I was – and still am – inspired by the idea of building God’s kingdom and working for him. However, I always found work at the missionary organisation hard, even though I loved the people I worked with and believed in what we were doing. But towards the end of my time there, the responsibilities of my role got exceptionally tough. I couldn’t manage the day-to-day tasks, let alone the long-term ones, and it was having a hugely negative effect on my health. I rationalised it to myself, telling myself that God had called me to the organisation, and that the pain and difficulty I was feeling were part of the necessary sacrifice to follow his call. I needed to ‘take up my cross’; I just needed to push through this next bit of difficulty. Jesus hadn’t promised me an easy life, right?

Burnout is increasingly common in our society, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. It’s defined by the World Health Organisation as ‘a syndrome […] resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions: feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.’ (1)

What would Jesus say about burnout? How does the reality of burnout sit with the Bible’s call to be ‘living sacrifices’, and the reality of Jesus coming so that we could ‘have life, and have it to the full’?

I think there are three aspects to this:

1. our worldview: the narratives we tell ourselves about who we are and why we’re here
2. Our praxis, in other words, how we put into practice what we believe 
3. The community that we do that with

1. Worldview

I spoke to Jan de Villiers – the founder of youth charity e:merge and the social enterprise Futurekraft, which has helped incubate and develop more than 150 justice projects – about this. He is no stranger to burnout:

‘As a young man, I was quite a zealot to “go and proclaim the gospel in all the world”. For me, there was a real physical element to sacrifice: I gave up all that I had, jacked in my job, went into missions. I trusted God like in the scripture where Jesus sends out his disciples without a purse, just with the clothes on their back. That was the kind of sacrifice that meant something to me.’

‘Right now though, my view of sacrifice is this: I think all of us have been called, and all of us have purpose. I’m called to work in inner-city deprived areas for example.  We are learning about our purpose along this journey in life. God does the inner work in us. We each fill a space that is unique to us. Sacrifice in that context is knowing your calling, your purpose, and being true to that.’

Jan highlights the importance of understanding our specific calling – the difference between the view that we must do the maximum to ‘bring God’s Kingdom’, and the view that we should be faithful to the specific role that God has given us. This makes a big difference. It seems obvious, but sometimes we forget that we can never meet all the need we see around us. Instead, our role is to be faithful to the calling God has given us: to become the person He has made us to be.

This realisation entails a recognition that, in Jan’s words ‘it’s not all about the stuff that we do, it’s about being: being in this world, being transformed on a daily basis. That’s the calling. That’s how we become light to the world.’ When we are on this journey of becoming, we are able to challenge injustice both through what we do and who we are, and we are also more resilient to burnout. We need to be open to this growth and change, to find the freedom in being who God made us to be.  

To what extent do you think who you become is more important than what you do?  These beliefs have tangible impacts on how we live. They also affect how we handle struggle and difficulty. It’s unusual to be an activist, or indeed a human being, without experiencing failure to some degree! And if we think that what we do is by far the most important thing, then failure has few redeeming qualities. However, if we are focused on becoming, failure can be part of our journey of becoming – the uncomfortable furnace in which godly character is formed. 

2. Praxis

Often, our lives don’t match up with our beliefs! Paul talks about this in Romans: ‘what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do’.(2) When it comes to outworking our worldview, it’s helpful to have a set of rhythms and practices to follow – like a trellis or set of garden canes that guide and support us as we grow into the person God has made us to be. These practices will look different for each of us, because we’re all different! However, there may be a few things we have in common. 

Perhaps the most important practice of all is setting good boundaries. The research professor, social worker and author Brene Brown said that one of the most shocking findings from her research was that ‘the most compassionate people… were also the most boundaried’. (3) Setting good boundaries – saying no to things, prioritising space to connect with God, yourself, those close to you; making time for life-giving activities; deciding what is ‘too much’, all these things are deeply connected with maintaining our ability to be compassionate. 

Boundaries are the natural outworking of the recognition that, as Jan says ‘ultimately it is more about becoming our true selves than about what we do’. 

3. Community

It took months of me getting steadily more fragile before some good friends said over a pub lunch, “Rach, I don’t think it’s meant to be this painful and hard to just go to work. We don’t think this is what God has for you.” Somehow, though others had been concerned, it was their words that hit home.

Sometimes those closest to us see what is going on with us clearer than we can ourselves. Community can keep us accountable. And, living and working in community gives us extra resources and wisdom to draw on when things get hard. When I asked Shane Claiborne about this, he illustrated it this way: ‘The way that you put out a fire, a campfire, is you scatter the coals. And the way that you keep a fire alive is by stoking those coals. That’s why community and movement are so essential. If you’re just a little candle, you can be blown out by the wind, but a fire is actually fueled by the wind. When the winds come, it only makes the fire stronger.’

Who is your community? Do you have trusted friends that can challenge and keep you accountable? In my case, following this challenge from my friends, I took a step back and spent a while asking God if he was really wanting me to make this type of sacrifice to build his kingdom. Turns out, he wasn’t – and I handed in my notice shortly after that, stepping into the unknown to find out what he did want me to do.

Even today I am still figuring this out but using this ‘transformation triangle’ (worldview/praxis/community) is helping me work through how changes in my worldview are supported by a trellis of rhythms and practices, and by a community, so that they lead to wider change in my life.

(1) https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/mms/en#129180281
(2) Romans 7:15.
(3) Brené Brown, ‘Boundaries, Empathy, and Compassion’, https://youtu.be/xATF5uYVRkM 

Rachel Walker is a co-author, together with Rich Gower, of The Hopeful Activist: Discovering the vital change you were made to bring, published in May 2024 by SPCK. She is also part of the team behind the Hopeful Activists’ Podcast, alongside Abi Thomas, Rich Gower and Beth Saunders.

A simple answer comes quickly, like a response whispered back to my doubts: I’m here to live a life of community, prayer, and service. I want my life centered around those three things. With community, prayer, and service at the center of my life, I might grow into a better version of myself, a better Christian and disciple of Jesus. These are the quick answers, in this inner conversation I go through every week or so.

I daydream about how it could work. Maybe I could gather a group of my friends and we could get a place together, then let people who are homeless live with us too. We could offer meals around our table and host prayer and workshops about social justice for the public. I guess what I want is a life like how Catholic Workers I know live. Would the Catholic Worker lifestyle fit me better? Would it feel more natural to live in a Catholic Worker house than hanging out in these old buildings, between these institutional walls?

Some friends have been sending messages, asking me if I’ve read The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, by Shane Claiborne. Once I do, I weep as I take in Shane’s story and learn about the “new monastics.” I’m enamored by the description of how Shane and his friends live in an intentional community in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia and serve their neighbors. I want to live simply with other Christians. I want to serve the marginalized too. That’s what Jesus modeled for us. I want to be close to the poor, close to Jesus. How is being a novice helping me to become a more radical Christian?

How could the structures, expectations and traditions of the Franciscan Sisters offer me freedom to serve the poor and radically follow Jesus like Shane and his friends are doing? I feel stuck and confused as I try to think it through, try to imagine how being a Sister will free me.

Sitting in the silent adoration chapel, I muse about my confusion and bob my head in prayer. Then, one afternoon, something happens inside me: I can only describe it as a widening in my heart. It feels like an opening, a gap that allows some light to soften the doubts tangled inside. This is where I am. I’m here with these good women. I’m lucky to be with them. They’re amazing! In the rays of light falling into me, a cavern is created for the Spirit to whisper. As quickly as I wondered why I haven’t yet left, I know why I’m here.

It’s the mothers. The spiritual mothers. The roots, the depth, the way that this form of religious life means I’m now in a beautiful web of connection, tradition.  The spiritual mothers are the women I’m interacting with daily. They are the gray-haired and stooping ones, who embrace me with their hugs, prayer, and notes of encouragement and love.

Then my mind flips through timelines and zooms to the spiritual mothers of the Middle Ages. It is St. Clare of Assisi and her Poor Ladies, in San Damiano. The mystics, and bold voices who spoke to power and advocated for reforms. Go back to Rome, St. Catherine of Siena told the pope who was lingering at Avignon! St. Teresa of Avila, outgoing (like me), and deep and intense, who was sought after for her spiritual wisdom, for her Interior Castle.

