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16 July 2015   •   No. 30

¶ Invocation. Who among you believe that / grieving and lamentation / are symptoms of despair. / Not so! / Only the hopeless are silent / in the face of calamity— / silenced because they no / longer aspire even to be heard, / much less heeded. The labor / of lament, on the other hand, / is premised on the expectation / that grief’s rule will be bound / by the Advent of Another. (Continue reading “The Labor of Lament” by Ken Sehested

A newly hatched sea turtle (right) makes its way to the ocean. Photo by Courtney Campbell, “The Pendulum,” Elon University Student News.

¶ Shores of hallelujah! “In Florida, sea turtles are making a comeback. The green turtle is leading the way. It's a species that a few decades ago was close to disappearing from the state, and the scope of its recovery is virtually unprecedented for an endangered species in the United States,” says National Public Radio host Robert Siegel. “As a scientist, I have to be a little bit careful about how I throw the word miracle around, but yes, I agree that, in this case, it is really quite extraordinary. —Lou Ehrhart, University of Central Florida researcher who has counted sea turtle nests in this refuge since the mid-'80s.

¶ A sign of the times if there ever was one. A day before announcing he is running for the GOP presidential nomination, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed legislation slashing $250 million from the state’s higher education budget—at about the same time the Wisconsin Senate $250 million in public funds for a new Milwaukee Bucks basketball arena.

¶ But there’s also this sign of the times. “The massacre at the AME church in Charleston is just the latest in a string of racially charged events that have broken my heart. There are a lot of things to fix in this country, but history says if we don't address this canker, centuries in the making, these things will continue to happen. No matter what level privilege you have, when the system is broken everybody loses. We all have to speak up when injustice happens. No matter what.” —Rhiannon Giddens (you may know of her former bluegrass/Americana band, The Carolina Chocolate Drops), speaking of her “Cry No More” spare musical performance—drum, solo and chorus—in response to the Charleston massacre.

¶ Unvarnished history. The controversy over the Confederate Battle Flag has pushed us all (not just Southerners) to face a less varnished version of history, particularly with regards to the language of freedom. Two additional reminders of our more complicated history:
        •In 1619, the year before the Mayflower arrived in New England, the Virginia immigrant community took delivery of African slaves from a Dutch trading ship.
        • “Having fled European conformity, the Puritans [of “New England”] sought conformity of their own. The irony was not lost on the Old World. ‘Every party cries out for Liberty & toleration,’ said the Lord Bishop of Salisbury, ‘till they get to be uppermost, and then will allow none.’
        “Anyone who did not believe as the Puritans did ‘shall have free liberty to keep away from us’ said the Massachusetts minister Nathaniel Ward in 1647.” —quoted in Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation

¶ Confession. “If we can let ourselves go in prayer and speak all that is in our minds and hearts, if we can sit quietly and bear the silence, we will hear all the bits and pieces of ourselves crowding in on us, pleading for our attention. Prayer’s confession begins with this racket, for prayer is noisy with the clamor of all the parts of us demanding to be heard. The clamor is the sound of the great river of being flowing in us.” —Ann and Barry Ulanov, “Primary Speech”

¶ Breathtaking. The recent agreement by the P5+1 nations (US, China, Russia, United Kingdom, France and Germany) with Iran about its nuclear production capacity is a breathtaking achievement, one which required 20 tough months of negotiation, on top of a decade before that of European diplomatic work with Iran. Now, though, resistance both in Iran and in the US will stiffen. Communicate with your congressional leaders: Be loud and proud of diplomatic solutions.

Above right: Diplomats from the United States, the UK, France, China, Russia, Germany and the European Union have been negotiating with the Iranians since 2013. Photo: Carlos Barria.

¶ “The Iran nuclear deal, translated into plain English,” a good primer on the agreement.

¶ This “US-Iran relations: A brief guide”  from the BBC provides needed perspective.

¶ Few here are aware of what Iranians have long known: Their country is surrounded by 48 US military bases. (Indicated by yellow stars on the map at left.) And that in 1953, with assistance from our British allies, the US overthrew the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed the dictator Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, to maintain access to the country’s oil reserves.

