Black Suffering a Pillar since the founding of the country, a post for Black History

So Trump is president and is doing what I knew he would do. No surprise here, astonishment, or even disappointment. He is clumsily doing what he learned from his forefathers. I reflect on the pain, terror, and death his forefathers caused and the generational bodily trauma still present. Slavery, an aborted reconstruction, Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation, Red Summer, Bull Conner, Red Lining, reaction to school desegregation and the Fair Housing Act, the terrorism of white mobs, the list goes on. In spite of this laundry list of evils, the African American community pressed on in faith.  Black Americans knew deep in their soul that God would make a way through the intense hatred some white folks had for the African Americans. 

Black suffering has been a pillar of social, cultural and economic structures since the founding of this country. This pillar is so critical that the country had a civil war that sought to address black suffering and it's importance to Southern economic viability, framed as states rights. The consequence of this was the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Whatever success African American have, even president of the United States, it is tempered by the need for some people to see Black Americans remain a pillar of American suffering. When this narrative is raised a virulent hatred can ensue as many people express profound terror at any African American success. We must remember the Tea party, the rise of nativist right-wing media, Donald Trump, MAGA, birtherism, and the insurrection on the US Capital on January 6, 2021. I think most Black Americans were not surprised. It was only a matter of time. Black folks expected this from white supremacist of all kinds who continually seeth at racial progress. These reactions were expected. In a country that hates African Americans success in thought, word, and deed, as a matter of primary political, religious, and cultural narratives, the tragic reality that U.S. democracy is under attack should be of no surprise. It's like black American success drives people like Trump and MAGA so crazy that they would destroy the country.

Black freedom and liberation was and still is a hard pill to swallow for a plurality of people. This is one reason why reparations for African Americans is so opposed by a plurality of Americans. At some level, this plurality doesn't feel that the Black experience is legitimate. This plurality may benefit from Black suffering but choose to live in denial. For this writer, the present political and cultural calamity around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is rooted in a reaction of nativist of all kinds to African American success. I imagine some say, in their prayer time,  "My God, My God, how could you let African Americans succeed, why have you forsaken us?" To be clear here, the faith of the nativist is grounded in a strange sincerity, undergirded by misinterpretations of biblical scriptures, that gave legitimacy to the slavocracy and its confederacy, up through the segregationist, Bull Connor and the White Citizens Council, which many White Americans embrace fondly as a matter of tradition.

In light of this stream of American politics, the question must be. "How do African Americans move forward. This question raises concerns around commitment. Is the African American committed to their own freedom and liberation? Regardless of money, status, fame, privilege, or position, as allowed by white supremacy. 

Irrational politics and the cost of Exodus 20:5

You shall not worship them or serve them; 

for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, 

visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, 

on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

Exodus 20:5 (NASB)

Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Sins-Of-The-Fathers

I sit here pondering why millions of Americans would vote for Mr. Trump. I've seen interviews where the person interviewed acknowledged that Trump is bad. They don't like Trump, but they like his policies. His policies around the economy, including tariffs and immigration, regardless of the dehumanization, his anti-LGBTQIA stance, and, yes, his policies are an appeal to reactionary toxic masculinity. What has been received, from this writers perspective, has been uncaring, seemingly rooted in nihilism, which has meant unnecessary suffering for a plurality of Americans. There is a great tragedy in America that I suspect will leave the country and its people devastated.

Many people who desired to tear the system down, who considered Democrats out of touch, and who believed what Trump said he would do around the cost of groceries are now getting policies they didn't bargain for. Yes, they wanted to own the libs but didn't thoughtfully consider the cost and what that would mean. I've seen videos of people shedding tears as they regret their vote. Sadly, these folks were scammed. I imagine if I were not transgender and black and mindful of the history represented by Trump and his rhetoric, I might have fallen for his scam. I suppose it depends on one's consciousness around historical matters. History is a profound and unyielding threat to Trump and MAGA. Elon Musk made this clear as he spoke to the Alternative for Germany party about forgetting the Nazi Era and the Holocaust. There is this strange, incessant need for people like Trump, Musk, and Florida Governor Desantis, who traffic in Christian nationalists, to break from Exodus 20:5.

