Protest Music and Worship Music

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I heard John Bell say, “God has blessed me with a mediocre singing voice. That way when I start leading a song, other people think ‘I can do better than that’ and they join in.” I loved this reframing, because so many of us believe that our voices are not good enough to be heard singing. But the real power of our voices comes not from singing solo, but in groups.

Group singing is powerful. Researchers have discovered that the heartbeats of choir members sync up together. Some of the most transcendent and energizing moments in my life have happened during group singing, and I think that music has spiritual power not only to shape communities, but create real social change.

That’s part of the reason I’ve always loved protest songs. The fact that they are designed to be relatively simple, or that they use call-and-response, makes them perfect for *group singing* (unlike most contemporary worship music). What I hear recorded from anti-ICE protests in the streets of Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, and New York is a revival of public spirit, of communal consciousness. It is a movement of the Spirit that is bigger than any denomination, bigger than religion. I’m struck that one of the best songs out of this moment is a song about conversion (“It’s okay to change your mind …you can join us any time.”) There’s also exhortation (“Hold on …here comes the dawn.”) “Liturgy” means “the work of the people,” and this is a liturgy for spiritual formation and resistance.

I’m sharing two resources below:

Click here for the link.

I realize my Christian pastoral and theological lens on protest singing may not be shared by participants in this work for justice, and that’s perfectly fine. I have no interest in co-opting anyone else’s work or baptizing other people’s work into Christian hegemony. But I do think clergy and worship leaders have a unique opportunity to remind their own people what rich grassroots resources we have that are not mass-marketed by Hillsong or the for-profit worship industry.

In our Methodist youth group on Sunday nights, we used to sing Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens and protest songs from the 60’s, so my view on what constitutes “worship music” is probably different from folks raised on Chris Tomlin or Jeremy Camp. My formative worship music was about standing up to bullies, tenderness toward the Earth, following the sacrificial and discipline way of Jesus, and the gracious abundance of God. I still think that singing these things out loud, in public, makes them manifest.

The fact that churches are hosting mass events to teach singing for protests thrills my heart.

Click here for the link.

“You Tell That Fox”

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Luke 13:31-32: At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.”

Some people haven’t reckoned with the fact that Jesus was not above calling names.* “Fox” did not mean foxy or sly — it meant something more like “weasel,” a pest or parasite. In the Bible, foxes are associated with ruin and devastation. Like our own authoritarian leader, Herod liked to imagine himself a lion, an apex predator, strong and royal. But “fox” or weasel is better, because such dictators are bottom-feeders and carrion-eaters, nepo-babies who produce nothing of value and only gain their power by stealing, cheating, and protecting the criminals around them. We mean something similar when we use the phrase “vulture capitalists.” Jesus used the right word to describe Herod.

Jesus goes on to contrast his healing work with Herod’s scavenging of the dead. And he sarcastically implicates the religious and political leaders in Jerusalem, and maybe rubs it in a bit that Herod was not as big a boss as his daddy was, and couldn’t reach him in Jerusalem.

Of course, Herod DID catch up with Jesus in Jerusalem. And I don’t doubt that, with the insult ringing in his ears, he passed Jesus back to Pilate with some degree of satisfaction.

Anyway, our would-be-dictator president likes to compare himself to animals, so I think this scripture is an appropriate reminder that Jesus has a better comparison. And while I appreciate reminders from my clergy colleagues that all human beings are made in the image of God, folks who police outrage directed toward this president are often trying to be holier than Jesus and baptize this Herod asshole into the communion of saints against his will.

And when I say “asshole,” like with “fox” or “weasel,” I mean no disrespect to actual anuses or foxes or weasels, which serve an important role in nature. I would be sorry if I did not have an asshole to perform its important function, and for that reason I think both foxes and anuses are hurt by the comparison to Herod or our current president, but that is the way metaphors work sometimes.

(Below is a photo of a rabid fox, shortly before he was put down by animal control, poor thing.)

A Christian Case for Resisting Fascism and Xenophobia

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Bolivian icon of Paul depicting the road to Damascus (right) and
diverse people groups, including indigenous ones (left).