¶ “A new stage will begin, long and complex, on the road toward normalization, which will require the will to find solutions to the problems that have accumulated over more than five decades and hurt ties between our nations and peoples." —Cuban President Raul Castro, in a Wednesday speech on Cuban TV

¶ Making way for a new embassy. A worker (right) removes the "Cuban Interests Section" sign just days prior to the building being accredited as the Cuban Embassy, Wednesday, July 15, 2015, in Washington. Currently the Cuban Interest Section in US is under the auspices of the Swiss Government and located in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington. Photo by Bill Gorman, AP.

¶ Tongue-in-cheek satire from The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz. “Our adversarial relationships with Cuba and Iran took years of frostiness and saber-rattling to maintain,” Harland Dorrinson, the executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Infinite Conflict, said. “Thanks to the President, decades of well-crafted hostility have been thrown out the window.”

¶ Call to the table. "Call me foolish, but I'm guessing God would trade a little suffering piety in favor of more belly laughs." —Scott Pomfret, author of "Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir”

¶ The Pope is on a roll. “It was the strongest language I can remember a pope using about the rights of the poor and about social justice,” said James Martin, SJ, editor-at-large of America magazine. “In a stunning, nearly revolutionary, speech on Thursday in Bolivia, Pope Francis said that working for justice is not simply a moral obligation. For Christians, it is a commandment. ‘It is about giving to the poor and to people what is their right.’"

¶ Here is a sampling of Francis’ commentary, most of these in his 9 July address to participants of the second World Meeting of Popular Movements, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, an international body that brings together organizations of people on the margins of society, including the poor, the unemployed and peasants who have lost their land. (The Vatican hosted the first meeting last year.)

       •"Colonialism, both old and new, which reduces poor countries to mere providers of raw material and cheap labor, engenders violence, poverty, forced migrations and all the evils which go hand in hand with these, precisely because, by placing the periphery at the service of the center, it denies those countries the right to an integral development. That is inequality, and inequality generates a violence which no police, military, or intelligence resources can control."

Pope Francis donned a worker's hard hat to greet people in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on July 9. Photo: Alessandro Bianchi.

      •"The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of Mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and the imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor.”
        •"Do we realize that that system has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature?"
        •"Let us say NO to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth."
        •"Something is wrong in a world where there are so many farm workers without land, so many families without a home, so many laborers without rights, so many persons whose dignity is not respected."
        •“Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible harm is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pains, death and destruction there is the stench of what [fourth century saint] Basil of Caesarea called 'the dung of evil.' An unfettered pursuit of money rules."

¶ Preach it. “Prophetic grief is different from pathetic grief. Pathetic grief is angry, mad, vicious, bitter, always blaming others. And then there is sympathetic grief, where we pass out sympathy but do not necessarily enter into the other person’s tragic moment. But then there is prophetic grief, where we stand inside of the other’s wounds, and hurt, and blood, and tears, and sorrow.” —Rev. Otis Moss Jr.

¶ “ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, knew as early as 1981 of climate change—seven years before it became a public issue, according to a newly discovered email from one of the firm’s own scientists. Despite this the firm spent millions over the next 27 years to promote climate denial. The email from Exxon’s in-house climate expert provides evidence the company was aware of the connection between fossil fuels and climate change, and the potential for carbon-cutting regulations that could hurt its bottom line, over a generation ago. . . .” —Suzanne Goldenberg, “Exxon Knew of Climate Change in 1981, Email Says – but It Funded Deniers for 27 More Years”

¶ Next week—26 July—marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disability Act. The Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition has several free resources for use by local congregations, including a bulletin insert (to raise awareness), “Suggested Steps for Congregations” (to expand employment opportunities), and “That All May Worship: An Interfaith Welcome to People with Disabilities.”
        •For some keen theological reflections by one living with the aftereffects of traumatic brain injury, see Tamara Puffer’s “Nogginnotions” blog.
        •Also see “By the Beautiful Gate,” a call to worship for use in a service commemorating the “Americans With Disability Act” passage in 1990.

