A Significant Amount of American Christians are Inflicting Hell on Earth

by Rev. Chris Dela Cruz

Over the weekend of Dec. 13, as U.S. COVD-19 deaths climbed past the grim milestone of 300,000, thousands of folks who called themselves Christians flooded Washington D.C. without abandon or masks for the “Jericho March” — presumably an illusion to the Biblical story where Joshua’s army marched around the city of Jericho praying for God to break down its walls. In fact, the founder of Jericho March claims he had a vision where God woke him up and said “it’s not over,” granting him a vision of the Jericho March, and introducing him to a woman who had the same vision.

The speaking-for-God marchers called the “election fraud” an assault on Christian values in America and a massive conspiracy against God’s will. A pastor on stage told the crowd that they were about to cross the Red Sea like the Israelites, but though Pharaoh’s army was coming, “God is about to do something in this country that is going to take the threats we’re dealing with and put it down.”

Eric Metaxas, the Bonhoeffer biographer who wrote about the theologian’s resistance to the dangerous idol worship of Nazism infecting Germany, looked up at the sky during the rally as helicopters flew by, presumably carrying the president, and said “”Praise God! Thank you Jesus! God bless America!… That’s not the Messiah, that’s just the President.”

“Why didn’t your mother abort you?” one speaking-for-God marcher yelled at a counter-protestor. “You’re mentally disturbed, and you’re a coward, and you’re a f—–. I hope you get AIDS.”

And during the night, these saints of Christ tore down Black Lives Matter signs at multiple historically black churches, which “shockingly” received little police intervention or mass media coverage on what are genuinely shocking threatening acts well in line with America’s history of white supremacy and attacks on black churches.

My first thought as a Presbyterian pastor, to be honest, was “what the hell?” That got me thinking, though, about what these same folks thought about hell. Because it seems like it’s often the same folks who are judging which people get to go to hell or not are the ones causing hell on earth for people.

One of America’s most famous hell preachers, of course, was Jonathan Edwards. A renowned evangelist preacher who would eventually become President of Princeton University, Edwards famously preached, “the God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.”

Historians found another sermon of his on a piece of scrap paper, but its significance was not in the words written down but what he chose to write his notes on: a bill of sale for the purchase of a “Negro girl named Venus,” a 14-year-old human child sold in bondage to the Christian good-news-of-the-gospel-preacher Jonathan Edwards.

Edwards was damning people to hell while creating hell for the enslaved.

Gehenna, alluded to by Jesus and translated often as “hell,” was a place where ancient peoples sacrificed children and people to the gods and eventually became a huge garbage and sewage pit that would often erupt in flames — a dumpster fire, if you will.

Meanwhile, the dumpster fire of the last few years has revealed all sorts of ways that America has for a long time sacrificed human beings to the gods of America. We murder black people as a human sacrifice at the altar of white supremacy, most obviously revealed in the human sacrifice/public lynching of George Floyd. We sacrifice children and families at the border to deter migrants from spoiling our country’s melting pot of whiteness. We literally sacrifice kids constantly to the god of the AK-47, the graves of our children the price paid for our national hobby. We sacrificed entire indigenous communities, whose blood runs down the roots of the stolen land of this country’s founding. And on and on.

And this American Hell-scaping has culminated in the tragic-but-chosen international embarrassment of our handling of COVID-19, where we have collectively decided that the lives of our elderly, of our vulnerable populations with normally non-threatening pre-existing conditions, of black and brown folks in disproportionally affected communities – that all of the horror that has been inflicted on them and on all of us is worth it for “the freedom to harm,” as Ibram X. Kendi puts it.

The folks at the D.C. rally were not outliers. This hellish-possession of Christians is a widespread enough phenomenon that a number of moderate to conservative Christians are sounding the alarm.

“This is a grievous and dangerous time for American Christianity. The frenzy and the fury of the post-election period has laid bare the sheer idolatry and fanaticism of Christian Trumpism,” said David French, a Republican “Never Trumper” and a Christian. “We’re way, way past concerns for the church’s ‘public witness.’ We’re way past concerns over whether the ‘reputation’ of the church will survive this wave of insanity. There is no other way to say this. A significant movement of American Christians — encouraged by the president himself — is now directly threatening the rule of law, the Constitution, and the peace and unity of the American republic.”

“I do not believe these are days for mincing words,” writes Beth Moore in a recent tweet. “I’m 63 1/2 years old & I have never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it. Fellow leaders, we will be held responsible for remaining passive in this day of seduction to save our own skin while the saints we’ve been entrusted to serve are being seduced, manipulated, USED and stirred up into a lather of zeal devoid of the Holy Spirit for political gain.”

This is the anti-Eucharist, an anti-banquet that serves as an eschatological foretaste of hell. This is the Bad Place. And a significant amount of American Christians are Hell’s Kingdom Builders, praying for earth as it is in hell.

It is an absolute scandal and tragedy and horror that those who are called to be the hands and feet of the body of Christ have become the bringers of hell. It is a scandal of literally cosmic proportions that those who claim to herald good divine news for all people are the ones actively killing people through their war against masks and disdain of basic protections, that there is a horrific statistical link between church attendance and rejecting calls for racial justice, that exit polls suggest that people of color voting for Trump is linked with evangelical church involvement.

And sure, Christians have always done terrible things. Sure, what do you expect from a Christian tradition that stems from European colonizers? Sure, there are many monuments, literally and figuratively, to the amazing contributions Christians have made to better our world, especially Christians from oppressed and marginalized groups who have always been the true leaders of our communion of saints.

But it doesn’t make any less urgent for faithful folks especially to name the hell-ish horrors being done in the name of Christ and repent. It is at this point in history the bare minimum for us who call ourselves Christians to name it and do everything in our power to actively push against the hell on earth being created by Christians. Not for our sake, or our reputation or “public witness,” but for the sake those who are being held over the pit of the fires of Gehenna by God’s anointed messengers.


Reverend Chris Dela Cruz is the new Associate Pastor of Youth, Young Adults, and Community Engagement at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon. He has written for Next Church, Presbyterian Outlook, and other outlets. Prior to being an ordained pastor, he was a journalist for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey.

