Hold.health – Page 2 – garygunderson Blog

Seed after fire

A solitary tree with green leaves emerges from a barren landscape, under a bright sun and pale blue sky, symbolizing hope and renewal. — *Seeds fulfil their role when released by fire. And wise humans can help them. So we learned at the McElvoy Ranch in Montana.*

“The arc of history bends toward justice,” promised Dr. King. I was saved for the church and America by that promise. I had decided as a Vietnam era student at Wake Forest to turn from my military family, suburban Jesus and American war-making when chaplain Richard McBride stopped me. He noted that I was nearly ignorant of my faith tradition beyond the tiny suburban rivulet I had dabbled in till then. He gave me a book by Berrigan and another by King; I am still living out the implications of that intellectual and spiritual metanoia.

But, since I had not grown up Black, I did not know that the bend toward justice would include savage reversals. Tulsa, Wilmington, Emmet Till. King himself spoke as that arc seemed hopeless. It was always faith, not logic, that those without power could hope for justice.

So I am new to cruel men laughing with alligator teeth, ablaze with disdain for the weak, all the time preening about their mean God.
Maybe the arc needs fire to bend.

Maybe without fire nothing changes.

Pyriscence is an ecological phenomenon some plants have adapted to release their seeds in response to fire which can melt the resins that seal seed structures like cones closed. I learned of this in an odd CNN piece about some tech guys that had developed an artificial pine cone that would only signal in the presence of fire to help with early warning. Pine cones figured this out over 300 million years, so we can be forgiven how little we’ve learned in a handful of thousands, much less the paltry 250 of our adolescent nation.

Maybe faith works more like Pyriscence than the gradually bending arc of my moderate hopefulness.

We will see soon, as people like Stephen Miller are busy setting the modern civilized nation state ablaze. Libraries, scientific research, healthcare, citizenship and the statue of Liberty all on fire. No need for white robes. But the ones doing the worst work are ashamed enough to wear masks as they bully their neighbors.

Maybe this is how the arc works. We are the ones fired and bent; our faith released like seeds that need the fire to find the new soil.

Gradual improvement over time makes the tree brittle, prone to storm, wind and then fire. Much of our public and non-profit structure grew more than a bit satisfied with ourselves. It has created an entire class of workers who make more money than those they are serving, setting the kindling for wrong but powerful accusations from those who find all mercy inconvenient and any talk of justice anathema.

Now the fire burns hot and unpredictable. Once alight, it follows wind, not logic. It creates its own storm as we saw in the LA fires, burning the poor and rich alike.

At the very moment the fire is triumphant, we can sense it is melting our resistance to being blown to new soil. We are the seed released by the fire to become our new selves the only way we ever could.

How, exactly? The Germans and South Africans are our best teachers.

The Reich was far more frightening than Mr. Miller’s little band of colleagues could ever hope to be. A sinking plurality supports him and his sad boss which is why they are in such a desperate hurry. In Germany those who resisted by showing compassion for the despised ones are now honored. I have written before about how the children place bronze “stumble stones” marking the homes from which Jewish neighbors were dragged. Cruelty morphed to shame which released the seeds of new generations that honor those who stood for justice. Not fast, but sure.

A stone carving depicting a hand raised with a small star above it, textured surface with moss and lichen. — One of 128 stone is a collective sculpture The the young people from Graben who designed this stone wanted to warn and remember:“A raised index finger signals to the viewer that they have to pay attention. It demands attention and urges vigilance. The string on the finger is barbed wire.

South Africa teaches that it takes more than one fire to forge a new arc. One impossible bend after another. The raw power of the Christian Apartheid state, falling before the peaceful miracle of Mandela, Tutu and Hani. But then pandemic AIDS, and ugly failure of the ANC to prevent the capture of the state (the Gupta family inspiring the Trumpian scourge). And now a bend toward collaborative governance. All while the tiny white minority owns most of the assets, whining all the while. Each fire, another bend, more seeds finding new soil.

But ever fire is different. And the seeds must be many variations on hope. No one seed starts a forest. Most seeds fail entirely. But this is the only way forests happen.

This political fire focuses on immigrants of color, a typical feature in American history. But I think this is the first time featuring people fed to alligators. Evil evolves, so we must, too.

