Analyzing Assassination Culture

The news media and the internet have been awash with news and opinions about the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk last week. I was amazed that his assassination garnered such wide coverage. Earlier this year, he talked about the current “assassination culture,” a topic worth analyzing.

There should be grief first and criticism later. On the day of Kirk’s killing, some spoke negatively of him. But on that afternoon of September 10, I posted words of Doug Pagitt on my Facebook page.*

Pagitt wrote, "I am outraged by the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, and my heartfelt prayers are with him and his family. Political violence has no place in America.”

He went on to say, "Charlie Kirk and I disagreed on nearly everything when it came to politics, but disagreement belongs in the realm of ideas, debate, and voting, not in acts of harm.”

One of my good friends posted negative things about Kirk on Facebook not long after he was murdered, and I “scolded” him for doing that so soon after his assassination. As I said to my friend, I fully agreed with what Pagitt wrote that day.

I also disapproved of others on the political left who were quick to say harsh things about Kirk, even though they were true. I am surprised, though, that according to Copilot, Pagitt has not publicly mentioned Kirk since 9/10.

Perhaps he noted how many who spoke out against what Kirk had said through the years, and especially recently, were chastised and even fired from public positions for doing so.

Ironically, Kirk was a staunch advocate of free speech, but many who used that freedom to say negative things about him were punished for what they said/wrote—and apparently some even for publicizing what Kirk himself had said.

“Both sides” need to be analyzed accurately. Despite Kirk accusing the left of fostering an assassination culture, it seems clear that in recent decades, far more violent acts have been committed by right-wing advocates than by those on the left. I asked Copilot about this, and here is its response:

While figures like Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump have pointed fingers at the political left for fostering what they call “assassination culture,” there’s a substantial body of evidence showing that far-right rhetoric and behavior have significantly contributed to the escalation of political violence in the U.S.”

And here is what Claude, my AI “buddy” reports: “The data shows that while Charlie Kirk uses the term 'assassination culture' to criticize the left, the statistical evidence suggests that far-right extremists have been responsible for significantly more political violence and deaths since 2000.”

Claude goes on to say, “The disparity is quite stark - far-right extremists have committed over 6 times more deaths (520+ vs 78) and nearly 5.5 times more incidents (227 vs 42) than far-left extremists since 1990, with this trend continuing into recent years.”**

Take a look once again at the graph after the introductory paragraph at the top.

Beware of being misled by the Vice President or intimidated by the right-wing media. On Monday, filling in for Kirk on his regular program, VP Vance spoke about “festering violence on the far left.” He also reportedly said on Fox News that the accused assassin was “radicalized by the far left, by the social networks of the far left, by the ideas of the far left.”

Two days after her husband’s assassination, Erika Kirk said, “The evildoers responsible for my husband's assassination have no idea what they have done. They killed Charlie ….”

Gary Bauer, a well-known conservative evangelical, wrote on Thursday, Erika’s “use of the words ‘evildoers’ (plural) and ‘they’ was intentional. She was referring to the radical leftists who hated her husband, who smeared her husband, and who did everything they could to dehumanize him.”

But at this point, from what we know about Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin of Kirk, he is not affiliated with any political party, and there is no evidence linking him to any organized leftist group or movement.

So, in analyzing the assassination culture that Kirk saw as defining the left, it seems much more likely to be a characteristic of the right, which was emphasized so much by Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA.

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  * Doug Pagitt (b. 1966) launched Vote Common Good with a 31-city bus tour that began on October 2, 2018. On Oct. 14, I drove over to Overland Park, Kansas, to hear him speak and to chat with him briefly. Six days later, I posted a blog article about him and Vote Common Good (see here).  

** In the next paragraph, Claude went on to say, “This data comes from multiple credible sources, including the National Institute of Justice, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Anti-Defamation League, and academic research published in peer-reviewed journals.” 

    After receiving the above information, I saw this article with similar content on Time magazine’s website: “Trump Called for a Crackdown on the ‘Radical Left.’ But Right-Wing Extremists Are Responsible for More Political Violence.” The graph included in the article is what I posted above.

Celebrating Sun Day 2025

Earth Day is widely known as an annual event first held on April 22, 1970, and observed on that day every year since. But this year, Sun Day will be observed/celebrated in the U.S. for just the second time. It will be part of a global day of action focusing on solar energy and other forms of clean energy. 

The first Sun Day was celebrated on May 3, 1978, when Jimmy Carter was President. It was proposed by Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), then President. Carter threw his support behind it.

