How Fascism Works

I just finished a book.  Or maybe it was a puzzle?  Or maybe I finally saw the hidden image in one of those "magic eye" posters.  However you want to describe it, the pattern or image or political strategy revealed in Jason Stanley's book "How Fascism Works" is a reality that, once seen, cannot be unseen.  I'd picked up on some patterns and similarities in strategy and rhetoric over the years, having become more concerned when it all intensified with our current Presidential Administration but this brought home a clarity to the far-right movements gaining popularity in both our country and other countries across the world.  The ideas in the book are important enough that I took the time to type out some quotes.

Introduction
Multiple countries, across the world, have been overtaken by a certain kind of far-right nationalism.  The list includes Russia, Hungary, Poland, India, Turkey and the United States.  The task of generalizing about such phenomena is always vexing, as the context of each country is always unique but such generalization is necessary in the current moment.  I have chosen the label “fascism” for ultra-nationalism of some variety, ethnic, religious, cultural, with the nation represented in the person of an authoritarian leader who speaks on its behalf. 

My particular interest in this book is in fascist politics.  Particularly, my interest is in fascist tactics as a mechanism to achieve power.  Once those who employ such tactics come to power, the regimes they enact are, in large part, determined by particular historical conditions.  What occurred in Germany is different from what occurred in Italy.  Fascists politics does not necessarily lead to an explicitly fascist state but it is dangerous, nonetheless. 
Fascist politics includes many distinct strategies.  The mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality (i.e. conspiracy theories), hierarchy, victimhood, law-and-order, sexual anxiety, appeals to the heartland and a dismantling of public welfare and unity.  Though a defense of certain elements is legitimate and sometimes warranted, there are times in history in which they come together in one party of political movement.  These are dangerous moments.  In the US today, Republican politicians employ these strategies with more and more frequency.  Their increasing tendency to engage in this politics should give honest conservatives pause. 
The dangers  of fascist politics comes in the particular way it dehumanizes segments of the population.  By excluding these groups, it limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhuman treatment; from the repression of freedom, mass imprisonment and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination.
Fascist politics can dehumanize a minority group even when an explicitly fascist state does not arrive. 

The most telling symptom of fascist politics is division.  It aims to separate a population into an “us” and a “them.”  Many kinds of political movements involved such a division.  For example, Communist politics weaponizes class divisions.  Giving a description of fascist politics involves describing the very specific way that fascist politics distinguishes “us” from “them.”  Appealing to ethnic, religious or racial distinctions and using this division to shape ideology and, ultimately, policy.

Fascist politicians justify their ideas by breaking down a common sense of history, in creating a mythic past to support their vision for the present.  To support their vision for the present, they rewrite the population’s shared understanding of reality by twisting the language of ideals through propaganda and promoting anti-intellectualism, attacking universities and educational systems which might challenge their ideas.  Eventually, with these techniques, fascist politics creates a state of unreality in which conspiracy theories and fake news replace reasoned debate.  As the common understanding of reality crumbles, fascist politics makes rooms for dangerous and false beliefs to take root.
First, fascist ideology seeks to naturalize group difference, thereby giving the appearance of natural, scientific support for a hierarchy of human worth. When social rankings and divisions solidify, fear fills in for understanding between groups.  Any progress for a minority groups stokes feelings of victimhood among the dominant population. 
Law-and-order politics has mass appeal, casting “us” as “lawful citizens” and “them,” by contrast, as “lawless criminals” whose behavior poses an existential threat to the manhood of the nation.
Sexual anxiety is also typical of fascist politics as the patriarchal hierarchy is threatened by growing gender equity.
As the fear of “them” grows, “we” come to represent everything virtuous.  “We” live in the rural heartland where the pure values and traditions of the nation still, miraculously, exist, despite the threat of the cosmopolitanism of the nation’s cities alongside the hordes of minorities who live there, emboldened by liberal tolerance.  “We” are hardworking and have earned our pride of place by struggle and merit.  “They” are lazy, surviving off the goods we produce by exploiting the generosity of our welfare systems or by employing corrupt institutions such as labor unions, meant to separate honest, hardworking citizens from their pay. 
“We” are makers.  “They” are takers. 

In its own history, the US can find a legacy of the best of liberal democracy as well as the roots of fascist thought.  Indeed, Hitler was inspired by the Confederacy and Jim Crow laws.  Following the horrors of WWII, which sent millions of refugees fleeing across the world, the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the dignity of every human being.  The drafting and adoption of the document were spearheaded by former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.  And after the war, it stood for the US’ ideals as much as those of the new United Nations.  It was a bold statement, a powerful iteration and expansion of liberal democratic understanding of personhood to include literally the entire world community.  It bound all nations and cultures to a shared commitment to valuing the equality of every person.  And it rang with the aspirations of millions in a shattered world confronting the devastation of colonialism, genocide, racism, global war and, yes, fascism. 
After the war, Article 14 was particularly poignant, solemnly affirming the right of every person to seek asylum.  Even as the declaration attempted to prevent a repetition of the suffering experienced during WWII, it acknowledged that certain categories of people might, once again, have to flee the nation-states under whose flag they once lived. 

Fascism today might not look exactly like it did in the 1930s, but refugees are once again on the road everywhere.  In multiple countries, their plight reinforces fascist propaganda that the nation is under siege that aliens are a threat and danger, both within and outside their borders.  The suffering of strangers can solidify the structure of fascism but it can also trigger empathy once another lenses is clicked into place. 

Chapter 1   Mythic Past
This imagined history provides proof to support the imposition of hierarchy in the present and it dictates how contemporary society should look and behave.  In a 1922 speech at the fascist conference in Naples, Benito Mussolini declared, “We have created our myth.  The myth is a faith, a passion.  It is not necessary for it to be a reality.  Our Myth is the nation.  Our Myth is the greatness of the nation.  And to this Myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total reality, we subordinate everything.”
Here, Mussolini makes clear that the fascist mythic past is intentionally mythical.  The function of the Mythic Past in fascist politics is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenants of fascist ideology; Authoritarianism, Hierarchy, Purity and Struggle.  With the creation of a mythic past, fascism creates a link between nostalgia and the realization of fascist ideals.

Chapter 2 Propaganda
In book 8 of Plato’s The Republic, Socrates argues that people are not naturally lead to self-governance but rather seek a strong leader to follow.  Democracy, by permitting freedom of speech, opens the door for a demagogue to exploit the people’s need for a strongman.  The strongman will use this freedom to prey upon the people’s resentments and fears.  Once the strongman seizes power, he will end democracy, replacing it with tyranny.  In short, book 8 of The Republic argues that democracy is a self-undermining system whose very ideals lead to its own demise. 

Fascists have always been well-acquainted with this recipe for using democracy’s liberties against itself. 

It's hard to advance a policy that will harm a large group of people in straight-forward terms.  The role of political propaganda is to conceal politicians or political movements’ clearly problematic goals by masking them with ideals that are widely accepted. 

Chapter 3 Anti-intellectual
Fascist politics seeks to undermine public discourse by attacking and devaluing education, expertise and language.  Intelligent debate is impossible without an education, with access to different perspectives, a respect for expertise when one’s own knowledge gives out and a rich enough language to precisely describe reality.  When education, expertise and linguistic distinctions are undermined, there remains only power and tribal identity.  This does not mean there are no roles for universities in fascist politics.  In fascists ideology, there is only one legitimate viewpoint, that of the dominant nation.  Schools introduce students to the dominant culture and it’s mythical past.  Education therefore either poses a grave threat to fascism or becomes a pillar of support for the mythical nation. 

Chapter 4 Unreality
When propaganda succeeds at twisting ideals against themselves and universities are undermined and condemned as sources of bias, reality itself is cast into doubt.  We can’t agree on truth.  Fascist politics replaces reasoned debate with fear and anger.  When it is successful, it’s audiences are left with the destabilized sense of loss and a well of mistrust and anger against those whom it has been told are responsible for this loss. 

Hannah Arent, perhaps the 20^th century’s greatest theorist for Totalitarianism, gave clear warning of the importance of conspiracy theories in anti-democratic politics.  In “The Origins of Totalitarianism” she writes, “Mysteriousness, as such, became the first criterion for the choice of topics.  The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda demonstrates one of the chief characteristics of modern masses; they do not believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own experience, they do not trust their eyes and ears but only their imaginations which may be caught be anything that is at once universal and consistent in itself.  What convinces masses are not facts and not even invented facts but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumable a part.  Repetition is only important because it convinces them of consistency, in time.  Because the audience for conspiracy theories regularly discount their own experience, it is often unimportant that the conspiracy theories are demonstrably false. 

