the work of christmas has just begun...

Since August most of the fiction I have read has been set in either the Germany of the 30's and 40's, or, Paris during the Occupation by Nazi Germany. While browsing our favorite used book store in Montreal, the Mile End store of S.W. Welch, I found the Berlin Noir trilogy (March Violets, Pale Criminal, German Requiem) and have been hooked ever since. (This overview in The New Yorker is spot on @ https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/nazi-comb-overs-philip-kerr-berlin-noir) Last night I finished Haunting Paris by Mamta Chaudhry. It is part lament, part love story, part personal reflection re: what French collaboration with antisemitic fascism meant to one family in Paris, and part parable of the human condition in these trying times. The website GoodReads summarizes this elegiac novel with precision:

In the summer of 1989, while all of Paris is poised to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution, Sylvie mourns the loss of her lover, Julien, and is unable to find solace in the music that has always been her refuge. But when she accidentally dislodges an envelope hidden in Julien's desk, she finds an enigmatic note from a stranger and feels compelled to meet this woman who might hold the key to Julien's past and to the story of the missing child he could not find in his lifetime. Julien's sister and one of her daughters perished in the Holocaust; but Julien held out hope that the other daughter managed to escape... Sylvie's journey leads her deep into the secrets of Julien's past as she finally learns the devastating reason for his reticence about a tragedy both personal and historic, shedding new light on the dark days of Nazi-held Paris and on the man Sylvie loved.

What, pray tell, keeps calling me back to the core of these stories of women and men trying to make sense of a staggering evil that devoured both human bodies and spirit in WWII? Specifically, what am I struggling to grasp about the systematic murder of European Jews and others by people infused with the values, culture, and wisdom of the Enlightenment and Christianity? What does this mean for my moment in history? What parallels are appropriate to comprehend and then challenge now that we are fully enmeshed in the age of Trump's regime? Or Europe's nativism? Or the violent Islamophobia of India or Myanmar? Or even Israel's descent into the current destruction of Palestine?  

The former President of Chicago Theological Seminary, Susan Thistlethwaite, hit upon one truth when she wrote: "Nine antisemitic attacks in a week. There are poisoned aspects of European Christianity at the heart of this, and the poison is being spread by this administration. As a Christian I feel I must be exceptionally clear about this." So let's be clear: it is not coincidental that these acts of domestic terrorism took place during Chanukah! (For more information, please go to: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/29/synagoguestabbings-three-hurt-in-monsey-attack-say-reports) 

James Carroll has written extensively about moment's such as these, times when history shows us,"Christianity becoming violent." In Constantine's Cross, both the book and documentary film, Carroll traces the trajectory of what has taken place in real time when political leaders marry the military with religion. Carroll calls it our "terrible legacy of genocidal Antisemitism... and conflicts sparked by religious extremism." The producers of the documentary describe it like this:

At its heart, Constantine's Sword is a detective story, as Carroll journeys both into his own past - where he comes to terms with his father's role as a three-star General in the U.S. Air Force preparing for nuclear war - and into the wider world, where he uncovers evidence of church-sanctioned violence against Jews, Muslims, and others. Visiting the U.S. Air Force Academy, he and Jacoby expose how some evangelical Christians are proselytizing inside our country's armed forces and reveal the dangerous consequences of religious influence on American foreign policy. Warning of what happens when military power and religious fervor are joined, Constantine's Sword asks the timely question: Is the fanaticism that threatens the world today fueled by our own deeply held beliefs?

This is one truth that I must acknowledge and own as a contemporary Christian: the ethics of Jesus the peace-maker have often been manipulated into a death machine by our darkest fears and prejudices. Carroll's agonizing survey of the Church since the fourth century CE makes this clear. And if the 2016 election taught us anything it is that those same terrifying and dangerous fears and prejudices continue to live just below the surface in the United States. They are real throughout the wider world as well. And it does not take much pressure to exploit our anxieties, convincing many ordinary Christians to scapegoat people who appear to be different from us. Those we don't know well. The vulnerable. The outsider. The Jew. The Muslim. The gay. The racial minority or person of color. Segregation and cultural isolation is not an accident of history, but a strategy to divide, conquer and humiliate us: it is always easier to violate or kill people we do not know - those we have been trained to fear - those who are not our neighbors.