Chris writes about the intersection of faith, cultural trends, and American life.

Creating a World that Works for All

by Jojo Gabuya

Havel’s introductory essay in Sharif Abdullah’s book, “Creating a World that Works for All,” discusses humankind’s lack of responsibility to avert the threats on our planet, particularly on our growing population and to save our environment from dangers and destruction caused by our own wasteful ways. Havel suggests that “the most important thing we can do today is to study the reasons why humankind does little to address these threats and why it allows itself to be carried onward by some kind of perpetual motion, unaffected by self-awareness or a sense of future options.” He also opines that the differences and dominance of great religious systems in the world have intensified political and armed conflicts, which are happening within an atheistic civilization. Havel thinks that the fundamental differences among these religions are more important than their differences; thus, we have to search “for what unites the various religions — a purposeful search for common principles.”

In the preface of Abdullah’s book, he describes our world as an insecure and unsafe one, where “family violence, cancer, a polluted environment, and a diminished outlook for all of the world’s children cloud the future for us all.” However, Abdullah adds that these threats, come with a rare opportunity “to craft a society that actually reflects our deepest values,” where we can choose our future. He describes his book as a “testament of hope,” a gift for the future generation who will give their blessings instead of blaming us for our lack of care and concern for this planet and all creation.

Abdullah laments how “our social, ecological, even spiritual lives are out of balance” (p. 1) because we have ignored some early warning systems for danger and treated them as the problem, and have severed our relationship with the environment. Because of this, Abdullah encourages us to “change the way we think and the way we act,” by learning “to act toward each other and our environment in profoundly different ways.”

In Abdullah’s book, “Creating A World That Works for All,’ he encourages us to “ask ourselves: What are we trying to achieve as a society?” He stresses the importance of goal setting that gives us “a clear vision of an achievable goal, and an understanding of the philosophy and value behind that goal.” Abdullah introduces the Mender goal, that is, “an inclusive human society on a habitual planet, a society that works for all humans and for all nonhumans,” where the needs of both those at the top and those at the bottom are fulfilled. Everyone has enough, and no one feels deprived or oppressed. To achieve this goal, Abdullah suggests that we need to “take fundamental change” that starts from within you, the newly elected leaders of this country and their recently appointed Cabinet, and all of us who are the emerging leaders of this day and age.

As an environmentalist, who has been living a vegan lifestyle and practicing the Tao philosophy for more than two decades, I have always been concerned about the preservation of the earth’s natural resources and the promotion of unity and solidarity with all forms of life. My unceasing concern for the protection of the environment, including its fauna and flora, began in my primary years when I heard the story of Noah’s ark from my teacher in Catechism. Because of this, I have always envisioned a society and a world where all creatures, including humankind, are happily living in solidarity and unity with one another. We take care of the earth’s bounties and assume responsibility for whatever we do.

When I reached the age of puberty and up to this time of the pandemic, I have realized that my earlier vision is still a work in progress. There is so much greed and selfishness in the minds and hearts of most of our leaders whose insatiable desire to amass wealth, abusive and violent ways to gain power, and manipulative methods to monopolize the planet’s resources have led to famine, hunger, and wars of all types (civil, drones, biological, nuclear and others), and some pressing issues and problems, at the expense of the poor and marginalized sectors who have been suffering from the impacts of these exploitive practices in most societies in particular, and the world in general. Political leaders such as Hitler (Holocaust) and Abraham Lincoln (Dakota 38) perpetrated these heinous crimes against humanity and all creation. But, it is sad to note that some religious leaders are also accessories to these dehumanizing crimes because of differences (gender, race, religious affiliation, political conviction, other demographics) that have kept them separated (Albert Einstein calls this notion as a “delusion of consciousness) from others who are not wearing the same cloak/robe, since time immemorial.

Thus, I totally agree with Abdullah’s s suggestion that “we need a change of heart that leads to changes in our priorities and systems.” This change, however, starts from ourselves – the way we think, feel, and act. Then, we can proceed with changing our culture and institutions.

And, as an emerging spiritual, who is trying to be a religious, leader, I find the three criteria of “A World that Works for All” useful in determining when we have reached our goal: The criteria of enough-ness, exchangeability, and common benefit can be applied to most of our current domestic and foreign problems and issues, such as homelessness, homophobia, inequality, poverty, racism, and wars. A caveat, however, exists if we fail to see our problems as blessings that are leading us to think of creative ways in solving these problems. So, I have been confident and optimistic that we are can solve our pressing problems, if we all strive for inclusivity, solidarity, and unity with all forms of life – animals, humans, and natural resources; mountains, plants, rivers, seas and others. And, I am hoping that we can continue to strive for inclusivity, solidarity, and unity this day and onwards.


Jojo received their M.Div from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. Before coming to California in 2016, they worked with the United Nations Development Programmes, as Regional Coordinator for its Bottom-up Budgeting Project in Mindanao, Philippines. Prior to this, they worked as VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) Volunteer, as Results-based Management Advisor for the Ministry of Gender in Zambia, Southern Africa.

Jojo is also a member of the NEXT Church blogging cohort, and their writing focuses on how Jesus would respond to the racism, xenophobia, microaggressions, and gender. 

Refugees, Resistance, and the Next Christianities

by Rafael Vallejo Ph.D

When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.” Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim his salvation day after day.
– 1 Chron 16:19-22

We now summarize the last six blogs around Refugees and Resistance: Enacting God’s Mission in Liminal Spaces (Vallejo, 2020). In Blog 1, we began by defining our use of the word “refugee,” explained how it became a legal construct in modernity and how it is connected with the historiography of the Christian movement.

In Blog 2, we argued that seeking refuge is a fundamental right that comes with being human. While there are international conventions in place to protect these rights, nation-states have also found ways to work around them. As nation-states were being constructed through wars of conquest, borders and laws to protect territorial borders were also created.

Seeking refuge is a recurrent trope in biblical literature along with displacement, deportation/exile, and diaspora. We pointed to how corporate globalization driven by neo-liberal values led to the imbalance that produces today’s refugees. Nation-states create border regimes to protect and preserve these conditions of inequality and racism.