¶ Altar call. “Make a mess, but then also help to tidy it up. A mess which gives us a free heart, a mess which gives us solidarity, a mess which gives us hope.” —Pope Francis, to a crowd of young people in Paraguay

¶ Benediction. “Shalom Aleichem" (Peace Be Upon You), by The Shuk, a Jewish roots-rock, genre-crossing musical group.

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “The Labor of Lament,” a poem about the healing capacity of lament

• “By the Beautiful Gate,” a call to worship for use in a service commemorating the “Americans With Disability Act” passage in 1990.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.

9 July 2015  •  No. 29

¶ Invocation. Listen, O people of the Way, and take note. Your ancestors were once illegal aliens in the land of Southern Appalachia. Boat people, all of you, undocumented immigrants. Scots-Irish trash; crackers and kaffirs, wetbacks and wops; gooks, goyim, gringos and gypsies. / Strangers we were, with no stake in the Promise; hopeless, helpless, beggarly-born. (Continue reading “Strangers we were,”  by Ken Sehested.)

¶ Hymn of praise. Kate Campbell, “Jesus and Tomatoes Coming Soon,”  Get your own “Jesus and Tomatoes Coming Soon” bumper sticker ($5 postpaid) at katecampbell.com.  While you’re there, sample the tracks from her fabulous new album, “1000 Pound Machine.”

¶ Good read. “How a White Supremacist Became a Civil Rights Activist: The story of a KKK leader’s transformation shows us that we need not live forever with the kind of violence we saw in Charleston last week.” —Araz Hachadourian, Yes! Magazine

¶ Title Nine this. The men’s 2015 world cup soccer game payment was $576 million, nearly 40 times as much as for women’s $15 million prize. The US men’s team is ranked 27th in the world. The women’s team ranked #1. National Women’s Soccer League salaries range from $6,000 to $30,000. In aggregate, the women make 98.6 less than men. —Mary Pilon, “The World Cup pay gap: What the U.S. and Japan didn’t win in the women’s soccer final”

¶ “In the immediate aftermath of the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, the the US House of Representatives epresentatives Appropriations Committee quietly rejected an amendment that would have allowed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the underlying causes of gun violence.” —“Quietly, Congress extends a ban on CDC research on gun violence”

¶ The first of 12 Republican Party presidential candidate debates is less than a month away. The field will be culled to the top 10 (of 16 current or probable) candidates based on polling. “A big field does not allow depth of discussion of issues—‘these are debates for the age of Twitter,’ says Princeton political historian Julian Zelizer—and encourages grandstanding and showboating by candidates desperate for attention. ‘My favorite part of the campaign,’ said Patrick Millsaps, Newt Gingerich’s presidential campaign chief in 2012. ‘It’s not great for democracy,’ said Zelizer, ‘but it’s good TV.’” —Rick Hampson, “10-Candidate Debate: Circus, cattle call or not mess?”

¶ Megamouth Donald Trump, currently polling second among Republican candidates, recently had some scurrilous comments about undocumented Mexican immigrants—comments which may force other GOPers to make more substantive policy proposals on the topic of immigration. This fall would be a good time to plan special Christian education programs on the topic. Among the resources you can consider are “Out of the House of Slavery: A Bible study on immigration,” and “Strangers & Aliens: A collection of biblical texts regarding the fate of immigrants.”  Litanies for worship: “Strangers we were,” inspired by Ephesians 2:11-12  and “You shall also love the stranger.”

Mexican artist Dalton Avalos Ramirez created this Donald Trump piñata (at right) as a response to Trump’s bloviations.

¶ Lection for Sunday next. “Come away . . . and rest a while” (Mark 6:31a). See “Steal away,” a litany for worship inspired by Mark 6:30-34.

¶ Hymn of assurance. “Steal Away,” Wells College Concert Choir.

¶ How did this association come to be? This area “is populated with too many still singing ‘gimme that old time religion’ and with extreme gun rights advocates believing that every person toting a loaded weapon at all times is best for America.” —letter to the editor, Asheville Citizen-Times

¶ Gimme that REALLY old time religion. “So now the LORD says, "Stop right where you are! Look for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16a, b).
        •“But [the unrighteous] said, ‘We will not walk in it’” (Jeremiah 6:16c).
        • For “they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy” (Jeremiah 5:27b-28).
        • “Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place”  (Jeremiah 22:3).

