Commentary
HOW DOES ONE celebrate the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ while crippled with fear?
There have been a handful of times in my life of faith that have been filled with sadness. One of those was in November when, according to research, 81 percent of white evangelical Protestants and 52 percent of white Catholics—enthusiastically or not—decided to vote for a president with a platform hostile to the teachings of Jesus. A debilitating fear and despair began burrowing into the marrow of my bones. It’s hard to await the next executive order or policy change or nomination that will instill fear in my community.
As a health-care chaplain and student in public health, I’m keenly aware of the impact repeal of the Affordable Care Act would have on access to basic health care and in the lives of people I’ve worked with in hospitals from coast to coast. With the ACA, a young cancer survivor will still be eligible for insurance; thousands do not have to worry about “lifetime caps” on benefits, and will not have to file for bankruptcy because their premiums skyrocketed. I have sat at the bedside of thousands who have fought to survive their illness. Now they are targeted.
Alone, it’s easy to become lost in the distortion brought on by hate rhetoric. I need to connect to something with deeper roots than my fear.
Sexism is dead. So sayeth most men, according to a national survey in August. Women, on the other hand, aren’t quite convinced.
The poll by the Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of men, and only 34 percent of women, said they thought that “sexism no longer was a barrier” to women in this country. (A pair of adjacent headlines on washingtonpost.com summed it up: “Sexism is over, according to most men” immediately preceded “It’s 2016, and women still make less for doing the same work as men.”)
So, welcome to “post-sexist” America.
I imagine it will look a lot like the “post-racist” America that Barack Obama’s election in 2008 supposedly ushered in. At that time, a few days after Obama’s historic election, The Wall Street Journal wrote that “Barack Obama’s election as the first black U.S. president promises to usher in a new era of race relations.”
The paper quoted a senior Obama adviser as saying, “People say he is a post-racial candidate. When people say that, they seem to suggest that we are beyond the issue of race, that issues of race don’t matter.” But Obama will tell you, she continued, that “he thinks race does matter.”
Turns out the president was right.
AND NOW, if the country elects its first woman president this fall, will it be seen as a sign that the country has moved into a new era regarding justice and equality for women?
The campaign itself, of course, hasn’t been encouraging. Some wonder if the level of vitriol aimed at the first woman to receive a major-party presidential nomination is due in large part to the fact that she’s, well, a woman.
Over the last 50 or 60 years, overt sexism—like overt racism—has been made less and less socially acceptable. But a look at basic statistics for, say, women in leadership positions—from CEOs at top companies (4 percent) to members of Congress (19 to 20 percent)—should dispel the delusion that we live in an egalitarian society.
THE CONTROVERSIAL Jan. 29 attack by U.S. forces on a rural township in Yemen exemplifies the failed U.S. policy in the region.
In the first military raid carried out by the Trump administration, one U.S. soldier and at least 25 civilians were killed in the attack on the village of al-Ghayil in central Yemen, including nine children under the age of 13. Among these was 8-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, who was shot in her family’s house. Other civilians killed included visitors whose family has been active in U.N.-mediated de-escalation committees, working to quell violence in the region.
Some leaders of al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) also lived in al-Ghayil. AQAP has taken advantage of Yemen’s multi-sided civil war to find refuge in remote areas. AQAP maintains an uneasy relationship with local tribes, many of whom abhor al Qaeda’s violent excesses and reactionary interpretation of Islam but respect AQAP’s ability to fight common enemies.
When Navy SEALs found themselves under fire, they called in airstrikes. The barrage hit houses where families slept, killing people and livestock. Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens was also killed.
President Trump initially blamed his own generals and former President Obama for the botched raid. Then, in his first address to Congress, Trump pivoted, describing it as “a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence.” Owen’s widow was present; Trump referred to her multiple times in his address. Owen’s father refused to meet with the president and asked for an investigation into his son’s death.
LAST DECEMBER, my daughter, Zipporah—who has taken to acting out the Christmas story using our wooden nativity set—observed that our crèche was missing a “mean king” figurine. That got me to thinking: I have never seen a nativity set with a King Herod figure.
