News with Nuance: Oct. 12, 2023

Your Friday dose of News with Nuance: the week's biggest stories, unpacked + more ..

Dear Readers,

This is one of those news weeks when writing this newsletter feels both absolutely necessary and also painfully inadequate and impotent, in the face of so much pain, so much hatred, and so much violent and vehement misinformation.

For the past few days since the killing began in Israel and in Palestine, I have closed my eyes with images of the Holy Land in my brain, and I’ve awakened each morning in a state of baseline anxiety and nervousness I haven’t experienced for quite some time.

I know I am feeling this way because I am one of those people who particularly senses and feels the pain and sadness of the world; I am empathetic to a fault, and still it surprises me how much weight this emotional burden bears. I know that many of you are like this, too.

And still, at the same time, I wake up with my nervous and sorrowful heart, and I open the blinds and stare across the street to a peaceful Midwestern scene. The leaves are changing. My kids went uneventfully to school this week, even succumbing to collared shirts and hair gel for Picture Day. I saw friends and loved ones this week for coffee and breakfast. The water tap turned on in my bathroom, and all my light switches worked. We had ample food to eat, and each night our family gathered around the dinner table: healthy and alive, praying prayers of thanksgiving and lament and longing.

On Wednesday this week I attended a meeting at my children's elementary school, located in a corner of our city with a higher than average Jewish population, adjacent to a Minneapolis suburb known for its Orthodox Jewish community, and home to a large number of synagogues in general. I saw a friend of mine, a fellow Pastor, who spent years living in Jerusalem. I saw in my Jewish friends and neighbors a palpable sense of pain and fear, emotion just under the surface, a wrenching ancestral pain awakened by the visceral present reminder of violent and deadly anti-Semitism.

I also heard, for the first time ever in our urban city, the sound of high school kids walking to school and saying: “Go back to your country,” repeatedly. More often, the kids walking past our house to the high school are kids of Somali descent; many of the girls wear Islamic hijabs to class. This time, though, the students were white. I was surprised at the angry, loud tone underneath their words. But maybe I shouldn’t have been.

So many this week are angry and sad. I am, too. And those we trust to lead our government are in disarray, at least on one side of the aisle, unable to elect a new Speaker of the House and approve much-needed aid to Israel and to Ukraine. Still we go on. We make dinner, wash the dishes, brush our teeth, go to bed, go to bed, go on.

I don’t think any of you are reading this newsletter expecting me to provide you with a morally clear viewpoint from which to understand the crisis in the Holy Land: to give you a position from which to divide the “good guys” from the “bad guys.” If there’s anything I know from 38 years on this earth, it’s that good and bad run into each other more often than not, and it’s only the least powerful and often the kindest and humblest who end up dead in their midst. Knowing this, I write the News with Nuance to you this week as I always do - trying to find the human stories in the midst of the headlines, helping us to understand one another, and search for hope and love and truth.

Let’s get to the news … with nuance …

Note: this is a special FREE edition of News with Nuance. A big thank-you to the paid subscribers who support this newsletter and allow me to continue to do this work. I am so grateful for this community.

Israeli soldiers remove the body of a compatriot, killed during an attack by the Palestinian militants, in Kfar Aza, south of Israel bordering Gaza Strip.

Photo by Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

The Headline: The bodies are still being found in this battle-scarred Israeli kibbutz

I’ve noticed that in times of global fear and unrest, and unmistakable images of violence and terror, peoples’ first instinct is often to cling to their ideology. Thus the knee-jerk reaction of so many white Americans to seeing a Black man killed by the police is to ask what crime he committed - to somehow make it make sense in our brains conditioned to an axiomatic worldview when it fact we live in a world of entropy, alleviated only occasionally by irrational acts of compassion.

Thus I have noticed, in these six days since Hamas fighters first began their ground assault into Israel, that frightened people far from the Holy Land have been grasping for our own comforting ideology. Liberals seek to make sense out of chaos by citing the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the ongoing seizure of Palestinian land in Israeli settlements, the economic injustices meted out daily by Israeli laws targeting Palestinians. Conservatives drape themselves in the Israeli flag, urge more bombing and death in response, a requisite wiping out of Hamas, who has long stated its goal to wipe out the Jewish state. Some stretch themselves and turn themselves inside out to find a way to hold President Biden at fault. Or something about the Iran deal. Or American university students and professors. And some Evangelical Christians turn to the books of Revelation, blithely proclaiming that the deaths of more than 1,000 Israelis might harken the return of Christ.

One of my life’s formative experiences was the two weeks I spent in the Holy Land, in Israel and the West Bank, traveling with a seminary group back in January 2010. Never before had I felt more powerfully the presence of the historical Jesus, who walked on this ground and preached on this plain. Our Palestinian Christian guide talked frankly to us about the consequences of occupation and the border wall. We visited an Israeli settlement, and noticed with grief the stark difference in affluence between it and the refugee camp not far away.