Being part of the Franciscan Sisters means I’m amazingly part of this lineage too.

These holy women are my mothers, my church, they are the reason I stay. Somehow, they help me know that I belong to this mystery, this communion. Somehow all of them are mine. I stare at the altar, the Blessed Sacrament gleaming behind the glass of the monstrance and I know: I’m their daughter, a little restless and weak, but I’m here for them, ready to learn.

Several years ago, I wrote Shane Claiborne and thanked him for writing The Irresistible Revolution. He wrote back, on the back side of a piece of scrap paper a hand-written response:

January Something 2009
Sister Julia —
Your letter warmed my heart. Thank you.
Sorry for the delay, it seems I stay behind on letters, but love writing—after all,
it’s an important Christian past time.
I admire your hope and discontentment—and certainly the Church needs both—it
is a beautiful thing to hear in your words the fiery passion of Francis and Clare—and the
humility to submit and seek the wisdom of elders. I’m also on an unfolding journey of
spiritual direction and discernment as I seek our Lover Jesus. Our communities and “new
monasticism” has its charm and fresh charism it also has its challenges and
vulnerabilities—and I think stability and supporting celibate singles, formation…are all
things we still are figuring out. So pray for us—I certainly will keep you in my prayers as
you continue the work of Francis and Clare “repairing the ruins of the Church.” You are
a gift to the FSPA. Send my love to all the saints and sinners there. May we continue to
become the Church we dream of.
Your brother—Shane Claiborne

Tucked inside the envelope I find a prayer card—with the classic peace prayer of St. Francis printed on one side and an image of Francis on the other—a tiny little plastic baggie filled with about a teaspoon of sand, and a rectangle of white paper with words printed on it: “This dirt is from outside San Damiano in Assisi, where little brother Francis heard God whisper: ‘Repair my Church which is in ruins.’” And he started working. May the repairs continue in us.

I want to scream with joy, to run around and tell all the neighbors about my mail. But I sit still, reading the letter over and over, soaking in its message of encouragement along with the affirmation of what I’ve been praying about: I’m here, I’m a Franciscan Sister, not because the community or the Church is perfect, but because, somehow, it is home. In this home, I get to serve. I give of myself and try to help the suffering parts of Christ’s body be healed, repaired. I hope I do; I hope I can.

Excerpt from For Love of the Broken Body: A Spiritual Memoir, by Julia Walsh. Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Publishing, March 2024. Used by permission of the publisher.

“Pick a color,” she said. “Write down your color.” I was at a writers’ workshop in Minnesota, and this was our prompt. I wrote down “pink.” No one else will pick that color, I thought to myself. Then we were told our assignment: head outdoors and look for the color we had chosen. 

I couldn’t find anything pink. It was cloudy, with no streaks of a pinkish sunset brushing the sky. I spotted peach-colored raspberries ripening on the vine. Spiky lavender thistle blooms swayed high above the grasses. I detected tiny maroon slivers of crushed stones in the concrete road. Otherwise, I was surrounded by swaths of green grass and leafing trees in shades of emerald, jade, lime, pistachio, sage, and artichoke. No pink anywhere. 

Should I change my color? No one would know. 

No, I’ll be honest and stick with pink. 

Then I remembered a science lesson. The color we see with the naked eye is the hue that is not absorbed by the object; what we see is the color reflected back to us. Green leaves and grasses absorb every color in the spectrum except green, so what I see bouncing back to my eyes is green. That meant pink really was everywhere, even if my human eyes could not see it. 

Similarly, when I see your face, I see dimly. I can’t see your past, but if I’m paying attention, I might detect bits of joy flashing when your eyes light up. I can’t see your thoughts—though sometimes your emotions give themselves away. Sometimes, we only reflect back to others what we want them to see. Sometimes we think what we can see with our human eyes is all there is. Sometimes all others see is “different,” when there are really rich tones of melanin and shades of brown reflecting back, with all of their accompanying tones, tints, stories, and songs. 

Colorblindness 

In an attempt not to sound racist and separate themselves from obviously racist individuals, some folks will say, “I’m colorblind.” But the truth is we are not colorblind. Babies and children actually notice race at young ages—some studies indicate as early as three months. By nine months, babies use race to categorize faces, and by age three, children associate some races with negative traits.

I’ve heard the idea that America is colorblind: America elected a Black president, and therefore, we’ve overcome our obstacles. Electing a Black president is something many did not believe would occur in their lifetime, so does that now mean we’ve achieved racial equity?  Electing a Black president did not change the fact that Black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans. Electing a Black president did not radically alter the tragic number of police brutality cases against Black people. Likewise, just because we have neighbors in a racially mixed marriage, or a couple at our church adopted Black or Brown children, or we did so ourselves, does not mean that we’ve achieved ethnic and racial harmony. Proximity does not erase structural inequality. 

We can see color, and the idea of colorblindness actually cloaks the real issues of living in a racialized society and the systems perpetuating it. Colorblindness doesn’t work toward injustice. It may be well-intentioned, but colorblindness actually causes harm. “Colorblindness has a kind of homogenizing effect on communities: it suggests unity through uniformity instead of belonging in spite of difference,” according to David P. Leong, author of Race and Place. Instead, we are “color-blessed,” as Dr. Derwin Gray, pastor, author, and former NFL player, says.

***

In the science lesson I discussed where the only color visible is the one not absorbed by an object, we learn that the physics behind color itself is a multidimensional story. If color is a wavelength of light, then white is actually not a color on the visible light spectrum. When we see white, we are seeing all the colors bouncing off the object and hitting our eyes. 

For objects that appear black to our eyes, we are seeing the color black because all the colors are absorbed by the object; nothing is reflected back for us to see. That’s why darkness looks black: there is nothing for us to look at. 

It is curious that humans chose these two “non-colors” to describe color in each other. The physics behind the colors themselves is representative of what has taken place in our world, and how people of color from the African continent became referred to as “Black,” as if they were seen as nonexistent, nonentities. Colonizers and slave handlers erased their humanity by treating them as slaves and subjugating them. That is how many have chosen to “see” Black folks: not worthy, less-than, dehumanized. Additionally, the racial divide is often defined by this Black-white binary, yet there is so much more to be known, so many colors in-between. 

*** 

El Roi 

Imagine having a name that meant “Foreign Thing.” Unthinkable, right? Yet, that is the approximate translation of Hagar, the name of Sarah’s handmaiden. Sarah was married to Abraham, but in the story, Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham because Sarah and Abraham had no children. Hagar then gave birth to Ishmael. But Hagar’s name, which isn’t really a name, means something like “foreign thing.” And this is exactly how she was treated. Not as a person with autonomy, but as a slave, an object to be used at will. When Hagar was forced out of Abraham’s household, God met her in the desert, told her to return to the household, and declared that her son should be named Ishmael, which means “God hears” (Gen 16:11). Hagar responds by naming God El Roi, which means “the God Who Sees.” The “Foreign Thing” was seen, heard, and known. 

Though we may walk through life unknown by society at-large or in majority white spaces, we are known by the Creator. Being known necessitates a curiosity beyond stereotypes and toward specifics. Being known means we are known completely and loved by a Creator who sees the good, the bad, and the ugly and loves us anyway. 

Indeed, we have a God who sees us and knows us. We are not foreign things but beloved people, those who belong. We are seen, heard, known, loved, and embraced. And if culture at-large doesn’t see us or know us for who we are, we can be certain that God does and will not stay silent forever. We are not isolated or forgotten; we are seen, and as we negotiate belonging and assimilation, we are integrated into the story of humanity, and a story of love and belonging crafted by a God who sees. 

So, What Are You? 

God knows your name 

Your past, present, future 

You are seen, remembered, known 

In the land you are looking for 

You belong both/and 

There is no either/or 

You are known 

And loved as-is 

You are not out here 

Making it all alone 

Adapted from Beyond Ethnic Loneliness by Prasanta Verma. ©2024 by Prasanta Verma Anumolu. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com. 

The disturbing origins of this custom Bible and the campaign to stop its proliferation.

During Holy Week, Donald Trump posted a video promoting sales for the “God Bless the USA” Bible.