Texas House Bill 45, the “American laws for American courts” bill signed into law by the Texas Governor in 2017, is intended to block Muslims from bringing Sharia law into the state.  That Muslims are trying to sneakily transform Texas into an Islamic Republic is deeply improbable.  As is the hypothesis that President Obama is a secret Muslim pretending to be a Christian in order to overthrown the US government.  These conspiracy theories are effective, never-the-less, because they provide simple explanations for otherwise irrational emotions, such as resentment or xenophobic fear in the face of perceived threats.  The idea that President Obama is secretly a Muslim, pretending to be a Christian, in order to overthrow the US government makes rational sense of the irrational feelings of threat many white people had upon his ascension to the Presidency.  That Muslims are trying to sneak Sharia law into Texas makes rationale sense of the feeling of fear caused by a combination of religious nationalists spreading anti-muslim xenophobia and ISIS propaganda videos of terrorists acts committed on far-off shores.  Once a public accepts the comfort of conspiracy thinking for an explanation of irrational fears and resentments, its members will cease to be guided by reason in political deliberation. 

How can conspiracy theories spread if reason always wins out in the square of public date in a liberal democracy?  Shouldn’t liberal democracy promote a full airing of all possibilities, even false and bizarre ones, because the truth will eventually prevail in the marketplace of ideas? 

Perhaps philosophies most famous defense of the freedom of speech was articulated by John Stuart Mill, who defended the ideal in his 1859 work “On Liberty.”  Mills sets out to establish that silencing any opinion is wrong, even if the opinion is false.  To silence a false opinion is wrong because knowledge arises only from the collision of truth with error.  In other words, true belief becomes knowledge only in emerging victorious from the den of argument and disagreement and discussion. According to Mill, knowledge emerges only as the result of deliberation with opposing positions, which must occur either with actual opponents or through internal dialogue.  Without this process, even true belief remains mere prejudice.  “We must allow all speech, even defense of false claims and conspiracy theories because it is only then that we have the chance of achieving knowledge.”  Whether rightly or wrongly, many associate Mills with the motif of a “market place of ideas.”  A realm which, if left to operate on its own, will drive out prejudice and falsehood and produce knowledge. 

But the notion of a “marketplace of ideas” like that of a free-market generally is predicated upon a utopian conception of consumers.  In the case of the metaphor of the marketplace of ideals, the utopian assumptions is that conversation works by exchange of reasons, with one party offering its reasons which are then countered by the reasons of an opponent until the truth ultimately emerges.  But conversation is not just used to communicate information.  Conversation is also used to shut out perspectives, raise fears and heighten prejudice. 

The argument for the “marketplace of ideas” presupposes that words are used only in their descriptive, logical or semantic sense.  But in politics, and most vividly in fascist politics, language is not used simply or even chiefly, to convey information but to illicit emotion.  The argument from the “marketplace of ideas” model for free speech works only if the underlying disposition of the society is to accept the force of reason over the power of irrational resentments and prejudice.  If the society is divided, however then a demagogique politician can exploit the division by using language to sow fear, accentuate prejudice and call for revenge against members of hated groups.  Attempting to counter such rhetoric with reason is akin to using a pamphlet against a pistol.   

[Marketplace of ideas] assumes that knowledge, and only knowledge, emerges from arguments between dedicated opponents.  Such a process, according to that theory, destroys prejudice.
But in reality, objective truth gets drowned out in the cacophony of dissenting voices.  The effect of the myriad of conspiracy theory producing websites across the world, including in the US, has been to destabilize the shared reality that is, in fact, required for shared democratic contestation. 
Disagreement requires a shared set of presuppositions about the world… You and I might disagree over whether President Obama’s health care policy was a good idea.  But if you believe President Obama was a secret Muslim seeking to destroy the US and I do not, our discussion will not be productive.  We will not be talking about the cost and benefits of Obama’s health policy but rather whether or not any of his policies mask a devious, anti-democratic agenda.  Russian propagandists or “political technologists” realized that, with a cacophony of opinions and outlandish opinions, one could undermine the basic background set of presuppositions about the world which allows for productive inquiry.  One can hardly have reasoned discussion about climate policy when one suspects that the scientists who tell us about climate change have a secret “pro-homosexual agenda” as, for example the evangelical media member Tony Perkins suggested on an October 29^th, 2014 edition of his radio program, “Washington Watch.” 

Allowing every opinion into the public sphere and giving it serious time for consideration, far from resulting in a process that is conducive to knowledge formation via deliberation, destroys its very possibility.  Responsible media, in a liberal democracy, must, in the face of this threat, try to report the truth and resist the temptation to report on every possible theory, no matter how fantastical, as long as someone advances it. 
What happens when conspiracy theories become the coin of politics and mainstream media and education institutions are discredited is that citizens no longer have a common reality that can serve as background for democratic deliberation.  In such a situation, citizens have no choice but to look for markers to follow other than truth or reliability.  What happens, in such cases, as we see across the world, is that citizens look to politics for tribal identifications, for addressing personal grievances and for entertainment.
Fascist politics exchanges reality for the remarks of a single individual or, perhaps, a political party.  Regular, repeated and obvious lying is part of the process by which fascists politics destroys the information space.  A fascist leader can replace truth with power. Ultimately lying without consequence.  By replacing the world with a person, fascist politics makes us unable to assess arguments by a common standard.  The fascist politician possess specific techniques to destroy information spaces and break down reality.  

The University of Connecticut philosopher Michal Lynch has used the example of “Pizza-gate” as evidence for the thesis that conspiracy theories are not intended to be treated as ordinary information.  Lynch points out that if one were actually to believe that there was a pizzeria in Washington DC that was trafficking in child sex slaves for Democratic congressmen, it would be entirely rationale to act as Edgar Madison Welch acted.  And yet, Welch was roundly condemned who promulgated the “Pizza-gate” conspiracy for his actions.  Lynch’s point is that the “Pizza-gate” conspiracy was not intended to be treated as ordinary information.  The function of conspiracy theories is to impugn and malign their targets but not necessarily be convincing their audience that they are true.  In the case of “Pizza-gate”, the conspiracy was mean to remain at the level of innuendo and slander. 

Donald Trump came to mainstream political attention by attacking the press for their supposed censorship of the conspiracy called “Birtherism.”  In an interview with CNN on May 29^th, 2012, Trump railed at Wolf Blitzer and CNN for not covering the topic because, according to Trump, they were working for Obama.  Fox News, in contrast, provided a ready platform to promote his conspiracy theories. 
President Trump is not an outlier here.  Conspiracy theories are the calling cards of fascist politics.  Conspiracy theories are tools to attack those who would ignore their existence.  By not covering them, the media is made to appear biases and, ultimately, part of the very conspiracy they refuse to cover. 

Fascist politicians discredit the “liberal media” for censoring discussion of outlandish, right-wing conspiracy theories which suggest mendacious behavior covered up by the veneer of liberal, democratic institutions.  Conspiracy theories play to the most paranoid elements of society.  In the case of the US, fear of foreigner elements and Islam, as in the “Birther theory” that President Obama was born a Muslim in Kenya… the goal of the conspiracies is to cause widespread mistrust and paranoia, justifying drastic measures such as censuring or shutting down the “liberal media” and imprisoning enemies of the state. 

It is not without justification that Plato saw, in Democracy’s freedoms, an allowance for the rise of a skilled demagogue who would take advantage of these freedoms to tear reality asunder, offering himself or herself as a substitute…. Democracy cannot flourish on soil poisoned by inequality.  It is not merely that the resentments bred by such divisions are tempting targets for a demagogue, the more important point is that dramatic inequality poses a mortal danger to the shared reality required for a healthy, liberal democracy.  Those who benefit from inequalities are often burdened by certain illusions that prevent them from recognizing the contingency of their privilege.  When inequalities grow particularly stark, these illusions tend to metastasize  What dictator, king or emperor has not suspected that he was chosen by the gods for his role.  What colonial power has not entertained delusions of its ethnic superiority or the superiority of its religion, culture or way of life. A superiority that supposedly justifies its imperial expansions and conquests. 

Inequality is toxic to liberal democracy because it breeds delusions that mask reality, undermining the possibility of joint deliberation to solve society’s divisions (example given in book – the plantation class pitting poor black against poor white in antebellum south).  Those who benefit from large inequalities are inclined to believe they have earned their privilege, an illusion that prevents them from seeing reality as it is.  Even those who demonstrably do not benefit from hierarchies can be made to believe they do.  Hence, the use of racism to ensnare poor white citizens in the US into supporting tax cuts for extravagantly wealthy whites who happen to share their skin color.  Equality means that those with different levels of power and wealth, nevertheless, are regarded as having equal worth.  Liberal equality is, by definition, meant to be compatible with economic inequality.  And yet, when economic inequality is sufficiently extreme, myths that are required to sustain it are bound to threaten liberal equality as well.  The myths that arise under conditions of dramatic material inequality legitimize ignoring the proper common referee for public discourse, which is the world.  To completely destroy reality, fascist politics replaces the liberal ideal of equality, with its opposite – hierarchy. 

