to admit to myself that I probably haven't really understood this in the past. I thought, "Well, Samaritans did things like eat pork and Jews don't eat pork, so, yeah, they would have been considered outsiders." But since I don't really have strong feelings about eating pork, this is a pretty weak characterization.

It's beginning to occur to me that, to understand the depth of feeling about "Samaritans" that is intended in this story, I would need to think about a group that is devoted to living a life that is antithetical to the one I value. For instance - instead of opponents of nuclear weapons and proponents of nuclear disarmament, I should think about proponents of nuclear weapons and opponents of nuclear disarmament. I should imagine a conversation around the counter at the diner in Amarillo, TX, near the Pantex nuclear weapons plant.

Okay, but what does the "tells her everything she's ever done" mean? I used to think that it had something to do with psychic powers or the ability to read minds -- or, anyway, at least profound powers of deduction, like Sherlock Holmes.

I have now come to believe that it has a much simpler meaning. It refers to two people having a conversation, and one of them reflecting back to the other person what he heard her say. Is that so remarkable? Does that explain the joy with which the Samaritan woman reported to her neighbors about Jesus?

When you think about it, we are seldom such good listeners. When was the last time somebody listened -- really listened -- to what you were trying to say? Most of the time, most of us are two busy thinking about what we are going to say next to be able to listen to the other person. Sure, we listen -- but we're really just listening for the pause that will be our signal to talk.

I imagine the Samaritan Woman expected to be talked at -- and instead discovered to her surprise that she had been listened to.

The climax of the story, though, is the part about "living water." It comes at the wrap-up of the conversation -- it's sort of like the end of a meeting, where someone says, "Okay, so where did we end up?" The Samaritan Woman says to Jesus, in essence, Okay, I think we're done talking, so let's do what we need to do. You take your water and then I'll take mine. This is sort of the 1st century version of, Well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Jesus says, Why do we have to stop being in conversation? Instead of "getting down to brass tacks" -- you take your water and then I'll take mine -- he suggests something that is perhaps less easy but also more fulfilling. I believe that what he was suggesting with the words "living water" (and what she heard in those words) was relationship -- the way of staying in connection with each other (and staying in connection with God) that includes communication in both directions and growth on both sides. And I believe that is what drew her in, and what sent her  out to tell other people.

I am an opponent of nuclear weapons, and as a proponent of nuclear disarmament. I don't know if I have the courage to go to a well where people are likely to think exactly the opposite of what I think. I don't know if I will have the patience to listen. And I don't know if I even really believe (yet) it's worth it to stay in relationship with them.

But I am pretty sure that if I want to follow in the Way of Jesus I am going to have to try.


More: See Want to "Save the Planet"? What Might We Learn from the Way of Jesus?

Chance Encounter: Good News About Connecting with God

(One of my goals for 2020 is to notice and amplify the diverse ways people share the Good News.)

Three years ago, in Berkeley, CA, I was working with members of a community organization made up of faith communities on a "Remember Our Names Black History Month Prayer Vigil."

We were setting up our materials -- banners, displays, literature -- in Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, opposite City Hall in Berkeley. Two young men came up and started talking with us -- I supposed they attended the high school that is next to the park. We were partly grateful to be able to engage these young men in conversation about the purpose of the important event that we were preparing for -- never too early to start promoting! -- and we were partly distracted by the need to get everything set up before the main event began.

"Remember Our Names Black History Month Prayer Vigil"
(Photo: Mark Coplan)

As I worked to drape banners over a low wall and secure them in place, one of the young men talked to me. The first things I noticed about him was that he was smoking, he was dressed head to toe in some team colors, and he was a white guy. He was talking about some musician he liked -- some "rapper something" -- who had been on TV the night before and he was really relishing the glow of that event. He said that he, himself, had made a point to wear that performer's signature clothes -- he pointed to his hat, his shirt, his pants, and his sneakers. I have to confess that I thought this was a little silly -- he was so happy to be communing with the rapper guy in this way, and I didn't even recognize the name he kept mentioning.

I tried to listen respectfully, but I also remember thinking, "Hey, I'm trying to hang a banner here! I can't seem to figure out a place to tie it down. Did you notice that I could use a little help?"

But instead of coming to my aid, the young man pulled out his phone and says, "Here, I've got it on video, just watch this!" So here I am, an old white guy standing in the middle of a park squinting at this little screen on a phone being held by this young man all dressed in red and smoking a cigarette, listening to rap.

Now, as someone who is endlessly trying to get people to watch stuff that I think is interesting, I felt the irony of this situation. Here was someone who was trying to change my world by showing me this important video, and all I wanted to do was pry myself loose and finish hanging the banner.

(And anyway, didn't he see how important this vigil was that we were preparing?)

*     *     *

That night -- for reasons that I can't quite explain -- I remembered this exchange, and I wondered about that video. I wondered what had felt so meaningful to him. I remembered that it was a video of the previous night's Grammy awards, and so I searched for the video of "some rapper."

This is what I found: a performance by Chance the Rapper at the 59th Grammy Awards ceremony.

Please take a moment to watch ChancePerform on Vimeo.

Chance the Rapper: "The first is . . . . "

I wasn't expecting to hear these words:

The first is that God is better than the world's best thing

God is better than the best thing that the world has to offer

Magnify, magnify, lift it on high

 . . . and . . .

