I have good news and bad news for you: first, the bad news. Things are going to get harder. A spirit of political violence is in the wind. Trump faced assassination attempts on the campaign trail. Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota were shot with many more on the assassin’s list. Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a speech. Bombing plans to attack Democratic party offices in California were thwarted. Black people are said to be hanging themselves from trees. If it’s declared suicide no one has to investigate. 

Trump warns of an intense crime wave and an epidemic of homelessness. Democrats claim violent crime is at a more than 10 year low based on statistics but do you trust numbers or your gut? If Democrats are right, then how do you explain why Trump is really sending troops to big cities?

Troops have come to LA and DC. Trump has cleared out the homeless from DC. He announced that homeless people who don’t go into shelters or rehabilitation programs will go to jail. Trump is ordering troops to Memphis. President Trump has let us know that the time may be soon and close at hand when troops come to Chicago and Portland. Trump promises to save cities from democratic leaders, but what does this mean?

Democratic protests locally have, for the most part, been unopposed. There are a few Trump supporters driving by, rolling smoke and yelling, but no one is getting hurt and no one is getting jailed. Anti-Trump protesters include vulgar signs and people yelling “ignorant” and less savory things at Trump supporters driving by. 

We are starting to see the push back on the right to protest. Yet protests are not stopping. Foreign students are getting deported for demonstrations in support of Palestine. Jewish students are put on the spot, expected to take a stance on Israel when they’re barely done introducing themselves. Transgender activists are being declared gender identity extremists so they can be handled as terrorists. Demonstrators against ICE are being pushed out and some arrested. Cancel culture has gone from a liberal to a conservative phenomenon. Comedians are being kicked off the air for joking about the President and MAGA culture.

Social programs that people have relied on are reducing services or going away. Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA discounts are getting cut. More cuts are coming down the pike. Schools not getting rid of DEI following executive orders are facing a loss of federal funding meaning an 11% cut of their budget which will hit the poor and the disabled the hardest. Social Security is going through trial by fire.

Trans kids are being denied gender affirming care. Trans adults are facing restrictions on getting passports. Storm clouds are on the horizon for other LGBTQIA rights.

Will you stay in the US or will you go? Some people are fleeing. This includes everyone from a friend of mine moving to Portugal to the professor who literally wrote the book On Tyranny moving to Canada.

If you stay you will have to choose how to respond to the events around you. Evil can only triumph if good people do nothing. If ICE comes to our town you will have to choose how to respond. Do you see immigrants as the enemy or see them as merely marginalized? What about whoever becomes the next target? Do you believe God has a preferential opting for the poor? Will you stay silent? Will our church speak out? Will you watch for ICE or other federal agents and spread the word when they come? Will you observe and record what they are doing? Will you place yourself bodily in the way knowing you will be arrested? Will you hide people? 

You cannot out hate your way out of the conflict. Turning to darkness merely turns you into the enemy you are fighting. It may seem unfair that you can’t use the enemy’s tools, but they will corrupt you if you turn to them. Remember that we fight powers and principalities and not people.

In the old days, powers and principalities would have been conceptualized as angels and demons complete with multiple ranks. Today, we can think of the collective attitudes, ethics, values, and emotions of a group, movement, or society. No one individual controls the direction and if one person drops out the momentum still continues.

I spoke with a friend the other day. Not a close friend, but a friend nonetheless. I chatted with her about her Bible study and the general outlines of my sermon. She said she was teaching on Romans and how it described the goings of the world. Her analysis was that Democrats want criminals to live among us. We agreed that people were confusing lies with truth, but we would not have agreed on specifics if I were to go there.

But there is good news. You are not rudderless in the storm. You have your faith and the SPICES. With simplicity you have less to leave behind if you flee. You also are stronger in the face of the punishment of being deprived of things.  

Peace will lead you to nonviolent resistance and not violence. More broadly it can lead you to work for justice and wholeness in our society. 

 Integrity will not let you betray your values in the face of overwhelming pressure. Community will lead you to stand up for your people and your society. Equality will not let you turn from the lowly and despised. Stewardship of the earth reminds you even in nature even if you hide far from humanity you are never truly alone because you are part of the web of life. 

The Inner Light is available to you when answers in the outside world are hard to come by. Time in silence can bring a calmness and centering in the most chaotic times. To paraphrase the Buddha, during ordinary times spend an hour in silence in chaotic times spend two hours. 

Protests now may seem a fine way to spend a couple of afternoons a month, but how will you respond if they become an arrestable offense? There will be people who get violent instead of peaceful protest. Will you hold onto your peace testimony?