Chapter 5
Empires in decline are particular susceptible to fascist politics because of this sense of loss.  It is in the very nature of Empire to create a hierarchy.  Empires legitimize their colonial enterprises by a myth of their own exceptionalism.  In the course of decline, the population is easily lead to sense of national humiliation that can be mobilized in fascists politics to serve various purposes.

Chapter 6
45% of President Trump’s supporters believe that whites are the most discriminated against racial group in America.  54% of Trump supporters believe that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in America.  There is a crucial distinction, of course, between feelings of resentment and depression [as a result of the loss of majority status] and genuine inequality and discrimination.  There is a long history of social, psychological research about the fact that increased representation of members of traditional minority groups is experienced by dominant groups as threatening in various ways.  More recently, a growing body of social/psychological evidence substantiates the phenomenon of dominant group feelings of victimization at the prospect of sharing power equally with members of minority groups.

A great deal of attention has been paid in the US to the fact that by around 2050, the US will be a “majority-minority” country, meaning that whites will no longer be the majority of Americans.  Taking advantage of the salience of this information, some social psychologists have tested what happens when white Americans are primed with it.  In a 2014 study, the psychologists Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richardson found that simply making salient the impending national shift to a “majority-minority” country significantly increased politically unaffiliated white American’s support for right-wing policies. 

At the core of fascism is loyalty to tribe, ethnic identity, religion, tradition or, in a word, “nation.”  But, in stark contrast to a version of nationalism with equality as its goal, fascist nationalism is a repudiation of the liberal-democratic ideal.  It is nationalism in the service of domination, with the goal of preserving, maintaining or gaining a position at the top of a hierarchy of power and status.
Rectifying unjust inequalities will always bring pain to those who benefitted from such injustices.  This pain will inevitably be experienced by some as “oppression.” 

Equality-driven nationalism can rapidly turn oppressive itself if one is not paying enough attention to shifts in power.

When groups in power use the mask of nationalism of the oppressed or genuine oppression in the past to advance their own hegemony, they are using it to undermine equality.

Chapter 7
It turns out we tend to describe the actions of those we regard as “one of us” quite differently then we describe the actions of those we regard as “one of them.” 

These [Civil rights] protests were regularly described in the media as “riots.”
As James Baldwin wrote, at the time, about the media description of these protests, “when white men rise up against oppression, they are heroes.  When black men rise, they have reverted to their native savagery.”

Chapter 8 
The rhetoric on immigration that surrounded the Trump campaign, and continues to surround his administration, parallels the tactics of Russian propaganda outlets, which spread fake news stories, as well as grossly exaggerating facts, about middle eastern immigrants raping white women in Europe.

Chapter 9
During the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump’s harsh, anti-immigration rhetoric was particularly effective in rural areas with very few immigrants.  Fascists politics aims it message at the populace outside large cities, to whom it is most flattering.  It is especially resistant during times of globalization, when economic power swings toward the large urban areas as locations of the merging global economy, as during the 30’s in Europe.  Fascist politics highlights the wrongs a globalized economy does to rural areas.  Adding to it a focus upon traditional rural values of self-sufficiency supposedly put at risk by the success of liberal cities, culturally and economically.

Fascist politics characteristically represents the minority populations living in cites as “rodents” or “parasites,” “living off the honest hard work of rural populations.”  [Author gives example from “Mein Kompf.” 

Chapter 10
But what is most terrifying about these rhetorical divides is that it is typical of fascist movements to attempt to transform myths about “them” into reality through social policy. 

In an ideology that measures worth by productivity, propaganda that represents members of an out group as “lazy” is a way to justify placing them lower on a hierarchy of worth.   [i.e. “makers and takers” rhetoric]

The basis of a commitment to a generous, universal welfare system is an expression of the belief in the fundamental value of each citizen.  The liberal-democrat does not pit “makers” verses “takers” in a competition for value.  A generous social welfare system unites a community in mutual bonds of care rather than dividing it into factions which demagogues can exploit. 

The pull of fascist politics is powerful.  It simplifies human existence.  Gives us an object, a “them” whose supposed laziness highlights our own virtue and discipline.  Encourages us to identify with a forceful leader who helps us make sense of the world, whose bluntness regarding the “undeserving people in the world” is refreshing.  If Democracy looks like a successful business, if the CEO is “tough-talking” and cares little for democratic institutions, even denigrates them, so much the better.  Fascist politics preys upon the human frailty which makes our own suffering seem bearable if we know those we look down upon are being made to suffer more. 

Democratic citizenship requires a degree of empathy, insight and kindness that demands a great deal of all of us.  There are easier ways to live.  For example, we can reduce our public engagement to consumption, viewing our labor as whatever we need do to enter the consumer marketplace with money in our pockets, free to choose our widgets to shape an identity based upon consumption.  Or we can go global and expand our understanding of “us” by wandering the world and appreciating its cultures and wonders, considering both the people living in the refugee camps in the world and the residents of small towns in Iowa to be our neighbors while maintaining a connection with our own local traditions and beauties. 

But this engaging vision of the self, moving through time and cultures, is deeply problematic under conditions of stark economic inequality.  It requires profound experiences with differences of all sorts.  It may require an education that is generous, wise, committed to secular science and poetic truth.  When, in the US, it can take an entire family income to pay for a year at a good university for one child, we must ask “who of us ends up becoming members of such a successful and broad-minded citizenry?”  When universities are as expensive as they are in the US, their generous, liberal visions are easy targets for fascist demagoguery.  Under conditions of stark, economic inequality benefits of liberal education and the exposure to diverse cultures and norms are available only to the wealthy few, liberal tolerance can be smoothly represented as “elite privilege.”  Stark economic inequality creates conditions which are richly conducive to fascist demagoguery.  It is a fantasy to think that liberal democratic norms can flourish under such conditions. 

Chapter 11
In the US, as Donald Trump’s campaign against immigration intensifies, it is sweeping untold numbers of undocumented workers of all backgrounds into anonymous, privately run detention centers where they are concealed from view and public concern. 

What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary, makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been.  By contrast, the word “fascist” has acquired a feeling of extreme, like crying wolf.  Normalization of fascist ideology, by definition, would make charges of fascism seem like an overreaction, even in societies whose norms are transforming along these worrisome lines.

That our sense of the normal and our ability to judge it is shifting does not mean that fascism is now upon us.  What it means is that the intuitive sense that charges of “fascism” is exaggerated is not a good enough argument against the word’s use.  Rather, arguments about the encroachment of fascist politics need a specific understanding of its meaning and the tactics that fall under its umbrella.

Those who employ fascist tactics for political gain have varying goals.  Now, at least, it does not appear that they seek to mobilize populations for world domination as, for example, Hitler intended.  Instead, though the goals are varied, there are common aspects of fascist thought and politics working in synergy.  Since I am an American, I must note that one goal appears to be to use fascist tactics, hypocritically, waving the banner of nationalism, in front of middle and working class white people, in order to funnel the state’s spoils into the hands of oligarchs.  At the same time, as during the Jim Crow era, politicians continue to assure their supporters that national identity, variously defined, provides status and dignity that are priceless. 

Fascist politics lures its audiences with the temptation of freedom from democratic norms while masking the fact that the alternative proposed is not a form of freedom that can sustain a stable nation state and can scarcely guarantee liberty.  A state-based ethnic, religious, racial or national conflict between “us” and “them” can hardly remain stable for long.  And yes, even if fascism could sustain a stable state, would it be a good political community?  A decent country within which children can be socialized to become empathetic human beings?  Children can certainly be taught to hate.  But to affirm hatred as a form of socialization has unintended consequences.  Does anyone really want their children’s sense of identity to be based upon a legacy of marginalization of others? 

Under a fascist agenda, the refugee narrative (life in refugee camps, the journey from fear and conflict to such camps, the hopelessness which accompanies extended time in these places) rather than engendering empathy is cast as the origin story of terrorism and danger.  These populations struggle through unspeakable horrors to reach safer shores.  That even such people could be painted as fundamental threats is a testament to the illusory power of fascist myth. 

In the direct targets of fascist politics: refugees, feminism, labor unions, racial and religious and sexual minorities, we can see the methods used to divide us.  But we must never forget that the chief target of fascist politics is its intended audience; those it seeks to ensnare in its loosery grip, to enroll in a state where everyone deemed “worthy of human status” is increasingly subjugated by mass illusion.  Those not included in that audience and status wait in the camps of the world, straw men and women ready to be cast into the roles of rapists, murderers, terrorists.  By refusing to be bewitched by fascist myths, we remain free to engage one another, all of us flawed, all of us partial in our thinking, experience and understanding, but none of us demons.

Back to School

As tends to be the case on this blog, by the time I get around to writing a post, I feel obliged to preface it with “this post has been a long time coming.”