Another insight from these novels (and Carroll's history) is that antisemitic violence, and our surrender and acquiescence to fascism, never happens over night. It is always incremental. Planned. As our better angels are worn down over time, we begin to accept the unacceptable as inevitable. Our anxiety is exploited. Our consciences are exhausted. And with careful precision our civil liberties are eroded until the law of the land sanctifies oppression. Often the slow elimination of freedom and responsibility is disguised within extraordinary acts of diversion. In 1933, the Nazis paid an unstable opponent, Marinus van der Lubbe, to set fire to the Reichstag. Claiming that the arson was the beginning of a plot by the Communists to take over the government, Hitler rushed through parliament an emergency powers act that solidified his power base. It is vital to recall that in February 1933 the Nazis had passed a temporary law restricting freedom of the press and authorizing the police to ban political meetings and demonstrations. With a monopoly upon the interpretation of news in Germany, distraction and manipulation became normative. Arson gave Hitler the cover he needed to solidify ever more restrictive laws as average citizens were conned into believing that apocalyptic Bolshevik violence lay just around the corner. The diversions created confusion as well as emotional debilitation. (For additional information: https://www.history.com/topics/germany/reichstag-fire)

The poisoned aspects of European Christianity; the exploitation of our economic, racial, and religious fears; carefully designed acts of diversion that mask the regime's authentic political agenda; and the manipulation of the media to deepen the emotional exhaustion of all but the most strident among us have now become facts of life in the United States. We rail and fume over stupid and crude presidential Tweets, but fail to note when the Senate confirms narrowly ideological judges who oppose a woman's right to maintain control over her own reproductive organs. We wind up working three jobs to pay for our family's health care so we have no energy left to cry out on behalf of the 5,000 children currently being held in concentration camps along our southern border: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/tally-of-children-splitat-border-tops-5400-in-new-count?fbclid=IwAR3aM3nMw2aEhWgEnlK57mksW4Nzugdg8PvifFA42vL7bozhmBUE_OqXf-I) We hear the Commander in Chief lie in public so often that we are not offended or even surprised that our still free press can print over five pages of fact checks that document the President's deliberate manipulation of the truth - and no one seems shocked. We scratch our heads in bewilderment that after three years of confusion; slander; political sabotage; voter repression; Muslim bans; scapegoating people of color, women, and political opponents; impeachment; eliminating health care for over 2 million citizens; and the abandonment of our long-standing international allies for short-term political grandstanding: still 40% of the electorate supports the current occupant of the White House.

So let me call your attention once again to the Polish journalist and activist Martin Mycielski's 15 point guide to surviving authoritarianism. I submit to you it is essential reading as we head into a new year - and an election year. (go to: https://billmoyers.com/story/increasingly-necessity-15-point-guide-surviving-authoritarianism/) The introduction to the article states:

Mycielski’s “survival guide” has only become more disturbingly relevant with time, its predictions proved frighteningly accurate. Like Umberto Eco’s guide to fascism, it presciently notes the actions and attitudes that now unquestionably define this presidency; the lies and obfuscation of truth, racist fear-mongering, historical revisionism, purposeful chaos and anti-First Amendment agenda. Manipulation and malice are the Trump regime’s forte. (To see how quickly a country can be remade by a charlatan and his abettors, go back and review some of the earliest entries from Amy Siskind’s weekly list tracking changes under Trump. It’s all pretty scary, especially seeing it unfold in real time.)

Earlier this week I sat with my grand-daughter, Anna, in my lap in front of the Christmas tree in Brooklyn. We were warm and safe. The day before I took-in the Christmas pageant at Trinity/St. Paul's in Manhattan where my grandson, Louie, was part of the children's choir. We all took Eucharist together. I gave thanks to God that I could be with loved ones for this feast. I rejoiced in the love we shared. My heart was full to overflowing when Louie's momma said that when she put her baby to bed he told her, "Momma I feel so much love in my heart right now." That is soul food for me. Honest to God holy ground. A bit of sacred love come down at Christmas so that we might be fortified to stand with others who are not safe or warm or loved right now. The late African American theologian and poet, Howard Thurman, got it right:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.