Oddly enough, my wife is a woman. She is also a first-generation immigrant. She is the daughter of a working Colombian family who, by faith, family, thrift, and hard work, prospered in a white working-class Pennsylvania town. She is a surviving victim of serious sexual harassment. She long endured racist slurs by her white neighbors and peers. She has fought through much suffering and adversity to become the working professional she now is. When she got home from work yesterday, as our eyes met she literally burst into tears. As she sobbed on my shoulder, she whispered: “This is not us. This is not America. Trump is not America.” Hard and hopeful things must be said. In Jesus’s Name, with compassion and in truth:
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Hear these words.You have not taken care of the weak. You have not tended the sick or bound up the injured. …Instead, you have ruled them with harshness and cruelty. …This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I consider these shepherds my enemies, and I will hold them responsible for what has happened to my flock. I will take away their right to feed the flock, and I will stop them from feeding themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths; the sheep will no longer be their prey. — Ezekiel 34:3-10
Because what you say is false and your visions are a lie, I will stand against you… I will raise my fist against all the prophets who see false visions… I will sweep away your whitewashed wall with a storm of indignation, with a great flood of anger, and with hailstones of fury.I will break down your wall right to its foundation. —Ezekiel 13:8-14
They chose new gods when war was at the gates. Was there a shield or spear to be seen among Israel’s forty thousand men? … Awake, awake, O’Deborah! —Judges 5:8
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It is finished. You have chosen. You have now wholly sealed what has been obvious for a generation: the complete abdication of your responsibility. Now comes what you’ve often preached: the consequences. . With now irrevocable finality, you have shown working folks, people of color, immigrants, global democratic allies, and your own daughters: you cannot be trusted. You’ve not only showed us that morality means nothing to you, you’ve showed us that you cannot even be trusted to act in your own rational self-interest. There are reasons for this, but first… . Witness: . You have betrayed the working poor: for a generation, you’ve supported policies that exploit and opposed policies that empower working folks, the very policies at the root of emerging instability. . Your choice openly declares the working poor your enemy. . You have betrayed people of color: for a generation, you’ve tolerated and reproduced outright racism, the very racism that pits working Americans against one another, the very racism at the root of emerging instability. . Your choice openly declares Blacks and all persons of color your enemy. . You have betrayed the stranger, the different, and the immigrant: for a generation, you’ve tolerated and perpetrated scapegoating, and bore false witness against the sojourner, the LGBTQ, and the new neighbor; the very false witness at the root of emerging instability..
Your choice openly declares the stranger your enemy.
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You have betrayed your own daughters: for a generation, you’ve tolerated and reproduced outright misogyny, and have now told your daughters that sexual domination ought be rewarded, the very predation at the root of emerging instability.
. Your choice openly declares women your enemy. . You have betrayed international democratic solidarity: for a generation, you’ve geopolitically supported the Rule of Force over the Rule of Law, and now stand with ascending tyranny, the very lawlessness at the root of emerging instability. . Your choice openly declares the rule of law your enemy. . You have betrayed the past, the present, and the future: for a generation, you’ve clung to a whitewashed past, for a projected whitewashed future, and these Idols have motivated your blind whitewashing of the present. You have betrayed the best in your own heritage. You have offered up your children to predatory incompetence. You have done so for... Why you have chosen as you have? The answer to this question is not a mystery. I say this with compassion, but I will not whitewash the truth: A generation ago you were offered a role in the halls of power in the office of moral legitimation. Flattered, you embraced this task with relish, and were compensated well with money, spectacle, and scapegoats to devour. To assuage a faint unease, you embellished a long extent story to rationalize your new place in the limelight: the indefatigable liberal-Marxist-atheist-Muslim-globalist-Nazi-anti-Christ plot to destroy White Christian America. By all telluric accounts you have been wildly “successful,” whitewashing “moral” policies that exploit, divide, accuse, lie, steal, and destroy. You have helped lite a strange fire in the minds of the working class, even as you offered them innocents to blame and lynch. Enthralled to an vile image of a whitewashed past and future, you gave yourself over to Mammon, Baal, and Moloch. Having given yourself to a Lawless principality, Lawlessness is your unfolding legacy. New white nationalism is your spawn. Trump is the totally transparent incarnation of the death-gods you have dutifully served, in abdication of your neighbor and the enemy-love that is your call, and on the backs of the poor and exposed. . Of course, you alone are not responsible for this predicament. A generation of GOP race-bating and predictably failed “trickledown” promises are in play. A generation of unaccountable nativist demagoguery in conservative media is in play. A generation of DemParty technocratic compromise is in play. A generation of the Left’s self-aggrandizing passivity and worldless, Balkanizing impotence is in play. Those accounts, too, will be litigated. New fights will soon take center-stage. But at this moment, you are addressed. . All of this truly grieves us. We know you did all this as much out of fear and grievance as for the seductions of money and spectacle. We know first hand the gap between your personal and political lives. For over a decade, we, your neighbors and children, have directly pleaded with you. We have alerted you to the real criminals and warned you off your devil’s pact. To no avail. With this choice, you sealed the sin of Sodom as your own. With this choice, the cup of your rebellion has fully and finally overflowed. . Hear these words. . This day, your mantle is stripped from you. It is wholly passed to a remnant: the Blacks, women, POCs, immigrants, LGBTs, and workers you have oppressed for a generation. The responsibility for the future is passed to those worthy of trust. The chaos you have unleashed will intensify, and every victim of this confusion and violence are eternally counted as yours. You will not wash the stain of their suffering and blood from your hands. Any and every excuse or self-apology is this day called to a halt. Every excuse: dead on arrival, but for another ornament on the mountain of your shame. Save a shining, embattled remnant, your generation will forever stand as a warning: an example of idolatry, madness, and infidelity. Individuals can be forgiven, but your generation will not be forgotten. It is finished. A new beginning is at hand. Your declared enemies are God’s chosen ones for our time. They will do exploits. They will shine. They will treat you better than you’ve treated them, even as they destroy the idols of death you have erected and worship. In Jesus’s Name, it is done. . Hymn of Sororal Hope . From the unfolding ashes of lawlessness, a Deborah has been long arising. The faithful are already gathering in her wing. She is Black, Arab, Latina, Indigenous, Indian, European, Asian, and Jewish; she speaks in tongues that span the length of history, from long-forgotten ancient prayers to an as yet, unheard liturgy: . Awake, Awake, O’Deborah. With unbound courage, She Ascends. Armed with a shield of faith, she will face down the hoards of fear. Clad in armor of righteousness, she will repel resentment’s enveloping assault. ∞ Awake, Awake, O’Deborah. With eruptive joy, She Ascends. Armed with a hammer of creation, she will reshape chaos into new dwellings of birth and justice. Clad in a belt of truth, she preserves, renovates, and invents. ∞ Awake, Awake, O’Deborah. With fierce compassion, She Ascends. Armed with a bow of judgment, she plucks oppressor from victim, trickster from fooled, criminal from tragic. Clad in a helmet of rescue, she judges to heal, forgive, and redeem; obstinate predator alone will feel the full force of her fury. ∞ Awake, Awake, O’Deborah. With an undaunted roar, She Ascends. Armed with the sword of the Spirit, she will storm the gates of hell. She will smite in defense of the innocent, but can take a blow before giving one. Violence is her last resort. Clad in shoes of peace, she will dance upon injustice to its oblivion. . The battle begins anew. Deborahs will lead us.