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True Christians vs Devil Worshippers

Christians

It is a privilege to write about the persecuted church, who are true Christians, and one I certainly do not deserve. I feel that this should be done by someone holy, which I am not. I am an ordinary sinner. Their stories of great persecution and of great faith often reduce me to tears and make me more aware of how much I take my religious freedoms for granted and how undeserving I am of God’s tremendous grace and love.

I desperately want to help them. I would like to reach through my computer screen and lift them out of their misery and restore them in every possible way. On a tangible level, I am limited to giving what I can. I encourage everyone to give generously to the persecuted church. Our brothers and sisters often sacrifice everything to follow Jesus Christ, and they need our help. As Christians know though, our power is really in our prayers and petitions to our God. It is in my prayers for them, which are the most frequent and the most intense of all my prayers, that my hope ultimately resides. I would like the Lord to hear these above all others, hear his people’s tears and suffering, and with his powerful hand do what I cannot.  

Christ Suffered, True Christians Also Suffer

When Christians pray, we often ask for many things. We ask to be granted various forms of aid and to be relieved of suffering for ourselves and for others. This is quite understandable, and we should continue to do so. However, we also need to remember that the story for Christians is the story of Christ, and his story is one of suffering. Jesus died a brutal death, executed by crucifixion under false charges. It was also a death he freely accepted. We can remember his journey and allow his tremendous sacrifice, which is our salvation, to also be our comfort as we endure our own trials and tribulations.

“I Have Chosen You Out of the World”

The following words applied to Jesus’s disciples then and still apply to the persecuted church throughout the world today. Jesus said, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you…. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.” (John 15:18-19, 21)

A Story of a True Christian

There are so many stories of persecution that deserve our attention, and they span the globe, from the Middle East to Asia to Africa to South America. To highlight one story, there is nothing more painful for a parent than to lose his or her child. As shared by Christopher Summers with Open Doors (2019), Neelesh’s 7-year-old Christian son was beaten to death by Buddhist boys at his boarding school in India.

After his death, his depressed father resorted to alcohol to self-medicate and, on one occasion, ran into his former pastor. “Gazing right into my eyes, he said, ‘Neelesh, do you want to meet your son?’ I was so very angry. I said, ‘Are you mocking me? You know he is long dead!’ To my astonishment, the pastor replied gently, ‘If you drink like this and leave Jesus, you will never meet your boy, who is now in heaven.’

‘His answer shook me to the core. Here was the truth! My son was just seven when he died, but he loved Jesus. He sang hymns wholeheartedly whenever I led in worship. My martyred son is surely in heaven. I would never see him if I left Jesus.

‘That night I had a vision. I saw my son playing in a beautiful garden. As I went towards him he stopped me and said, “Dad, you should not come here now. It is not yet your time. See, I am very happy here.”’

Neelesh says that after that night he felt an extraordinary peace in his heart. He comforted his wife and restarted his ministry. ‘It was as if God had revived me totally,’ he says. ‘I moved on with more faith and zeal than ever and have been continuing still.’”

Christians who are born again can often point to a moment when grace penetrated their heart, mind and soul and soon thereafter redirected their lives to fulfill God’s will. This is not to suggest that they magically transform into a different person or that they experience no doubts or spiritual setbacks afterwards but that their faith becomes solidified in a way it had not been before and that they gain renewed clarity and purpose for their lives.

The truth of Neelesh’s life is that his suffering, the loss of his only son because he followed Jesus, could have made him a bitter man, but instead he became a better man and a better Christian through grace. This is what it means to be a Christian.

Desecration of Christians’ Sacred Symbols

It feels almost sacrilegious to write of the holy and the unholy in the same post, but it is important to place them next to each other to see the obvious contrast of true Christians with devil worshippers. It is easy to hold the Bible high, and we recently witnessed this profanity by the dear leader of the devil worshippers, the supposed president of the United States. This sacrilegious act made headlines for all the wrong reasons, yet it was defended by certain people of whom we will speak shortly.

Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, wrote on June 4, 2020, “I was outraged by…Trump’s use of the Bible and the backdrop of St. John’s Church for his political purposes. I was horrified to learn that while he was threatening to use military force across America, peaceful protesters were being forcibly removed from Lafayette Park so that he might pose before the church for a photograph. I wasn’t alone. My phone lit up with messages from people across the country who, like me, couldn’t believe what we were seeing. But if we keep the focus of our outrage there, we allow ourselves to be distracted from the issues that are compelling Americans to take to the streets in large numbers. I wonder if that’s the intention.”

Indeed, the nation is wondering a good many things. Predominant among them should be: how did we get here, where a satanic cult leader is also the leader of the free world? Perhaps the most important reason is: the “Christian right.”

