I woke up to the news that the USA and Israel launched a major military strike against Iran. It is natural to feel worry and fear over what this might mean not only for innocent people in Iran, but of the surrounding region and even the world. And then I read the Daily Readings from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Today's Gospel reading is from Matthew 5:43-48.

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers and sisters only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

It is heartbreaking that this is still a radical idea almost two thousand years after it was taught by Our Lord.

War is incompatible with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.

I am a proponent of nonviolence and have been following several organizations dedicated to activism, teaching, and promotion of peace and nonviolence.

One of the organizations I have learned about is a Catholic organization called Pax Christi International. From their website:

Pax Christi International is the global Catholic peace movement dedicated to promoting Gospel nonviolence, justice, and reconciliation rooted in Catholic social teaching.   For decades, Pax Christi International has been calling for a deep reflection on the failure of war and violence and for investment in effective nonviolent tools for reconciliation to nurture the just peace essential to alleviating intense human suffering.

Today, Pax Christi issued a statement condemning military strikes against Iran and calling for deescalation, dialogue, and respect for human dignity.

Pax Christi also referred to their Pax Christi International Declaration on Iran, published on February 11th. I encourage you to read it.

I am grateful that there are Christians of good conscience everywhere who are willing to stand up and state clearly the doctrine of Christ, calling for love, understanding, and peace in the face of war.

#100DaysToOffload (No. 141) #faith #Lent #Christianity #politics

I have started to watch the television series “The Chosen” again during this Lenten season. I think this will be my fourth time watching these earlier seasons. It's easily one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

I do enjoy TV and movies. I subscribe to a couple video streaming services. I still collect DVDs and Blu-rays. I even still have a VCR. But, few shows have inspired and me as much as “The Chosen”, which is a depiction of the people invited by Jesus Christ to follow him during his mortal ministry.

I know artistic liberties have been taken and talented, imaginative writers have filled in gaps. But I love it because it has made the names and people and culture so much more real to me. Reading the Bible is good and important – I believe we should be reading the scriptures daily. And it is good to use your own imagination to try to visualize what you are reading. But we are so far removed from that place and time. We lack experience, context, and knowledge.

Seeing depictions of how people lived during the time of Christ, the dynamic between the Jews and the Romans, the dynamic of the different groups within the Jewish community, the political and religious and cultural tensions and drama – this has provided some very illuminating context to sacred scripture and made it that much more meaningful to me.

I highly recommend “The Chosen” to anyone. Whether you are Christian or not, it's extremely well-written and produced. A compelling story with endearing characters. It's good TV.

#100DaysToOffload (No. 140) #faith #Lent #Christianity #media #TV

Yesterday, for Lent Day 8, I posted about an important letter. I didn't title it as the Day 8 entry in the series because I wanted it to be more of a standalone post. But today I'm continuing with Day 9, sharing some thoughts on the Holy Spirit.

I've been reading from a journal I kept while serving as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served in the Brazil Santa Maria Mission from December 2000 to December 2002. I went straight to Brazil and spent two months in the São Paulo Missionary Training Center learning the basics of the Portuguese language and learning how to do the work of proselyting and teaching. After two months, I traveled to my assigned mission area in the southernmost state of Brazil.

So far I have read what I wrote about my experiences in the MTC and in my first several months of actual missionary service. It has been fun to revisit those times, but my 19-year-old self was pretty naïve and a bit cringe at times. But I was committed and trying hard to be a good missionary.

One thing I've noticed is that I repeated phrases like “I felt the Spirit so strong” or “the Spirit was so strong” very often. It's very common to hear such expressions in LDS church meetings and classes. We believe the Holy Spirit testifies of truth, but we also tend to associate its presence with positive feelings like happiness, hope, joy, peace, and similar. Likewise, we tend to associate negative feelings sadness, despair, agitation, and confusion with a lack of the presence of the Spirit. So when we say we are “feeling the Spirit” – or at least when I wrote about it as a missionary and in my life since then, it's almost always in the context of those positive feelings.

I am still trying to learn about the Catholic perspective on the Holy Spirit and its role in our lives and in the Church, but it is quite different from the LDS perspective. I think Catholics tend to be more skeptical of feelings and emotions as it is sometimes difficult to discern their origin. They can be misleading. This is not to say that God cannot send positive feelings and emptions to us through the Holy Spirit, but that those feelings don't necessarily always come from God. And we can be easily manipulated through our feelings.

