Category Archives: May You Live In Interesting Times

Killing Ourselves

It’s called the American sickness—the dissent into despair and addiction and suicide, recently chronicled by a couple of university professors:

“In the twentieth century, the United States led the way in reducing mortality rates and raising life expectancy,” they stated. “Now, the United States may be leading Western nations in the opposite direction.” (Anne Case and Angus Deaton, “The Epidemic of Despair,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020.)

This reversal especially affects the working class. “Marriage, churchgoing, and community,” hallmarks of this class, have all lessened. The authors single out “serial cohabitation,” the practice of men and women more frequently having children by different partners.

The authors fault the loss of good jobs as well as the lack of affordable health care. They call for practical measures like better regulation of the pharmaceutical industry and a more inclusive social safety net, as well as fair wages for the non technical workers.

However, notice the authors’ observation about the decreasing importance of “marriage, churchgoing, and community.”

An article by Charles E. Moore, Plough, Summer, 2016, suggests ways we have destroyed community:

“How would you go about destroying community, isolating people from one another and from a life shared with others?”

He quotes Howard Snyder (at the time Visiting Director, Manchester Wesley Research Center):

“Over thirty years ago Howard Snyder asked this question and offered the following strategies: fragment family life, move people away from the neighborhoods where they grew up, set people farther apart by giving them bigger houses and yards, and separate the places people work from where they live.

In other words, ‘partition off people’s lives into as many worlds as possible.’”

To facilitate the process, get everyone his or her own car. Replace meaningful communication with television. And finally, cut down on family size and fill people’s homes with things instead.

The result? A post-familial, disconnected culture where self is king, relationships are thin, and individuals fend for themselves.’”

Snyder’s words are harsh. Not all communities are healthy. Nevertheless, healing them is basic to overcoming today’s social isolation. In addition, the separations he talks about have grown with our addiction to social media.

Whatever solutions we develop for dealing with our social despair, building up families and communities must take the lead.

UnChristian Christian Nationalism

Peter Mommsen writes the following in an article in Plough (“Can Violence Be Good?” Summer 2021): “ ‘Christian nationalism’ is a conspicuous player in the political violence of the past few months, not least in the attack on the US Capitol. This movement combines exhibitionist public prayer and Jesus 2020 banners with strong elements of White supremacism and a readiness for lethal violence. . . . All this, it should go without saying, is not Christian . . ”

Plough is published by members of the Bruderhof community, self-identified as “an intentional Christian community . . a fellowship of families and singles, practicing radical discipleship in the spirit of the first church in Jerusalem. We gladly renounce private property and share everything in common.”

Similar views of white evangelicalism in American churches are expressed in sojo.net, a publication of a different kind of Christian organization. Sojourners identifies as an American Christian social justice organization. Here, Gina Cilberto writes of churches struggling against Christian nationalists: “Pastors across the country see them raging within congregations: beliefs that powerful, hidden, evil forces control human destinies.” (June 2021, “Can White Evangelicals Be Deprogramed from Trumpism?”)

Thus, the anger and hatred that produced the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol are being condemned by concerned Christians of vastly different theological views and practices.

Their concern is justified. One sometimes gets the idea that Christian nationalists revere the United States as the new Jesus, to be worshiped as God himself. Criticism is blasphemy.

But nations, like humans, are sinners. To serve one as a god is to forget the Jesus who refused to worship “the kingdoms of the world.”

White Woman

Like a lot of white people, I have been affected by the George Floyd murder and its aftermath. Indeed, for several years many whites like myself have come to better understand the bitter harvest our country has endured due to racism.

One thing, however, remains true. I may sympathize with what people of color have suffered in my country. I may be sorry when I think of our history. However, when I go out the next day or even the next hour to the store or walk the streets, in most places I can forget about my color. I don’t carry in my skin the color that the person passing me in the street or serving me in the store will likely note.

Most of the time, I don’t think about my skin color or how it may affect those who deal with me.

