Church Disruptions are not New

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By Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler (above), Director & Chief Visionary, Faith Strategies, LLC

Don Lemon, a high profile personality was arrested on orders from US Attorney Pam Bondi, accusing him of violating the Federal Civil Rights of worshippers. Don Lemon, an independent journalist followed protesters into a church on January 18 to cover the event. The Trump administration known for its vindictiveness and with no love for the outspoken Lemon, who has expressed outrage over the policies and racism of the administration, felt obliged to make him an example. We have witnessed how these political rogues in the White House don’t hesitate to wield power in a punitive and targeted way. Arrested also were Trahern Jeen Crews, co-founder of Black Lives Matter in Minnesota, Jamael Lydell Lundy, and Georgia Fort. Each with high profiles in their own right. There were many other protesters and independent journalists that were in the church. 

Pam Bondi wrote on X, “At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.” One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, heads the local ICE field office and given the high tensions and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, coupled with the unrestrained hostilities and overwhelming presence of DHS and other so-called law enforcement agencies was the reason this particular church was chosen. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon posted on X that her investigation of Lemon and others have to do with these people “desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.” The post went on to state, “A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws!”

This church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative church movement that has its own history of racism, including its support of slavery, its stance against women in ministry, and homophobia. There was immediate outrage that a church’s worship service would be disrupted. Immediately the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention recoiled stating “I believe we must be resolute in two areas: encouraging our churches to provide compassionate pastoral care to these (migrant) families and standing firm for the sanctity of our houses of worship,” said Trey Turner. “No cause – political or otherwise – justifies the desecration of a sacred space or the intimidation and trauma inflicted on families gathered peacefully in the house of God,” stated Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board of the convention. He went on to state “What occurred was not protest; it was lawless harassment.”

I have served ministries in Chicago, Boston, and for thirty years in DC and am perplexed why churches would think that they are insulated from criticism from outside once they have made forays into the issues of the world? When churches intentionally enter into vital and important political discussions or take positions that affect the lives of people they have opened themselves to the critique and questions of those issues by the people affected by their positions. This invites actions and disruptions that may manifest itself in worship. Disruptions to church services are not new. Civil Rights leader James Forman, in 1969, disrupted services at New York’s Riverside Church to demand $500 million in reparations from white churches. It was the Black Manifesto, an action aimed to force institutions to address their historical complicity in slavery. The protest led to increased discussions about religious accountability, with some institutions later adopting anti-poverty, and racism awareness initiatives. Also, Stop the Church was a demonstration organized by members of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). In December 1989, that group disrupted Mass being led by Cardinal John O’Connor at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. One-hundred and eleven protesters were arrested. The main objective of the demonstration was to protest O’Connor’s opposition to the teaching of safe sex in the public school system, and his opposition to the distribution of condoms to curb the spread of AIDS. During the Free South Africa Movement there were numbers of church disruptions to press churches and denominations on divestment from South Arica. More recently worship services were confronted over the genocide in Gaza. Church disruptions are not new but bring urgency and concern evaluating the public policy positions of the church and at times pointing out the contradictions in the church and of the pastor.

The conservative church, often referred to as the white evangelical or charismatic church is one of the places that this right-wing Make American Great Again agenda garnered strength and energy to get elected. It was from the conservative pulpits that pastors presented to their members that it was “God’s will” and that God took a flawed person like King David, known in the scriptures for adultery and murder, and like King David God anointed Donald J. Trump even with all of his flaws. These statements or those of a similar bent were made behind many church doors to parishioners across the country. It was in these circles that people like Charles Kirk gained his notoriety and political influence among young white evangelicals with his brand of ridicule of “woke-ness”, DEI, Black people, and other people of-color. 

Behind worshipping doors across the country right-wing and predominantly white evangelical churches have impacted the society in fascist ways. The theology of these churches believe that God puts in place leadership. That leadership is appointed by God. But the reality is that divine leadership tends to be the assertion of those in positions to assert that point of view, dress it biblically, and asserted it as divine will. Those of us fighting bias and exclusion in the church observe how God loves all the people that people in the church love, and hate all the people that people in the church hate!” That is hardly a divine equation. When Obama left the White House and Trump 1 took office Paula White-Cain, a religious adviser to Trump wrote that Jesus has finally returned to the White House. This was a peculiar comment because the Obamas were rooted in the church, and no one knew any church affiliation that Trump could claim.

Now I am not saying that people should indiscriminately target churches, but I am saying that churches when they enter the political fray to reshape the world and make politics for all the rest of us are open face the consequences of political discussions and critique whether in worship or not. Also Pastors and the positions that they theologically take to influence the secular world does not insulate them or protect them from criticism or accusations of hypocrisy. 

