Commentary
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
FROM THE SOUTH CAROLINA Democratic primary onward, the votes for the presidency cast by black churchgoers will be criticized by many white people. Even now, black churchgoers’ feelings are speculated about in the press, like in-progress crimes announced on a police scanner.
Media and election pundits ask: “Are they going to choose Joe Biden because of his relationship with Barack Obama? Are they going to go for Elizabeth Warren because of her plan to give $50 billion to historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions? Are they going to bypass Pete Buttigieg because he’s gay?”
The latter question is the most problematic—an attempt to deem all black churchgoers as homophobic, as if homophobia is something no other racial, ethnic, or religious group has played a part in; as if there’s no such thing as the black grandfather who accepts his gay grandson; the black grandmother who always asks how her grandson’s boyfriend is doing; or the black grandmother who puts on her “good wig” to hang out with said boyfriend when he visits the South. All three are my Christian grandparents, and they’re not alone.
But the most problematic aspect of the Buttigieg question is what it reveals about white sight: Black churchgoers of the electorate are seen as tools to bring about a desired election result, and scapegoats if the election doesn’t go the white way.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
IN 2015, POPE FRANCIS directed a provocative question to the U.S. Congress: “Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?”
As the source of roughly 36 percent of the world’s military exports, the United States is the largest weapons supplier in the world. According to data released last spring by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. exported arms to at least 98 countries in the past five years. These deliveries often included advanced weapons such as combat aircraft, short-range cruise and ballistic missiles, and guided bombs.
Ten of the 25 countries buying the most weapons from the U.S. are NATO members or part of other U.S. security alliances. In 2017, the U.S. set a record of $75.9 billion in weapons sales in a year, pursuant to congressional approval. Saudi Arabia is the biggest recipient of U.S. arms. In August 2018, the Saudi military used a 500-pound, MK 82 guided bomb built by Lockheed Martin, a U.S. weapons manufacturer, to destroy a school bus in a market in the Yemeni town of Dahyan. They killed more than 50 people, including 40 children. One of the victims, Ali Mohammed Hassan Da’i, was 10 years old. Another, Ali Zaid Hussein Tayeb, was 9 years old.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
IN OCTOBER, POPE FRANCIS convened hundreds of people in Rome to discuss the Indigenous face of the church in the Amazon. The three-week, multitrack meetings, which included lay leaders, members of religious communities, priests, expert witnesses, bishops, cardinals, and leaders of Indigenous organizations, was the result of a two-year listening process during which more than 65,000 people in the Amazonia region were asked: What are the most pressing issues you face?
The agenda used for the synod of bishops at the Vatican, as well as the wide variety of interconnected parallel gatherings around the city—under the umbrella of “The Amazon: Common Home” (la Casa Comun)—outlined the collected wisdom: Listen to the voice of Amazonia. Pursue ecological conversion. Support the prophetic Indigenous church.
One parallel gathering met in the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, a 10-minute walk from St. Peter’s Basilica. Hundreds of Amazonian Indigenous leaders and guests met at Santa Maria to pray, listen, and conceive a new world—one that celebrates the eternal truth of the proclamation of Jesus Christ: We are all loved. We all belong. All creation is deeply connected.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
IN THE PAST three years, the Trump administration has upended decades of legal precedent that created a humane legal process for asylum seekers to enter the U.S. and build a life for themselves while they wait to plead their case in front of an immigration judge.
Asylum is a protection available to foreign nationals already in the United States or at the U.S. border who meet the international law definition of a “refugee.” A refugee is a person who can’t go home because of “past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future” due to their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, according to the United Nations.
On the U.S. Southern border, these are people fleeing organized violence and government repression. Under Trump administration “third-country” agreements, the U.S. will now be deporting many asylum seekers back to the same countries that they are fleeing.
While this scenario is exactly what Trump’s lead immigration policy adviser, Stephen Miller, has always dreamed of, it is not one we have to accept.