The name is borrowed from a 1984 song of the same name by country singer, Lee Greenwood.

Trump’s shameless peddling of God’s word for profit garnered intense backlash and commentary online, but the saga of the “God Bless the USA” Bible goes back further than the former president’s ad.

Three years ago, I was part of a group of Christian authors who successfully lobbied our publisher Zondervan, a division of Harper Collins publishing, to refrain from entering into an agreement to print the “God Bless the USA” Bible.

HarperCollins Christian Publishing division, which includes Zondervan Publishing, owns the licensing rights to the New International Version (NIV) translation—the most popular modern English translation of the Bible.

The company, Elite Source Pro, petitioned Zondervan for a quote but never entered into an agreement. Nevertheless, marketing for the “God Bless the USA” Bible advertised it as the NIV translation.

Hugh Kirkpatrick heads up Elite Source Pro and spearheaded the effort to produce the “God Bless the USA” Bible.

In an article at Religion Unplugged, where this story first broke in May 2021, Kirkpatrick explained the origins of this custom edition of the Bible.

The idea began brewing in fall 2020 when Kirkpatrick and friends in the entertainment industry heard homeschool parents complain that public schools were not teaching American history anymore— not having students read and understand the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

“We noticed the divide in the public where some people started seeing pro-American images like the flag, the bald eagle, the statue of liberty as weaponized tools of the Republican party, and we didn’t understand that,” Kirkpatrick said.

Then in the height of Black Lives Matter protests, activists began tearing down or destroying statues and monuments they connected to racial injustice.

“In past civilizations, libraries have been burned. Documents torn down. We started seeing statutes coming down and we started seeing history for good or bad trying to be erased,” Kirkpatrick said. “That’s when we started thinking, okay how far does this erasing of history go? Love it or hate it, it’s history. But how far does it go…? Part of having these statues … is so that we don’t repeat those same mistakes.”

A custom Bible inspired by reactionary sentiment opposing Black Lives Matter protests is concerning on its own.

Kirkpatrick apparently failed to understand why Black people and many others would want to remove public homages to slaveholders and the violent rebellion they led against the United States.

Nor did Kirkpatrick manage to spot the irony of printing a Bible that honors the United States while defending statues of Confederate leaders who attacked the Union.

Once the news that Zondervan was in talks to print this Bible came out, several Christian authors who had published with them approached me about publicly opposing the deal.

All of my books, so far, have been published through Zondervan, including my forthcoming book The Spirit of Justice: Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance.

I was eager to join in the protest.

The effort to stop the deal included an online petition that said,

Zondervan/HarperCollins has a been a great blessing to Christian publishing for many years. But a forthcoming volume damages this fine record. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11 Zondervan has licensed releasing the “God Bless the USA” Bible that will include the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and pledge of allegiance, in addition to the lyrics for the song of the same name by country singer Lee Greenwood., “God Bless the USA.” This is a toxic mix that will exacerbate the challenges to American evangelicalism, adding fuel to the Christian nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiments found in many segments of the evangelical church.

The campaign to stop Zondervan from printing the “God Bless the USA” Bible also included a letter by Shane Claiborne of Red Letter Christians and several other Christian authors, including me, as co-signers of the statement.

The letter read,

This customized Bible is a reminder that the “Christian industry” must do better to stand against the heretical and deadly “Christian” nationalism that we saw on full display on Jan. 6.  It is like a spiritual virus, infecting our churches, homes and social institutions.  Just as we take intentional actions to stop the spread of COVID, like wearing masks and staying six feet apart, we must take concrete steps to stop the spread of this theological virus.

The letter continued with a theological and pastoral word about the Bible.

We don’t need to add anything to the Bible. We just need to live out what it already says.

And if we are to be good Christians, we may not always be the best Americans.  The beatitudes of Jesus where he blesses the poor, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers – can feel very different from the “beatitudes” of America.  Our money may say in God we trust, but our economy often looks like the seven deadly sins.  For Christians, our loyalty is to Jesus.  That is who we pledge allegiance to.  As the old hymn goes – “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness/ On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”  Our hope is not in the donkey of the Democrats or the elephant of the GOP… or even in America.

Our hope is in the Lamb.  The light of the world is not America… it is Christ.

Our endeavors were successful, and Zondervan did not enter into an agreement to publish an NIV translation of the “God Bless the USA” Bible.

That’s when Kirkpatrick decided to pursue a King James Version (KJV) of the Bible because that translation does not require copyright permission in the US.

The fruit of Kirkpatrick’s effort is an official endorsement by Donald J. Trump and Lee Greenwood and the latest push to sell “God Bless the USA” Bibles at a cost of $59.99.

The purveyors of this custom Bible fail to see, refuse to see, or simply don’t care that the United States is not a church or God’s holy nation.

They continue to spew myths that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that the government should favor one religion for special privileges above all others.

Including political documents in a Bible translation is as blatant a blend of religion and politics as it gets. It is a physical flouting of the separation of church and state.

The multi-year crusade to produce the “God Bless the USA” Bible demonstrates that white Christian nationalism is not going away, and its advocates have the will and the means to secure their desired ends.

As we hurtle closer to the 2024 presidential election—likely a rematch between Biden and Trump—Christians must loudly and consistently oppose any movement to make Christianity synonymous with the political power structure.

We must oppose the “God Bless the USA” Bible as white Christian nationalist propaganda because Jesus said, “I will build my church,” not “I will build this nation.”

Excerpt from the Foreword

One of Hannah’s aims is to capture not only the courage and stoicism of the women who have suffered so much, but also the nobility, dignity, and extraordinary compassion that many of them manage to retain, despite their traumatic experiences. Her use of traditional painting techniques along with gold leaf (learned at my School of Traditional Arts), together with her spiritual outlook and intention, elevates the portraits to almost the status of icons–transforming the particular into the archetype and the individual mother into the Universal Mother, thereby speaking to every woman.

I very much hope that this beautiful book, Tears of Gold, will help enable the Yazidi, Rohingya, and Nigerian women’s voices to be heard, as well as to highlight the issue of the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in general. All too often, their stories of suffering remain unseen and unheard–but Hannah Thomas is doing tremendous work in bringing their stories out into the open. May her powerful paintings spread the word and, God willing, have a positive impact in relieving the suffering of some of the most vulnerable and marginalised communities around the world.

– HRH The Prince Charles, former Prince of Wales (prior to his accession as HM King Charles III)

Portraits of Nigerian Women

Survivors of Boko Haram and Fulani Violence

Since the beginning of the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria in 2009, millions have been forced from their homes. Boko Haram abducted thousands of women, holding them captive and subjecting them to sexual violence and forced marriage. After the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in April 2014, the hashtag #bringbackourgirls went viral, retweeted by celebrities and politicians from Kim Kardashian to Michelle Obama.

Since then, the security situation in northern Nigeria has been further exacerbated by escalating conflict between predominantly Muslim and nomadic Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers. Fulani militants have used sexual violence to target women as a way to devastate communities. A report released by the UK government in 2020 describes the targeting of Christian communities in Nigeria as an “unfolding genocide.” (1)

In September 2018 I spent a week in northern Nigeria, leading an art project facilitated by Open Doors as part of a trauma healing programme with Christian women who were survivors of sexual violence either at the hands of Fulani militants or Boko Haram. As with my other projects, the aim was to create a safe space for the women to share their stories and begin to process their pain.

Like the Yazidi women in Iraqi Kurdistan, many opted to add glistening tears of gold to their self-portraits. For the finishing touch the women sewed vibrant local Nigerian fabric onto their paintings–with a lot of singing and laughter, which was beautiful to see! The women were so proud of the self-portraits they had created.

Charity had been kidnapped by Boko Haram and held captive for three years. When she returned with a baby, her husband beat her and refused to accept the child. On our last day together for the art project Charity said, “I am so happy. I have never held a pencil in my life before, and this is the first time I have been able to write my name and even to draw my face!” The art project was a drop in the ocean when I think of the trauma she has faced.  Yet the simple act of drawing a self-portrait helped her affirm her identity and value, especially important considering the shame and stigma that victims of sexual violence face in her community.

