THE CHALLENGES PRESENTED BY WHITE EVANGELICALS, DONALD TRUMP, AND ROY MOORE TO DEMOCRACY AND THE RELIGION OF JESUS

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

Justice Is A Verb!

November 15, 2017

Like many other people in the United States and elsewhere, I have observed the daily events and controversy surrounding the candidacy of Roy Moore for election to the U.S. Senate from the state of Alabama.  Like many other people, I do not know why people would elect a politician to higher office who has consistently dishonored his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and who has twice been removed from judicial office for doing so.

I do not know why people who say they care about decency would support a middle-aged candidate whose former co-workers confirm allegations that he repeatedly engaged in questionable – no, predatory – conduct toward teenaged girls.

I do not know why I should believe people who profess concern for women and girls to be sincere about that concern when they now support Roy Moore after having previously overwhelmingly endorsed, supported, voted to elect, and now continue to defend Donald Trump, a known and serial misogynist.

And I do not know why I or any other follower of the gospel of Jesus should believe white evangelicals are followers of Jesus who support Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and the policies and practices associated with them. 

What is clear, however, is that there are people – in Alabama and elsewhere throughout the United States – who profess belief in democracy while supporting politicians such as Donald Trump and Roy Moore, persons whose personal and professional histories are defined by bigotry and other forms of oppression towards vulnerable people, including women and girls.  

And, it is clear that Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical Christian” supporters are determined to return the United States to an era when white patriarchy, white supremacy, and white nationalist militarism were the defining features of every level of government (local, state, and national) in the United States. 

Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical Christian” supporters are not patriots to democracy.  They are neo-fascists.

Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical Christian” supporters are, also, not followers of the Jesus who respected women, who included women among his closest followers, and who ordained women the first prophets of the resurrection gospel of grace, liberation, justice, peace, and hope.  Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and their white “evangelical Christian” supporters are heretics to that gospel.

The hard reality is that white “evangelical Christians” support Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and politicians like them, including people like former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio (who received a presidential pardon from Trump from his federal criminal contempt conviction for refusing to stop using his office to racially profile and terrorize Latinos). 

The hard reality is that white “evangelical Christians” must be denounced as political and religious bigots, neo-fascists, and heretics.  They are not devoted to democracy.  They are not devoted to the Jesus of the New Testament gospels whose life and ministry was defined by inclusive grace, truth, compassion toward vulnerable persons, justice, peace, and resurrection hope. 

Instead, their true devotion is to white religious nationalism.  That is why white “evangelical Christians” overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump’s candidacy for president of the United States in 2016.  That is why white “evangelical Christians” are now determined to elect Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate from Alabama. 

That devotion to white religious nationalism – a mixture of white supremacy, white patriarchy, and religious nationalism – means white “evangelical Christians” will turn out in record numbers to vote for Roy Moore in Alabama. 

Devotion to white religious nationalism will inspire them to engage in or disregard overt and covert efforts to suppress, intimidate, and otherwise interfere with efforts to vote by people who are poor, persons of color, progressive minded women, students, senior citizens, and naturalized citizens of the United States when voting occurs in Alabama for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Devotion to white religious nationalism is what inspires white “evangelical Christians” to claim a divine right to rule the United States, and to impose their will on the rest of the world in the name of American Empire.

So what should people who truly believe in democracy do?

What should prophetic-minded followers of the gospel of Jesus do?

People who believe in democracy should resist the politics and religion of white religious nationalism and white “evangelical Christians” and call it what it truly is – neo-fascism, not democracy.

Prophetic followers of Jesus should denounce white religious nationalism as moral and theological fraud and a heresy to the gospel of Jesus. 

People who believe in democracy and prophetic followers of Jesus should organize against white religious nationalism and neo-fascism.  We should join forces to expose, challenge, resist, and inform ourselves and others about the hateful claims of Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and other favorites of white religious nationalism.  Working together, we should defeat politicians like Trump, Moore, and Joe Arpaio – along with the hateful and fear-mongering policies they champion – at the ballot box in local, state, and national elections. 

That is how we can, and should, protect and honor our cherished belief in democracy.  That is how we can, and should, protect and preserve the United States as a free, inclusive, and welcoming society.  That is how we can, and should, prevent our society from being controlled by bigoted religionists who lust for power to impose their notion of American Empire on our nation and the rest of the world. 