¶ It was a “controversial sermon” earlier this year that got MidAmerica Nazarene University Chaplain Randy Beckum into trouble with his school’s administration. Some in his chapel audience were upset by his suggestion that Christians should take seriously Jesus’ injunction to love one’s enemies and his questions about Christians’ use of violence. The Olathe, Kansas, school’s president issued a statement affirming academic freedom, even when the opinions “may not reflect official policy . . . and our core values.” —Christian Century

¶ Competing text. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am the baddest motherf**cker in the valley.” —Jamie Foxx as Marine Staff Sergeant Sykes in the movie “Jarhead,” about “Operation Desert Storm” in 1991 following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait

¶ Support our troops! “Members of the Texas-based Helping a Hero charity told ABC News that [former President George W.] Bush charged $100,000 for his 2012 speech at a charity fundraiser for veterans who lost limbs in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. The former president was also given use of a private jet at a cost of $20,000 and former First Lady Laura Bush was paid $50,000 to speak to the group last year.” —CNN

¶ “No one should be surprised, let alone dismayed, that the negotiations [between the US and Cuba] have been tense. After all, 50-plus years of outright hostilities cannot be undone in the course of a few meetings. Both governments are under pressure from factions within their own countries to preserve the status quo.” (Stan Hastey’s “Reflections on changes in US-Cuba relations.” )

¶ “In the two years since the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, there have been at least 94 school shootings, including fatal and nonfatal assaults, suicides, and unintentional shootings — an average of nearly one a week.” —“Analysis of School Shootings: December 15, 2012 – December 9, 2014,” Everytown for Gun Safety

¶ “More people are killed by 'white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims': 48 vs. 26 since 9/11, according to a study by the New America Foundation. (More comprehensive studies cited in a recent New York Times op-ed show an even greater gap, with 254 killed in far-right violence since 9/11, according to West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, compared to 50 killed in jihadist-related terrorism.)
        “But in a piece all about the ‘mismatch between public perceptions and actual cases,’ the entity most charged with making sure these match–the news media–doesn’t get much scrutiny. There is research on this question–such as a study from University of Illinois communications professor Travis Dixon, summarized in the Champaign/Urbana News Gazette.
        “Between 2008 and 2012, about 6 percent of domestic terrorism suspects were Muslim, or about 1 in 17, according to FBI reports. — Jim Naureckas, “That Most Terrorists Aren’t Muslim May ‘Come as a Surprise’—if You Get Your News From Corporate Media”

¶ Speaking of the disconnect between public perception and actual fact, stories of shark attacks on the US east coast have everyone talking. But did you know you’re 20 times more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark? 52 times more, by deer and other mammals? 58 times more, by bees and wasps? And when was the last time you paused, before driving to the market, to ask yourself “Maybe it’s too great a risk (since 33,000 people die in auto accidents each year)?” —Christopher Ingraham, “Chart: The animals that are most likely to kill you this summer”

¶ This just in. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed legislation authorizing the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds. Last week the SC Senate easily approved the measure. Following 13 hours of debate that ended shortly after midnight Wednesday, the House followed suit. The flag is scheduled to be lowered at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

¶ “We long for our churches to be safe places to doubt, to ask questions, and to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.”
        These words, from a popular young author in progressive Christian circles, have a certain sophisticated cachet. But I wonder if the import indicates more than a kissing-cousin kinship with the me-and-Jesus piety of evangelical culture—substituting the unfettered mind for the redeemed soul, retaining the elevated self as the center of Redemption’s story.
        So, I asked, what different rendering would I give? Here’s my attempt—which, admittedly, isn’t quite as concise:
        “We long for churches that incubate Spirit-inspired risks, that permit joyful exuberance alongside full-throated grief, that embrace the world’s agony in anticipation of its coming revelry.”
        What about you? How would you express your similar longing? —Ken Sehested

¶ Distracted walking. A 17 June report issued by the National Safety Council (NSC) claims there were an estimated 11,101 injuries reported between 2001 and 2011 as a result of “distracted walking.” The NSC also reports that 1.6 million car crashes occur annually as a result of cell phone use, and one out of every four car accidents in the US is caused by texting while driving. View the short video, “When Texting While Walking Goes Wrong—Funny Accidents and Falls.”

