Two Tragedies

Last week we read about the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in the early hours outside of his hotel. What followed that murder, and the subsequent arrest of the murderer, was curious. For some, pent-up anger and resentment toward the insurance industry created what looks like a wave of sympathy for the action. (I want to be careful here. Nobody I've spoken to has said anything that sounds like they condoned the murder. Some folks have expressed extreme views online, apparently, but that is how we've come to use social media these days. What some are calling a "wave of sympathy" may be more of a ripple, but even that is notable, because we are talking about murder.) I’m trying to understand where that wave or ripple of sympathy comes from, so please bear with me. 

 

All of us know the frustration of spending time on a phone tree listening to a menu of options (because some of them have recently been changed) and yelling "Operator!" into our phone to little or no avail. We joke about it after the fact, but if the call is about a serious illness, it can be maddening. Some folks have had to put a procedure or prescription on hold because it was pending approval by their insurance company – a decision that is rendered when it is rendered. Too many folks have felt perpetually helpless with a process that seems to put our or our loved ones' health decisions into the hands of a nameless, faceless, voiceless decision-maker, whose cost/benefit analysis remains a mystery.[1]

 

If someone feels that their chronic pain, or the death of their loved one, was the result of bureaucratic red tape, it is emotionally hard to accept. And that pain can be compounded into resentment if we imagine that our best options are denied because of cost-cutting measure that benefit shareholders. I suspect this feeling of helplessness is what the “wave of sympathy” is really all about. 

 

Meanwhile, we abhor murder. Rightly. Murder calls for our clear and full-throated condemnation. And vigilantism, while often feeling justified by anger at its inception, almost always goes off the rails once someone decides that laws no longer apply. The murder of Brian Thompson was an act of gun violence, leaving a family in mourning and forever be scarred by it. Their pain is real, anger about such violence is likewise real. Gun violence fuels its own kind of resentment. 

 

Our challenge is to express our steadfast opposition to murder and to be sympathetic with those who have understandable resentment toward the health insurance industry. Or, to put it another way, our challenge is to condemn this murder without sounding as if we are unsympathetic toward those who feel that they live with chronic pain or that their loved one died because of callous bureaucratic red tape.  

 

This morning, the C.E.O. of UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealth Care, wrote an Op Ed in response to vitriol and threats that some folks have issued toward his employees. In it, he makes a distinction between the healthcare system, which he admits is flawed, and the persons working within that system, saying, “While the health system is not perfect, every corner of it is filled with people who try to do their best for those they serve.”[2]Judging from the folks I know who work in the insurance industry, I find this to be true. But I am not sure if vilifying or valorizing individuals within the system is the point. Resentment is built on the perception that some people carry out the system and benefit from it, while others are victims of it. 

 

I don’t have answers here and I’m sure that persons who work in the insurance industry as well as persons who have been frustrated by it can argue that I have not adequately captured their reality. I apologize for that. The reason I need to explore this event with you is because I think it is symptomatic of much of the anger that permeates our country right now, whether it is directed toward industries like healthcare, banking, housing, etc., or entities like city councils, universities, or houses of worship. I suspect a lot of the recent attention to loneliness is rooted in a perceived lack of empathy that people feel. 

 

This is the world to which we proclaim the salvation that comes through the birth of Christ. By attending to the complexity of our present moment, that message can bring a sharper, more poignant hope than bland annual slogans. Together, let’s lean into how the good news of great joy can find its way to those who suffer and grieve.

 

Mark of St. Mark

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[1] In full disclosure, my own experience with these matters have been mostly inconvenient rigmarole, and my spouse takes it upon herself to handle most of these calls. Others are not so fortunate. 

[2] Andrew Witty, “The Health Care System Is Flawed. Let’s Fix It,” New York Times online edition, 12/13/24.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/opinion/united-health-care-brian-thompson-luigi-mangione.html

Final look at Project 2025

This will be my last post regarding Project 2025. I wish I could continue to blog through it, but I am ready to focus my attention for this blog elsewhere. With P2025, I am finding that chapter after chapter, essay after essay, I am seeing the same pattern. The document has the potential to offer tremendous insights into important and ongoing conversations about how to shape our government in an ever-changing world. To that extent, there is a lot to learn from P2025. On the other hand, the shape of the document is not at all conducive to being part of an ongoing conversation. It is too devoted to a single vision, as if any benefit here can only be helpful to conservatism. To wit, consider opening words of the essay on the “Intelligence Community” by Dustin J. Carmack. It begins with this “mission statement”: 

“To arm a future incoming conservative President with the knowledge and tools necessary to fortify the United States Intelligence Community; to defend against all foreign enemies and ensure the security and prosperity of our sovereign nation, devoid of all political motivations; and to maintain constitutional civil liberties” (p. 201.)

I suppose that this “mission statement” is meant to describe the mission of this chapter, and not the Intelligence Community [IC] itself, since it is directed specifically to an incoming conservative President. After reading further, my thought was that some of the arguments here would benefit a future President who is not conservative. So why – this is a serious question – why is the “mission” of this chapter to arm a conservative President?  What is the disposition of this chapter if the next President is not conservative? What of future Presidents that may not be conservative? Do any of the arguments here apply outside of a specific political perspective? And how does that narrow focus at the beginning of the mission statement cohere with the phrase that follows, “devoid of all political motivations”? If the mission of a plan to create an apolitical apparatus is itself professedly political, is it not manifestly hypocritical?

If the context of the other essays in P2025 shows us anything, it is that the phrase, “devoid of all political motivations” is meant to suggest that the current iteration of the Intelligence Community is too politically motivated, or is too motivated by the wrong politics. And, true to form, here it is on p.204, “Finally, the future IC leadership must address the widely promoted ‘woke’ culture that has spread throughout the federal government with identity politics and ‘social justice’ advocacy replacing such traditional American values as patriotism, colorblindness, and even workplace competence.” But wait, there’s more. On p. 212 Carmack has a section entitled “Preventing the Abuse of Intelligence for Partisan Purposes.” And here is a glimpse at how the IC can practice its political neutrality: “rectify the damage done by the actions of former IC leaders and personnel regarding the claims of Trump-Russia collusion following the 2016 elections and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation and media revelations of its existence during the 2020 election.” This rank politically partisan operating instruction flies in the face of Carmack’s earlier pseudo-neutrality when he envisioned an IC “devoid of all political motivations.” 

On p. 213, Carmack begins a bullet-pointed list of norms and virtues that would help restore the integrity of the IC. It begins with clearing house and removing some personnel, goes on to look into past politicizations and abuses, and suggest ways to prevent current and past personnel from speaking to the press without authorization. Carmack also has a number of arguments for stricter controls over how IC information is gathered, shared, and processed for critical use. Again, much of this information seems insightful and very consequential for the work of the IC. But, also again, it is highly politicized in it entire orientation. If the issues described here are integral to the IC itself, why must it be cast specifically for a conservative administration? When it is pointed in that direction, it seems that the warnings and processes for silencing whistle-blowers are all about protecting certain points of view while highlighting others. Isn’t that exactly the kind of partisanship that Carmack’s phrase “devoid of all political motivations” intends to avoid? 

In the end, reading this chapter makes me envision a future conservative administration that re-centers Hunter Biden's laptop, dismisses Russian election interference concerns, and goes on a witch hunt against personnel deemed too “woke” and attentive to “social justice” (remember when Glenn Beck tried to make “social justice” a bad thing?). In doing so, I wonder how the IC would benefit from such a blatant radical reorientation smothered with the pretense of being patriotic and non-political. It would be a perfect tool for a president who wants to spend more energy seeking revenge over past grievances than facing a world of current challenges.

