Hold.Health – Page 3 – garygunderson Blog

Do not pass over the stranger

This is the week in which the Jews, seeking God, were taught empathy for the “stranger” over and over for a couple millenia. It’s not an easy lesson.

This is also the week when Jesus turned toward Jerusalem, showing empathy for the Palestinian before being killed by the empire and its complicit todies. Same thing would happen this week on the very same tortured soil. Whether this is week is sacred for you by its eternal consequences (the saving cross) or eternal lesson of empathy, honor it.

Say the name of the stranger most strange to you.

“Palestinian” for the Jews and Americans who provide the two-ton genocide bombs turning hospitals to bloody dust. Ask why a dictator would want their name silent and do not pass over the answer: if you cannot share the human vulnerability of any stranger, you have already lost your humanity for those you think you love. You have already given the King—or somebody who foolishly wants to be King—power reserved only for God. It is the Jews who teach this. Honor them this week by saying the name of their stranger and ours. “Palestinian.”

And the names of nations nearby speaking Spanish who we have treated despicably; propping up their cruel tyrants valuing bananas more than the strangers who lived there. And now paying blood money to get the weakest ones off our streets. Say their names.

Say the names of the strangers who need Medicaid, HIV/AIDS medicine and mental health care. And the thousands of honorable strangers employed to serve them, now humiliated and discarded in political blood circus across the globe; community health workers in Cape Town and North Carolina.

It is, of course, not enough to say their names. Esppecially not just for one week. Few of us drop the strangers’ bombs; but we pay the taxes tomorrow so that others can. Few of us fly the planes to El Salvador; but we are quiet as they take off. Few of us take medicine from a child; but we don’t even call the Senator whose job it is to ensure the government functions. Surely this week is a good time to call?

I read the Contrarian, founded by Washington Post journalists who quit rather than drink from the timid complicity of its owner. Jennifer Rubin wrote about why Pesash matters now. She referred to to ProPublica’s bone-chilling reporting, that flight attendants on deportation flights were told that in case of an emergency, “evacuating detainees was not a priority or even the flight attendants’ responsibility.” It is hard to escape the conclusion that evacuees are treated as being less than human. (“Don’t talk to the detainees. Don’t feed them. Don’t make eye contact,” attendants were told.)

The empathy is not lacking only among those who tend toward red hats. I have worked in the organizations and universities who gathered their (our) privileges and wealth in the name of helping strangers. But we have often not been zealous, efficient, effective or much less empathetic. We have been bad or lazy managers at turning empathy into program and program into mercy and mercy into justice. We made it easy for cynical people to hurt the those we are supposed to serve.

Passover—Pesash—is for all of us own our lack of empathy and to own our complicity in the resulting cruelties.

Pause this week. Let you-know-who do whatever dumb and venal thing crosses his mind. But don’t us be dumb and venal. Listen for the stranger; do not look away. Call their name.

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.

//////

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

Humble power

Here in the People’s City, the one where our government tries to function as best it can. We went to the the National Museum of the American Indian which tells the long history that is a useful lense through which to view the radicalism of white greed in the place called the United States. Here we see the long trajectory of shameless bullDOGEing any idea, perspective or fact that stands in the way of taking. Here we see the highly inconvenient truth of a people who decided democratically to “remove” another civilized people who were in the way. White people are charmingly surprised. Even liberal like me are embarrassed. People of color, not.

Eisenhower monument in front of the Department of Education. He second inaurgural: “We look. upon this shaken earth, and we declare our firm and fixed purpose the building of peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails.”

Do facts matter in this raw play of power, taking, suppressing, denying? Do facts matter? Does theory matter; ones that allow us to see and act on patterns of fact? Does thought matter; the capacity to move close enough to see and far enough for perspective? That’s what academic institutions are for and why a radical minority must distract and instill fear into them.

For such a time as this to be with the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) talking about the Leading Causes of Life with the one who basically invented Obamacare, Dr. Howard Koh and Soma Saha of We In the World (WIN)

We had shared in the writing of the Handbook of Religion and Health, edited by Jim Cochrane, TC and me, who also wrote a recent article in the American Journal of Public Health. That’s a lot of typing in the midst of a catastrophic meltdown of democracy. Shouldn’t we be in the streets?

Power rests on facts, which is why any usurper of authority must suppress the facts, the story, the rhyme and reason they find unpleasant. They usually think that power rests on money so they round up some billions and billionaires and expect their way. But watch how the usurper spend that money to gain power. They spend first on suppression of reality to comply with the way they wish it was.

Facts are so inconveniently sticky. Just when one thin they are safely squashed them, they pop up again. Congress actually forbade disclosure for a half century the treaties with the Native Tribes. Now there is a museum on the National Mall about them.

Smithsonian museum pictures of Native children forced to pray to the christian nationalist god in the government boarding schools.

Fact: there really is too much carbon in the atmosphere to sustain human civilization. There really is way too much sexual diversity, which is why we have so many shades beyond pale pink in the human array. There really is more to life than buying stuff on Amazon—spiritual, family, neighborhood—so can’t be bought or sold. Life is too complex for rich people in a hurry to be richer.

Sorry.

How do we live in such a time? Focus on discerning the truth and then living in its light. TC, me and Jim Cochrane wrote in the American Journal of Public Health about crating deeper partnerships between faith-driven and public health networks. We hoped to move beyond simple project-oriented collaborations of convenience (parking the medical van in the church lot) to a deeper sense of shared mission for the people God so loves—the messy public. Deep partnership is slow. It grows from intellectual humility about facts, not unlike that underneath the museums on our national Mall.