The Olathe North Eagle

[Picks up pencil, prepares paper, clears throat] “This post has been a long time coming.  So long, in fact, I’m not exactly sure which past even should serve as the starting point.”

Maybe I start in the fall of 2018, when, as a French II teacher at Olathe North High School, I reassumed the role of classroom teacher for the first time since I fled George Melcher elementary 8 years prior, with my tail between my legs, my head down and in the midst of the first and only nervous breakdown of my life.  As that fall semester and that long-term substitute position both came to an end, my supervising principal gave the direct advice to “finish your teaching certification as quickly as possible because a high school classroom is where you’re meant to be, you clearly have the teaching and relational skill set to thrive in that setting.”

Maybe I start in May of 2018, on a drive up north to visit my parents for the weekend, when my then girlfriend advised, “you’ve been talking about wanting to finish this French degree since we met.  I think you need to go ahead and finish it because, if you don’t, you’ll likely regret it the rest of your life.” Insightful woman, that wife of mine.

Maybe I start in the fall of 2017, when a friend of mine who is two years older than me started his Masters of Education program at Rockhurst University.  He started the program at 40 and by age 42 had secured a teaching position.  Two years later, I enrolled in evening classes in the same program, knowing that I was young enough to still put in a solid career as a teacher but old enough that my window for doing so was rapidly closing.

Tailgating before a Blazer football game
fall of 2006

Maybe I start in October of 2011, when I walked away from the Kansas City Missouri School District and Teach For America, regretting every having fallen for the recruiting propaganda of TFA, thus bypassing the traditional teacher-training program at Rockhurst (the same program from which I’m set to graduate in about six weeks) and wondering whether I’d ever again have the opportunity to teach.

Maybe I start in the fall of 2010, when I’m living across the street from Gardner-Edgerton High School, taking French classes in the evening, pushing my son in a stroller across the GEHS parking lot during afternoon walks, tailgating before Friday night Blazer football games and wondering whether dreaming about having the opportunity to one day coach football and teach French at GEHS.

2007 season

Maybe I start in the fall of 2008, when I took my first French class with Lorie Beckum at MNU.  At the time, I just wanted a new hobby and learning a new language seemed as good of a hobby as anything, especially after experiencing the disappointment of not getting to coach again that fall.  I do however, remember telling a person in our church who asked why I’d take the time to learn a new language, “I’m not quite sure why but it seems like the right thing to do.” 

Maybe I start in the fall of 2007, when I had the incredible opportunity to coach the Wheatridge Middle School 7^th grade JV football team.  Watching those kids progress from barely being able to line up correctly to winning their last few games was an experience to which I’ve kept hoping to be able to return, though many times over the past decade it hasn’t seemed very likely. 

Maybe I start over 20 years ago, when I’m a college student at MidAmerica Nazarene University, taking classes to prepare me to be a pastor while telling anyone who’d listen, “if I wasn’t going to be a pastor, I’d be a high school history teacher and football coach.”

All of the above options are great possibilities.  They have all been steps in the journey leading me to a brand-new (while surprisingly familiar) starting point.  After giving it some thought though, I think I’ll start my story just a few weeks in the past.  It was the Tuesday before Spring Break.  Just a regular day in my semester long-assignment as a Student Teacher in a French classroom at Olathe East High School.  Little did I, or anyone else, realize that would actually be the last Tuesday of the school year as, just one week later, the Governor of Kansas would issue a decree closing all Kansas schools for the remainder of the year.  

In the midst of that school day, I interviewed at a nearby middle school for a Social Studies position.  It was a great opportunity. I’d be working with some friends, for one of the best administrators in the district, with the opportunity to coach football again, as well as the stated hope that I’d also consider coaching track and helping sponsor the theatre department.  I came away from that interview excited about the possibility of teaching in that school.

After school was out that day, I had another interview.  This interview was at Gardner-Edgerton High School for a French position.  As I was driving from Olathe to Gardner, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “this was my dream job.  Yeah, it was about nine years ago but there was a time in my life in which I believed the chance to teach French at GEHS a possibility too good to even hope for.”  I found out during the interview that while coaching would be a possibility with this position, it wasn’t an expectation, which would certainly render my first year of teaching much more manageable. 

Later that night, per the advice given during one of the interviews, Sarah and I discussed which option would be the best one to take should I be offered both positions.  Actually, a better description of what happened would be to state that I talked out all the positives and negative while Sarah listened, giving advice or providing affirmations when she deemed it prudent.  It was really a matter of choosing between two great options.  It was a matter of finding out where my “true self” (to quote the book I’ll reference below) was leading. 

On one side stood my love of history, desire to coach football again, the chance to teach in the district where my son attends school and idealism regarding the chance to help middle schoolers successfully navigate that identity-forming period of their lives.  Not only is history such a natural subject for me that, despite not having taken upper-level history classes in college, I was able to ace the National Praxis Content exam, middle school social studies was the bait which Teach For America used to hook me into their program before switching my placement to elementary school when it was already too late for me to back out. 

Proud to be a Blazer... again

On the other side stood my love of all things French, the chance to lead student tours of France, my natural ease at relating to high school students, the professional challenge of continuing to improve my French proficiency, the opportunity to teach alongside friends I’d made from Gardner Community Theatre and the chance to fulfill what just a few years ago I’d considered to be my dream job. 

By the time I talked myself into making the following announcement, the lovely and intelligent ginger with whom I have the amazing privilege of sharing my life simply gave a knowing smile.  “I could always choose to teach history in the future, should I later decide that’s what I want to do.  This might, however be my one opportunity to teach High School French.  I’m fairly certain that if I pass up this opportunity, I’m likely to regret it for the rest of my teaching career (due to a limited number of teaching positions, “losing” my French, etc.)”.   The fact that Sarah’s knowing smile seemed to radiate less from her lips and more from her eyes revealed she’d been patiently waiting for me to come to the conclusion which she’d reached long before me.  Looking back, I realize she’d been discreetly clearing the way for my head to agree with what my heart had long ago decided.  I couldn’t NOT teach French. 

Two nights later, at the Lenexa Rec Center (a place I greatly miss during the Coronavirus lockdown) I was watching a French TV show on the history of Paris while striding in place on the elliptical when I was struck by a profound gratitude over the upcoming opportunity to teach French language and history.  While thinking of how I could possibly use this video for an upper level French class I was simultaneously relishing the assurance that I’d made the right decision.  In just a few months, I’ll be back in yet another French classroom.  This time however, I’ll be facing in the opposite direction.  

KU, fall of 2019

One final thought, let’s just state the unstated obvious; I wouldn’t be standing at the starting line of this mid-life career move had I not experienced some unexpected turns and face-planting failures along the way.  At the advice of a friend who has talked me through many of those turns and failures, I’ve just finished “Falling Upward” A Spirituality for the Two Halvesof Life.”  I’m actually a bit embarrassed to admit this is the first of Richard Rohr’s books which I’ve ever read.  

A cold January 2019 day on the
campus of the University of Kansas.
I took this pic thinking I'd be
writing the "Back to
School" blog post soon.

“That is why I’ve called [the second half of life and this book] ‘falling upward.’  Those who are ready will see that this message is self-evident: those who have gone ‘down’ are the only ones who understand ‘up.’  Those who have somehow fallen and fallen well are the only ones who can go up and not misuse ‘up.’”

“Sooner or later, if you are on any classic ‘spiritual schedule,’ some event, person, death, idea or relationship will enter your life that you simply cannot deal with,  using your present skill set, your acquired knowledge, or your strong willpower.  Spiritually speaking, you will be, you must be, lead to the edge of your own private resources… and you must ‘lose’ at something… let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey. 
In the end, we do not so much reclaim what we have lost as discover a significantly new self in and through the process.  Until we are lead to the limits of our present game plan, and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find the real source, the deep well, or the constantly flowing stream.” 

As I enter the second half of life, I’m awe-struck by the positive turn my life has taken.  My marriage is far surpassing my wildest hopes for a primary relationship  My relationship with my son is the best it’s ever been and is getting better.  My relationship with my two step-children has developed into a place of comfort and familiarity.  I’ve made a peace with my past which now serves as a foundation for the future.  Finally, in a few short months I’ll be starting my “dream job.”  I’m giddy with anticipation over the second half of life.  Of course, that’s assuming COVID19 doesn’t erase humanity from the face of the earth…

Colossians Remixed

The book is now 10 years old, but I finally got around to the theological and ethical masterpiece that has been recommended to me by many different people, "Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire."  The book is a work of historical fiction, the story of a wealthy Roman citizen who is considering giving her life to Christ, which causes her to grapple with the differences between the Caesar's Kingdom (the Roman Empire, which has secured a good life for her) and the Kingdom of Jesus.  While comparing the differences of the two kingdoms, the book works through Paul's letter to the church at Colossi.