Exalt, exalt, glorify, descend upon the earth with swords

I wasn't expecting the camera to pull back, the stage lights to go on full, and white-robed gospel singers flanking the stage, singing and swaying exuberantly, doing a full-blown rendition of "How Great Is Our God."

"How great . . . is our God . . . "

Most of all: I wasn't expecting to see the huge crowd of music industry VIPs attending the Grammy ceremony joining in -- standing and waving their arms in unison as the choir sang.

And I wondered: who would dare choose to perform this song at that event in front of all those people?

And I thought: this is what it means to spread the Good News!

(You can read the full words here.)

*     *     *

Chance the Rapper's Grammy performance of "How Great is Our God" made me think about a lot of things. I thought about going to a friend's church in Chicago and seeing how that congregation used praise music like "How Great is Our God" to create a completely different feeling than I was used to during worship. I thought about other times, when we've incorporated popular music in our own worship, and how great the response was to that. But most of all I thought about the enormous power of music of all kinds to enable us to connect with God, and I wondered why I wasn't doing more to contribute to that. And I decided to change that.

*     *     *

And when it was all done, I realized that what had happened was that the young man all dressed in red and smoking a cigarette had run across me in the park, and had taken the time to give his testimony about a message of Good News that was life-changing for him, and that he hoped would be life-changing for me.

And it was.

Good News for 2020: "Fear not!"

A symbol of early Christianity: ichthys

During the Service of Lessons and Carols at St. John's UCC on Madeline Island yesterday, one of the readings had to do with the coming of John the Baptist. "Don't be afraid, Zechariah!" (Luke 1:13) Suddenly, I was reminded of something that happened years ago.

"Oh yes!" I thought. "The woman in Madison . . . . "

At an antiwar conference in Madison, WI, I sat next to a new acquaintance before one of the conference sessions. I noticed she wore a circular pendant with the outline of a fish. I recognized it as a Christian symbol, but I hadn't thought of her as a particularly "churchy" person. I was curious about what the pendant meant to her, so I asked her to tell me about it.

"It's a symbol of early Christianity," she told me. And then she added, "You know, for me, of all the things Jesus said, the most important is this: 'Fear not.' He says it in about 20 different situations." (See, for instance, Luke 12:32)

And at that moment, I realized she had seized a moment to testify to the Good News to me -- a person who may not have struck her as particularly "churchy." Years after

I was reminded of this moment during the Service of Lessons and Carols at St. John's UCC on Madeline Island yesterday. "Don't be afraid, Zechariah!" (Luke 1:13) "Oh yes!" I thought. "The woman in Madison . . . . "

Last night, my son sent a text with a sketch my 2-year-old granddaughter made.

Fish by Clem

Coincidence? Perhaps . . . .

(One of my goals for 2020 is to notice and amplify the diverse ways people share the Good News.)

Related post:

The Children Are Waiting

The Woman at the Well and the Woman at GLIA

(Originally published in November, 2019, as "The Woman at the Well and the Woman at GLIA"  in the newsletter of St. John's UCC on Madeline Island, The Lighthouse.)

Braving stormy waters en route to Mackinac Island. The bridge connecting
the U.P. With the rest of Michigan is visible in the background.

On the day we were driving across the U.P. to Mackinac Island for the GLIA (Great Lakes Islands Alliance) conference, I was also trading messages with some UCC colleagues in other parts of the country about Bible readings that will be coming up in Lent 2020. One of those readings is one of my favorites: the woman at the well (John 4:5-42).

At the heart of the story is an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. Their interaction is remarkable because, under ordinary circumstances, it would never have taken place: at the time of the story, Jews and Samaritans simply didn't talk to each other. And, after all, why should they? The Jewish world had everything it needed. What could possibly be gained by talking to someone from "outside"? In the story, Jesus suggests that part of the answer has to do with gaining access to something he calls "living water."

GLIA 2019 Islands Summit

When we arrived at Mackinac, our first activity was dinner with all the other conference particiapnts. Naturally, I scanned the room to find the other people who had come from Madeline Island, because that's who I wanted to eat with. Then a little voice inside my head said, "You should go sit with someone you don't already know!" I ginned up my courage and went to a table that still had several empty seats and said, "May I join you?"   

I was welcomed to sit down, and my dinner companion and I had a very nice conversation. It turns out Madeline Island and Bois Blanc Island have a lot of points in common. Of course, there were also moments when something she said reminded me of the distance between us. ("Whoa -- only 50 residents in the winter? That seems . . . extreme . . . !")

I'm a great believer in the power of literature to help people connect, so naturally, the conversation turned to the topic of the books we liked. We found we both loved Louise Penny. (We even cooked up an idea for a murder mystery series centered on Great Lakes islands!) Then she mentioned A Gentleman in Moscow. I pointed excitedly to Rachel, and said, "She's reading that book right now and thinks it's fantastic -- "

"Couldn't stand it!" my dinner companion interjected. "Made no sense. I have no idea what was going on in the book. Awful!"

Oh well . . . apparently our literary tastes has both similarities and differences!

Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

We met up again two days later in the workshop I led. Our group discussed the possibility of a GLIA-wide reading activity. "What if people on islands all across the Great Lakes chose to read a particular book, and then talk about it together?" The workshop generated a lot of enthusiasm. People came up with lots of ideas about how to use such an activity to connect with people on other islands, and beyond. It occurred to me that here was a group of people, each of whom lived in a place endowed with nearly limitless resources -- especially water -- and yet they were expressing a yearning for something more. They wanted to connect.