Before that first Sun Day, Carter created the Department of Energy and pushed tax breaks for clean energy in 1977. Two years later, he famously put solar panels on the White House roof, calling them a symbol of America’s future.

Sadly, Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, and during his two terms, Reagan gutted the renewable energy programs, killed the tax incentives, and in 1986 had Carter’s solar panels removed from the White House.

The promoters of Sun Day 2025 hope to revitalize what Carter started nearly fifty years ago.

Sun Day 2025 will be celebrated on September 21, the day before the autumnal equinox. Bill McKibben has been the primary proponent of Sun Day 2025, and his new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, was released less than a month ago.

McKibben (b. 1960) is widely known as one of the leaders in the founding of 350.org in 2008. It quickly became the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement.**

Nearly ten years earlier, McKibben wrote The End of Nature, one of the earliest warnings about climate change. That book of “dark realism” helped establish McKibben as a leading voice in environmental activism long before he founded 350.org.

Now, though, McKibben says on the first page of his new book, “for the first time I can see a path forward. A path lit by the sun.” He concludes his Introduction with these words: “Our species, at what feels like a very dark moment, can take a giant leap into the light. Of the sun.”

So, Sun Day 2025 especially stresses the importance of solar energy, although wind energy is also acknowledged.

Solar energy is widely considered the best form of clean energy when factoring in both cost and limitless availability.

Regarding cost, solar photovoltaic (the term that describes the process of converting light directly into electrical voltage) is now less than half that of producing electricity by fossil fuels. For homeowners, solar panels drop electricity bills to near, or even below, zero during the hot summer months.**  

Not only is there an outstanding cost advantage, there is also an unlimited supply of solar energy. The sun delivers more energy to Earth in one hour than humanity uses in a year, and scientists indicate that that will continue to be true for the next five billion years.

Moreover, solar energy produces no negative impact on the environment. There are no emissions of harmful substances, and neither is there any noise pollution. In addition, there is minimal land disruption compared to wind farms (windmills/turbines used for wind power).

Finally, solar systems are quick to install, scalable (=easily able to be changed in size or scale) from rooftops to utility-scale farms, and increasingly paired with battery storage to provide power even when the sun isn’t shining. What could be better than energy that is cheap, clean, abundant, and scalable?

Have you taken the “giant leap into the light” that McKibben wrote about? If not, isn’t now the time to do so? Indeed, we all need to latch on to this “last chance for the climate” and this “fresh chance for civilization.”

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** The name 350.org comes from McKibben’s view that the world will not be safe from global warming unless the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls to 350 parts per million or below.

** My wife and I had solar panels installed on our house in 2019. This year, our electricity bills for the summer months of June, July, and August combined showed that we were given more than $26.50 of “overgeneration credit.” Thus, rather than paying high electricity bills for air conditioning in addition to normal year-round charges, we were paid for producing more electricity than we used. (Here is a link to “Let’s Go Solar!”, the blog article I posted in February 2019.)

 

“Gaza Doesn't Need Our Tears, It Needs Our Anger”

Recent U.N. reports about extensive starvation and incipient famine in Gaza spurred me to write this article about the current crisis there and to suggest how we should respond.  

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian journalist and political commentator. Last week, I happened to come across her August 14 newsletter with the heading that I have used for the title of this blog post.**

A year earlier (on 8/18/24), Johnstone boldly posted this statement with which most USAmericans will strongly disagree:

The US is the single most murderous and tyrannical regime on the planet and retains its power by creating a mind-controlled dystopia where the public is brainwashed with propaganda, and its politicians fearmonger about the nation falling to "communism" or "fascism" if you cast the wrong vote.

Granted, Johnstone’s statement is somewhat exaggerated, but Israel’s war against Hamas occurring in Gaza, which has led to the worsening of the chronic hunger/malnutrition situation there, is due partly to the multifaceted U.S. support of Israel and its Prime Minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.

The U.S. has provided substantial financial assistance to the State of Israel since its formation in 1948, as well as additional funding and military support since October 2023. In contrast to most current issues, especially on the U.S. funding of Israel’s warfare in Gaza, I stand in opposition to both political Parties.

Perhaps now Johnstone’s 2024 statement could/should be updated to refer to fearmongering about the U.S. falling to radical Islam (such as is seen in Hamas).