Not so, the person of color who walks into a store or jogs or shows up for a job interview. Blacks can, I suppose, be themselves in some neighborhoods, often the poorer ones, or in their churches, or in a few other places.

Most of the time, however, people of color know they are noted because their skin is not white. They can rarely forget about their skin color when they leave home, as I can the knowledge of my skin color.

“Black lives matter” is stressed not because people of color matter more than others. It is stressed because their lives haven’t mattered like white lives.

The emphasis will no longer be needed the day we can all leave home without thinking about the color of our skin.

Those Immigrants Aren’t Going Away

No matter if the United States votes in a Trump or a Biden, those immigrants highlighted in our media feeds—scaling the wall, crossing the desert, detained at the border, massed in a border facility—aren’t going away.

Writes Bloomberg columnist Max Hastings: “Whereas in 2000 there were estimated to be 150 million migrants — people living outside their country of birth — today the figure is 272 million and rising. In 1970, there were fewer than 10 million migrants in the U.S., which is overwhelmingly the global destination of choice; today there are 44 million. In Europe, there are 82 million migrants, representing a 10% rise since 2015.” (“Immigration Is the Wealthy World’s Challenge of the Century,” April 11, 2021)

If you are threatened by war, crime, or starvation, you will search for any avenue offering escape. You may climb a wall, risk drowning at sea, or pay a smuggler who stuffs you into an overloaded truck where you risk smothering.

What is ironic is the need of developed countries for migrants. They need them for jobs, for new ideas, and for shoring up their shrinking birth rates. Immigration has been a part of renewal since the beginning of recorded history.

But as Hastings says: “Everyone but the most fervent libertarians, however, recognizes that the Western democracies would be overwhelmed if all those who wish to live among us should come to do so.”

Hastings believes the United States is fortunate in that migrant-sending countries in the Western Hemisphere are more susceptible to help at the source. That is, with economic aid for smaller populations.

However, the take home point from the article is the need to address the sources of migration—the dysfunctional governments, the wars, the famines caused by climate change, for example.

Obviously, these problems were a long time in the making and will not be remedied by band-aid solutions.

We may derive some hope, however, by remembering that the Cold War, threatening global nuclear disaster, was averted by unusual global cooperation. These efforts included NATO and humanitarian aid and, through all those tense years, continued talks between supposed adversaries like the United States and the Soviet Union.

Averting a devastating major war called for tremendous cooperative efforts. Solutions to the global migration crisis will demand no less.

Democracy Is Not a Given

For a while, in the glory days of the late 1980’s and early 90’s, we thought democracy was a given. The Soviet Union vanished. The democracies of the world appeared ascendant. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait was repulsed by a U.S. led multi-national military force.

That was a long time ago. To those under thirty years of age, it’s not even a memory. We’re mired in Afghanistan, stymied in the Middle East, dealing with China’s rise.

On top of that, even the United States, supposedly the lynchpin of democracy, experienced an attempt to overcome an election by mob rule.

Writes Michael J. Abramowitz, president of Freedom House: “Over the past 14 years, my organization, Freedom House, has tracked a steady erosion of political rights and civil liberties around the world. The decline has affected, not just the states that were already repressive . . . but also . . . long-established democracies, including the United States. Our reports show a long-term decline in the vitality of our own democracy, a trend that has become especially pronounced in recent years and undermines our credibility as a champion of human rights globally.” (“Diplomacy and Democracy: Putting Values into Practice,” The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2021)

How do we overcome the forces that would overwhelm us, even here?

We can support responsible journalism, going beyond Facebook feeds and twitter posts.

We can curb our anger and listen to those with whom we disagree, setting up avenues of civility.

We can continue and even improve our voting presence. Unprecedented voting in the last election overwhelmed several years worth of lies and deceits and endless challenges. We can fight any attempt to limit voting that makes it harder for ordinary working people to vote.