Woman: Get your own water from the well, and when you're gone I'll get mine.
Jesus: Why are we talking about the water from the well? Why not talk about living water?
Woman: Living water? Where can I get that?

The upshot of the workshop was that about a dozen people agreed to be involved in trying to carry the idea forward so people living on islands stretching from Madeline Island in Lake Superior to the Lake Erie Islands near Toledo can connect with each other.

At the final meal of the conference, I yielded to my temptation to find a seat away from everybody else and sat alone munching on a hamburger. My friend sought me out and said, "That workshop was really good! I'm looking forward to seeing what develops." She turned to go, paused and then turned back to say, "But please: no Gentleman in Moscow!"

Drones: Am I Responsible?

His slowly scanning magnifying lens,
A blurry, glistening circle he suspends
Above the word 'Carnation'. Then he bends

So near his eyes are magnified and blurred,
One finger on the miniature word,
As if he touched a single key and heard

A distant, plucked, infinitesimal string,
"The obligation due to every thing
That' s smaller than the universe." ...

- from "Supernatural Love" by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

I think that the most important question in any conversation about drones is, "What is my responsibility to think and care about this?" Until we address the question of responsibility, we haven't begun to establish a frame for the conversation. Are we talking about drones out of passing curiosity? Or because it's in the newspaper, so we're "supposed to" talk about it? Or out of some of true sense of obligation and responsibility?

In the past, I have found it appropriate to feel responsibility for U.S. warmaking on the grounds that the killing and injury are being done "in my name." In other words, I am required to act as a matter of "citizen responsibility."

As I have reflected on the words of the Apostle's Creed, it has become clear to me that the real response-ability that we should be talking about is that which comes in response to God's affirming relationship toward us. If, indeed, I believe that "my Lord ... has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won [delivered] me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death ...." then the parameters of what I am responsive to -- and responsible for -- must transcend a legalistic notion of what accrues to me as a U.S. citizen.

If one doesn't believe God's entry into the world is literal and in-the-flesh -- but rather some kind of abstract relationship -- much less if one has no conception of any kind to tie one to the the rest of humanity -- it becomes very hard to get beyond a concept of responsibility that is narrow and legalistic: "Well, how much, REALLY, did anything I did contribute to this situation? Isn't my responsibility, if any, infinitesimal?"

On the other hand, however, to say that we are responsible for EVERYTHING is not terribly helpful, either -- in effect, it conveys no information.

I would suggest, therefore that effective criteria of what I am to be responsive to and responsible for might include:

* Does something need to be done?

* CAN I do something?

* Am I uniquely situated to do something?

With respect to the last of these, Rabbi Alissa Wise points to an important concept in helping us think about when it is that we are well-situated to make a difference. "Tochecha [sacred rebuke] is about our obligation to tell someone when they have done or are currently straying and behaving wrongly – whether to us, or to another. What’s more, tochecha requires us also to engage with those we are rebuking and assist them and support them in the repair of the wrong you are calling out." (See Israel Palestine Mission Network, God Is In This Place.)

In a pre-modern world, the answers to these questions could be expected to be quite close at hand. (It had to do with physical proximity and a relatively limited set of possible social relationships.)

Corpus of Christ, Spanish, Catalonia (Banyoles),
13th century Art Institute of Chicago.

Today, the field of action is much larger: it is global. Let's face it: "today" can be thought of as having started once we began having empires, i.e. from Rome onward. The question, in effect, becomes "Where are they crucifying people?" and then, "Mustn't I be there?"

It was in the imperial context that, as Pastor Erik Christensen has pointed out, we can see "the early Church’s emerging understanding of who Jesus was in relation to God." Thus, Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, "Jesus Christ ... though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6-8). We see this crystallized in places such as Mark's gospel: "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

(I found echoes of this in Rabbi Wise's statement of faith in "God Is In This Place": "God is the impulse in me to serve the Other out of a sense of responsibility that stems from the Source of redemption.")

Does theology (e.g. the Creed) help make choices about responsibility? Does it move us effectively from the "something oughta be done" stage ... through the "I can do something" stage ... up to and including the "I am doing something" stage?

A possible way to test whether this particular theological way of thinking is helpful is to consider some other situations of killing and injury, not just the killing and injury being done with drones. For instance, what if one were to consider suicide attacks, such as those reported September 2 in the New York Times?

For both drone attacks and suicide attacks, one might ask:

* Does something need to be done?

* CAN I do something?

* Am I uniquely situated to do something?

As we think about and discuss issues such as distancing ... authority, collateral damage, and pre-emptive violence ... surveillance ... and technology in the days and weeks ahead, perhaps we can compare and contrast these two distinct types of killing and injury to help us clarify our thinking.

Read all the posts in this series:

Drones: Am I Responsible? (this post)
Drones vs. Up-Close-and-Personal Reality
Confronting Drone Killing: Is God Urging Us to "Risk It"?
Ending Drone Killing: The Spirit Is Moving
Series intro: Do You Know What You Believe? (The Apostle's Creed as a Focus for Thinking About Drones)

(Originally published in September, 2012, as "Drones: Am I Responsible?" on the Awake to Drones blog.