Their goal of reshaping not just systems and their processes but the American mind, which I suggest is one of the goals of Mothers for Liberty and book banning, cannot be successful unless they somehow divorce the sacred biblical truth of Exodus 6:25 from the human experience they are seeking to inflict. Hence, the importance of their version of an American Reich Church.  They say, "We have no responsibility or accountability to the trauma of history." History is irrelevant for the nihilist. The collective voice of the American people went for people who are nihilist and predatory, and this group is putting predatory nihilist policies in place. Russell Vought, Trump's new OMB Director and the author of Project 2025, believes that the federal government should be dismantled and its services given over to the private sector. This is wrong and dangerous, yet for the reactionary nihilist dismantling a massive federal government charged with serving over 300 million people, regardless of the suffering that will ensue, it is irrelevant. The American people have no value in their eyes.

One of the great tragedies is how many people were scammed by Trump using transgender people, non-European immigrants, racial minorities, and the economy. His campaign spent more than 200 million alone demonizing the transgender community. This is what authoritarians do. They find one demographic they can bully and put all their baggage on this group. This demographic becomes the ultimate other. Incredibly, people fall for othering even after being othered themselves. I visited the National Monument for Peace and Justice in Memphis, Tennessee, some years ago. It is a place of sacred memory. It is a reminder of the trauma, evil, and injustice that has characterized much of American history. It is an example of violence and the othering of human beings.

Many of the systems that Musk and DOGE are trying to tear down were created in response to the terror and trauma inflicted on black, brown, LGBTQIA2S, the differently abled, the poor, the elderly, and working-class unions. These systems are in place for a better, more humane society. The New Deal, Civil Rights, laws against hatred and discrimination, and even soft power, for all their complications, are meant to improve things, to make power, in one sense, more humane. They respond to misbehaving men like Trump and Musk. These personalities have always attempted to inhibit the freedom, liberation, diversity, and inclusive nature of humanity. Through AI they are employing a particular irrational desire antithetical to the radically inclusive love of God. The sad thing is that they represent a large minority of Americans. The more I hear these folks talk in interviews, the more irrational they sound. 

It's like those demographics who have been historically victimized are rational, and those who have traditionally benefitted from that victimization are irrational. I get it, there is great fear in those who are scared of loosing their societal position. To maintain this position, they are willing to have Trump. They feel that their position is secure, and they will avoid the fullness of the Exodus passage. For some Americans, this is the point of their vote. Tear the government up, dismantle it, and disable it so their status can be maintained. Fear is the ground of the irrational. Christian nationalism is appealing because of fear. Exodus 20:5 will take complete account.

The Call and the Lesson of Good Friday

 

In a time of profound injustice, when the distorted moral narrative of authoritarianism and Christian Nationalism  are speaking loudly, and wars in Gaza and Ukraine rage, the need for the Christian to commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is more important than ever. It is a holy and sacred means for the sincere Christian, who appreciate God’s grace, mercy, and radically inclusive hospitality to recenter themselves in the love of God. While Good Friday is a day to reflect on the deep and enduring hope of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of humanity, it is important that Good Friday be a mindset that inhabits every facet of the Christian journey.

The experience of Good Friday must not be a time of “special occasion” or "High Holy Days" but an opportunity for the transformation of values that reflect the deep justice and love encountered in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Mindful of Simone Weil, a French philosopher, mystic and political activist who said, Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity, Good Friday, which comes at the end of the Lenten season, and before Easter must continue to the process of shifting the Christians attention from those things that deny or are antithetical to the interests and concerns of the Gospel to those which are of Jesus Christ.

The proliferation of the interlocking injustices of poverty, systemic racism, militarism, ecological devastation, and a distorted moral narrative, is an urgent call to those who sincerely and genuinely seek to follow in the footsteps of the Jewish Rabbi to radically shift their attention to social and political policies that reflect a care, compassion and a salvation, not of empire, that alleviates the struggles of millions impacted by these five interlocking injustices. As I write this reflection on Good Friday, the sacrifice of Jesus upon the Cross for our sake, the words of American author, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde come to mind. Lorde writes, “For the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”

I suppose I am arguing that the Lenten Season, Good Friday, and the Resurrection call for a radical break from those systems that enrich the few and those who benefit from their policies, represented by the interlocking injustices, at the expense of 140 million poor, low wealth and working-class people.  For as much as those who value empire as a means to power, privilege, and profit, i.e. generational wealth, who adopt Jesus, some serious idolatry, as an affirmation of their ill-gotten gains, i.e., selling the bible for $59.99 to raise money for their legal fees, Jesus Christ was clearly for the people and profoundly against empire as evidenced by his crucifixion at the hands of empire. I can’t help but reflect on the justice work of the abolitionist movement, including Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. The justice work of  Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Dorothy Day, and those of the Civil Rights movement such as the Black Panthers, SNCC, Fanny Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King who fought the good and I would add sacrificial fight for the interest of the Gospel.