Conflict leaves many wounds, but perhaps the hardest to overcome is this ongoing stigma that so many survivors have to contend with. This additional burden, following devastating assaults, is almost unbearable. The perceived association of survivors and their children born of wartime rape with the enemy entrenches the stigma and often leads to further abuse, (2) as does the absence of cultural narratives that allow women to look upon their survival as heroic or honorable. (3 )

Dr. Denis Mukwege, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, writes, “As individuals and societies, we need to show . . . compassion and kindness to all survivors. Sadly, instead, we do the opposite. We compound their pain by treating them with suspicion, or worse, treating them as pariahs. The shame and costs of an assault all too often fall on women, not their aggressors. They deserve sympathy, support, and protection.” (4)

Living through and surviving sexual violence can be an isolating experience.  Art workshops can be a safe, nurturing, and nourishing space to break that isolation–“the idea of feeling surrounded by acceptance and protection, a space where it is possible to be oneself, devoid of threat, and to get on living life without fear.” (5) These projects can become a source of connection, an occasion for showing empathy, care, trust, and creativity–the conditions needed to reclaim human dignity. (6) By the end of the week in northern Nigeria, the women were all laughing, dancing, and singing together–a complete transformation from our first day.

One girl who took part in the art project, Florence, had been raped by Fulani militants when she was ten years old. On our last day together she said, “Here I have found peace of mind.” Initially Florence had kept her face covered and eyes averted; now she met my gaze with the most radiant smile.

Again, the purpose of the project was twofold: it was both therapeutic and also for advocacy–to empower the women’s voices to be heard through their self-portraits. The women’s self-portrait paintings have been shown alongside my portrait paintings in places including the UK Houses of Parliament, Lambeth Palace, and Westminster Abbey to shine a light on the issues of sexual violence and the persecution of religious minorities. In this way, the women are being a voice for other women who are also targeted on account of their religion and their gender. As one participant, Aisha, said: “I want the whole world to know that I have pain. I have gone through a lot, and many other women in my village are going through a lot, and that is what is happening here in my country. Women are going through a lot and they do not have anybody to speak out for them.”

Following my return to England from Nigeria, I poured my heart into painting portraits of the women. I used sacred imagery and early Renaissance tempera and Byzantine icon painting techniques. The headdresses are a vivid blue made from lapis lazuli, a precious pigment mined in Afghanistan, so expensive that it was traditionally reserved for paintings of the Virgin Mary. The patterns in gold leaf are inspired by indigo-dyed fabric from the region.

I hope the paintings have captured a glimpse of these women’s extraordinary courage, strength, resilience, and dignity–to show that they have not been defined by what they have suffered.

These portraits were unveiled in Lambeth Palace in November 2018, alongside the self-portraits painted by the women. The paintings have gone on to be displayed in places including Westminster Abbey; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Government Communications Headquarters; and churches across the United Kingdom. Open Doors UK & Ireland ensured that each of the women received a copy of my portrait painting and her self-portrait.

Gambo

Gambo

I regained consciousness and found that I had no clothes on my body. I tried to stand up but couldn’t stand. 

Gambo was gathering firewood in 2018 when a Fulani herdsman ran towards her brandishing a stick and demanded, “If you do not allow me to sleep with you I’m
going to kill you.” She later regained consciousness–naked, bleeding, and unable to walk.

Gambo’s body still has not fully recovered when I meet her in September 2018, and she is in the process of taking the perpetrator to court. Drawing her self-portrait, she explains her mixed feelings: “The first is a feeling of anger and bitterness and that is why I drew myself not smiling. The second feeling is a feeling of joy, knowing that God loves and still protects and takes care of me.”

Aisha

Aisha (28)

I had no peace in my heart.
I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t sleep.

Whenever I was alone, I remembered how those two men raped me. It is a wound
that takes a gradual process to heal.

A group of Fulani men attacked Aisha’s village at night. They took her husband away when they saw he had a
Bible and brutally raped her in her own home. Amazingly, Aisha’s husband was not killed. When he returned, he
showed her the support many women in Aisha’s situation do not receive. He assured her, “I will never leave you, so
I’ll stand by you.”

“I want the whole world to know that I have pain,” Aisha says. “I have gone through a lot, and many other women in
my village are going through a lot.”

Esther

Esther

How people treat my daughter really makes my heart ache.

Esther and her family were hiding in the caves in the hills, in fear of Boko Haram. When she returned to the village for food one day, Boko Haram attacked and she was taken into the Sambisa Forest, where the Chibok girls were also held.

Esther was in captivity for three and a half years. She was sold as a slave and forced to become the fourth wife of a Boko Haram leader. When this man was killed, Esther and the other wives escaped, trekking for three days without food or water and with no shoes on their feet. Esther was seven months pregnant.

After time being held in a military camp, Esther returned to her village.

When she arrived home, Esther’s family tried to make her abort the baby, but she refused.

After Rebecca was born, the family rejected her, calling her “Boko.”

FOOTNOTES: Portraits of Nigerian Women

1 “Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide?: An Inquiry by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief” (June 2020).
2 United Nations Security Council, Women and Peace and Security, III.C.41.
3 David J. Morris, The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), 70.
4 Denis Mukwege, The Power of Women: A Doctor’s Fight to End Violence against Women
around the World (London: Short Books, 2021), 327.
5 Lederach and Lederach, When Blood and Bones Cry Out, 64.
6 Eva Feder Kittay, “A Theory of Justice as Fair Terms of Social Life Given Our Inevitable
Dependency and Our Inextricable Interdependency,” in Care Ethics and Political
Theory, ed. Daniel Engster and Maurice Hamington (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2015), 67.

The writer of the email was not a Christian (ironically) but wanted to tell me how to be one for the sake of maintaining an abusive relationship. She had herself experienced abuse in the family dynamic she was defending. The email conveyed that Christian forgiveness means abnegating the right to talk about and resist experiences of abuse. Because my confrontation with abusive authority and my reluctance to stay in an abusive relationship caused pain, my action had to be inappropriate and un-Christian.

A few months later, I found myself unprotected in a situation where I was in close proximity to the person who had harmed me, whose influence I had long tried to escape. This person asked me on the spot, “I know you’ve had trouble in the past feeling like we could move forward in our relationship. Can we talk about this? Do you forgive me?”

Unable in that moment to find a safe way out of the situation, I quickly nodded, trying to disguise my vulnerability with casualness. “Sure,” I replied. “It’s fine.”

This was clearly the response the person wanted to hear. They quickly called others into the room and smiling through tears announced to the gathered group, “Susannah told me she forgives me! Everything is fine now!”

Fine . . . except that the harm done in this relationship had never been acknowledged. Fine . . . except that I wasn’t sure what “forgiving” someone whose actions in my life had been so catastrophic would entail. Fine . . . except that I was sure then that forgiveness was, once again, a concept being used to control me. Fine . . . except that the abuse would be repeated on other occasions, and I knew it.

The logic of forgiveness struck me as deeply wrong, but I was unable to figure out what forgiveness was at that time. Instead, that line in the email lodged in my mind (and that line is something I have revisited regularly). At that moment as a young adult, I felt as though I was selfishly choosing myself over long-standing relationships and even my faith— and yet I couldn’t force myself to relent from this seemingly un-Christian action.

Though I might not have articulated it then, the God who created me in his image, the Jesus I follow as Lord and Savior, and the Spirit who had led me on my way would not permit me to “forgive” in the way demanded. I knew I felt love for everyone with whom I was setting boundaries. I was not vengeful. I was not trying to cause harm, even though others certainly felt I was sowing discord. All I wanted, all I needed, was for my relationships to reflect that I was a child of God, worthy of safety, dignity, and love. My direct experiences of God didn’t seem to line up with the definition of forgiveness I’d internalized from church and my family. Could I really have been so misled?

What I knew I needed to do seemed to be a departure from scriptural tradition. But then again, I didn’t know too much about Scripture back then.

Content taken from Forgiveness after Trauma by Susannah Griffith, ©2024. Used by permission of Brazos Press.

From Rethinking Life….

The Christian movement started on the margins with a small group of renegade Jews who were a peculiar little sect within the vast terrain of the Roman Empire. By AD 100, there were roughly 7,500 Christians, which is smaller than many of our megachurches today. A generation later, in AD 150, there were 40,000. But that was still only .07 percent of the population—not even a tenth of one percent of the empire. One hundred years after Christ was here in the flesh, there was roughly one Christian for every 1,430 people in the Roman world.