Related post

"Because of the intensified division of labor," the narrator explains, "many technicians and scientists can no longer recognize the contribution the have made to weapons of destruction." "Our department extracts lareic, oleic, and naptha acids . . . . "  "I'm a chemist. What should I do? If I develop a substance, it can be good for humanity . . . ."  "Besides napalm, Dow Chemical produces 800 other products . . . ." Does this familiar to you?

(See American Fire: Still Spreading, Still Inextinguishable)

Drones vs. Up-Close-and-Personal Reality

My sewing needle close enough that I
Can watch my father through the needle's eye,
As through a lens ground for a butterfly

- from "Supernatural Love" by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Obtaining "distance" from where war and injury is happening seems like a desirable objective, and drones have been championed precisely because they put members of the U.S. military (and, all the moreso, the rest of us) at the greatest possible distance from where the actually injury is taking place. What does a confession of faith suggest about this view?

Having gained some clarity on responsibility ... and knowing the right question to ask ("Where are they crucifying people?") ... it becomes very important to ask "What obstructs our understanding?"

As Jack Lawlor has written, "Drone warfare is the apex of misperception," and overcoming misperception is central to a Buddhist approach to the question of how to live.

I see tremendous resonance with this view within Christianity, particularly with the idea that, yes, there are aspects of our world that are "out of joint" -- we call this phenomenon sin -- but that our response to this out-of-jointness is not to flee, but instead to get up close and personal, and see what's really going on there.

Sadao Watanabe, "Jesus Washing St. Peters Feet"

 

It has always been somewhat perplexing to me what Luther meant when he said, "my Lord ... has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won [delivered] me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death ...." What exactly does "redeeming" mean here? I can (sort of) understand a kind of exchange -- symbolically -- but what exchange, what transaction is really understood to have taken place?

For me, this discussion gives clarity to the notion that "getting up close and personal" is necessary if there is to be any hope of getting a right understanding of others -- of not just abandoning ourselves to an acceptance of the sinfulness and unknowableness of others. And, of course, that "getting up close and personal" carries risk at all times, and, ultimately, results in in-this-world death.

Redemption. At a price.

Lest anyone think that I have become too detached from the here-and-now of the conflicts in which drones are used, consider two recent articles from the New York Times.

In an op-ed entitled, "A Pointless Blacklisting," Alex Strick van Linschoten discusses the recent designation of the Haqqani network as a "terrorist" organization, pointing out that this prevents us from talking to them -- the one thing that would offer any hope of moving away from a relationship based on nothing but conflict and death. In fact, "[t]he head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael T. Flynn, said in 2010 that the group’s leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was “absolutely salvageable” and open to reconciliation." But defining him as a "terrorist" makes dialog off limits. Thus "[t]he current war effort relies heavily on drones and night raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan." The result? "[T]hese tactics often increase radicalization and enmity."

Carl Dix, "Ecce Homo"

I see these ideas being explicitly adopted by at least some thinkers in the government and military. As discussed in "How Resilient Is Post-9/11 America?", there is growing interest in the idea that real-world effectiveness -- especially including in military conflict -- depends on a characteristic called "resilience" in the face of hard-to-understand behavior and phenomena. "The best weapon against terror is refusing to be terrorized." When we encounter sin, do we retreat and become "brittle and clumsy and counterproductive"? Or do we find the inner resources to move closer and find hope in humanity?

I disagree with the notion that the military framework can be made a resounding success through greater "resiliency," but I do agree that we need to recognize and work against our natural, sinful tendency to turn everyone into the enemy. For instance: "The Homeland Security Department is trying to enlist the public’s help with a program called 'If You See Something, Say Something,' which urges citizens to report unusual behavior to authorities. Well-meaning, perhaps, but officials must offer more practical guidance to avoid creating “a climate of spying,” homeland security specialists say."

By now, we have all been exposed to stories of how military pilots and drone operators begin to see people as less than human. (I talked about this in a blog post called Drone Victims: Just Dots? Just Dirt?) But isn't drone use having the same effect on all of us? Nick Mottern, director of Know Drones, a program of public education about drone surveillance and drone killing, has said that drone use is the linchpin of an effort by our government to "systematically deprive us of empathy." I can think of no better way to sum up why the distancing that is brought about by drones is unacceptable - to a confessing Christian, or to anybody else.


Read all the posts in this series:

Drones: Am I Responsible?
Drones vs. Up-Close-and-Personal Reality (this post)
Confronting Drone Killing: Is God Urging Us to "Risk It"?
Ending Drone Killing: The Spirit Is MovingSeries intro: Do You Know What You Believe? (The Apostle's Creed as a Focus for Thinking About Drones)

(Originally published in September, 2012, as "Drones vs. Up-Close-and-Personal Reality" on the Awake to Drones blog.


Note on Ecce Homo by Carl Dix: Dix’s works were based on religious allegories or depictions of post-war suffering. A veteran himself of WWI, Dix was latter drafted into Hitler’s Volkssturm during WWII and was eventually captured by the French and later released. Most of his latter works had a religious basis. Ecce Homo is one of thirty-three images Dix created in a suite called Matthaüs Evangelium, which accompanied the Martin Luther New Testament. Ecce Homo are the Latin words used by Pontius Pilate in the Vulgate translation of the John 19:5, when he presents a scourged Jesus Christ, bound and crowned with thorns, to a hostile crowd shortly before his Crucifixion. The King James Version of the Bible translates the phrase into English as “behold the man.”