The famine in Gaza is due to genocide, not war. Some news sources, such as BBC and Al Jazeera, refer to what is currently going on as the “Israel-Gaza war.” But that term has been rightly rejected by theologian Miguel De La Torre in “This is Not a “War,” his perceptive August 14 essay.

The designation which should be used is genocide, for as De La Torre asserts, “Israel, with the military backing of the United States, is engaged in the genocide of the Palestinian people—wiping out those who refuse to self-deport so settler colonialists can complete the full occupation of Palestine.”

A week after De La Torre’s essay, “The Conversation” posted, “Israel’s plan for massive new West Bank settlement would make a Palestinian state impossible,” (see here).

 “Israel’s razing of Gaza is … about the erasure of a people, a culture and a history that expose the lies used to justify the Israeli state.” This is the sub-headline of Chris Hedges’s hard-hitting article in opposition to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people from 1948 until the present.

Reflecting on the way the Palestinians have been mistreated by Israel for more than 75 years now, Hedges expresses the type of anger that Johnstone calls for in her lament, and at the head of his August 22 “report,” Hedges uses the following image of “Beelzebibi” by Mr. Fish (cartoonist Dwayne Booth). 

“Be angry but do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Yes, the New Testament admonishes us to be angry, and the genocide-induced famine in Gaza is an appropriate target for our anger as Johnstone asserts.

As a pacifist, I do not agree with the concept of just war, for I don’t think one can participate in war without sinning. How can killing people be sinless when Jesus commanded us to love our enemies? But I think there can and should be what can be called just anger.

Many of us want to show concern, sympathy/empathy, compassion, and so on to people in need. But in many cases, anger is more appropriate than merely expressing shared grief and shedding tears.

Sympathetic tears are appropriate when there are natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, and the like. But when widespread suffering is deliberately caused by humans, anger is the better response.

That is Johnstone’s point: the death and destruction in Gaza is entirely human-made. That is the reason the dire situation there elicits our anger rather than our tears.

If there is any hope for Gaza, it will come by increasing numbers of people heeding the words of theologian Augustine of Hippo: “Hope has two beautiful daughters, their names are Anger and Courage. Anger that things are the way they are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

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** Here is information about the three articles I cite in this blog post:

Gaza Doesn't Need Our Tears, It Needs Our Anger (Aug. 14) by Caitlin Johnstone (b. 1974), an Australian journalist and activist.

This is Not a “War”: Israel and Hamas by the Numbers - Good Faith Media (Aug. 14) by Miguel De La Torre (b. 1958), a Cuban American who is a professor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. (I am pleased that he is also one of my Thinking Friends.)

Israel’s Assassination of Memory - The Chris Hedges Report (Aug. 22) by Chris Hedges (b. 1956), a USAmerican journalist, author, and commentator. 

Why Disillusionment Can Be a Good Thing

 Like many people, I have generally thought of disillusionment as being something "bad," but in a recent sermon, my pastor talked about how disillusionment can be a good thing. In that message, Pastor Nanette read an excerpt from Barbara Brown Taylor’s book The Preaching Life, and right away, I ordered a used copy of it. 

Barbara Brown Taylor is an American Episcopal priest, academic, and author. She was ordained in 1984, and The Preaching Life (1993) is the first of her many published books. It is largely autobiographical (Part One) and a collection of sermons (Part Two). Pastor Nanette quoted from the first chapter, “A Church in Ruins.”

In that chapter, Taylor (b. 1951) writes about how in the 1970s, when she was in college, many students and other young adults were becoming increasingly disillusioned with Christianity. In that connection, she then wrote about a young father who was grieving the loss of an infant daughter.

The devastated father said, “If God is going to let something like this happen, then what’s the use of believing at all?” To this, Taylor remarks: “His disillusionment is emblematic of the post-Christian era, when the perceived promises of Christendom lie broken and the existence of God—never mind the omnipotence of God—seems a fantasy.”*¹

In that context, Taylor surprisingly avers that perhaps disillusionment “is not so bad.” She explains:

Disillusionment is the loss of illusion—about ourselves, about the world, about God—and while it is almost always painful, it is not a bad thing to lose the lies we have mistaken for the truth. … Disillusioned, we find out what is not true and are set free to seek what is.

What an important insight!

So many people who have rejected Christianity or faith in God have done so because of having harbored some illusion, some lie they mistook for the truth. But many who became disillusioned were, indeed, liberated from some lie and set free to seek and to find the truth.