The Opposite of Christians – Devil Worshippers

The Gospel Coalition recently wrote a piece on QAnon, which they described as a satanic cult. Carter (May 20, 2020) wrote, “As Adrienne LaFrance writes, ‘To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion.’” Indeed. That new religion is a satanic cult that bears no resemblance to Christianity. Carter follows with, “(…Trump has frequently retweeted QAnon-related accounts on Twitter, and some parenting and lifestyle ‘influencers’ promote the views on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.) Although it’s still on the fringe, Christians should be aware of the threat this political cult poses to the global church.”

What The Gospel Coalition and Carter should have said is that they are actually describing the “Christian right,” i.e. self-proclaimed “Christian conservatives,” although there is nothing either Christian or conservative about them, and that QAnon is just a more extreme expression of the very ideas and the culture that is mainstream in their churches. The “Christian conservatives” will take great umbrage at this characterization and protest (of course, they doth protest too much), but it is an accurate description.

As just one example, Eric Martin (August 2020) wrote, “One of the alt-right’s biggest political influences is former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, communications director under Ronald Reagan. He and fellow Catholic Joe Sobran served as inspiration for a blog referred to as ‘the alt-right’s favorite philosophy instructor,’ and his comments on immigration and questioning the Holocaust are the type of kinder, gentler white nationalism that provides oxygen for the more obvious forms. Buchanan has claimed that Jews hold the ‘real power’ in the U.S., that not as many died in the Holocaust as reported, and that ‘this has been a country built, basically, by white folks.’ When an interviewer suggested that white people had held power in the U.S. for years, Buchanan bristled. ‘I don’t know where you grew up,’ he retorted. ‘I grew up in a Catholic ghetto.'”

As another example, Franklin Graham is the son of Billy Graham, and he has inherited a legacy he does not deserve. What was the supposed high priest of the “Christian right’s” reaction to the repugnant desecration of a church? Franklin Graham took to Facebook with the following message, “President Donald J. Trump made a statement by walking through Lafayette Park to St. John’s Episcopal Church that had been vandalized and partially burned Sunday night. He surprised those following him by holding up a Bible in front of the church. Thank you President Trump. God and His Word are the only hope for our nation.” What would compel Franklin Graham to defend the indefensible?

Simple. Franklin Graham does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is power hungry. Similarly, Eric Metaxas does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is a careerist. Another, Jerry Falwell, Jr. does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is an opportunist. The list goes on. They worship false gods. They are devil worshipers since they all worship Donald Trump. They are not Christians, and they need to stop claiming to be Christians. Do not be led astray by these pretenders, these worshippers of false gods.

Christians’ One True God

Let us return to our one true God. Jesus fulfills the word, and what he said of the unbelievers who knew Moses’s laws and words and could recite them quite well but never understood their meaning still applies today to other self-proclaimed “believers.” Jesus said, “’I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?” (John 5:41-44)

The false prophets do not love Jesus or the Father, and they do not have the love of God in them. We know this because if they did, it would show clearly to the rest of us. Instead, when we hear them or see them, we cannot see Jesus because he is not there. Jesus is one of the most loved and admired figures in the world. Even those who do not believe in his divinity can see his goodness because it is clear who Jesus loves. He loves the Father and us. He is one with the Father, and every word he spoke and every action he took reflected who he was and who he loved.

When in the garden at Gethsemane, Jesus says, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) This is what real love of God looks like, and it is also obvious in the persecuted church. Do not mistake false prophets for men of God. Men of god love God; they seek his praise and his love; they seek to do his will. In Neelesh, we can see Jesus. Summers writes, “The anguish of losing his son has not passed—and never will—but the hope has returned. ‘I have made up my mind now,’ Neelesh says. ‘I will live for Christ and if He wants, I will die for him. Because what I lose for Him, I will actually gain in the end.’”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In Martin Luther King, Jr., we can see Jesus. In his famous, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, he said, “All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper….  Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights….

We’ve got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn’t matter with me now because I have been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will, and he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So, I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” He was assassinated the next day.  

The “Christian Right” Are Not Christians

Instead, what do people see when they look at the “Christian right”? Nothing holy and nothing resembling Jesus. There are so many damning statements. I am surely missing some of the most biting, but here is a sampling nonetheless.

“Evangelicals use the cloak of Christianity to disguise their true nature like klansman use their hoods. They share the same God, a racist vengeful God, a God made in their own image, a God who supports their worst fears, hate and prejudice. They see trust and love as an abyss.”

“A Born-Again Karen…”

“Jesus wasn’t white or American or Republican. Something tells me you’d be less enthusiastic if you met him in the flesh.”