Final note: There is an author’s note concluding this chapter that says it is a collective work and therefore no statement, recommendation or view expressed should be attributed to a particular contributor. With respect to that, please read my previous remarks about “Carmack” to mean “Carmack and his collaborators.” 

The State Department - For the People or the Person?

As we continue reading through the Heritage Foundation’s P2025, we arrive at chapter 6, “The Department of State,” by Kiron K. Skinner. Skinner was part of the Trump administration at the State Department, teaches at Pepperdine University, and is associated with the Hoover Institution and Heritage Foundation. The State Department is a critical part of the US Government, as close to a “Peace Department” as we have to correspond with the “War Department” that we looked at over my last two entries. 

Skinner begins by saying, “The U.S. Department of State’s mission is to bilaterally, multilaterally, and regionally implement the President’s foreign policy priorities; to serve U.S. citizens abroad; and to advance the economic, foreign policy, and national security interests of the United States.” Let’s compare that to the mission statement of the Department of State (https://www.state.gov/about/): “To protect and promote U.S. security, prosperity, and democratic values and shape an international environment in which all Americans can thrive.” To be sure, the State Department’s website does say that the Secretary of State “carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service, and U.S. Agency for International Development.” So, there is no question that the President is elected and given the power to set policies that the State Department carries out. But there is a world of difference in making the historic mission of the State department the starting point, rather than starting with presidential power. And that is the framework with which I want to discuss Skinner’s essay. 

Skinner notes on p.203 that there is always a tug-of-war between Presidents and bureaucracies within the State Department. She argues that it is more pronounced whenever the President is conservative, because “large swaths of the State Department’s workforce are left-wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative President’s policy agenda and vision.” That song is becoming almost laughably predictable in this document. Whether Skinner is correct or not, the tension between career diplomats and elected officials should not come as a surprise. Let me illustrate. Say a diplomat has been working for many years with her counterpart from a country with which the U.S. has strained relations. Through connections and experience, she may know that sometimes the leadership of that country will make claims that sound volatile but serve mostly to placate the extreme elements within the country with little real effect. An incoming President would not be expected to know such things and might be inclined to respond in a way that causes more damage than it solves. The career diplomat, then would face a matter of conscience. Using the language of the State Department’s mission, how does one promote the “security, prosperity, and democratic values” of the U.S. when a President’s ill-advised action would harm them? Or, to use Skinner’s own language, how does one “advance the national security interests” of the U.S. when a President’s direction might set them back? And while it is easy for me to imagine someone as impetuous as former President Trump ignoring the wisdom of a career diplomat, it is equally possible for any number of potential presidents. Being a state Governor, a Senator, or a Representative – as most candidates for presidency left and right tend to be – may not equip someone for choosing the path of wisdom. 

That is why the thrust of P2025 is so disconcerting. By repeatedly accusing career civil servants of being “woke,” or “left-wing,” and representing unconstitutional challenges to a President’s will, this document actually predisposes a conservative President to ignore much of the hard-earned wisdom of career diplomats, rather than inviting their voice into the decision-making process. That disposition is clear when Skinner says, “No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day” (p.205). No one. Not a single person. There are no criteria for evaluating who must go, just everyone who wakes up that morning employed in a leadership position should lie down that night unemployed. Because they committed the atrocious act of working for a previous administration. 

If that is the attitude of a future incoming administration – or if that was the “drain the swamp” attitude of the Trump administration back when Skinner worked for him before – it is no wonder that career servants seem resistant to it. 

Mark of St. Mark

The Department of Defen(ding our political perspective)

 In my last entry, I began looking at the section of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” on the Department of Defense, by Christopher Miller.  There’s a lot about this chapter that is beyond my scope of knowledge, especially when it comes to the particulars of different types of tanks, nuclear arsenal, and so forth. So, I cannot and will not address any of those topics either positively or negatively. There are, however, some aspects of Miller’s essay worth noting.

First, it seems that all of the essays in P2025 are required to give lip service to dismissing critical race theory along with diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. I know military veterans who take a lot of pride in how the US Army was one of first institutions in America to defy color codes and treat people of different colors equally. Of course it was not a blemish-free process by any means, but the Army did pursue an intentional process of overcoming its own history of racism. I imagine back then they had folks arguing that such a focus was harming their mission also. Sigh.

Likewise, there seems to be a requirement for these essays to decry Marxist ideology and indoctrination everywhere. Miller follows suit. None of this ideology is spelled out, though, so one is left wondering if the kind of Marxism he has in mind would include the base housing and spousal support that he argues is necessary for enlisted personnel. Believe me, I am all for improving base housing and providing services that make it easier for families when someone is stationed to move or deployed and has to go away. I agree with Miller that government-provided childcare and employment assistance seems to be something we are obliged to offer when families make such sacrifices. I just want to point out that those are precisely the kinds of programs that fall under the criticism of being “socialist” when they are suggested for anyone else. So, perhaps some kinds of Marxist ideas or programs might be worth discussing, rather than simply employing the bugaboo term to suggest nefarious forces at work. 

And finally, Miller suggests reinstating service members to active duty who were discharged for not receiving the COVID vaccine. Those service members refused direct orders based on the kind of objective science that Miller argues elsewhere should be required of all military decisions. Medical science is not opinion or indoctrination, just because someone’s political loyalties require them to question it. 

Honest to goodness, I wish Miller had said to the P2025 folks, “I know we’re supposed to let your rank partisanship permeate every bit of this project, but some things are too important to be relegated to your political ends.”  That would have been an act of uncommon courage.

Mark of St. Mark

The Department of Defense

I continue to read through and blog through the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.” You can find it here. Section Two of P2025 is entitled, “The Common Defense” and it begins with an introduction (by someone) that notes that neither of the long-time honored parts of the executive branch – the Department of Defense (formerly “War Department”) and State Department – are living up to their standards and need to be put aright by the next president. I don’t want to jump the gun (so to speak), but as it turns out, it’s the Democrats’ fault. 

The first part of this section, “The Department of Defense (DOD),” is written by Christopher Miller, who held several posts within the Trump administration and formerly an army Green Beret and Colonel. He begins by citing a litany of problems that are taking a serious toll on the DOD, among which are “a two-tiered culture of accountability that shields senior officers and officials while exposing junior officers and soldiers in the field, wasteful spending, wildly shifting security policies, exceedingly poor discipline in program execution, and (most recently) the Biden Administration’s profoundly unserious equity agenda and vaccine mandates …”

Just a quick note: The DOD is huge and, therefore, probably does have a boatload of issues to address, constantly and across many changes of leadership. The DOD consistently is called to areas that are dangerous and life-threatening, so those issue are genuinely matters of life and death, whether for US troops, enemy combatants, or civilians caught in the crossfire. Miller’s choice to name the Biden Administration is not surprising given the manifest intent of this whole document, but it is disheartening. If he really were as interested in de-politicizing military decisions (p.92), this chapter could have gone a long way of demonstrating how. For example, if “wildly shifting security policies” contribute to the current problems for the DOD, why not name the Trump Administration’s complete 180 on NATO and his accommodating stance toward Kim Jung Un and Vladamir Putin as stunning examples? Miller does mention later, “The United States and its allies also face real threats from Russia, as evidenced by Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine …” but does not cop up to how the administration of which he was a part dissed US allies and encouraged Russia. And “vaccine mandates”? That’s only a “problem” if people stubbornly refuse to do what their commanders deem are best for their safety based on the best available science. 