We might even consider changes to our Constitution allowing the election of our president and vice-president by popular vote.

Immigrants: Push and Pull

Vibrant economies need immigrants. The highly skilled have immigrated for centuries, as they continue to do, spreading skills and innovation. The less skilled have contributed workers to harvest crops, begin new businesses, and save money to prepare their children for better lives.

Immigrants can shore up falling birth rates in developed nations. Countries stagnate if the number of births falls below replacement rates, the recent norm in developed societies. A continuing flow of immigrants lessens fallout from the drop in birth rates.

At the same time, immigration can be uneven and inundate some societies, as in various African and Middle Eastern countries and to a lesser extent in developed nations on the fringes. Wars have upset whole societies. Peacekeeping not only prevents bloodshed, but decreases huge migrations of people, desperately fleeing for their lives.

Differences from the past also multiply today’s movements of people. The world’s growing population means more of us are affected by conflicts. In addition, climate change causes drought and less dependable weather patterns. Finally, social media spreads news of better places to live.

Successful immigration results from managing both the push and the pull factors. Most immigrants are not criminals or freeloaders any more than were the immigrating ancestors of many of us.

Developed nations have obligations to lessen the push factors that send boatloads and truckloads searching for a better life. Some of the factors leading desperate people to flee are the result of decisions made by those nations.

For centuries, developing nations were seen merely as sources of raw materials or military outposts with little regard for the country’s citizens. Since the 1800’s, the United States has often supported dictators guilty of gross human rights violations in Central America, for example.

For the sake of righting wrongs as well as for reasons of self-interest, developed nations would be wise to work on both the push and the pull factors fueling immigration.

God’s On Our Side Right?

Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, in the Cold War years, I don’t recall racism ever being mentioned in my childhood, all-white, Southern Baptist church. Patriotism, however, often was mentioned.

During the church’s two-week Vacation Bible School, during the summer, we children began the day with pledges to the Christian Bible, the Christian flag, and the U.S. flag. We jockeyed to be the one bringing in the U.S. flag. Not so much the other symbols.

This is not to denigrate my church. The love shown me in that congregation, during my childhood and adolescence, is my most priceless possession after my family’s love. And by teaching me about Jesus, my church was laying the path I would follow toward eventually confronting my country’s racism.

I am disturbed, though, by the worship so many American Christians give to their earthly country.

You need to understand that I’ve lived in enough other countries and cultures, including the Middle East, to appreciate the United States. I am proud of good things we have brought to the world—sending aid to nations damaged by war, even to our enemies, for example.

However, I am disturbed by the tendency on the part of some Christians, it seems to me, to equate the United States with Jesus.

“God’s on our side,” someone said, in commenting on how God would choose their political group in the last election.

Really, the truth is that God has the “side.” We’re the ones who do the choosing.

What measures us is how well we choose God’s side, how well we carry out Jesus’ teaching.

Lost: A Good Name

Whatever meaning we gain from the Trump years, the rest of the world has lost a good bit of its faith in America.

Since World War II, the United States had been the country to reckon with. Dictators might rail against us, but they had to take into consideration our condemnation. Allies might curse our pride, but they depended on us.

Now, although our allies may welcome us “back” with the Biden administration, they are never going to trust us as they did before Donald Trump appeared on the scene. If we went off the rails once, it can happen again.

Indeed, I’m not sure we can trust ourselves. The fact that our system would allow the election of one so unsuited to the office of president is, to say the least, unsettling.

Something has gone seriously wrong when Joe Biden, who takes his Christian faith more seriously than any president in years, gained so little of the white evangelical vote.

That Donald Trump was actually followed into a coup attempt calls for a period of reflection and mourning.

The Subversive Dorothy Sayers

Years ago I became a fan of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective stories by Dorothy Sayers. That eventually led me into other writings by Sayers, including The Whimsical Christian, a book of her essays.

I read with interest a recent biography of Sayers by Crystal Downing: Subversive (Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers.)