In Blog 3, we did a quick survey of the different ways of understanding “mission” going as far back as the first ecclesial communities in the Levant. From there we saw how the Western Christian tradition conceived of mission through the centuries from Constantine, Colonialism, the Enlightenment, and then Postmodernity. M.W.Stroope (2020) in Transcending Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition argues that the language of mission is a modern construction unsupported by the Bible and pre-modern literature.

Mission as “resistance and struggle” (WCC Busan, 2014) situates mission within the context of relations of power. It re-describes the world as dominated by Empire. (Accra Confession, 2004) The call to subvert systems of domination has biblical roots.

In Blog 4 we proposed that liminality (Van Gennep,1909) is a helpful construct for understanding the lived experience of refugees. Refugees’ resistance is bound up with place and communitas. (Turner, 1969) It is in liminal spaces that refugees as “liminars” perform the Mission of God. Our understanding of mission will not be complete without listening to the narrative that is playing out in these spaces.

In Blog 5, we showed how refugees who are denied citizenship continue to practice everyday resistance (Scott, 1985) that confront relations of power inscribed in liminal spaces where they are reduced to “bare life” (Agamben, 1998). We narrated stories drawn from the experiences of Palestinians, Saharawis, and Rohingyas to describe how resistance looks like on the ground.

In Blog 6, we introduced a genre called Resistance Literature (Harlow, 1987). It speaks to the resistance of people for personal and national liberation. We asked whether Biblical literature given the history of its construction fits the category of resistance literature. We referenced Jewish apocalyptic literature as a site of political struggle (Portier-Young, 2011) where resistance was theorized, enacted and mobilized.

And now in Blog 7 we conclude by speaking to the phenomenon of Refugees, Resistance and the next Christianities. Where does it go from here? If everything is in God and God reveals the divine mystery in events as they unfold in history, what are we hearing and seeing from the experiences of refugees worldwide?

My hope is that the capitalist logic that gave birth to our modern understandings of borders gives way to an older/newer understanding that the land does not belong to us, but we all belong to the land. The exclusivist concept of nation-states based on clearly demarcated borders securitized by surveillance and other forms of control will become a thing of the past. Colonial practices will be dismantled along with the settler mindsets that are at the root of border regimes. Refugees are present and are no longer elided in our conversations around God, Church, and Mission.

What emerges for me is a picture of the next christianities where people from former colonies are migrating to the land of their former missioners carrying with them new understandings of God, Gospel, and Christian tradition. They will speak out of the conviction that human worth based solely on citizenship is not the Way of Jesus. They will dissolve the idea of church as the sole depository of truth and salvation and will abandon the fixity of one scripture and one religion as superior to all others.

Refugees will prefigure societies based on religious values, inviting local communities to lead the change in creating new zones of inclusion and rebuilding the commons. Freedom of movement, the freedom to stay, move, and return becomes the norm in the governance of migration. The subjugated knowledge of refugees become the places where we look for ways to move society forward in non-violent ways and make other worlds possible.

We have come a long way from the “sending model” of mission and the Western Christendom worldview. Covid-19 introduced a new reality that challenged many of our cherished assumptions around mission, missions, and missional. It has shown us a way forward to faithful witness in our life and experience as church.

When the time comes that we all see the face of God in our refugee sisters and brothers, perhaps then the world will become a place where God’s laughter can be heard all over again!


Rafael Vallejo started his theological career at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and San Francisco Theological Seminary and from there continued on with a Master in Theological Studies from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Divinity at the University of Toronto. From 2011-2016, he travelled extensively and studied with indigenous communities in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina as part of his PhD dissertation (2018) on “Faith Perspectives of Mexican Migrant Farm Workers in Canada”. He serves as affiliate faculty at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame.

Rafael is also part of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and his pieces focus on the experience of refugees and mission. 

Reimagining LIFE

by Freda Marie Brown

Living into this 8th month of the COVID-19 global pandemic reminds me of another time in my life. It was the one and only time I ever got a “pink slip.” It came unexpectedly, out of the blue, and totally disrupted my life and the life of my family because I was the primary breadwinner.

I was the palliative care chaplain for a major health system which included a Level 1 trauma center, a tertiary-care hospital, and a smaller community hospital in the northern suburbs of the city. I loved my work of providing support to the dying, their families, and friends. I thought I had found my “niche” in life. I was happy.

On this particular day, I was in CCU of one of the facilities with family as life support was being discontinued on one of our patients. I received a call on my pager to contact the pastoral care office. When I did, I was asked to come down to the office when I could. I thought, “No problem, later is soon enough.”

When I arrived, I was greeted by the Vice President of Pastoral Services and the Department Manager. They asked me to sit down, handed me a letter to read, and waited for my response. Of course, I was crushed. I had no words.

After the initial shock, nothing prepared me for later… when fear and anxiety really set in! My mind was filled with questions like, “How’re we going to pay the mortgage? Or what will our future or our daughter’s future look like now?” I was already 45 years old, scared and with no resources beyond the income already coming into our household.

My mom was here at that time and gave me some motherly advice. She reminded me to go back to what I know. The only way to know how God was speaking to my life situation was to ask. So, I did. I prayed… and I listened. I learned not to disregard the voice within me who sounded like me. I discovered that God’s Presence really was within me giving me a sense of guidance, resilience, and peace. That Presence resides within you as well.

In that really dark place, I discovered through my relationship with God an unprecedented invitation to reimagine my life. I discovered that the more thought and energy I gave to the what if’s, the more anxious and agitated I became. I learned to live more fully into the “Serenity Prayer.”

Sisters and brothers of other mothers, we are now being given an opportunity to reimagine life in a new way; in a godly way that more closely aligns with the way of Jesus Christ as we learn through Scriptures and see expressed through his followers within and beyond the walls of the church. It is a WAY which does not shut out but invites in; a WAY that seeks to heal the wounded and gives hope to the hopeless. This WAY is already available to us and resides within us, but it’s expression through us is not without a cost. It is the WAY of LOVE. It is inconvenient, messy, and only occasionally comfortable. Nevertheless, it is the heart of the Gospel.