The issue for us is not what neo-fascists and white religious nationalists do or what they will do.  The issue is what will people like you and I do.  We have the power to determine the future of our society.  We have the power to step up together and defeat the forces and menaces threatened by white religious nationalism and the politicians embraced by white religious nationalists. 

Do not draw back from this challenge.  Lean into it as people who believe in and love democracy. 

And if you are a follower of Jesus, lean into it because you refuse to allow white supremacists, lovers of patriarchy, and white “evangelical Christians” to hijack the gospel of Jesus in the name of American Empire.   

Hope Fiercely!

BLACK LIVES MATTER IS NOT A THREAT GROUP!

BLACK LIVES MATTER IS NOT A THREAT GROUP:

How will you respond to the lie that it is one?

JUSTICE IS A VERB!

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

October 19, 2017

On October 13 members of my court security team attended a training session for court security officers in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  I learned from a member of my team that Instructor Ronnie Boudreaux of Advanced Law Enforcement Readiness Training (ALERT) referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group “like the KKK” while leading a session on court security.  When members of my staff questioned Instructor Boudreaux about his comment, he identified Black Lives Matter among a list of “threat groups.”  

I issued a letter objecting to Instructor Boudreaux’s mischaracterization of Black Lives Matter to the Director of Court Security for the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) – the agency that oversees court administration in Arkansas – last Monday (October 16).  My letter included the following observations.

The Ku Klux Klan is a domestic terrorist organization that arose during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War.  Its history of terrorism has been the subject of federal legislation.  Instructor Boudreaux, ALERT, and your office can easily verify this information by reading the following Internet based article:  http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan. 

By contrast, Black Lives Matter is not and has never been designated a terrorist organization by Congress, or any state or federal law enforcement agency.  I invite you, Instructor Boudreaux, and the director of ALERT to cite any law that has ever identified Black Lives Matter in ways that resemble how the Ku Klux Klan has been identified.  Black Lives Matter does not and has not endorsed or condoned violence against law enforcement officers or anyone else, for that matter.  No authorized spokesperson for BLM has done so, and BLM has explicitly condemned hateful comments by others that have suggested or encouraged that anyone engage in violence against or toward law enforcement officers. 

Instructor Boudreaux’s characterization of BLM as a “hate” or “threat” group is baseless, however much he or others may believe it.

I am pleased by the response of Marty Sullivan, Director of the AOC, to my letter of protest.  When he was contacted by the media, Director Sullivan immediately disavowed the remarks made by Instructor Boudreaux, and agreed that Black Lives Matter is not a threat group (see https://m.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2017/10/16/judge-objects-to-trainers-references-to-black-lives-matter).

However, Michael Thompson, the president and a co-founder of ALERT according to its website (http://www.alert10-04.com/instructors1.html), compounded the cultural incompetence demonstrated by Instructor Boudreaux’s mischaracterization.  I share below what Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times reported concerning his conversation with Mr. Thompson:

… I talked with Mike Thompson, a former deputy U.S. marshal who owns Georgia-based ALERT, which he said has been providing training sessions for court bailiffs and other court officers for 20 years.

"I've heard Ronnie teach and there's not a racist bone in his body," Thompson said. "If anyone said anything out of line, it was a misstatement." He said he'd check with Boudreaux and said he'd be happy to talk to Griffen.

Thompson said in 20 years of teaching such courses, "it's the first time anyone has ever lodged a complaint such as this." He said he took pride in the quality of his company's instruction and added, "I wouldn't have anyone working for this company who is prejudiced."

He said ALERT, as a favor to a former student and friend who works in Arkansas, had put on the course Friday at cost, about $2,200, for about 70 court bailiffs. He said Boudreaux, a former U.S. marshal in Louisiana, talks about many groups that can present potential threats to court security. He said Black Lives Matter had recently been added to the list.  But he said the talk focused mostly on drug cartels and "sovereign citizens" as most dangerous. But he acknowledged that all groups mentioned, from tax protesters to Aryan and Nazi groups. were seen as having committed violent acts or acts that have "created a problem for law enforcement."

But he said, "We don't focus on any one group." He said he was sorry anyone took offense at the mention of Black Lives Matter.

Thompson’s responses to Max Brantley’s inquiry about Boudreaux’s characterization of Black Lives Matter reveal several disquieting realities.