Sayers, like many of us, groped her way from the Christianity taught her as a child, through rebellion (she bore a child out of wedlock) toward a thoughtful Christian faith.

She is indeed subversive. She speaks for a reasoned Christianity but not a relative Christianity. That is, she accepts Christianity as God’s unique revelation through his entry into the world in Jesus. Wise people may develop wise religions, but the Christian revelation is unique.

She pointed to the dangers of too much relativism in Britain’s experience with Nazi Germany during the 1930’s, Britain didn’t recognize Hitler’s evil for what it was because of a kind of relativism, she said. Hitler was touted by some as simply a national leader with different ideas.

Writing further in this passage about Sayers, Downing says, “German Christians caught up in religious fervor for the Fuehrer had supplanted ancient dogma about Christ’s sacrifice for the entire world with political dogmatism : a problem that has marred and scarred Christianity through the ages.”

Hard not to see a similarity in the views of some Christians that Donald Trump is God’s man for the hour. A belief in the use of political power for a Christ who disdained political power.

Evangelical Dissent

“This week we watched an insurrection of domestic terrorists, incited and fomented by the President of the United States.”

So spoke Russell Moore on January 11, after a mob broke into the U.S. capitol and sent member of Congress into hiding. In a soul-searching article on his website, Moore, a white evangelical Christian leader, denounced the attacks in no uncertain terms.

Polls and opinion pieces vary as to whether any significant change in 2020 occurred in the white evangelical support for Trump from 2016. However, the questioning of such support has increased. Christianity Today recently ran an interview on the subject of Christian nationalism. (“Christian Nationalism Is Worse Than You Think,” Morgan Lee, January 13, 2021)

Voting numbers for Americans without evangelical beliefs are almost the mirror opposite of their evangelical counterparts, with Biden holding a commanding 56 percent to 33 percent lead over Trump going into the election.

President Trump’s advantage among evangelicals, however, comes primarily from white evangelicals, among whom he led Biden 73 percent to 18 percent. African Americans with evangelical beliefs overwhelmingly planned to vote for Biden (69% to 19%).

(Numbers are from “Evangelical Vote Once Again Split on Ethnic Lines And far fewer plan to vote third-party in 2020, LifeWay finds,” Aaron Earls – Lifeway Research, September 29, 2020.)

Many evangelicals, it is said, are favorable to Trump for one reason: the abortion question, the sanctity of life. But how far does this sanctity of life go? Only to one group of people? What about babies killed with American bombs in Yemen because Trump said Americans needed money from arms sales to Saudi Arabia? What about American children who need health care which Trump would deny by abolishing affordable health care?

What about a Trump who relishes division over against a Biden who yearns for healing?

When any religious group attempts to force its beliefs, even admirable beliefs, by political power, that group almost always ends up being corrupted by that power and losing any moral authority.

Reading JACK While Rioters Rampage

I happened to be reading Marilynne Robinson’s latest novel, Jack, as rioters attacked the U.S. capitol in Washington.

The man, Jack, is the wayward son of a loving family (white) headed by a Christian minister in Iowa. He has appeared briefly in other novels in Robinson’s award winning Gilead series, arriving, then leaving again.

Jack knows his sins, despises himself for them, but seems trapped. He is now further trapped as he and Della, a young colored woman, a teacher, fall in love. This is post World War II in St. Louis, Missouri, when romantic relationships between races are not only forbidden but despised.

I read this novel depicting racism, one of America’s greatest sins, even while a mob of white Americans, some waving Confederate flags, attacked the capitol. They are unable to accept the election of a certain president and vice-president. The president-elect is an older white man. The vice-president elect is a woman of color.

May God show mercy on us and help us find our way to repent of the hatred we have allowed to continually fester within us.

Never Mind Those Scenes from the Capitol . . .

The country managed to overcome the drift toward dictatorship this past election cycle, despite having only 18th century constitutional weapons.