When we have closed the book on this pandemic (and yes, it will happen) I see a whole new horizon opened up to us. I see us being honest and truthful with ourselves and with each other. I see us honoring our relationships with other human beings and with the rest of creation instead of ignoring and disregarding their inherent dignity. I see the Beloved Community existing all over the world. It can happen. It’s up to us to reimagine it so.

With many “air hugs” …6 feet away of course!

Serenity Prayer – Full Version (composed in 1940s)

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.

Reinhold Neibuhr (1892-1971)


The Rev. Freda Marie Brown is a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland currently serving as Associate Rector at The Church of the Redeemer, Baltimore. She formerly served as the Executive Director of St. Vincent’s House in Galveston, a 501(c)3 non-profit and Jubilee Ministry of the Diocese of Texas. Prior to coming to the Diocese of Texas, she was the Associate Rector at the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation in the Diocese of Dallas. She received her undergraduate degree from Xavier University of Louisiana and was employed as a clinical laboratory director for 21 years at St. Paul Medical Center in Dallas before saying “yes” to God’s call to be ordained priest in His Church. She earned a Master of Theological Studies from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas and a Master of Arts in Religion (with a concentration in Anglican Studies) from the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX. For 7 years she served as a Palliative Care chaplain in hospice and hospital settings and has spent many hours serving the dying and those who love them.

She loves her work among God’s people and is constantly amazed by the many disguises of Jesus Christ —especially among the marginalized. She enjoys yoga, gardening, cooking, hiking, reading, writing, and listening to jazz. She loves good food, good wine, and good conversation. She is Crystal’s Mom.

Freda is also a member of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and her writing focuses on the intersectionality of Christian spirituality with what may commonly be called energetics or specifically energy medicine.

Telling Our Story: Resistance Literature and the Biblical Narrative

by Rafael Vallejo Ph.D

Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.”
– Deuteronomy 26:5

In Resistance Literature (Hartlow, 1987) the author reads some of the 20th century literature of resistance movements from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. She tells the story of the contributions of literature to resistance movements. In this blog, I ask how and whether biblical literature can also be considered as resistance literature.

Scholars tell us that much of what later became known as the Hebrew Bible was written in periods of exile, displacement and diaspora. Those who wrote the early stories of christian origins that became the New Testament did so under the shadow of Empire and colonial oppression.

The literature speaks to the struggle of early communities around religious beliefs, tribal laws and cultural practices. The literature of Judaism in exile and during the Persian period used resistance as a trope for understanding the relationship between humanity and their divinities. Their oral and written narratives sought to express how they felt God present/absent in their struggle.

Resistance movements according to Hartlow seek to reclaim the narrative, given the many rival interpretations of the historical record along with attempts to erase it from cultural memory. They also assert control over the means of cultural production ( eg. poetry, theater, the arts ) from those who attempt to repress it through censorship or subjugate knowledge by minimizing its significance.

The translation of the Hebrew scriptures to Greek and the production of other scriptures in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew were also practices of resistance against hegemony. Hartlow shows how resistance literature holds out images of an ideal past and a utopian future. Do we not also feel a similar tension when we do a critical reading of biblical texts?

Anathea Portier Young talks about resistance literature that can be found in the genre known as Jewish apocalyptic literature. She concurs with Hartlow that literature exists as a site of political struggle (Hartlow 1985:2) a space where resistance is theorized, enacted and mobilized. It appears that the first extant representatives of the genre, according to Portier-Young, emerged during the Hellenistic era marked by wars, plunder, state terror and religious persecution and the reconquest of Judea by the Seleucid Empire. One finds in narratives like Daniel the characters of Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael offered as models of resistance against imperial domination. Daniel 2 and 7 appear to have been drawn from resistance traditions in the Ancient Near East.

Closer to our times is resistance literature written by people like Gassan Kanafani. He was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was assassinated by the Mossad in 1972. He started writing his short stories while working in refugee camps. It seems to me that sometimes people are moved more by stories than statistics. Kanafani and many other writers give voice and bear witness to the suffering of peoples under imperialism. Their writings show the political significance of literary texts and other art forms in the struggle. Unfortunately, many of them are not written in English and so those of us whose working language is English are unable to access them. The fact remains that those who have historically been denied their voice are the best sources regarding the impact of border regimes on refugees and the production of new meanings around Mission and Migration.

In Memories of Burmese Rohingya (Farsana, 2017) the author talks about how they use song and drawings to portray narratives of everyday refugee life and resistance. In their encampments along the river Naft that borders Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh, the music of taranas become everyday resistance expressing their sorrows and sufferings. Their memories bind them together as a people and give them courage to hope that their condition as refugees will change someday. It calls to the youth of Arakan where Rohingyas were born to continue the struggle.

The taranas are easy to understand and learn by heart. They are performed with great passion accompanied by hand movements and facial expressions. The taranas are yet another way that migrants and exiles tell their story. Perhaps they can also be seen as prayers to their divinities that speak to what is going on in their lives.

Conclusion
We started this project with three questions: What lessons can World Christianity learn from refugees’ resistance to border regimes? How might refugees be enacting the Mission of God while living in liminal spaces like camps, detention centers and border crossings? How might migrants and refugees be shaping religion and the next Christianities in post-secular societies?

My hope is that in some way the blogs have given us a way forward in regard to these living questions. Peace be with you!


Rafael Vallejo started his theological career at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and San Francisco Theological Seminary and from there continued on with a Master in Theological Studies from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Divinity at the University of Toronto. From 2011-2016, he travelled extensively and studied with indigenous communities in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina as part of his PhD dissertation (2018) on “Faith Perspectives of Mexican Migrant Farm Workers in Canada”. He serves as affiliate faculty at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame.

Rafael is also part of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and his pieces focus on the experience of refugees and mission. 

Refugees and the Practice of Everyday Resistance

by Rafael Vallejo, Ph.D.

“We are here because you destroy our countries!”
– Caravan for Rights of Refugees and Migrants, Germany 2007

James Scott proposed the idea of “everyday resistance” in his book Weapons of the Weak (1985). He used the term to refer to subtle, informal acts of personal and collective resistance, that is different from large-scale, formal organized efforts. Since then, there has been an abundance of scholarship devoted to conceptualizing resistance and creating typologies for it. Most of the definitions suggest that resistance is relational, as well as oppositional. It is carried out in relation to power (Hollander and Einwohner, 2004).