·         Thompson confirmed that Black Lives Matter has recently been added to a list of groups seen as having committed violent acts or acts that have “created a problem for law enforcement.”  Who compiled and maintains that list?  What conduct or stances have been taken by Black Lives Matter that amounts to committing “violent acts” or acts that have “created a problem for law enforcement?”

·         Thompson confirmed that Boudreaux, a former U.S. Marshall in Louisiana, talks about many groups that can present potential threats to court security and that Black Lives Matter had recently been added to the list.  What incidents have been reported, not to mention confirmed, that involve Black Lives Matter movement people presenting threats to court security?  Who reported these “potential threats?”  When did the “potential threats” arise?  Who investigated the “potential threats to court security?”  Who verified the “potential threats” mentioned by Boudreaux and later repeated by Thompson?

·         Thompson’s statement that he was sorry if anyone took offense at the mention of Black Lives Matter exposes another troublesome, and troubling, reality.  Thompson skirted the whole question about the mischaracterization of Black Lives Matter as a group that has committed violent acts, acts that have “created a problem for law enforcement,” or acts that posed any threat to court security. 

Far from disproving my objection to Instructor Boudreaux’s mischaracterization of Black Lives Matter, Mr. Thompson’s response to Max Brantley’s inquiry confirmed that his organization views Black Lives Matter among groups that have committed violent acts and/or that have created a problem for law enforcement.  According to Thompson, Boudreaux, and (presumably) all other ALERT instructors, Black Lives Matter is similar to domestic terror groups similar to the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, and neo-Nazi white supremacist groups known for engaging in violence. 

According to its website, ALERT holds its instructors out as “subject matter experts” about court security.

The court security seminar provides law enforcement officers working in courthouses with the most current evidence-based practices used in securing courthouse complexes and protecting judicial personnel.  The program is a three-day comprehensive course that offers a wide range of training modules designed to reinforce the fundamentals of court security, enhance existing skill sets, and incorporate contemporary issues challenging America’s courthouses and the officers protecting them.  As subject matter experts, the instructors bring their experience to the classroom through lecture and practical exercises..,

 

This is a classic case of cultural incompetence that is subsidized with public money. 

Black Lives Matter is a social justice movement that arose to protest abusive and homicidal law conduct by enforcement agents, with special focus on abusive and homicidal law enforcement conduct and practices towards black, brown, and other persons of color.  Without citing a single verified report of violence endorsed, condoned, threatened, or committed by Black Lives Matter, Thompson, Boudreaux, and other ALERT instructors of court security officers and other law enforcement officers are perpetrating the false, untrue, - as in outright lie – message that Black Lives Matter poses an ongoing threat to court security and to law enforcement in general. 

Cultural incompetence happens when seasoned law enforcement instructors falsely accuse a social justice movement to protest abusive and homicidal conduct by publicly sworn and compensated law enforcement agents of being a threat to law enforcement and court security.

That cultural incompetence exists no matter how many years it has been practiced.  No matter how many years Boudreaux, Thompson, or anyone else has worked in law enforcement, lying about whether a social justice movement is a threat to law enforcement and court security is lying. 

The cultural incompetence doesn’t arise because my court security officers and I properly took offense to Black Lives Matter being falsely labeled a “threat” group.  It exists because Thompson, Boudreaux, and other ALERT instructors cannot tell the difference between exercising the freedom to demand that law enforcement officers not engage in abusive and homicidal conduct – a freedom enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States – and committing criminal acts of violence and intimidation. 

Black Lives Matter has the right under the First Amendment – ratified in 1791 to the U.S. Constitution – to protest abusive and homicidal law enforcement behaviors, the people who engage in them, and the system that enables, protects, and attempts to justify abusive and homicidal law enforcement practices and policies.  Black Lives Matter is not a threat group, no matter what Ronnie Boudreaux, Michael Thompson, and anyone else may claim (whether associated with ALERT or not). 

How many other times have ALERT instructors made similar untrue claims about Black Lives Matter? 

How many law enforcement officers and court security officers have been misled by those claims?  

How much money has been paid to ALERT by taxpayers to send law enforcement and court security officers to be misinformed by Boudreaux and other ALERT instructors about Black Lives Matter? 

                           

When will public officials and members of the general public stop paying ALERT and other “subject matter experts” on law enforcement and court security to misinform law enforcement and court security officers?   

My court security officers and I are not the only persons who should be offended by what Instructor Boudreaux falsely claimed about Black Lives Matter.  I am not the only person who should insist that the propaganda spouted by ALERT about Black Lives Matter be denounced and condemned. 