We tend to close the curtains and go home for a family dinner right after the Magi bow before Jesus with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
But after the Magi head home, Joseph is warned in a dream to escape Herod’s genocidal tyranny by fleeing to Egypt with his wife and child.
We don’t know how the Holy Family was treated when they reached that foreign country. Were they welcomed or feared? Did Egyptians help this vulnerable family to resettle or did local carpenters fret that Joseph might steal their jobs? Was Jesus befriended by other children or viewed as a potential disease-carrier?
Compassion for the world’s estimated 21.3 million refugees—individuals who have fled their countries because of a credible fear of persecution—competes with our own fear that the violence they flee might impact us. This polarized reaction shapes the response by the United States and others to the global refugee crisis.
Nine in 10 Protestant pastors in the United States say that, as Christians, we have a biblical responsibility to care for refugees and other foreigners based on clear biblical injunctions, according to LifeWay Research. The same survey found that only 8 percent of local churches are helping refugees—nearly half acknowledged a sense of fear in their congregations regarding the arrival of refugees.
White evangelicals, by a margin of 2-to-1, were opposed to increasing the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center. (A majority of white mainline Protestants were also opposed and a slim majority of Catholics and black Protestants were in favor.) It’s ironic that followers of Jesus would be so afraid of refugees, given that we worship one!
FOR THE PAST three years, Pope Francis has convened leaders of grassroots movements from around the world to extend the church’s solidarity with the poor and vulnerable on three critical themes: land, work, and housing.
This winter, a regional gathering of the World Meeting of Popular Movements met in the United States for the first time. Seven hundred grassroots leaders, accompanied by 25 U.S. Catholic bishops, several international representatives, and a delegation from the Vatican, led by Cardinal Peter Turkson, met in Modesto, Calif., with the cardinal bearing a letter of support, invitation, and challenge from Pope Francis.
To the regular themes, U.S. leaders added racism and migration. Participants addressed the pain of exclusion from the perspective of undocumented domestic workers, residents of Flint whose water was contaminated, Standing Rock water protectors, and the unhoused, while also raising the hope of united, faith-rooted, nonviolent resistance.
Racial justice, in the U.S. and abroad, was a central theme. “Why is blackness a threat in America?” asked Rev. Traci Blackmon. “And how are we, as people of color, ever to be perceived as unarmed, and therefore nonthreatening, if our blackness is the weapon that you fear?” Blackmon said that oppression, dehumanization, and racism are rooted in the original sin of desiring to be God and seeking to create God in our own image. John A. Powell, director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, added, “When you ‘other’ someone in an extreme way, then you treat them as a non-human.”
AFTER 52 YEARS of war and four years of negotiations, a peace accord was signed in late September between the Colombian government and FARC rebels. Six days later, a national referendum failed to bring the accord into force.
Within a few days of the referendum, a massive popular movement took to the streets of Colombia’s major cities to ensure that negotiations continued. Then, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, but not his FARC counterpart, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
These events have been a roller-coaster ride for Colombian churches, which have been working toward this accord for decades. Colombian Christians have played an important, if often behind-the-scenes, role in advancing peace in this country.
The Catholic Church helped facilitate the highly secret early dialogue between government and rebel leaders, paving the way for the current peace process. Mennonites have worked for more than 25 years for the right to conscientious objection in a country with mandatory military service for all males. In a landmark decision, this year the Colombian military officially granted conscientious objector status to a potential recruit, Juan José Marín Gómez.
In 2015, FARC guerrillas called on “civil society and churches” to monitor their unilateral ceasefire. The Interchurch Dialogue for Peace in Colombia (DiPaz), which includes Protestants, Anabaptists, and Catholics, jumped at the opportunity. “We worked with other civil society organizations and contacted networks of churches all over Colombia, seeking information any time there were reports of a possible ceasefire violation,” said Angélica Rincón, who coordinated the monitoring for DiPaz. “In one of our first surveys, we heard back from numerous pastors in conflict areas saying that this was the most peace they had ever experienced.” The ceasefire held, and conflict-related violence dropped to the lowest levels in more than 50 years.