Then this little revolution began to spread beyond the periphery and to all sectors of society. Check this out. Historians estimate that between AD 100 and 300, the Christian movement grew from roughly 7,500 people to a whooping 6.3 million. By AD 300, Christians were 10 percent of the empire’s population—one person in every ten was now a Christian. But with the growth came complexity, and it is at this point that Emperor Constantine entered the picture.

Constantine’s reign is seen as a turning point for Christianity because it’s when Christianity the Roman Empire. Given the persecution Christians had long endured, this might seem to have been a miraculous deliverance, and it many ways it was. However, the so-called “Constantinian shift” was also when the first cracks began to appear in the early Christians’ ethic of life. Once they were in power, Christians went from being the persecuted to being the persecutors. They stopped loving their enemies and started killing them. They exchanged the cross for a sword.

Many scholars rightfully point out that Constantine was a symbol of something bigger happening in the culture, that he was the effect rather than the cause. Just as many of us point out that Donald Trump revealed America more than he changed America, perhaps the same can be said of Constantine. However, Constantine did crystalize some things that forever changed what it meant to be a Christian. But before we get to that, it’s important to understand more of the context that led up to Constantine’s reign and how it shaped the early church.

Constantine’s Backstory

Constantine came to power in the wake of horrific persecution of the church. To be sure, killing Christians had been a Roman pastime going all the way back to AD 33, but things had only gotten worse since. Historians point out that emperors such as Nero, who reigned in the generation after Jesus (AD 54–68), turned sadistic execution into a form of entertainment. There are reports of Christians being dressed in animal furs to be killed by dogs. They were crucified, even crucified upside down. Their bodies were often disfigured and contorted for the sake of the dark appetites. According to the Roman historian Tacitus (ca. AD 56–120), Nero turned his own garden into a killing field, setting bodies on fire and using them as human torches.

Then there was the persecution under Domitian, who reigned from AD 81–96. Domitian is the emperor who exiled John, the author of Revelation, to the island of Patmos. Persecution continued under Decius, who ruled from AD 249–251. Finally, there were the brutal, barbaric reigns of Diocletian from AD 284–305, and Galerius from AD 305–311, right before Constantine.

Most historians consider this era prior to Constantine to be the worst persecution Christianity had ever seen. Church buildings and property were destroyed. There were raids on churches in which sacred texts and relics were burned. Some Christians were demoted from places of honor if they would not renounce their faith. Some had their legal rights taken away, and others were forced into slavery if they refused to burn incense to Caesar (a loyalty test) or to recant their commitment to Christ. Under Diocletian, many were murdered during what historians call the “wholesale slaughter” of Christians. So, this is when Constantine entered the scene—following the terrible reigns of terror under Diocletian and his son-in-law Galerius.

Constantine was the son of Constantius Chlorus, a lower-ranking emperor who ruled in the West (Britain, Gaul, and Spain) during the bloody reign of Diocletian. Although his father Constantius was not a Christian, he was quite tolerant of Christians and did not carry out vicious orders and persecutions. When Constantine became emperor after Constantius’s death in 306, he took his dad’s tolerance of Christians to a new level. And his devotion to the faith, even though some question its sincerity, became personal.

It’s important to note that Constantine’s ascension to the throne wasn’t as simple as his father passing him a baton. The region historically had four regional emperors rather than one. When Diocletian stepped down in 305, there was a struggle to gain control of the empire as rival regional leaders fought for the throne. It wasn’t until 312 that Constantine won the decisive Battle of Milvian Bridge that ended the civil war and secured his place on the throne. But this is what’s so significant about that legendary battle against another aspiring emperor named Maxentius, especially with regard to our conversation about the sacredness of life. Prior to the battle, Constantine is said to have had a vision of the cross coming down from the sky in heavenly glory to bless him in the battle. Here’s an account of the vision, written by an historian named Eusebius:

About the time of the midday sun, when day was just turning, he said he saw with his own eyes, up in the sky and resting over the sun, a cross-shaped trophy formed from light, and a text attached to it which said, “By this conquer.”

“By this conquer.” In other words, kill in the name of Jesus.

Some question the credibility of the vision since it wasn’t until ten years later and two years after Constantine died that we have any account of it. It’s also important to note that the account we do have was written not by Constantine but by Eusebius, whom Constantine, as he died, had appointed a bishop. Eusebius had previously written his classic Ecclesiastical History, published ten years into Constantine’s reign, and he makes no mention of Constantine’s vision in that work, which seems like a significant oversight.

Could Constantine’s vision of the cross be imperial revisionist history? Totally possible, but it almost doesn’t even matter—it became Roman legend, and eventually church legend. In the centuries that followed, this same theology is invoked and the cross continued to be used as a symbol for battle and license for all sorts of atrocities. The cross, which had been such a powerful symbol of love and grace and redemption, would eventually be used in the Crusades and by colonizers doing the most unChristlike things imaginable.

Constantine was not a Christian when he became emperor in AD 306. In fact, he wasn’t even baptized until just before he died. But one of his first acts after winning the Battle of Milvian Bridge and killing Maxentius was signing the Edict of Milan, which proclaimed religious tolerance throughout the Roman Empire. No doubt, the relatively peaceful reign of Constantine that followed, while providing temporarily relief from persecution, was a massive shift for Christians.

As the church entered this new season of peace, it faced a whole new set of challenges and tensions, many of which were consequences of centuries of persecution. One of those tensions was that some Christians had begun to make compromises with the empire. To avoid becoming literal fodder for the empire’s fires, they essentially denied their faith with their fingers crossed behind their backs. They burned a little incense to Caesar to avoid being burned alive. As one ancient proverb aptly put it, they would bow before the emperor—and fart. They paid only enough homage to avoid getting killed.

It’s understandable, right? To be a Christian at the time of Constantine meant you and everyone you knew had, for generations, lost friends and family members to the brutal persecution of the Roman Empire—the same empire that had killed your Messiah. It’s hard enough to gather the faith and courage to die for Jesus, but harder still to sustain that fervor decade after decade and century after century while the empire is killing you, your kids, your parents, and the poor and vulnerable everywhere. So, if you had the option to make a small compromise in exchange for your life, it probably seemed like a worthwhile trade. And the temptation to acquire or align yourself with power and resources to stop the oppression would be hard to resist. It was one of the temptations Satan posed to Jesus in the desert. And it is a temptation we face in America today. So, that should give us some grace for the early Christians who, just a few hundred years in, made some regrettable, even if understandable, compromises.

Even so, not all of them compromised. Some felt more convicted than ever, believing that a willingness to die for Christ was the ultimate test of true discipleship. Persecution had only stiffened their spines and solidified their resolve. And herein lies one of the most significant crossroads of the early church. Those who refused to compromise excommunicated many of those who did, including leaders, for making concessions and assimilating within the empire. The early Christians knew they could not serve two masters. There was a choice to be made—would they serve Jesus or Caesar ? Excommunication has a bad vibe for many of us today, but the early Christians saw it as preserving the radical call of Christ and not compromising the cost of discipleship. There was no room for “cheap grace,” as Deitrich Bonhoeffer would call it centuries later, before he himself was martyred.

There’s an old saying we often hear in social movements today, “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” And while that was true of many of the early followers of Jesus who were poor or otherwise disenfranchised, it had become less unilaterally true a few centuries later. By this time, many new converts had a whole lot to lose. They wanted to hold onto their possessions and even stay in careers that earlier generations had deemed incompatible with Christian discipleship. Could you be a politician, much less the leader of the Roman Empire, and still be a follower of Christ? I think you see the source of the tension, which is one we still face today.

Constantine’s Impact

There is a lot we could say about Constantine and the evident contradictions in his faith and his leadership, but there is no denying that he radically parted ways with previous emperors and initiated welcome reforms. The reforms he instituted throughout society and the church were significant, and still leave a mark to this day—for better and for worse. In addition to proclaiming religious tolerance, he banned the gladiatorial games. He made it harder to kill babies by banning the Roman practice called “exposure.” He also banned the branding of criminals, which was done on the face.