Mike Johnson’s recent essay offering White Christian Nationalist of the fascist assault on immigrants does not deserve a serious point-by-point rebuttal. His essay is a rehash of white supremacist enslaver and colonizer theology, cherry-picking scripture to defend the incarceration of children, the murder of protesters, and the corruption of private prison profiteering.

Contrary to what Johnson says, the Bible does not present a univocal theory of divine and government power. Some of its authors supported monarchy while others hated it. Jewish tradition is very skeptical of state power (with good reason), and the early church had none, so trying to shoehorn a few passages from Paul and some Levitical codes into modern politics is a bit like reading tea leaves or horoscopes (at best) or fascist propaganda for the status quo (at worst, which it is).

What the Bible does give us, fairly consistently, are stories, usually from the perspective of oppressed people. It certainly gives us many examples of tyrant kings and spineless government officials, which is particularly appropriate for our context. Here are just a few:

  • Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened against cries for liberation (Exodus 7:13). He failed to stop the Exodus, and his army was drowned in the sea.
  • Pontius Pilate, who tried to wash his hands of his complicity in injustice (Matthew 27:24). History has not let him off the hook.
  • Foul-mouthed Rehoboam, who was more concerned with looking tough than prudent governing (1 Kings 12). His macho posturing started a civil war.
  • The Rabshakeh of Assyria, who believed that military might was proof of God’s favor (2 Kings 18). All their armies could not stop an epidemic. 
  • Mad King Herod, who massacred infants because he was determined to hold on to power against imaginary threats (Matthew 2).

These stories are important for informing how Christians should relate to state power and authoritarian leaders. But it also gives us stories of exiles, refugees, and those who come to their aid:

  • Ruth, the immigrant whose devotion to her mother-in-law (not even a blood relative!) and hard work earned the respect of her community (Ruth 2).
  • Jesus’s own family, who fled persecution in their home country (Matthew 2).
  • Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt but rose to greatness (Genesis 37).
  • The “good” Samaritan in Jesus’s parable who came to the aid of a wounded traveler (Luke 10)

While these stories do not tell us how to make policy about immigration, they fly in the face of the ginned-up fear of minority populations in our midst. In these stories, immigrants are blessings, not burdens, which modern research confirms. Immigrants commit fewer crimes than citizens in this country, and often contribute both economically and socially while getting little in return.

Mike Johnson’s essay is an example of bearing false witness (Exodus 20:16, 23:1). He continues spouting the lie that immigrants are more dangerous than the general population of citizens. In this way, Mike Johnson and others in this fascist regime (like Steven Miller and Kristi Noem) are playing the part of Haman in the Biblical story of Esther, who lied about the Jews in their midst by claiming that they were not following the king’s laws. He claimed they were dangerous:

“There is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king’s business, so that they may put it into the king’s treasuries.” (Esther 3:8-9).

In this passage, we also see how bribery and xenophobic policies go hand-in-hand. Likewise, our current fascist president cares mostly about enriching himself, taking every opportunity to put more money into his own pockets. Anti-immigrant policies provide all kinds of tax-payer-funded opportunities for for-profit prison companies and other self-dealing entities.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies also fuel economic and sexual abuse. Immigrants who fear law enforcement are less likely to report crimes committed against them, like wage theft or rape, which allows powerful men (like Trump and Epstein) to commit economic and sexual violence against foreigners. This is the primary sin of the people of Sodom (Genesis 13, Ezekiel 16).

Mike Johnson also relies on a tired trope in his essay, that liberal Christians are emotional bleeding hearts who cite this passage from Leviticus 19:33-34 out of context:

“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

He claims that this passage is about individual morality, not government policy. But “oppression” is not the action of an individual—it is the action of powerful actors (like governments) who enact policies that are unjust. The prophets are full of condemnation for government officials who use policy to do harm:

Woe to those who make iniquitous decrees,
    who write oppressive statutes,
to turn aside the needy from justice
    and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
to make widows their spoil
    and to plunder orphans! (Isaiah 10:1-2)

So, no, this is not an emotional appeal to Leviticus, but an appropriate analysis of what “oppression” actually is. Leviticus is a book of rules, not sentiment, but it puts love and empathy as the guiding principles at its center. “How would you like to be treated if you were an immigrant?” is not only empathy, but the foundation of any ethical system we would want to claim. Love is not naive sentiment: it is a foundational ethical principle.