This reign’s attack on the poor, immigrant and dark are a wicked tangle. The evisceration of Medicaid will undermine the capacity of healthcare, community health and public health to provide even the most basic of 20^th century medicine—while forbidding them to track the results. To keep the lights on, hospitals will seek revenue anywhere they can and cut everything without a billing code. Forget chaplains, translators and social workers. Ash on the wind.

These fires are burning away the vanity of wealthy non-profit healthcare organizations that have treated mission as a hobby. The community expects little of substance from them and will not protect them from the blaze. Instead, community organizations with fiery passion like Action4Equity and Love Out Loud are forming alliances with community health centers and local government networks. You can see this scrappy practicality in Winston-Salem. It works and is attracting national funding, such as the bold Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Justice Squared grant. Fire, seed, good soil.

As the LA firest still smoked and smoldered, The Randal Lewis Fellows of Partners for Better Health formed teams to envision a whole new way forward integrating all the assets, public, private, faith and neighborhood grit.

I don’t think the Germans ever had $45 billion dollars to spend on “the ultimate solution.” Mr. Miller does, which is more money than any racist in history; more per deportable victim than is possible to spend. He literally can’t find enough people to be cruel to. So he’ll look silly, which morphs quickly into performative cruelty. Expect horror; it’s the point. People kidnapped at emergency rooms and churches. And the alligators.

What is the opposite of fire? Not water; it is the seed. And what is vital kernel of the fire-born seed? Tell the truth. Which does not mean poking “like” to a Facebook post. It means getting close to reality and then tell the truth with your life. Don’t let evil keep its mask on. Talk to Hispanic pastors. Do what they say will help them.And yes, be generous with cash and time. We are seeing new channels emerge more efficient than the big old non-profits. Intermediary organizations like Love Out Loud and Neighborliness Center are giving shelter to smaller neighborhood scale ministries close to those in most extreme need. This is how TC and I help Una Bendición. Don’t “like”—give cash. All you can.

A sunset view showing the Statue of Liberty silhouetted against a vibrant orange and blue sky, with industrial cranes visible in the background. — *Statue of Liberty which welcomed my ancestors. It has been mocked before and still stands.*

Don’t romanticize fire; a cruel hunter. But we have no reason to fear it. A fire fears itself more than water, for its very nature it to burn out its fuel. In the same way cruelty consumes itself. It builds nothing, plants nothing, grows nothing. Fire falters even in the presence of a shift in humidity. In politics that is sort of like a shift in the polling that we are seeing now. It is realistic to not be afraid of the cruel.

Be the seed after fire. Cultivate your deep kindness, your most fierce love of the truth. You are born for what comes next and you will be ready.

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Missionary Position

Not that one.

*Part of the historical mural at the Simms Community Center in Happy Hills. The mural was designed by Kayyum Allah, who also guided and instructed the students throughout the painting process.*

White progressives, wondering why the big resistance protests are mostly blue-eyed, are asking Black people, “could you run over that race stuff again?” Like 18^th century missionaries mumbling about their position on the Middle Passage.

This goes down poorly with the Black women who voted 92% for the Vice President as well as the vast majority of the Black men (who also had empathy for their brothers and sisters who could not vote for a prosecuting attorney of any hue). Black people have seen MAGA for centuries and know that serious violence waits just out of sight. And the dogs rarely bite missionaries. As a faculty friend said, “we have white colleagues; not comrades.”

A lot has happened since King and Malcom (who would have turned 100 this past month). And a lot has not happened, even between Black and White, hardly even begun with Brown.

This was all in the middle of the room during last week’s gathering in Winston Salem organized by Action4Equity, Love Out Loud and We In the World. We were trying to move toward “equity and liberation.” But what “we?” “We” can’t build mercy and justice out the trust we don’t have.

There has been strikingly little violence in these early MAGA days with the exception of the show bullying of defenseless Spanish-speaking dads and moms. Black people have seen this all before and know that once the resistance movement staggers to our feet—as it most certainly is—it will trigger white rage. They believe that white fragility justifies white violence.

*Modern heroine, Tonya Sheffield explains the Happy Hill story of gritty resilience to the regional visitors.*

The immediate issue is with the white moderates who may or may not be trusted once things actually get going. Who even begins to build the tools and tactics for doing good when we don’t trust?” Are we a we?

We were meeting in historic St. Stephen’s Missionary Baptist Church with the modern blend of religious folks and those of raw Spirit. Rev Dr. Paul Ford called us back to what Dr. King saw from his Birmingham jail 62 years and 15 days ago:

“If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

“Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.” (read full text here).