Sigmund Freud wrote/spoke much about religion/faith in God as being an illusion. One of his most famous books is The Future of an Illusion (1927; Eng. trans., 1928). In the sixth chapter, he states, “Religious doctrines are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.”

In that same chapter, Freud wrote, “What is characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from human wishes. … The illusion of religion is fulfilled in the belief in a God who protects us and compensates us in a future life.”

Back in October 2014, I posted a blog article titled “Was Freud a Fraud?” My conclusion was that, indeed, in many ways, he could be considered so. And now (with the help of ChatGPT), I am more convinced that my criticism of Freud then was well-grounded.

Many of Freud’s main assertions were illusions, in the sense that they did not admit of proof (as they were neither empirically verifiable nor falsifiable) and no one could be “compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.” Just like many religious beliefs, they may be true or false, but they can’t be scientifically proven to be one or the other.

Just as many religious people need to be disillusioned, that is, liberated from the lies they have mistaken for the truth so that they can seek and (ideally) find that which is true, it is the same for those who embrace “scientism,” people such as Freud and philosopher Daniel Dennett.*²

Dennett (1942~2024) is one of the "four horsemen" of what has often been called the “new atheism.”*³ Dennett is often quoted as saying, "There's simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion."

Well, since they are already dead, perhaps I don’t need to be polite, but it seems clear to me that Freud and Dennett did devote their lives to an illusion. They badly needed to be disillusioned, but never were, as far as we know.

Disillusionment is the best thing that could happen to present-day people whose worldview is similar to Freud’s, Dennett’s, and others who embrace scientism and complete secularism.

What, though, could be better than being liberated from lies and finding the truth that sets one free!

 _____

*¹ When I read those words, I wrote “Oord” in the margin, referring to theologian Thomas Jay Oord, the author of a seminal book on this issue about whom (in January of this year) I posted a blog article. Oord rejects the idea of God’s omnipotence (as it is usually conceived). If you want to (re)read that post, click here.

*² Scientism is the belief that science is the only valid path to knowledge and that scientific methods should be applied to all areas of inquiry, dismissing philosophy and/or religion as illegitimate or inferior.

*³ The other three are Christopher Hitchens (1949~2011), Richard Dawkins (b. 1941), and Sam Harris (b. 1967).  

What about Pastors Promoting Politicians?

Last month, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service stated that churches and/or pastors could endorse candidates running for political office, despite the Johnson Amendment of 1954.*¹ Should we now think it is acceptable for pastors to promote voting for politicians by name? 

Why was the Johnson Amendment passed and long uncontroversial? Lyndon B. Johnson was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1948 and successfully ran for re-election in 1954. During that re-election campaign, he was opposed by some tax-exempt organizations, including churches.

Johnson thought it was not fair for tax-exempt groups and their leaders to engage in direct support or opposition to candidates running for political office. His amendment was passed with little opposition and has long been widely recognized as upholding the principle of separation of church and state.

Even though the amendment was drafted by a prominent Democratic Senator, it was signed into law by President Eisenhower, a Republican. There was widespread agreement across the political spectrum that mixing tax-exempt status with partisan political endorsements was inappropriate.

From the beginning, though, there was some opposition to the enactment of that 1954 amendment.

What was the basis for disapproval of the Johnson Amendment? Even though they thought it was absolutely right for their churches to be exempt from paying taxes, some conservative Christians thought the Johnson Amendment was an infringement on their freedom of speech.

Since they saw the amendment as a freedom of speech violation, they thought it was unconstitutional and needed to be nullified or just ignored, as to a certain extent, it has been through the years.

Pastors, they claim, have the responsibility to speak out on moral issues, and doing so naturally includes mentioning the names of politicians who are aligned with what is deemed to be immoral. Such opposition has grown over the years among those affiliated with the Christian Right and now with MAGA.

With the growth of the latter groups over the past decades, conservative pastors have largely felt constrained to speak out, especially in opposition to abortion and LGBTQ rights and against politicians who are pro-choice and pro-gay.

In recent years, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, has been one prominent pastor who has expressed strong disapproval of the Johnson Amendment. He has been one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, and in April, he voiced that disapproval at the Easter prayer service in the White House.

At the President’s request, soon afterward, he sent a letter to Trump, outlining what he called “wrongful weaponization of the law” and the “unlawful targeting” of his church. He has also said, “What a pastor says in a church service is none of the government’s … business.”*²

Jeffress and many other conservative pastors think they have the right to give moral instruction to their “flock,” including guidance in political matters. On the website of Jeffress’s church, however, they claim that their weekly telecasts are seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Any pastors who have their sermons streamed on the internet have no basis for saying they are just giving moral instruction to their church members. To promote political candidates, as Jeffress is wont to do, is a clear violation of the Johnson Amendment.