¶ Call to the table. “Mexican-American theologian Virgilio Elizondo highlights the importance of fiestas” for people in Latina/o cultures. (‘Elements for a Mexican American Mestizo Christology’ in Jesus in the Hispanic Community). “After recounting the oppression that these people have faced due to unjust systems. . . he describes that fiestas provide an opportunity to celebrate the most valuable elements in their present lives. . . .
        “But fiestas, Elizondo affirms, have also eschatological elements that are prophetic and represent a call to action. While these fiestas may be used in some settings as a sort of drug to pacify the people, a true fiesta is a celebration of a new future in God. ‘In these fiestas, we rise above our daily living experiences of death to experience life beyond death. . . .  Fiesta is a foretaste and experience, even if for a brief moment, of the ultimate accomplishment (eschatological banquet).’”  —Nora O. Lozano, “A Summer of Baptist Fiestas, Baptist News Global

Art (at right) ©Julie Lonneman

¶ Altar call. “There is no one to send, / not a clean hand nor a pure heart / on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, / a generation comforting ourselves with the notion / that we have come at an awkward time, / that our innocent fathers are all dead as if innocence had ever been / and our children busy and troubled, / and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready / having each of us chosen wrongly, / made a false start, failed, / yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, / and grown exhausted unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. / But there is no one but us. / There never has been. —Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

¶ Benediction. “For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn’t know we needed and take us to places where we didn’t want to go.” —Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Stranger & Aliens: A collection of biblical texts regarding the fate of immigrants”

• “Strangers we were,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 2:11-12

• “You shall also love the stranger,” a litany for worship

• “Out of the House of Slavery: A Bible study on immigration”

• “Reflections on changes in US-Cuba Relations” by Stan Hastey

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.

2 July 2015  •  No. 28

¶ Invocation. “With good pleasure, in the beginning, the Beloved aspired all that now breathes. Then again, in the Lovely One, even Christ Jesus, the Wind of Heaven confounds the wail of rancor. Come, heaven! Come, earth! With mercy so tender, adopted in splendor, all bloodletting malice shall melt into praise.” (Continue reading “Good Pleasure,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 1:3-14.)

¶ “Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?” —Lily Tomlin

¶ Just amazing. Vivian Boyack, age 91 (at left in the photo), and Alice “Nonie” Dubes, age 90, have been together for 72 years, and this past weekend they tied the knot in Davenport, Iowa. “This is a celebration of something that should have happened a very long time ago,” said Rev. Linda Hunsaker who performed their wedding. (Photo by Thomas Geyer)

¶ The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? —Pablo Casals

¶ “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled there will be America's heart, her benedictions and her prayers.  But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.  She is the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all. . . . The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . . . She might become the dictatress of the world; she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.” —President John Quincy Adams, Washington D.C., July 4, 1821

¶ It is a myth that “founding father” Benjamin Franklin recommended that a turkey replace the bald eagle on the first Great Seal of the US, created by the Second Continental Congress, though he did have disparaging words about the eagle. Some might say Franklin’s estimate of the eagle’s character flaws was inadvertently prophetic.
        “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
        “With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing. . . .” —Benjamin Franklin, writing from France on 26 January 1784 to his daughter Sally (Mrs. Sarah Bache) in Philadelphia

¶ The "lost" verse of Woodie Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." "In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple / Near the relief office – I see my people / And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin' / If this land's still made for you and me."

¶ “Our country has always held freedom in high regard, though these days the concept seems more likely championed by people who feel oppressed by their cell phone plan. . . .” —Becky Upham, “Hank III,” ashevillescene.com

¶ The American way. “Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage: / This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage. / An' you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A. / 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way." —Toby Keith, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” (aka “The Angry American”)

¶ Lamentation. “If we lived in a world without tears / How would misery know / Which back door to walk through / How would trouble know / Which mind to live inside of / How would sorrow find a home?” —Lucinda Williams, “World Without Tears”