But…. could you run over that race stuff one more time?

Paul also called my attention to these words form Rev. Dr. William Lamar IV in my Dean Corey Walker’s book on African Americans and Religious Freedom given to everyone at the meeting (I think Paul was the only one that read it):

“American notions of liberty, prosperity and the divine are ideas that can mean everything and nothing at the same time. Who defines these terms? The National Rifle Association supports liberty. The Black 43 African Americans and Religious Freedom: New Perspectives for Congregations and Communities Lives Matter movement supports liberty. The Koch brothers are all for prosperity. So are Angela Davis and Noam Chomsky. Jerry Falwell Jr. believes the divine hand is upon America; so does Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. But this divine hand is not engaged in the same activities. These terms — liberty, prosperity, God — are blank screens upon which we project dreams and nightmares. For me, the concept of religious freedom is of the same dubious pedigree. It means nothing. It means everything.”

“Black people offer many unwanted gifts to the American empire — our hermeneutic of suspicion concerning all things American, our refusal to believe everything that the American empire says about itself and our creation of theology, art and culture that does not shrink in the face of perpetual assault.”

Every syllable of King and Lamar is true for the Spanish-speaking churches who are the main ones now within punching range of Miller, Bannon, Bondi and Noem. Few of us can even speak the language of their prayers. But God does.

We need no missionaries, no matter what policy position they take on this or that part of the MAGA assault on law, freedom and justice. Those of us low on pigment and high on privilege need to listen carefully to those who have been here before, seen the raw edge of power afraid of history, terrified of the radical diversity of the world God has created.

*The tree of life on the mural in Happy Hills teaches Marcus Garvey: “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”*

As we find our feet to stand for law and functional government and modern science, we may find we need the full “we,” to build a future quite sharply different from the past. How? It is amazing to me the kindness with which an honest question is received.

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AFRICAN AMERICANS AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR CONGREGATIONS AND COMMUNITIES, Sabrina E. Dent and Corey D. B. Walker. Available here for free.

Riding the rift

There is an ever-pregnant crack that runs down the Atlantic Ocean called the “rift.” The word focuses attention on the separation of the continents in exactly the way the fear mongers try to focus us on what drives us apart. Look closer at an actual rift and you’ll see nothing but molten possibilities welling up. New earth forces through the thin part of the crust millimeter by inch by yard by mile as new rock grows between the Americas and Europe and Africa. A rift connects by rearranging power and place.

*Most of the way to and from Cape Town we ride the rift.*

We flew one way down the rift from Washington to Cape Town as a human politician looked invincible, forcing proud law firms and universities to the knee. Two weeks later we flew back the other way just as four million citizens from around the world rose up like new lava. One man dividing with emergencies and fears. But as lava does, people rose up in the thin places with new land to stand on. where he pushed us apart.

All human fields of thought is connected by the upwelling of change: academic disciplines, political theory and movements, racial identities, nations, peoples, skills and techniques that seem stable enough to imagine even a few decades of time called “career.” It is easy to gin up fear of the new lava, people and relationships. But fear has so little to work with, really.

We were in South Africa where the Leading Causes of Life learned to walk over the past three decades. We met at Goedgedacht Farm and retreat center whose name means “well thought.” This is difficult land getting harder; Mediterranean climate until twenty years ago; now moving rapidly toward dry and hot, semi-desert. The Karoo is just over a few ridges and coming closer.

*Honeybees and olive trees adapt to the challenging and changing environment.*

The farm has deep Christian roots, but now it has an interfaith chapel and a vision increasingly tuned to life logic. It is a laboratory of mercy, justice and, well, life. And it is a real farm growing olives for market just like Koinania Farms grows pecans. In COVID-19 they had no money for pesticides and fertilizer. Peter, their Afrikaner farmer, had to look with new eyes at the dirt, bugs, trees, bees and all that rots. He liked what he saw and learned how to live in the rift between old ways and new regenerative ways. He is now the happiest farmer of olive trees I’ve ever met.

*Pieter describes falling in love with the regenerative dirt.*

Leading Causes of Life grows well here, too. LCL-I is about more than Faith and Health, or as we learned in Lesotho, FaithHealth. Peters says that when you see something that troubles you, look closer; pay attention and do not look away. Good advice for growing olive trees near the Karoo or democracy in times of rift. Whenever we gather it feels like Iceland; molten, connectional, expectant, unfazed by the structural uncertainties.