Judging from the reaction by Mr. Thompson of ALERT, it is unlikely that ALERT will stop referring to Black Lives Matter as a “threat” group?  The question is whether the rest of us will stand by while public funds are paid to ALERT to spread that lie and misinform court security and other law enforcement officers. 

We can’t stop ALERT from being culturally incompetent.  We can and should insist that ALERT not be awarded public business and paid public funds for that incompetence.    

What will you do? 

PEOPLE IN THE PRESENCE OF FRUSTRATED GOD

PEOPLE IN THE PRESENCE OF FRUSTRATED GOD

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

A sermon for October 8, 2017

New Millennium Church, Little Rock, AR

Isaiah 5:1-7

5Let me sing for my beloved
   my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
   on a very fertile hill.
² He dug it and cleared it of stones,
   and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watch-tower in the midst of it,
   and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
   but it yielded wild grapes. 

³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
   and people of Judah,
judge between me
   and my vineyard.
⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard
   that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
   why did it yield wild grapes? 

⁵ And now I will tell you
   what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
   and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
   and it shall be trampled down.
⁶ I will make it a waste;
   it shall not be pruned or hoed,
   and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
   that they rain no rain upon it. 

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
   is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
   are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
   but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
   but heard a cry!

Matthew 21:33-46

33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ³⁴When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” ³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ ⁴¹They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;^*
this was the Lord’s doing,
   and it is amazing in our eyes”?
⁴³Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.^* 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’^*

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

        Frustration is the English word we use to name a sense of not achieving what we have expected.  The verb in English is frustrated, meaning to prevent someone from achieving what he or she intended, as in to make the effort to achieve it useless.  As we ponder these passages from Isaiah 5 and Matthew 21 today, think of them as lessons about humans frustrating God, as in actively working to prevent God from getting what God expects. 

In these lessons, God is represented as a landowner who planted a vineyard.  Planting anything is an act of hope.  We plant hoping to harvest.  People pick ground, cultivate, fence it, put and put grape vines on it expecting to eventually harvest grapes.  They expect results.  They hope. 

But in these passages, God’s hopes are frustrated.  In Isaiah, the frustration is like that of a disappointed lover.  Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard.  My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.  He dug it and cleared it of stones; and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes [Isaiah 5:1-2].  In other words, despite all the attention and care God invested in Judah, God’s attention and care was spurned.  The society behaved in unloving and oppressive ways, as if it had not been favored by God.

The prophet explains the allegory at verse 7:  For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!  Despite all God had invested in Israel and Judah, the people refused to produce justice.  Instead, God found widespread violence (bloodshed) and suffering victims because of systemic oppression (heard a cry).   God is presented as frustrated.

Jesus made the same point in our lesson from Matthew 21.  There God is presented as a landowner who decided to plant a vineyard.  But in this lesson, God isn’t frustrated by the grape vines.  God is frustrated by the tenants to whom the vineyard was entrusted.  God expected the tenants to care for the vineyard, harvest the grapes when they ripened, and produce wine, as shown by the wine vat on the property. 

But when the vineyard owner sent employees to collect the income produced by the vineyard, the tenants intentionally and consistently mistreated them:  But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.  Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them the same way.  Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.”  But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him [Matthew 21:35-39]. 

These lessons present God as frustrated, disappointed, spurned, rejected, defied, and even violated.  God is mistreated.  God is defied. God is spurned like a jilted lover.  In Matthew 21, God sends servants – prophets – to plead God’s cause.  But the prophets are mistreated.  Even God’s child is not respected. 

Dr. Marvin McMickle (President of Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School [CRCDS] in Rochester, New York)[1] has observed that the idea of rejecting and frustrating God, as shown in these lessons, is repeated in various ways in our time.  According to Dr. McMickle, some people reject the very idea of God as Creator and Sustainer of the universe.  Some people have chosen to disavow involvement with God in any personal sense of commitment in favor of “spirituality.”  Then there are the people who, according to Dr. McMickle “two-time the Lord.”  The point he makes is that these passages challenge us to see the various ways we reject God, frustrate God, defy God, and even do violence to God.[2] 

God is frustrated most of all by humans.  Humans alone in all the creation have the moral capacity to disobey, defy, and even make war against God.  Despite all that God has invested in us, humans frustrate God’s goodness.  We frustrate God’s love and justice.  Humans are the greatest threat to peace and hope in the world.  Despite all that God has done for us, with us, and on us, humans frustrate God! 