People have offered one another sanctuary in various forms throughout history. Christianity has a long tradition of such radical welcome—including biblical texts making clear the mandate to “welcome the stranger” and hundreds of churches that opened their doors as sanctuaries to runaway slaves in the 1860s, civil rights and anti-war activists in the 1960s, and migrants from Central America in the 1980s.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
EVERY EMPIRE IN human history has used the tactics of fear. This fear is evident in the fact that for generations a dark skin hue has automatically made a person at best suspect, at worst a criminal. The empire identifies those whose language and nationality are different as less than human. Dehumanization becomes a tool to justify heinous laws, promoting them as necessary to protect citizens from a horde of savages, criminals, rapists, thugs, or whatever new word is used to instill fear.
Our sacred texts tell the stories of emperors, rulers, and pharaohs who justified mass extermination to maintain power. Herod the Great is one example. Herod was a ruler so deranged and paranoid about losing power that he had his wife, brother-in-law, and three sons murdered to wipe away any trace of royal blood who might challenge his throne.
It is under Herod’s rule that we encounter the revolutionary words of Mary as she proclaims her song of praise, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). For generations, Christians have reduced the Magnificat to a simplistic, spiritual song from a docile, obedient girl chosen by God. The political undertones and demands for justice against rulers and laws that oppress God’s people are rarely elevated.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
A FEW MONTHS AGO, I was driving from Peterborough, Ontario, to my home at Six Nations Reserve. The route took me through the traditional homelands of the Anishinaabe.
I began to feel and smell the spirit of the ancestors. On the right were farmlands; on the left, townhouses. In the distance, I could see the metropolis of Toronto. This is where Anishinaabe walked, hunted, gathered, and lived for years before first contact with Europeans. When the settlers came, they built structures to suit their needs. They took over the land by force, trickery, and other means. The concept of buying and selling land is absent from the Indigenous way of life. You cannot sell what the Creator has given you.
Many churches in Canada were built on Indigenous land, first by the Church of England and then the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC). Six Anglican churches were built on the Six Nations where I live. They are a part of my Anglican history; I can trace my Anglican roots to the early 1700s. It is a rich history. And complicated.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
IN JERUSALEM'S OLD CITY, prices are seldom posted. Negotiating is not only welcomed but necessary. It is customary for the merchant to initially ask for a price far in excess of what both parties know to be reasonable. When such an offer is made, it is perfectly valid for the customer to reject the offer; only then does the real negotiation begin. But if the merchant’s counteroffers get progressively higher, it is perfectly justifiable for the customer to question whether the vendor is genuinely interested in selling.
For the past 30 years, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has often resembled a dysfunctional bazaar transaction. With each round of negotiations, Palestinians have been asked to pay a higher and higher price. The Trump administration plan released in June, called “Peace to Prosperity,” is no exception. But why are its terms so unacceptable to Palestinians?
Palestinian political leadership has consistently expressed its aim to establish a sovereign state in which the Palestinian people can exercise national self-determination. As Israeli-Palestinian peace talks over the past quarter century have demonstrated, the issues of borders, Israeli settlements, and Jerusalem are all negotiable to some extent, but any plan that requires Palestinians to relinquish the fundamental aim of national sovereignty is setting the price too high.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
JESSIE RENAE WATERS (Oglala Sioux) was pregnant and found murdered April 30, 2015, near her home in Oglala, S.D. Her case remains unsolved to this day. Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind (Spirit Lake) was murdered Aug. 19, 2018, by a neighbor in Fargo, N.D. Her body was not found for eight days. Jessie and Savanna are someone’s daughter, sister, grandchild.
The National Crime Information Center reported that in 2016 there were more than 5,700 reports of missing Indigenous women and girls, a rate much higher than that of other groups of women.