“The fact that so many conservative Christians have interpreted many people’s desire to eradicate white supremacy as a precursor to canceling Christianity in America is incredibly telling …”

You get the idea. It is like trying to escape one’s racist past while still being racist in the present. No amount of cute marketing gimmicks, such as “weird [insert denomination or denomination] Twitter,” can change that.

The Satanic Cult Leader

Christianity Today’s retired editor in chief Mark Galli (December 2019) wrote a powerful statement regarding Trump’s impeachment, in which he declared that Trump should be removed from the office because of his character weaknesses and his conduct. Galli’s statement took courage, and he deserves credit for it. However, you know what else was powerful? The backlash against it from white evangelicals and other “Christian conservatives.”

More recently, Christianity Today published a piece that wholly lacked Galli’s moral clarity. Jayson Casper (June 30, 2020) wrote, “… ‘Trump’s executive order will make the commitment to international religious freedom more robust,’ said former congressman Frank Wolf, arguing the Trump administration has been markedly stronger on the issue than those of either party. ‘If you care about religious freedom, this is an issue to vote on.’”

Indeed, if you care about religious freedom, it is an issue to vote on, but it would be decidedly against Trump, the man who gave the green light to Xi’s concentration camp for Uighurs, in which all manner of evil occurs including rape. Religious freedom means religious freedom for all, not just for Christians.

What Christianity and Christians Look Like

While the “Christian right” morally contorts themselves into pretzels to avoid what is clearly a difficult choice for them between Jesus and Trump, the persecuted church has no such difficulties. They, like Martin Luther King, Jr., like the recently deceased John Lewis, like Elijah Cummings, like so many good Christian men and women around the world choose Christ over everything including themselves. That is love for and faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. That is what Christianity and true Christians look like. Do not be deceived by anything or anybody else. Look for the Lord in those who claim to be Christian and if you cannot find Jesus, you could very well be looking at the devil in disguise.

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White Culture Is No Culture

Culture

Without ethnic minority groups, the United States would have no culture because white Christian culture by itself is no culture. Given its various characteristics, such as location, population, economics, etc., the Midwest is a good region to analyze to better understand the country as a whole.

The midwestern states are: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The Midwest can be divided into two subregions: the Northwest Territory (also known as the Old Northwest) and the Great Plains. States in the Northwest Territory are Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, and the rest, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, belong to the Great Plains.

Based on the July 2017 census, the largest city in the entire Midwest is Chicago, Illinois, which unsurprisingly also has the largest metropolitan area. Given its sheer size and diversity, Chicago is more similar to New York City or Los Angeles than other midwestern cities. It is also part of the Northwest Territory.

Minneapolis Culture

Outside of Chicago, arguably no other midwestern city boasts a truly vibrant culture aside from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It ranks eighth among the largest cities and third for the largest metropolitan area. Minneapolis is actually one of the two “Twin Cities,” with Saint Paul being the other city, which ranks twelfth.

Minneapolis has grown and changed dramatically in its recent history, and it now ranks among the most cultured cities in the country. Where does this culture come from? The answer is that it does not come from white Christians. It comes from its ethnic minorities.

Food Culture

Without its ethnic minority groups, again the people who are not white Christians, the city of Minneapolis and its inhabitants would still be eating lefsa and lutefisk, not that there is anything wrong with them as cultural legacy, but there is just not much demand for the rather crude culinary offerings.

Neither is there much culinary sophistication in “hotdish,” also known as casserole, hotdogs and burgers, the last two being originally German fare. They are all now standard American fare, but they so ubiquitous that they, by themselves, cannot create a culinary culture.

Eat Street, which runs along Nicollet Avenue, starting just outside its downtown district, is one of the most well-known streets in Minneapolis for food. It hosts a variety of restaurants but is dominated by Asian ones.

The restaurants are supported by farmers markets and a growing farm-to-table movement, giving minority groups, such as the Hmong, a way to maintain their traditional livelihoods. (Obviously, many restaurants in the city have come under financial pressure due to the shutdown in response to the pandemic.)

Nelson (2019) writes, “Restaurants have always been on the front lines of the melting pot in this country. Twin Cities diners can circumnavigate the globe several times over and never leave the seven-county metro area. Culinary traditions spanning every continent — Indonesia to India, Morocco to Mexico, Somalia to Singapore — are represented here in restaurants and markets, a breadth and depth unimaginable 20 years ago.”

Long Live the Arts

However, food alone does not a culture make. There are many cities in diverse parts of the country, for example Southern California, with well-developed food cultures that still lack a strong overall culture. Also, many Americans mistake entertainment for culture. Sports are entertainment. They are not a key contributor to a city’s culture.