Confronting Drone Killing: Is God Urging Us to "Risk It"?

To read what's buried there, he bends to pore
Over the Latin blossom. I am four,
I spill my pins and needles on the floor

Trying to stitch "Beloved" X by X.
My dangerous, bright needle's point connects
Myself illiterate to this perfect text

- from "Supernatural Love" by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Before she left for Pakistan to participate in the Code Pink delegation, my friend JoAnne Lingle, from Indianapolis, told me, "We want to reach out to the people there to show that we care about their lives; we want to show the American public how civilians are being targeted by drones; we want to come back to the US and tell the stories of drone victims. Our larger goal is to stop the drone strikes." (Read more at My visits to Pakistan and Kurdistan.)

Map of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan

I find this in stark contrast to the attitude implicit in the official U.S. approach to much of the Mideast and South Asia: "We're going to go over there and get them before they come here and get us."

And, in fact, in the last week the newspaper has seemed to be especially filled with stories about people "getting" each other - "getting" people who were too liberal, "getting" people who were suppressing liberation, "getting" people who were acting suspicious . . . and on and on . . . .

Each of these accounts or characterizations is steeped in violence, and corresponding to each of these accounts or characterizations, there is a worldview that explains the utility, justification, and/or desirability -- indeed, the extreme praiseworthiness -- of that violence.

I believe the significant feature of the faith that Christians confess when they recite the Apostle's Creed is that it forces us to confront the question: why doesn't God deal with us violently? If ever there was a utility or justification for destroying someone or something, it is the implacable, stubborn imperfection present in people. Why doesn't God just get rid of the lot of us? Why, instead, does God choose to get "up close and personal" with us, meeting us where we are, in our own sinful, mortal bodies?

In other words, I believe that God sees another way forward for us, even when all we can imagine is "going over there and getting them before they come here and get us." Even when, in our desperation, all we can imagine is throwing our own life away in order to offer a glint of hope to comrades combating a brutal regime. Even when all we can imagine is venting our rage on people who threaten us with painful social change: them, their families, and anyone who helps them. Even when we build a towering military establishment dedicated to destroying entire other cultures, as long as it keeps "them" over "there" where they can't possibly ever bring harm "here" to "us."

God shows us that other way, and it involves trying to walk together, and eschewing violence.

During the Code Pink peace delegation to Pakistan:
A sunset march through Jinnah Market with the student
group of PTI in Islamabad followed by a candlelight vigil.

What God is strangely silent about, by the way, is death! Often, we make an idol of life itself. We become trapped in the worship of our own guaranteed well-being. Think about it: extreme aversion to being harmed inherently translates into measures to pre-empt harm, at any cost, and no matter if they are marginally effective (or even counterproductive!).

Conversely, if you believe in a God who accepts the reality of the human experience, even death, then it suddenly seems ridiculous to hold as a value the prevention of harm at any cost. It's immediately apparent that God wants us to take the risk to get near our fellow humans and interact with them, hear them, negotiate with them, engage in diplomacy with them .... even if we're not 100% guaranteed of success!


Read all the posts in this series:

Drones: Am I Responsible?
Drones vs. Up-Close-and-Personal RealityConfronting Drone Killing: Is God Urging Us to "Risk It"? (this post)
Ending Drone Killing: The Spirit Is Moving
Series intro: Do You Know What You Believe? (The Apostle's Creed as a Focus for Thinking About Drones)

(Originally published in October, 2012, as "Ending Drone Killing: The Spirit Is Moving" on the Awake to Drones blog.)


For more photos from Pakistan, see the Code Pink delegation photo site. And be sure to read JoAnne Lingle's full account of her trip!

Ending Drone Killing: The Spirit Is Moving

Carnatio, the Latin, meaning flesh."
As if the bud's essential oils brush
Christ's fragrance through the room, the iron-fresh

Odor carnations have floats up to me,
A drifted, secret, bitter ecstasy,
The stems squeak in my scissors, Child, it's me,

- from "Supernatural Love" by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

We are inevitably asked to accept injury to innocents as an unavoidable consequence of a goal that is considered very important. Assuming for the moment that we accept the "very important goal" ... what does a confession of faith clarify about such "collateral damage"?

People who absolutely reject violence, in general, and/or reject drone killing, specifically, find the problem of collateral damage to have an obvious solution: it's wrong and the actions leading to it should be stopped.

The solution to the problem is much less obvious to those who think there are ends that can and should be attained using violence. A recent exchange on the "Morning Joe" about drone strikes between Joe Scarborough and Time columnist Joe Klein put a fine point on this difficulty:

"This is offensive to me, though," Scarborough said. "It seems so antiseptic. It seems so clean. And yet you have four-year-old girls being blown to bits ... this is going to cause the U.S. problems in the future."

"The bottom line in the end is whose four-year-old gets killed?" Klein responded.

"Does that matter?" Scarborough said.

"What we're doing is limiting the possibility that four-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror," Klein concluded.

Note: "limiting the possibility that four-year-olds here will get killed"!