As I close this reflection on the day of Good Friday, 2024, I invite you, the reader to ask, “What Good Friday means to you at this time? How will Good Friday motivate you to do the work of justice and the interests and concerns of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Blessings,

Monica

The Living God

 

 

Today, I would like to share on the topic, “The Living God.” This topic arose as I reflected on the multiple global tragedies happening in the world today. Wars, poverty including hunger, mental health challenges including depression, rampant hatred and violence, and the rejection of Jesus and his teachings by evangelicals, compel a deep and persistent hope and longing for the living God. These three words present us with a blessed assurance that is the integrity of our faith and witness. Jeremiah 10:10-12 (NRSV) says, “But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation. Thus, shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”

The words of Jeremiah are a reminder that there is the world’s agenda that it affirms by creating its own god. This is an ideological god, or a tribal god, the kind that justifies the power to dehumanize millions of people.  This god is made in the image of the human ego, its fears, hubris and limitations. It is a very, very small god. Karen Armstrong, a British journalist and former nun, investigates the 4000-year history of God. Her book shows the reader that the definition of God is constantly being repeated, altered, discarded, and resurrected through the ages, responding to its followers' practical concerns rather than to mystical mandates. The book shows us how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have overlapped and influenced one another, gently challenging the secularist history of each of these religions.

 The key words are, “responding to the practical concerns rather than mystical mandates.” In other words, this tribal god responds, throughout human history, to the agenda of those in power. This god becomes a projection of Make America Great Again, the slaveholder’s religion, and a religion-politics that is antithetical to the life and teachings of Jesus. This god advocates for a new kind of Jesus that validates capitalism and its politics while denying the needs and concerns of the poor, working class, those on the margins of the faith community, society and the environment.

I have been reading a book titled, The Door of No Return, The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade” by William St. Clair. The author tells the grim story about the Cape Coast Castle, located in Ghana, West Africa, as the greatest symbol of forced migration. For hundreds of years western nations used religious doctrine to justify places such as Cape Coast Castle and the enslavement of Africans. I’m talking about a dehumanization, affirmed by the ideology of a tribal god, on a massive global scale which became the accepted foundation of a new world in which we live today. This same tribal god was used to affirm what was eventually called manifest destiny as well as Jim Crow and lynchings. I mean how else can we make sense, if that’s possible, out of a people who go to church, receive communion and then go out and lynch another human being except that they worship of god of their own making. In his book, Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman writes about being confronted at the University of Columbo in Ceylon about the involvement of Christianity in the slave trade on his pilgrimage of friendship to India, Burma, and Ceylon, present day Sri Lanka.  For those who Thurman met the question was, “How could Thurman justify being a Christian in a Christian nation that worships a small, tribal god?”  This is the work of the prophet.

The Old Testament prophets Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Joel and Amos dealt with a stiff-necked culture and society that rejected the living God for a tribal god and its many trinkets. The prophet could only speak what the living God had called them to speak and experience. They suffered because of this calling. Typically, somewhat like today, this was a minority theological position and not well funded. This is further affirmed by Jesus the Christ of Nazareth, son of the living God, who, according to scripture, had no place to lay his head, was crucified and then resurrected.  

So, what or who is the living God? In a book titled, Christian Mystics, Mattew Fox, American priest and theologian and former Dominican, looks at Meister Eckhart, a German Theologian, who prayed to God for forgiveness and to help him move beyond a human projection of God. “Have you ever prayed God to rid you of God? The work we do in our fields of calling requires that we follow the prayer of Eckhart and rid ourselves of those projections of God that get in the way of the grace and mercy necessary to transform the work we have been called to do. Further, the living God could care less about our biases Oh yes, God loves each of us, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but the living God does not cater to the human biases that seek to diminish a diverse humanity. This is most vividly seen in racism, antisemitism, transphobia, homophobia, political thought, gender and sexual diversity. God’s gonna do what God’s gonna do regardless of how comfortable or uncomfortable it might make us, and God has no need for us to believe. And I’m pretty sure this includes Jesus. The sooner we move beyond a projection of God the sooner we will experience a genuine grace that overcomes all our fears. In second Corinthians 12 the Apostle Paul speaks of praying to God three times to rid him of the thorn in his flesh and in the end, God does not remove the thorn but says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (vs. 8-9) The thorn in the flesh of the Apostle Paul was there to keep him from arrogance and projecting his profoundly strong ego on to God. This is Paul’s story, not yours. The text does not condone suffering, but it does ask us as Christians to look at suffering from a different perspective. Ridding ourselves of the projections will enhance the experience of God encountered in the Frederick Buechner quote.