Our book grew mostly in the brilliance and energy of Africa. “Carrying out this work on the ground in Lesotho confronted researchers with a problem: Similar to other Nguni languages, there is only one Sesotho word, bophelo, to cover both health and religion. It refers to a total ecology of the household, encompassing the person, family, clan, nation, those who have gone before (ancestors), the land on which one lives, its animals, and its crops, all honored in the hearth of the household. Hurt or harm one element, and you harm the whole.

“This respectful, curious engagement in Lesotho is important, not just for the uncovering of the word and concept of bophelo,…but because that process modeled three key factors in successfully navigating the relationship of faith and health. First, the learning came from an intentional approach in which we assumed we (the experts) might not know something important. Secondly, we moved in humility born of respect for the people, partly because two of our research team had grown up in the region. Thirdly, we took their language seriously and did not try to translate for the people into our language, which could not express the most important insight: English encourages the separation; the Sesotho language makes it impossible. These three principles are relevant even—maybe especially—when the cultural divide is less obvious, as when a public health practitioner looks the same, but is not the same, as the local public.”*

We are told change happens when power “moves fast and breaks things.” Not a fact. Instead, we get broken things, people, ideas and emptiness. Actual power moves slow and builds things…..on facts, properly understood in a theoretical framework that accords to reality. Took a while to make it through that sentence, didn’t it? Doesn’t quite fit on a bumper sticker?

Sorry.

Facts matter. Theory matters, or you won’t know what to do with the facts. And vision—seeing clearly– matters, or the people will die.

Dr. Stacy Smallwood of Wake Forest School of Divnity speaks about religion and health at the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. @WakeDiv

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.”

////

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..

(Actual) White South African Christians

Statement from White South African Christian Leaders on Recent Actions by the United States Government

On 7 February 2025, the President of the United States of America issued an executive order withdrawing all U.S. government aid to South Africa. In the same week, their Secretary of State announced his refusal to attend the G20 summit in South Africa. The stated reasons for these actions are claims of victimisation, violence and hateful rhetoric against white people in South Africa along with legislation providing for the expropriation of land without compensation.

As white South Africans in active leadership within the Christian community, representing diverse political and theological perspectives, we unanimously reject these claims. We make this statement as white South Africans because these claims are being made about us and our experience in this place. The narrative presented by the U.S. government is founded on fabrications, distortions, and outright lies. It does not reflect the reality of our country and, if anything, serves to heighten existing tensions in South Africa. It also detracts from the important work of building safer, healthier communities and addressing the complex history of land dispossession by white Europeans from the black African majority.

That South Africa has failed to effectively address the racial injustices of Apartheid and Colonialism is obvious. Whilst the reasons for this are complex, one factor is the sustained resistance by many white South Africans to initiatives that seek to meaningfully address the economic and land ownership consequences of these systems of racial oppression. The resultant tensions thereof are now being weaponized for cheap political points in the USA. Similarly, there are South African leaders, especially within the white community, who are using the deplorable actions and statements of the President of the United States of America and his supporters to serve the narrow needs of their local constituencies. We call on our fellow South Africans to reconsider this dangerous political strategy and to rather give their energy towards working for a more just future in South Africa.

As South Africans who are Christian, followers of the ways of Jesus, we do this because we are conscious that the current U.S. government administration identifies and draws support from significant parts of our fellow believers in the USA. Recalling our history where the Christian faith was used to justify the oppressive colonial and apartheid regimes tacitly and explicitly, we have watched in horror as political rhetoric in the United States of America has also drawn on the Christian faith in ways which dismiss the most basic Christian call to caring for the vulnerable, loving of neighbours, and working for a good society for all. Such distortions of Christianity have produced innumerable violences, and the justifying of such violences in the name of Christianity is something we condemn and reject as leaders of our faith.

What is today known as South Africa is a part of the world that has experienced immense violence over multiple generations. We lament the fact that it continues to be a country with extremely high levels of violence which have impacted many, if not most of us, personally. However, while all South Africans have been personally touched by violence, the narrative of “disproportionate violence” aimed at white South Africans that President Trump is attempting to push negates the indisputable reality, for anyone living in South Africa, that black South Africans continue to be subject to the worst excesses of violence and oppression. Genocide Watch has noted that while white South Africans make up around 8% of the population they account for less than 2% of the murder victims.

Whilst we have serious concerns about the political nature of foreign aid into our country and continent, the sudden and immediate withdrawal of aid, particularly aid which supports our health systems, promises devastation for our communities. In particular, the support being withdrawn from South Africa disproportionately affects the HIV community who rely on antiretroviral medication. South Africa has a significant number of people who are HIV+, and for whom access to antiretroviral medication is a matter of life or death. As pastors, we know them as members of our congregations and communities. As followers of the God of life, and of Jesus Christ whose ministry of healing has guided the work of the church over centuries, we must protest in the strongest possible terms where we see racial politics being weaponized in ways that will contribute to the early death for the poor and vulnerable, while serving the political agendas of the powerful.

As white Christian South Africans, we confess that we have not done enough to rectify the injustices of our colonial and apartheid past. We acknowledge the call of the gospel to continue working to undo the injustices of the past, and we recommit ourselves to work for redress, restitution and healing. We know that rectifying historic injustices in land ownership and working beyond this towards undoing immense inequality is a key part of the gospel call for a commitment towards justice in our country.

We also commit ourselves to pray and stand in solidarity with faith leaders in the United States of America who are called to be a voice for justice and peace in this turbulent time. We recognize that the actions of the government and business leaders of the USA will have a definite impact on the future of the entire globe and that faith communities are called to critical witness in a time such as this. In the same way that churches were called to commit to united work for justice during the dark days of apartheid, we commit to supporting the prophetic church in the USA as it works for justice in the weeks, months, and years to come.

