07February25 - These Resources Fight Fascists

Jesus lived in the daily grind of Empire. One of his disciples was a collaborator with Rome -- a tax collector enriching himself off the suffering of the masses. Another of his disciples was a Zealot -- a freedom fighter/terrorist/nationalist who was trying to remove the Roman boot from the Jewish neck by violent resistance. Both heard the Sermon on the Mount and were taught Jesus' way of creative nonviolent resistance. Both lived together side by side, because no matter how repugnant they were to each other at the start, they both craved nearness to Christ, and were changed enough by him that they eventually could love each other as brothers.

Paul expanded on this idea by living with that same Empire, engaging the culture war issues of his day by re-writing and subverting the common household codes, and turning the Tower-like hierarchies of Roman patriarchy into Webs of love and mutual care. By reconciling Jewish followers of Christ to the influx of Gentiles who joined the movement he tore down dividing walls between every kind of people, and helped them live together despite their fear, offense, and anger.

I have lived in conservative and MAGA spaces almost all my life. I understand that they believe that anyone on the left is "not a real Christian". They are about creating in-groups and out-groups that mark a clear line between Good People and Degenerates. And nothing that a Good Person does is inexcusable, and nothing a Degenerate does is moral. “Even the plowing of the wicked is sin”, and they've firmly decided who is wicked.

They are not interested in listening to the pain of any person not like them. That pain is either their own fault, evidence of God's wrath, or a simple outlier that can be dismissed for the Greater Good.

Unfortunately for me, I don't view them as "not real Christians" -- they are, for better or worse, collaborators with Rome, but still siblings in Christ. How do I live with that? How do I move into community with that?  Nothing I've done in the last 9 years since Trump moved down that golden escalator, or 4 years since Covid broke, has moved the needle with anyone. How the FUCK did Matthew the Tax Collector and Simon the Zealot figure this out?

I no longer believe in the promise that if you just educate people, lay out common sense facts, explain the consequences to themselves and others, and give them the resources to do what you're asking, that they will take the right path.

I also no longer believe that Christianity can be practiced in it's intended form without living in community with people that you believe are dangerously misguided and wrong. I no longer believe in Empire or personal hierarchy. I no longer believe that any human person is my enemy, even the ones that want me dead through neglect, selfishness, ignorance, and malice.

I do believe in the Powers. I do believe in cultures and people taken captive to their own wrongheaded idea of The Good, and how to bring it about. I do believe that Christ asks us to take the hardest of all possible routes to influence -- the one that takes us through the valley of death, that requires us to exercise radical love, and creative nonviolence to proclaim our dignity and personhood in the face of unimaginable hate and fear.

I also believe that people aren't required to be in community with their abusers. That Jesus, when he describes conflict resolution within communities, requires ever widening circles of protection around those who have been harmed without compunction or remorse by abusers. He doesn’t require us to be in community with them. He describes forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration to positions of trust as completely different things with different requirements from both the abuser and abused. Some things that offenders do is so bad that there is no path to restoration to the former communion once shared. 

There is tension there. 

Someday America will have to reckon with this period in history. There will be a Reconstruction 2.0, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Denazification era. People will have to feel the shame of their action or inaction during this time. I feel the eye of history on me — would I have been an abolitionist in the antebellum era? Would I have been in the resistance in occupied Europe during WWII?

I’ve always convinced myself that I’d at least not be an active participant in those sins of the past, but I have worried that it’s entirely possible that I would have been a bystander. That I’d have lived in my little village and ignored when ash sometimes rained down like snow when the wind was in the wrong direction.

People who voted for him this time, and continue to defend him through everything the last 2 weeks fall in 3 categories to me

1) Ignorant/Undiscerning/Unwise/“Unpolitical” to the point of idiocy. (fascist aligned)

2) True Believers who have been sucked into the Cult. (Rank and file fascists)

3) Malicious climbers who are fully bought in to the fascism (fascist officers)

All three categories have forfeited my trust, respect, and esteem. They disgust me. Their ideology and praxis is blasphemy. Their morality, integrity, religious devotion, and patriotism seem to be for sale, and the vast majority of them gave it away for less than nothing. For a mirage. The remainder sold it for the chance to remake the world in their own image, and gather the power into their own hands, and line their own pockets.

I am called by the words and example of Christ to resist them through creative, nonviolent, and subversive means, and yet still hold in tension the possibility of them ultimately changing their mind, leaving the cult, deprogramming, feeling remorse, and changing their ways. And I have to have a soft enough heart that I can accept that. HOW?! Matthew the Tax Collector, and Simon the Zealot live rent free in my head these days.

These Resources Fight Fascists

Books:


Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor - a former neo-Nazi turned pastor gives a strategy for viewing Christians in the MAGA cult as a mission field

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century - learning lessons from the first time we did this.

True or False: A CIA Analyst’s guide to spotting fake news - “A former CIA analyst unveils the true history of fake news and gives readers tips on how to avoid falling victim to it in this highly designed informative YA nonfiction title.”

Parable of the Sower - written in 1993, set in early 2025, just after California was ravaged by wildfires brought on by climate change and a Christo-fascist demagogue took the Presidency using the slogan “Make America Great Again”. Prescient isn’t strong enough a word.

The Art of Simple Sabotage

Politics:

Erica WilkinsonComment