In previous blogs, I have argued that relations of power are inscribed in the liminal spaces where refugees live. Bhabha (1994) refers to these liminal spaces of uncertainty and ambiguity as a “third space” created and populated by the marginalized. (Note: This also describes the USA as I am writing this piece in November 2020.)

In today’s blog we explore how refugees enact everyday resistance in these spaces. I have put together two narratives from the struggle of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and the Saharawis of Western Sahara.

Palestinian refugees and Sumud

The Nakba is how Palestinians describe the great catastrophe of 1948 when the State of Israel was created. This event in their history led to the displacement and creation of Palestinian refugees. Today in the occupied territories and refugee camps in Lebanon, sumud is the word that symbolizes their everyday resistance. The word has been translated into English as steadfastness, resolve, and persistence. To live as a refugee, to assert that one is Palestinian, to endure and sacrifice against all odds is sumud. Refugees singing, dancing and displaying cultural / religious symbols (flag, maps, posters, graffiti) are expressions of sumud.

It is through these acts that Palestinian refugees assert their agency as political actors resisting the stereotype that they are just bodies to be fed and sheltered. Staying alive, remaining in camp, having many children, expressing through one’s actions that refugees are not beings without agency and that life must go on no matter what, are all expressions of sumud. Like the olive trees that grace their landscape, sumud is deeply rooted in the Palestinian struggle against the occupation of their land.

The Saharawis and Frente Polisario

Another example of everyday resistance can be found among Saharawi refugees . After the 1975 occupation of their land by Morocco, the Saharawis fled and set up camps in neighboring Algeria. Morocco annexed their land at the end of the Spanish colonial rule in 1976. The international Court of Justice has ruled that Morocco has no legal rights over Western Sahara but the occupation continues up to the present day.

In spite of the harsh desert environment where the camps are located, the Saharawi have managed to create their own social organizations, schools and hospitals. Women in particular have had a significant role in administration, education and healthcare since most of the men serve in the army with Frente Polisario the national liberation movement that continues the struggle to end Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.

Even with very limited resources the Saharawi have created basic forms of governance, schools, clinics and a justice system with sharia judges. The camps are run by the refugees themselves with little interference from the state. Among the achievements in the last 30 years is literacy that has grown from 5% in the early days to about 90% at the present time. Many of their people can now read and write, and others have gone on to study in universities in Algeria and Cuba.

The resistance continues to this day with Africans and African countries standing in solidarity with the Saharawis and the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) who frame their struggle not just as the liberation of Western Sahara but the liberation of Africa.


Rafael Vallejo started his theological career at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and San Francisco Theological Seminary and from there continued on with a Master in Theological Studies from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Divinity at the University of Toronto. From 2011-2016, he travelled extensively and studied with indigenous communities in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina as part of his PhD dissertation (2018) on “Faith Perspectives of Mexican Migrant Farm Workers in Canada”. He serves as affiliate faculty at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame.

Rafael is also part of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and his pieces focus on the experience of refugees and mission. 

Epitaph

by Holly Haile Thompson

I honor Green Rainbow, Uncle Louis Mofsie, Ho-Chunk/Hopi; Teacher of Culture to many generations, whose songs and dances echo all around the world and who models for us a dignified Elder. Tabutne… While we mourn 1,160,000 human beings, the number of worldwide deaths caused by Covid-19, November 2020.

“Ken kup-pe-andam-ouch wunnannum-monat neg samp-shanon-cheg wame neetomp eog. I pray that you bless and guide those who lead. A-hau. Tabutne.”

– A Shinnecock prayer

Epitaph
During my final year of seminary we were asked to write our own obituary. I’ve never forgotten that exercise, nor the humbling feeling of seeing one’s own life reduced to 5 or 6 sentences. It was a stark reminder that ‘from dust we have come and to dust we shall return.’ What happens in the meantime, the events themselves and – most meaningfully for me – our response to these things hopefully constitutes a worthy epitaph.

The ways in which we will live out our ministry can be unforeseen in the midst of our training, but I learned from examples set by the likes of Bartolome de Las Casas, The Rev. Samson Occom, Dr. Vine Deloria, Jr. and The Rev Dr. Katie Cannon, what we commit to paper may be the most important thing we can do with the witness that is given us. During the times when I’ve been “between churches” my ministry didn’t strictly reflect that for which I’d been trained, it manifested more copiously and broadly but with much less security and much more uncertainty; that freedom meant I was often unable to feed and house my family, yet that freedom offered me the undeniable opportunity to preach as if I weren’t worried about losing my job – and to do so far and wide.

How blessed are the poor – and the meek? How blessed are those who mourn and who go without? Are they cowered? Or are they emboldened to seek justice for their kindred? Must they be satisfied with a promised grand-reversal theology or might they be empowered to help usher in a divine corrective among the economically and politically disenfranchised? The five ‘wise and pious’ were unwilling to share their oil with the other five devout… yet those who refused to share were rewarded; the enslaved individuals were promoted or penalized by mimicking (or not) the questionable business practices of their Master. The goats’ calculated implementation of mercy has landed them in dire straits, while if a disciple’s understanding of ‘salvation’ doesn’t have them on sentry duty then outer-darkness may be in their future; this month’s lectionary includes Matthew 25, the hope of the PCUSA.

Several of my Native American colleagues suggested that each of us reflect upon Matthew 25 from our Indigenous perspectives, an exercise I enjoyed.

This is the 400th anniversary of the landing of the English refugees on Wampanoag land in what is now Massachusetts; 20 years hence other English arrived in the land of the Shinnecock where they were welcomed, fed, sheltered and provided with a place to live where they could hide from the Dutch who pursued them on the shores of Long Island. Surely this is the kind of discipleship and hospitality of which the Good News speaks, and obviously it wasn’t news to Nowedonah the Chief of the Shinnecocks at that time. In spite of his having traveled to Connecticut in 1637 to see first-hand the result of the massacre of the Pequot village led by Captain John Mason, our people “ministered to” the early strangers who almost immediately penned the first Deed forever dispossessing us of ‘Olde Towne’ in Shinnecock Territory.