END—————————-

Add your name as a signatory here – https://forms.gle/FKeNSaru1UPLro7AA

Author Group

Cobus van Wyngaard, Unisa & Dutch Reformed Church Pretoria, Gauteng

Craig Stewart, St Peters Anglican Church, Mowbray, Western Cape

Curtis Love (University of South Africa, Theological Ethics) Johannesburg, Gauteng

Sarah Montgomery, Lifespring Community Church, Durban, KZN

Signatories

Stephan de Beer	Centre for Faith and Community, University of Pretoria	Pretoria
Prof Dion Forster	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam / Stellenbosch University	Stellenbosch, Western Cape
Marthie Momberg	Research Fellow, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University	Stellenbosch, Western Cape
Liesl Stewart	St. Peters, Mowbray (Anglican)	Rosebank, Cape Town, Western Cape
Alexa Russell Matthews	Arise Family NGO, Church of the Holy Spirit, Social Worker	Lakeside, Cape Town
Pete Portal	Tree of Life Community Trust	Manenberg, Cape Town, WC
Anneke Rabe	SACLI	Mpumalnga
Christo Greyling	Dutch Reformed Church representative to the World Council of Churches’Commission on Health and Healing, Lead on subcommittee on HIV, reproductive health and epidemics	Somerset West, Western Cape (and Hilversum, Netherlands)
Prof Sharlene Swartz	St Francis Anglican Church; University of Cape Town	Betty’s Bay, Western Cape
John Scheepers	Isiphambano Centre, Cape Town Baptist Seminary	Salt River, Western Cape
Wendy Lewin	The Greenhouse Collective	Hout Bay, Western Cape
Philip Donald	Anglican	Lansdowne, Western Cape
Pieter Bezuidenhout	AFM pastor	Centurion, Gauteng
Dr Colin Habberton	Signal Church, Angello Network	Cape Town, Western Cape
Rev Brendan Fox	Anglican	Kirstenhof, Western Cape
Xana McCauley	Rhema	Fourways, Gauteng
Nigel Branken	Neighbours NPO and We are Church, Pastor, Social Worker and Activist	Gauteng, South Africa
Wilna de Beer	Tshwane Leadership Foundation	Pretoria, Gauteng
Chris Kamalski	Follower of Christ, American (married to a South African!) living permanently in South Africa, Editorial Director for Missio Aliance, Coach & Spiritual Director, Restore Voice	Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape
Garth Japhet	Heartlines	Johannesburg Gauteng
Marius Louw	Minister in the DRC. Currently minister of the English Reformed Church, Amsterdam.	Amsterdam
Sarah Portal	Tree of Life Manenberg	Manenberg
Brett “Fish” Anderson	Heartlines, Wellspring Community Church	Diep River, Cape Town
Stuart Talbot	Lay worker ngo	Kzn
Rev Steven Lottering	Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Cape Town
Dr Vaughan Stannard	Beautiful Gate SA	Pinelands, Cape Town, Western Cape
Wilma Terry Jakobsen	Anglican/Volmoed	Hermanus Western Cape
Riaan de Villiers	Dutch Reformed Church	Cape Town Western Cape
Duncan Mclea	Anglican Priest	Claremont, Cape Town
Dr Robert Steiner	Rondebosch United Church	Cape Town
Louis van der Riet	Dutch Reformed Church	Cape Town, Western Cape
Jacqui Tooke	Pinelands Baptist Church	Pinelands, Western Cape
Alexander F Venter	SACLI co-chair and Vineyard pastor	Salt Rock, KZN
Stiaan van der Merwe	South African	Norwood, Gauteng
Jennifer Charlton	Anglican	Greenside, Gauteng
Janet Trisk	Anglican	Port Alfred, Eastern Cape
Miles Giljam	SACLI; Anglican Church of the Holy Spirit, Kirstenhof	Muizenberg, Western Cape.
Bianca Truter-Botha	Dutch Reformed Church	Cape Town, Western Cape
Chris Ahrends	Retired Anglican Priest	Cape Town, Western Cape
Cecile Murray-Louw	NGK Durbanville Moedergemeente	Durbanville, Western Cape
Susan Smith	Church membership	Caoe Tiwn Caoe Orovincr
Daniela G	Coordinator, We Will Speak Out South Africa and Lay Canon, Anglican Diocese of Natal	Durban, KwaZulu Natal
Rev Dr Rachel Mash	Anglican Church of Southern Africa	Capetown, South Africa (permanent resident)
André Buttner	The Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Cape Town
Lou-Maré Denton	Dutch Reformed Church	Brackenfell, Western Cape
Tamsyn Pretorius	Every Nation Rosebank	Gauteng
Ecclesia de Lange	Inclusive and Affirming Ministries	Durbanville, Western Cape
Dr. Khegan M. Delport	Stellenbosch University / Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg	Cape Town, Western Cape
Kerry Wiens	Inundo Development Model Farm	Assagay, KZN
Revd Dr Claire Nye Hunter	Anglican priest	Rondebosch
Renier Lindeque	Atheist	Bryanston, Gauteng
Grant Edkins	White active citizen	Hilton, KZN
Rev. Chuck Spong	Assemblies of God	Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
Caren Falconer	Ubukho Bakhe	Western Cape
Arnau van Wyngaard	Dutch Reformed Church Paulpietersburg	Piet Retief, Mpumalanga