There are pastors doing secular work, and that has been called “tent” ministry. These secular jobs supplement their church income. The pastor in St. Paul was involved in a “tent” ministry. A “tent” ministry is to have a secular position in addition to a church one. This raises another question of whether that secular job contradicts or compliments a person’s overall ministry. In the St. Paul ministry an important question emerged, the scriptures asks, ‘whether you can serve two masters,’ in this case ICE and the church. How can the church comfort and advocate for immigrants, which it claims it does, while arresting and deporting them? The protesters were calling out the contradiction. 

Pam Bondi and others are interested in protecting their right-wing religious base and therefore are not interested in the history of church disruptions and advocacy. Churches are not exempt from the political or theological fray once they enter the public debate. Institutional churches should be held accountable as well as pastors who serve full-time or in ‘tent” ministries. What happened on January 18 in St. Paul, Minnesota is not beyond what is reasonable or appropriate. The pastor opened himself to the disruption and criticism. Instead of being outraged the pastor and others need to comprehend why they drew the anger of protesters who were spotlighting the lack of congruency in serving ICE and claiming to offer comfort to immigrants.

A Threat to All of Us

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From D’Shaun L. Harrison, the executive director of Scalawag

Last week, federal authorities arrested two black journalists—Georgia Fort of BLK Press Alerts (above) and independent journalist Don Lemon—for their role in documenting anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis as members of the media.

These arrests are an assault on and a threat to all of us. When the state simultaneously defunds public and independent media while arresting journalists for covering demonstrations against state actors, we should all be alarmed. These are core tactics employed by fascist governments to eliminate accountability and control what our communities know and understand about what’s happening around them. This is fascism in practice, not as a buzzword, and we must be unflinching in our stance against it. As members of the Movement Media Alliance, we endorse and amplify the MMA’s assessment: It is not illegal to record and report on what people in power want to keep hidden.

Ida B. Wells, whose work and words guide so much of what we do here at Scalawag, reminds us that “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them,” and she understood that silence enables the very injustice we hold in contempt. Independent journalism is essential to the maintenance of democracy, and as such, defending it in the midst of increasing authoritarianism becomes even more vital. Journalists and media-makers who are invested in the wellbeing of our communities have to remain committed to telling the truth.

We need to turn the light of truth on these injustices, exposing them for exactly what they are. We need you to join us in declaring that journalism must not be criminalized. Movement media must be protected. As MMA aptly observed: If we let the government arrest journalists for covering a protest today, it can silence any movement tomorrow.

Handcuffed to its Own Violence

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From Palestinian-American author Hala Alyan, re-posted from her Substack wall.

in gaza or el fasher or tehran or minneapolis, power repeats the same tools everywhere: surveillance, censorship, raids, checkpoints, dehumanization, executions. it reads the world as inventory: people/land/language are line items to be secured, taxed, weaponized. because it cannot imagine a way to sustain itself without force, it will always remain handcuffed to its own violence. it knows no other vernacular and heeds no other god.

This Generation’s Frontline in the Struggle

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By Ariel Gold

In 1965, as excessive state violence was being unleashed against the Black citizens in Selma, Alabama, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sent out a nationwide call to faith leaders: “The people of Selma will struggle on for the soul of the nation, but it is fitting that all America help to bear the burden.” 

Dr. King’s call for others to join him in leading a march to Montgomery was answered by clergy from across the country, marking a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. 

Sixty-six years later, in the same spirit and with the same clarity as King’s 1965 call, clergy in Minneapolis asked faith activists from across the country to join them in praying with their feet against the atrocities being committed by Immigration Customs and Enforcement against the good people of their state.

Upon hearing that my presence might be helpful, I immediately packed my tallit (Jewish prayer shawl), and on behalf of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, I jumped on an airplane. Arriving in Minneapolis on Thursday, here’s what I witnessed: 

Images of Luis Ramos, a terrified and bewildered five-year-old in a tiny plaid coat and blue knit bunny hat, were dominating local media coverage. Coming home from school, just steps away from his front door, ICE agents took Luis from his father’s car, using him as bait to lure his pregnant mother out of their home. 

By the time I arrived in Minneapolis, only two days later, Luis and his father had already been whisked away to a detention facility in Texas. 

Continue reading “This Generation’s Frontline in the Struggle” →

Our Oil-Future: Keep Pulling It Up, Or Learn to Pour It Down?