Why is ignoring the Johnson Amendment now a bad policy? Since politically conservative church members overwhelmingly vote Republican, if pastors in such churches promote political candidates, that will make little difference. Most conservative evangelicals will vote for Republicans no matter what.

On the other hand, since members of progressive churches (such as the one I am a member of) overwhelmingly vote Democratic, pastors of such churches mentioning the name of a candidate will make little difference.

The problem is in churches where the adult members are politically “purple.” Pastors promoting candidates by name in such churches could and probably would influence many to vote for the candidate promoted by the pastor. This is why the Johnson Amendment needs to be heeded.

On July 30, over 1,000 charitable nonprofits launched a national sign-on letter to defend nonpartisanship and public trust (see here). The letter strongly objects to efforts by the Trump administration to weaken the Johnson Amendment, which protects nonprofits from partisan politics.

As Amanda Tyler says, this ignoring of the Johnson amendment “threatens to turn churches into PACs”—and that can’t be good for either the government or churches.*³

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*¹ According to Wikipedia, “The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code … that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are the most common type of nonprofit organization in the United States, ranging from charitable foundations to universities and churches. The amendment is named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas.” In July 1954, it was enacted into law.

*² This was reported in a July 30 article in the New York Times (see here). The title of that article is “How Conservative Christians Cracked a 70-Year-Old Law,” and if you are interested in reading more about this issue, I recommend that article. Also, I didn't quote from it, but here is a link to another good article, published yesterday, on the subject. 

*³ Tyler is the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee [BJC] for Religious Liberty. The BJC’s roots go back to 1936 when the Southern Baptist Convention [SBC] established an organization that grew into what became the BJC. The SBC ceased funding the BJC in 1991

Handle with Care

Carolyn Houts, the Seat cousin closest to me in age, was a Baptist missionary to Ghana from 1977 until her retirement in 2010. One year when she was on furlough (aka stateside assignment), she gave June and me a wood carving that we have displayed and enjoyed through the years. 

The Ghanaian wood carving is of a hand holding an egg. It is a deeply symbolic piece rooted in the Asante (or Ashanti) cultural tradition. During many of the years she was in Ghana, Cousin Carolyn (1942~2019) lived in Kumasi, the capital of the Asante region, and spoke Twi, the local language.**  

On his website (see here), a Ghanaian artist says he carves the hand holding an egg sculptures with a powerful African proverb in mind. That proverb is about the delicate nature of leadership and authority in Ghanaian culture. Here is the English translation of that proverb:

To be a ruler is like holding an egg in the hand; if it is pressed too hard it breaks; but if not held tightly enough it may slip and smash on the ground.

The metaphor shown in the hand-holding-egg carving stresses that authority is not absolute or unbreakable, that leadership must be firm enough to maintain control and effectiveness yet gentle enough not to destroy trust, and that true leadership requires restraint and careful judgment.

The symbolism of the wood carving is applicable to various relationships in addition to those of people in places of leadership and authority. For example, it reminds supervisors and mentors to manage their relationships with those “under” them in ways that inspire rather than intimidate.

The carving also speaks to the relationship between friends, speaking of how to offer support and when to step back as well as how to be present without being intrusive.

In romantic relationships, the image of a hand holding an egg portrays the delicate balance between intimacy and independence, between caring deeply and avoiding possessiveness.

The egg metaphor also depicts the challenge of parenting. As I have done previously, I asked Claude, my AI “friend,” if the egg-in-hand carving could be related to the challenge of being a good parent. Here is the first paragraph of the answer I received:

The egg metaphor captures the essential challenge of parenting: how to provide guidance, protection, and structure while allowing space for growth and independence. Parents who grip too tightly may crush their children's spirit, confidence, or natural development. Those who hold too loosely risk their children falling into harm or lacking the security they need.

I thought that was an excellent statement, and I soon began to think about my own parents and their parenting practices of 75 years ago, which I still remember with appreciation.

My parents never went to college, and I am quite sure they didn’t read any books about child psychology or self-help books about how to be good parents. But in thinking back to the summer in 1950 when I turned 12 until I started college in the fall of 1955, I think they were exceptionally good parents.