By all accounts, it was obvious that Gaza in particular was like a powder keg. Unemployment reached a remarkable 45 percent in 2022. The Hamas government, which hadn’t held elections in 15 years, did little to improve the lives of citizens in Gaza. Instead of policy reform, education, health care, infrastructure - the ruling group offered scapegoats and hate-filled rhetoric, and lots of access to guns. Sound familiar?

Israel too found itself in crisis in recent months. With its most far-right government ever, and a prime minister facing criminal charges, right-wing lawmakers were pressing forward a change in the operation of the country’s Supreme Court, which served as a stopgap on unjust laws in the absence of a written Constitution. Residents had poured out into the streets for protests against the right-wing government. Orthodox Jews, who practiced a restrictive, fundamentalist version of Judaism that heavily curtailed the rights of women and other minorities, held inordinate power in government and society, despite being exempt from military service. The country’s highly educated and young workforce felt disenfranchised and taken advantage of. Again, sound familiar?

To suggest that these factors together helped produce the conditions that empowered a terrorist group to enact a raid of terror and death is very different than suggesting that somehow innocent Israeli citizens deserved to die grisly deaths for the sake of the occupation. To suggest this is to uphold our ideological positions over human lives, something that is the beginning of an end to our shared human existence. As Naomi Klein wrote for the Guardian this week, “ … side with the child over the gun every time, no matter whose child and no matter whose gun.”

In that light I share with you the above headline and more to follow about the human losses in Israel and in Palestine, hastened and begun by a terrorist attack that was undoubtedly born in anti-Semitism. As we lament these deaths together, I feel compelled to say that I find it dangerous in particular for white Christians to dismiss the role of anti-Semitism in the most deadly day for Jews since the Holocaust. I think it important to pause and reflect before we react, quickly seizing what we might think is the moral high ground. I wonder if part of the white left-wing urge to blame Israel is rooted in our own ongoing inability to reckon with our own role in the Holocaust, and our own role in ongoing anti-Semitic attacks and hate crimes against Jews all over the world? I will never forget the look of devastation in my friend’s eyes this week when I asked how she and her family, who are Jewish, were doing.

“It’s a really hard time,” she said. “A really hard time.”

Generational memories of trauma, violence, death and hatred are long. There is no dismissing the ongoing generational trauma undergone by Jews, most often - though not exclusively - at the hands of white Christians. To insist that Hamas and its Palestinian supporters reckon with the role of anti-Semitism in their violent attacks is not to absolve the state of Israel for its own injustice and racism.

For now, I suggest that we read the stories of the survivors and human victims of this war. So that we can bear witness, and not judgment.

The Quote: Before you see what happened here, you can smell it, lingering among the palm trees and carrying past the yellow security gates that were meant to keep out intruders.

“There is nothing, nothing that this even compares to,” said a rescue worker with Zaka, a volunteer group of ultra-Orthodox men that has helped to clear the bodies of around 120 residents from the streets and houses of this once-tranquil kibbutz.

They have been doing this for days, going from one devastated community to the next. They are exhausted. But the work continues. “In Judaism it’s important to bury someone as fast as possible, otherwise their soul can’t continue on,” he explained, before moving on.

Story by Miriam Berger, Loveday Morris and Baz Rather, Washington Post

The Headline: In Gaza, no one can believe their eyes

Terror always begets terror.

The Quote: Even getting bread is dangerous. Yesterday, on Monday, I spent more than an hour standing in line at the bakery. A friend joined me and told us about an airstrike opposite a shopping center in the Jabalia Camp. I’d been planning to go to that area to buy food and exchange money. I arrived home half an hour later to the news that more than 50 peoplehad been killed in the strike. I saw bodies without limbs, faces unrecognizable. Should we still call them bodies?

I saw avocados, too, splashed with blood, on the ground next to a damaged cart amid the rubble and bodies. Should we still call them avocados? Will I ever eat avocados again?

In the days ahead, I know that we will hear more bombs falling. We will wait in dread and think: “Is it my turn this time?”

When we see the flash of the explosion, we know that we’ve been spared, because if you’re hit you only see death. It was someone else’s turn.

And then we remember to mourn.

Commentary by Mosab Abu Toha, Washington Post

More stories to read and listen and digest, from the Holy Land

The Hamas horror is also a lesson on the price of populism

He listened, helpless, as Hamas closed in on his family: ‘They came to kill’

Hamas terror tactics test Israel’s war strategy

Scenes from a massacre: Inside an Israeli town destroyed by Hamas

And this, on the recent Nobel Peace Prize-winner, an Iranian dissident - a reminder of the immense courage of those who live under violent and totalitarian regimes (I am truly in awe of Narges Mohammed and the brave Iranian women who work with her to resist tyranny and religious fundamentalist)

A few headlines beyond the war and devastation in Israel and Palestine

Column: 50 years after Ms. magazine’s debut, why is the patriarchy still alive and well?