Annie Kirke	Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Diocese of Cape Town	Cape Town, Western Cape
André Buttner	The Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Cape Town
Carol Franck	Pinelands Baptist Church	Pinelands Western Cape
Jaques Pretorius	Anglican Board of Education for Southern Africa (ABESA)	Cape Town
Ab IJzerman	Uniting Reformed Church	Khayelitsha. Western Cape
Rev Ron Robertson	Methodist church	Linbro Park, Gauteng
Neil Vels	Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Cape Town
Rev Joe Taylor	Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Hilton, Kwazulu Natal
Rev Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe	Metropolitan Community Church / GIN SSOGIE	Newlands, Johannesburg
Jessica McCarter	Christ church Kenilworth. Anglican	Claremont. Capetown Western Cape
Robyn Jacobs	Arise Family NPO, Clinical Psychologist and University Drive Alliance Church	Cape Town, South Africa / Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Antoinette Erasmus	AFM of SA	Cape Town, Western Cape
Ann Currie	Anglican Church	Pinelands, Western Cape
Charlene van der Walt	Honorary Associate Professor, Gender and Religion, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, University of KwaZulu Natal/Global Coordinator for Theological Education, Act Church of Sweden	Stockholm, Sweden.
Fiona McLennan	Congregational/Presbyterian (United Church)	Rondebosch, Western Cape
Michael Deeb	Catholic Dominican	Scottsville, KZN
Johannes Mouton	Dutch Reformed Church	Cape Town, Western Cape
Kerrigan McCarthy	Anglican Church of the Province of South Africa	Johannesburg Gauteng
Kevin Robertson	Anglican Church	Durban, KwaZulu-Natal
Tiana Bosman	University of the Western Cape	Cape Town
Julian cornelius muller	Dutch Reformed Church	Western Cape
Mel Steyn	Anglican	Bathurst Eastern Cape
Muller Oosthuizen	Dutch Reformed Church Williston	Williston, Northern Cape
David Field	United Methodist	Basel Switzerland
Mogomotsi Diutlwileng	Methodist Church	Pretoria – Gauteng Province
Etienne Snyman	Dutch Reformed Church (NGK)	Cape Town, Western Cape
Rowan Haarhoff	Wellspring Community Church (Landsdowne)	Claremont, Western Cape
Larry Warner	Disciples of Christ	Oceanside, CA USA
Louis Kritzinger Louw	Retired minister of the Dutch Reformed Church h	Pretoria, Gauteng
Joel Mxolisi Mayephu	Free Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Sunnyside Pretoria Gauteng
Andrew George Fair	White Christian South African Male	Somerset west, Western Cape
Mani Molefe	Methodist church	Roodepoort – Gauteng
Helène Smit	Stellenbosch Gemeente	Stellenbosch, Western Cape
Jacobus Adriaan Myburgh	Dutch Reformed Church	Wierdapark Gauteng
Doug Falconer	Ubukho Bakhe	Bergvliet, Western Cape
Petrus Francois Smit	Pastor of Dutch Reformed Church Groenkloof	Groenkloof, Gauteng
Andrew Wonnacott	New Hope SA	Muizenberg, Cape Town
Susan Hobbs	Amglican	KLOOF, KZN
Lyn van Rooyen	Dutch Reformed Church, consultant, World Council of Churches	Randburg, Gauteng
Dave Stroud	Member Care,Youth With A Mission	Parklands,Western Cape
Corne Peters	South African	Durban, KwaZulu-Natal
Andries du Toit	Numa Life Church	Retreat, Cape Town, WC
Jacques	DRC Parke	Kraaifontein, Western Cape
Charles Matthews	CHS Anglican	Lakeside, Western Cape
Karen Grant	Common Ground	Constantia, Western cape
Matthew Lewis	YWAM Durban, Follower, 24/7 Prayer South Africa	Durban Kwazulu-Natal
Andrew David McElwee	United Methodist	Bothell, Washington
Mike Durrant	Minister MCSA	Ifafi. North West
Rose S	Private	Durban KZN
Bronwyn Witthoft	Uviwe – You are heard : Debriefing, Pastoral Counselling and Member Care	Cape Town, Western Cape
Margie Pretorius	Unaffiliated Jesus follower	Cape Town, Western Cape
Revd Lorna Lavarello-Smith	Anglican Church of Southern Africa	Claremont Western Cape
Lesley Pope	Methodist	Edenvale, Gauteng
Lindy Bossenger	Anglican South African	Gauteng
Doug Sevre	Jesus Follower and Disciple Maker	Indio, CA United States
Abby Mkhwanazi	Lifespring community church, Brethren Church in Africa, Heart to Heart International	Waterfall, KZN
Laurie Gaum	Durch Reformed Church	Muizenberg, Western Cape
Carusta van der Merwe	University of Pretoria	Queenswood, Pretoria, Gauteng
Angela Clarke	Youth with a Mission	Muizenberg, Cape Town
Ronel Betts	Teacher; follower of Jesus.	Fish Hoek, Western Cape
Roleen Webber-Green	.	Waverley, Gauteng
Ernst Conradie	UWC	Bellville, Western Cape
Johan Pienaar	Retired minister Dutch Reformed church	Gauteng
Justin Taylor	Minister in the Church of Scotland	Guernsey
Sue Gray	Signal Church, Vineyard	Newlands, Western Cape
Esias E. Meyer	University of Pretoria and Dutch Reformed Church	Pretoria, Gauteng
Megan Chitsike	Wellspring Community Church	Western Cape
