Church

Christians can claim that God's power is made perfect in weakness but leaning more heavily on the image of a mothering God would push Christians to give the care-giving traits a higher value at the ballot box and in our advocacy work.

In that small town, we were told that we were in "God’s country." The physical and spiritual evidence that surrounded us made us all the more certain. If this was "God’s country," then this too was God’s community, God’s actions, God’s relationships. The community, its actions, its families, its relationships were sacred. Nearly every aspect of the community was transformed into some great action of the Kingdom. And we were reminded, almost as often, that The World was a threatening force trying to make its way in and it was our duty to keep it out.

So now, here the church sits staring in the face of human rights violations being committed in our national name. Here we sit privy to the betrayal of anything we could possibly claim the gospel to be about — from the actual life story of Jesus and his dark-skinned, refugee family to the theological imperative to love one’s neighbor and stand with the most vulnerable. Here we sit bearing witness to breathtaking levels of racialized, religious violence being emboldened by this administration’s rhetoric and policies.

AT THE BORDER between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, people come together once a week for communion across the dividing line. El Faro: The Border Church/ La Iglesia Fronteriza is held every Sunday on both sides of the border. For some families, it is their only opportunity to see loved ones who have been separated from them by immigration status.

The service is at Friendship Park, or “El Parque de la Amistad,” the piece of land that lies between the mesh border fence and the larger border wall that keeps the United States separate from Mexico. Usually, the outer wall is closed, cordoning off any opportunities for people on opposite sides of the border to connect. But for four hours each weekend it opens. For most people, the border is a place of division. But for Pastor John Fanestil, the borderland, or “la fronteriza,” is “a place of encounter.”

Fanestil, who preaches at First United Methodist Church of San Diego, has been running El Faro: The Border Church for almost a decade. He meets me at the trailhead of Border Field State Park, the 1,000-plus-acre San Diego nature preserve that borders the sprawling metropolis of Tijuana. In the summer months, you can drive all the way down to the border, but the trail floods when it rains and is often closed to vehicles in the winter. Today, it’s shut because of a sewage spill from Tijuana, so we hike down.

Fanestil was raised in La Jolla, an upscale neighborhood in San Diego, but says that his first real introduction to Spanish culture was in Costa Rica, where he did a year of seminary. His first appointment after ordination was in the inland border town of Calexico, Calif., which is adjacent to its Mexican sister city, Mexicali. He fell in love with the border culture, and after serving congregations in Los Angeles and Orange Country, he was placed in San Diego in 2004.

I think Christians have to do organizing, because it helps us to broaden whatever kind of tunnel vision some of our own traditions unwittingly produce in this fundamentalist age. I often tell my congregation that organizing, justice work, is essential for Christian discipleship, because it helps our heart become less wicked. It puts you in relationship and conversation with both systems and individuals that you may need to learn from, or you may need to help transform. I think organizing is critically important in that way.
 

As I look back, I can now see how these transitions had been significant in my caminata espiritual as well as in discerning my call to serve God and God’s people. These different encounters with places, peoples, and cultures, have been crucial in my attempt to foster the conditions for visible signs of Jesus’ kingdom to be a present reality and not only an eschatological affair.

These recent events have catalyzed a movement, inspired by the leadership of members of color at First Congregational Church in Oakland, Calif., to encourage churches to divest from police. This means churches will stop calling the police and will start hosting activities to promote alternatives, such as restorative justice circles, self-defense classes, and mental health de-escalation trainings.

“Sparks were flying all around the table, and then Jared had this idea,” Moore said. “He said — it was a brilliant idea, and this was the impetus, the beginning of things — ‘What if we got every church or synagogue to take responsibility for one prisoner re-entering society? You think that could work?’”

Times reporter Edward B. Fiske observed how conservative evangelical Protestants supported the war. Many, like the theologian and editor of Christianity Today, Carl F. Henry, believed it to be morally defensible. Fiske wrote that “the majority of laymen and clergy in this country” were more in agreement with Carl Henry than with William Sloane Coffin.