So one Native American interpretation of the meaning of Matthew 25 is, and I paraphrase:

  • do what you were doing before the Whites came and stole your land, built fences, outlawed your spiritual practices and your language, polluted your water, began ‘family separation’ by taking children from their relatives and sending them off to Carlisle and Thomas – Residential/Boarding Schools to endure all manner of violence against their bodies, minds and against their culture, and
  • remember that we are Caretakers of our Mother the Earth, continue to practice hospitality and maintain your matrilineal and egalitarian societies wherein everyone eats when the whale is hunted, and
  • every Tribal Nation has woodland and waterfront that hunting and fishing is respected in each territory. and
  • beware of those who would prevent you from, “…being a free [person], free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my [parents], free to talk, think and act for myself”, as Chief Joseph eloquently stated

My Shinnecock reflection on Matthew 25 also requires the smallest observation of the place that punishment and punitive threats seems to play in the whole darn thing – “You did what!?!? Then damn you forever.” “You didn’t do what!?!?” Then damn you forever – again.

It takes nothing from me to declare to all of my siblings, Black Lives Matter; I speak against no one. It takes very little from me to occasionally recommit to walking with the PCUSA – even as they are among the last of the major protestant denominations to study, repudiate and discontinue the deadly, heretical, and inherently violent characteristics of the Doctrine of Discovery. This international doctrine of Christian domination wrongly codifies false religious/spiritual superiority, European and White privilege, justified the enslavement of human beings and murder; justified theft of land, water, timber, minerals, and murder; it justified centuries of family separation and, apparently, provides a lasting license to claim “humble-sheep” status among a world of wicked goats.

How much will engaging the world as a church newly committed to addressing and ending systemic racism, addressing and ending poverty bring a new vitality to our congregations, families and communities? It is exciting to know that we might build a new society that truly remembers how to include, respect and honor all of God’s children. This is all I have to say. Tabutne.


The Rev Holly Haile Thompson, DD is a blood member of the Shinnecock Nation, Long Island, NY, studied at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, IA, was graduated in 1985, ordained by the Presbytery of Western Colorado in 1986 becoming the first Native American Woman to become Minister of Word and Sacrament/Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Holly served congregations in Colorado and in New York state, is a member of several churchwide committees including the Racial Equity Advocacy Committee (REAC), the Native American Consulting Committee (NACC), and serves on the Doctrine of Discovery Speakers Bureau, all of the PCUSA denomination. Currently, Holly volunteers with the United Methodist Church’s northeast Native American Ministries Committee – supporting the UMC ongoing ‘Act of Repentance’. Holly most recently concluded her service with 1st Presbyterian Church Potsdam, NY as Transitional/Supply Pastor to explore what an “Anti-Racist Church” might look like. She works with the Poor Peoples’ Campaigns of Northern New York and of Long Island. Holly is married to Kahetakeron Harry Thompson of Akwesasne, and together they share 7 children, 16 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. “May our paths lead us to a time when we shall live together in Peace on Good Mother Earth.”

Holly is also a member of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and her writing focuses on indigenous theology and the lectionary.

Refugees in Liminal Spaces

by Rafael Vallejo, Ph.D.

Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it – Gen 28:16

In this blog we shall unpack the concept of liminality as it relates to mission and migration. Liminality is a concept first developed by Arnold Van Gennep in his book Les Rites de Passage in 1908. In 1969, Victor Turner expanded it and attached the idea of communitas to it. Turner believed that religion was key to understanding culture as ritual is key to understanding religion.

Liminal spaces according to these authors are generally marked by uncertainty and instability. In this series of blogs, I argue that liminality describes the experience of refugees living in camps, detention centers, and border-crossings. Here, they navigate between “what was” and “what is,” and struggle between “what is” and “what will be.” For refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers, resistance is bound up with place as well as time.

I write this piece at a liminal time when the world continues to wrestle with the impacts of the Covid-19 Global Health Pandemic. I am guessing that Van Gennep, were he alive today, would have described this liminal time as a global “rite of passage.”

Victor Turner associated liminality with communitas which he described as a feeling of kinship with others that comes from shared experiences. Refugees feel it in their common experience of loss, suffering, fragility, and violence (eg war, conflict) while in search of a better life. All of these liminal experiences happen within the context of displacement, diaspora, and for some, the constant threat of incarceration/deportation. I have therefore found liminality as a useful theoretical framework for describing the migrant/refugee experience.

I propose that in these liminal spaces marked by insecurity, uncertainty, and vulnerability refugees as “liminars” are performing what theologians refer to as Missio Dei or “The Mission of God.” Our understanding of Mission will not be complete without listening to the experiences of refugees and the many challenges they face in their communities of origin, transit and destination. I believe that the God is involved, connected and present among them in these liminal spaces.

Living in Liminal Spaces

Some scholars today challenge stereotypical portrayals of refugees as passive bodies, lacking political voice and agency (Nyers, 2006) while dependent on humanitarian groups to sustain their bodies. Let me share some examples of how refugees resist this kind of representation and how mission is enacted in some of these liminal spaces. Jonathan from DR Congo started his own community radio station in Nyarugusu, the largest refugee camp in the world located in Tanzania. Starting from just a small transmitter, he goes around the camp and then has a daily broadcast of what he hears from residents. Today he works out of a radio station (Radio Umoja : which means “unity” in Swahili) and his broadcasts reach places from Norway to the Americas. “Radio Umoja is independent. It belongs to the refugees,” says Jonathan.

Another example. In the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, the biggest camp in the world for Syrian refugees, everyday Ali Jibrail and his staff serve up to 7,500 falafels on the main street that refugees have renamed Hamadiyah to remind them of their largest market back home in Damascus. Everyday, Muhamad works from early morning till 9:00 in the evening mashing chickpeas and carefully weighing and mixing spices to make these delicious falafels.

In these liminal spaces, everyday resistance is one of the ways refugees reclaim agency and engage oppression. These acts of resistance have been described as “world-making” (Tsianos and Papadopoulos). They need not necessarily take the form of mass protests and civil uprisings. James Scott (1984) calls them “the weapons of the weak.” Etienne Balibar categorizes the migrants struggle as the new apartheid.