The arts and a vibrant arts community are absolutely critical to creating an authentic local culture. The Minneapolis arts scene thrives in all forms: fine arts, theater, music, dance, local activities and festivals, often using its well-maintained public parks and lakes, which are also an investment, as its venues. It is not just about art for art’s sake but art for the sake of having a living city, a city that has a sense of cultural purpose, not just a city in which one lives.

Minneapolis Music Culture – Bob Dylan and Prince

The two most famous people to come out of the state are Bob Dylan and Prince. Bob Dylan, originally named Robert Allen Zimmerman, was born to a Jewish family in Duluth, MN and raised in Hibbing, MN. He later moved to Minneapolis to study at the University of Minnesota. After dropping out of college, he moved to New York City, where he started and made his musical career. As an aside, Bob Dylan was inspired by Woody Guthrie, whose life and music should be reflected upon more, particularly as it relates to class, race relations and equality.  

Prince was born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis. He rose to stardom on sheer tenacity, savvy and talent, as a racist music industry once refused to allow him and other black musicians, such as arguably the most famous musician in the world at the time, Michael Jackson, to air their music videos on MTV. Prince’s exploitation by said music industry led him to change his name from his birth name to a symbol (a combination of male and female symbols) in 1993 until he changed it back in 2000.

Unlike Dylan, who left Minneapolis, Prince maintained his residence in the city, technically the suburb of Chanhassen, where his home and studio, Paisley Park are located. He hosted parties there, and he would sometimes show up at them or other music events in the city. He loved Minneapolis, and the city loved him. His untimely passing in 2016 at the age of 57 was one of the city’s great heartbreaks.

It is poetic justice that the city’s and state’s proudest native sons are a black man and a Jewish man, respectively. As the racist-tweeting, Eric Metaxas even somewhat concedes, Martin Luther, for his justified opposition to the corrupt Catholic Church was unjustifiably opposed to the people who actually gave us Christianity.

Given the large Lutheran population in Minnesota, it is sadly unsurprising that Minneapolis was once known as the “capitol of anti-Semitism,” and the city has also had a history of discrimination against its black residents, particularly related to housing. Dylan’s song Desolation Row starts by referring to the lynching of black men at the hands of depraved white people in Duluth, Minnesota.  

Update: Their murder occurred 100 years ago today, June 15, 2020. A message from Gov. Walz: “To truly be One Minnesota, we need to dismantle the systems of oppression that led to the deaths of Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie 100 years ago, and that led to the death of George Floyd just 3 weeks ago. Today I met with Duluth leaders to discuss how we can and will move forward.” On June 12, 2020, “the Governor [had] issued the state’s first posthumous pardon to Max Mason, who was wrongfully convicted and used as a scapegoat for the lynching.”

American Culture Is Color and Cool

Bazelon (2018) wrote, “Being white in America has long been treated, at least by white people, as too familiar to be of much interest. It’s been the default identity, the cultural wallpaper — something described, when described at all, using bland metaphors like milk and vanilla and codes like ‘cornfed’ and ‘all-American.'”

Another way of describing it is actually no culture, the absence of anything that gives life dimension, and frankly, some sense of cool. White people need to get over themselves and their “white fragility,” which as Waldman (2018) writes, DiAngelo argues in her book “holds racism in place,” because frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn and accept the fact that the collective minority groups bring coolness and culture to the country. They can justifiably throw their stake into American soil and claim its culture to be their own because it is.

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We Are Releasing Evil’s Death Grip

Death Grip

George Floyd was murdered by the Minneapolis Police on Memorial Day, May 25, 2020, a national holiday dedicated to mourning our military personnel who have died while serving our country. Surrounded by death from Covid 19, his singular death, on a day marked to pay our respects to prior deaths, seemed to paradoxically release the death grip on our country, as we threw ourselves into resurrecting it and rejecting evil.

This paradox was alluded to on our first brief post, “The specter of death now looms over the world as nature enters a period of rebirth. It might seem paradoxical, until one considers that it is also Lent, and life, death and rebirth have been married together in that context for approximately 2,000 years.”

Our nation’s rebirth has also overlapped with Pentecost Sunday, which was May 31, 2020, a day when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and gave them the fortitude, comfort and aid that they would need to spread the truth and the faith.

We are apostles of a different sort, as we take our demands for justice, our messages of love, peace, equality, of everything good and holy to a country that has been darkened by power, greed, corruption, betrayal and all manner of sin, in short, to a country that has fallen prey to the forces of evil.

Today, June 6, 2020 is the 76th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France in Operation Overlord during World War II. It is a day when the forces of good staged a pivotal battle in their war against the forces of evil, a day when Allied forces started to release the Nazi’s death grip on Europe, and anti-fascists faced down fascists and eventually won the war.   