IN MAY, a ransomware virus attacked computer systems in 150 countries and impacted more than 200,000 people. Experts say it was one of the largest cyberattacks ever. Is cyberwar the new frontier? And what do we make of the claim by Microsoft president Brad Smith that this virus piggybacked off a digital weapon developed by the United States? And then there’s Russia’s alleged interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. If there was an interception of the American people’s right to the democratic process in order to advance Russia’s own political agenda, what is a proper response?
John B. Sheldon, a professor of cybersecurity at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies in Alabama, defined cyberwar as “war conducted in and from computers and the networks connecting them, waged by states or their proxies against other states.” Cyberwar is not to be confused, according to Sheldon, with online espionage, digital terrorism, or other forms of cybercrime. Not every cyberattack is part of a cyberwar, nor should it be treated as such. Online weapons are cheap to make and easy to deploy; they are also primarily anonymous. And the most effective way to bring cybercriminals to justice and restore security might well be civilian-controlled internet policing, not state-led responses.
ON ELECTION DAY, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan suggested that we may need “a Reconciliation Commission, starting as soon as the results come in—no matter who wins.” In this troubling national moment, stories gleaned from historic truth and reconciliation processes can offer glimpses of hope and guide us forward.
A boy named Free Spirit was only 4 years old when he was wrenched away from his family and forced into a Canadian residential school. A nun gave him a new pair of shoes, which he plunged into a sink filled with water. He was shocked by the beating he received. His Algonquin people always soaked their new moccasins and chewed on them to soften the leather.
Decades later, during Canada’s 2011 Truth and Reconciliation hearings in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Free Spirit joined scores of witnesses who shared their stories of suffering in schools whose purpose was to annihilate their culture. Each evening, all the tissues used to capture the day’s tears were gathered and released into the Sacred Fire that burned outside. There they mingled with ashes that had been carried from previous hearings in other cities.
In the United States, the first large-scale truth and reconciliation process was launched in Greensboro, N.C., in 2005. Its focus was the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, in which members of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party opened fire on marchers demanding economic and racial justice, killing five and wounding 10.
As the hearings opened, Gorrell Pierce, who was the Grand Dragon of the Federated Knights of the KKK in 1979, strode in with a cadre of young white men. African-American community activist and pastor Nelson Johnson, who was wounded in the attack and lost five of his closest friends that day, immediately stood. He walked across the auditorium and made his way down that row of men, shaking every hand and thanking them for coming. Nelson admitted later that it wasn’t his first impulse, but that as a Christian he knew he needed to bring his best self to that encounter and try to reach out to the best self within Pierce.
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago called for a “consistent ethic of life”—a broad, underlying attitude of respect for human life and dignity that would apply to issues as diverse as abortion, peace, and the death penalty.
In a 1983 lecture that landed him—and the consistent ethic—on the front page of The New York Times, Bernardin drew connections between nuclear arms and abortion: “The principle which structures both cases, war and abortion, needs to be upheld in both places. It cannot be successfully sustained on one count and simultaneously eroded in a similar situation,” he said.
If only we had listened.
WEST VIRGINIA’S schoolteachers went on strike on Feb. 22. Although West Virginia has a proud labor history, the state’s two teacher unions (West Virginia Education Association and American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia) do not have the right to strike. After decades of labor movements failing nationally, the Trump age has not seemed like a prime moment for a revival. And West Virginia’s government is firmly in the hands of Republicans.
Fast-forward to March 7. Schools reopened after a statewide strike that lasted two weeks. Teachers procured a 5 percent raise, not only for themselves but for all state employees, from state police to highway maintenance workers to clerks at the DMV.
When schools reopened, the Charleston Gazette-Mail interviewed a woman dropping off her grandchildren at Horace Mann Middle School. She said the children wanted to support their teachers, who every day stood in the cold outside their school. “Every time we’d pass by the teachers [picketing] outside, they’d say, ‘Blow it, Nana. Blow the horn.’”