Constantine explicitly acknowledged that human beings are made in the image of God. He funded the mission of the church, rebuilt church buildings, and reproduced copies of the Bible. He established the Sunday as a Sabbath day and ordered that the holy days of the Christian calendar be recognized. He even provided tax exemption for clergy and church property. I suppose he could be credited with setting up the first 501(c)(3) tax exemptions for the church, for better or worse.

He also ended the practice of crucifixion. Unfortunately, he didn’t end capital punishment, just execution by crucifixion. In fact, he ended up killing his own wife and son, so let there be no mistake—I’m not trying to defend him. I just want to be honest about the complexities and contradictions of a man many Christians today recognize as a saint, especially regarding the sanctity of life. Certainly, there are questions to be raised about his motives for all of these reforms, whether they came from an authentic respect for the Christian faith, political pragmatism, or some messy combo of both.

While scholars may debate how much Constantine himself actually changed the church, one thing is clear—the church was changing and the reign of Constantine certainly was a manifestation of that change. And Constantine took an active role not only in initiating social reforms, but also in shaping and solidifying the theology of the church.

By the time Constantine came to power, there were serious divisions in the church, many of which stemmed from the rapid growth of Christianity and its proximity to the power and wealth of Rome. Christians under Constantine began asking questions we still ask today. Does God want Christians to use worldly power to transform the world? Should Christians impose their values on others? Can Christians be political without losing their souls? Other contentious issues were more theological, such as disagreement about the full divinity and humanity of Christ and the nature of the Trinity.

In an effort to create unity and restore peace, Constantine tried to bring church leaders together. He hosted a summit of bishops in 314 at Arles in southern Gaul. And in 325, he convened one of the most significant ecumenical councils in the history of Christianity, the Council of Nicea. There, he brought together bishops and church leaders in an attempt to resolve differences and establish some norms and procedures within the church.

The rapidly growing church needed clarity about the structures of leadership as well as what church discipline looked like with heretics and lapsed Christians. What were the dignity standards for clergy? What did real repentance look like, and could someone be reinstated after they fell from grace? There were also questions about organizational structure and liturgical practice. One of the most pressing of issues before the Nicean council was how to understand the relationship between God and Jesus. The council produced the Nicene Creed, a defining statement of belief, which is still recited today, 1,700 years later, by Christians all over the world.

While the councils addressed various heresies and defined orthodox belief in the Nicene Creed, the message of Christianity itself did not change much. What did change, however, was how Christians lived out the message of Jesus in the world. The early church was called “The Way” and was known for its countercultural way of living. However, over the centuries and in response to persecution, Christianity gradually became primarily a way of believing rather than a way of living. During the era of Constantine and in the years that followed, much more energy was spent on defining how Christians are to think rather than how Christians are to live. The theological conversations progressively move from the heart to the head, focusing more on doctrines and less on actions.

From Christianity’s earliest days, friends and foes alike had described how radically different Christians were. Jesus had said that the world would know we are Christians by our love, and that is exactly what happened in those first few centuries. The onlooking world marveled that Christians fed the pagan poor as well as their own. They turned enemies into friends and loved even those who hated them. They would rather die than kill. Sadly, however, it was not these ways of living that were codified during the councils Constantine convened. What was debated and crystallized were doctrinal beliefs. To be clear, some very important clarifications were needed. And yet, you can’t help but wonder what might happened if it hadn’t been just doctrine that was set into stone, but also an ethic of life, lifestyle commitments, and a strong stance against violence.

What if the creed millions of Christians still recite every Sunday in worship also stated a commitment to life and affirmed the dignity of every person—the imago dei? Maybe it’s time to write a few new creeds today.

Historically, Christianity has always affirmed “orthodoxy,” meaning “right belief,” from which we get doctrine. But it has also held orthodoxy together with “orthopraxis,” meaning “right practice” or right living. Like the two blades of scissors or the two paddles of a rowboat, orthodoxy and orthopraxis go together.

Faith without works is dead (James 2:14–26). They will know we are Christians by our love (John 13:35). We can’t say that we love God and ignore our neighbor in need (1 John 3:16-17). Even as we look at Jesus, we do not see him teaching doctrines and theology alone, but also teaching us and showing us how to live.

Jesus put flesh on doctrine by literally becoming the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Jesus was not just inviting people to sign a doctrinal statement, he was inviting people to join a revolution—and still is. But that’s what began to give way during Constantine—the revolutionary, counter-cultural way of life of early Christianity.

Some point out, and rightly so, the irony that Constantine wasn’t even a baptized Christian as he oversaw these historic gatherings. Many contend that his primary interests were political more than they were religious—a divided church meant a divided empire and a weaker base. Perhaps he did have a deathbed conversion and got baptized before he died, as many believe. But in all those years before his death, he was quite a paradox, and ultimately did much damage to our understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

A tree is known by its fruit, as Jesus said. In the end, if Christianity was more than just a political endorsement for Constantine, it is hard to see how that really translated into his own life. In fact, the year after he hosted the Council of Nicaea, he killed his own son Crispus. And a month or so later, he killed his wife Fausta by having her basically boiled to death in hot water. Not very befitting of any man of God, if I might be so pretentious to say. And yet, to this day, Constantine is recognized by many Christians as a saint. The Orthodox Church calls him “isapostolos”—equal to the apostles. And that itself, is part of the problem.

What had fundamentally changed was the church’s proximity to power, and now the church faced decisions about how to use its power. Specifically, should it use the power of the state to enforce the doctrines of the church? And by “enforce,” it’s important to know that the church now had the authority not just to excommunicate heretics, but to actually kill them.

It was also during Constantine’s reign that we begin to see the seeds of Christian colonization, which we’ll dig into in chapter 8. The words of Constantine’s vision, “By this conquer,” will echo throughout the ages to conquistadors and colonizers, providing holy cover for unholy missions.

The reign of Constantine is where we recognize the first cracks in the steadfast commitment to life that characterized the early Jesus movement. It’s also when we begin to see what compromised Christian faith can look like, more generally speaking. I guess some would call it the evolution of Christianity. I would call it the dissolution. Some would call it progress. I would call it digress, especially when it comes to how we value life.

The Post-Constantine Era

By AD 350, just over a decade after the death of Constantine, there were 33 million Christians in the Roman Empire. They were now more than half the Roman population—56 percent. The number of Christians outnumbered the number of non-Christians for the first time. Let that sink in. In a mere seventy years, Christianity went from being a persecuted revolutionary movement to an accepted minority religion, and then to the established religion of the entire Roman Empire.

While Constantine had made Christianity the majority religion in the empire, it would be the next emperor, Theodosius (AD 379–395), who would make it the official religion of the Roman Empire. Theodosius was the emperor who began to aggressively “Christianize” the empire. He used his power to ban both unorthodox Christians and pagans. He destroyed pagan temples and incited mob violence alongside the violence wielded by the state. At one point, undoubtedly provoked and emboldened by the emperor, the archbishop of Alexandria rounded up a group of monks to destroy the serapeum, one of the shrines to the Egyptian god Serapis. And Theodosius congratulated the Christians who tore it down. This was his decree:

It is our will that all the peoples who are ruled by . . . our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans. . . We command that those persons who follow this rule shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. . . . The rest, however, whom we adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, . . . and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of our own initiative, which we shall assume in accordance with divine judgement.

Obviously, that didn’t go over well with many people, namely the formerly pagan majority that was now quickly become a minority both in numbers and in access to power. At one point, there were riots and Theodosius was absolutely brutal, slaughtering thousands of men, women, and children. On another occasion, he killed 7,000 people in three hours. Theodosius was so relentlessly violent that he was temporarily excommunicated by one of the bishops of the church, Bishop Ambrose of Milan. He was not permitted to take the Eucharist because he had betrayed Christ by spilling blood. You may recall the statement of the third-century bishop Cyprian, that the hand that takes the Eucharist should not be “sullied by the blood-stained sword!”

Shortly after the rule of Theodosius, fifteen years later to be precise, the Roman Empire collapsed, sacked by Visigoths in 410 AD. For the first time in 800 years, Rome was unable to defend itself from outside invasion. The Roman Empire fell, but the church lived on.