For Americans, the past almost two weeks, starting May 26, 2020, when many of us first found out about George Floyd’s murder, have been some of the most emotionally taxing days in our memory. His murder was the catalyst for the outpouring of anger, frustration and sadness that had been building for many of us for years about the gross injustices our black sisters and brothers face on a daily basis.

As Wortham wrote in an essay titled, A Glorious Poetic Rage, “Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights organization Color of Change, speculated that it was the stark cruelty of the video of George Floyd’s death that captivated the country.”

The poetry of the moment is part of the country’s collective poetic anthology. Many on the right have tried to frame the present protests as unpatriotic or un-American, as an assault on “law and order,” but their characterizations could not be further from the truth. They are lies, and they are liars.

Following in the footsteps of honorable generations upon generations of Americans who have fought to defend our country, our protests are our psalms of communal lament for and our songs of love to our nation. They are our latest expressions of patriotism, and we are our country’s present defenders.

Let us not minimize the critical nature of this moment. We are the defenders of good, and we are in a battle against evil. We are fighting to unclench the fist that has been squeezing the breath and life out of our country and its people. (See this post for context.)

Just as our country’s citizens change, the poetic language of our citizens change. “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,” “Americans Will Always Fight for Liberty,” have taken on a more personal tone, as our cries repeat the final words of the victims of state-sanctioned violence, “I Can’t Breathe,” “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” to the simple assertion of black Americans’ humanity, a statement that had once been (and perhaps still is) the subject of controversy, “Black Lives Matter.”

Good Against Evil’s Death Grip

As in World War II, Americans are in a life and death battle against the forces of evil. Our lives are literally at stake, as is our democracy. We need to do everything we can to protect it from tyranny and fascism. Let us speak directly of this evil. As we spoke all of the names of the victims of police violence, let us speak the name of this evil that is destroying our country.

The devil does not just reside across an ocean, in a foreign country, speaking in a foreign tongue, but, our dear Americans, it lives in the people’s house. It has taken hold of our sacred national spaces and tried to force upon our country’s capital its death grip under the guise of relatively innocuous-sounding phrases, such as “flood the zone.”

Hiding in a bunker within the White House, fortified with fences upon fences, this evil man turned the country’s military, which is meant to protect us against our foreign enemies, against its own citizens, sometimes supplemented with unidentified men in heavily-armed riot gear.

These various armed forces have been attacking and harming peaceful protesters. In one case, this evil man did so to desecrate a sacred Christian house of worship while brandishing the Bible, which he never reads. This evil is trying to impose a fascist death grip on our nation’s capital and on our country.

This evil inhabits a soulless man named Donald J. Trump. Conway writes, “As a New Yorker profile of Trump put it nearly a quarter-century ago, Trump lives ‘an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.’ That’s Donald Trump’s problem yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

It is his eternal problem because as a child of darkness, he seems incapable of emitting one ounce of light. Instead, like a black hole, Trump functions by sucking everything into the demonic, empty, narcissistic shell of his person.

Trump’s Death Grip and His Satanic Cults

Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that the devil walks alone. He is accompanied by secular sycophants and religious mercenaries who have sold their professed “Christian” faith for their own personal ambitions.

In particularly, many white evangelicals stopped being about anything resembling Jesus. Instead of making themselves more like Jesus, they made Jesus more like themselves. Some of them have given themselves fully over to the dark side. QAnon is a satanic cult that is pretending to be Christian nationalists, which are a form of evil themselves.

However, the problem is not limited to just white evangelicals. Within the Catholic Church, which has had numerous engagements with the unholy while holding high its mantle of holiness, there are abettors of this evil. Most recently, the devil in the Catholic Church takes on the form of a petty man with gloriously meaningless turns of phrases that he recently weaved into a public display of idolization for a false god, Donald Trump.

Against these forces of evil, we are an army of good. We have each other, which is really all we need. We will prevail. We will save our country and ourselves from this present death grip so that it can breathe and so that we can truly live free. As Patrick Henry declared, so do we, “Give us liberty or give us death” because “Black Lives Matter.” We rise and fall together. E pluribus unum.

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George Floyd – Murdered by the Minneapolis Police

George Floyd
Josh Hild on Usplash

Minnesota calls itself the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and Minneapolis was known for its harsh winters and its good quality of life, including its well-maintained parks and lakes. Now, it is known as the city in which George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was cruelly murdered by the Minneapolis police, the men and women in whom we entrust with the great privilege and responsibility of protecting and serving our communities.

The Events Resulting in George Floyd’s Murder

The purported reason for George Floyd’s arrest was a suspected $20 white-collar crime, a fraudulent payment. The real reason was the color of his skin. Thanks to Darnella Frazier, whose account Twitter suspended for an unknown reason, we have the true story, the video of George Floyd’s death, instead of the deceptive story provided in the police report. We thank Darnella, who is only 17-years-old, for her courage, conscience and presence of mind to record it. She was traumatized by the experience, and we pray for her.