I’ve already given Johnson’s essay more attention than it deserves, but I think it’s important to drive a stake into the vampiric heart of White Christian Nationalism and its perversion of the teachings of Jesus and Christian tradition. Johnson uses the language of slave-owning preachers and colonizers to justify unjust laws and cruel policies, baptizing violence and oppression in the name of Jesus. He reinforces the individualistic, self-centered theology of white evangelicalism to weasel out of prophetic scriptures against economic justice and hate-filled policies. His religious views belong in the trash-heap of history, or, as Jesus referred to it, gehenna — hell.

American Beatitudes

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Happy are the billionaires, for if money is speech, they will always be the loudest.

Happy are the shareholders, for if corporations are people, they can buy a share of immortality. 

Happy are the colonizers, for they will inherit the earth and all its mining and drilling rights.

Happy are those who cancel aid to the hungry and thirsty, for they can redirect those funds to masked militias and death squads. 

Happy are the vengeful, for it was always the victim’s fault for provoking you. 

Happy are those with offshore bank accounts, for they can hide their fraud and bribe money there. 

Happy are the war-makers and prison-builders, for the government will make sure they are always in business. 

Happy are the white Christian nationalists who imagine they are persecuted, for their reward is great on FOX.

Happy are you when you insult people and harass them and speak all manner of evil against them falsely, when you lie that immigrants eat cats and dogs, that they are murderers and rapists, that they are rodents and vermin; for you walk in the footsteps of oppressors who came before you.

Rejoice and be glad, because you will get all that you deserve when you die.
Everyone says so. 

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Jesus and Strategic Nonviolence

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As Jesus is being led to his death, he shouts a warning to the crowd: “If this is what [the Romans] do when the wood is green, what will they do when the wood is dry?” (Luke 23:31) 

Dry wood is kindling: a firebrand. It is a word we use to describe a violent revolutionary. Luke was writing his gospel just a few years after the Romans put down a Jewish revolution. According to Josephus, when the Romans exacted their revenge, they crucified so many people that they actually ran out of wood. They cut down every tree for miles around Jerusalem.

This is one of the most poignant moments in the gospels, for me, because it sounds like Jesus, having failed to make the case for moral pacifism, makes a plea to the crowd for strategic nonviolence: “Use my death as an example; If you can’t choose nonviolence because you love your enemy, choose it because you love yourselves.” 

I don’t think there’s much doubt that Jesus was a moral pacifist, and the early Christians certainly interpreted him that way. After all, we’ve got the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus asks his followers to “pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-48). We’ve got Paul’s letter to the Romans, when he tells his readers to “repay evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21). We’ve got the parable of the Good Samaritan, when Jesus makes the listeners’ most hated enemy into an example of God-like compassion and says, “go and do likewise” (Luke 10:25-37). Early Christian communities forbade their members to take up weapons. 

Moral pacifism is not naive. It is grounded in our collective liberation and the power of nonviolence. Nelson Mandela, who certainly witnessed his share of violence and coercive power, said that his form of nonviolent resistance was about helping to liberate not only the oppressed, but also the oppressor (Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1994.) It is difficult to use violence even against your enemies if you believe, like the Jewish sages, that whoever kills a person destroys a world. Extinguishing a sentient life diminishes us all. 

But Jesus’s warning about dry wood is a much more practical reason for nonviolence. A cross was not just a convenient execution method: it was a billboard. It advertised Rome’s monopoly on violence. Jesus was saying, “I came preaching forgiveness and nonviolence, and this is what they do to me; what do you think they will do to those of you calling for violence?”