Bruce Nadin	Capricorn Community Church	Western Cape
Nicole Masureik	Pinelands Baptist Church	Pinelands, Western Cape
Ian France	Gracepoint Methodist Church	Johannesburg Gauteng
DEBBIE	Personal	Gauteng
Henry Pienaar	Christian Theologian	Strandfontein Cape Town
Rebecca Parry	member, Christ Church Kenilworth	Kenilworth, Cape Town, Western Cape
Greig Daryl Wegerle	Pastor and Businessman	Durban, KwaZulu-Natal
Mary Jean Thomas-Johnson	St John’s Anglican Church	Wynberg, Western Cape
Valerie Anderson	Christian	Cape Town CBD
Richard Bolland	Founder, New Hope SA	Muizenberg, Western Cape
Jo-ann Scheepers	Teacher in Christian Education	Salt River, Cape Town
David J. Kleinhans	All Saints United Church	Pietermariztburg, KwaZulu-Natal
John van de Laar	Methodist Church	Atlasville, Gauteng
Andrew Holmes	Anglican	Cape Town
Dereck Palmer	Assemblies of God	Bergvliet, CPT, WC
Fr Russell Pollitt SJ	Roman Catholic	Gauteng
Cindy Duvel	Christian Leader	Pinelands, Cape Town
Taryn Wegerle	Pastor & Principal	Durban, KZN
Glenda James	Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Milnerton, Western Cape
Nic Paton	Cape Town Interfaith Initiative	Cape Town Western Cape
Craig Duvel	Pinelands Baptist Church	Pinelands, Western Cape
David J. Kleinhans	All Saints United Church	Pietermariztburg, KwaZulu-Natal
Dr Grace Nkomo	Connect Network, Ubukho Bakhe, University of the Western Cape	Tokai, Western Cape
Jackie Gallagher	Hillside Vineyard Church South Africa	Johannesburg Gauteng
Nicole Joshua	Anglican	Heathfield, Western Cape
Johan van der Merwe	Dutch Reformed Church Stellenbosch	Stellenbosch, Western Cape
Taryn Galloway	CHS, Anglican Church	Kenilworth, Cape Town, western Cape
Prof Hennie Goede	Faculty of Theology, North-West University	Potchefstroom, North-West
Mike Batley	Social worker, restorative justice practitioner	Pretoria Gauteng
Lucy Ivins	Hilton Methodist Church & Religious Education Teacher	Hilton KZN
A. James Goddard	Methodist Church of SA	Hilton, KZN
Rebecca Benn	Home Ground	Westville (KZN)
Professor Anthony Reddie	University of South Africa	West Midlands, the UK
Dr Gideon van der Watt	Lutheran Pastor	Bloemfontein, Free State
David Botha	Religious leader	Tulbagh Road Western Cape
André Bartlett	Dutch Reformed Church	Riebeek West Western Cape
Sarah Rule	Roman Catholic Womenpriests South Africa	Stellenbosch, Western Cape
Charlotte Brown	Anglican Deacon	Cape Town, western province
Wendy Rens	Pinelands Baptist	Pinelands, Westeen Cape
Juanita Greyvenstein	Krugerpark Community Church	Skukuza, Mpumalanga
Annalet van Schalkwyk	Theologian, Honorary Professor in School of Philosophy, Religious Studies and Classics; UKZN	Tshwane, Gauteng
Sunelle Stander (Lays)	Ordained Pastor, Presbyterian Church (USA)	Jacksonville, Florida
Sas Conradie	Tearfund, NGK Pretoria-Oosterlig	Londen
Heather Hill	Central Methodist Mission	Cape Town
Nozipho	mcsa	kzn
Grant Stewart	R-Cubed (Restore Reconnect Rebuild)	Western cape
Heidi Newby	Active white citizen	Deneysville, Free State
Tumo Joseph mofokeng	Director of Afrolatin in favor of the world	Free State
Tony Drake	Christian	Observatory, Western Province
Joe Janse van Rensburg	Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk)	Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape
Megan Forster	Methodist Church	Somerset West & Netherlands
Francois Mynhardt van Pletsen	Interdenominational Independent	Somerset West, Western Cape
Noxolo Khanyile	Christ believer & follower	Soweto, Johannesburg
Luan Martin	Dutch Reformed Church	Kloof, KwaZulu Natal
Charnelle	Follower of Jesus Christ	Western cape
Rev Chris McLachlan	Reforming Church, South Africa	Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal
Bishop Geoffrey Davies	SAFCEI and ACSA	Western Cape
Melissa Riordan	Christian (Anglicanl	Nelson Mandela Bay, Eastern Cape
Rev. Patti Ricotta	Life Together International	Massachusetts, United States
Revd Dr Kevin Snyman	United Reformed Chirch	Durham, UK
Jocylyn Liedeman	Anglican	Parow, W. Cape
Richard Stephenson	Independent	Edgemead, Cape Town, Western Cape
James Mumper	Vineyard Church	Global Citizen
Catherine Draper	University of the Witwatersrand	Pinelands, Cape Town
Peter Watt	Church Leader	Durban KZN
Heather Ferreira	Self	Totally agree
Susannah Farr	Life Church; Pan African Youth Development Agency Leader	Kigali, Rwanda
Eugene Roberts	Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa	Gqeberha, Eastern Cape
Francois Naude	NG Kerk	Calvinia Northern Cape
Ashley Roberts	Christian; teacher	Gauteng
Tiaan Muller	Dutch Reformed Church	Humansdorp
Carien de Villiers	South African	Western Cape