A cartography of migrant struggles worldwide includes movements for “the right to flee,” “the right to stay,” and “move freely.” In Sept 2016, hundreds of thousands of migrants demanded the right to cross borders. According to one report they came with “unexpected numbers and unbelievable strength.” Blocked in Budapest, many of them marched for days to reach Austria and then Germany by foot. Others went all the way to Sweden. They boarded trains and braved razor-wire fences and camped on city squares.

These collective, leaderless uprisings raised their voices and visibility around the world. They became a “multitude,” collectives of social subjects who gesture us towards counter-empire, an alternative political organization of global flows and exchanges (Hardt and Negri, 2000: 15) In the future, as more people listen and act, maybe new perspectives and structures will begin to emerge.

Excluded from citizenship, they enact citizenship rights and prefigure post-national visions on their own on a daily basis. They offer new knowledge and practices that subvert our neo-liberal politics. They offer “common sense” (Gramsci) a form of everyday thinking that offers us frameworks of meaning with which to make sense of our world.

Borders along with high-tech surveillance systems have not stopped migrants from looking for a better life for themselves and their families. Along with the rest of us, they believe that another world is coming our way. For me their struggle continues to be a sign of the “already present” and “not yet here” realm of God.


Rafael Vallejo started his theological career at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and San Francisco Theological Seminary and from there continued on with a Master in Theological Studies from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Divinity at the University of Toronto. From 2011-2016, he travelled extensively and studied with indigenous communities in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina as part of his PhD dissertation (2018) on “Faith Perspectives of Mexican Migrant Farm Workers in Canada”. He serves as affiliate faculty at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame.

Rafael is also part of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and his pieces focus on the experience of refugees and mission. 

On Faith, Politics, and Limits for the Church

by Rob Hammock

Being a Chicago kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, one couldn’t help being broadsided with the power and influence of politics on a city. When I was 5 years old, Mayor Richard J. Daley died. The “Boss” had presided over the city of Chicago for 21 years until his death. Through his control of the Cook County Democratic Party and the Mayor’s Office, he had successfully ruled the city and bent much of it to his will. However, being a South Side kid where most of the Black community lived, I had seen the limits of Daley’s power and knew that his influence was not always positive to the friends and family living in and surrounding my neighborhood. So, in 1983, at just the age of 12, after two terms removed from the late Mayor Daley, my mom and I became involved in the campaign of Harold Washington to become the city’s first African American mayor.

Despite being a seeming underdog in the Democratic primary facing an incumbent mayor and the aspiring son of the late Mayor Daley, Washington won the primary and subsequently became the mayor. Part of my impetus for being involved was the voice and witness of the Black church on the South Side. Churches and pastors had organized to promote someone they felt would fight for their interests. I saw Harold Washington and his part of the Democratic party as a champion for the underclass, the marginalized, and “the least of these”.

Five years later, when I was 16, I had my first taste of ecclesial politics. My mom and I were traveling to Texas for a couple of college visits. During that planned time, it also happened that the Southern Baptist Convention (“SBC”) was being held in San Antonio. Considering the timing and proximity, we attended the convention as official “messengers” representing our church. I was in for a rude faith awakening. My understanding of Jesus and my faith had come under the tutelage of a small, mixed Baptist congregation, where I had been baptized by a woman pastor. What I quickly learned at the convention was that there was no place for my brand of theology. Apparently, my naïve thinking of loving my neighbor in an urban environment with a woman pastor was anathema to the SBC.

The first evening I remember hearing the longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, W.A. Criswell, a key leader in the conservative takeover of the SBC, trumpet against the evils of liberalism. My Chicago church had been hanging on within the SBC as a moderate voice, and it would continue to do so for a number of years, but that was the beginning of the end of my life as a Southern Baptist. Without yet fully comprehending the alleged issues and “heresies” at stake according to the conservatives, I understood the desire for control and power. The legacy of “Boss” Daley had shown me what power-wielding influence and coercion were, and this was it. I was done with Baptist life.

But, despite that experience, I somehow doubled-down for Jesus. As I finished high school and college, I began to voraciously read to understand what the conservative takeover was about and why women and liberals were supposedly evil. I worked my way through reading about the theological gymnastics one would have to work through to fight the battle over the word “inerrancy”. I studied Paul and his letters to see how people came to the conclusion that women’s roles in the church should be limited such that they shouldn’t preach or have authority over a man. An undergraduate degree in Religion and a Master of Divinity later, I was left with the position that these battles were much more about maintaining control and power than they were about following Jesus and loving your neighbor. Reading tomes on the inerrancy of scripture and the limited place of women, I couldn’t square the intellectual gymnastics with my simple understanding that all of the law and the prophets could be summed up in love God and love your neighbor.

My desire for deeper theological understanding imbued with an underlying simplicity is perhaps why I was first drawn to the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Considering the voluminous nature of his works in Church Dogmatics, uttering the word simplicity alongside his name might bring a raised eyebrow. Yet, it was the story of an encounter with Barth at Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago in the 60’s that piqued my interest. The story, somewhat validated, somewhat questioned, was that a questioner asked Barth to sum up his theology in one sentence. Barth’s response was a proud Sunday School teacher’s dream, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Regardless of the story’s ultimate veracity, this gem pushed me forth to learn more from a man that seemed to want to thread the needle of simple faith and deep thought.

As I read more and more Barth, I was increasingly intrigued by him because of his description of “Evangelical Theology” and his context of working with German Christians. Despite my moving away from my SBC roots, I still longed to hold on to some connection to “evangelical” faith. Barth showed me a path: “Evangelical theology is modest theology, because it is determined to be so by its object, that is, by him who is its subject.” (Evangelical Theology: An Introduction). In its simplest meaning from the Greek, evangelical translates to “good message”. This was good news to me indeed. And, reading about Barth’s use of it outside of an American context, I began to see how the American cultural and political context had warped its meaning.