Though the assertion that "the bottom line in the end is whose four-year-old gets killed" is abhorrent to me, I must recognize that it neatly sums up the point on which a great many people experience a failure of understanding. To some people -- Joe Klein, for instance, in the example above -- it is as obvious that some four-year-olds matter as it is that some others do not.

I came back from a conference on drones in April, 2012, determined to increase people's understanding of drone killing. I believed that they didn't know that young children were being killed, and I assumed that I could arouse their awareness by providing visceral images. As I worked at this, I came to recognize that there are many possible pathways to understanding, and many different obstacles, and that different kinds of information and different levels of stimulus are required for different people.

Do Christian beliefs help us to find a way to address this?

When I think about the difficulties that people experience in understanding -- in understanding the world around them, and notions like justice, and ultimately in discerning God's will -- and the hope of surmounting those difficulties, I think about the meaning of the expression "the Holy Spirit." The Apostles' Creed includes the words, "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." My understanding of the Apostle's Creed is that the Holy Spirit includes all those ways that God becomes known to us -- through the Bible, for instance, and but also through people - including Christian people ("the holy Christian church," which I understand to be cognate with "the communion of saints") but, perhaps more importantly, simply through people in general.

Consider, for instance, the witness provided by Nick Mottern, director of the Know Drones project, describing an encounter during one of his presentations during a tour of Ohio and Pennyslvania.

In the late afternoon of September 20, 2012, in Room 101 of Maginnes Hall at Leigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a young woman student from Yemen touched off a blast of reality that startled and sobered 50 or so of her fellow students and townspeople attending a talk I was giving about US drone attacks and surveillance. Paraphrased, she said:

“I get the feeling that there are those in this room who value American lives much more than the lives of other people in the world. I am from Yemen. I am a city girl, but I live not far from a village where I have family members and where US drones killed 40 people who were doing nothing but minding their daily business. The people in the village have no idea why this happened, they know nothing of al-Qaeda; they are trying to sue the United States.”

After she spoke, there were other comments and questions, but her words hung in the air, a stark personal, undeniable witness to the fact that yes, US drone attacks are killing people and creating great suffering. For all of us there, drone killing now had a face, and the United States stood convicted. At the end of the Q & A, people went up to her to talk and to say they were sorry for what is happening; several, including me, gave her a hug and more thanked her for speaking out.

The woman, with a sweet, friendly disposition, speaking in a soft, direct but extremely firm way, crystallized what appears to be the main reason that the American public is so accepting of drone wars – that is, the widely-held feeling that Americans are exceptional.

(Excerpted from Challenging Dronotopia, available soon on the Know Drones website.)

Why does it take someone from the country affected in order for these killings to become understandable. Why do we only begin to understand when the killings "have a face"?

""Absence" by Jane Norling

This helps remind me of one of the meanings of "sin" -- of human frailty: that, for all our pretensions, we are beings who are capable of only very limited amounts of abstraction. To relate this to the Apostles' Creed: we are not capable of clearly discerning God's will through our belief in God the Father alone. The meaning of Jesus Christ is that humans needed something more "up close and personal" to shake their consciousness'. And -- dare I say it? -- Jesus Christ (narrowly defined as that man who lived in Palestine 2000 years ago) isn't enough unless we open ourselves to the continual and every-present impact of God and Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, acting to continuously break through the human fog.

"At a local school"
(from the Code Pink Pakistan delegation)

The Holy Spirit is moving in the testimony of people like Nick Mottern and the woman from Yemen at Lehigh.

The Holy Spirit is moving in the testimony of people like JoAnne Lingle and her colleagues in the Code Pink peace delegation that went to Pakistan, and the stories of the people they met there.

The Holy Spirit is moving in the work of the many artists who contributed to the exhibit Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan.

And our awareness of the movement of the Holy Spirit is only just beginning.

I predict that when we finally extract ourselves from the hell that we have waded into with drones, we will look back and realize that we didn't "think" our way out of this problem, but that we "opened" our way out of it -- and that God met us in our opening up.


Read all the posts in this series:

Drones: Am I Responsible?
Drones vs. Up-Close-and-Personal Reality
Confronting Drone Killing: Is God Urging Us to "Risk It"?Ending Drone Killing: The Spirit Is Moving (this post)
Series intro: Do You Know What You Believe? (The Apostle's Creed as a Focus for Thinking About Drones)

(Originally published in October, 2012, as "Ending Drone Killing: The Spirit Is Moving" on the Awake to Drones blog.)

Is the Opposite of Violence Non-Violence? Or Is It Compassion?

(Originally published in July, 2010, as "The Opposite of Violence Is . . . ?" on the Compassionate Nation blog.)

If you embrace the proposition that might doesn't make right, you are led to the question, "What, exactly, is our idea of how to govern?" Or, more broadly, "What is the way that we want our nation to conduct itself -- to "be" in the world?"

I found some provocative thoughts on this subject in a book by Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea. The entire book is well-worth reading and thinking about. (A lesson a day for a month . . . ?) However, the lesson that stopped me in my tracks was Lesson #23.




Lesson #23 says "Violence is a virus that infects and takes over." This struck me as a very powerful truth; indeed, the peculiar characteristic of violence is that it always "infects" the victim with the desire to retaliate. Hence the tendency for violence to lead to more violence.