As we lived on a farm, probably already by 1950 my parents had given me baby livestock, which I raised and then sold their offspring. As I wrote in my book subtitled The Story My Life, my father “was wise in getting me started at a young age in making money on the farm.”

On the following page, I wrote that my parents “were skillful in helping me gain a sense of independence from a very early age—and I have always appreciated that.”

Long before they had seen the wood carving that my father’s niece gave June and me, to an exemplary degree they put into practice holding the “egg” with care, not too tightly or too loosely.

I think June and I also did that in rearing our four children, the youngest of whom is now 53—but I guess you’d have to ask them if they think we did, in fact, handle the egg with proper care.

_____

** Soon after Carolyn returned to the U.S. in 2010, I posted a blog article titled “In Praise of Cousin Carolyn” (you can access it here). She also lived for many years in Accra, the capital and largest city of Ghana. Kumasi is about 160 miles (by car) northwest of Accra.

In Admiration of Stanley Hauerwas

On May 10, I posted a blog article titled ”In Admiration of John Wesley and Methodism.” This post expresses my admiration for Stanley Hauerwas, a contemporary Methodist scholar who is celebrating his 85^th birthday next week. 

(Hauerwas in 2022)

Stanley Martin Hauerwas was born in Dallas on July 24, 1940. He grew up in a working-class household located in a suburban area of that Texas city. His father was a bricklayer, and Stanley worked summers with his father from the age of nine.

Upon finishing high school, Stanley enrolled in Southwestern University in Texas, the first in his family to attend college. Then he went to Yale, where he earned his B.D. (M.Div.) degree in 1965 and completed his Ph.D. in theology and ethics in 1968.*

Even though he became a theology and ethics scholar, he retained much of the blue-collar culture of his boyhood. His “salty” language was criticized by some people who thought a university professor shouldn’t use “unacceptable” language.

Hauerwas married in 1962, the year he finished college, and six years later, his only child, a boy, was born. His wife struggled with mental illness, though, and they divorced after 25 years of marriage. In 1989 he married Paula Gilbert, a theologian and an ordained United Methodist minister.

I first learned about Hauerwas by reading Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (1989), a book co-written with William Willimon. That was a rich read for me, and it influenced how many Christians perceived their role in society.  

When I recently looked at the notes I took when I read Resident Aliens again back in 2008, I wrote, “Thirty-six years ago, the authors contended, ‘The times are too challenging to be wasting time pressing one another into boxes called liberal or conservative. The choice is between truth and lies’ (p. 160).”

And then in the concluding sub-section of the last chapter, they aver that

the challenge facing today’s Christians is not the necessity to translate Christian convictions into a modern idiom, but rather to form a community, a colony of resident aliens which is so shaped by our convictions that no one even has to ask what we mean by confessing belief in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Hauerwas’s newest book is Jesus Changes Everything, a small volume edited by Charles Moore and released by Plough Publishing House in March 2025.** Much in that book is a reaffirmation of what he and Willimon emphasized in Resident Aliens.  

In his ten-page introduction of the author, Moore says that “Hauerwas eludes categorization. He is neither conservative enough for the conservatives nor liberal enough for liberals” (p. xxiv).

In the concluding paragraph of that introduction, Moore states,

Stanley Hauerwas and his writings were a large reason why 30 years ago I left a professorship at a seminary and moved 2000 miles with my wife to join the Bruderhof, a Christian community that shares possessions in common in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount.

Then, in an article published by the Bruderhof in March 2025, Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren writes that she “became a pacifist because of Hauerwas” and that she has “friends who went to seminary to study theology because of Hauerwas’s work. His words change people.”

Hauerwas is a Mennonite theologian/ethicist, as well as being a lifelong Methodist and active in an Episcopal church. Unlike Warren, I became a pacifist long before I knew about Stanley Hauerwas, but I was delighted when I learned that he became a devotee of Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder.

Unfortunately, Yoder (1927~97), who was arguably the most significant Anabaptist scholar of the twentieth century, badly tarnished his reputation because of his “abusive behavior toward women,” which became public in the 2010s. But his influence on Hauerwas was long before that.

In The Politics of Jesus (1972), Yoder argued forcefully that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ necessitates a nonviolent discipleship as the definitive Christian ethic. Hauerwas adopted and extended that conviction: nonviolence is not optional but obligatory for loyal followers of Jesus.