Other emperors would come and go. Some, such as Justinian in AD 527, considered themselves to be what historian Susan Wise Bauer describes as “the representative of Christ on earth.” As a Byzantine emperor and professing Christian, he began the ambitious mission known as “renovation imperii,” or “the restoration of the empire.” In service of his cause, Justinian slaughtered 30,000 people in one week to put down what came to be called the Nika Riots in Constantinople. It is unclear if he saw himself representing God or the state—or both—as he killed these men, women, and children. It was hard to know where the emperor’s reign ended and God’s kingdom began. The marriage of church and state had begun.

Christians began to kill other Christians whom they considered heretics. And Christians began to kill people of other faiths, along with native peoples and pagans. Those who had been tortured and jailed became the ones who tortured and jailed others. The ones who had seen their books burned and their buildings torched became the ones who burned the books and destroyed the buildings of others. The persecuted became the persecutors. Those who had been the victims of state power now wielded that power. Those who had suffered from the military occupation now served in the military. The executed now became the executioners. After 300 years of steadfast commitment to life and standing up against death and violence in all its manifestations, Christians became the empire and exchanged the cross for a sword.

The brilliant Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard insisted that where everything is Christian nothing is Christian. In other words, we lose our essence, the distinctive, counter-cultural witness of the upside-down kingdom.

We can say that we are a Christian empire, but the question is, how much do we remind the world of Jesus? As history shows, Christian empires, if there is such a thing, usually lose their souls.

A wise man once said, “What good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul?”

Excerpt from Shane Claiborne’s Rethinking Life, Zondervan Books, Published 2023, Used by permission.

To hone my focus, I created a Lenten Garden which sits on my desk to guide my meditations each morning. My first step was to decorate a stone and write the words “For love of the world God did foolish things around the decoration. This sits as the centre-piece for the garden. Around it I planted several succulents to represent the desert of Christ’s 40 days of temptation, and then sprinkled it with sand and placed several heart shaped rocks around the garden.

I love the process of creating a contemplative garden like this. It always begins with dreaming, then moves through the gathering of materials to creation before I get to the stage at which it is ready to be used for meditation. Finally, after Easter I will enter the last stage of the garden’s life – letting go, a hard but necessary step. As I comment in my book Digging Deeper: The Art of Contemplative Gardening, “Accepting and incorporating impermanence into our rituals enables us to accept and embrace change in a healthy and liberating way. We let go of our desire for permanence, of control, of acquisitiveness and even of our creative process. It is hard but we learn a lot in the process about ourselves, about God and God’s good creation.” It seems even more relevant as Lent slides into Easter.

As I painted my stone, and created my garden, I had plenty of time to think about what practices I wanted to do throughout Lent this year. I pulled out my bible and read two scriptures:

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Matthew 22:37, 38 CEB)

These verses hold the essence of God’s love and of the purpose of Lent from my perspective. Lent is meant to be about learning to love God more fully and expressing that love out into the world that God loves. It is about letting go of distractions that keep me from the path God intends me to tread, a path that is meant to draw me closer to God, to neighbours and to God’s good creation. It is also a time to grab hold of new commitments to actions that will transform my life and the lives of others, as they bring glimpses of God’s eternal world into being. In other words, this is a time to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds and love our neighbours as ourselves.

As I reflected on this, three questions, that I will return to throughout Lent formed in my mind:

For love of God, what am I willing to give up?

For love of my neighbours and of God’s world, what am I willing to give up?

And for love of myself and my own wellbeing what am I willing to give up? 

Interestingly, as I share these questions with others, it is the second question “For love of my neighbours and of God’s world, what am I willing to give up, that people struggle with the most. Lent is about preparing ourselves for the life of God’s eternal world, a world in which there is no more pain or suffering or destruction. It is a time to commit to actions that will bring glimpses of God’s shalom world into being. Is there an organization that works with the poor, the unjustly treated or the disabled you would like to volunteer with during Lent?  Could you help clean up the environment in your neighbourhood, maybe commit to at least one day a week car free? Or is this the time to start gardening? Perhaps there are privileges of wealth and education we need to give up. Or prejudice against those of other faiths, sexual orientations, or ethnic groups. Or you might consider giving up your car or the heat in your house for several days. Whatever you choose it might make you look foolish in the eyes of your friends or the world but if it makes God’s world a better place it is worth it.

As Lent began this year, I launched a new podcast The Liturgical Rebels (https://godspacelight.com/liturgical-rebels-podcast-is-live).This podcast is for those who feel restricted to traditional spiritual practices that often seem outdated and of little relevance in today’s world. It is for those who are discouraged to express their own creative talents and develop spiritual practices that are uniquely them. The Liturgical Rebels podcast is for people who want to reimagine and reconstruct their faith and spiritual practices.

What I was not prepared for was the need to give up other commitments that it made necessary. This week I found myself letting go of webinars and unwritten blog posts that I no longer have time for. It has been a hard decision because I love what I do and like most of us I rationalize that this means I should hold on as long as possible. However, Lent is about relinquishment. It confronts us with our mortality, our vulnerability, our ambitions. It confronts us with how seriously we will follow Jesus into the future and challenges us with the need to do foolish things, like giving up ministry and practices that has been important for years.

I hope you will consider joining The Liturgical Rebels this year. Step outside the box of convention and triviality and do something more than giving up chocolate or reading a short devotional each morning. Take Lent seriously and do something foolish for God.

For love of God
For love of the world,
This beautiful yet pain filled earth
On which we live,
God does foolish things.
How strange and unwise,
To send a much beloved son
To dwell amongst us,
Knowing he would die
A tragic and painful death.
Only love would be so reckless,
And so vulnerable.
Only God would care so much
For those who
despised and rejected Holy love.
For love of the world,
God does foolish things,
That turn the world upside down.
And bring life where we expected death.

When I reached the side alley of the building, I noticed a car backed in beside an emergency exit door. The car had no license plate. The terrorist attacks weighing heavily on my mind, I was afraid someone may have been hiding in the store. In order to make sure that my night crew was safe, I called the police.

Three to four minutes after calling 911, three or four police cars abruptly surrounded my car. I had no clue what was going on. The drivers were shining their high beams into my car, and the light completely blinded me. I did not know who was there, how many of them were surrounding me, or whether they had guns drawn on me. I froze. Then I cried. I didn’t want to die.

Eventually, they yelled through a megaphone to roll my window down and place my hands outside the vehicle. My car didn’t have automatic windows, so rolling the window down meant dropping my hands below their line of sight. I couldn’t see them, what they were doing, or how close they were to me. I assumed they had their guns drawn, so I stayed frozen. Then I cried more. I didn’t dare move a muscle. My fear for my own life told me that as soon as I reached down, they would kill me. So here I was in an alley on the side of a store preparing to meet my Maker because I was certain I was about to be shot.

After what seemed like an eternity, one lone officer approached my car. He must have told his fellow officers to turn off their lights, then he tapped on my window and told me that I was going to be okay, and he kindly asked me again to roll down the window. I was terrified, and he knew it, and he saved me and the other officers from reacting in a way that could have ended my life. I was thankful that he didn’t let fear control him or the situation. He did not know me. He did not know that I was the person who made the initial call.

As I reflect on the encounter, two factors played a significant role in the way I reacted: I am Black, and I am autistic. What I wish I had known back then is that many people who are neurodivergent process information differently than those who are neurotypical. Neurodivergence usually includes autism, ADHD, and other neurological differences. One way that neurodivergent brains operate differently has to do with executive functioning, or how the brain absorbs information, organizes it, and acts on the information in a manner that is safe and effective. In intense and high-stress situations, executive functioning can become challenging, if not impossible.

I don’t tell this story very often because for so many people these are not unusual occurrences. They happen regularly. I am grateful that those officers spared my life when all the ingredients for a fatal shooting of an unarmed, young Black male were present. I have lived to talk about it, but so many others have not.

In August 2019, police in Aurora, Colorado, approached twenty-three-year-old Elijah McClain after they had received a 911 call reporting a “suspicious person” walking down the road in a ski mask and behaving strangely. When officers confronted McClain, he repeatedly asked the officers to let go of him and announced that he was going home. Elijah was a young, Black, autistic man.