Perhaps the viral nature of violence is a remnant of our primordial nature, an impulse to telegraph the message, "Don't mess with me!!!" Certainly, when you think of it in terms of signaling, it becomes apparent why violence is so contagious -- it is far less important that retaliation or revenge be specific to the act or actor that provoked it; all that matters is that the message "Don't mess with me!!!" gets broadcast widely. Moreover, there is a degree to which we are inclined to engage in "scary" violence more than "lethal" violence. Like a true virus, violence evolves successfully when it avoids killing its host.

When I thought about Lesson #23, the viral nature of violence, I was forced to confront a problem: I wonder if "non-violence" per se -- that is, measured restraint -- has the same viral power as violence itself. Are we impelled by our inner instincts to emulate non-violent behavior in the same way that we are impelled to retaliate in the face of violence?

As I cast about for an alternative that has some of the psychological power of violence, I landed on "compassion." It seems to me that compassion is something that, once experienced, tends to become contagious. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that compassion has a gentle viral power on both the person exercising compassion, as well as on the receiver of compassion. To be sure, it is an impulse with different characteristics than the violence impulse. Nonetheless, there is no disputing that there are large numbers of people in the world who have felt the inner sensations generated by the practice of intentional compassion take over their lives, and those around them, in a viral way.

So . . . perhaps in the intentional practice of compassion we have a viable alternative to "might makes right" and violence. Can a government be "compassionate"? What might the differences be between the way individuals experience compassion, and the way compassion is enacted by governments?


Related post

A virus is able to be so successful precisely because it (most of the time) doesn't kill its host. I can't help thinking that we simply are not being intelligent about how to respond to violence. How might recognizing the "viral" nature of violence help us to respond to it more intelligently?

(See Violence: Taking Over Like a Virus)

Heaven in Chicago: North Pond

(Originally published in September, 2014, on the blog of St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Logan Square, Chicago.)

Near where I live is a pond ringed by a small number of trees and a large number of native prairie wildflowers.

I walked around the pond yesterday. As I often do, I set off there at a fast pace, but as I got close I slowed down, and eventually I was doing a slow-motion creep that allowed me to register each flower and butterfly and sun-basking turtle.

Black-crowned night heron

You make friends of a certain kind when you visit the pond. Yesterday I was pleased to see the black-crowned night heron in his usual place. A little farther along -- though I wasn't really looking -- I spotted a little green heron on a branch. Near the end of my circuit I saw a great blue heron, wading in the shallows; that was a special treat because I had spotted him only after making a short detour to get a close look at some wild columbine.

The limitation, if you can call it that, of the pond is that, well, one can't own it.  And I don't just mean own it in the legal sense, but also in the sense of having total dominion over it. "What was the name of that flower again?" "I don't remember the joe pye weed being THIS tall!" "The goldenrod is really EVERYwhere! (Will we ever be able to get ahead of it?)"

Of course, in another sense, the pond surrenders itself to a rather startling degree of "ownership."

"These are 'obedient plants'." (When I described to someone how they got their name, how you can bend them and they slowly spring back to their original shape, he said 'Shouldn't it be 'UN-obedient plants?')

"These are the wild senna, with their late summer yellow blossoms; they say that after the destruction of the atom bomb, it was the wild senna that came back and grew in wild profusion in Hiroshima . . . " 

"These are elderberries -- so beautiful with their rich purple-red branches -- I wonder what the old ladies' elderberry wine in Arsenic and Old Lace tasted like?"

"This is the path where I can disappear behind a screen of 7-foot tall compass plants and prairie grasses, even though I'm still just a few feet from the main trail!"

It's a place where one can nearly simultaneously lament the past ("All that's left of the bee balm is their skeletons; the summer sped by so fast!") and live in the expectation of what is to come ("Soon the purple asters will be EVERYwhere!")

Obedient plant

I ask myself if there is a gospel message in all of this. Perhaps material for a parable? I imagine Jesus saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven pond ringed by a small number of trees and a large number of native prairie wildflowers . . . ."

Read more about North Pond in Chicago.

Want to "Save the Planet"? What Might We Learn from the Way of Jesus?

When I was a teenager in New Jersey in the '70s, I played in a rock band. Among the artists we loved and emulated were Edgar Winter and his brother, Johnny. Edgar and his band performed a song called "Save the Planet":

(... and check out the live version of "Save the Planet" here.)

The lyrics go like this:

Save the planet!
Who will save our planet?
Who will volunteer?
Save the planet - don't you know we love our planet?
Judgement time is here.

Who will it be? Will it be Mr. Black?
Who will it be? Will it be Mr. White?
Who will it be?  Will it be Mr. Wrong?
Who will it be?  Will it be Mr. Right?
Will it be you? Or will it be me?
Lord knows who will be . . . .

Every time I've listened to this joyful gospel hymn over the course of the past forty years or so, I've been filled with a sense of tremendous hope. Until relatively recently, that was a hope that stood in the face of a vague sense of the possible threats to our environment. I still get hope from this song, but I now realize the challenge is right in front of us, and urgent.

And as I listen to these words with a new sense of urgency, I'm hearing an important message. I have tended to think a great deal in terms of physics and chemistry -- how to offset the dangers posed by carbon dioxide and nuclear radiation -- but perhaps what Edgar Winter is telling me is that there is a more fundamental question: "Who will volunteer?" Hmmm ... what does it look like to be a "volunteer"?