Miller also argues that the DOD should make providing support to the Department of Homeland Security its 3rd overriding priority. The DOD’s 3rd overriding priority! 

There seem to be two issues at play here. First, the militarization of the border reflects a tendency to suspect all immigrants as dangerous. Because it is illegal to enter the US by any means other than ports of entry (air, sea, or land), any immigrant crossing the border outside of those ports are breaking US laws the moment they cross. So, it is easy to call them “criminals” and justify it on those grounds. The problem is when the “criminality” of crossing over the border is equated with being “criminals that rape, kill, import drugs, and eat pets.” That kind of rhetoric manifestly irresponsible. But so is describing border security as the 3rd highest priority of the Department of Defense. 

Second, one can certainly see some border crossings as threats to national security – especially if they bring narcotics and cartel-backed gang violence with them. If we note that danger, we also have to admit that the number one reason there is so much money in the drug trade is because there is so much demand for illegal drugs in the US. The millions of dollars that we see drug lords spending started out in diversified US citizens’ pockets before they bought drugs. 

I’ve only touched the beginnings of Miller’s essay. It has a lot of information and much of it sounds important to hear. So, stay tuned. 

When You Hear "Bureaucracy ..."

I continue to read through the massive Project 2025, which has been criticized both seriously and comically, and which has become something of a stain from which the Trump Campaign has tried to distance itself, although it has been written by many former Trump appointees and with a future Trump (or Trump-like) administration in mind. The next major section of P2025 is a chapter entitled “Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy” (p. 69 of the document; p.101 of the online version,) By Donald Devine, Dennis Dean Kirk, and Paul Dans. I begin with two notes.

First, a few words about one of the principal authors, Paul Dans. Dans was the Director of the P2025 initiative but left the project in August and is now working on a number of issues to which he refers as “election integrity” issues. According to this article by Ken Bensinger, one of those issues is a restoration of “Schedule F” classifications for many federal jobs. Schedule F, passed during the Trump administration but rescinded by President Biden, makes it easier to fire civil servants and replace them with party loyalists. And there’s this quote from Bensinger’s article: “The heart of the Heritage Foundation-funded project, Mr. Dans said, was a database of roughly 20,000 party loyalists who were vetted and ready to fill positions in a Republican administration.” In other words, Mr. Dans' essay is part of a larger planned effort to rid the government’s bureaucracy of civil servants, not necessarily based on their job performance or integrity, but on whether they are deemed “faithful” enough to serve the President’s agenda. Again, one must ask, “What if a President’s agenda conflicts with legal, ethical, or constitutional integrity?” I wish that were a ridiculous question, since presidents take oaths swearing fidelity to the constitution. After January 6, 2021, it no longer seems like a ridiculous question to me.  

Second, I read this section as a person whose father was a civil servant, working for NASA throughout my childhood. I remember well how often my parents would try to make plans for the forthcoming year, deciding whether they could afford a home improvement project or a family vacation to a state park, but could only be tentative about it, because Dad did not know whether he would get a COLA or not. His job – and our family’s livelihood as a result – was always something of a political football. He was a model-maker, making wings or aeronautical models to test in the wind tunnels, hence one of many civil servants who were subject annually to political whims or an ambitious politician’s plans to curry popularity by cutting costs. Those conversations are important, no doubt, but the politicization of those conversations have always struck me as the primary reason why bureaucracy has a bad name. A government serving a country of over 330 million people is a tall task, easy to criticize and difficult to manage well. Therefore, there will always be a reason for people to address “managing the bureaucracy” as this chapter does. 

Dans et al give an overview of numerous attempts to manage the civil service, going back to the Carter administration. No doubt it is a daunting task. One issue he finds important is his argument that the unionization of government workers is incompatible with government management, invoking none other than President Franklin Roosevelt for his case. He lauds three executive orders that the Trump administration issued, each of which tries to empower management over unions. Note the phrase “management rights.”

Executive Order 13836, encouraging agencies to renegotiate all union collective bargaining agreements to ensure consistency with the law and respect for management rights; Executive Order 13837, encouraging agencies to prevent union representatives from using official time preparing or pursuing grievances or from engaging in other union activity on government time; Executive Order 13839, encouraging agencies both to limit labor grievances on removals from service or on challenging performance appraisals and to prioritize performance over seniority when deciding who should be retained following reductions-in-force.

It’s the next section where it feels that the issue comes to a head: “Fully Staffing the Ranks of Political Appointees.” The writers say that a President is constitutionally required to fill top political positions in the executive branch and admit that most Presidents have struggled to do so because of the requirement for congressional approval. Let me interject that the requirement for congressional approval is as much a part of the government’s process of checks and balances as anything else, but this essay seems to see that part of the process as a problem. They argue that President Trump faced special hostility from democrats and the media in getting his appointees considered and approved. There are clearly two sides to this argument and numerous other administrations that might feel the same. 

In the end, this chapter is another argument in a long history of two familiar tendencies – to prefer managerial rights over employee rights, and to de-centralizing much of civil service from Federal to State responsibilities – the point of which seems to ensure a structure that is not accountable to checks and balances but compliant to a president’s will, even if it is harmful to the common good. 

P2025 the OMB and other Executive Offices

I continue to work through “Project 2025.” This week a good friend sent me this link, which argues that “The details of Project 2025 are buried in a dense 900+ page PDF document, yet they have the potential to impact every American. This site was created to help you quickly understand how Project 2025 could affect the things you care about.” It has tools by which you can explore specific areas of concern that you may have. Thanks, Mary!  

The next section of P2025 (pp. 75-100) is an essay entitled “Executive Office of the President of the United States,” by Russ Vought. Vought is another former Trump cabinet member (Director of the Office of Management and Budget or OMB) and the founder and president of the Center for Renewing America. From the get-go, Vought seems determined to carry both the confusion and the vitriol of P2025 forward. He begins by noting that Article II of the U.S. Constitution invests executive power in the President, but quickly says that a modern President inherits a “sprawling federal bureaucracy that all too often is carrying out its own policy and preferences – or, worse yet, the policy plans and preferences of a radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country.” The “confusion” to which I refer comes from this: Vought himself was once a part of that “sprawling bureaucracy.” The OMB, while sometimes referred to as one of the smaller offices, employs about 450 persons. The “vitriol” to which I refer is Vought’s early onset of us/them language, because the problem of a sprawling bureaucracy is not when does a conservative president’s bidding, but when it has a different vision that can be named by the shorthand term “woke.” And with that, we move beyond the first paragraph. 

Vought’s essay is about the work of the OMB and what he sees as necessary changes in order for the next conservative presidency to be able to implement its will both with regard to budgeting and management. Likening the OMB to the control tower of an airport, Vought argues strongly that the OMB should be privy to all areas of governmental actions, in order to hold other agencies to the president’s vision. Here, Vought shows a difference between the role of the OMB when Trump was in office and the role under the Biden Administration. On pp. 45-46 of the online version, he argues for giving Program Associate Directors (PADs) control over apportionments, rather than Deputy Associate Directors (DADs). The Trump administration gave the oversight to PADs, while the Biden administration reverted back to the DADs. The point – it seems, to someone like me who is not terribly invested in learning the finer points of the bureaucracy – is to streamline the bureaucracy in order to ensure control and fiscal prudence. The issues behind PADs and DADs is one of many structural arguments that Vought offers in pp. 45ff. 