¶  “Unlike most countries, we have no overt national religion; but a partly concealed one has been developing among us for two centuries now. It is almost purely experiential, and despite its insistences [to the contrary], it is scarcely Christian in any traditional way. A religion of the self burgeons, under many names, and seeks to know its own inwardness, in isolation. What the American self has found, since about 1800, is its own freedom—from the world, from time, from other selves.” —Harold Bloom, The American Religion

¶ Words of assurance. Among the memory prods in Charleston’s aftermath is the reminder about the Spirit’s lurking—about whose presence we must foster, which whereabouts we must find, if we are to hear with clarity the proffered promise:
        “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don't give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going. So we don't look at the troubles we can see right now. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever” (1 Corinthians 4:8-10, 18). —Ken Sehested

Artwork by Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio rlmartstudio.com

¶ “There’s been a sea change moment out there and the issue has really come to light,” says Reggie Vandenbosch, chair of the Flag Manufacturers Association of America. “We’re just simply not going to participate in production or selling of these [Confederate flags] out of sensitivity and not wanting to create anybody any additional emotional pain.” —quoted in Gregg Zoroya and Hadley Malcolm, “Amazon, eBay pull flag sales from sites,” USA Today

¶ “It’s not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., former Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court

¶ “In a landmark ruling that many hope establishes a new global precedent for a state's obligation to its citizens in the face of the growing climate crisis, a Dutch court on Wednesday said that the government has a legal duty to reduce carbon emissions by 25% by 2020. The decision came in response to a lawsuit, launched in November 2013 by the Amsterdam-based environmental nonprofit Urgenda Foundation along with 600 Dutch citizens, which argued that the government was violating international human rights law by failing to take sufficient measures to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions.” —Lauren McCauley, “In Historic Ruling, Dutch Court Says: Climate Action is a Human Right”

¶ Confession. “We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.“ —Dorothy Sayers

¶ The coincidence of the massacre in Charleston on 17 June and the release on 18 June of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment (“Laudato Si,” Latin for “Praised Be to You,” which appears in “Canticle of the Sun” by St. Francis, the Pope’s namesake) resulted in the latter being squeezed from the news. Following are a few significant quotes.
        •”The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”
        •"Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years."
        •"The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology . . . is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth's goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit."
        •"A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system . . . due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases released mainly as a result of human activity."
        •"Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start."
       •"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."

¶ If your primary source for public information on “terrorism” is mainstream headlines, you’d think jihadists are public enemy number one. But the 2014 Police Executive Research Forum says otherwise. “An officer from a large metropolitan area said that ‘militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens’ are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism.'
        “Despite public anxiety about extremists inspired by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, the number of violent plots by such individuals has remained very low. Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13.5 years. In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities.” —Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer, The Other Terror Threat,” New York Times

¶ Preach it. “Beatitudes,” Sweet Honey in the Rock

¶ Overheard. Waiting in line behind a woman speaking on her cellphone in another language. Ahead of her is a white man. After the woman hangs up, he speaks up.
        Man: “I didn’t want to say anything while you were on the phone, but you’re in America now. You need to speak English.”
        Woman: “Excuse me?”
        Man: *speaking very slowly* “If you want to speak Mexican, go back to Mexico. In America, we speak English.”
        Woman: “Sir, I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England.”

¶ Altar call. “‘I am wronging no one,’ you say, ‘I am merely holding on to what is mine.’ What is yours! Who gave it to you so that you could bring it into life with you? Why, you are like a man who pinches a seat at the theater at the expense of latecomers, claiming ownership of what was for common use. That’s what the rich are like; having seized what belongs to all, they claim it as their own on the basis of having got there first. Whereas if everyone took for himself enough to meet his immediate needs and released the rest for those in need of it, there would be no rich and no poor.” —Basil of Caesarea, fourth century Greek bishop

¶ Benediction. “Time is how you spend your love.” —Zadie Smith

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Good Pleasure,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 1:3-14 

• “There are more with us than there are with them,” a sermon on Elijah

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.