Jacobus Francois Potgieter	None	Constantia, Cape Town
David Barbour	Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Musgrave, Durban, KZN
Marike Brink	Member: Dutch Reformed Church	Gauteng
Enrico Fourie	Methodist	Gauteng
Franziska Andrag-Meyer	Dutch Reformed Church	Struisbaai, Western Cape
Jenny kerchhoff	St matthews anglican church in hayfields	Pietermaritzburg , kwazulu natal
Nyasha Musimwa	Roman Catholic	Randburg, Gauteng
Tracy Bell	Anglican – Diocese of Natal	Pietermaritzburg, KZN
Alastair Buchanan	A pastor (retired) of Jubilee C.Church	Rondebosch
Tracy Jean Smith	Anglican	KZN
Ralph Willcox	Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Parklands, Western Cape Province
Marthe Muller	Urantia Teaching Mission	Bantry Bay, South Africa
George Lyon Sander	CfC Ministries	Marina Beach, KZN
Allan David Booth	Methodist	Kwa Zulu Natal
Deon Snyman	Uniting Reformed Church	Malmesbury, Western Cape
Sue Clarke	Methodist	Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal
Jabu Mnculwane	Endumisweni Community Church	Pietermaritzburg
Nicole Snowball	Signal Church	Cape Town Western Cape
Johan Stander	Emeritus Reverend Dutch Reformed Church	Bettys Bay Western Cape
Isolde de Villiers	Law Researcher	Free State
Sharon Westcott	White Christian	La lucia 0832700478
Ashling McCarthy	Christian non-demomination	Berea, South Africa
Stephen Oliver	Good Hope Metropolitan Community Church	Vredehoek, Western Cape
Rev Dr Jenette Louisa Sprong	Methodist Church of Southern Africa	Scottburgh, KwaZulu-Natal
Wilhelm Henry Meyer	University of KwaZulu Natal	Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal
MarilynSchott	Baptist	Ekurhuleni, Gauteng
David	Tomfoolery	Durban, Kwazulu Natal
Nadia Schoeman	White Christian	Mbombela Mpumalanga
Helgard Pretorius	NG Kerk Pinelands	Cape Town, Western Cape
Sally Goldman	Methodist	Hillcrest, KZN
Sarah Crawford-Browne	Anglican	Milnerton, Western Cape
Dr Annemarie Paulin-Campbell	Christian belonging to the Roman Catholic Church	Linden Johannesburg
Delme Linscott	Methodist Church	Cape Town
Terri Clapperton	Home Ground Church	Westville, KZN
Johan Pienaar	Predikant NG Kerk	Lynnwood Gauteng
Ayub Khan	ANC	KZN
Joe Baumgartner	Swiss residing in SA, humanitarian worker, worships at TNC Midrand	Johannesburg Gauteng
Jenny Pereira	Methodist church	Pietermaritzburg, Kzn
Pieter Roeloffse	Stellenbosch Gemeente	Stellenbosch, Western Cape
Gil Marsden	Church of the Holy Spirit	Kirstenhof, Western Cape
Mpole Samuel Masemola	College of the Transfiguration/ Anglican Church of Souther Africa	Makhanda
Martin Badenhorst OP	Roman Catholic	Hyde Park, Gauteng
Revd Mpole Samuel Masemola	College of the Transfiguration / Anglican Church of Southern Africa	Makhanda, Eastern Cape
Lawrize Stofberg	Vineyard Church senior pastor (VCUKI)	Piperdam, Angus
Barnard Gerhard	WinaCity	Kuilsrivier, Western Cape
Mary Robson	Catholic	Durban KwaZulu-Natal
Jon Kerr	Anglican	Claremont, Western Cape
Xolani Nkosi	BARA-CREATION MINISTRIES, Principa at Union Bible Institute	PIETERMARITZBURG, KwaZulu-Natal
Rev Erica Murray	Anglican Church	Capetown Western Cape
Tim Tucker	The Message Trust	Observatory, Western Cape
Thomas Plastow, S.J.	St. Francis Xavier Seminary	Athlone, Western Cape
Sarah Oliver	Anglican	Observatory, Western Cape
Sarah Porter	Anglican Church	Firgrove, W.Cape
Nqabomzi Gawe	I support the group and the statement!	Berea KZN
Annatha Nel	NGK Keimoes en Neilersdrift	Northern Cape
Jim Cochrane	Em. Prof. University of Cape Town	Cape Town, Western Province
Grant Gunston	Jubilee Community church	Cape Town, WC
Brian Helsby	Heartlines	Gauteng
Ines Neto	International Grail	Western Cape
Martin Breytenbach	Anglican	Mowbray, Western Cape
Wendy Appleton	Christ follower	Rondebosch, Cape Town
Ashley Maclennan	The University of the Western Cape	Parow, Western Cape
Roselyn Ann Morrow	Catholic Chrostian	Morningside, Durban
Anne Webster	NCCB	Jhb
Craig Banks	Methodist	Sea Point Western Cape
Saleem Badat	University of the Free State	Durban Kwazulu-Natal
Craig Algie	Christian	Western Cape
Martin Mulcahy	St Michael’s Catholic church	Rondebosch, Western Cape
Retha Scholtz	Private	Aston Manor Gauteng
Werner Lottering	Catholic Church	Gauteng
Wimke Jurgens	DR Church	Goodwood, Western Cape
David Grant	Common Ground	Constantia, Western Cape
Rosanne Shields	Southern Cross Magazine (Catholic)	Cape Town, South Africa
Janine Preesman	Ordained Minister Metropolitan Community Churches	Queenswood, Gauteng
Rev. Nkululeko Khanyile	Christian	Soweto, Gauteng
David Meldrum	Anglican	Mowbray, Cape Town, Western Cape
Sarah-Leah Pimentel	White Catholic	Muizenberg, Western Cape
Jonathan King	Crossways Church	East London