On p.49 one can see one of the effects of Vought’s streamlining. Regarding the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Vought argues that the point is “reining in the regulatory state and ensuring that regulations achieve important benefits while imposing minimal burdens on Americans.” He further argues for reinstating many of the executive orders that President Trump signed to make the regulatory system “more just, efficient, and transparent.” I am not one who is qualified to address the maze of offices and acronyms that Vought presents. I am aware, however, that many regulations over health hazards, pollutants, and safety have often been resisted as burdensome to “Americans,” as if those whose life and livelihood are being protected do not belong to that category as much as those whose profit is being protected. So, I admit my own bias and suspicions that part of the effect of streamlining the process to fit the next conservative president’s agenda is to make health and safety regulations harder to pass and enforce. 

It seems ironic that, like Dearborn before him, Vought seems to recognize the need for multiple offices and layers of bureaucracy needed to coordinate them. He goes on to talk about the National Security Council, National Economic Council, Office of the US Trade Representative, Council of Economic Advisors, National Space Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Council of Environmental Quality, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gender Policy Council, and the Office of the Vice President. As one might imagine, within his streamlining of the Council of Environmental Quality, Vought encourages the next president to instruct this council to rewrite its regulations along the lines of the efforts of the Trump administration, including, “restoring its key provisions such as banning the use of cumulative impact analysis” as well as abolishing the working group on the Social Costs of Carbon (SCC), and end using SCC analyses. This seems like a move to stop environmentally sensitive regulations in favor of business-friendly regulations. Likewise, one will not be surprised to learn that Vought simply wants to eliminate the Gender Policy Council because it is simply a tool of “woke” ideology. 

Sigh. 

 

P 2025, the Aug. 29 edition

Last week I began looking at Richard Dearborn’s essay on “The White House Office.” It offers an interesting overview of the roles of many governmental positions that one hears about in passing but may know nothing about in particular. From Dearborn’s position as the Deputy Chief of Staff in the Trump administration, he knows well what it is that these persons in these roles do. This essay could be a helpful introduction to Washington curious, but it does come with an agenda. As I pointed out last week, by naming loyalty to the president and the Constitution as the primary credential for the While House Counsel (p.28), Dearborn skirts one of the more obvious challenges of the Trump administration – when loyalty to the president means disloyalty to the constitution. Just ask former Vice President Pence, whose constitutional role presiding over the Senate was not in service to or answerable to the Executive branch of government. Still he was deemed disloyal for doing his constitutional duty and not doing President Trump’s bidding. 

Much of Dearborn’s essay sounds descriptive, but it is evident that it also has an agenda as part of a larger section called “Taking the Reins of Government.” When Dearborn writes about the work of the White House Communications Director, he helpfully describes the need for this Director to be informed of the breadth of White House activities, as well as having quick-minded skills to fend off or redirect questions, even rebutting the presumptions behind a question, in order to stay on message. To be fair, it strikes me that Communications Directors of every political stripe at every political level face the challenge of whether they are communicating the truth per se, the truth as the know it, or the truth that their office wants communicated. 

The context to keep in mind here is the role of the free press in the US and the extent to which a politician, elected by and for the people, is accountable to it. Particularly in a day when social media enables virtually anyone to publicize claims that may or may not be true, a free press is recognized as a necessary safeguard against political hubris that disguises itself in savvy press releases. At the same time, news media in the US are not perfect, are often driven by economic necessity, and one must recognize the perspectival nature of any news source. News media are both necessary and need to be highly scrutinized. One way that press associations have tried to ensure some level of accountability for their work has been through the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), known chiefly through questions raised in the White House briefing room or aboard Air Force One, as well as by the WHCA dinner each year, where barbs and teasing flies back and forth between politicians, press, and guests. For over 100 years, the WHCA has encouraged governmental transparency by through press conferences and has encouraged press accountability by requiring White House correspondents to be credentialed by the Standing Committee of Correspondents. Again, the context here is the role of the free press to ensure governmental accountability by insisting on “the people’s right to know.” 

It is disheartening then when Dearborn continues the “us v. them” rhetoric of P2025 saying, “The new Administration should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body might be more suitable” (p.30). In plain English, this is an invitation for the next President to destroy a century-old process of accountability and replace it a body of reportage that is hand-picked, or “more suitable.” So, not only has Dearborn paved a way for the Communication Director to offer information that is loyal to the president’s agenda, he is encouraging the administration to ensure that the CD will present that information to a press corps that is also deemed loyal, marking the end of accountability and an invitation for hubris. 

Again, this would be a wonderfully informative essay about the various roles within the White House if it weren’t contextualized within such a blatant maneuver to dismantle hard won structures of accountability surrounding a president. 

MD

P2025: Richard Dearborn on Taking the Reins

 I continue blogging through the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” which I will call for short, P2025. To start, I want to acknowledge two things. 

1) While the online version of the document that I am using is a whopping 920 pages, that number turns out to be a bit misleading. The first 32 pages are easily skippable, with reference information that one can turn to as needed. And, in between sections, like Kevin Robert’s “Foreword” and the first main section, there are blank pages, albeit they are missing the customary “This page left intentionally blank” memo. Even so, the document remains plenty long and one wonders whether the volume is intended to be thorough or just too intimidating to offer a reasonable read. 

2) I have some reservations over whether what I am doing is even worth the effort. Keenan Thompson’s hilarious send up of “Project 2025” during the third night of the Democratic National Convention may be a better approach than my effort – which one person dubbed my “perverse devotional.” When I wrote my book, Left Behind and Loving It, I chose to use humor as my primary tone very deliberately. While I think humor is often ill-intended and hurtful, I also think it is a powerful tool for deflating hubris. I think those writers who have made a mint off stoking fear over the imminent rapture and those who are trying to enforce their small view of the world through governmental change in this document are prime examples of hubris and need to be deflated. We often hear someone say, “I’m not going to dignify that remark.” As I blog my way through P2025, I may eventually reach that same conclusion. Does something, so filled with vitriolic and demeaning language, really deserve a measured and thoughtful response? Or should we just let the comic genius simply display it for what it is? I revisit that question every week. 

The first major section of P2025 is entitled, “Taking the Reins of Government.” It has an anonymous three-page preface, which seems to have been written by Roberts. If nothing else, it continues the kind of “us v. them” language of Robert’s Foreword. And the preface makes it clear that what follows will be an argument that civil servants have the role of serving the agenda of the President. The presbyterian in me is on high alert here. 

The first chapter of this section is entitled, “White House Office,” by Rick Dearborn, former Deputy Chief of Staff for President Trump and Executive Director of the 2016 President-elect Trump’s transition team. As such, Dearborn offers a description of civil servants that differs from the preface. Whereas the preface says, “Federal employees are often ideologically aligned—not with the majority of the American people—but with one another, posing a profound problem for republican government, a government ‘of, by, and for’ the people; Dearborn describes those who work in the White House Office hold approach their work as their “shared patriotic endeavor,” hold jobs that are “among the most demanding in all of government.” Relying on his position within the White House, Dearborn describes the work of the Chief of Staff, as well as all the other deputies and department leaders within the chain of command. For example, Dearborn describes the role of the White House Counsel in part this way: 

"While the White House Counsel does not serve as the President’s personal attorney in nonofficial matters, it is almost impossible to delineate exactly where an issue is strictly personal and has no bearing on the President’s official function. The White House Counsel needs to be deeply committed both to the President’s agenda and to affording the President proactive counsel and zealous representation. That individual directly advises the President as he performs the duties of the office, and this requires a relationship that is built on trust, confidentiality, and candor." (p.27)

I appreciate the distinction of the WH Counsel’s role from the president’s personal attorney, as well as the gray areas that may arise with that distinction. He does include an important parenthetical phrase that the President’s agenda must be “within the bounds of the law,” a sentiment that shows up often. 