George Floyd died with an officer pressing his knee against his neck for over 9 minutes. Floyd’s tortured face pressed into the asphalt, he pled with the officer(s), speaking words that brought back the memory of Eric Garner, “I can’t breathe.” “I can’t breathe,” Floyd says; “I can’t breathe.” He calls out for his mother, “mama,” he says. He urinated on himself. (The graphic video can be found on the Internet.)

There were numerous witnesses. Their panicked concern was palpable, and they begged the officer(s) to release him, to take his knee of the visibly distressed man. The officers did not. You can hear the officers joking as George Floyd is dying. Floyd’s body slowly becomes lifeless, and when the medics came, he no longer had a pulse. He was dead. (A timeline of the events is provided here. )

This is how an American citizen, our brother, a broken man (as we all are) of faith, a human being, a child of God, died. He was treated like an animal, like his life had no value, like his person had no dignity. This is how the men we gave the privilege and responsibility of protecting and serving our communities treated one of our own. They heartlessly murdered George Floyd, and we are angry; we are traumatized; we are heartbroken, and we are fed up. We want peace, justice and revolution – not just change – but a complete transformation of our society.

Our Country Is Broken

The country, which had been suffering under decades of economic mismanagement and rising inequality, reached a fever pitch under the physical and mental stress of the pandemic, the associated shutdown, and its economic devastation. The country was (and still is) a tinder box. This was the spark that lit it on fire, in many cases, literally. Since May 25, 2020, the day George Floyd was wantonly murdered by the Minneapolis Police, there have been protests.

These protests often started out peacefully but, towards evening, would erupt into violence, as a combustible mix of opportunists, anarchists, implementing a modern version of propaganda of the deed, and/or Antifa (a violence-prone, left-wing anti-fascist group) and/or white supremacists (violent right-wing groups) looted, vandalized and terrorized the city, damaging many minority-owned businesses in the process.

Starting Friday, May 29, 2020, the city of Minneapolis was put under curfew from 8PM until 6AM, with violations being a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine. On the first night of the curfew, the violence had not really abated. (Images of the protests can be found here.)

The absurdity of the autopsy report is just more proof (as if we needed it) that the problem of systemic racism in our country is not simply about the police department but also a failure of our entire system of “justice.” It is an insult to our intelligence and a disgrace to our country. As Petri wrote, “[I]t is always at the moment that their knee is descending on a human neck, or their bullet is flying toward a man, or they have him in a chokehold, when this human being’s own system decides to turn against him. It is a horrible curse.”

George Floyd to the System Reforming Itself?

The key question is: can the system reform itself, to paraphrase Cornell West, who thinks it cannot. It is understandable why he would think so. It is understandable why the people, particularly younger people, who have been completely failed by the country, its supposed leaders and its institutions, would have no faith in any system within the country being capable of self-reformation.

In fact, despite everything in the news, the protests across the country for which the incident in Minneapolis was the catalyst, the following video was posted on Twitter today.

The justifiably angry driver says to the cop, “Dad a criminal?” Nope. “Dad a thug?” Nope. “Dad shot dead by a cop made a mistake cuz you want to come with your gun drawn.” In other words, even with protests exploding across the country in response to police brutality, as the man explains, the cop came to the car with his gun drawn over the driver not using a turn signal.

We are all too exhausted and emotionally drained to do more than try to process our pain, frustration and anger. It is hard to not feel a deep sense of despair and hopelessness about the state of our country right now. We must keep fighting though, and we have our faith to give us strength. Our deepest condolences to George Floyd’s friends and family. He was known to us, and he will be deeply missed. Fellow Americans, we say this with love – Jesus’s way – the way of peace – is the only way.

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Unemployment, Labor Mobility and Language

Labor Mobility
Leonardo Toshiro Okubo on Unsplash

One of the advantages that the United States has in comparison to India or the European Union is that, by and large, Americans all speak the same language, English, which facilitates labor mobility. (We highly encourage all Americans to learn a second language nonetheless.)

Fiscal Union, Labor Mobility and Language

The importance of speaking the same language was under-appreciated prior to Europe’s (the eurozone’s) launch of its currency and monetary union (one currency managed by one central bank) experiment, which is more commonly known as the euro. This likely resulted in labor mobility being overestimated. (Another factor of production whose mobility is important in this context is capital.)

The United States, Europe and India are all large, democratic countries or regions. However, India, unlike Europe (more specifically, the eurozone) but similar to the United States is also a fiscal union, but like Europe and dissimilar to the United States, India’s citizens speak different languages. (Although a detailed comparison of the three areas and these aspects, fiscal union and common language, are beyond the scope of this post, it is helpful to keep these similarities and differences in mind.) Thus, unlike India and Europe, the United States benefits from both a fiscal union and a common language.