26 June 2015  •  No. 27

¶ Invocation. A different “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” (Since I Lay My Burden Down).  —Staple Singers

Photo at right: Jacob Kerr, Huffington Post

¶ Pride history. While posting this edition, news of the US Supreme Court’s decision validating the right for same-sex couples to marry. [photo cap: Jacob Kerr, Huffington Post]
        This news comes only days after another milestone moment: “Nearly 46 years after powerful protests there galvanized the modern gay rights movement, New York City's historic Stonewall Inn has been granted official landmark status. It was June 28, 1969, when police raided the Greenwich Village bar that served gay clientele in an era of intolerance toward homosexuality.” —Deirdre Fulton, “Stonewall Inn, Celebrated Birthplace of Modern Gay Rights Movement, Gets Landmark Status”

¶ “Columbia University on Monday announced that it would divest from the private prison industry and ban reinvestment in companies that operate prisons, making it the first college “ to divest. “The announcement follows 16 months of campaigning by the prison abolitionist group Students Against Mass Incarceration, which launched after a number of students discovered in 2013 that the school had invested roughly $10 million of its endowment in the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and G4S, two for-profit companies that operate private detention centers and prisons around the world.” —Nadia Prupis, “Following Student-Led Campaign, Columbia to Divest from Prisons”

¶ God Bless America—the song. Isaiah Berlin’s patriotic song, “God Bless America,” was first written in 1918 but not released until 1938 in the lead up to the US entry into World War II. The song was often sung at labor organizing rallies and in the early days of the civil rights movement. Berlin donated the song’s royalties to the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of the USA. One of the song’s critics, Woodie Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” as a rejoinder. The song has occasionally been played at professional sporting events as a substitute for “The Star Spangled Banner,” and numerous Major League Baseball teams play it during the seventh-inning stretch.

Art at right. www.OhioCountryCrafts.com

¶ God Bless America—the political benediction. In The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America, authors David Domke and Kevin Coe report that prior to President Ronald Reagan, the use of “God Bless America” was used only once in modern political history (beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inauguration), by Richard Nixon, as he attempted to extract himself from the Watergate scandal. The phrase is now something of a political piety. —See their article in the 29 April 2008 edition Time magazine

¶ The use by politicians of “God bless America” is typically spoken as a kind of entitlement and backdrop to the use of the word “exceptional” in describing American presence in the world. Some years ago I wrote to biblical scholar/activist Ched Myers, asking him about this presumptuous usage.
        His research turned up the fact that “Of the 41 appearances of the Greek verb eulogeoo (literally ‘speaking a good word’), only twice do we find it in the imperative mood. In neither case does it involve God. It does, however, involve us. In Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Plain he invites his disciples to ‘Bless those who curse you’ (Luke 6:28). These instructions are later echoed by the apostle Paul: ‘Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse’ (Romans 12:14)." Blessings are to be commanded not to me and mine but to them and theirs. (See Myers' “Mixed Blessing: A Biblical Inquiry into a ‘Patriotic’ Cant”)

¶ “‘What to the Slave is the Fourth July?’  by Frederick Douglass [5 July 1852] is not only a brilliant work of oratory. It speaks to our every frustration spurred by the gap between the ideals of the United States and the reality we witness every day. . . .  As Douglass says, ‘Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.’” —Dave Zirin, The Nation, 4 July 2012

¶ For a review of how US patriotism and free marketeering press-ganged Christianity into service in the mid 20th century, see “How ‘One Nation’ Didn’t Become ‘Under God’ Until the ‘50s Religious Revival,” the National Public Radio interview with Kevin M. Kruse, author of One Nation Under God.

¶ There are two great ironies behind the “Liberty Bell,” associated with the founding convictions of the United States of America. (Continue reading “Proclaim Liberty: Two ironies behind that iconic bell.”)  See also “Proclaim Liberty: A litany for worship around US Independence Day”

¶ Lection for Sunday next. Here in the US, the shadow of our nation’s 4 July Independence Day almost always overshadows the assigned Scripture text for the day. If you’re looking for a principal alternate text, I recommend Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land and unto the inhabitants thereof.” Tell the story of the “Liberty Bell.” (See the note above for background.)

¶ “The doors are open at Emanuel this Sunday, sending a message to every demon in Hell and on Earth that no weapon, no weapon, shall prosper!” —Rev. Norvel Goff, named interim pastor at Emanuel AME Church following the 17 shooting, referencing Isaiah 54:17: “No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, says the Lord.”