IT IS INTERESTING, yet not surprising, what the political status of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane María reveals about colonialism, the coloniality of power and gender, emergency government response, and civilian resilience.
Hurricane María was the worst natural disaster Puerto Rico has ever faced and the 10th-most-intense Atlantic storm on record. But Puerto Rico has experienced more than 500 years of colonial activity between the Spanish and North American empires. In addition, because much of Puerto Rico’s religion came to the island through colonization and violence, many Puerto Ricans today still struggle to trust religion and may not see religious organizations as options for help in times of adversity.
My experience in post-María Puerto Rico has made me aware of the still-present legacy of the struggle against white supremacy, racism, heteronormativity, and sexism on the island. As an Afro-Puerto Rican feminist and Christian, I am aware of the ideological and religious struggles inherent in negotiating the nature of our citizenship with the oppressive political dynamics that are exacerbated by a massive natural disaster.
Hurricane María—and its sustained winds of 160 miles per hour—blew the neoliberal veil from the colonizers’ face. The limited response from the federal government in Washington, D.C., along with our unstructured colonial system, increased already-high poverty levels from 44 to 52 percent, according to the University of Puerto Rico, and swelled the numbers of people who left the island looking for better living conditions and a brighter future. After the hurricane, Puerto Rico’s status as an unincorporated U.S. territory blocked aid from several other countries, because the 1920 Jones Act only allows entrance to the island by U.S. ships.
Despite all this, the Puerto Rican people have demonstrated their resilience and capacity to overcome adversity. Citizen mutual aid, in partnership with nonprofit organizations and local churches, proved to be one of the most crucial and immediate forms of assistance after the hurricane.
I AM A CHRISTIAN. That means that I serve a savior who told us he came to free prisoners. At the same time, I live in a nation with more than 2 million prisoners, more than any country in the world.
I am also an affluent white person living in a country that unequally and selectively jails people of color and poor people. And I don’t just live in this country, I help govern it.
As a state representative in Michigan, I am responsible for this situation. The government directly chooses who goes to jail and who doesn’t. Of course, since our democracy practices government “of the people,” that makes all of us responsible for government actions.
How should Christians who are also citizens take action for justice in our law enforcement system? Responding to mass incarceration as Christians can seem daunting, but there are obvious places to begin. One of the clearest places our current system fails the test of equal treatment under the law is in the detention or release of those accused of, but not convicted of, a crime.
THE LONG-OVERDUE transition of power in South Africa this winter, from President Jacob Zuma to Cyril Ramaphosa, has sparked a resurgence of hope among younger church activists in the country. Zuma’s nine years in office were catastrophic to South Africa’s politics and social fabric through entrenched corruption and state capture. Zuma and his cronies enriched themselves while the economy stumbled, with unemployment now above 27 percent and schools and health care in an increasing state of crisis.
While Ramaphosa’s election by the National Assembly has inspired hope, an awakening less heralded and potentially more significant long term has been taking place across the church in South Africa. The theology of hope and liberation that helped fuel the anti-apartheid struggle played a formative role in shaping the public theology of many in the U.S. and around the world. Now a new generation of South African Christian activists is on the cutting edge of social transformation.
In the aftermath of Zuma’s resignation, a handful of these leaders addressed the catalytic role the church has played in shifting the political winds in South Africa and their hope for the future.
PURPLE IS THE liturgical color for Lent. “Purple” is also the political identity of America’s houses of worship. We are a mixture of Republicans, Democrats, and independents who come together for worship, fellowship, and service. No political party owns religious truth.
In 2017, some in Washington, D.C., made a concerted effort to undermine churches’ congregational political mix through the repeal of the Johnson Amendment, a provision in the tax code since 1954 that protects the independence and integrity of not-for-profit organizations by prohibiting them from endorsing or opposing candidates for public office.
The Johnson Amendment does not specifically target churches; it applies equally to all 501(c)(3) organizations, religious and secular. Under the current tax code, churches are assumed to be 501(c)(3) organizations (c3s) but can opt for another tax-exempt status. Most churches remain c3s because in addition to being tax exempt, congregants’ tithes and offerings are tax deductible. Despite some hysterical claims, churches and charitable organizations can address any issue—no matter how controversial or unpopular—under the current tax code. The line is drawn, however, at c3 organizations telling people who to vote for or against.