Dr. Desmonda Lawrence explains one of the reasons for strategic nonviolence this way: 

“Maintaining nonviolent discipline is necessary against a state that has a well-developed arsenal. The state has a monopoly on violence: a group of citizens taking up arms against a regime is usually vastly outgunned. But, importantly, armed struggle legitimizes the state’s use of force against the citizens.”

Our American fascist regime has decided to blame recent violence on “radical leftists,” in spite of well-documented research that most of these (white, male) shooters are right wing. They claim that anyone who tells the truth about the brutality of masked ICE agents is at fault for recent shootings. Anyone who stands up for freedom of speech for protesters, or due process for immigrant food truck vendors and grandmothers gets labeled a “radical leftist.” (Meanwhile the Department of Homeland Security regularly posts white supremacist kitsch on social media. They are desperate to find an excuse to unleash the power of their expensive weapons.)

Please understand: strategic nonviolence does not guarantee safety against the brutality of authoritarians. This is what Jesus was yelling out to the crowds: “See what they do when the wood is green?” 

The most important argument for strategic nonviolence is that it is simply more effective than armed resistance. Dr. Erica Chenowith studied the difference between violent and nonviolent protests and their effect on authoritarian regimes: 

“Countries where resistance campaigns were nonviolent were 10 times as likely to transition to democracy compared to countries where resistance turned violent—regardless of whether the campaign succeeded or failed in the short term. Even when nonviolent campaigns were not immediately successful, Chenoweth and Stephan found, they still tended to empower moderates or reformers within the ruling elites who would gradually initiate changes.”

While I do believe, in a spiritual sense, that any violence I do to you I also do to myself and to Christ, I recognize this is not an insight that is easy to convey to those who already see me as an enemy. North American Christianity has denied the nonviolence of Christ for centuries, and instead embraced and further developed the religious violence of medieval and settler-colonial Europe. Strategic nonviolence is not about winning the hearts and minds of white supremacists and authoritarians. They have already been baptized into violence, washed in the blood of their enemies.

But even strategic nonviolence requires a spiritual commitment. The choice to refrain from violence, to override the fight-or-flight response of my amygdala, is one that I have to choose to strengthen daily if I want to be able to “maintain nonviolent discipline,” as Dr. Lawrence says. Without prayer and meditation, without practicing restraint when I am angry, I cannot restrain my own violence. 

And if I cannot restrain my own violence, how can I expect to change the violence of the world? And if I cannot restrain my own violence, how can I expect someone with much less self-knowledge, insight, or self-control to do so? 

When I read Jesus’s words in Luke, I can hear the desperation in his voice: “Look, people. Look and do not turn your eyes away. This is what they do even when we are nonviolent. If you won’t choose the path of nonviolence for spiritual reasons, choose it for your survival.”

“Holy Saturday”

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Jesus showed us a world
where disabled people aren’t ignored
and don’t have to beg for sustenance; (Mark 10:46-52)
where sick people don’t have to wait in line for
days or years or for luck to be cured; (Mark 5:25-34, Luke 13:10-17, John 5:2-9)
where people tormented by their demons are freed; (Mark 5:1-13)
where foreigners aren’t treated like animals; (Mark 7:24-30)
where all you do to earn the right to a full belly
is to show up hungry; (Matthew 14:13-21)
where women do not have to depend
on the whims and moods of men for their rights; (Matthew 19:1-11)
where people live for the present moment
instead of destroying the earth to accumulate more; (Matthew 6:19-34)
where we invest in peace instead of weapons; (Matthew 26:52, Luke 19:41-42)
where being poor and hopeless will be a thing of the past. (​Luke 6:20-21)

The oligarchs didn’t like that.
They preferred a world where the disabled,
the sick, the tormented,
the poor, the hungry,
women and foreigners
were beggars, prisoners, and slaves.
Where they could continue merrily destroying the earth.
They didn’t like that he told us we could live without money,
that we could feed everyone who was hungry, or
that he’d set free those the oligarchs had unjustly imprisoned,
deported,
maimed and murdered.

They especially did not like the fact
that on Palm Sunday,
his followers had shown up in peaceful protest,
saying they would follow a new king.