We frustrate God by the way we treat each other.  We frustrate God by mistreating the creation and other creatures on this planet.  We frustrate God by the ways we mistreat people who are vulnerable, marginalized, and helpless.  We frustrate God by embracing ideologies and ways of living that demand allegiance we only owe to God, what Marvin McMickle termed as how we “two-time God.” 

We don’t frustrate God accidentally, inadvertently, or by mistake.  These lessons force us to ponder the ways we deliberately, systematically, and knowingly live in opposition to God’s love and purposes.

Allan Boesak is on target when he makes the following observation in his latest book:

The wrongs we see are not just happening; they are caused to happen, and they are happening to the vast majority of God’s children who are vulnerable, targeted, and excluded from human consideration.  They are not happening randomly, they are deeply systemic, deliberately built into systems of oppression, domination, and dehumanization. And we must not be afraid to say it.[3]

These lessons were addressed to people who held themselves out as followers of God!  Isaiah and Jesus did not focus their attention on pagans, but on people who claimed to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. 

When we consider these lessons in that light, we cannot escape knowing that they apply to the religious attitudes and conduct in this society and that dominate throughout its culture. 

When one thinks of all God has invested in this society, why should God not be frustrated?  This nation is rich in natural resources.  The climate of this land is not only suitable for humans to live in, it is fruitful.  There is enough land and water to sustain and nourish every person who inhabits this society.  We live in a land with abundant resources.  Yet, many people suffer gut-wrenching poverty, hunger, and are homeless despite all the hymnals, Bibles, Bible study groups, and “soul-winning revivals” we see and hear about.  God is frustrated.

God has sent prophets to call this society away from our addiction to greed, violence, and oppression.  But instead of hearing and heeding Martin Luther King, Jr., this nation branded him a moral and political threat before it killed him.  This nation deliberately labeled Dr. King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, Cesar Chavez, and other activists for peace and equality threats when they challenged racism, materialism, classism, sexism, imperialism, and other forms of injustice.  God is frustrated.

With unmistakable and deliberate conceit and hypocrisy  our nation twice committed the greatest act of mass murder known to humanity – within only three days – when it dropped nuclear bombs on children of God living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. 

On August 6, 1945, our self-professed God-fearing nation deliberately dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, a city with an estimated population of 330,000 children of God.  The death toll from that bomb by December 1945 is estimated at between 90,000 and 120,000 people!  Three days later (August 9, 1945), the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, with its estimated population of 250,000.  The death toll from that bomb by December 1945 is estimated at between 60,000-80,000 people![4]  God was frustrated by what this nation did to the world when we cold-heartedly committed mass murder using nuclear weapons.  

God is frustrated by the usual religious suspects of our time – the Bible thumping cheerleaders who enable and encourage oppressive actions against immigrants, people who are hungry, homeless, sick, afflicted by physical, emotional, and other conditions of impairment. 

God is frustrated by religious bigotry against women, children, and God’s LGBTQ children.  God is frustrated because the usual religious suspects have co-signed that violence. 

The usual religious suspects elected a ruler who refused to show kindness and empathy for Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico. 

The usual religious suspects cheered, campaigned for, and celebrated the election of a ruler who termed racial and ethnic bigots “fine people.” 

The usual religious suspects cheered when that ruler issued a pardon to a former law enforcement officer who used his office and power to terrorize Latinos in Arizona. 

Now the usual religious suspects are cheering as women and girls are being denied access to contraceptive care and services and celebrate while God’s LGBTQ children are threatened with loss of federal protection from discrimination at work and when they seek healthcare.[5] 

According to these lessons, the time comes when  entrenched opposition to divine love, mercy, peace, and hope is intolerable even for God. 

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the LORD’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?  Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom.  The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”  Matthew 21:42-44. 

According to Jesus, God always has other options when we will not produce justice!  God has the option to turn to other people – meaning not the usual suspects – to produce the fruit of justice, peace, and hope God expects in God’s world.   

God has the option to work through other people – meaning not the usual suspects – who will be faithful and humble stewards of creation and God’s natural resources.    

God has the option to work with other people – meaning not the usual religious suspects – who will show the world how love is supposed to act.

