B184. The Last Fourth of July?

Yesterday I saw a man sitting outside the post office, carrying a large wooden cross that was draped in a flag. This is "Christian Nationalism," a dangerous political wolf disguised in church sheep clothing. We can love our faith, and we can love our nation, but when we allow the two to become one, we invoke the destruction of them both.

248 years ago today, the 13 American colonies declared themselves a separate nation independent from the British Empire. My dear friends and family, if we do not wake up from our in-fighting and work together to save the Republic we love, it might never reach its 250th birthday. Our nation has never been at such a dangerous point.

We must listen to each other, really listen, especially to those outside our chosen boxes (church organization, political party, news sources, etc). We must acknowledge that none of us understands all that's happening. We must realize that Christian Nationalism is our common enemy and has orchestrated for its own power our animosity toward each other.

Hard truths: The extremist political machine we call Christian Nationalism has successfully taken control of evangelical Christianity, a strategy it began in the 1970s, and in more recent years the Republican Party. The evangelical church now makes up 1/3 of the now Christian Nationalist controlled Republican party and is being used by it. "Christian Nationalism" is politics. It is not Christianity. Neither the Republican Party nor the Evangelical Church resembles the party or church I knew in my youth. It grieves my soul.

We are distracted now by Biden's age. It is an intentional distraction, one of many. If Biden is unable to fulfill his duties, he will be replaced, and our democratic republic will go on. We will continue to celebrate our nation's birthday every 4th of July, and we will continue to hold elections in which we all can have a voice. This is not what Christian Nationalism plans for our nation.

We have 4 months to come together to save this country we love. 4 months and 2 days will be too late. This July 4, remember January 6. Remember the Holocaust. Remember school and church shootings. Remember the pledge of allegiance, the patriotic songs we love, and the pride of our shared rights and freedoms. Remember the Jesus of the Gospels. Remember when we, you and I, did not think of each other as enemies but as friends, as cousins, as siblings. This July 4, we must come together, focusing not on two men, but on one democratic republic, one nation indivisible, for the loss of that nation is the very real threat to us all.

B183. Women's Suffrage Anniversary

Following a battle that lasted over 70 years, the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote, was passed by the US Congress and sent to the states for ratification on this day 105 years ago. June 4, 1919.

Have you seen the movie Iron Jawed Angels about Alice Paul? Do you know the amazing stories of suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, Julia Ward Howe, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Anna Howard Shaw, and Jane Adams? Did you know that the 19th amendment did not include black women and that most black women in the US were unable to vote for several more decades?

Do you know what year women in the U.S. could legally take out a business loan without a male cosigner? (Guess before you Google.) Do you know what percentage of a man's salary a woman makes today for the exact same job? Do you know how valuable our rights and freedoms are and how quickly they could disappear for us all? Vote, my friends, vote with diligence and wisdom.

B182. Life is Like a Deck of Cards

I always loved playing cards - any kind of cards: Rook, Rummy, Canasta, Pinochle, Hearts - because I loved the challenge of playing with whatever hand I was dealt - the best of hands, the worst, and most often somewhere in between.

Life is like that too. We're dealt different ages we've never played before, different relationships, new roles, hands of deepest sadness and greatest joy. I love the challenge of playing each hand the best I can and learning new life strategies along the way.

B181. Following The Real Jesus

 To follow Jesus is to follow a leader for whom wealth and power had no importance, who was neither American nor white nor Christian, who never spoke English, never carried or stockpiled weapons, and never aligned himself with a political party.

When our churches are corrupted by politics, which happens so slowly that we don't see it happening, we find ourselves worshipping and serving a made-up Jesus who bears no resemblance at all to the Jesus of the Gospels.

The life and teachings of the real Jesus are much more difficult to follow. Have you ever read his most famous sermon from beginning to end, all alone, as if you were reading a letter from him to you? Matthew, chapters 5-7. Read it once. Then read it again. It will shake your world.

