Courage in the face of authoritarianism

LOUISVILLE — A powerhouse panel led an eager crowd of nearly 400 people through a timely topic, “Courage in the Face of Authoritarianism: Historical Roots and Modern Responses” during the Presbyterian Advocacy Hour on Wednesday. Watch the 90-minute presentation here.

Along with other partners, Wednesday’s webinar was a collaborative effort of the Office of Public Witness, the Office of Immigration Issues, the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People and the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

The Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson, SDOP director, moderated the three member panel comprised of:

• Brett Heinz, the global policy coordinator for economic and climate justice for the American Friends Service Committee.
• Dr. William Yoo, associate professor of American Religious and Cultural History at Columbia Theological Seminary, whose most recent book is “Reckoning with History: Settler Colonialism, Slavery and the Making of American Christianity.”
• The Rev. Anna Kendig Flores, the anti-racism institutional assessment coordinator and interim co-executive presbyter for the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area.

Heinz traced the current national security state back to the nation’s war on drugs and its war on terror. He noted that last year, about 35,000 troops were deployed on U.S. soil.

Presidential power began expanding in the Nixon White House with its war on drugs. That war became militarized during the Reagan administration, when National Guard deployments to U.S. cities became more common, Heinz said.

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The war on terror further expanded the military’s role. “President Trump thinks he can break the rules because past presidents broke the roles and thereby set the precedent for what the president can get away with now,” Heinz said. “What we see today can be seen in the early stages of those wars on drugs and terror.” Today’s policymakers “don’t know or don’t care about how past policies brought us to where we are now.”

The way out, he said, includes the need “to explicitly reject security as the framing” for policy-making. Occupation is not related to quelling crime, he said — it’s oppression. Drug abuse has been a problem in the United States “for a long time, and we aren’t treating it as a public health issue.”

His key point, he said, is that we will “continue failing and militarizing our society” as long as we focus on the symptoms and not the disease.”

Yoo noted that those on the call “are on the same team doing the good and hard work of resistance and justice together.”

He wondered: How can the gospel inspire us in our commitment to our country while helping us to challenge the government when we see excesses and abuses?

Speaking on the Theological Declaration of Barmen, Yoo cited some biblical anchors for that confession, including John 14:6, Ephesians 4:15 and John 10:10. Paul was telling the faithful in Ephesus that “it is permissible and faithful to speak the truth in love in such a time as this” in ways that “protect the marginalized in our midst,” Yoo said. John 10:10 is our cue to “name authoritarianism and resist it, and how we might profess a gospel that is about abundant life.”

In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln said the nation was conceived in liberty. But it was also conceived in slavery, Yoo pointed out. “We are a nation constantly seeking how we might pursue this more perfect union, but it’s bumpy and it doesn’t happen right away,” Yoo said. Authoritarianism and white Christian nationalism “won’t open the doors of opportunity.”

We need to determine how to be good neighbors and good citizens, he said. “We want to criticize and call out abuses and excesses of immigration enforcement,” he said. “We also need to be thinking about reforming laws.” Being a good neighbor can be “direct work,” he said, but “the work of politics and changing laws is messy and complicated” and almost always comes with compromises.

One current possibility toward immigration reform is putting people on the pathway to permanent residency, but not citizenship, he said. “I prefer pathways over time to eventual citizenship, but I understand how this might be politically possible,” he said.

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As she spoke, Kendig Flores sat next to a sign with this message: “Do justice, love kindness, abolish ICE.”

“Our congregations have been through some painful times,” she said, especially last month’s killings by federal agents of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

It can be “easy to talk and know about things, and not enact those things in the world,” she said. “Understanding where we have come from and where we want to go together is very important.”

Fascism and the roots of fascism — including militarization, control and acts of dominance — are based in fear, she said, and include the fear of change and a lack of trust in one another.

“How do I manage my fear?” she asked, recalling a family dinner where immigrants were at the table. Someone who had married into the family, a white person, “was getting ramped up and said, ‘You’re saying I can’t have feelings because I’m white.’”

“That’s a loud example of what I’m talking about — fear writing our actions for us,” she said.

Kendig Flores said the opposite of being controlled by fear is genuine courage, “based in the heart and driven by our deepest values.”

“Am I doing [good work] because I want to prove I’m a good person? Because I want to fight for justice?” she asked. “There are times when we have to stand up directly and there are times when that may not be the right thing to do.” There’s certain work all of us can do, she said, including feeding people and offering them rides so they can keep their appointments.

“These can help us work toward abolition and wholeness,” she said, “using our whole bodies and our interconnected communities in ways that can be powerful.”

During a question-and-answer session, Kendig Flores observed that reform movements “have been generational. There is a way in which people expect that protests should have an immediate response in the system, but that’s not what protests are for.”

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“A real shoutout to the beautiful, messy, incremental work of congregational life — being together with people who love one another and are committed to being together and will disagree with one another,” Yoo said. “The hope is that as we gather in local churches, there is a lot of good that can happen even in the messy disagreements. There’s a lot of good happening, and I don’t want us to forget that. I want to thank all the church people who are here during this Advocacy Hour.”

“People realize we are in a very bad spot,” Heinz said. “It shouldn’t lead us to conclude that our efforts aren’t worthwhile.” 

“Each of us has to continue to do our part,” Heinz said. “Our collective efforts over time are what will make a difference.”

The Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, advocacy director in the Interim Unified Agency, took those gathered through some concepts on nonviolent resistance. Among those are vigils, a form of peaceful demonstration designed to remember and honor victims, demand accountability, raise awareness, show solidarity and support, call for systemic change and offer prayer and reflection.

A new manual on nonviolent resistance will be available online next month, Hawkins said.

“We won’t see all of this resolved in our lifetime,” Hawkins said. “But our children need to see we have a prophetic voice in our communities.”

The next edition of the Presbyterian Advocacy Hour will be held beginning at noon Eastern Time on March 25. Learn more here.