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.

////

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.

////////

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

Carter, the Improbable Man

We must not lose memory of his decency, honesty, toil, service and faith.
White Dove, by Jimmy Carter in the Zaban Room of The Carter Center

Jimmy Carter’s life is now complete, a race run full out to the last day. The moravian bells of old Salem chime in his honor as I type. Many others will follow in the days, months and decades to come. We must not lose memory of his decency, honesty, toil, service and faith. And not dishonor him by elevating those virtues out of reach of all of us.

Counting him out was almost never a good idea whether he was running for an improbable office (every one he ever held) or an improbable health goal (guinea worm, polio, smoking or handgun violence). Or embracing improbable relationships—the Allman Brothers Band so key to the first steps of his race for President, Charles Taylor, the Liberian Pariah President or North Korean Pariah President, Kim Jong-un. Carter was able to live across improbable boundaries because he was comfortable with his own complexities and complicities; he knew he was human like all of the 8,018,082,868 of us. And he was clear-eyed about his own death, which most of us ignore until the last final shock.

Carter was always misread as being somewhat simplistic and moralistic. In fact, he worked through his own complexities to still choose to act, speak and do what he thought right. He was not surprised that his relationships sometimes made that harder; he was a loyal to people who made his life more complicated than a more ruthless man would have (thinking of a few bankers and entrepreneurs who clung to him like barnacles). A religious man with eclectic curiosity, he often confounded Baptist Christians who feared the grey areas (most of life). And he confounded secular friends who loved the grey so much they found it odd that a man could choose commitment and follow through. Not satisfied with a simplistic stab at polio, he did the hard work decade after decade after decade. Never satisfied with pontificating in a hotel ball room, he took African presidents to left-behind places in their own countries they had never seen. And then he went back again and again. He knew the complicated reasons for homelessness, but he never failed to pick up his own hammer and build one more home. He loved one woman his whole life, even though he was honest enough to almost lose an election by admitting “lust in his heart” for others. He gave the word “human” a good name.

Like many thousands, my life would be unrecognizably different had it not met his. Not long after he was involuntarily returned to civilian life from the White House, he started The Carter Center as a launching pad, more than a museum. He and Dr. Bill Foege, who had run the CDC under him, held the first global conference called Closing the Gap, even before he had a building. An engineer’s kind of conference, it asked how much of the burden of premature morality could be prevented based on what was already known. What could we actually do with what we already know? About two thirds was preventable back in the 80’s, as your grandmother would have guessed. And who needs to act? Among others, the ubiquitous faith networks who he knew tended to sit around and wait for something terrible to happen and then act surprised at the most predictable things (cancer, war, diabetes, river blindness). Could religious people grasp the vast moral chasm causes by not acting on the patterns we know cause needless suffering? He and Dr. Foege got the attention of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and started the Interfaith Health Program, which I ended up leading. Why me, and not some famous academic bishop? Frankly, I’m not sure, but both men had a preference for bold action over formal qualifications.

The first thing we did was blow up the perfectly respectable grant plan of work, which began with a big formal conference at the new Carter Center. We replaced it with two years of scrappy meetings in dumpy basements and raggedy centers all over the nation (not unlike his run for president, now that I think of it). We asked the leaders actually doing things what they would commend to him as worth replicating. And we asked where they were stumped for lack of a clear vision of what might work. The two lists were identical, of course, which meant that the big innovation was having enough humility enough to realize that somebody down the road had probably already figured out the answer we thought we had to invent. It is actually harder to adapt something as it demands even more intelligence than simply plopping down another idea from somewhere. He called this a “mundane revolution.”

Carter is known for protecting the Arctic reaches of the Alaskan wilderness. I rafted the Canning River which borders that vastness and I was grateful; what other President even knew it was there, or would spend scarce political capital to protect it? It wasn’t just big nature he loved; he never missed participating in the Audubon bird count in Plains. He personally called the American Chestnut Society to get some hybrid seedlings to plant at The Carter Center, where they are improbably growing strong. He accepted some gift of Koi from the Japanese government but refused to purify the pond so people could see them. (A Georgia pond is brown.) Life, even the mundane, is spectacular when you have eyes like his.

My very best ideas are tiny footnotes in the extraordinary legacy left by this special man. These include the “Memphis Model,” emulated by dozens of major healthcare systems all over the nation, the “religious health assets” which paved the way for the WHO into activating faith networks all over the world and, of course, Leading Causes of Life, which I spoke about the first time at a Conference in Milwaukee to which the former President sent me to in his place (imagine their disappointment!). Carter created a physical and a mental space where it seems reasonable to imagine things that had never happened and then try to do them. And then keep trying, maybe even for 98 years.

After decades of one unbearably oafish Christian after another desecrating the very idea of faith, he quietly gave his life as a long gift to his church and all people of faith: an example of sacred dignity and integrity. Not that the oafs understood. When he was gracious enough to invite evangelical leaders to the White House, more than one publicly prayed that he would become a better Christian. However, when my secular friends think that anyone who tries to believe is foolish, I could always say, “No, I mean people like Jimmy Carter.” They had to nod.

He had little patience with superficial piety. Once he had all of us Directors reflect on whether Newt Gingrich had any good ideas in his “Contract with America.” I choked and noted this was not likely to go down well with the faith people who actually do the work on the streets. He snapped that the churches rarely break a sweat, while the government at least knows where all the poor live.

In the very first article for the Interfaith Health Program he wrote, “We must make the choices that lead toward life.” And who is accountable for those choices? Not just improbable Presidents, but hundreds of thousands of improbable grown-ups doing the right thing when people notice and when they don’t.

This is true, even unto the very end of their days, when the right thing means releasing into the love of one’s family, instead of the normal vain and fruitless medicalized struggle against death. James Carter was proud, but never vain, often overlooked, but few lives bore so much fruit. I hope his last thought was satisfaction of a life well lived.