‘IDK what to do’: Thousands of teen boys are being extorted in sexting scams

And a note on the storytellers and why they matter. For reference, much of the reporting I’ve shared from the Holy Land comes from the Washington Post, where 240 staffers lost their jobs this week due to budget cuts. For the journalists who remain, they often must struggle to tell meaty and nuanced stories in a news environment that prizes clicks, snark and virality over tough, independent truth-telling, and a journalism establishment/leadership class that is often isolated from the perils of a vulnerable world, especially economic anxiety and violent threats to reporters.

This Week in Christian Nationalism and Religious Extremism

While this newsletter won’t focus overall on Christian Nationalism, each Friday I will include a brief update from that week, as it’s both a continuing focus of my work and also, I think, a critical threat to both American democracy and the faithful witness of Jesus’ Gospel, which exists independently of the United States!

In one sentence: Christian Nationalism is a version of the idolatrous Theology of Glory, which replaces the genuine worship of God with worship of a particular vision of America, often rooted in a revisionist history of white people in the 1950s, before the Civil Rights movement or the women’s movement. Christian Nationalism supports a violent takeover of government and the imposition of fundamentalist Christian beliefs on all people. Christian nationalism relies on a theological argument that equates American military sacrifice with Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. It suggests that Christians are entitled to wealth and power, in contrast to Jesus’ theology of the cross, which reminds Christians that they too have to carry their cross, just as our crucified savior did.

This Week: I’m deep into research and writing for my new project (announcement coming soon, I promise!) I am overwhelmed by the importance of this topic and also reminded how deep the tendrils of Christian Nationalism reach into so much of American society, touching places we may not expect. What often seems innocuous or innocent or well-meaning at the outset often leaves a legacy of hurt, pain, and destruction in its wake. So I’m reminded of the importance of being ever-vigilant, or refusing to be cowed or threatened into silence when people who I love are being threatened or dehumanized. Our witness and words and loving support matter.

I’m also continuing work with groups and organizations to teach on Christian Nationalism and its fallout. Later this month I’ll be spending the day at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., working with a group of rural Midwestern clergy on Case Studies in Christian Nationalism and how this stuff looks in real life, especially in our local churches and schools. I’ve been feeling a calling lately to focus a lot of efforts on offering support and assistance to beleaguered church leaders. Rather than piling on with yet another place where - in an age of falling attendance patterns and heavy financial burdens - church leaders are often told they’re doing things wrong or, worse, not doing enough. I’ve begun to see part of my role in this work as working deeply with church leaders to understand how Christian Nationalism is playing out in their local settings, and then to offer them affirmation, support, and maybe some framing or tactics to give them space to continue to do ministry without sacrificing their own health and safety.

Later this month I’m also heading to Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minn., for a follow-up forum on Christian Nationalism, and in early November I’ll be presenting at Meetinghouse Church in Edina, Minn., and participating in a joint event with the Episcopal Church at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, Minn.

Here are some news stories I read this week that continue to shed light on the role of Christian Nationalism in our world …

At far-right roadshow, Trump is God’s ‘anointed one,’ QAnon is king, and ‘everything you believe is right’

Opinion: Here’s how we know the Republican Party has become an autocratic movement

The following two stories demonstrate one thing that Christian Nationalism is really good at - making money for those who champion it, and giving credence to liars:

Rep. Santos faces new charges he stole donor IDs, made unauthorized charges to their credit cards

How Trump’s MAGA movement helped a 29-year-old activist become a millionaire

While its leaders grift money from Christian Nationalism’s followers, the majority of people suffer the effects of poor health care, stagnant economy, lack of opportunity, lack of human dignity in the face of an autocratic movement focused on power:

HOW RED-STATE POLITICS ARE SHAVING YEARS OFF AMERICAN LIVES

FATTY LIVER WAS A DISEASE OF THE OLD. THEN KIDS STARTED GETTING SICK.

AN EPIDEMIC OF CHRONIC ILLNESS IS KILLING US TOO SOON

Worst dengue fever outbreak in Bangladesh kills more than 1,000

But there is more to following Jesus than Christian Nationalism, and people are rising up to demand an alternative faith rooted in the Cross

What to know about the Vatican meeting on the Catholic Church’s future

Amid liberal revolt, pope signals openness to blessings for gay couples

As Jimmy Carter turns 99, he’s still full of surprises

Thanks for reading,

Angela

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