Some time ago The Carter Center built an Interfaith Health Program built on the upwelling of Faith and Health. We didn’t have to pull them laboriously toward each other one footnote at a time. They were already linked by new energy the way Iceland works, riding lightly on the lively connectional rift. That can be hard to navigate as the field look broken with fractures and gaps. I don’t know Icelandic, but in the Appalachians a gap is the way through the otherwise impenetrable barrier. A gap is a geological fracture that allows one to walk through; not unlike walking on lava once it cools. The gap is the place to head to what comes next in your life. Gaps connect.

This is practical way to navigate in a time of radical rifting. Personally, I’m happy with as big a gap as possible between me and Proud Boys. But even there, it is hard to miss all sorts of new molten organizations, networks, and such emerging. My favorite new upwelling is the organization “Indivisible” which helped liberate the global energy on April 5^th movement. Hold.Health, We in the World and Rethink Health the also rise up out of space in between.

The five gaps helped us to look more closely at the rifts so we can head toward those people, ideas, places, values and perspective we could build with.

The Gap between people we know and those we do not yet know, or could know if we wanted to.
The Gap between knowledge we already have and the new knowledge that might extend or complete what that knowledge might make possible.
The gap between places we think of as separate from places that we now see are actually quite intimately connected.
The gap between values we have and new implications and possibilities to fulfill those values.
The gap between what we think we need now and what our childrens’ childrens’ children’ childrens’ childrens’ children will need. That’s a seven generational span, counting us and our parents, long enough to expect radical difference, but short enough to imagine caring.

Each of the five gaps is a fluid emergent connection on which we can live like Icelanders or sub-Karoo farmers. Each gap is a way through something that feels like a dangerous barrier. Each gap is a kind of opportunistic connection that might shape our curiosity and active search. We can ask and follow the answer through each kind of gap.

On the harsh South African land our thoughts turned toward the cause of life we call generativity, intergenerativity or simply blessing. This focuses on how we find our life by the flow of life among the flow of people. This speaks to finding our way when we know we are poised appropriately on the rift between what has been and that which is still potential.

*Sunset in Hout Bay is sun rise in Brazil on the other side of the rift. (photo by Jim Cochrane)*

We can navigate the unknowable time between stabilities by looking for the new relationships, new relevancies of existing values, new knowledge, long term needs of those who will live on the other side of the rift.

Leading Life

*The health of the public is the work of life; fibroblasts for broien bones, Leading Causes of Life for the broken public.*

When all is turbulent, take care of the mind, heart and soul of those who will build whatever comes next. Teach, evoke, give courage. Liberate the rising ones to find their words and ideas fit for their hard labors. Help them move boldly toward joy. They might let you come along.

Dr. Linda Alexander, the Chief Academic Officer of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) of does every bit of that first paragraph.

That’s why she teed up Howard Koh, Soma Saha and me to bring the Leading Causes of Life into the group probably more in the bullseye right now than any group of educators in the land. These faculty and institutions lead the research, teaching and formation of the core functions of public health and, well, public everything. Duck and cover? Not around Linda.

LCL was born in, and born for these people and times. Conceived at The Carter Center, but birthed in the tough streets of Memphis and the townships of southern Africa where ideas better be tough or they get mugged—before noon.

The Leading Causes of Life help teachers and the students into the positive social complexity of the ever-muddling gaggle of humans we call “the public.” Public health is the academic discipline and daily practice to help every person and neighborhood live into its dignity, freedom and abundant life. As Howard Koh quoted William Sloan Coffin, “the glory of God is a human fully alive.” But how do humans fulfill that promise? Not by dodging all the leading causes of death, or avoiding anything.

We move boldly toward life. How?

The basic purpose of LCL language is to help you navigate in the right direction—toward life; away from death, even—especially—in confusing times.

Connection: we live because of how we are together. No such thing as a single human, ever. Endless vital mysteries in the radical complexity. But there are always living surprises in between the words for family, gender, members, citizen and and and ….

Coherence. Not the list of things we think we believe (that hides how much we don’t know). The sense in the gut of the Big Story in which we find life. “Salutogenesis”—still up on the NIH website that opens up the mystery of health.

Agency. The human capacity to act, choose, do, not do, move, find, care—even amid radical turbulence when the connections fray and coherence evaporates.