God has the option to work with other people – meaning not the usual suspects – who will show that a prosperous society is defined by how poor, sick, persecuted, elderly, helpless, and immigrant people are treated with dignity, hospitality, respect, compassion, and tenderness, not how privileged people enjoy luxury. 

The religion of Jesus is the religion of “not the usual suspects.”  It is the religion of unconditional and inclusive love.  It is the religion of extravagant hospitality.  It is the love of fierce advocacy for the oppressed.  It is the religion of love and life in community with other children of God, not war and empire. 

God is calling us, in Jesus, to become part of a holy movement for love, peace, hope, justice, and compassion toward all.  God is calling us, in Jesus, to forsake the values and vices of the usual religious suspects.  Rejoice, beloved, because God is raising new servants who are replacing the usual suspects. 

Black Lives Matter is replacing the usual suspects.  The peace movement is replacing the usual suspects.  Faithful people are challenging the imperial vicious pretensions of the United States in this society and across the world because God is replacing the usual flag-waving, bomb and bullet worshipping, hymn singing, and hate-loving religious suspects.

Do you see it happening?  Can you sense how the usual suspects are uneasy?  The usual suspects are no longer considered trustworthy voices about love, truth, justice, and hope.  They are deadly afraid of being replaced because they sense that their age of male patriarchy and white supremacy is passing away!  They are fired up about “Make America Great Again” because they know their days are numbered! 

This is the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes!  Amen.   

---

[1] Dr. McMickle’s bio can be read at https://www.ats.edu/marvin-mcmickle.

[2] Feasting on the Word:  Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (David J. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors), Year A, Volume 4, pp. 142-43 (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2011).   

[3] Allan Aubrey Boesak, Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters:  Prophetic Critique on Empire-Resistance, Justice, and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe—A Transatlantic Conversation (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), p. 81.

[4] See Children of the Atomic Bomb: at http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html. 

[5] See http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-religious-rules-birth-control-lgbt-20171006-story.html. See also, https://apnews.com/3a4ee88a804446f48ba360ae29a98451. 

ENCOURAGEMENT FROM REV. DR. ALLAN AUBREY BOESAK

ENCOURAGEMENT FROM ALLAN AUBREY BOESAK

Justice Is A Verb!

October 7, 2017

South African theologian Rev. Dr. Allan Aubrey Boesak is a humanitarian, social justice activist, author of numerous books and scholarly articles, and a leading authority on liberation theology.  I am blessed by his friendship and loving encouragement of my efforts in ministry as a pastor, preacher, public theologian, and advocate for social justice.  He wrote the foreword for my 2017 book The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (Judson Press, Valley Forge, PA, 2017).  And, Dr. Boesak was delivered a lecture at New Millennium Church on Holy Saturday (April 15) and proclaimed the sermon on Easter (April 16), 2017.  The lecture and sermon can be viewed on the New Millennium website (www.newmillenniumchurch.us) by clicking on the Sermon Archive folder.

Dr. Boesak sent me the following e-mail message from South Africa earlier today after learning of my federal civil rights lawsuit against the Arkansas Supreme Court for permanently barring me from being assigned to, presiding over, and deciding civil and criminal cases involving capital punishment, the death penalty, and the method of execution in Arkansas.  With his permission and my gratitude, I now share his prophetic observations with you.

Dear Wendell,

…So often in the past days I have thought about you, knowing I should write to encourage you as you take on the forces of Empire in Arkansas, where you have lived so boldly and have taken your convictions from your prayer room to the pulpit, from the pulpit to the bench and from all these to the streets of injustice and struggles for peace, justice, dignity and life.

Of course they cannot let you be, you disturber of false peace; you exposer of officialised mendacity; you mocker of make-believe progress; you foolish prophet of righteousness, who think believing in Jesus actually makes a difference. So their ire rises as filth flourishes in stagnant water: trumped-up charges, persecution under the guise of judicial propriety, bludgeoning of the truth through the law as if the law truly mattered to them. Assassination of your character by gorging on your soul hoping to break your spirit. Begrudgingly having to recognize you as their colleague, but being too intelligent, independent, and strong to be their peer, they are forced to look up to you. 

So they resort to what they know best: to niggerize you through their blunt abuse of white power.Trying to smother your prophetic power with their damp, suffocating arrogance. Trying to still your voice by waterboarding you with public humiliation. Trying  to befoul your Godly work with the stench of their hypocrisy. They speak of "impeachment" but their lips drip "destruction" and their hearts drool "lynching". They pretend to speak with a civil tongue, but their blood lust gets in the way.