So they took those healing hands
and nailed them still;
they hoisted him up like a signpost and warning
that we should forget such foolishness;
they stilled his voice,
and his followers—except for a few women—fled.
And then, worst of all,
they took his name,
and turned it into a brand,
and used it to sell guns and build prisons.

But the healing,
and the teaching,
and the resurrection,
belong to everyone who desires the world he showed us.

So if you hunger and thirst for justice and righteousness,
please know that all you have to do,
is show up hungry.

This is the Day

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This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)

Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh. Photo from PaxChristiUSA.org

Dear Saints,

It feels like the world is falling apart at the seams. Everything is horrible. The oligarchy is upon us and will hamper even our weak attempts to prevent a sixth mass extinction on the planet. Liars and narcissists rule our nation. We are in apocalyptic times, where the word means both “ending” and “unveiling.” We may wish things would have remain veiled.

In my ordination vows, I promised I would do my best to “equip the saints for ministry.” I intend to keep doing that. Four years ago as I wrote liturgy for Saint Junia house churches, I began looking to my faith tradition, 2000 years of church history, and the writings of activists, reformers, and those seeking peace with justice from many different traditions. I’ve contemplated how to best support my community and “equip the saints” while ecosystems collapse, fascism rises, the church equivocates, and the internet becomes an AI propaganda tool for the worst humans on the planet.

I believe that the communion of saints who have gone before us teaches us everything we need to know.

I am beginning a series of daily devotionals. They will generally reference a person or an event from this day in history and a short reflection. I am using the widest possible definition of “saint,” much the way William James uses the term: a spiritual person who inspires us to be more like them. This is a practice of virtue ethics and character formation, to ask the question: “What kind of person do I want to be? What kind of life do I aspire to live?” These questions redirect our attention from what we cannot control to what we can, and they move us from fear and anxiety about the future to gratitude for the present.

My grandfather, Loren Barnhart, survived World War 2, and would quote Psalm 118 every day when he woke up: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” My Grandma Gennie said it could be irritating to hear this verse day after day, especially when it was rainy and cold. But the psalmist, like Papa, had survived a war. They knew every day was a gift. Years after he died, while she lived with my parents, Grandma would sing the verse, also. And yes, it was irritating.

But it is also true.

Saints, I offer you the saints. May they help you live these days.

Gennie and Loren in 2004

Conclusion: Epiphany

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After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.” (Matthew 2:1-2)

Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh. Photo from PaxChristiUSA.org

Epiphany, as i said last week, means a manifestation of the Divine. The gospels are very interested in who recognizes Jesus and who does not: pagan astrologers recognize him. The political and religious power structures do not.

I’ve been exploring consciousness over this Advent and Christmas season because I believe noticing and recognizing the Divine has to do with a shift in our consciousness, a willingness to question our perceptions, our automatic reactions, and our personal and cultural narratives. Becoming more conscious of our own consciousness allows us to change how we relate to our selves and to other people. Many of these concepts are ones I’m borrowing from both Buddhist teachings and from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

This expanded awareness is not just about navel-gazing. It’s about cultivating an inner and outer peace that changes relationships and how we approach the world. It is 3000 year-old wisdom that modern neuroscience is validating with empirical research.

I’ve appreciated learning more about the friendship of Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh, monks from the Roman Catholic and Buddhist traditions who found that their faith traditions were more complementary than competitive. Both mystical traditions (I would argue most mystical traditions) speak about self knowledge and divine knowledge as being intimately tied to each other. As we learn more about our own consciousness, we learn more about the infinite and about God. As we learn more about God and the infinite, we learn more about ourselves. The knower and the known, the seeker and the sought, are united in a dynamic dance. We seek God’s face, but God continually directs us to our neighbor’s face—and our own.

The way this manifests in our social world is that often the people who recognize the Divine are not insiders, but outsiders. Hanh and Merton saw each other as spiritual brothers. I, likewise, have found spiritual siblings among Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, and agnostics. I believe the great epiphany for us all will be finding ourselves in the same stable, kneeling in front of the same manger, and the child we recognize there in the hay will look remarkably like our selves.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, may we grow into your fullness, so that you may be all in all. Amen.