Intergenerativity or Blessing. Linda’s teachers find their own life by being in generative relationships with their students—transgenerational, is the key. And in doing so finding the life that flows to them from those that shaped them. Most grown-ups experience this with their children and extended families when they give their lives to those more important than themselves. Normal people of faith.

Hope. Not optimism, although even that works better than the pills about a third of the time (placebo effect). Hope is like a memory that guides us … but for living into the future. For the people God so loves—the public, not just me. It animates our connections, focuses coherence, drives generativity and puts our agency to work.

The five causes hold open space like tent poles keep to avoid premature simplicity. Not a road map of the whole journey, but a way to keep you from tripping over your own feet and dithering over the first 10 minutes of the rest of your life.

Since LCL was born it has spawned a whole library with continued application (leading-causes.com). You can see life in the practical language of the Vital Conditions that many communities are turning to amid contentious turbulence. LCL is being integrated into the remarkably hopeful work of Interfaith America as it convenes dozens of universities to sharpen the crafts of faith and health.

Life logic works best in really tough times when we realize our silicon gizmos cannot save us. Heather Wood Ion, our friend and LCLI Felllow, once gave Jonas Salk a bit of a meteor that had all the amino acids, the chemical base for life. He already knew that “life finds a way.” But we all need friends to remind us.

If this resonates, you have people. Hold.Health, Leading Causes of Life Initiative, We In the World, Community Initiatives, ASPPH, Partners for Better Health, and Goedgedacht and many, many more; Even a School of Divinity!

That’s how life works.

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TC and I left ASPPH and flew 14 hours to Cape Town to be with the deep southern contingent of the LCL Initiative Fellows. We will celebrate the final release of the Handbook on Religion and Health: Pathways for a Turbulent Future with a global web event at the University of Cape Town. Rising Amid the Storm will be streamed live from the University of Cape Town Wednesday 2nd April 2025 17:00-19:00 (SAST)( 11am Eastern Time).

Join us at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82836382633

Rising

I don’t think I’ve I’ve ever seen the church awake, but I’m only 70-ish. This week makes me think that I will soon. It’s a long blog because of all the signs of the rising.

Students lead chapel at Wake Div School on Tuesdays which never fails. Afterward I went to a secret meeting of local clergy organized by Forsyth Sponsoring Committee of the NC Industrial Areas Foundation, which traces back to Saul Alinsky. We had to use an encrypted “Signal” app to disclose the location and met in an actual upper room, which has a long history in the Church.

The times force IAF to reverse how its normal focus on highly public events to hold local government accountable. But now those potential friends are highly vulnerable. And we can’t expect local government to do anything the faith folks are not. So, we focused on the churches can do nitty gritty tasks to protect our Spanish-speaking neighbors. The church is really good at practical collaboration: lining up lawyers, using our vans to move kids to school, training moms. Our hospital was and still is involved in the “Faith Action ID” which for years gives people without US documents a picture ID so the police can validate identity (and avoid arrest for petty things). It’s all underway.

Later the same evening Ardmore Baptist hosted Christians Against Christian Nationalism. I expected a couple dozen activist friends. Not so. Four hundred middle class, middle age, middle everything white people organized by the youth minister were in aflame about what is being done by MAGA Christians. Normal, normal, normal, even the beige fellowship hall. I even liked that the group wasn’t great at organizing. This is the what the rising of the middle of the long-slumbering church looks like after decades of rust. There will be 800 next time and we’ll walk somewhere (a “march”).

The next night I watched the A team online as Paul Rauschenbusch let a webinar of the Interfaith Alliance in a crisp, info-loaded practical deluge of encouragement. Asked if we are in a Bonhoeffer moment of radical resistance in small cells of disciples, Paul noted that we’re in the majority; we simply need to act like it. . You can watch it here along with the thousands who saw it live. This is not just IA, but a web of collaborating networks. A-team.

The next day Hold.Health posted “Purple.” Although I am bright blue, Hold.Health is more complex with many who care about health more than politics, so it took some editorial help to get it closer to purple. Not unlike a church committee, come to think of it. In these days we are leaning into our faith way more than operational health care Purple is a sacred color, especially now, but not just for chaplains. Faith-health folks view the work of health science researchers, community health centers and policy wonks as sacred, too.