But their true desires are already known, and these shall not be fulfilled. But do not give in to them, my Brother. They shall fail ignominiously. Do not be afraid, "Those who are with us, are more than those who are with them." I think I know a little bit of what I speak. In my darkest days my mother, over and over, implored me to read Ps. 91. I pass that plea to you.

…

Allan

PROPHETIC ANSWERS IN A DIVISIVE TIME

PROPHETIC ANSWERS IN A DIVISIVE TIME

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

2017 T.B. Maston Foundation Award Banquet

Honoring

 Suzii Paynter

Executive Coordinator – Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

Friday, October 6, 2017

Dallas Baptist University

Dallas, Texas

David Morgan (Chair, T.B. Maston Foundation Board)

Current and former Maston Trustees

Suzii Paynter, the 2017 Maston Foundation honoree

Ladies and Gentlemen

        It is a special pleasure to attend this banquet and join others who acknowledge the dedication, discipline, and fiercely amiable courage of Reverend Suzii Paynter.  I have not known Suzii as long as many of you.  However, I find myself unable to think of any other living soul who has given me more personal joy in being Baptist. 

Suzii, congratulations on this well-earned recognition!  Beyond that, thank you for accepting and doing the important and often difficult work of leading Cooperative Baptists at what I have come to term “a divisive time.”  Thank you for leading us with dignity and courage.  Thank you for being an advocate, and for being a prophetic soul for and to our faith group with its uneven history – at best – of recognizing and heeding prophetic leadership.    

        I will speak tonight from the subject Prophetic Answers in a Divisive Time.  You do not need me to persuade you that we live in a divisive time.  After all, we are Baptist people.  Our history – and perhaps our habit (if not our heritage) – is defined by divisiveness. 

        At the risk of inviting your disappointment, if not your disagreement, I do not believe we are living in a time that is more divisive than past eras.  Humans have always managed to quarrel, dishonor, and try to oppress one another.  Every age has its candidates and competitors for imperial supremacy.  In every age, people have tried to steal and kill their way to dominance.  In every age, new ideas have been met with doubts, derision, and attempts to persecute the people holding them.  In every age, those who are strong have used their strength to oppress others who are vulnerable. 

In every age, immigrant people have been targeted for exploitation and persecution.  In every age, religion has been used as an agent for hating people we should love, and claiming that doing so is proof of fidelity to God. 

We are not the first people to live in a time of intense racial and religious discord.  Has there ever been a time when humans did not argue, break fellowship, and even wage war among themselves about notions of religion and beliefs about ethnic and ancestral identity?  I think not.

I could mention other examples to illustrate that divisiveness is not new in this society or elsewhere for that matter.  That reality is clear from secular and sacred history.  Ours is not the first era to witness divisiveness. 

We are the first, however, to witness so much divisiveness in real time on a constant basis.  We are the first humans to live when it is possible to know within minutes about tragedies that happen around the world.    And that makes us the first humans to be able to live knowing about tragedies affecting countless others yet behave as if we do not care or cannot find the means to do anything about them. 

How shall you and I, as followers of Jesus, provide answers to so many people concerning so much suffering?  Where do we find strength to face the suffering, let alone encourage those who suffer?  How do we deal with our own sense of inadequacy, the painful lessons of past times of crisis, cruelty, timidity, and even mendacity that cause so many people to distrust God, disavow faith in God, and distance themselves from opportunities to become community with other persons for the glory of God? 

Let me offer a couple of suggestions.  They are not original.  They are insights from Howard Thurman, the African-American mystic and pastor who inspired Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Martin Luther King, Jr., and from Allan Aubrey Boesak, the South African theologian who labored alongside Desmond Tutu and others to confront racism, materialism, and militarism in South Africa. 

Writing in n The Inward Journey, Howard Thurman made the following observation. 

We keep a troubled vigil at the bedside of the world.  We cannot accept its sickness as unto death but we cannot grasp the meaning and the hope of a cure that will make life all about us hale and well.  The contemplation of the destruction of the world at our hands confronts even our little lives and their little part with a guilt too vast to assuage and too overwhelming to manage.  Thus we clutch the moment of intimacy in worship when we become momentarily a part of a larger whole, a fleeting strength, which we pit against all the darkness and the dread of other times. 