Biblical scripture flows out of a spirit filled real-life experience with the one true and living God. The writers, such as Paul, have experienced the all-pervading presence and desire that has transformed their life. The scriptural readings of Exodus 20:3, Isaiah 43:10-13, the Pauline Epistles including Ephesians 4:4-6, and 1 John 5:20 are an invitation, even a longing for each of us, to live into a relationship with the living God of love. To experience an unnerving and unwavering hospitality that rids us of shallow preconceived notions and makes us free in Christ.

Let us pray!

Seeking Peace

The topic for consideration is, “Seeking Peace”. The text for today is Psalm 34:14-18, Luke 19:41-42, John 14:27, and Hebrews 12:14. As I begin this discourse on peace, I am mindful of Matthew 5:9, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. It is important to share on this topic because the times in which we live call us to focus on what it means to seek peace or to ask the question, “Is peace something to be desired or is it actually possible with the present social and economic order in place?” The question emerges as a response to those spiritual disciplines that awakens us to our collective profound need for God’s grace and mercy. For some, the times we are living through become an invitation to weep as they encounter the spiritual blindness, its moral deficit, and lack of peace encountered by Jesus in the gospel of Luke 19:41-42.

The implication of engaging spiritual disciplines is the nurturing of a prophetic consciousness that becomes the ground of a new vision for peace. A vision not defined by or exclusively in the purview of powerful political, economic, and religious interests but a justice-oriented vision grounded in Psalm 34:14-18, that puts the desires of the righteous, those who have turned from evil to good, who pursue peace, the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit at the center of cultural and societal concerns.  I speak of a peace, attentive to God’s ears, that delivers and saves the global poor, oppressed working class, and those on the margins of a global society from all their troubles. This kind of peace requires a new global structure of peace that decenters and/or displaces the former global structures of peace built after World War II.

The Dai Lama says, “Peace does not mean an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through humane ways.” Peace first and foremost is about seeking understanding. It is about recognizing the image of God as distinct in the other person and community.  In this sense, peace is about dignity, recognition, hospitality, and an appreciation for historical concerns, as recognition that all of humanity is made in the image of God. What I have been talking about is strategies that address an ever-increasing longing for a society that exhibits a deeper depth of capacity for love, justice, enlightenment, and the basic needs that sustain life.

The implication of such a strategy is a power that emerges from a love for all God’s people expressed in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. In the book, A Call to Conscience, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes, “Power is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change…Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” This kind of power, exemplified by Jesus, is ethical, sacrificial, compassionate, and non-violent. Attentive to the all-pervading presence of God, it seeks peace through understanding, radically inclusive hospitality, and the uplifting of a diverse human society.

Hebrews 12:14-15 says, “Pursue peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.  See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and through it, many become defiled.” The writer of Hebrews is calling us to do everything humanly possible to be at peace with everyone, even those who benefit from violence and conflict, and see the kind of peace that Jesus gives as of little use. The peace of the Hebrews text is anathema to those who revel in injustice to power, wealth, and domination. Isaiah 10:1-4 “Woe to those who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, to make widows their spoil and to plunder orphans!  What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, so as not to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is stretched out still.”

            The sincere follower of the teachings of Jesus, living critically in an immoral society with its evil structures, that uplift conflict and violence, as a norm, where hate speech and hate crimes are on the rise, this includes anti-LGBTQ legislation, with 474 million guns in the US alone, according to Alcohol Tabacco and Firearms data, this is on top of a US military budget of 715 billion dollars in 2022, should be mindful of John 14:27 that says, Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

The Christian must grapple with the reality that the world is incapable of the peace that Jesus leaves. They recognize that the current state of US and global affairs including the latest situations between Israel and Palestine and Russia and Ukraine, is no different than when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his Beyond Vietnam, Time to Break Silence Speech on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City.  The sincere Christian considering what might seem to be a hopeless situation, asks the question, “How does the Christian, in the present environment, share the light of peace that Jesus gives?”