But there seems to be something else afoot here. On p.28, Dearborn says, 

"When a new President takes office, he will need to decide expeditiously how to handle any major ongoing litigation or other pending legal matters that might present a challenge to his agenda. To offer guidance, the White House Counsel must get up to speed as quickly as possible on all significant ongoing legal challenges across the executive branch that might affect the new Administration’s policy agenda and must be prepared at the outset of the Administration to present recommendations to the President, including recommendations for reconsidering or reversing positions of the previous Administration in any significant litigation. This review will usually require consulting with the new political leadership at the Justice Department, including during the transition period." 

Okay, is it just me or is this a clear signal that a first priority of a future Trump administration would be to put the kibosh on all of the pending lawsuits and verdicts that he is facing? Whether it is on account of actions taken to deny the 2020 election results or personal actions involving porn stars, this argument offers rationale and urgency to bringing the White House Counsel and the Department of Justice to heel, in the name of ensuring that the president’s agenda is not disrupted. Apparently, the courts and civil servants cannot be trusted to do their job. Dearborn concludes his description of the Counsel’s job with this on p.28: “… while a candidate with elite credentials might seem ideal, the best one will be above all loyal to the President and the Constitution.” The problem arises when the choice is between loyalty to the President or to the Constitution. 

More to come. 

"Project 2025" pt. 4 - Final look at the Foreword

 I am blog/slogging through the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.” Starting next week, I will begin addressing it in larger chunks, since it is enormous. It is an ironic case of self-instantiation that a document, criticizing bureaucratic overreach, is so long. 

So far, I have focused on the “promises” that are described in the Foreword, “A Promise to America,” by Kevin D. Roberts, Ph.D. More irony: Mr. Roberts, despite speaking often of intellectual elites, adds his academic degree after his name. Apparently, academic elitism is only a problem for “them” and is a virtue for “us.” I say that because part of what makes me recoil when reading this Foreword is how emphatically Roberts insists that “they” are evil, and “we” are not. You can read the document yourself here. 

The fourth promise Roberts addresses is to, “Secure Our God-Given Individual Right to Enjoy ‘The Blessings of Liberty.’” The term “liberty” is directly associated with the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that reads, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I have cited the original document in its non-inclusive language deliberately, as I will note below. As with Roberts’ previous three promises, “the Blessings of Liberty” seems to be a matter on which most people agree. But Roberts will assert that is not the case. Simply put, the American people live into these blessings while “they” – described variously as “Marxist/Socialist/Communist elites,” “the Left,” “the ruling class,” and of course, “woke cultural warriors” – do not. 

Roberts argues that when the Founders spoke of “the pursuit of Happiness,” what they meant might be understood today as the “pursuit of Blessedness,” which he says is “found primarily in family—marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like.” (p.13) As I have noted before, it is hard to imagine that anyone is against marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like. I have a friend who loves Thanksgiving dinner so much that he and his husband would prepare eight turkeys and invite everyone else to bring side dishes so we could gather at our church and have this meal together. I don’t suppose their homosexual, interracial, Woke Left union is quite the Rockwellian notion that Roberts has in mind, but they do love Thanksgiving dinner. And each other. Once again, Roberts has laid claim to the high road regarding something that plenty of folks he disparages also embrace. 

My first response to Roberts’ fourth promise is that, because he has chosen to approach this promise under the stark “us/them” paradigm, it is another opportunity lost. Americans share many common goals yet define them differently and have different ideas about how to attain them. For Roberts, those that differences worth discussing are treated like oppositions worth fighting about. 

The second response I have to Roberts’ fourth promise is that its account of history is dishonest. It is not dishonest like someone saying, “My crowd was bigger than theirs,” but dishonest by means of oversimplifying complexities and aggregating things that do not belong together. Here is what I mean, from page 14: “Left to our own devices, the American people rejected European monarchy and colonialism just as we rejected slavery, second-class citizenship for women, mercantilism, socialism, Wilsonian globalism, Fascism, Communism, and (today) wokeism. To the Left, these assertions of patriotic self-assurance are just so many signs of our moral depravity and intellectual inferiority—proof that, in fact, we need a ruling elite making decisions for us.” 

What a dishonest mishmash of contested ideas. Most people I know see the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches as rejection of European monarchy. But did the US reject colonialism itself? Or, did we reject being the colony? Did “the American people” reject slavery, or did we not have a war pitting Americans against Americans, because many Americans wanted to preserve slavery? Did “Americans” reject second-class citizenship for women? Don’t forget the explicitly male language of the Declaration of Independence cited above, and the explicitly exclusive laws that only changed because they have been challenged over the years by “woke warriors” who opposed them. Which of the “American people” were the “American people” during Jim Crow, Suffragist movements, Civil Rights movements, and the like? Weren’t these accomplishments gained during these periods the results of agitators, questioners, protesters, and marchers who loved their families and Thanksgiving dinners and stood up for human rights?  

Roberts’ depiction of what makes America great reads like one of those dreadful history books that conservative publishing houses have been propagating in home schools and private schools and are trying to force into public schools. Nagging truths, like the fact that the writers of the noble words of the Declaration of Independence owned people, are excised in order to create a pseudo-narrative that the Woke Left will destroy every accomplishment unless we elect a conservative right now. I am not exaggerating. Here are Roberts’ own words on p.16: “Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error. Time is running short. If we fail, the fight for the very idea of America may be lost.” And p.17: “The Conservative Promise represents the best effort of the conservative movement in 2023—and the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save our republic.” All of this from the one who calls others “warriors.” 

In the end, Robert’s "Foreword" is a disappointing alarmist diatribe that, instead, ought to be a serious attempt to describe our mutual challenges and look for ways to address them together. 

"Project 2025" pt. 3

Friends, 

I continue to slog my way through The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.” I use the word “slog” because I find the language of the project to be so slanted and disingenuous that it is hard to take at face value. It is slanted with repetitive references to “woke” words – “woke warriors,” “the Great Awokening,” and so on. And it is disingenuous because it uses the provocative power of words and phrases, like “pornography” or “protecting children” to provoke, but stipulates definitions of those terms that are not fitting to the original provocation. When someone abhors “pornography,” are they really thinking about a book about a child with two moms? When we think of “protecting” children, are we willing to omit transgender or nonbinary children from that protection? A more genuine use of language would be to say, instead of “pornography,” “any reference to sexual relationships outside of a heterosexual married couple.” And instead of “protecting children,” a more genuine phrase would be, “shielding our children, whom we assume to be cisgender and straight, from children whose gender or sexual expressions that we don’t agree with.” Then, the kinds of things “Project 2025” refer to as “pornography” and “protecting children” would be revealed for what it really is – bullying, plain and simple. 

But, again, don’t take my word for it. The essay is here I encourage you to read it yourself - especially if you find my characterization of it to be questionable, unfair, or wrong. Page references below refer to this online edition. 