So I'm trying to reflect on specific experiences I've had in the past where I believed I “felt the Spirit so strong” and think about the context and circumstances surrounding them.

I do believe I have felt the undeniable influence of the Holy Spirit at times throughout my life. The most powerful times have almost always been times when I have focused my thoughts and attention on any aspect of Jesus Christ, such as his birth, his ministry and teachings, his sufferings in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, his resurrection.

Other times, when I think I have “felt the Spirit so strongly”, I think I have been caught up in feelings of unity, fellowship, belonging, love, etc. associated with church meetings.

But I would say that, for me, the majority of the time the Holy Spirit works on me almost indirectly. Quietly “nudging” me. A thought crosses my mind that I should text someone to say hello. Or I feel a brief feeling of reassurance as I am wrestling with my doubts and questions about my faith. I can easily dismiss or ignore those nudges, and I have for long stretches. But the nudges are always there. Always trying to gently turn my head to look at Jesus Christ. Because wherever we are looking is were we will go. And the Holy Spirit wants us to follow Christ.

I want to follow Christ, too. I'm just really stubborn and foolish. And easily distracted. So I really need the Holy Spirit. I'm just trying to understand more about how the Holy Spirit works and better recognize and discern his influence in my life.

Something has been drawing me to seriously investigate Catholicism and I can't explain it. And it's not stopping. My church leaders would certainly tell me that Catholicism is false and that it's not the Holy Spirit that's been nudging me to look into it. But I don't know.

#100DaysToOffload (No. 139) #faith #Lent #Christianity

Yesterday I learned about a letter that hundreds of Christian leaders and scholars had signed which calls for resistance to a cruel and oppressive government and urges all to follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. The letter is called “A Call to Christians in a Crisis of Faith and Democracy” and I encourage you to visit their website to read and sign it if you are willing and in a position to do so.

I post the full text of the letter here – giving full credit to its authors and signers – as a memorial and record, and to document it for posterity in case their website is ever taken down.

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A Call to Christians in a Crisis of Faith and Democracy

Why We Write

There are moments that call for repentance and resistance, courage and conviction, faith and fortitude. This is one of those moments.

The question is, what will we do now?

We are facing a cruel and oppressive government; citizens and immigrants being demonized, disappeared, and even killed; the erosion of hard-won rights and freedoms; and a calculated effort to reverse America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity– all of which are pushing us toward authoritarian and imperial rule. What confronts us is not only an endangered democracy and the rise of tyranny. It is also a Christian faith corrupted by the heretical ideology of white Christian nationalism, and a church that has often failed to equip its members to model Jesus’s teachings and fulfill its prophetic calling as a humanitarian, compassionate, and moral compass for society.

Therefore, as Christians in the United States, representing the breadth of Christian traditions and one part of our nation’s religiously plural society, we are compelled to speak out more boldly at this time.

We call on all Christians to join us in greater acts of courage to resist the injustices and anti-democratic danger sweeping across the nation. In moments like this, silence is not neutrality—it is an active choice to permit harm.

This call is particularly dire as our nation commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a time of celebration and reflection on our historic racial and human rights progress and setbacks, as we seek both democratic and civic renewal. Instead, current trends and forces assault our core rights and freedoms and threaten to derail and even destroy our democracy. This is not a distant danger or a future possibility. It is a present and urgent reality.

The government-sponsored cruelty and violence we are witnessing stands in total opposition to the teachings of Jesus. We refuse to be silent while too many people who call themselves Christians aid, abet, or simply stand by and allow these atrocities.

This political crisis is driven by people who have fallen for the temptation of absolute power—undermining democratic checks and balances, entrenching economic inequality, exacerbating divisions, and normalizing corruption and the indiscriminate use of violence.

Freedoms and rights once assumed to be secure are being stripped away, redefined, or selectively applied. Decades-old civil rights protections are being dismantled. Truth is being replaced by lies and propaganda. Governance is being hollowed out and replaced with corruption, loyalty tests, intimidation, and the normalization of lawlessness. The architecture of democracy and the rights secured by the separation of powers are being eroded from within, while we are told to accept it as “law”, “order,” or “God’s will.”