We put up with an election cycle that takes two months to complete, based on how long it took early Americans to travel by horseback to seats of government.

A president who this time lost both the popular vote and the electoral college vote—but still tried to stay in power—was prevented from doing so even by the antiquated system of the electoral college. Despite enormous pressure from the president, enough members of his own party followed their conscience and complied with the law.

We can forever relish those last hours following the attack on the capitol, after senators and representatives had spent tense hours fearing for their lives. They still returned to the task at hand and in the wee hours finished the one remaining task. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were pronounced the next president and vice-president.

Our leaders, it appears, amazingly, are still elected by law.

Now if we could only change those laws to reflect the country as it has become.

Advent by Zoom

A long time ago, last Easter, in fact, we could watch the Easter service streamed live from Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Indeed, many of our Easter services last spring came to us via our screens.

Places of worship were reacting to the spread of a new sickness, Covid-19. Many closed their physical spaces of worship, as other gathering places did, to prevent contagion.

Back then, this new disturbance seemed more innocent, softened by kindness. Surely, the virus would go away as other viruses had, without causing widespread harm.

But it didn’t. Simple acts to protect oneself and others, like mask wearing, became political statements. Public health took a back seat to a presidential campaign.

And so the virus spread, far more than it should have. And now many Christians are celebrating Advent by Zoom.

Our church has advanced from listening to Sunday services via a link taped earlier by a few, socially distanced individuals to an improved group experience with newer software.

Not the real thing, no, when we held our first Zoom worship, but we could talk and respond in real time. No matter that we still hadn’t worked out all the bugs of congregational response.

It was for some of us a weepy moment.

I can’t imagine what it might be when, God willing, we are again able to meet in person.

The Loner and the Pandemic

No doubt most of us, including myself, an admitted introvert, are craving an end to our pandemic isolation.

For our children, we desperately want to open our schools. We want to bring them back to a classroom, learning under the physical presence of a teacher. We want them to interact with other children. Indeed, one of our most pressing needs, whenever classrooms do return, is dedicated help for those children who lacked the resources for learning away from the classroom.

I suspect, though, that a few children may have learned a bit better at home, with remote supervision. These are the decided introverts, who tend to be distracted in the presence of others.

Even as some workers would like to continue at least some working from home when the pandemic ends, so perhaps would a few children.

This is not a plea for either children or workers to always learn or work in isolation. Children, even inward turning ones, benefit from social interaction.

However, one gain out of this deadly time may be an understanding that we work and learn and grow in different ways with different surroundings.

Perhaps we can encourage varieties of both working and learning.

What if English Loses Out?

English is the language most Americans have been speaking for centuries. Due to many factors, including the country’s success in both war and trade, that language has become a world language.

Immigrants have flocked to this country both to escape persecution and to find jobs. Those jobs have included fruit picking in Washington state, tech jobs at Microsoft, and prestigious teaching jobs in universities.

American students have benefitted for decades as students from other countries have paid full tuition to gain a degree from a U.S. university.

A significant percentage of American winners of the Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine have been immigrants to the United States. According to a study cited in Forbes magazine (October 14, 2020), over a third of these prizes since 2000 have been awarded to immigrants to the United States.

But what happens if the United States closes its doors to the immigrants who have contributed so greatly to its success?

Nicholas Ostler has written a history of languages, Empires of the Word. Beyond question, English is at present a world language. But, as Ostler shows, no magical reason exists for the major language of the United States to continue in its current position.

Writes Ostler: “A language does not grow through the assertion of power, but through the creation of a larger human community.”

Americans been slow to realize how much they owe the country’s strength to the foreigners who have contributed to its businesses, its universities, and its influences.

The advantage that Americans enjoy because their major language is a world language is not a given.