¶ This 12+ minute video features Rev. (and state senator) Clementa C. Pinckney reviewing the history of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the oldest black church in the South outside of Baltimore. (Thanks, Buddy.) The state of South Carolina banned black churches in 1834 out of fear that such communities would foster slave rebellions.

¶ “As President Obama told the nation’s mayors Friday, ‘Every country has violent, hateful or mentally unstable people. What’s different is not every country is awash with easily accessible guns.’ The president’s remarks about Charleston marked his 14th statement about shootings—11 of them in the US—since he took office.” —Rem Rieder, “No, not ‘too soon’ to talk about gun control"

¶ In the surge of writing following the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the most significant may be Roxane Gay’s “Why I Can’t Forgive Dylann Roof.” I think it most significant not because I agree but because it states what so many assume because of a culturally-warped reading of Scripture. (Continue reading “Forgiveness is not forgetting.” )

¶ Ceremonial tears and politically-feigned regrets. “[T]his forgiveness [of Dylann Roof by family members of those killed at Emanuel AMC Church in Charleston] should not be misinterpreted as a dismissing of the greater evil. The forgiveness in Charleston is also an act of resistance to the attempts to lay the blame for this horror at the feet of one man.” —Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, “Justice After Charleston”

¶ “I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is the most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.” —Dylann Roof, accused of killing nine people in Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel AME Church

¶ "Make no mistake. Hate crimes are the original domestic terrorism.'' —US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, during a recent visit to the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama

¶ “To quote [Martin Luther] King about the "beloved community" and not get serious about gun violence in America is, at best, empty rhetoric, and at worst, a malignant mangling of his message. If you're going to quote King, then vote King: Get serious about gun control.” —Tavis Smiley, “5 Lessons Charleston Can Teach Us About Race, Guns and Healing”

¶ Demand a plan to address to gun violence. One minute of fed-up celebrities talking about guns is worth your time. “They packed more pissed-off celebrities than I could count into a 1-minute video for everyone to see.”

¶ This photo (right) is from the early 1920s, probably in Portland, Oregon, in which robed and hooded Ku Klux Klan members share a stage with members of the Royal Riders of the Red Robe, a Klan auxiliary for foreign-born white Protestants. A large banner reading “Jesus Saves” occupies a prominent position on the wall at the rear of the stage and testifies to the strong role that Protestantism played in the KKK philosophy of “100 percent Americanism.”

¶ Preach it. “Without truth, no healing; without forgiveness, no future. —South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

¶ Cascading changes in the Confederate flag’s public presence.
        • In South Carolina on Tuesday, lawmakers voted to take up legislation to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds, one day after Republican Governor Nikki Haley made similar remarks.
        • Also Tuesday, the governors of Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia announced they would no longer be issuing state license plates featuring the Confederate flag. On Wednesday both of Mississippi’s US Senators called for removal of the state flag, which contains the Confederate flag.
        • Retailers Walmart, Amazon, Sears, Ebay and Etsy announced bans on the sale of Confederate flag merchandise.
        • One of the nation's largest flag manufacturers, Valley Forge Flag, on Tuesday also said they would no longer produce or sell Confederate flags.
        • In Mississippi, House leader Philip Gunn (R) called for the Confederate emblem to be removed from the state flag.
        • Tennessee lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are calling for the removal of statue of Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest from the statehouse.
        • In Kentucky, the Republican nominee for governor, Matt Bevin, is urging the removal of a statue honoring Jefferson Davis from the Capitol.

¶ Call to the table. “Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.” —Hannah Arendt

Art at right ©Julie Lonneman

¶ Benediction. “My church and my country could use a little mercy now / As they sink into a poisoned pit it's going to take forever to climb out / They carry the weight of the faithful who follow them down / I love my church and country, they could use some mercy now.” —Mary Gauthier, “Mercy Now”

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Proclaim Liberty: Two ironies behind that iconic bell”

• “Proclaim Liberty: A litany for worship around US Independence Day”

• “Forgiveness is not forgetting: Charleston’s challenge”

• “In the Shadow of a Steeple: Time for a post-national church?”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.