The third promise of Kevin D. Roberts’ opening essay, “A Promise to America,” turns its attention to international relations under the title, “Promise #3: Defend our Nation’s Sovereignty, Borders, and Bounty against Global Threats.” Right off the bat, Roberts wants to establish an “us v. them” mentality, with the “them” being “Washington, D.C. and other centers of Leftist power like the media and the academy.” If that isn’t clear, it gets more pronounced: “Today, nearly every top-tier U.S. university president or Wall Street hedge fund manager has more in common with a socialist, European head of state than with the parents at a high school football game in Waco, Texas.” I’m guessing Kamala Harris’ selection of Tim Walz, a former high school football coach, as her vice-presidential running mate deflates this overbearing stereotype a bit. Roberts continues, “Many elites’ entire identity, it seems, is wrapped up in their sense of superiority over those people. But under our Constitution, they are the mere equals of the workers who shower after work instead of before.” (p.10). I would be quite surprised if Roberts, or any of the other writers in “Project 2025” were numbered among the “workers who shower after work.” In fact, when you read their biographies at the beginning of the document, most of them proudly claim their corporate, educational, governmental, or business backgrounds as what give them expertise on their subjects. Nonetheless, this carefully crafted rhetoric depicts Roberts and his partners as among those who are ignored or demeaned by such “Progressives.” 

Roberts’ analysis is grounded partly on his critique of Woodrow Wilson and his invocation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Wilson is a frequent reference, under titles like “Wilsonian globalism,” to refer to international treaties and agreements, which Roberts depicts consistently as a sacrifice of the US’s own self-interest. Roberts cites specifically immigration policies, environmental concerns, and economic globalization, particularly with regard to China, as those places where progressives sacrifice the interests of people who shower after work in order to “exercise dictatorial powers over all nations without being subject to democratic accountability.” I suppose that’s the “Wilsonian globalism” part in Roberts’ mind. The part where Roberts invokes Dietrich Bonhoeffer is where he describes progressives as exercising “cheap grace.” Roberts spins Bonhoeffer’s phrase to mean “publicly promoting one’s own virtue without risking any personal inconvenience.” (p.10) It’s hard to imagine that “personal convenience” aptly captures Bonhoeffer’s words, “When Christ bids a man to follow, he bids him to come and die,” but that is just another example of Roberts’ disingenuous use of rhetoric.   

On p.11, Roberts describes how “‘Cheap grace’ aptly describes the Left’s love affair with environmental extremism,” since it is not environmentalist themselves, but the aged, the poor, and the vulnerable who would suffer should the environmentalists get their way.” What Roberts does not do is define what makes environmentalism itself extreme. He hints at it by claiming that environmentalists want to ban fossil fuels and show no confidence in human resilience or future ingenuity to respond to environmental concerns. But to establish that environmentalists are “extreme” would require looking at the science behind climate change and the relationship between environmental concerns and the use of fossil fuels. It would require a frank appraisal of alternative energy sources, projections of who is already suffering and who stands to suffer the most if the effects of fossil fuels continue unabated, the need for international focus since the environment itself is globally shared, and carefully negotiated steps that can address both caring for the vulnerable and implementing necessary change. All these hard approaches are what environmental activists do regularly, but none of it is evident in Roberts’ attempt to denigrate them as extremists. In fact, Roberts argues on p. 13 that a better alternative would be for the US to lean into its own oil reserves and aggressively pursue dominance in the global energy market. The argument that “Wilsonian globalism” diminishes the noble aspiration toward “we the people” calling our own shots is not based on an ethical principle that the US might honor for other countries. For Roberts, it seems that globalism can have an upside, as long as the US can impose its self-interests on other nations. 

Surely it is necessary to hear differing views on immigration, environmental challenges, energy use, and international markets. It is necessary for the US to weigh the needs for global cooperation with the need for national sovereignty. It is necessary to consider the short-term as well as long-term effects of the use of fossil fuels and alternative energy sources. Those are the “costs” of “costly grace.” That kind of work cannot happen within Roberts’ “us v. them” approach, which makes Promise #3 another opportunity lost. 

 

“Project 2025” pt.2

Last week I began looking at The Heritage Foundation’s massive “Project 2025,” which you can find here and focused on Kevin Roberts’ Forward, “A Promise to America.” I do not know how long I will continue to blog through “Project 2025,” but I will keep giving you the links to it because I trust your ability to read things for yourself. If you would prefer to do that, rather than to read what I have to say about it, you get no argument from me. Have at it and read “Project 2025” for yourself right here. Blessings. 

Last week we looked at Roberts’ “Promise #1: Restore the Family as the Centerpiece of American Life and Protect Our Children.” This week I’ll look at “Promise #2: Dismantle the Administrative State and Return Self-Governance to the American People.” In this section, Roberts points to two examples of public “corruption” that need overturning, the Federal Budget and the Administrative State. As in the first promise, many of us have sympathies with both goals. Who wouldn’t prefer to pay less taxes, see projects we don’t understand de-funded or less-funded with “our money”? Lower taxes, less spending, and more dollars into our pockets to do with as we wish – few people would find those to be objectionable goals. Likewise with the “Administrative State,” as Roberts calls it, who doesn’t get frustrated with bureaucracy, with regulations and requirements that seem to have been hammered out in such contentious committee and sub-committee compromises that the end result is massive and unwieldy? Federal spending and bureaucracy are persistent frustrations and can evoke a wide spectrum of reactions from irritation to corruption.

Roberts presents spending and bureaucracy as intentional corruption and his descriptions place the blame on extremists of “the Great Awokening.” Here are his specific examples, with my own touch – I will put into italics rhetoric worth noting: 

• A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes;

• Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity; 

• Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms; 

• Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists; 

• Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and 

• Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion. 

Many of us say “Bravo” to the large ideas of cutting spending and reducing bureaucracy, but the difficulties are not the large picture. The challenges arise when we ask, “Which spending?” or “What bureaucracy?” Judging from Roberts’ choices and rhetoric, his aim seems to be to tap into ire over spending and bureaucracy per se and direct it to things he identifies as pet projects of extremists: Environmental concerns; historic racism; LGBTQ rights, and immigration. Is it really the case that if the EPA establishes regulations to keep oil wells from contaminating local drinking water resources, that it is “quietly strangling energy production”? Is it really the case that teaching about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is “anti-American” or “racist” propaganda? Is it “woke extremism” to ensure that our Foreign Aid programs are aware of how US dollars might be used in other countries to violate the human rights of non-binary persons? 

While many of us cite frustrations with Federal spending and regulations in general, the devil is ever in the details. Therefore, the work before us requires difficult, cooperative conversations that rely on some mutual respect and dialogue. One would hope that “Project 2025” for all of its gravitas and pages, could engage in addressing the hard work ahead without scapegoating their pet peeves with slanted rhetoric. So far, that is not the case. 

Mark of St. Mark

The Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025"

Friends, 

You have probably heard about “Project 2025,” the 900+ page blueprint for bringing about changes in the US Government that was published by the Heritage Foundation. You can read the document here, but, as I said, it is quite long. According to an explanation by Mike Wendling of the BBC, which you can find here, “The document calls for the sacking of thousands of civil servants, expanding the power of the president, dismantling the Department of Education, sweeping tax cuts, a ban on pornography, halting sales of the abortion pill, and more.” While there is some crossover between “Project 2025” and the platforms that were adopted at the recent Republican National Convention, one should note that presidential candidate Trump said this about the document on Truth Social, “I know nothing about Project 2025, … I have no idea who is behind it … I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” 

I am making that caveat because it is not my intention to write about specific partisan political positions and I apologize if it seems that I am doing so. However, the issues addressed, the argument presented, and the rhetoric in which they are given in this document are matters of justice and well-being. As a person of faith, and especially as a pastor of a church that is committed to inclusion and justice, I will spend some time over the next few weeks reflecting on some of the arguments and rhetoric that is found there. Let me say again, if you want to read the document for yourself, you can find it here. I do not pretend that I am completely free of bias or perspective on these matters. Far from it. I am addressing “Project 2025” as a person of faith who strives to be biblically informed and justice driven. 