During the fall debate on the largest change to the U.S. tax code in 30 years, the House version of the tax bill would have effectively repealed the Johnson Amendment. The Senate version never included such language, nor did the final version of the bill that became law.
We might have seen the end of this longstanding tax provision if not for the outcry from nonprofits, foundations, and people of faith. Can you imagine? Candidate commercials played during worship services. Candidate flyers included in every bag of food given out by the local food pantry.
RECENT STATEMENTS by tech luminaries suggest that robots with artificial intelligence (AI) are on the cusp of conquering the world. These fears are slightly overblown—researchers assure us that we are nowhere near “conscious” AI. More important, these apocalyptic predictions distract us from the problems that Christian ethics finds in existing forms of automation.
These problems arise from the replacement of central aspects of human existence for the sake of efficiency and convenience. Most obviously, automation leads to the replacement of workers, decimating not only manufacturing jobs but also white-collar jobs as AI becomes more sophisticated. Self-driving cars alone threaten 4 million jobs. While economists predict new employment opportunities, tech executives are less confident, leading to calls for a universal basic income.
Automation is also replacing inconvenient forms of relationship. In Alone Together, Sherry Turkle documents substitutes for relational labor that involve nurturing or therapy, such as robot caregivers for the elderly. Many people embrace these automated caregivers, projecting emotions upon them and sometimes preferring them to humans.
The turn from relationships is increasingly widespread in society. Internet algorithms provide us with a world that reflects ourselves back to us—movies, news, and friends already tailored to our interests. It is easy to understand this turn toward technology: Relationships can be difficult. They involve inconvenient emotions, unrestricted demands, and challenging points of view.
Automation even challenges that most troubling of relations, our own embodiment. Emerging from René Descartes’ philosophy that saw the body as mere mechanism and unnecessary for our identity, artificial intelligence suggests we can live a disembodied existence, such as some transhumanists’ longing to upload themselves to a computer. While transhumanism is a fringe movement, devices encourage more and more people to live with their attention drawn away from the embodied present.
THIS TAX DAY, some middle-class Americans may be tempted to celebrate. Under the new law approved in December, the bottom 60 percent of earners (those making less than $86,100 a year) are expected to receive 2018 tax cuts worth $407 on average.
But if you think you’ll be among those who owe Uncle Sam less under the new law, don’t get your party hat out yet. These tax cuts come at a high price.
For example, a typical preschool teacher (single, with no children) who makes $30,000 per year can expect a tax cut of $457. That’s enough to pay for a new refrigerator or several months of electricity bills. But other changes to the tax code could put this teacher’s job in jeopardy. State governments have been expanding pre-K programs in recent decades, but many of them are expected to have their education budgets squeezed because of the new tax law’s caps on state and local tax deductions.
In the meantime, the preschool teacher could have more hungry children in her classroom. The new tax law reduces incentives for charitable contributions, including for food banks and other services that early-childhood programs rely on. Donations to nonprofits are expected to drop by as much as $20 billion this year, according to the Tax Policy Center.
What about middle-class families who are making significantly more than the typical preschool teacher? Let’s look at a couple who run a plumbing business in Louisiana, with $135,000 in joint income. The Tax Policy Center estimates they’ll get a tax cut of $609 in 2018. But that same couple can expect to be slammed with a spike in their health insurance premiums of $1,900—triple their tax cut! That’s because the new tax law repealed a key part of the Affordable Care Act that requires individuals to have health coverage if they can afford it. This could lead to an estimated 13 million more people becoming uninsured and huge increases in premiums for those who remain in the individual market.
These are just some of the immediate effects of a tax law that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy and big corporations. In the longer term, the costs to working families will be much more painful.