Ashley Loring Heavy Runner (Blackfeet) disappeared from Browning, Mont., located on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, on June 12, 2017. With little help from authorities, Heavy Runner’s family found support from the Blackfeet United Methodist Parish in Browning. On Dec. 12, 2018, the family took Ashley’s story to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The parish helped with travel expenses, found additional support, and began advocating for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
IN MAY, DELEGATES at the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland voted unanimously to affirm the principle of reparations for the uncompensated labor of enslaved persons. In a diocese that is more than 90 percent white, there was not a single nay vote. How did this happen?
The issue of reparations is mired in emotion, often mischaracterized, and largely misunderstood. The economic, political, and moral dimensions are difficult to grasp. Some of us have an emotional response to the word, but when reparations are fully and fairly explained, Americans want to do the right thing.
Everyone living in our great nation has inherited a mess created by the institution of slavery. None of us caused this brokenness, but all of us have a moral responsibility to fix it.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
THE 2018 STATE-SPONSORED execution of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, was a brazen violation of his right to life by a repressive regime, yet the U.S. executive branch responded with near indifference. Then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had already said that advancing U.S. interests should come before promoting U.S. values—such as defending human rights—and his successor Mike Pompeo has followed suit.
The Trump administration has disavowed the longstanding commitment to human rights by the U.S. in foreign policy. It has withdrawn from the U.N. Human Rights Council, ceded a voice on the U.N. body addressing racial oppression, and ignored the chorus of international condemnation of its family separation policy.
THIS YEAR, THE seasonal rains in Kenya came two months late. “Even the weatherman can’t forecast the weather,” Stephen Katama, a local shopkeeper in Nairobi, told me when I traveled to East Africa in June. “We can’t tell the difference between the summer and winter here anymore.”
During the past two decades, rain in sub-Saharan Africa has increased in frequency and intensity, creating dangerously erratic patterns of rainfall and drought. A single day’s downpour may bring the amount of rainfall normally expected over a period of eight months, wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of countless subsistence farming families across Kenya and Uganda.
Sub-Saharan Africa is among the regions projected to see the worst of climate change in the coming decades. I traveled with the Climate Witness Project, hosted by the Christian Reformed Church in the U.S., to Nakuru, Kenya, and North Teso and Soroti, Uganda, to visit farming communities facing extreme shifts in weather patterns.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
f you’ve checked your social media recently, you may have noticed profile pictures with a blue background. This is how some are showing solidarity with the peaceful demonstrators in Sudan who, in the face of extreme violence and a near-total internet blackout, are demanding a civilian government.
Last December, the Sudan Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella organization of trade unions, organized a large demonstration in Khartoum, the nation’s capital, focused on the dire economic situation in the country. The public outpouring grew as people took to the streets in more than 90 locations throughout Sudan. These new protests, triggered by price hikes and food shortages, quickly developed into anti-government protests and inspired even more actions around the country. The SPA decided to change its target: Instead of focusing on the economy, the SPA began to demand the removal of the military-led regime.
Sudan is not new to nonviolent revolutions. The Sudanese took to the streets in organized mass demonstrations and general strikes that ended dictatorships in 1964 and 1985.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
A succession of lawsuits involving the state of Michigan, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Christian adoption agencies has again pitted religious freedom against LGBTQ rights.
In 2017, after a same-sex couple seeking to adopt was turned away by Bethany Christian Services and St. Vincent Catholic Charities, the ACLU took the couple’s case to court. In March, the case was settled in favor of the LGBTQ clients. Adoption agencies that receive funds from the state of Michigan can no longer turn away LGBTQ couples or individuals because of religious objections. In response, Bethany—the largest Christian adoption and foster agency in the U.S. and headquartered in Michigan—reluctantly changed its policy in the state to allow LGBTQ couples to foster children. In contrast, St. Vincent filed a follow-up lawsuit against the state human services department.
“We are disappointed with how this settlement agreement has been implemented by the state government. Nonetheless, Bethany will continue operations in Michigan, in compliance with our legal contract requirements,” a Bethany spokesperson said in a statement.