Sadly, the crisis is not only political—it is one driven by a moral and spiritual collapse showing up in alarming levels of polarization. Our faith is being tested. Christians cannot pretend otherwise and must make a decision to act.

We refuse to baptize domination. We refuse to sanctify cruelty. We refuse to confuse authoritarian power with divine authority. We choose to resist, calling forth the righteous demands of our faith rooted in the teachings of Jesus. Religion should not be used to deify politicians or justify their abuses. When it is, faith ceases to be faithful and becomes a weapon of both heresy and hypocrisy.

As Christians, we must never preach nationalism as discipleship, confuse American and Christian identity with whiteness, or mistake allegiance to modern-day Caesars for faithfulness to Christ. We must never surrender our prophetic voice by aligning with powers and principalities rather than with the One who calls us to be purveyors of justice and righteousness.

Now is the time to boldly embrace fidelity to the message of Jesus: to defend the image of God in every person; to love our neighbors — no exception; to reject retribution; extend grace, mercy, and compassion; reflect the radical counterculture of the Beatitudes and live out the call of Matthew 25 with special care for persons who are poor, vulnerable and marginalized.

As followers of Jesus, we must take these principles seriously, as we seek to renew, deepen, and fortify our faith, resist false religion, build Beloved Community, and become a truly multi-racial, inclusive democracy.

The Sovereignty of God

In every generation, the Church is called to declare without fear or favor, “Thus saith the Lord,” bearing witness to the sovereignty of God over every system, party, and power.

As Christians, our ultimate allegiance belongs to God alone, and we believe that any political leader who demands absolute power places themselves in opposition to God’s sovereignty.

Allegiance to such leaders is idolatry and manipulates the teaching of Jesus as a tool of oppressive power, replacing compassion with control and unity with division. A faithful Christian witness is fundamentally incompatible with nationalist power and the suffering it is producing in our nation and around the world.

The Word of God

We believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh. His life and teachings reveal God’s way and must shape our lives, our conduct, and our public witness, especially in this moment. Jesus became human to reconcile us back to God and to one another. This moment is a critical test of our primary allegiance to Him.

Jesus announces His mission in His first sermon: to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19). Any gospel that contradicts this is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus teaches in the parable of the Good Samaritan that love of neighbor knows no political, social, or ethnic boundaries (Luke 10:25-37). This love stands in direct opposition to a politics of exclusion and discrimination.

Jesus declares that truth and freedom are inseparable: “You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). Yet, every day we hear lies and distortions that seek to divide and demonize. Truth liberates us from the captivity of lies and brings us into a deeper relationship with God and all others.

Jesus blesses peacemakers, calling them children of God (Matt. 5:9). The Hebrew and Greek words for peace, Shalom and eirene, mean a resolving and restoring of broken relationships. All forms of political violence stand in contradiction to the way of Christ, and Christians must reject them at every turn.

Jesus gives His final test of discipleship in Matthew 25:31-46, making clear that the measure of our faith is revealed in how we treat those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, strangers, or imprisoned. To say, as some do, that this passage is only about taking care of fellow Christians is an incorrect theological interpretation. It is for the nations, ethnoi, for all peoples. This passage names people who are, even now, being directly and deliberately targeted and harmed by those in political power. To serve and defend the most vulnerable is to serve and defend Christ Himself.

The Spirit of God

In this moment, we believe the Holy Spirit is moving us to stand, speak, and act with greater courage to serve the most vulnerable and advance God's reign of justice and peace.

Therefore, we commit to:

• Protect and Stand With Vulnerable People: We will defend immigrants, refugees, people of color, and all who are in harm's way; resist cruel, unjust, and illegal policies and violent enforcement, and surround those under attack with pastoral care, solidarity, and prophetic public witness.
• Love Our Neighbors: In obedience to Jesus, we will love our neighbors without exception, especially those who are different from us, and reject the politics of fear, exclusion, and dehumanization. We will reject the language of “others” and “us and them,” and remember that Christ came “so that [we] may all be one” (John 17:21).
• Speak Truth to Power: We will confront lies and hatred towards immigrants, people of color, Jews, Muslims, and other religious minorities and political opponents; oppose the rollback of civil rights and racial justice protections; name racism as a sin from which we must repent and turn from; and resist the erasure of history and truth. Silence in this moment is complicity.
• Seek Peace: We commit to persistently building peace and pursuing justice, including by acting nonviolently to protect those threatened by violence and advocating for a foreign policy that favors diplomacy, respects national sovereignty, and supports democracy, human rights, humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding.
• Do Justice: Guided by the prophets, we will challenge unjust laws, defend poor and marginalized people, and persist in the work of uprooting racism and white Christian nationalism. We will commit to act justly, love kindness, and walk humbly with God (Isa. 10:1; Micah 6:8).
• Strengthen Democracy: Honoring the image of God–imago dei–in every person (Gen. 1:26) in a democracy means each person's vote is their voice. We will, therefore, defend the right to vote, resist voter suppression and intimidation, encourage greater participation in our democratic process, and equip clergy and lay leaders to support free and fair elections. We will defend constitutional rights and freedoms, including speech and assembly, due process, the rule of law, and religious liberty, and will uphold democratic norms and practices.
• Practice Hope: In a time of fear, intimidation, and despair, we will choose hope, which is more than optimism. It is trusting and believing that God is still at work. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”(Heb. 11:1).
• Ground our Discipleship: Knowing that following Jesus in this time requires deep wellsprings of spiritual courage, we will be rooted and grounded in prayer and love (Eph. 3:17-19), developing practices and commitments to nurture resilience in our inward journey for the outward witness we embrace as our calling.

Choosing Faithfulness

“Choose you this day whom you will serve.”—Joshua 24:15

Faith and democracy do not die in a single moment; they erode when we trade courage for conformity, substitute the gospel for power, and fall silent in the face of wrongdoing.

This letter is made in a spirit of humility and solidarity. It is an invitation for each of us to ask what faithfulness to Christ and love of neighbor demand of each of us at such a time as this.

If we as Christians fail to speak and act now—clearly, courageously, and prophetically—we will be remembered not only for the injustices committed in our time, but for the righteous possibilities we allowed to die in our hands. History and future generations will record our choices, but the God of heaven and earth will judge our faithfulness.

Now is the time to take risks for the sake of the Gospel and our democratic rights and freedoms.

We call on Christians to remember that we serve a mighty and awesome God, who is sovereign over nations and rulers.

We serve a God, through our Lord and Liberator Jesus Christ, who equips us with the courage and fortitude to stand for justice and peace. We will always stand in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable among us.

Now is the time to speak and act.

May God guide us, empower us, and strengthen us.

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This is the kind of statement I wish my church — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — would make, or at least endorse. As of the time I write this, no senior leaders of my church have signed, endorsed, or referenced the above statement.

I suspect the authors of this letter do not consider Latter-day Saints to be Christians and would not allow them to sign it if they wanted to. This would be sad, if true.

But what is even sadder is that no senior leaders of my church would likely sign this letter. They have been deafeningly silent on the concerns expressed in this letter and seem to be trying to take a position of neutrality at best, or complicity at worst. We don't know what their position is on these matters – they haven't stated it.

LDS apologists claim that the church doesn't need to make any statements on current events or crises such as these – that general statements and teachings on the doctrines of the church should make their position clear. But members of the LDS church are divided on these issues in the absence of clarity from leadership.

I believe this silence to be a grave mistake.

I recently wrote a blog post about the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – a Protestant minister in Nazi Germany who refused to take a loyalty oath to Hitler, worked with the Resistance, and was imprisoned and ultimately executed by the Nazis just weeks before the war ended in Europe.

Bonhoeffer believed the Word of God applied to every aspect of our lives, that it is the responsibility of Christians to declare the Word, and that Christians have a duty to speak out – to stand and be counted – when we see things happening in our world that are contrary to the Word.

Early on, Bonhoeffer tried to help rally the churches in Nazi Germany to oppose and resist the regime, and for a time they seemed to be building momentum. But the movement failed and most churches eventually submitted to government control and became the Reich Church – a church ran by a violent fascist government that sought to ban the Old Testament and rewrite the New Testament to portray Jesus Christ as an aryan fighting the Jewish people.

American Christians must learn from the mistakes of German Christians in the 1930s and 40s. We must learn from the examples of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We must stand and be counted now, showing in word and deed that Christianity is not what those in power are trying to make it.

#100DaysToOffload (No. 138) #faith #Christianity #politics