Chronicles on the Road to Fascism V: Is There Not a Balm in Gilead?

I must admit that at times I verge on despair watching Donald Trump and his MAGA malevolence every day dragging America closer to full-blown fascism. His mounting attempts to destroy our nation’s educational and cultural institutions to enable him to rebuild them in his own hateful, ignorant image; his bastardizing of the Christian Gospel into a malign, oppressive ideology of cruel domination; his terroristic assaults on brown and black immigrants, replete with expulsion to foreign lands and hellish prisons; his weaponization of the US legal system into a corrupt, lawless instrument of personal vengeance and shameless self-dealing; his virtually unchecked militarization of the DOJ, the FBI and now the US military to destroy those who seek to resist his repressive evil – the confluence of these factors at times has me battling a real sense of impotence and dread. Looking through history we see that every empire has fallen, whether overrun from without or betrayed from within by its own contradictions and injustice. Will the corrupt, chaotic rise of Trump and his christo-fascists hasten the fall of the American empire? Is their ascendency the straw that will break our democracy’s back? Will the Pandora’s box of racist hatred that Trump has torn asunder render hellish the futures and life-chances of black and brown children? Is there no balm in Gilead for we who seek to resist this evil?

One of the most tragic consequences of the hyper-focus on Jesus of Nazareth as the “Son of God” is that it has caused the vast majority of Christendom to forget that when he walked the earth, Jesus was fully a human being with the same weaknesses, fears and concerns for his personal wellbeing as other human beings. If nothing else, his paralyzing fear in the garden of Gethsemane is proof of that. As a result of this misunderstanding, most Christians have no sense of the immense courage it took for Jesus to publicly stand against the powerful priestly aristocracy that held sway over every aspect of Jewish life and, even more daunting, for him to defy the most formidable empire the world had yet seen that, as a matter of public policy, tortured to death troublemakers like Jesus at the drop of a hat. And most seem to have even a lesser sense of what that should mean for our own political lives.

Because Jesus knew the grave danger he faced when he accepted his resistance assignment, we can be sure that his command, “Follow me,” did not mean for his followers to construe it to merely signify believing in quasi-personality cult doctrines fixated on his person (some of which, like the Holy Trinity, cannot even be traced to him). Instead, it is clear that “Follow me” should be understood as embracing Jesus as a model of practice on some level, although its implications can be multiple. However, what I believe to be the most important implication for those of us who labor against despair in this dangerous moment is this: that we should consciously strive to follow Jesus by seeking to embody his courageous spirit of resistance to strengthen our own resolve and empower us to beat back thoughts of impotence and defeat.

In 1998 I attended a Sunday service at the St. Paul Community Baptist Church in the hard scrabble neighborhood of East New York, Brooklyn. I had journeyed there to meet its pastor at the time, the Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, the dynamic central figure in Upon This Rock, Samuel Freedman’s riveting book about the community transforming work of the St. Paul congregation and leadership. When it was time for Holy Communion (which Youngblood served at every church gathering, Sunday or not) he did not offer the traditional, rote, often maudlin recitation about “his precious blood that was shed for me” or an extended dramatic liturgy about the drama of the Last Supper. Instead, Youngblood simply raised high his right arm, communion elements in hand, and loudly declaimed, “To Jesus!” That is all he said. “To Jesus!”, a salutation offered as one would to a valorous hero who had faithfully resisted oppression despite overwhelming odds. How inspiring! Beholding Jesus not only as an icon, a figure to be worshipped, but also as a person of courage guided by his confident faith in the righteousness of his calling, undeterred by the systems of power arrayed against him and his compatriots.

That moment has stuck with me. Whenever I have viewed with gnawing alarm the immense power of the fascist apparatus that Trump has so quickly assembled, I recall the immense courage of the poor Palestinian peasant devoid of rights and protections in his own land and Reverend Youngblood’s bold salute to him, and I am again strengthened and reinvigorated for the struggle ahead. Thankfully, even as we are assailed by the forces of evil disguised in patriots’ clothing I am encouraged, for I can attest that there is, indeed, a balm in Gilead for all of us struggling to make justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. For like Martin Luther King I, too, am persuaded that the arc of the universe is long, yet it bends toward justice.