Here are some of the notes I took from the book.  Enjoy.

Pg. 31, Empires are built on systemic centralizations of power and secured by structures of socioeconomic and military control.  They are religiously legitimated by powerful myths that are rooted in foundational assumptions, and they are sustained by a proliferation of imperial images that captivate the imagination of the population.
Pg. 33, Another way to look at this is to say that in a world of imperial control, in a world that is suffused with the rhetoric, symbolism and images of empire, we need to have appeal to a power, a sovereignty greater than the empire, if we are to have any hope. 
Richard Berger anticipated the commodification of belief in a radically pluralistic society in The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.  He argued that once culture recognizes the constructed character of reality, religious traditions can no longer be imposed (so say nothing of “assumed”); they must be marketed.  Religion “must be ‘sold’ to a clientele that is no longer constrained to ‘buy.’  The pluralist situation is, above all, a market situation.  In it, the religious institutions become marketing agencies and the religious traditions become consumer commodities.” 
So captivated by the consumerist imagination of the empire, and so immersed in the empire’s self-justifying mythology and rhetoric, we find ourselves unable to fathom the depths of the crisis in which we now live.
Pg. 51, an imaginary conversation between a Christian and a wealthy Roman citizen considering following Christ
“Why, if someone unsympathetic heard you they might think you were suggesting that Caesar isn’t our lord and savior.  They might think you didn’t appreciate the peace and prosperity that Rome brought.  Don’t you see the kind of trouble you could get into with this way of thinking?”
“But that’s the point,” she said, “I don’t believe that Caesar is our savior.  I don’t believe that he has brought peace and prosperity.  And I don’t believe that Caesar is our savior.  I don’t believe that he has brought peace and prosperity.  And I don’t worship him or any of the other gods, any more.”
“And has Caesar given them peace?  No. Only death and destruction, demolishing their cities, enslaving the inhabitants, demanding taxes that drive the small landowners to slavery and revolt…. This is peace by the blood of the sword… This peace is good for you.  And it has been good for me, too.  But it isn’t good for everyone.  This peace divides – it makes the peasants hopeless and the wealthy even wealthier. 
But the peace of Jesus is different.  The peace of Jesus isn’t imposed by violence.”
“You see, what Lydia was telling me was nothing less than treasonous, a threat to the empire.
I was disturbed.  Lydia had offered a challenge to my faith in the empire.  I knew that her story and mine couldn’t both be true.  Either Caesar had brought forgiveness of our sings, fruitfulness and peace through the great victories he had wrought, or Jesus had brought forgiveness of our sins, fruitfulness and peace through his paradoxical victory on a Roman cross.  But this seemed impossible, unimaginable!
It was also clear that Lydia’s story of Jesus could not be happily accommodated by the imperial regime.  Devotion to Jesus was not like the devotion to Isis or Apollo.  These gods and their cults were no threat to the empire.  Actually, such private devotion, it was believed, made one a better citizen and enhanced one’s public duty to the empire.  Jesus, however, created a problem.  His lordship clearly precluded Caesar’s, and the guarded privacy of my conversation with Lydia notwithstanding, it was clear that following Jesus could not be a private matter but would have to be a public faith, transforming public life.”
Pg. 58, In chapter one we stated that empires are 1) built on systemic centralization of power, 2) secured by structures of socioeconomic and military control, 3) religiously legitimized by powerful myths and 4) sustained by a proliferation of imperial images that captive the imagination of the population.
Thus, it is no surprise that for every dollar that is sent in foreign aid to Africa, four are returned in the form of debt-servicing.
Pg. 67, When Israel enters the Promised Land, it faces its greatest challenge not to become like the empire it left behind.  As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that such an empire is very seductive.
It is the prophets who most tellingly deconstruct the imperial distortions of Israel.  The covenant people do not care for aliens, widows and orphans, or the weak and injured (Is. 1:23; 10:2; Jer. 5:27-29; 7:5-7; 22:3-6; Ezek 22:7, 34:1-6, Zech 7:8-14; Mal 3:5).  Failing to practice mercy and justice (Is 5:7; Jer 22:13-17; Hos 12:7-8; Amos 5:7; 6:12; Mic 6:1-12), Israel grinds down the poor and needy (Is 3:14-15; 10:2; 32:7; 58:3, Jer 2:34; Ezek 22:29; Amos 2:6-7; 4:1; 5:11; 8:4-8; cf. Job 24:9-14; Ps 37:14; 109:16).  The people have been engaged in the consumptive practices of empire, filling their land with silver and gold, horses and chariots buying up neighbors’ fields until nothing is left but industrial farms-as-business that kills community (Is 2:7; 5:8).  Moreover, they consistently engage in business deals that exploit the poor (Amos 8:5-6).
Pg. 68, This is a call to be God’s people by bringing shalom and healing on places of brokenness and despair.  And what could be more broken and more in need of healing than the place of oppression, the heart of the empire?
Under the oppressive rule of Babylon and Assyria, the Israelites are still called to build a faithful community and to live subject to a different kind of rule and kingship, one where imperial might and power is used for feeding the hunger of the people and binding up their wounds.
Pg. 70, As Luke tells the story, almost everything Jesus did or said was an implicit challenge to the empire and its way of working in the world…. This is a kingdom where the ruler is enthroned on a cross – the Roman Empire’s instrument of torture – and in such an enthronement winds freedom and life for its people.
Pg. 74, As the parallel passage in Matthew shows, reconciliation is the fruit of this kingdom (Mt. 5:25-26).  This is an ethic in which the generosity of God overcomes the violence and economic exploitation of the empire.  And once they are so overcome and undermined, the empire begins to crumble. 
Pg. 75, Paul tells the Colossians that the gospel of Jesus bears a fruit in their lives that is fundamentally different from the fruit of the empire.  The fruit of this gospel is rooted not in military might and economic oppression but in the practice of justice and sacrificial faithfulness.  This is a gospel that bears fruit “in every good work” of forgiving generosity and therefore undermines the hoarding abundance touted by the empire.
Pg. 90, [On Colossians 1:15-20] So what does Paul do with these cultural myths?  He turns them on their head and replaces Zeus, Caesar, Rome and any other pretender to sovereignty with Christ.  Then he takes it a step further and replaces the body – whether it be the cosmos or the empire – with the church.
And the main use of “powers” is not in reference to spiritual beings but to what Walter Wink calls the “legimitations, sanctions, and permissions that undergird the everyday exercise of power.”
So it isn’t a stretch to say that in the Roman empire, “thrones, dominions, rulers and powers” referred to Rome – to its “ruler” Caesar, on the “throne” established by the gods, to his “dominion” over all the known world, established and maintained by the “power” and might of the empire… It would be impossible for his listeners to hear this list – thrones, dominions, rulers, powers and not have thought of imperial thrones, imperial rule, the emperor and his court, and imperial sanctions and legitimations.
That spiritual dimension has to do with whether these structures of our life are directed by an idolatrous spirit of empire or the Spirit of God in Christ, who created all of these structures of life and before whom they are subject.
You see, when the Christian community abandons discussion of oppressive social structures, there are consequences.  In the first instance, if the Christian voice is absent, then the discussion necessarily goes on without a Christian perspective.  It is not surprising that other worldviews and categories of analysis fill in the void.  And if Christians don’t like those worldviews – whether they be Marxist, anarchist, “green” or whatever – then they really have no right to complain.  After all, these same upset Christians have left the world of oppressive social structures for someone else to worry about.
A lack of attention to the temporal structures of oppression is devastating for the community that follows Jesus.  Berry describes a dualistic church in an imperial context:
“The church has, for the most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty, divided and plundered its human communities and households.  It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire.  It has assumed with the economists that ‘economic forces’ automatically work for good and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that ‘progress’ is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times.  It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and defaults.  But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directed with the murder of Creation.”
For Paul, rather than “flying the flag of empire,” the church is a community in refusal of the empire which bears the image of another Lord in its daily life.
A split-vision worldview that divides faith from life, church from culture, theology from economics, prayer from politics and worship from everyday work will always render Christian faith irrelevant to broad sociocultural forces.  And that is exactly what the empire wants – a robust, piously engaging private faith that will never transgress the public square.  Allow religion to shape private imagination, but leave the rest of life, the public and dominant imagination, to the empire.  Only as we break through this dualism can the poem (Colossians 1:15-20) be given be given enough space in our lives to liberate our imagination. 
Pg. 96, It is quite another thing to hold a faith that is seditions to the empire.  How do you go about confessing Christ as Lord when everything all around you – all the power structures, the images that dominate your daily life and even the very temporal rhythms of that life – declare the sovereignty, lordship, honor and glory of the empire and its emperor?
This was as vexing a problem for first-century Christians as it is for twenty-first century Christians.
Pg. 110, Again, the foundation of this kingdom is not in the self-righteous exclusion but in the inclusion of forgiveness… But if the rulers and authorities, regimes and empires that so oppress us are to be defeated, they must be defeated not by further violence but by sacrificial love.
“The cross was not the defeat of Christ at the hands of the powers; it was the defeat of the powers at the hands – yes, the bleeding hands – of Christ.” – NT Wright
Turning the empire on its head, the cross becomes the site of the victory march of the victim.
Pg. 114, Only the nonideological, embracing, forgiving and shalom-filled life of a dynamic Christian community formed by the story of Jesus will prove the gospel to be true and render the idolatrous alternatives fundamentally implausible.