However, the writing that he was involved in that influenced me as much as any was “The Theological Declaration of Barmen”. This document was written in 1934 by representatives of the Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches of Germany that had organized in Barmen, Germany to bear witness over and against the larger German Church’s increasing alignment with Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism.* The following section helped me to more fully understand and caution me on the limits of politics as a vehicle of faithful action for the church. We are called to be faithful to God in Jesus Christ regardless of who is in political control and not succumb to bastardizing temptations of our good news that come with a desire for power.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the church’s vocation as well. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State…. The church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and Sacrament. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.
(“The Theological Declaration of Barmen”, 8.23-27)

“Let anyone with ears listen!” (Matthew 11:15, NRSV)

* For reference, see the introductory essay along with the actual statement from “The Theological Declaration of Barmen”, Book of Confessions: The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I.


Robert Hammock recently rolled off of the Session after a 3-year term at Caldwell Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC. Although trained at Princeton Theological Seminary (MDIV), the last 20 years of his career have been focused on affordable housing and community development efforts, primarily in urban contexts. He remains active in a leadership role through his church’s development of affordable housing through the re-purposing of part of its campus.

Rob is also a part of the NEXT Church blogging cohort, and his writing focuses on faith, ministry, and community development.

How Jesus Organizes and Agitates to Build Movements

by Chris Dela Cruz

Why did Jesus take three years before going to Jerusalem at the end of his life?

If you believe the analysis of the Biblical timeline, Jesus spent the majority of time gathering folks to follow him, often one-by-one, often purposely telling them not to spread the word of his miracles. He hid from the religious leaders multiple times out of safety.

The Church, though, often depicts the primary work of Jesus happening in his dying on the cross. If that’s true, why did Jesus have to hide and wait? Couldn’t he just have stormed into Jerusalem, declared himself Messiah and thus angering the religious leaders right away who were already wanting to capture him, and get the killing over with?

He didn’t do this, though. Because Jesus was a community organizer.

Think about it. The heart of community organizing, especially in the Industrial Areas Foundation model started by Saul Alinsky, are hosting one-on-one and small group relational meetings to understand people’s passions and self-interests, then start gathering in followers (ie disciples?), and identify potential leaders who will then bring in more followers – can anything good come out of Nazareth? Come and see!

So Jesus spends the bulk of his time on earth bringing in more people into the movement. The Scriptures depict this movement amassing little by little over the next three years, and Jesus and the disciples running small “actions” – in community organizing speak, these are events that provoke and agitate the status quo to react – whether it be healings that transform individual lives or sermons that both inspire and cause increasingly hostility mostly from people in power. These actions serve to gather more followers and lead them finally to Jerusalem to challenge the religious and political powers in perhaps the biggest Action of all time.

Why did Jesus do it this way? Because in his ministry of organizing, Jesus was amassing power.

There are many who shy away from talking about “worldly” power, especially when it comes to Jesus. Too many people have been abused, misused, and oppressed by those in power, and they rightfully want nothing to do with that. Others, though, say they want nothing to do with power and preach a Jesus who gave up all power, who Philippians 2’d his way onto the Throne, who preached nothing but humbling yourself and submitting – a convenient sermon often from those who already have plenty of power to give.

But it’s not as simple as this.

Because, yes, Jesus did indeed empty himself, taking the form of a slave, and humbling himself to the point of death- even death on a cross. But it’s not like no one was watching.

Jesus spent three years gathering thousands of followers, mostly poor and outcast, the original Poor People’s Movement. Then Jesus gathered all these people all in one place! Jesus did this so that, in the event of, say, a world-altering sin-and-death-shattering resurrection, Jesus’ followers would have the long-standing relational bonds, common self-interest, and developed leaders (I mean Peter finally got his act together, right?) that could start and sustain a movement, and they were all in one place to witness it and spread it more easily.

In other words, Jesus made sure his movement would have Power, which in community organizing speak is organized people and organized money. 

And power it had. Jesus told them to wait a little while longer, just as any organizer knows there’s always logistics and last minute calls making sure leaders commit to recruiting x amount of folks, figuring out who the speakers are (ugh why does Peter ALWAYS get to speak), and of course making sure there’s food (so the women have to pay for this thing and feed them? No, beloved disciple, you’re on cooking duties today).

Then the Movement held its first action without Jesus, Pentecost. Tongues were on fire! Languages burst out like the wind! Peter brought down the house! And three thousand people committed to spreading the Word.

Sure, they had the advantage of the Holy Spirit. But it turns out every God-ordained movement has the same advantage.

This has always been the work of the Church, to continue and organize the Jesus Movement, bring in new followers and build leaders and power through relationships, and perform in-the-world-but-not-of-it actions to agitate the status quo and move the world toward change for the Kingdom. We just forgot what movements look like because we fell in love with institutional power. 

At the same time, though, the answer is not as simple as abandoning institutions, as they serve as a means to relational power. Jesus doesn’t force in brute power to oppress, but you think Jesus doesn’t want stuff to change on earth? The Church moving either to consolidate oppressive power or to run away from any chance at systemic impact are both in their own ways denials of the Narrow Path of Jesus Power to witness to God’s Reign of justice, mercy, and peace.

Local church communities have a ton of potential power and impact just by their very nature. If power is organized people and organized money, churches are one of the few entities in modern life that gather large, intergenerational groups of people -and their tithes! – all in one place, regularly, with built in strong relational bonds and common self-interest.  

But we squander it. Yes “service” projects are great, even excellent, but there’s potential for far greater impact that could do so much good if only congregations knew how much power they truly had. Also, bringing your church into the Christ-ordained work of organizing brings out leadership you never expected. You’ll find people that may not be able to preach or teach Sunday School or lead Bible studies or organize church picnics – and thus not get the usual attention and recognition for their gifts – but just by their relationships and influence within them, they can bring 17 people easily to a rally.

Hip-hop artist Ruby Ibarra raps “I don’t pray cuz I organize.” Perhaps there is a way to have both, like inhaling and exhaling. We just have to be open to the call.


Reverend Chris Dela Cruz is the new Associate Pastor of Youth, Young Adults, and Community Engagement at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon. He has written for Next Church, Presbyterian Outlook, and other outlets. Prior to being an ordained pastor, he was a journalist for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey.

Chris writes about the intersection of faith, cultural trends, and American life.