I WAS BORN IN Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe. Though I now teach and reside in South Africa, my family members still live in various parts of Zimbabwe. In November, I watched as scenes unfolded during a suspenseful week of regime change. A military intervention no one would have predicted set the stage for the resignation of Zimbabwe’s 37-year dictator, Robert Mugabe. Emmerson Mnangagwa became president and will serve out Mugabe’s term.
I was captivated by ordinary citizens’ spontaneous expressions of joy as they took to the streets and expressed their views for the first time without fear of reprisal. Every news station hosted political analysts, church leaders, and members of civil society engaged in rigorous debate on the meaning and impact of the momentous political and economic shifts. They focused on the potential impact on those who have borne the brunt of the economic crisis under Mugabe—which included shortages of money (which made financial transactions a logistical nightmare), widespread corruption, political repression, exceptionally high levels of unemployment, and the looting of profits from the country’s natural resources.
“IS GREEK LIFE Worth Saving?” asked a recent U.S. News & World Report article. It’s a question others are asking since Indiana University became the seventh university to suspend the activities of its fraternities and sororities. Four deaths in a year attributed to the fraternity pledge process are a clear sign that “Greek life” has a problem.
Yet fraternities aren’t going away. In fact, journalist John Hechinger estimates that at least 380,000 male undergraduates belong to Greek-letter organizations, a 50 percent increase over the last decade. And while millennials are flocking to Greek life, even more are abandoning the church.
A 2015 Pew study found that only 27 percent of millennials attend a religious service on a weekly basis. It’s something college Christian organizations are noticing, and why InterVarsity now sponsors “Greek InterVarsity,” purporting that one can be both “Greek” and Christian.
It’s an interesting approach. However, considering these deaths—and the numerous sexual assault allegations made against fraternity men—some wonder if InterVarsity is making the right decision. It’s time to ask how people of faith can effectively combat the toxic behaviors—prejudice, misogyny, and addiction—that are allowed to flourish within the Greek college and university systems.
IN A HISTORIC STATEMENT last November, Pope Francis categorically condemned not only “the threat” of nuclear weapons but also “their very possession.” In December, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons for its work on a new global treaty to prohibit nuclear arms. Already approved by the United Nations, it’s expected to enter into force this year. The Vatican was one of the first to ratify.
Here in the United States, however, it’s like we live in the Twilight Zone. President Donald Trump threatens to “totally destroy North Korea,” tweets about how his “nuclear button” is bigger than Kim Jong Un’s, and is moving ahead with plans to spend $1.7 trillion to rebuild the nuclear arsenal over the next three decades.
Trump’s bombastic rhetoric and impulsive tweets worry Democrats and Republicans alike, with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) saying in October, “We could be heading toward World War III with the kinds of comments that he’s making.” In a sign of growing concern, the GOP-controlled Senate held the first congressional hearing on the president’s authority to launch nuclear weapons in 41 years. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Americans are concerned that President Trump “is so unstable, is so volatile” that he might order a nuclear strike that is “wildly out of step” with our national security interests.
Yet there is a relatively simple step the United States could take that would 1) limit President Trump’s nuclear options, 2) reduce the risk of war, 3) respond to growing international calls to eliminate atomic arms, and 4) save a boatload of money.
It is time to retire our Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).
IN THE 2016 ELECTION, white Catholics and evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump and the Republican party’s “pro-life” platform. Since Trump’s election, the United States has also seen an unprecedented rise in hate speech and action, such as the Charlottesville rally, and other incidents aimed at minorities, immigrants, and Jews.
The Anti-Defamation League reports a 67 percent rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. over 2016; anti-Semitic incidents in K-12 private, public, and parochial schools have more than doubled, including harassment, vandalism, and physical assault. These trends are the very opposite of the pro-life platform white Catholics and evangelicals held as a centerpiece for their voting choices.
The challenge of how to respond to a rising tide of hate is not a new one for Christians—nor is the complicity of churches in spreading it. While individuals and a few churches confronted hate speech and actions against Jews in the years of Nazi power in Germany, most supported the state. If we hope to do better today, we must educate our students not only about the end result of complicity and silence—genocide—but also about the stages of bias and hatred that are fertile ground for brutal, systemic violence.