Pg. 115, Empire loves to have a monopoly on truth.
Pg. 130, Remember, from a biblical perspective truth is not a correspondence between ideas and facts.  Truth is embodied in a person.
Pg. 138, And Jesus takes precisely the principalities and powers that placed him on the cross – the idols of militarism, nationalism, racism, technicism, economism – and on that very cross disarms, dethrones, conquers and makes public example of them.  In this power struggle, sacrificial love is victorious precisely by being poured out on a cross, a symbol of imperial violence and control.
Pg. 150, Everyone, we contend, lives out of a metanarrative, everyone meets their life in a grounding worldview that directs their praxis and serves to legitimate that praxis… Pg. 156 We don’t allow the empire to captivate our imagination and set the final term of our praxis in the world, because we can see a kingdom that is an alternative to the empire.
Pg. 155 (Col 3:17) Seeking that which is above is a matter not of becoming heavenly minded but of allowing the liberating rule of Christ to transform every dimension of your life.
Pg. 166 In his 1994 annual report, the president of Campbell’s Soup Company wrote “As I look forward to the future, I shiver with business excitement.  That’s because Campbell’s Soup Company is engaged in a global consumer crusade.  This is a crusade to capture both consumer taste and culinary practice.  There is nothing that Campbell’s would like better than to have more markets of people who will forget how to make soup for themselves and will become dependent on a can.  Or consider this moment of enlightened business ethics from David Glass, CEO and president of Wal-Mart, “Our priorities are that we want to dominate North America first, then South America, and then Asia and then Europe.”  Business development is couched in the language of domination.  This, we contend, is the abusive language of our time.  When “free trade” means corporate sovereignity, “fiscal responsibility” means that the poorest in our society have to put up with even less, “quality of life” means quantity of consumption and the “liberation” of Iraq means the expansion of the Pax Americana, then our language has been debased and deformed into a discourse of deceit that justifies violence…. Pg. 167, Rather, the real abusive language is in the often sanitized ways of talking and thinking that serve to make this culture of death appear normal and acceptable.  Indeed, when the church’s language, in all of its piety, serves to give an air of normality to an idolatrously constructed culture, thereby functioning as a polite cover-up for a comfortable life in the empire, then that language is also abusive. 
Pg. 168, The ethical crisis of Christianity at the turn of the millennium is that Christians, by and large accept the empire as normal.  Here is Wendall Berry’s prophetic appraisal of the church:
“Despite protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and economic status quo.  Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into Heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy.  It has, for the most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households.  It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire.  It has assumed with the economists that “economic forces” automatically work for good and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history.  It has assumed with almost everybody that “progress is good… It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and faults.  But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation.”
Pg. 170, As long as we lack the courage to take a stand and remain unrooted in a narrative that would be subversive to the principalities and powers, the empire can remain secure. Kall Lasn puts it this way: “American culture is no longer created by the people… a free, authentic life is no longer possible in America ™ today.  We are being manipulated in the most insidious way.  Our emotions, personalities and core values are under siege from media and cultural forces too complex to decode.  A continuous product message has woven itself into the very fabric of our existence.  Most North Americans now live designer lives – sleep, eat, sit in a car, work, shop, watch TV, sleep again.  I doubt there’s more than a handful of free, spontaneous minutes anywhere in that cycle.  We ourselves have been branded.”
Lasn likens life in what he calls America ™ to a life in a cult in which “we have been recruited into roles and behavior patterns that we did not consciously choose… When a whole population dreams the same dream, empire is triumphant… In the face of the ensnaring sovereignty of the empire, we must submit to a subversively liberating sovereignty.  Our lives must be animated by an alternative narrative, sovereignty and hope.
Pg. 172, Paul’s response is to offer his readers a kingdom in contrast with an empire.  If the problem with empire was idolatry (3:5), then the alternative of the kingdom is the renewal in the image of God (3:10)… In Christ we are restored to our full humanity as God’s stewards of creation and shapers of culture. 
Pg. 174, Paul calls for the community members to “clothe themselves” with certain virtues.  They are called, if you will, to drape themselves, surround themselves, present themselves with and embody the character traits of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness and love.  They are called to be a people rooted in and dedicated to peace, living lives characterized by gratitude, wisdom and worship… In Paul’s vision this community not only abandons the discourse of violence and exclusion that characterizes the empire; it manifests an ethos that embraces the pain of the world, a ‘compassion’, a shared passion, that pays attention to the deepest brokenness of its human and nonhuman neighbors.  This is an ethic of compassion, because the God of Israel revealed in Jesus is a God of compassion who hears his people’s cry and knows their suffering (Ex. 3:7).  Jesus calls his followers to be compassionate just as their Father is compassionate (see Lk 6:36).
Pg. 175, Now Paul says that in this community the ‘peace’ of Christ rules.  In radical contrast to the violent, imperial rule of the Pax Romana, or the economically motivated violence of the Pax Americana (in which people will be ‘liberated’ by military force if the economic well-being of America is threatened), Paul subverts what the empire calls peace by appealing to a peace achieved through a victim of the empire: allow that all-pervasive, cross-shaped peace to rule your life as a communal body.
Pg. 176, We have argued throughout this book that the primary way any imperial culture claims our lives is through the captivity of our imaginations.  Take an average of twenty-six hours of television a week, thousands of brand-name logos a day, an educational system structured to produce law-abiding consumers who always crave more, and dress it all up with a mythology of divine right to world rule, and it is not surprising that the dominant worldview is so deeply internalized in the population – including the church – that it is simply taken to be the only viable, normal and commonsensical way of life.  In the face of such a deeply ingrained worldview, Paul says, “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16).
Pg. 179, Love cannot remain an abstract idea; it must take on flesh in the embodied life of the Christian community in particular places and at particular times.
Pg. 180, What would a political vision shaped by compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, love and peace look like?  How could we envision a politics of ‘compassion’ that insists on standing with the most vulnerable members of our society?  Would this be a politics of greed that is preoccupied with tax cuts for the richest members of our society and international trade policies that aim for economic growth for its own sake?  Or is the community renewed in the image of God committed to a politics for the “least of these” (Mt 25:40) – for aboriginal peoples, drug addicts, gays, the homeless and the poorest of the poor?
Further, this is a servant politics that is characterized by humility because it seeks to serve the humble, not the haughty.  Rather than enacting policy that makes our nation “great or our town a “world-class city,” this politics serves “the least of these.”  Perhaps this will mean shifting the agenda away from amassing economic power to addressing the scandal of child poverty, or away from focusing on national security to forming refugee and immigration policies suffused with hospitality.
Pg. 181, In a politics that is addicted to the quick fix, it would seem that patience is not a political virtue.  But it is a Christian one.  Christians can be patient about righting the world’s wrongs (though still passionate about justice!) because we know that the establishment of the just society – what the book of Revelation calls the New Jerusalem – and the healing of the earth are not finally in our hands but God’s.  We long to see Christ revealed, and we live our political lives anticipating his kingdom, but we can do so with patience.  Ours is a political vision for the long haul, not preoccupied with power or the quick fix.
Pg. 182, What all of this is about is love.  A politics rooted in love is not the sentimentality of warm feelings in the political arena.  Rather, love takes on political shape in justice.  Justice as the political face of love is never impartial but is always biased.  In the kind of biblical faith that occasions Paul’s understanding of love, justice is always suspicious of the powerful and biased toward the powerless. Justice is first and foremost directed toward the orphan, widow and stranger precisely because these people lack the economic and political power to defend themselves.  Love shapes the very content of Justice.  God’s love takes sides with the most vulnerable, the most oppressed.  Therefore a Christian political praxis of love seeks justice for those who are the most marginalized, the most oppressed and downtrodden.  While an idolatrous culture of greed is always willing to allow the powerless to be oppressed by the powerful and will always tolerate homelessness, disease and violence amongst the disfranchised, and an ever-growing income gap between the rich and the poor, a Christian community of love will strive to bring justice to those at the bottom of society.  Love, Paul says, “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14).  Love unifies and love heals.  In a society that has gaping wounds in its social fabric, the Christian community, through its example and its societal and political witness, is called to be an agent of reconciliation and justice.
Pg. 182, A war-mongering empire should find no support from a community that worships the Prince of Peace.  Stanley Hauerwas reminds us that “a nation at war has no time for the poor, no space to worry about the extraordinary inequities that constitute this society or about those parts of the world ravaged by hunger and genocide.  Everything – civil liberties, due process, the protection of the law – must be subordinated to the one great moral enterprise of winning the unending war against terrorism.  Not if the peace of Christ rules in your hearts!  Then everything – whatever we do in word or deed – is directed to a politics of peacemaking.  ‘Everything!’  Whether it be protesting the war, refusing to serve, withholding taxes, going to the enemy country to stand as a witness for peace, engaging in civil disobedience, supporting the victims or boycotting the corporate players in the military industrial complex, everything a Christian community does in a time of imperial war should be directed to peace.
Pg. 183, What was the Roman empire up to when it provided legitimation of its regime by means of the imperial cult?  And what other role do civic events such as Independence Day, the State of the Union Address and Remembrance Day, together with reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “God Bless America” (these are ‘hymns,’ remember!) have but to provide a moment of ritual that gives religious legitimation to the American empire?  But these are not the worship events of the Christian community!  In our worship we tell and retell another story than that of the republic, hear another word proclaimed, eat an alternative meal of remembrance, pledge allegiance to another sovereign, and sing hymns, psalms and spiritual songs that set our imaginations free for another way of life, another politics… In a context in which patriotism has become an idolatry of nation, yes, we are saying that Christians are not called to patriotism.  The Bible never calls us to be patriotic to the empire.
Pg. 185, (in reference to Romans 13) Public officials who misuse their authority must face up to that misuse in public.  Paul honors those magistrates precisely by calling them to task.  And because he believes that their authority is not ultimately rooted in the authority of the emperor but instituted by God, Paul demands that they exercise their authority in a way that demonstrates that they really are servants of God.
Now we suggest that this sheds some light on the matter of subjection to political and legal authorities.  Rather than read this text as providing carte blanche legitimation for any regime, regardless of how idolatrous and oppressive it might be, we suggest that Paul is actually limiting the authority of the state.  The state is a servant of God for our good.  It has no legitimacy or authority in and of itself, apart from subjection to the rule of God.  And when the state clearly abrogates its responsibility to do good, when it acts against the will of God, then the Christian community has a responsibility to call it back to its rightful duty and even to engage in civil disobedience (see Acts 12:6-23).  The state has no authority to do evil….
Pg. 185, In the first place, we need to take seriously the context in which Romans 13:1-7 occurs.  This teaching can’t be isolated from what Paul is saying in the surrounding passage.  It is preceded by a radical call against conformity to this age (12:1-2), within a context of persecution at the hands of the empire in 12:9-21.  It is followed by a call to “owe no one anything, except to love one another (13:8).  In the midst of this clear context of nonconformity, persecution and call to love not only the community but also one’s enemies, Paul’s comments about the state have ambiguous overtones.  It was, after all, the state that had persecuted the Roman believers and caused their suffering.
In the second place, the violent nature of the state is underlined by references to “fear” and to the state’s bearing of the sword.  Paul emphasizes that the state should be obeyed because of the fear of wrath (13:5), a fear that is underlined in 13:7: “Pay to all what is due them – taxes to whom taxes are due” (our translation).  Note that we have translated the greek word “phobos” as ‘fear’ to show that this is the same word that is used in verses 3-4.  The use of the language of fear in relation to the state, along with the mention of the sword, heightens the ambiguity of the passage.  On the one hand Paul is echoing Jewish sources such as Philo who use the language of fear in describing both the brutality of rulers and the need to be obedient out of expediency; on the other, he is using language that is “quite out of place with the contemporary propaganda of the empire” that touted Nero as a ruler who engaged in no bloodshed and no wielding of the sword.
As Neil Elliot puts it; “’Honor’ may be due the authorities  - at least some of them  - but so, given the reality of the Roman sword, is fear… Given the reality of Roman rule, one may ‘do good’ and hope for the best (13:2); but under the circumstances, open resistance cannot be contemplated, so long as the authorities wield the sword (13:4).” What sounds to our ears like a completely straightforward call to obey governing authorities, especially when read out of the context in which this instruction was given, has overtones of persecution, fear and bloodshed for the community reading this letter.  Romans 13:1-7 is not a call to blind obedience to the state but to prudent action; its very vocabulary hints that this particular authority is not living up to its God-given calling.  In a nutshell, Paul is saying, “Be careful.”