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By Jim Perkinson

Christianity is a tradition of oil, gift of trees of olives, first used to anoint a slab of stone by Jacob (Gen 28:18), and then by Moses, explicitly directed by YHWH, to anoint a tent, a chest, a table, a lamp, a laver, two altars, multiple utensils, and select humans (Exod 30:22-31).  And then in name—but without any written memory of actual pouring on the head in ceremony—of the Nazareth prophet, described as the “living stone,” head of the corner (I Pet 2:4-8).  An anointed one, smeared with Life from the fruits of trees quite particular to that local ecology.  Trees anchoring human dwelling in such a domain that today, are being ripped up by the thousands—just like State of Michigan settlers cut down birch forests central to Anishinaabe life or US cavalry killed buffalo of plains Indian peoples in the 19th century.  All of it designed to break the umbilical between indigenous cultures and local lands, genocidally disappear the human communities thereby “orphaned,” and re-tool the environments for capital. 

I start thus, because the question of extraction is at the heart of the question of invasion, occupation, and colonization.  Or perhaps more cogently named: the question of technology, of human uptake of other creatures, as armatures and prosthesis and shuttles and fuel for human bodies, claiming supremacies over other species and over other disparaged human communities.  Technology is the re-shaping of the entire planetary surface and immediate underground into an enslaved apparatus for a “hungry-ghost” humanity, rampaging insanely, refusing any concern for limit or future.

But it has not always been so.  More-than-human creatures can be taken up in modalities of respect and honoring as “tools” and yes, as food for human flourishing—as many indigenous communities know how to do. Indeed, as early Israel in its mix of escaped slaves from Egypt and revolting peasants from Canaanite cite-states knew how to do, re-initiated in such a lifeway in Levantine highlands for generations, before reverting back to abusive, extractive relations as a monarchy in expanding settlements serving hierarchy and seeking surplus. 

Continue reading “Our Oil-Future: Keep Pulling It Up, Or Learn to Pour It Down?” →

Damned Whiteness

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From Nichola Torbett, the associate director of Kirkridge Retreat Center.

“Damned Whiteness: How White Christians Failed the Black Freedom Movement and How We Can Do Better”

Friday evening, February 27-Sunday midday, March 1

The phrase “damned whiteness” comes from a 1961 poem by white Christian missionary Ralph Templin, who recognized his own whiteness as a “frightening disease” that kept him from showing up in true solidarity with Black freedom fighters. In a new book that takes Templin’s phrase as its title, historian David F. Evans explores how white Christian allies failed the Black Freedom Movement. Evans focuses his study on Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement; Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm; and Ralph Templin, co-founder of the Harlem Ashram and director of the nonviolent School for Living, identifying some common ways that their locations, perspectives, and interests as white people got in the way of their solidarity.

Day, Jordan, and Templin are all three in the streams of discipleship that inform ours at Kirkridge, and so it feels important that we take in these critiques and discern how we may need to course-correct. 

We could not be more delighted that Dr. Evans will join us for this retreat open to all and especially targeted toward white Christians committed to solidarity with Black people in the United States. We’ll have opportunities to hear him present his findings, to digest them in racial caucus spaces, and to explore how to commit ourselves to a path of true solidarity with Black liberation struggles today.

Come be in community as we learn together. Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1226/damned-whiteness-how-white-christian-allies-failed-the-black-freedom-movement-and-how-we-can-do-better/

Damned Whiteness: How White Christian Allies Failed the Black Freedom Movement is available for purchase via the online Book Nest. It is NOT required that you read the book prior to the retreat.

A Spirituality of Resistance and of Renewed Hope

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Another compelling offering from Rev. Dr. Edgar Rivera Colón.

Beloved Comrades:

Starting next Monday January 26th, I will be teaching a three session mini-course on Latin American Liberation Theology at the University of Orange Free People’s University for Urban Restoration. All who are interested in this topic are welcome to attend. As we say at the U of O, everyone has something to teach and to learn. Hope to see you there. Registration link here and class information below:

“Latin American Liberation Theology is one of the signal developments in spirituality and transformative politics in the post-WWII era. This three session mini-course will introduce the historical contexts, community practices, and basic concepts of Liberation Theology to all those interested in the liberatory and spiritual aspects of community-building. Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian, captured the essence of the spirit of Liberation Theology when he wrote: “The process of liberation brings with it a profound conflict. Having the project be clear is not enough. What is necessary is a spirituality of resistance and of renewed hope to turn ever back to the struggle in the face of the defeats of the oppressed.” In a time of increasing conflict and struggle in our society, join us to renew your sense of hope by learning from our Latin American friends and fellow sojourners in the struggle for a better world.”

Edgar Rivera Colón, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and ordained minister in The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries (TFAM) who provides pastoral accompaniment to tenant rights organizing groups, labor unions, and immigrant justice movements in Los Angeles. He offers spiritual direction for faith-based activists. He is a U of O board member and minister at Faith + Works Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Orange, NJ. He first encountered the practice and theory of Liberation Theology when he lived and worked in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the mid-1980s as a young Jesuit. He lives in East LA in a queer Latina multigenerational household with his nieces, their moms, and fury canine nephews Biscuit and Hans Solo.