The first section is entitled, “A Promise to America,” by Kevin Roberts. Roberts begins with “Promise #1: Restore the Family as the Centerpiece of American Life and Protect Our Children.” Upholding the family and protecting children are laudable goals across every political spectrum as far as I know, but Roberts seems to think otherwise. He argues that the next President “must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke cultural warriors,” namely by deleting the terms “sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’) diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”  

There is a ton to unpack here, but it is clear that the original goal of "upholding the family" does not include addressing reproductive health, and “family” does not include families with same-sex parents, nor does the goal of “protecting children” apply to families whose children are struggling with their gender identity. In fact, Roberts offers a peculiar definition of “pornography,” arguing that pornography is “manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology….” With that stipulation, think about what it means when he argues, “Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.” That suggests that a librarian who shelves a book about a family with two moms belongs in the same category as a pedophile, child molester, or teen sex-trafficker. 

Even places where one might want to agree with Roberts, such as his warning against the pernicious influence of "Big Tech" on children, one should notice that he specifically focuses on “TikTok,” not “X,” “Instagram,” “Facebook,” or “Truth Social.” Whether the focus away from “X” or "Facebook" is due to Elon Musk's and Peter Thiel's stated support for conservative candidates or not is hard to say. The focus on TikTok clearly plays into his warnings against Chinese espionage, which he weaves hand-in-hand with Wilsonian globalism, the United Nations, the European Union, and the “decidedly anti-human” environmental extremism. 

It seems clear that Roberts is not writing to people like me. In fact, it's quite clear that I am among the problematic types he is arguing against. I am particularly appalled that he describes person who are committed to inclusion using the term “cheap grace,” which was made famous by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a completely different context. But, again, I'm not his audience. Curiously, I find myself echoing former President Trump's words, “I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” 

To be continued ... 

 

 

Feuds and Forgiveness

 Friends, 

 

This morning, I ran across two very different kinds of essays in my daily morning reading routine. The first was from Father Richard Rohr’s daily meditation. Rohr is currently following the path of his book, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, exploring the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous with respect to spiritual growth more generally. Today’s excerpt is about the fifth step, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Rohr argues that the difficult work of accountability and forgiveness brings liberation to both sides of a broken relationship. 

 

The second thing I read this morning was an essay entitled “Bad Blood: A Musical Feuds Reading List.” It is an unhappy collection of how musicians have feuded long before the most recent song war between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, with stories about feuds between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Wynton Marsalis and Miles Davis, among others. Reading about these feuds was like the antithesis of Rohr’s essay on the fifth of the twelve steps. Within these feuds, confession seems to be treated like weakness, blaming replaces accountability, and retaliation is preferred over forgiveness. 

 

I’m sure the Center for Action and Contemplation, which produces the daily mediation from Richard Rohr, and Longreads, which provided the essay on musical feuds, were unaware that their contrasting messages would lie side-by-side in my mailbox this morning. The proximity of these contrasting ways of encountering differences – to feud or to reconcile – seems to name the challenge that many of us face these days, when we have deep and meaningful differences with one another. 

 

Last Saturday’s shooting was a recent example of how, too often, Americans are prone to turn to violence as a means of addressing deep differences. So was the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Each of these actions, condemnation-worthy in themselves, could provide moments of self-reflection, where we examine our own contributions to the rhetoric, frustrations, and intransigence that lead to violence. Instead, professional spin-doctors flood traditional media outlets with various talking points that distance one side or the other from blame, while ordinary folk flood social media to amplify those talking points. A moment that could lead to reconciliation gets woven into the contours of the feud. 

 

The Christian path is characterized by humility, confession, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, and other virtues grounded in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. The Christian community, therefore, could be a shining light for reconciliation. At the same time, the Christian path is characterized by justice, solidarity with communities that have long been oppressed, vigorous opposition to impunity among those in power, and other virtues grounded in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. As such, the Christian community is called to stir “good trouble,” to voice concern or make demands on behalf of what is right. Sometimes the Gospel calls us to find unity among our differences; sometimes the Gospel calls us to live in holy disunity. While these paths seem different, the depth of the Christian message is that love and justice are inherently connected. 

 

I know that many of us are struggling these days to find a proper way of connecting our call to love to our call to justice. It has never been easy and there’s a reason why the Christian path is characterized as “taking up our cross to follow.” There are moments when you and I should be slower to respond with a retort and lean in to understand better; and there are moments when you and I need to interrupt systemic oppression, white Christian nationalism, sexism, and efforts to scapegoat the LGBTQIA community. Internally, we have a similar tension between being gentle with ourselves and expecting ourselves to be strong in our faith and our convictions. 

 

I don’t have easy answers for you, and I am highly suspicious of anyone who says they do. Micah calls us to do justice, love kindness, and walk with humility. That tripartite call can ground and direct us, even if the particulars are not always clear. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

Inclusivity and the Challenge of Process

 Friends, 

 

Thanks to the nomination of some of our members, I was invited to spend last week at the Chautauqua Institute as the chaplain and a guest at the Presbyterian House. The Presbyterian House is one of several faith houses at Chautauqua and the one with the absolute best location. And, apparently, they are the only house to serve all three meals a day to their guests – all of which made me very happy. The reason I say they have the best location is because the Presbyterian House is right across the sidewalk from the Amphitheater, which is the main meeting space for the institute, hosting daily worship services, plenary speakers, and lots of music. From the upper porch of the Presbyterian House I was able to listen to a jazz concert, the symphony and the marvelous choir, and some of the plenary speakers – from a wicker rocking chair with a book in hand. It was multi-tasking at its best! 

 

During that same time, the 226^th General Assembly was taking place in Salt Lake City, UT. This year’s GA meeting was a hybrid of virtual meetings for the committees at work, then in person meetings for the gathered assembly.  Apparently that went well enough to where they voted to follow the same procedure in 2026, when the GA gathers again in Milwaukee. Today, I will highlight a couple of important decisions that were made (or not made) during the meeting. Some other time I’ll introduce some of the folks who were voted into office. 

 

A significant portion of the assembled time went to “The Olympia Overture.” This was a two-part overture from the Olympia Presbytery to amend our Book of Order (the policy portion of our constitution). The first part was applied to a section entitled “Foundation of Presbyterian Policy” that currently reads, “In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, God unites persons through baptism regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex, disability, geography, or theological conviction” (F-1.0403). The overture was to amend the language to include sexual orientation and gender identity among the categories against which the Church will not discriminate. That part of the overture passed handily with little discussion, 389-24. The content of this amended section was the basis of the second part of the Overture. 

 

The second part of the Olympia Overture brought more debate and a closer vote. It was a change to the portion of our Book of Order entitled, “The Form of Government” which addresses ordination. In particular, this part of the Overture addresses a section (G. 2.0104b) that instructs ordaining bodies – the local congregation for deacons and elders; the presbytery for ministers – with regard to what they can or cannot explore during the ordination process. The Overture was to insert the amended “principles of representation and participation” (addressed by the first part of the Overture) into this portion of guidance, to ensure that ordaining groups do not discriminate against ordination candidates on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Overture was amended slightly to include the church’s historic commitment to “freedom of conscience.” The amended overture passed, 297-130. Now, both parts of the Overture will return to each Presbytery for ratification, requiring a simple majority to take effect. 