The more I think about it, the more I think that being a "volunteer" -- that is, someone who has decided for themselves what is important and has set out on a chosen path -- is central to addressing the crisis the planet is facing. And that makes me, as a Christian, wonder what I might learn about this from reflecting on how Jesus lived. After all, Jesus was the ultimate "volunteer."

I was recently challenged to take a look at some scripture passages that are used during the Lenten season -- the six weeks leading up to Easter -- and think about them in light of this question. In 2020, people in churches around the country (and around the world) will reflect in common on six stories:

* How to pray ... how to fast ... what to treasure (Matt 6:1-6, 16-21)
* Tested in Wilderness (Matt 4:1-11)
* Transfiguration (Matt 17:1-9)
* Samaritan Woman (John 4:5-42) - see: The Woman at the Well: Important Conversations to Save the Planet
* Healing a Blind Man (John 9:1-41)
* Lazarus (John 11:1-45)
* Easter Vigil - see: What Will Our "Salvation Story" Look Like?

(See: Revised Common Lectionary - Lent 2020)

In the weeks ahead, I plan to delve into these stories and offer reflections. I'm not sure where it will lead me. But I'm remembering some of my past reflections on Lent, Holy Week, and East (see "Thoughts Before Holy Week: Talk About the Passion" and reflections on the R.E.M. lyric "not everyone can carry the weight of the world") and feeling that it may lead me toward some basics that will help me on my journey.


Related post


Searching the story of Noah for insight about the situation we face, what we might do about it, and where God is in all this. (See BFtB-WWND: "Back From The Brink": What Would Noah Do? )

How a confession of faith may help us think through our response to problems like drone killing and drone surveillance. (See Awake to Drones: Confessions of Faith)

BFtB-WWND: "Back From The Brink": What Would Noah Do?

The resolution on preventing nuclear war passed overwhelmingly
at the UCC General Synod 2019 in Milwaukee.

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Thirty-Second General Synod of the United Church of Christ urges the National setting, conferences, associations, and local churches to advocate for policy makers to support the aforementioned resolutions [i.e. the five points of the Back From the Brink campaign, and global nuclear weapons ban].

 - from "RESOLUTION Calling for the United States to pull 'Back From The Brink' and Prevent Nuclear War" passed last week at the 32nd General Synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC) meeting last week in Milwaukee

"Build yourself a ship."

- Genesis 6:14
(translation from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene H. Peterson)

I promised myself that if the resolution passed, I would spend the month of July in sacred study.

Last week, representatives from congregations of the United Church of Christ (UCC) from across the country gathered in Milwaukee for the 2019 General Synod. In the course of the next several days, they considered approximately twenty different resolutions. On Tuesday, June 25, the delegates voted overwhelmingly to pass its "RESOLUTION Calling for the United States to pull 'Back From The Brink' and Prevent Nuclear War."

The resolution urges member congregations, and all other levels of the UCC body, to actively support the nationwide "Back From The Brink" campaign. The campaign calls on the US to:

* renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first;
* end any president’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack;
* take US nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert;
* cancel the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons; and
* actively pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

The resolution is simply this: an invitation to nearly 5,000 congregations, with about 850,000 members, to join others in "building a ship" to carry us out of the danger that we face.

(You can read the full text of the UCC's "Back From the Brink" resolution on the denomination's website. More information on key aspects of the UCC's "Back From the Brink" resolution and the campaign can be found in my April 8 blog post. )

So today I begin keeping that promise to myself, and open the Bible to the book of Noah. For the next month, I will look to this sacred text in search of insight about the situation we face, what we might do about it, and where God is in all this.

I will also be joining in sacred conversation with UCC colleagues and with members of other organizations who are hard at work on the "Back From The Brink" campaign, about how to move from resolution (and reflection) to action.

Watch this space for daily reflections on "Back From The Brink": What Would Noah Do?


Next NOAH post


Posts in the NOAH series:

Genesis 6:1-4 ... They were awesome. (But they really screwed things up.)
Genesis 6:5-8 ... Are we prepared to think about un-creation?
Genesis 6:9-16 ... What Will Modern Noahs Build?
Genesis 6:17-18 ... Earth On the Brink. (What's the deal?)
Genesis 6:19-22 ... A Multitude of Reasons to Work to Prevent Nuclear War
Genesis 7:1-5 ... ALL ABOARD! (the "Back From the Brink" Campaign, that is!)
Genesis 7:6-10 ... Preventing Nuclear War: Recommended for All Ages
Genesis 7:11-16 ... Lifeboat or Tomb? How the Nuclear Weapons Story Ends
Genesis 7:17-24 ... Nuclear Weapons: Why "Imagine the Worst"?
Genesis 8:1-5 ... Preventing Nuclear War: Can We Feel Solid Ground Beneath Our Feet?
Genesis 8:6-12 ... Company On the Walk "Back From the Brink" 
Genesis 8:13-19 ... NOAH: He got to the last step because he took the first step
Genesis 8:20-22 ... NOAH: A Model for Advocacy?
Genesis 9:1-7 ... Time to Re-write the Noachide Laws and Pull Back From the Brink?
Genesis 9:8-17 ... Come Together to Pull Back From the Brink
Genesis 9:18-27 ... "Back From the Brink" - Clear-Cut and Messy
Genesis 9:28 ... Preventing Nuclear War: The Work of a Lifetime