Illustration by Matt Chase
SINCE MY ARRIVAL in the U.S., I have looked forward to the day that I could enjoy the security of American citizenship. But as a green card holder of African origin, I now watch the Trump administration ramp up efforts to strip hundreds of naturalized Americans of their citizenship. With the establishment of a “denaturalization” task force, the supposed permanence of citizenship has become insecure.
In 2019, the Trump administration requested $207.6 million to review 700,000 immigrant files and develop elaborate efforts to punish people for past mistakes by denaturalizing them. As many keep their eyes on Trump’s pet project, the southern “border wall,” the administration continues to use taxpayers’ funds to construct harmful, longer-lasting obstacles to citizenship.
Illustration by David Plunkert.
N ANY DEEP national division, political peace is critical. The absence of a formal peace treaty between North Korea and South Korea and the U.S. is an enormous barrier to a new future. Yet easily overlooked is that lasting peace also requires decades-long work of people-to-people engagement.
Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has spoken of “the danger of a single story.” In few places is that danger more real than between North Koreans and Americans who are profoundly misinformed about each other after 70 years of mutual isolation.
Illustration by Matt Chase
AS PART OF his annual commencement speech tour, Vice President Mike Pence warned graduates at Christian colleges such as Liberty University that they would be “shunned or ridiculed for defending the teachings of the Bible” and adherence to “traditional Christian beliefs.” As an example, Pence cited the backlash he and his wife, Karen Pence, received after she took a job at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Va., a private Christian school that bans LGBT employees and students and the children of gay parents.
What the vice president and many like him are describing, however, is not an infringement of their rights or persecution, but theological disagreement and different beliefs that are as protected as their own. While the Constitution protects their right to choose their religion and how to practice their beliefs, the Constitution does not protect against theological or philosophical disagreements.
Michael George Haddad
CREDIT CARD DEBT plagues our communities. The average U.S. household carries a balance of $6,929 at the end of the month. And if you miss a payment, interest may jump from 15 percent to more than 20 percent.
Credit cards are part of a predatory industry with a history of racial bias. Many people can afford only the minimum monthly payment, barely making a dent in the principal —just as the system was designed.
About 10 years ago at Circle of Hope, my church in Philadelphia, we began experimenting with “credit card debt annihilation.” Our team’s motto came from Romans 13, where the apostle Paul urged believers to “owe no one anything,” except love.
Michael George Haddad
“WE'RE NOT HERE to seduce you,” I said.
The laughter signaled that my comment had pushed a boundary but not broken it. When the moderator at my evangelical seminary’s student orientation asked about friendships between men and women on campus, I answered honestly. I wanted to be viewed as a student, not a threat.
Women seminarians, regardless of where we study, navigate a world not made for us. Many of us study in institutions with long histories of denying our admission, read from syllabi devoid of women scholars, and study under professors who merely tolerate our presence. My own seminary first admitted women as full students in 1975 and into all degree programs in 1986.
Michael George Haddad
SOON AFTER SENATE Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought the resolution for a Green New Deal to a sham procedural vote in March, a clip of its co-sponsor, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, went viral.
“You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist? Tell that to the kids in the South Bronx which are suffering from the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Tell that to the families in Flint whose kids’ blood is ascending in lead levels.”
It was an illuminating statement. The Green New Deal had rapidly emerged on the heels of a report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that puts the deadline for massive, coordinated action to avoid the worst of climate change at 12 years out. Now is the time for an audacious proposal of the kind climate activists have long pushed for, one that matches the planetary crisis in scale and scope.
THE DAY A massive electrical blackout plunged Venezuela into darkness, my neighbor Juan Carlos was finally heading back to seventh grade.
It had been four months since he had entered a classroom. His teachers had been missing since November, their $8 a month salary not covering even the commute. Doing the math, I realized that my two hens earned more with their daily eggs.
Leaving his darkened school, Juan Carlos headed straight to the potato field. I watched from the porch as he dropped to his knees to rastrojear—rake the field with his hands to uncover spuds missed in the harvest. The field’s owner turns a blind eye to kids searching for food this way.