Those who have sensory-processing challenges, which are common in autistic individuals, are often averse to touch, especially when they do not initiate contact. The body camera transcripts of the event record McClain repeatedly asking the officers to let him go, pleading with them, “Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking.” We can also hear McClain explaining his plan to go home. Another common characteristic of autism is difficulty switching from one activity to the next without a thorough transition or additional time to adjust to the new expectations. The random police officers approaching McClain for an unknown and undisclosed reason most likely interfered with his internalized plan of simply going home.

Finally, we hear Elijah stating, “I’m just different, that’s all. I’m just different.” Many believe this was Elijah’s way of trying to explain his autistic behavior and neurology to officers who deemed his behavior strange and, eventually, dangerous.

Officers at the scene eventually restrained McClain, who weighed only 143 pounds, using a choke hold. When paramedics arrived, an injection of ketamine was administered to calm him down. Because of the strength with which he resisted the officers, they wrongly suspected McClain was on drugs at the time of their encounter. Ketamine is a powerful sedative, and the paramedics administered Elijah a dose that was nearly twice the amount recommended for an individual his size. Shortly thereafter, Elijah stopped breathing. They then took him to the hospital, where he would die three days later.

Elijah McClain had no weapon. His family later reported that Elijah suffered from anemia, which made him cold, so it was not uncommon for him to wear a ski mask in order to keep warm. The investigation found that the Aurora police had no legal basis to stop, frisk, or restrain Elijah. Essentially, Elijah died because of implicit racial and ableist biases.

Implicit racial bias strongly shapes the treatment of people of color in the US judicial system. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the NYPD, from 2002 to 2011, conducted stop and frisk procedures on millions of citizens, about 90 percent of those being Black and Hispanic people. Eighty-eight percent of those minorities who the police profiled and stopped had no weapons or contraband. Often, what leads to such practices is the perception that Black and Brown bodies and the behaviors they display are inherently more aggressive—and therefore more dangerous.

There are several research studies that have found that compared to White people, Black people are far more often subject to automatic and subconscious negative stereotypes and prejudice. These thoughts usually extend beyond just negative attitudes; Black and Brown bodies are associated with violence, threatening behavior, and crime. Black men are also more likely to be misremembered for carrying a weapon because of this bias.

Let’s be honest: The stories I am sharing with you are not unusual. There’s nothing new about the statistics that prove racial bias is a reality in our country. There’s nothing new about Black authors, scholars, activists, and clergy speaking up about these issues. What is new, and what I am aiming to bring to this ongoing discussion, is that racial bias in America is not simply an issue of race. It is not simply an issue of skin preference. It is not just an issue of a lack of diversity. Race-based slavery and the enduring racial bias and discrimination it created are about disability discrimination as well. Our issues with racism are in fact issues of ableism— and American Christianity has played a significant role in influencing ableism in our present cultural context.

Content taken from How Ableism Fuels Racism by Lamar Hardwick, ©2024. Used by permission of Brazos Press.

TONY: I was on a radio show in New Zealand with a Christian Zionist who believes that Christ cannot return until the Jews are in sole possession of the Holy Land. I remember saying, “Wait a minute! Do you realize that the land that was promised to Abraham reaches from the Euphrates to the Nile? That’s what you read it in the book of Genesis. I mean, we’re not talking only about what we now call the state of Israel, or even the land occupied by Palestinians. It’s all the land from the Euphrates to the Nile. That includes a good chunk of Jordan, all of Lebanon, a good part of Egypt, and a good chunk of Syria. All of these lands would have to be cleared of non-Jews according to your beliefs, and only Jews would be allowed to live on that land. What do you propose should be done with all the people who live in that land right now?”

He said, “Well, they will have to leave, and if they won’t go voluntarily they must be forced to leave. And if they won’t budge, they will have to be killed.”

Shocked, and disbelieving what I had just heard, I asked, “Are you talking about genocide?”

His response was: “Well, didn’t God ordain genocide when the Jews went into the Holy Land the first time? Were the Jews not ordered to kill every man, woman and child, along with every animal? Were they not called upon to exercise genocide back then? The God who ordered genocide back when Joshua invaded the Holy Land is the same God we have today.”

I had to tell this Christian that my understanding of God as revealed in Jesus Christ trumps whatever was thought about God back there in Old Testament days. I do not believe that the God who is revealed in Jesus is a God who wills genocide. “If you and I hold opposite positions on this,” I told him, “I am not sure we worship the same God.”

Two things to be said about this. First, when Christian Zionists believe that Christ cannot return until the Jews are in sole possession of the Holy Land, they make Paul into a mistaken man. Paul said that every Christian, at every moment of every day from his time on, should live in the expectancy of the immediate return of Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:1–11). If Paul was right, then let it be said to anyone reading this book that, before you finish this paragraph, a trumpet could sound and Christ could return, whether or not the Jews are sole possessors of the Holy Land. To deny that is to deny what Scripture teaches.

Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus said to his disciples, “This generation shall not pass away till all these things are fulfilled” (Matthew 24:34). Was Jesus lying? His words led those in the early church to fix their attention on Saint John. He was the last surviving disciple, so folks figured the second coming of Christ would have to occur before he died. The early Christians lived with the expectation that Christ’s return was in the immediate future. There isn’t a theologian or a biblical scholar who I know of who will debate the fact that the early church, following the resurrection of Christ, expected Jesus to return at any moment. Are the Christian Zionists then saying, “Oh, those early Christians were wrong. They were mistaken because it’s already been more than two thousand years and Christ hasn’t returned”? Are they suggesting that Jesus was misleading his disciples, and that Paul made a mistake when he challenged the church to live in the expectancy of a Christ who could return at any moment? To think that way, I say, is blasphemy.

The Scriptures talk about the eschaton (the conclusion of history) when Christ returns. Christians shouldn’t talk as though the earth will end by being burnt up by fire. The Bible tells us that there will be a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1).

Isaiah 65 describes this world in wonderful terms. It says that when that great day comes, that everyone will have a decent house to live in. Isaiah tells us that everyone will have a job and that everyone will get the fair pay for his or her labors. That means that there won’t be children in Thailand producing sneakers and being paid only a dollar a day, so that we can buy those sneakers at bargain prices at Walmart and Target.

Children will no longer die in infancy, and old people will live out their long lives in health and wellbeing. That’s a vision of the eschaton that is “good news.” It is a vision of the future that challenges me to work toward those ends in the here and now.

SHANE: One of the clearest signs of hope I’ve seen happened in the West Bank this year; I got to visit a family who are new heroes of mine, the Nassar family. They put a name and a face on the conflict. They are Palestinian Christians who have lived simple lives off the land for generations, until recently. Israeli settlements have been built all around them, and the Israeli government tried to take their land. Unlike most families who lived in communal handshake agreements on land deals, they actually have deeds going back over a hundred years that prove they own their land, which made things tricky for the Israeli government.

As the Nassar family continued living on their land, a new strategy evolved—harassment. Olive trees were uprooted. Piles of boulders were dumped on the road leading to their home, so they couldn’t get any vehicles in and out. Even though they owned the land, they were refused permits for electricity and water. So, they went off the grid and used solar and rainwater collection. When they were refused building structure permits for their home, they started building underground, which is where I got to visit them.

It is one of the most inspirational stories of persistent love and Christ-driven nonviolence I have ever seen. At the front of their property is a sign that reads, “We refuse to be enemies.” After their olive trees were uprooted, a Jewish group caught wind of it and came and helped them replant them all. One story after another of reconciliation. One final attempt was made to buy them out, and the Israeli government offered them a blank check, telling them to name the price, however many millions of dollars they want for their land. But the Nassar family said, “No, there is no price.” They continue to live there and have gotten to know their neighbors. At one point they invited one of the Israeli settlers do dinner. When she came into their house, she started weeping, and said, “You have no water, and we have swimming pools. Something is wrong.” And when asked how they retain hope in the midst of such injustice, they simply say, “Jesus” with a big smile. (4)

Chapter 22. On the Middle East
4. Here’s where you can learn more about the Nassar family: http://www.tentofnations.org. And here are some powerful videos from our last visit: http://vimeo.com/37434264, http://vimeo.com/37416952, and