Mahatma Gandhi said, “The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” –  The Christian witness, emerging from a place of religious humility, must be first and foremost about peace as a spirit-filled, overwhelming outpouring of love. The peace that Jesus bestows must be how the Christian moves in the world. Peace must be a reality of embodiment. It must be a way of life.  Only if peace is a way of life can it be the primary concern and not a secondary concern of peripheral importance. This embodiment of peace must be received as an invitation of authenticity that emerges as an outpouring of the Good News. Peace must be an ongoing concern of all people at the personal intimate, communal, national, and global levels inclusive of the United Nations and a global conference on peace grounded in the sacred texts of all religions.  While these structures and strategies may be in place, it is of great necessity to reassess these structures to rejuvenate the purpose, meaning, engagement, and foundation of peace. 

Extravagant Attention to God’s Grace

 

I would like to share on the topic, “Extravagant Attention to God’s Grace.” I speak on this topic from a lineage of faithful Christians who know the Gospel of Jesus Christ and stay focused on its transformative message of love as a matter of necessity.  It is important to share this topic because the times in which we live call us to focus even more on giving extravagant attention to God’s grace. This is a time of heightened spiritual warfare with the concepts of focus and attention, formerly used to identify strategies to acquire knowledge, education, and enlightenment now characterized as avenues for the acquisition of political and economic power and influence.  Mindful of the Simone Weil quote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”, extravagant attention to grace means to be generous with our faith, to do those things that nourish and deepen our faith.  It is this generosity that reveals the depth of God’s great grace and radically inclusive hospitality amidst a time of a great falling away. The implication of this generosity is awakening your potential. Receiving God’s love within is key! The texts for today are Psalm 119:15-16 (ESV), Philippians 3:12-14 and the life of Saint Irene of Macedonia. The last message was on “Harvest time”, a season of gathering things planted, a natural time of reaping in joy what has been produced during the year in an agricultural community. From a theological perspective Harvest time is a time of reckoning regarding the affairs of humanity, be it for good or for evil. It is the end of a season, the ending of an age, it is time as set forth by God and not the responsibility of the servant.  

        The Psalmist says “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. The Psalmist is focusing their attention on the precepts and statutes of God. This is their spiritual practice. The Book of Psalms shows us the depth of the Psalmist's extravagant attention to their relationship with God.  The Psalmist's desire is for God. Psalm 42:1-2 says “As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?” O How many times have I been comforted by the extravagant attention of the Psalmist. Our second text, Philippians 3:12-14, attributed to the Apostle Paul says, 12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,[a] but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ[b] has laid hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold[c] of it, but one thing I have laid hold of forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly[d] call of God in Christ Jesus. When I read this text I see a man so focused on Jesus Christ that he is completely sold out. The Apostle Paul, having met Jesus on the road to Damascus in the book of Acts 9:1-8 acknowledges his humanity, his need for growth, his shortcomings and growing edges, those unspeakable things that would deny the Good News of Jesus Christ in his life, yet it is his complete and uncompromising focus, that extravagant attention to God’s grace that sets aside those things that would hinder God’s Call upon his life. The Apostle Paul’s faith became bigger than his fear. The Christian faith is about fully apprehending the grace of God through Christ Jesus and allowing that grace to transform our lives and implications for the love and glory of God. Grace will not leave you where it found you.

            Extravagant attention to God’s grace is about cultivating loving intimacy with God. From that intimacy, there emerges a gradual and persistent deep hope and freedom in Christ that avails a prophetic imagination formerly unseen that overcomes structures, systems, and agents of injustice and the evil perpetrated to seize the day for the Good News of Jesus Christ. The spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, studying scripture, Christ-centered covenantal relationships, being a part of a community of faith, being active in your faith so your faith would be fresh and not risk becoming hard and stale, and most importantly self-care, are essential in this spirit filled endeavor. This process has the potential to awaken the Christian to what Gary Cummins, author of If Only We Could See, Mystical Vision and Societal Transformation, calls the “God Realm or the Kindom of God for which Christians work and wait and pray, and God’s revolution.” Amidst a social order that struggles to embrace the fullness of humanity        