Pg. 186, When the state functions as an empire, when it bears an uncanny resemblance to Babylon, then “seeking the welfare” of the state requires shaping an alternative community that practices an alternative politics (Jer 29:7).  Our discussion of Colossians 3 was an attempt to broadly sketch out what that kind of politics might look like in our present context.  If the empire is war-mongering, then the Christian community is called to be a witness for peace. If there is racial oppression in the empire, then a community that believes there is neither Jew nor Arab, black or white, Hispanic or Asian, because Christ is all and in all, will lay down its life for the sake of racial justice.  If women and racial minorities receive unfair treatment in the marketplace and the public square, then the church calls for, and demonstrates, equal opportunity.  If homelessness and hunger are on the rise in our society, then a community suffused with kindness builds housing, feeds the hungry and then gets busy addressing the root causes of that homelessness and hunger.  If the empire enacts social policy that leaves the poor destitute, establishes trade policy that legitimates unfair trade practices, and passes environmental law that allows global warming to go unchecked, species to go extinct at alarming rates, and our waterways to become chemical sewage dumps, then a Christian politics of compassion, kindness and meekness both lobbies for alternative policies and attempts to live in a way that is consistent with these foundational Christian virtues.
Pg. 188, So we need to think long and hard about our investments.  Perhaps a credit union or a local bank with social conscience will provide a viable alternative to large charter banks... we tend to think the ration should be at least two to one: for every dollar we invest in retirement savings, two dollars should be given away to an agency that will serve the poor… Maybe we need to reconsider the local supermarket as the source of our food…. Our point is that food is deeply political, and we need to pay attention to where our food comes from and what is in it… There are also community-supported agriculture programs, in which urban folk make a contract to buy the produce of a particular farmer, who then delivers the produce throughout the season as crops come ripe.
Pg. 196, Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God’s gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them.
Pg. 199, We can probably tell as much about the real spirituality and the real spirituality and the real worldview of a people by looking at the cars they drive, the food they consume, the gadgets that fill their homes and the garbage they throw out as we can by listening to the songs they sing and the prayers they pray… An otherworldy spirituality that is preoccupied with “me and Jesus,” and escaping from this world into heavenly bliss, will never engender the kind of ecological ethos we are here suggesting.  Moreover, an individualistic spirituality will inevitably legimate an ecologically disastrous lifestyle.
Paul would not recognize such worship as having anything do with the gospel that he proclaimed.  Indeed, in light of our discussions of Paul’s rhetorical attack on the “ensnaring philosophy” of Colossians 2, we could easily imagine him addressing contemporary evangelical spirituality in the same tone.  If your worship serves to give you an ecstatic experience of personal relationship with Jesus without challenging you to see more deeply the way Jesus comes to reconcile all things in creation – including your ecological practices – then Paul would have a hard time recognizing it as a response to the gospel that he proclaimed “to EVERY creature under heaven” (Col 1:23).
Pg. 200, Paul’s ethic in the third chapter of Colossians is rooted in the narrative of Christ – died, buried, risen ascended and coming again.  This is not a narrative that imposes a series of absolutes to oppress us; it is a story of liberation from an empire that would take captive our imagination while it rapes and plunders the earth.  This is not a violent, metanarrative of exploitation of the earth.  This is a story of restored relationships, a love story that calls forth an alternative community characterized by compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, love, peace, gratitude and wisdom.  This is a story of creational restoration, a renewal to full humanness, in the image of the Creator.  This is a community in which the word of Christ dwells richly.  This is a community that is shaped as a countercultural force through the subversive worship of a subversive Lord.
Pg. 206, In this letter, Paul appeals not primarily to the ancient philosophers, nor to the edicts of the emperor, but to the ancient stories of Israel.  Those stories describe how, in the shadow of the empire, Israel was called to form an alternative covenant community rooted in the Torah of a God who freed the slave, loves the refugee and cares for the widow and the orphan.  As that community was called to be holy, so we are called saints, the holy ones.
The Kingdom of Jesus is just such a covenant community… In our Scriptures, forgiveness of sin and redemption from slavery are always at the heart of God’s dealing with the covenant people.  In the community of God called together to bear his image, such forgiveness and redemption were to be most obviously evident in the forgiving of debt and freeing from slavery.
Pg. 209, For those who do not have ears to hear, for those who do not know the story, either of Israel or of Jesus, this advice seems innocent enough.  It appears to uphold the status quo while advising tolerance.  But for those who know the story, the clues are there, the allusions are made, and the hidden meaning is understood.  For those with ears to hear, the message is clear: this is a God who proclaims a different kingdom from the ensnaring oppression of the empire, a God who frees slaves and calls for his followers to do likewise.