Authentic Christians are “disciples” of Jesus rather than mere “admirers,” and the primary task of the church is to be the church, a faithful community of Jesus-followers, rather than an organization trying to do things for the benefit of society. Yes, indeed!

 _____

  * I feel considerable affinity with Hauerwas. Born just two years earlier, I am the son of a (working-class) farmer and the first male in the direct-line Seat family to attend college, finishing with a B.A. degree in 1959, graduating from seminary with a B.D. in 1962, and then finishing work for my Ph.D. in 1966. When it comes to nationwide influence, books written, and scholarly articles published, though, there is absolutely no comparison.

** Moore is a contributing editor and author for Plough, the publishing arm of the Bruderhof community, introduced in my 12/5/20 blog post. Moore is also the editor of Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard (1999), a valuable, easy-to-read book, as well as the compiler and editor of Called to Community (2016; 2^nd ed., 2024). Hauerwas wrote the Foreword to the latter.  

The Importance of the Magna Carta Then and Now

What does, or should, an 800-year-old document have to do with the present civil rights of U.S. citizens, asylum seekers, and others seeking to live safely in this country? 

Painting of King John signing the Magna Carta

The Magna Carta was first signed in June 1215, although the final version was not issued until 1225, ten years after it was first granted, under pressure, by King John, who reigned as King of England from 1199 to 1216.

According to Britannica, “By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by ‘free men,’ the Magna Carta provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence.”

I was surprised to learn, though, that the opening clause of the Magna Carta states that “the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unharmed.” I asked Claude (my AI “buddy”) if that is related to the principle of the separation of church and state.

Claude stated that “while the Magna Carta's church clause wasn't the ‘basis’ for American church-state separation, it was part of a long constitutional tradition about limiting government overreach that ultimately influenced American thinking about religious liberty.”

The Magna Carta was revolutionary in many ways, though, because it established the principle that even the king was subject to law. In addition, key provisions included protections against arbitrary imprisonment, limits on taxation without consent, and guarantees of due process.

Last week, the U.S. celebrated Independence Day, and it is noteworthy that the American colonists invoked the Magna Carta against British rule, and concepts embodied in the Magna Carta were included in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Several years before July 4, 1776, there was strong opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765, an act of the British Parliament that imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America. Remembering the Magna Carta, the colonists strongly rejected “taxation without representation.”*

The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was also based on the core idea of the Magna Carta, stating that the king could not impose taxes without the "general consent of the realm." The colonists viewed the Tea Act of 1773 as a violation of that ancient English right.**

While there may not have been explicit references to the Magna Carta by the British colonists who initiated the Revolutionary War, it is quite certain that their grievances against King George III and the British governance of the Thirteen Colonies were based on key ideas incorporated in the Magna Carta.

What about the current U.S. government and the Magna Carta? It seems quite clear to most top U.S. politicians (and their supporters) who are not MAGA adherents that the 47^th President is saying and doing things that stand in opposition to the Magna Carta—and the U.S. Constitution.

Once again, Claude came through with a list of “several areas where President Trump’s 2025 actions have raised concerns that relate to principles found in the Magna Carta,” a list that seems completely accurate to me. It includes:

 1) Due Process Violations. Legal experts say that the manner in which Trump is targeting some law firms runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process. These violations are even more evident in Trump’s aggressive deportation of immigrants.

  2) Arbitrary Executive Action. Directly related to the above is Trump’s executive order using a wartime authority for law enforcement purposes, targeting people for arrest based solely on their ethnicity/nationality. This is the sort of arbitrary action that the Magna Carta sought to prevent.

  3) Targeting of Legal Professionals: The actions against “enemy” law firms, restricting access to federal buildings, and terminating government contracts due to their association with former special counsel Robert Mueller resemble the kind of arbitrary punishment that the Magna Carta was designed to prevent.

  4) Immigration Enforcement Changes: Trump ended the policy from 2011, which prohibited immigration arrests in sensitive areas such as courthouses, schools, churches, and hospitals. Currently, my church is considering how to respond if ICE agents show up seeking “illegals” during a worship service.

In summary, Claude states, “The Magna Carta’s core principle was limiting arbitrary royal power and ensuring legal protections.” However, some of Trump's 2025 executive actions “echo the kind of unchecked executive power the Magna Carta was designed to constrain.” That, sadly, seems to be the case, indeed.

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  * If you need to review what the Stamp Act was, as I did, Wikipedia, as usual, provides a helpful explanation (click here).