B180. White Nationalism: It's Not of God

 You know the men who stormed the Capitol building in 2021? And the men who marched with torches through Charlottesville in 2017? This is White Nationalism, American Fascism, and they are everywhere. In recent years they have taken control of the Republican party. In the 1980s they took control of Southern Baptists, the largest protestant denomination in the country.

Have you ever wondered why people stay in cults. How could women believe that God wanted them all to have sex with the cult leader? Why did everyone drink the poisonous Kool-Aid? Because it happens slowly and methodically. What they hear, what they read, even what they sing, are so controlled that it becomes all they know, and they are indoctrinated to believe that those who speak against their reality are of the devil.

The children born into the system never knew anything different. Many of us are those children.

Have you been indoctrinated to believe that God says men are to be the head of their wives? Have you been indoctrinated that Roe v. Wade is primarily about babies, or that LGBT people are sinners destined to hell? Do you believe God is partial to America, or that college education is detrimental to spirituality? Do you use the word liberal (from the same root as liberty) as a slur? Do you believe that black people and Hispanic people are hardworking good people but created a little lower than you? Dear friend, these indoctrinations are not of God. They are of White Nationalism and White Fascism, and they are about Power and Control. Yes, I know this is not what you have always been told . . . That's what we are both saying.

Once we see it, we can never be un-woke. And if you don't see it, dear friend, you are probably caught inside it, religiously, politically, or both. It is not your fault, but if we don't vote these people out of their positions of power, we are in real danger of becoming a fascist nation where none of us will have basic rights or basic protections.

B179. Never Forget

Billions chose to ignore the evidence and believe his televised denials that it was happening. Others agreed with his propaganda that everyone who didn't follow his ideologies should be exterminated. Many who saw the evil were afraid if they spoke out they would also be killed.

 
First Communists were targeted, and Social Democrats and Trade Unionists. Jehovah's Witnesses because they refused to take an oath of obedience to him. Gay males. Freemasons. Disabled. Gypsies, Blacks, Polish, Slovenes, Serbs, Russians, Ukrainians, Spanish Republicans, and especially Jews because he considered all of these groups threats or racially inferior to his own.

Their property/land was taken. They were forced into slave labor, sex slavery, medical experimentation, concentration camps, the gas chamber . . . 6 million Jews alone, and an estimated additional 11 million from these other groups, tortured and exterminated between 1941-1945 under the commands of one evil and power-hungry man.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, that we never ever forget what one man is capable of doing when a culture loses its soul to politics.


Love one another, for love is of God. Those who love know God, and those who do not love do not know God. (1John 4:7-8)


Reread, my friend, aloud this time. You and I are writing tomorrow's history with our voices and choices.

(Yellow star image from Wiikipedia)

B178. Separating Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism

 Distinguishing between similar words is one of the best, fastest, and easiest ways to stretch our minds. Think with me about Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism.

Prejudice is a negative judgment against a particular group of people before getting to know them: maybe because of their race or religion or political leaning, maybe because of what they wear, or their last name . . . Prejudice is individual, learned, and born out of fear and lack of understanding. All humans have some kind of prejudice. We are taught our prejudices, and we can work at unlearning them.

Discrimination is action taken toward our prejudice. Discrimination can be individual, like choosing not to sit with a Muslim on the bus or the girl in the wheelchair in the lunchroom; or it can be action taken by a group, on a small or large scale. Not all discrimination is about race, and not all racial discrimination is racism.

Racism is discrimination that is embodied in a power structure, like laws about housing, or the court system, voting, or education; or misuse of power, like refusing to hire the most qualified applicant for top administration because she's black, or bad cops, or white supremacy organizations - a power structure that is designed to hold back or to intimidate a particular segment of the population. The term racism only applies when discrimination is combined with power. A member of an oppressed minority might harbor prejudice toward the group that's oppressing them, but, because they don't have the power to make or enforce rules over their oppressors, their prejudice does not qualify as racism. Racism is power based, intentional, and often woven into our societal structures and systems.