        Thirdly we have Irene, known as St. Irene of Macedonia in the Eastern Church. According to the writings of the scribe John the Stylite, Irene was baptized in the first century by Timothy after he received a letter from the Apostle Paul and became an evangelist. She was initially betrothed to be married but the call of Christ was so heavy upon her that she chose not to get married but to be baptized with oil and water and to preach a defiant sermon to her father, the King of Magedo and other high-ranking men, proclaiming herself to be the bride of Christ. Here is a woman who defied the norms of her society and her father’s desire to give her complete and total life to the call of Christ Jesus. When her Father was killed, she turned to the east, lifted her hands high, prayed, and like the male Apostles who raised the dead in their acts – she raised her Father to life. St. Irene converted 10,000 pagans, by traveling to various cities, “preaching about Christ and working miracles, healing the sick and she baptized 130,000 souls by her own hand.

            She made the deaf hear, she opened the eyes of the blind, she cleansed the lepers, and healed all who were in pain. The narrative concludes with Irene dying in the city of Ephesus where she did many cures and miracles in the name of Jesus Christ. Similar to other Apostles St. Irene was incarcerated, tortured, and martyred. In all of this, there is an extravagant attention that is unwavering. Today the Church continues to be steadfast and focused as it moves forward in the everlasting hope of Christ Jesus because there are Christians who focus and refocus as needed, and who don’t succumb to the desires of this world. While there are those who have fallen for Christian Nationalism and its rejection of Jesus Christ as left-wing and woke, who cause American Christianity to be characterized as antithetical to the Good News of Jesus Christ there are many more whose eyes are fixed on the call of God through Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. They focus and refocus on the teachings of Jesus Christ; they do the spiritual disciplines, they engage in a covenant community of faith, they take time out for their faith and what Civil Rights Icon and member of Congress Rev. John Lewis (1940-2020) called “Good Trouble.” For those engaged in “Good Trouble,” the words of John Lewis become a meditation on the life of Jesus Christ. They are an invitation to encounter the overwhelming attention of a God who responds to the many needs of humanity.

            I find the Advent season, the six weeks of Lent ending with Holy Week and then Easter Sunday, taking time out of our busy schedules to nurture and strengthen our faith to be necessary ways that focus and refocus our attention on God’s grace. Amidst the unsettling time we are living through we should make this a priority.  I invite you to engage in three things, (1) Nourish your soul If possibly make it a priority in your life. Be careful to feed your soul with good nutritious spiritual food (2) Reflect on what keeps you engaged and active in Christianity? and (3) Reflect on the Spiritual Disciplines.

              

            

What about LGBTQIA2+ People of Faith

I am mindful that posting about controversial topics can be dangerous yet there are times when one needs to express a truth that recenters an important and critical conversation.

I take issue with those who frame LGBTQIA2+ Rights as being against religion or anti-religious. As a Black transgender woman who is ordained clergy in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, I find it problematic when faith and religion are positioned in an exclusive heteronormative cisgender manner. I ponder a distorted moral narrative that sanctions this theologically dubious argument affirmed by those who push anti-LGBTQ legislation.  Are religion and faith only credible when a conservative Christian baker or website designer has the desire to discriminate based on their religious beliefs? I know plenty of same-sex couples who are just as religious and faithful as those Christians who use the Bible primarily as a tool to give credibility to their desire to hate, discriminate, and dehumanize.

This continues a long and tragic strain of "faith" and "religion" used to legitimize the evil and its productions of the genocide of the American Indian, the enslavement of the African Americans, Jim Crow, lynching, Japanese Internment, the school-to-prison pipeline, and housing discrimination, ie., red lining. just to name a few. These represent twisted biblical interpretations founded in the slaveholder religion. Slaveholder religion was designed to give legitimacy to the enslavement of Africans for economic gain. This is the "faith" and "religion many conservative Christians profess. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court necessarily expresses this "faith" and "religion: founded on the backs of the enslaved and genocide.

I cannot and will not separate the latest decisions of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court from this history they and their benefactors would soon have me and others forget. Their decisions bolster a "faith" and "religion" rooted in the slaveholder religion making life more precarious and less free for those on the margins such as the LGBTQIA2+ community. Their decisions give cover to those who desire to practice hatred, bigotry, and evil reminiscent of the Klan and Bull Connor. I ponder where these decisions come from. What is in their hearts?  In this time of immorality, when care and concern, even hospitality is not welcomed and diversity and equity are shunned by many I ponder where the law begins and its purpose.