Other national networks are tuning into the faith channel in different ways. Winston is working with We In the World to host a regional gathering the first weekend of May. In these parts working on justice so that we can be better ancestors is all about Spirit and sweat. We may start in Raleigh at Shaw University which was started by White abolitionists after the war to end white supremacy. It began training clergy but those students quickly turned to building the medical school because healing the soul, body, mind and community are the same thing. We’ll drive back to Winston to stand on Happy Hill which once—and still is—a place where you can see the whole city—soul, body, mind and community and imagine what God might want us to do. We’ll pray and sing at “Rising Ebenezer” at the top of the hill where prayers do rise.

Another one: David Docusen is a voice of hundreds—maybe thousands—of younger clergy embracing Neighborliness in a purple kind of way. They sound like evangelicals because they really like Jesus; but have no time for anything coopted, dumbed down and stripped of compassion. He calls ike Nehemiah to rebuild the broken walls of the city, with each of us focusing on our part. Right here on Patterson Avenue.

Thursday was “Founder’s Day” at Wake Forest University, which, like most liberal arts universities is trying to be invisible, terrified at losing federal funding. We met in Wait Chapel named for our slave-holding founder, which is awkward. But we took the occasion to name another campus building after the Hopkins’, two African American alumni doctors. Larry was fierce for justice, but nobody even alluded to anything timely until Corey Walker, our Div Dean at the very end channeled Dr. King’s voice, rhythm, cadence from Memphis the night before he was assassinated: “all we are asking is for you to live up to what you put on paper.” (skip to 1:26.21 mark.)

The week ended with stern instruction from our local Ministerial Association:

“A 24 hour BLACKOUT has been scheduled as the first of multiple counter measures to the attack(s) on Diversity Equity and Inclusion.

“TURN IT OFF Fri, Feb 28 from 12:00a to 11:59p.
WHAT NOT TO DO:
• Do not make any purchases.
• Do not shop online, or in stores
• No Amazon
• No Walmart
• No BestBuy
• No McDonalds
• NOWHERE!
“DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON FOOD:
• Fast Food
• Gas
• Major Retailers
• Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending.
•If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.
“WHY THIS MATTERS: Corporations and banks only care about their bottom line.
• If we disrupt the economy for just ONE day, it sends a powerful message.
• If they don’t listen, we make the next blackout longer.
• This is our first action.
• Our numbers are powerful.
• This is how we make history.”

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No idea how. this bee found pollen in February at 40 degrees. But the babies needed it.

It finally got above freezing today. As it rose past 42 the tougher honeybees took flight. The queens had started laying eggs around the inauguration, so there will soon be tens of thousands of new bees ready for the rising of life and power in a couple of weeks when the maples bloom.

All they—and we—need to do is be who God made us.

Illustration by Phillip Summers about the obvious fact Jesus and his family were immigrants fleeing from an overreaching despot..

Don’t Protect Me

Celeste Wray a spirit warrior who belonged to St. John’s United Methodist church in Memphis, Tennessee which has seen its share of evil and evil overcome. She fought every good fight with grace.

Mr. Trump used the National Prayer Breakfast to announce he was going to lend the power of his office to protect Christians. This venue has always been religion-for-show with the theological standards in the subbasement. But anytime he goes anywhere near the Bible, it ends up upside down all over again.

This is a good time to clarify the relationship between his policies and Jesus. For the most part there is none. I’m an ordained Baptist minister and I’d be hard pressed to find a proof text for or against tariffs. Lots of texts about mercy and care for the poor and immigrants (of which Jesus was one). Lots about God warning the rich and those that suck up to them. Lots more texts about obeying the law and telling the truth.

Jesus never voted or ran for office. When tempted he turned away from political power. He was killed by his government at the insistence of a subservient spiritual cabal. Actual Christians find spiritual cabals repellent.

Religion has little to do with Project 2025, except as cover. It’s about the money and power. Most gods don’t care about money and they don’t mind royalty. But one particular God does, the One we see in the peculiar life of Jesus. That One flipped over the temple tables speaking of mercy and justice. That One mocked the self-congratulatory cabal that took money from the poor, weak and vulnerable. You can do that in the name of Tesla, but not YHWH.

This brings us to Christian Nationalism, the explicit theology behind the Trump claim to royal privilege. Not that Mr. Trump thinks he needs help from theo—he thinks he is theo.