The recent headlines have been focused on fiscal transfers, i.e., the federal government, which is not required to balance its budget, “bailing out” the states, with the federal government’s transfer of funds effectively being fiscal transfers between states. However, the mainstream media has not really covered labor mobility.

OCA Theory, Labor Mobility and Language

Mundell’s (1961) paper, “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas [OCA],” presents the considerations and factors in determining whether or not an area is to be considered an optimum currency area. Mundell (p657) says, “The problem [deciding between a system of fixed exchange rates or a currency union] can be posed in a general and more revealing way by defining a currency area as a domain within which exchange rates are fixed and asking: What is the appropriate domain of a currency area?”

Mundell (p6) states that the “argument for flexible exchange rates based on national currencies is only as valid as the Ricardian assumption about factor mobility. If factor mobility is high internally and low internationally a system of flexible exchange rates based on national currencies might work effectively enough.”

On an OCA with respect to Europe, Mundell (p661) states, “One can cite the well-known position of J. E. Meade…, who argues that the conditions for a common currency in Western Europe do not exist, and that, especially because of the lack of labor mobility, a system of flexible exchange rates would be more effective in promoting balance-of-payments equilibrium and internal stability; and the apparently opposite view of Tibor Scitovsky…who favors a common currency because he believes that it would induce a greater degree of capital mobility, but further adds that steps must be taken to make labor more mobile and to facilitate supranational employment policies.”

Europe did not meet the OCA criteria, particularly labor mobility, at the time of the creation of the euro, i.e., ex-ante, and labor and, to a lesser extent, capital mobility were presumed to rise to meet the OCA criteria ex-post, after the creation of the euro. Although, capital has flowed more freely within the eurozone, the free flow of capital comes with certain risks.

For developing countries, it can pose the risk of “hot money,” i.e. destabilizing often speculative capital inflows that can evaporate when faced with an adverse condition. For an economically developed region, such as Europe, the free flow of capital can contribute to contagion. As traded securities move quickly and easily across borders, they can spread financial disruption if there are issues with those securities.

It can be argued that the creation of the euro was more beneficial to Europe’s capital than labor. European workers are often fluent in multiple languages. Yet even workers who speak different languages are limited in the countries to which they can move unless the companies for which they will be working primarily use a lingua franca, such as English, and/or the worker is able to learn the local language.

Labor Mobility and American Cities

Since Americans share a common language, it is not an issue with respect to labor mobility. Now, let us assume a symmetric natural shock, such as a pandemic, that increases the unemployment rate in each state in the country by an equal amount, say 20%. Let us also assume that half the population that is still employed is no longer required to go to an office but can work from home.

One would find that some of these people might decide to move elsewhere with a lower cost of living to decrease their living expenses even if their incomes remain the same since their barriers to doing so are limited only by their personal preferences and the costs associated with moving. Assuming constant income and lower expenses, ceteris paribus, they would have more disposable income. Thus, under the most equalizing of assumptions, workers would still likely move from areas with a higher cost of living to a lower cost of living.

Now, let us assume the same shock, but disparate unemployment rates for each state. Richter (May 22, 2020) compiled the rates here, which are “from the monthly jobs data that is based on household surveys that were collected in mid-April,” and one can see that, for April, they range from 7.9% in Connecticut to 28.2% in Nevada. His explanation for the difference is that shutting down Nevada’s large gambling and hotel industry had a strong negative impact on its economy, which seems reasonable. (The two cities have comparable population sizes and unemployment rates for February, i.e. prior to the economic shock.)   

(Note, Richter states, “Since this data was collected in mid-April, it shows unemployment rates well before their peaks. The next jobs report, to be released in early June, will show the results from household surveys collected in mid-May. And those unemployment rates may be closer to the peak.”)

In a subsequent post on the same day, Richter provided an anecdote about someone he knows who moved. Once this person was no longer required to be physically present at Google’s office in Redwood City, he moved back to his parents’ house in St. Louis, Missouri, presumably to save money primarily on housing.

Richter states that for Los Angeles, the “number of working people collapsed by 23%, or by 1.16 million people, counting from December last year, to just 3.79 million workers, the lowest number in the data series going back to 1990.”  

Richter adds that the “labor force…plunged by 8.3%, or by nearly 400,000 people, to 4.76 million people, the lowest since 2003. The labor force plunged because people left the county, retired, or stopped looking for work. The unemployment rate shot up to 20%.”