Martin Luther King reminded us, 

“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles will not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action.” ⁱ

Lean into peace. If you become violent then the President will have the reason to respond with force. Violence towards soldiers will take away their sense of us as fellow citizens and cement their view of us as the enemy. Soldiers who will not fight for the mission are willing to pick up arms to defend their fellow soldiers.

There is hope for nonviolence. According to Beyond Intractability, “Erica Chenoweth who has done extensive research on the success and, at times, failure of nonviolent direct action. [9] Intriguingly, she has found not only that nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed in attaining their goals than are armed conflicts, but those that engage at least 3.5% of the population have never (at least as of 2011) failed to bring about change. [10]  Conversely, armed conflicts, even those supported by a large proportion of the population, often fail.” ⁱⁱ

We are not alone in this circumstance nor is this something that has only happened in the US. Others have faced oppression before and endured. 

The Jews endured oppressor after oppressor for centuries. As Josephus tells it during the time of Pilate, Pilate brought Roman standards bearing images into Jerusalem. Graven images were forbidden to Jews everywhere, but especially in Jerusalem it was seen as egregious and specifically banned. Protesters gathered. Pilate invited them back the next day hinting he would declare his decision then. Roman soldiers surrounded the protesters three rings deep. Pilate said he was prepared to kill them all if they would not abandon their challenge. Instead, the protesters laid down and exposed their necks. Pilate was the one that caved in the face of this obvious willingness to die. 

Early Quakers faced imprisonment, torture and even execution for practicing their faith. Yet Quakerism continued.

The East Germans outlived the oppression of the Stasi. People are fond of saying nonviolence wouldn’t have worked against the Nazis, but that’s not actually true. Like violence, the results were imperfect. The results, however, did make a difference to many.

What can farmers and small town people do in the face of overwhelming force? According to George Paxton in an interview with Open Democracy, there was “the rescue of Jews, mainly children, by the villagers of Chambon-sur-Lignon on a high plateau south-west of Lyons in France. This village (and others in the region) became a hide-out for those escaping the Nazis and became a centre of safety, particularly for children. The inspiration for this action came from the Protestant pastor and his wife, André and Magda Trocmé. André was an in-comer from the north-east of France and a pacifist and his actions were a product of his Christian belief which influenced also the nature of the resistance. Thus he did not deny that Jews were hidden in the village and surrounding farms but refused to tell the police where they were hidden. [How’s that for integrity?] André survived the occupation, although imprisoned for a time, and several thousand Jews and others hidden there survived until liberation.” 

What can doctors and health care providers do? Paxton explains, there was even “Opposition in Germany, particularly by Catholics, [and it] forced the stopping of the ‘euthanasia’ programme although many had been murdered before it was abandoned.” ⁱⁱⁱ

Russians survived Stalin and they will outlast Putin. In a more contemporary example  in Russia, Alexei Navalny rose as the leader of the political opposition. Navalny tried leading from exile. Putin poisoned him and still Navalny continued. Navalny returned to Moscow knowing the consequences. He believed he needed to be in Russia to lead. Putin imprisoned him and still Navalny continued. Navalny died and his wife picked up the mantle and carried on. Navalny refused to turn to violence. Navalny offered hope saying, “life is constructed such that progress and a better future are achievable only if a certain number of people are prepared to pay for their right to hold beliefs. The more of those people there are, the less each will pay. The day will surely come when speaking the truth and standing up for justice will be something ordinary in Russia and completely free from danger. 

Until that day comes, I see my situation not as a heavy burden or a yoke, but simply as the work I need to do.” 

 Jesus showed us a nonviolent path. He did not call in God’s angel armies. When humans were prepared for him to lead them into war against the Romans he would not pick up that mantle. He taught another way of being. Anger was too much, not just killing. We are to love our enemies, not hate and kill them. Jesus chose nonviolent protest when he knew it would almost certainly lead to his death.  His followers continued and people to this day say that Jesus was the one who was victorious

Hope is available even in the darkest times. The Light within shines when little light can be found without. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses standing against tyranny across time and around the world. 

• How will the testimonies be a guide for you during this difficult time? 
• What is yours to do? In the words of Nadia Bolz-Weber what fire do you have water to throw on?

ihttps://www.peacedirect.org/12-inspiring-quotes-on-non-violence-by-martin-luther-king-jr/  

iihttps://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/oppression-power#CImpl

iiihttps://www.opendemocracy.net/en/non-violence-against-nazis-interview-with-ge orge-paxton/