 

I know this looks like lots of technical polity gibberish, but the approval of this Overture is a big step forward in the church’s attempt to be more inclusive. In particular, many of our non-binary and trans siblings have worked hard to see this happen. The part about instructing ordaining bodies was more controversial, partly because once upon a time the Book of Order tried to instruct ordaining bodies not to include LGBTQ candidates, and many of us found that to be intrusive on our own discernment process. So, the pushback – as far as I can tell as someone not in the meeting – seemed less about whether or not to be inclusive and more about whether or not to intrude on the discernment process of churches and presbyteries for ordination.  

 

Another Overture, that was initially passed, then reconsidered, then withdrawn, was an Overture to divest from the fossil fuel industry altogether. Instead, the General Assembly opted for a different motion, which calls for some immediate divestment, but allows for some continued engagement on behalf of the Presbyterian Committee on Mission Responsibility through Investment (MRTI). You can read a detailed report here.

 

My very distant outsider perspective: In both cases, it seems that the General Assembly is trying to be both forward-thinking and yet wise to the diverse paths that “moving forward” might take. 

 

Final thought: My favorite report from the GA was that during one period of waiting for a vote result to be tallied and reported, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church took to the floor of the Assembly Hall and did “The Electric Slide.” 

 

Dance on, friends,

Mark of St. Mark

 

 

The Ten Commandments and the Christian Life

Last week I attended a presentation on Islam by Moustafa Al-Qazwini, the imam of the Islamic Education Center of Irvine. There are substantive things that took place during that presentation, but I want to mention a comical one for now. After the presentation, the folks in attendance wanted a group photo and out came every cell phone under the sun. We gathered at the decorative end of the room – the side facing Mecca – but I wanted to gather on a different side, under a sign that said, “No cell phones permitted” with a picture of a phone in a circle and slash. The irony of having our photo made, with phone after phone, under that sign would have been rich. But, alas, everyone was too busy gathering and squeezing in closer for the photo to pay attention to my nonsense. As I was pointing to the sign prohibiting cell phones, one member of the mosque said, “Oh, that’s an old sign. Nobody pays attention to it anymore,” which was obviously true. Even the imam pulled out his phone for someone to use when taking the group photo.  

Also last week, the governor of Louisiana signed into law a requirement that the Ten Commandments should be posted in every classroom of public school buildings. For some people, this kind of action is well-intended. The Ten Commandments are an early expression of laws that ensure justice, preserve life, sanctify marriage and parental care, and so on. The biblical communities ground those laws in the words of God, which makes them more than just a social contract that can be ignored at a whim. There are plenty of sincere Christian people for whom the Ten Commandments are a bedrock of communal life and who believe they should be taught, if not enforced, by the state. I disagree, rather strongly in fact, but do not demean. 

 

I find this kind of action is often more performative than well-intended, an attempt by Christian Nationalists to assert power more than a sincere desire to see our communal lives transformed into the vision of community that the Ten Commandments embrace. Ironically, the attempt to leverage power by using God’s name is exactly what the Commandments prohibit. The Supreme Court has already found one such state law to be unconstitutional, so the precedent would seem to suggest that this is a waste of the state’s time, but the governor of Louisiana has dared others to challenge the new law in court and some organizations have joyfully complied. To me, the point is not to ensure that the Ten Commandments are hanging on classroom walls next fall, and especially not to ensure that they are followed throughout the state, but to bring into the public square a controversy on which some politicians can pretend to be taking the high road. 

 

I also wonder how sincerely those who want to post the command actually want to follow them. The law says, “Do not covet.” I wonder what would happen to the advertising industry if the act of enticing someone to desire something that is not theirs were prohibited. What would happen to Hollywood if the command prohibiting adultery – as Jesus said – also prohibits the generation of lust? And if Jesus interprets “Do not kill” to mean we should turn the other cheek when attacked, would the proponents of the Commandments be willing to slash the military budget in order to follow the command? I strongly doubt it.

 

Speaking of Jesus, there are references to the Commandments in dialogues that Jesus has with others, but never are they articulated in toto or as the supreme law of God. Jesus says all God’s laws are fulfilled when we love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul, and love our neighbor as ourselves – words which are not in the Ten Commandments. Jesus even openly challenged the mere articulation of the Ten Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount. ‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder” … But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.’ Simply put, the Ten Commandments are not, for the Christian faith, the timeless bedrock of building community. Perhaps that is why the Ten Commandments are never cited by prophets, the psalms, or the New Testament as the Ten Commandments and certainly are not lifted up as the heart and soul of communal life. 

 

In the end, the state of Louisiana may prevail – at least for a while – in posting the Ten Commandments on classroom walls. I suspect they will end up serving like that sign on the wall of the Islamic Center prohibiting cell phones that everyone ignored when we took out our cell phones to capture the moment. 

 

MD

Civilization and Violence

 Friends, 

I’ve been reading a fascinating book by John Dominic Crossan entitled, God and Empire: Jesus against Rome, Then and Now. I don’t think I’ll ever finish it because I keep going back and re-reading the first part. Crossan describes some of the extremely remote sites that served as refuges for hermits once upon a time. Many ancient hermitages were communal, and some are almost impossible to reach, by boat or by land. They may be a set of rooms impossibly hewn out of out of cropping stones or set in a part of the desert that lacks the water and shade that settled habitation requires. The reason for the remote locations was to create communities that did not have the trappings of what we often think of as civilization. 

Crossan notes that we can speak of “civilization” to name things that are lovely about human life – art, architecture, music, and the like. Crossan is using the term in the way that Walter Benjamin does in the chapter’s epigraph, “There is no documentation of civilization which is not at the same time a documentation of barbarism.” So, for example, Crossan says these remote hermitages were not technically monasteries or convents, because those terms describe gender separation – monasteries for monks/men; convents for nuns/women – and separation is often grounded in inequity (think of the problems with “separate, but equal”). These early hermitages were highly egalitarian. They did not claim ownership or condone servitude, but declared all things common, and would respond to violence with nonviolence even if it meant death. 

Crossan says the goal of these remote communities was to live apart from the violence of civilization that many of us have come to believe is inherently part of human life. With a nod to the original meaning of the word paradox, Crossan notes that these hermitages lived “against the opinion” of what community must look like. They were testimonies that life does not have to be built on violence demonstrated through competition that enriches some and impoverishes others, or exploitative practices from slavery to colonialism to racism to sexism to depriving farm workers just wages. Violence-based civilization is precisely the kind of “empire” that the “Reign of God” overturns. There, the last become first; sinners and prostitutes are welcomed as table mates; the poor are blessed while the rich find their journey as impossible a threading the eye of a needle; and so forth. Salvation, then, becomes both a liberation and a path of discipleship, freedom from theologies of domination and education into what holds true value. The first lesson is, to quote Crossan again, “the normalcy of civilization’s violence is not the inevitability of humanity’s destiny.” We. Can. Change. Even if it does not seem to be in us, it is in God to change that which seems unchangeable. 

As we continue to lean into “The Phoenix Affirmations,” we have declared so far that we worship God made known in Christ while not denying that God can be present in other religious expressions; and that we listen for God’s Word through prayer and meditation, Scripture, and discerning what God is doing in the world. We are aspiring to be a church that sounds contrary to what many people think when they hear “church.” In that sense, we are embracing a paradox (“against the opinion”) of faithfulness. It is a process of unlearning and relearning for all of us. I’m so glad we are on this journey together.

Mark of St. Mark