Pg. 212, Sure looks like slavery to us.  What names would we name?  Well, just take a look at the tag in the clothing that you are wearing.  If that article of clothing was produced in what was just called an Economic Processing Zone, then the odds are pretty good that you can name the brand of clothing you are wearing, as a slave trader.  And all of us who purchase these goods are thereby complicit in slavery.
But that’s just the point.  They are slaves.  Every time we step into a Wal-Mart or Niketown or Gap or Winners and exclaim over the great deal we can get on an article of clothing or how trendy we now look, we’ve made sweatshop workers our slaves.  Every time we buy coffee that isn’t shade grown and fairly traded, we’ve made those coffee producers and their children into our slaves.  Every time we have purchased a product – any product – that says Made in China, or Indonesia, or the Philippines, or Sri Lanka, it is pretty likely that we have made someone our slave. 
But we have no choice about buying products made in these places.  Some things can be bought only from these companies!  Buying some of these products is inevitable.
The language of inevitability is the language of empire.  Whenever we hear, “We have no choice,” our ears should perk up.  It is precisely the strategy of the empire to take our imagination captive so that we think we have no choice.  When a certain lifestyle seems to be inescapable, you need to realize that you are imprisoned.
Pg. 214, But maybe you can’t afford to pay more for clothes that are locally or fairly made.  Perhaps you will simply decide to have fewer clothes as a result.  Or perhaps you will decide that if you are going to end up wearing sweatshop-produced clothing, then at least you will do it in a way that will serve the poor locally by making your purchases at secondhand shops.  That way, a local charity benefits from your purchase.
Our point is that when there are options available – whether various consumer choices or lobbying – to decide not to do anything at all is itself a choice.  The Gospels call it the wide and easy path.  But we can choose another path.  There are ways to proclaim and enact Paul’s word of release to slaves, women and children.
Pg. 217, Rather than instilling in them [our children] a desire to get to the top, to move up, we want to encourage our children to develop a sense of calling and service, including an awareness that this may require a process of downward mobility, a decision not to strive for the top but to care for those who are on the bottom… We hope that our children will not need to secede from the empire, because they were never captive to it.
Pg. 218, To be wise is to be able to make connections between the food you eat, the store where it was purchased, the transportation systems that brought that food, the land where it was produced and the people who produced it.
Pg. 224, [a fictional trial of the lady mentioned above, Nympha, a wealthy woman who converted to Christianity and renounced the empire, she is accused based upon the finding of the poem of Colossians 1:15-20)” Caesar has brought peace?  Let’s look at the peace brought by your Caesar.  Let’s take as an example Galilee, the homeland of Jesus.  All the Jewish people want to do is live in peace in their own land, free to follow their ancestral laws, with a king from their own people and a high priest from the priestly line.  And the Romans continually beat them down, imposing rulers who oppress them and impoverish them.  When they rebel they are ruthlessly cut down, their cities burned and their children enslaved.  This is how Rome keeps peace by military might and violent force.  They make a desolation and call it peace.
“Their favorite symbol for peace is the cross, on which they condemn those who resist their rule to an excruciating death.  This is the peace they bring.  This is the peace that killed Jesus.”
There was a shocked silence, “You don’t mean to tell me,” said Trolius, “that this Jesus you worship was killed as a political rebel!”
“Yes, I do,” I said.  “And though that death, by taking the evil of Rome and the evil of the universe upon himself, he exhausted it and brought a peace and a reconciliation deeper than any peace Caesar can even dream of.  By emptying himself in love, he reconciled all things, in heaven, on earth, everything in the Roman empire and beyond, between all of creation and all of you and God.  That is the kind of peace Jesus brought through the blood of a Roman cross.”
“Enough!”  It was Lucius again.  “I say that not only have we heard enough from this woman’s own mouth to condemn her; we have also seen how the actions of her household and community fundamentally challenge the empire and all it stands for.  There is now no doubt in my mind that she stands guilty as charged, and all those who confess Jesus with her.”
Pg. 226, Bringing the cosmic claims about Christ to bear on the lives of the Colossian community, in their struggles and their stories, Paul personalizes and localizes the “and he” of the poem by writing, “And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he was now reconciled” (1:21-22).  The counterimperial vision of cosmic reconciliation in Christ is the vision that has transformed this community into a subversive body politic, counter to the empire.  This metanarrative of creational reconciliation through the blood of a Roman cross – a story that radically contests the imperial metanarrative of violence and oppression – reshapes and reconstitutes this community as citizens of the kingdom rather than subjects of the empire.
Pg. 229, If, as Paul asserts throughout his letters, we are called to share in the sufferings of Christ, and if such suffering is for the sake of the body of Christ, where does that leave a Christian community that seems to avoid any sort of suffering?  Where does it leave those of us whose lives seem to be blessed by the empire rather than threatened by it?  Where does it leave those of us whose blessings seem to actually be dependent on the oppression of our brothers and sisters elsewhere?
The hope of glory therefore is a hope in which the Colossian Christians will once again be full image-bearers of God.  The mystery the Messiah reveals is that this full image-bearing of God, this glory, will be found among both Gentiles and Jews, breaking down the ethnic divisions that have led to one people’s continued oppression of another.
Pg. 232, Perhaps we need to overhear Paul’s admonition to Archippus and apply it to ourselves as Christians living at home in the imperial realities of the Pax Americana.  We are called to proclaim and embody the gospel of a crucified Messiah.  This gospel challenges the principalities and powers of our own age.  This gospel proclaims that reconciliation and peace come not through the power of unilateral military force but through the blood of the cross.  And such a reconciliation is manifest in a community that is renewed in the image of Jesus, a community that shares in the suffering of Jesus in its attempts to bring peace to the social, economic, political, racial and ethnic divisions that sin has caused in the world.  In proclaiming and living that gospel, this community will begin to take on the suffering of those who have been oppressed throughout the ages at the hands of the empire.  In taking on that suffering, the Christian community will truly enact peace by sharing in Christ’s afflictions.  This is the call and the challenge with which Paul ends Colossians.  And the letter of Colossians does not function as Scripture in the life of the church if this call is not heard and responded to by the church today.

Pg. 29, “Wait a minute,” someone is bound to say, “Capitalism is about capital, it’s about money.  Religion is about faith.”  Well, we’re not so sure that capitalism isn’t ultimately a matter of faith.

Pg. 34 You see, the danger of wanting a god, without being willing to allow this god to speak in a voice that is radically other to our own voice, is that the god we end up with is like any other consumer product we take off the shelf.  We would never be accountable before such a god, precisely because we never allow this god a voice that would actually call us to account… Rather, it would be an idol.  And before idols like this the empire has nothing to fear, because ultimately such idols – such gods – are  in the service of the empire. 

Pg. 35, The tragic events of September 11 cannot be fully understood apart from the dynamics of empire….  So what happened on September 11?  In a stroke of perverse, conteremperial genius, America was attacked at the site of its socioeconomic and military control.  The World Trade Center and the Pentagon were, of course, the perfect targets.  This attack went to the systemic center of American culture – its economic control and military power.  But just as important, these were targets of profound symbolic significance.  These institutions are at the heart of the powerful myth that legitimates the empire identified with America.  As Benjamin Barber puts it, this was an “astonishing assault on the temple of free enterprise in New York City and the cathedral of American military might in Washington, DC.

Pgs. 71, Again and again the two are linked; fertility and fruitfulness in the land on one hand, and peace the other, and peace and security on the other, are rooted in rejection of the militaristic consumerism of the empire and the social and economic practices that support it.

Pg. 94, Because we have been so preoccupied with “incanting anemic souls into heaven” as Wendell Berry puts it, we have missed the fact that this poem envisions nothing less than the reconciliation of all creation.  If “all things” are created in, through and for Christ – even the thrones, dominions, rulers an d powers – and “all things” are reconciled through the blood of the cross, then the power of this good news must permeate all of life.

Pg. 99, Worldviews-turned-ideologies present their view of the world as simply the way the world is  They are world “views” that function so well that it is forgotten that they are “views.”

Pg. 108, In this story Israel is called to be a “priestly kingdom and a hold nation” (Ex. 19:6) not so it could be a regime of truth that exists for the exclusion of others but in order to play a role in the restoration of the whole human race… If this drama has the redemption of all creation as its focus, then any violent, ideological, self-justifying ownership of the story – either by nationalistic Jews or by sectarian and self-righteous Christians – brings the story to a dramatic dead end that has missed the creationally redemptive point.

Pg. 154, Praxis has everything to do with ‘sovereignty.’  What or who is sovereign in life?  What is it that matters the most?  What provides both a bedrock for our life – a sense of ultimacy – and an orientation?