Voice of America for Russians—and Americans

A statement by Michael R. Pompeo, U.S. Department of State, on 10 August 2020, expressed regret at Russia’s recent tightening of restrictions on Voice of America:

“The United States is deeply concerned by the recent draft decree published by Russian authorities targeting U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM)-funded entities in Russia. For more than 70 years, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) have been vital sources of independent news and information for the people of Russia. . . . We remain troubled by the ongoing crackdown on independent press in Russia . . .”

Indeed, Voice of America has always prided itself on providing fact-based independent news for audiences in countries where news is often controlled by the government.

However, our own current U.S. administration appears to take lessons from the very government it has chastised: “On June 4, days after the FSJ [Foreign Service Journal] reported on unprecedented White House attacks on Voice of America, the Senate confirmed documentary film maker Michael Pack as chief executive officer of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the U.S. Agency for Global Media.”

Pack’s nomination to head the agency overseeing Voice of America has been controversial. Pack has fired seasoned officials of the agency, replacing them with himself and five other individuals. At least one had previously provided “caustic responses to questions about Trump’s disputed decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine.” Some worry that the revered VOA will become a mere voice for Trump propaganda.

The United States will lose a valuable witness for democracy if VOA becomes merely a mouthpiece for a presidential administration rather than a freely reporting news agency. Do we really prefer a propaganda piece like the Soviet Union’s old Pravda?

The Last Time We Gathered.

I saved a church bulletin from the last time my church gathered physically: March 8, 2020. As I write, it’s now early September.

Did we even begin to know in March that half a year later we would still be meeting by Facebook and Zoom?

We thought perhaps until the end of May—then June. But, no, here we are in the beginning of autumn, school starting—whatever that means anymore—we still don’t feel free to physically gather.

Pastor Noel Van Niel sums up our feelings of loss in “The Church Is Other People” in Plough Quarterly, August, 2020. Talking of the church and ministry, he says “we are primarily in the people business . . . . God is to be experienced more fully in community and connection.”

And so we experience this deep sense of loss: “. . . we are left with a desire that cannot be met. An absence that cannot be filled. A yearning that is perpetual.”

Yet, Van Niel says, we may now better understand “those who live in a perpetual state of longing for what is denied them—peace, justice, equality, safety—all those whose deepest needs remain unmet.”

Perhaps our own unmet needs prepare us “for an even fuller future than we could have imagined before we had to close our doors.”

We wait with faith and longing for the day when we can gather. Not only those of us who, until the pandemic, were free to gather without fear. We also wait with those who have never been able to gather with complete security.

Democracy for Them but Not Us

For decades, the United States has pushed dictatorships to change. We have encouraged nations to accept a democratic form of government—our form, the best kind, we say.

Read a recent U.S. foreign policy statement concerning the country of Belarus. The people there are demonstrating against a dictator who has ruled the country for 26 years. Declares Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, in an official statement (August 10, 2020): “The United States is deeply concerned about the conduct of the August 9 presidential election in Belarus, which was not free and fair. . . . the Government of Belarus must prove through action its commitment to democratic processes and respect for human rights.”

Yet Pompeo used a U.S. government sponsored trip to Israel as the backdrop for a political speech for Donald Trump at the Republican nominating convention. This action was in direct violation of the Hatch Act, which forbids politically appointed government employees from engaging in political activity while on duty.

But, one official said, with surprising honesty: “No one cares about that.”

In times of deep political divisions, temptations to forgo democracy increase. Write Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman: “. . . those who favor a return to earlier boundaries of civic membership and status may be convinced that they must pursue their goals even if democracy is curtailed in the process.” (“The Fragile Republic,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020)

Of course, such fraying of democratic institutions leads those with power to seek to retain that power. Write Mettler and Lieberman: “When government responds primarily to the rich, it transforms itself into an oligarchy, which better protects the interests of the wealthy few.”

That’s a good description of what Belarus and Russia and other countries, momentarily freed from the old Soviet Union, have become.

To have democracy, you have to play by the rules of democracy, even when the temptation is to do otherwise. Even in the United States.

Ann Gaylia O'Barr

Culture and World Events from a Christian Perspective