There are similar theological betrayals in Turkey, Russia, India, Hungary. But the American one is by Christians, of whom I am one, a Baptist whose heirs bled to put the separation clause in the Constitution now being shredded.

I believe these people are wrong about more than theology. That’s not my argument right now.

They are certainly wrong about who is theo and who is not.

Jesus must not be tethered to any nationalism, especially one so calloused toward the poor and the vulnerable. Use some other god, if you must have a god for your movement; I think the Aztecs had one closer to their policies.

It’s up to the Christians to sort that out. There is a different betrayal peculiar to people of faith who are also citizens of the United States of America. Because we were founded by numerous strands of faith, we have hard-won practical intelligence about how faith works well in democracy. We know that we are at our very best when none of us has the power of the state to enforce our own views. We know that it is better—spiritually—for the state and the structures of faith to partner in the love of the people, for instance by helping everyone get vaccinated, but not share in the exercise of power. You protect Christians by protecting everyone in the rule of law under the Constitution. That’ll do it.

No country is exactly the same, but we can learn from others such South Africa’s long walk from Apartheid. They gave us Mandela, Tutu and ….Musk. South African Christians challenged the theological and moral foundations of the Apartheid Government who had wrapped all their worst policies with the trappings of Christian Nationalism. The South African Council of Churches in 1968 called Apartheid “heresy” which was bold but not quite accurate. ‘Heresy’ is a ‘wrong belief,’ which is bad but not fatal. Christian nationalism was fatal; a betrayal of the Gospel. They came back and wrote the extraordinary Kairos Document which named it apostacy—betrayal. Apartheid cracked at the base.

The Christian Nationalist movement in the USA is the same betrayal.

It is one thing to punk the Democrats; quite another to punk YHWH.

It will not stand.

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Consider joining Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

Praying for trouble

I’m really missing John Lewis today. Fearless, tenacious and non-violent, he’d know what to do and how to do it, . He went to jail dozens of times–usually getting beaten in the process—so that people could vote. And clear-eyed, he would not be surprised that 49.2% would fall for an ugly offer to reduce the price of eggs a bit and beaat up on somebody weaker. But he would also know that many of them are truly traumatized and don’t know who to trust. But he would not whine like my Democrats are. But he would not pout. He knew it was a long, long walk. Since it is King Day, I’m quite sure he’d be in a church praying for good trouble.

Good Trouble

God of anger, fire, trouble and cry,

Kindle us, your willing embers of the world that needs a cleansing fire. We are yours to risk, eager for fresh air beyond the safe spaces. We love your street, and concrete grit. We love the stride and the heft of things worth doing, unafraid of conflict.

Let us not hold your energy lightly, unexamined and unwashed of pride. Let us not waste your hope by tethering it to our short-ranging vision. Let us not waste voice and language by limiting it to our cleverness.

Tune our ears to those hardest to hear, the ones we find annoying and inconvenient. Especially help us hear the ones that embarrass our proper friends, just as You bothered them with tax collectors, working women and the rich. You were rejected by family, nearly thrown off a cliff by neighbors. Complicate our sense of connection and draw us into the tangled humanity You have made so wonderfully and inconveniently complex.

And then, after we sense the breadth of your impossibly wide family, let us speak with simplicity of mercy and justice in kindhearted firmness.

Protect us last. Put our bodies in the way of those who would harm the poor and despised; let the bruises intended for the weak fall on us; let the venom aimed at the despised be ours. Spend us as You have spent yourself.

We know in resistance we find release; in giving, all gain. For life finds a way where we let it flow through us into lives parched for mercy, aching for justice, despairing of peace. May our young be brave. Our families raising up new prophets as our old ones take the risks reserved for those who have lived enough to give it all away.

Make our lives a protest against the lie that You have not created enough food, space and freedom to go around for all your children. We deny with generous lives the lie that You failed to design a world that might work for us all. May our kind lives protest the lie that we must narrow our hope to only those who pray like us, look like us and talk like us. May our lack of anxiety protest the bitter penury that shrinks your mercy into a fist.

Surely it is your voice that speaks of a time when your promises will be realized, the weapons laid down, the rich with the poor eating together, lamb and honeybee, Baptist and Buddhist, Anglican and Atheist quiet in wonder at how great Thou art, how blessed we are.

May it be.

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The prayer is from God and the People: Prayers for a Newer New Awakening, published by Stakeholder Press. Available on Amazon here.