Costly Solidarity

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From Cole Parke-West of Christians for a Free Palestine.

It’s been a month since I returned home from Palestine. Earlier this week I started sharing pictures and videos from my time there on social media, including a short clip of Israeli soldiers in full combat gear, training their guns on me and other unarmed civilians. Multiple friends have commented that their initial assumption upon seeing the footage was that it was of ICE agents here in the U.S.. Indeed, both are functioning as U.S.-funded, government sponsored militias, acting with impunity to advance the violent agenda of white supremacy and religious nationalism.

It’s difficult to know how to talk about any of this, but the mandate from everyone I met in Palestine was, “Come and see; go and tell!” So I want to invite you to CFP’s upcoming community call on Thursday, January 22, at 8pm ET. I and others from CFP’s national leadership team will share about our recent trip to Palestine and how CFP plans on responding to Palestinian calls for “costly solidarity” — as well as how we’re connecting the dots between the influence of white Christian Nationalism and U.S. empire in Palestine, in Venezuela, and on the streets of Minneapolis.

I hope that you’ll join us, but more than anything, I want you to listen to Palestinians. Listen to their stories, listen to their dreams, listen to their anger and rage, listen to their laughter, listen to their questions, listen to their ideas — and know that ultimately, Palestinians will be the brilliant authors of their own liberation. (And thank god, because what I also know is that a free Palestine frees us all!)

My hope is that sharing our experiences, learnings, and observations will only serve to amplify theirs. So please come to CFP’s community call, where I’ll be sharing more reflections along with CFP’s leadership team, and we’ll talk about how we, collectively, can respond with solidarity to the calls of our Palestinian siblings. 

Click here to register for the call. It’s free.

A New Phase

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By Rev. Dr. Edgar Rivera-Colon, re-posted from social media

A Few More Notes on the Present Conjuncture

1. The Right’s Counter-revolution or Revolution (pick your nomenclature) is beginning to show cracks in its propaganda machinery at the meso-level. To my mind, the most prudent assumption is that this means we are entering a new phase of lethal political repression, ideological institution-scrubbing, and geopolitical violence. The Right doubles down when it smells an internal crisis. Its retort is to displace these contradictions unto its designated domestic and international enemies. Expect the cracks to turn into more extreme political action and rules breaking. We are at a point where we should retire the word “unprecedented” from our political vocabulary.

2. Local and state repressive apparatuses controlled by Democrats in large cities sooner or later will enact an armed intervention against Trump’s ICE militias which are drawn from various federal law enforcement entities (e.g., DEA, FBI, ATF, etc). The local and state police “professionals” are beginning to chafe at ICE’s disregard for even a simulacrum of protocols and procedures. Traditional policing is suffering its deepest legitimation crisis since the BLM uprisings. Expect bullets to fly soon. It is not unheard of for cold and hot civil wars to accelerate from within the state apparatus itself and then spread into the broader civil society.

3. Before Renee Good’s assassination, her wife advised one of the ICE fascists to deescalate: “I say you get you some lunch, big boy”: in that little phrase, she exposed one of the core elements in the relentless campaign of persecution against immigrants and their allies. The ICE agents are entangled in a cis straight masculinity that longs for a “big boy” status through which they could subordinate the rabble that has taken “their white country” away from them — its rightful owners and citizens. Attend to their swagging and penis-centered form of ambulation: the real Trumpian phallus is only available to them in their moments of violent abusive action against state-designated others.

4. Trump and his minions are enacting a hostile amendment to US ‘foreign policy’ by demarcating the Americas as their unquestionable domain. Repetition is the progenitor of all fascist polity. The kidnapping of Maduro and his wife being the first gambit in this new great game of blood and lucre. To impute madness to this new turn is to misread the moment. Clearly there is no normative rationality that US imperialism recognizes. Rather, we are entering an invigorated era of instrumental rationality wherein annexing Greenland, attacking Cuba even more intensely, and subordinating states in Latin America to US economic blackmail will be routine. The unipolar world is over. One has become three or four depending on how you measure it. You can imagine who the other global powers are now.

5. All of the above is made possible by what can be called the “Palestine Method”: what was exceptional is now an emerging baseline in which genocide, mass starvation, built environment destruction, and engineered population health disasters are now toolkits of preference for US and European elites protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. The babble of human rights, international law, and democracy are tantamount to political white noise machines deployed by shrinks to avert the attention of those waiting outside the door where the real talk is happening. The Palestine Method or some kind of multi-strategy people’s war. That is the binary choice now. The time for speeches is over. Let the bodies enjoin the machinery until the wheels stop grinding. G-d help us all.