         I think we who are often called on to speak up for the unheard, show up for the overlooked, and cry out for those whose cries have been disregarded must take care that we hold onto a sense that we are what Thurman termed “part of a larger whole.”  No matter what powers and problems we face, whether they stem from forces inside us or forces around us, we must always remember that we are not alone. 

We are part of a larger whole.  God is doing something big, no matter how little we think of ourselves or how little others think of us.  God is up to something.  Through Jesus, we have reason to believe we’re supposed to be involved with it. 

Whenever your prophetic strength seems inadequate to the oppressive realities that seem to cause so much divisiveness and suffering, remember we are part of a larger whole.  You and I are only a part of what God is doing.  God is doing more about whatever troubles us than we know.  God’s Spirit is working in ways we do not know.  God’s grace is moving on people in ways we do not know.  God’s mercies are operating in places we do not know. 

We are little parts of God’s BIG WORK!  Do not be disappointed if the work seems bigger than we are.  It is not bigger than God!  It is not bigger than God’s grace.  It is not bigger than God’s purposes. 

I move quickly to add a stirring word from Allan Boesak.  His latest book is titled Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters and sub-titled “Prophetic Critique on Empire:  Resistance, Justice, and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe.”At Chapter 2, Boesak calls for prophetic people to not be afraid to speak a different language concerning what he and Pope Francis have termed “the globalization of indifference.”  Boesak joins Pope Francis in calling on prophetic people “to not be afraid” to speak a different language about human suffering, in these words.

We are in no position to offer comfort, compassion and justice to a suffering, bleeding humanity overwhelmed by a petrifying indifference, if we do not believe that there is good news they should hear.  And we cannot speak a language of hope and resilience, of resistance and redemption, if we do not unlearn the language of imperial compliance: of domination and subjugation, of carelessness and indifference, of diplomatic evasion.

We are no longer in a position to deny that the pope is right:  something is wrong, and it is more wrong today than ten or twenty years ago.  The time has come for us not to be afraid to say it.  I am not talking about simply mentioning, enumerating, or bemoaning the wrongs we see.  To not be afraid to say it has everything to do with how we say it.  Do we say it with truth, with courage, with compassion, and with faithfulness to those who suffer?  The wrongs we see are not just happening; they are caused to happen, and they are happening to the vast majority of God’s children who are vulnerable, targeted and excluded from human consideration.  They are not happening randomly, they are deeply systemic, deliberately built into systems of oppression, domination, and dehumanization.  And we must not be afraid to say it.

…

We must not only break the silence.  We must speak a different language.  Our language must be a courageous, liberating, transformative, healing, inclusive language … We should learn to resist the temptation to see the global realities through the eyes of the powerful and privileged, but rather through the eyes of the suffering, the weak and the vulnerable, the dehumanized and the demonized, the outcasts and the excluded…

We must be much more alert in our awareness … that our global reality is an imperial reality… Empires not only create realities of dominations and subjugation; they also create myths:  of invincibility, endless power, infinite duration, great beneficence, and divine incarnation.  Crucial to all these is what Walter Wink called the “myth of redemptive violence.”  Instead of acknowledging the violence it uses because it is needed for continued domination, subjugation, and exploitation, the empire “enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war makes peace, that might makes right.”  Consequently violence is not only necessary; it is the only thing that “works.” [1]

I agree with Allan Boesak that prophetic people must stop being afraid to speak the language of anger, courage, and audacious hope.  This is the language of Matthew 23 that dares to condemn the idolatry of empire.  This is the language of Jesus, John the Baptist, and the other Hebrew prophets.  This is the language of Martin Luther King, Jr., Clarence Jordan, Jeremiah Wright, and Marian Wright Edelman. 

This is the language of the gospel.  This is the language that must be heard and heeded by people who sincerely seek answers from prophetic people in our divisive time. 

When we are not afraid to speak this language, we will be vilified and persecuted.  When we are not afraid to speak this language, those who define religious effectiveness by attendance, buildings, and cash will leave us.

But then we will speak like Jesus.  We will sound like Jesus.  We will be heard as Jesus was heard.  And the redeeming results of our witness will endure long after our words and our voices have passed from memory.  

Amen.

---

[1] Allan Aubrey Boesak, Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters:  Prophetic Critique on Empire-Resistance, Justice, and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe—A Transatlantic Conversation (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), pp. 81-82.