Pitchfork 1

A pitchfork is perfect for moving hay, compost, and the messy ensemble of cow poo that accumulates in barns. And the five sharp tines get attention by someone angry when the banker and landlord are insufferably arrogant. The wealthy are usually surprised. I know I was surprised last month as my party and candidates were so rudely put aside in favor of….well, you know.

*“Reasons You Need a Pitchfork” from the Minnesota Horticultural Society (not the book Frankenstein)*

Once anger flames, rationality has nothing to do with what happens next. Righteous anger can open the way for cynics with very ugly intentions to do things nobody voted for. Who voted for polio, measles, coat-hanger abortions and run-amok preachers? This is why Project 2025 was buried during the election and whipped out immediately after. This is why North Carolina losers used anger’s shadow to change the job descriptions of those that won. Ugly. And predictable.

Even when it is obvious that anger is being used by opportunistic frauds; it does not mean the anger will subside. Or that it will suddently become smart and be redirected toward the billionaire blowhards that actually do deserve a pitchfork.

What to do? Don’t argue with angry people, especially by telling them they are foolish to trust such obvious frauds. They don’t want instruction, especially from people like me they see as part of the “elite” that reminds them of their stolen dignity every time they go to the grocery store, bank, school or hospital.

Let’s talk about the hospital part of the conflagration. That’s the one I know best, having been inside the beast for nearly twenty years until recently. Why would anyone be angry at a hospital since everyone is going to need one? Normal people (the angry ones) understand that the shiny medical castles are only partly there for them. Hospitals are one visible knot in a complicated web of privileged guilds and professions including, executives, bankers, doctors, nurses, suppliers, technology companies, insurance companies, pharma, ambulance drivers, all seamlessly integrated into the government and universities. All that feels quite personal one is vulnerable and in pain with no possibility of negotiating anything.

All parts of the system—cruelly called “health”—seem to be more and more obviously about money—theirs—and less and less about those who need their “care” (the services people cannot not buy). This system costs roughly a trillion dollars a year and yet wants more. It drives every in the economy cost higher while whining all the time that it isn’t enough. Ironically, many of these hospitals (including my own) are not supposed to be “for profit,” so they do not pay taxes. All of this is painful at the family level only beginning with insurance and the huge indecipherable bills that result when you actually need the services. It makes the economy sick as every business thinks constantly about how to offload these costs onto vulnerable gig-workers or by shifting everything possible across the border or replacing humans with robots.

This interwoven system is the leading cause of bankruptcy in most states (for medical debt under $5,000). So who needs democracy when I can’t take my kid to the doctor without risking eviction or having my car towed away?

Pitchfork.

It is ironic that this web of privilege thinks it (we) are protected by our non-profit status and science. Who could quarrel with charitable scientists? Well, we don’t look charitable and we don’t look scientific. Offensive executive and physician pay levels pulls one fig leaf away. The other fig leaf—science—disappears as it is always used to justify another shinier and more expensive building. What about the low-cost and low-tech science of prevention that makes at least some of those buildings unnecessary? Silence. What about the science supporting investment in education, faith and good stable jobs? Maybe later. What about the science linking democracy and neighborhood stability to health? Sounds woke. Everybody in healthcare knows that science, but we build bigger buildings instead of following it. So the angry people give us a Secretary of Health who doesn’t believe in science either.

The whirlwind is partly our fault. Those of us who do believe in that science and do believe in the non-profit mission should have been far more aggressive in pushing the medical industrial complex to act appropriately. Instead, we prodded gently and waited for a better time.

It’s not too late. Dr. King said it is always the right time to do right. It is crucial that we not be pulled into defending the indefensible. Not everything is worth defending from president Musk who will be losing support pretty quickly on his own. And as you pull apart the data we should notice that some of those most angry are people friends. This might be a good time to lend some intelligence by helping aim the energy where it can do some good, instead of bad.

For instance. I offer two minor tweaks to non-profit health policy everyone should agree with:

First, hospitals’ non-profit tax status now rests on superficial “community benefit” rules. It should never have been allowed to be superficial. Those rules have little to do with the science of prevention and social determinants because implementation plans have no accountability to local public health (except in Ohio which is a story for another blog).

Give the local public health department authority to approve the hospital’s community benefit implementation plan so that it aligns with actual public health science and local government. This has been discussed quietly at the National Academies of Science for years. But religious hospital lobbyists fought it (!?!?!?!) It would have been better to make the hospitals uncomfortable, Than having the voters angry. Do it now.

Second, hospitals are huge financial enterprises which often make as much money from their investments as from selling expensive medical procedures. It is likely they have about a trillion in their basement, which nobody ever thought possible. But there it is; they are banks that also offer medical services. Legally, their investments are invisible to their non-profit status; they aren’t required to report how much investments they have. They are usually required by their bankers to have between 100-300 “days of cash on hand”. Take your local hospital’s annual revenue and do the arithmetic. Unlike hospitals, your local banks are required by the Federal Reserve to invest some of their corpus in places impacted by their historical racism. Why not hospitals, which have done the same in the past (usually to the identical neighborhoods)?

Add transparency to the legal “community benefit” form. And give the Federal Reserve responsibility to oversee non-profit investments instead of the IRS.

Dumb is going to happen. But the chaos breaks open some room to do some good things, too. This is a great time to speak very specifically about how our public goods can be available to everyone no matter how they voted, prayed, worked, worried or shouted. If we use the pitchfork to shovel out the barn, nobody needs it as a weapon.

“American Quarantine” an American Gothic parody created by me with Photoshop. In this together, separately…
byu/rvtherford ingraphic_design