** For additional information about the Boston Tea Party, see my December 15, 2013, blog post (here).

 

What about Deconstruction?

In recent years, much has been written about Christian deconstruction. That may be a new term/concept to many of you, but it is something worth thinking about, for ourselves and for the people around us who are struggling with their faith or lack thereof. 

What is deconstruction? Well, in the physical world, we are all familiar with construction as meaning “the act or process of building something.” Similarly, deconstruction means the selective dismantlement of building components as opposed to demolition. It is construction in reverse.

Then there is the related word reconstruction, that is, “the act or process of building again something that was damaged or destroyed.” (Of course, Reconstruction was the term used for the turbulent era from 1865 to 1877 as the Confederate states were reintegrated into the United States.)

For quite some time, though, deconstruction has been used as a philosophical or literary term. In philosophy, it refers to the endeavor to understand the relationship between a text and its meaning. Philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930~2004) introduced that concept of deconstruction.

Somewhat surprisingly, since Derrida described himself as Jewish “without being Jewish,” his ideas about deconstruction have been influential among evangelical Christians, and especially among those who have become “progressive.”

Consider the construction, deconstruction, reconstruction process. Everyone acquires a constructed worldview, which for most people is linked to religious beliefs. The worldview or basic beliefs of children are constructed primarily by their parents and/or teachers (such as Sunday School teachers).

Most people grow up accepting what they have been taught without question—until they don’t. Some never change or veer very much from their other-constructed worldview or religious faith. Those who remain rooted in family and community structures into which they were born often make little change.

However, because of life experiences, critical thinking, and/or contact with different worldviews, most people who leave their birth “cocoon” begin the often rather painful process of deconstruction. That is true now for most Christian believers, of course.

According to Claude, in such cases, deconstruction for Christians

refers to a critical examination and dismantling of traditional religious beliefs, practices, and interpretations of scripture. This process involves questioning long-held assumptions about faith, doctrine, and biblical interpretation to uncover underlying power structures, cultural biases, and historical influences that may have shaped Christian understanding.*¹

The final paragraph of Claude’s response to my question states, “The ultimate goal for many deconstructive theologians is not destruction but reconstruction—building a more authentic, inclusive, and contextually relevant understanding of Christian faith.” Touché!

Is deconstruction good or bad (beneficial or harmful)? In the past, I have written how “unexamined faith is not worth having,” and posted blog articles about “Growing in the Faith” (2/28/17) and about the importance of expanding one’s worldview (7/30/24).*²

From a Christian point of view, I think it is harmful when deconstruction ends up destroying one’s Christian faith, as it sometimes does. However, it is certainly beneficial when it leads to growth, an expanded worldview, and a faith strong enough to meet contemporary challenges to a Christian worldview.

The reconstructed faith may differ from the institutional Christianity to which one was formerly linked, but it may, in fact, be more closely linked to the real message of Jesus Christ.

Two examples of the latter are Martin Thielen and Jim Palmer, both former pastors and both now outside of organized Christianity as a religion but still Jesus-followers, it seems to me.

Thielen is a former Baptist and Methodist pastor. He elucidates the deconstruction and reconstruction of his Christian faith in “My Long Farewell to Traditional Religion (and What Remains),” posted on his Doubter’s Parish website.

Palmer is an M.Div. graduate of Trinity Divinity School and served many years as a Christian pastor before leaving the ministry in 2000. He started the online Center for Non-Religious Spirituality in 2021, creating a community for people to explore spirituality apart from the core beliefs of traditional religion.

Palmer, who writes extensively, also has a Substack newsletter titled “deconstructionology.” Some of you might like to read “What if …”, his June 27 post, which lists “17 ways to transform candidates for the hereafter into lovers of the world.”*³

Best wishes to all of you who are currently working on deconstruction and reconstruction—and I encourage any of you who may still need to begin deconstruction to start that process soon.

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*¹ Claude is now my AI chatbot of choice, and it (he?) gave an excellent response to my inquiry, “What does deconstruction mean for Christian theologians?” The words cited above is the first of six paragraphs produced in just a few seconds. (You can find an introduction to Claude here.)

*² The former was the title of my June 20, 2018, blog post and also of the 17^th chapter in my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2019). Then, in connection with the latter blog article, in my 8/20/24 post I wrote about deconstruction for the first time.

*³ While Palmer now identifies as non-religious, much of what he posted in his June 27 newsletter is not much different from what Pastor Jarrett Banks posted in his June 25 Substack blog article.