This is just an anecdote and early data from one city, but it is indicative of a possible trend, workers moving from cities with a higher cost of living to ones with a lower cost of living. Once more data come out, we will revisit this topic to analyze labor mobility, which is facilitated by our common language, during and (hopefully after) this pandemic period and its relationship with unemployment.

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Breakdown of Fed Lending in the 2008 Crisis

Lending
Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

A good place to start to understand the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) response to the present crisis, its unprecedented lending, is by really understanding its response to the last one, which had been unprecedented until now. Before we are able to fully analyze the Fed’s response to the present crisis, which is still evolving and ongoing, the press or public will likely need to pursue Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for release of detailed information, as Bloomberg had to do the last time. Regarding the last crisis, the most extensive analysis of the Fed’s various lending programs was done by Felkerson (2011). Therefore, this series of posts will start there, by summarizing and explaining his analysis.

As many market participants and others know, the Fed manages the federal funds rate. This is the “standard tool” (targeting the rate, not the money supply) that the Fed uses to manage the economy. The fed funds market is an uncollateralized market in which depository institutions and government sponsored enterprises lend to each other overnight. The Fed participates in this market via its primary dealers until the effective fed funds rate falls in line with the Fed’s target rate.

Also, the Fed directly sets the discount window rates and terms (duration, haircut (overcollateralization), and collateral), which is available to commercial banks and other depository institutions. These are the key rates, and they went from approximately 5+% to 0% from August 2007 to December 2008. (It is important to keep in mind that the duration and other lending terms are key features of these arrangements.)

After hitting the zero-lower bound (in terms of short-term interest rates), the Fed engaged in quantitative easing, as explained here. Regarding the Fed’s balance sheet, the assets are publicly available here, and the corresponding increases are captured on the liabilities side as reserves (or excess reserves, with interest on excess reserves (IOER) starting in October 2008).

Fed Lending Starts – General

In addition to the reduction in these short-term interest rates (as well as IOER and elaborate forward guidance), the Fed created several special facilities. As Felkerson says, “The authorization of many of these unconventional measures would require the use of what was, until the recent crisis, an ostensibly archaic section of the Federal Reserve Act—Section 13(3), which gave the Fed the authority ‘under unusual and exigent circumstances’ to extend credit to individuals, partnerships, and corporations.” This point will become even more salient when we shift to the present period.     

One of the distinguishing aspects of Felkerson’s methodology is the following: “To provide an account of the magnitude of the Fed’s bailout, we argue that each unconventional transaction by the Fed represents an instance in which private markets were incapable or unwilling to conduct normal intermediation and liquidity provisioning activities…. Thus, to report the magnitude of the bailout, we have calculated cumulative totals by summing each transaction conducted by the Fed.”

“Each transaction” are the critical words. When each transaction is counted, the total lending would be considerably higher than a methodology that counts each contract, for example, repo contract since they are often rolled over, only once, depending on how each transaction is defined.

Now, the alphabet soup of lending facilities as ordered and explained by Felkerson:

  • Term Auction Facility (TAF) – rate determined by auction, 28-day or 84-day term. Lending to depository institutions so that they could avoid the stigma associated with using the discount window, also acceptance of a wider range of collateral. Felkerson summarizes, “The TAF ran from December 20, 2007 to March 11, 2010…. A total of 416 unique [foreign and domestic] banks borrowed from this facility…. The Fed loaned $3,818 billion in total over the run of this program.”
  • Central Bank Liquidity Swap Lines (CBLS) – “The facility ran from December 2007 to February 2010 and issued a total of 569 loans…. In total, the Fed lent $10,057.4 billion to foreign central banks over the course of this program as of September 28, 2011.” His percentages calculated for each central bank were: ECB 80%, BoE 9%, SNB 4%, BoJ 4%, All Others 3%.
  • Series of term repurchase transactions (ST OMO) – “28-day repo contracts in which primary dealers posted collateral eligible under conventional open market operations…. In 375 transactions, the Fed lent a total of $855 billion dollars.”
  • Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) – 18 primary dealers participated. Lending totaled “$1,940 billion.”  
  • TSLF Options Program (TOP) – 11 primary dealers participated. Lending totaled “$62.3 billion.”

Fed Lending Continued – Bear Stearns Specific

Two of Bear Stearns’ hedge funds had considerable exposure to subprime mortgages, and this led to the whole firm experiencing liquidity problems. Specifically, regardless of the quality of its collateral or the relative concentration of the troubled assets to one part of its business, the firm was shut out of the tri-party repo market, on which it depended for liquidity to operate its business.

As Felkerson writes, in response, “on March 13…[it informed the Fed] that it would most likely have to file for bankruptcy the following day should it not receive an emergency loan. In an attempt to find an alternative to the outright failure of Bear, negotiations began between representatives from the Fed, Bear Stearns, and J.P. Morgan. The outcome of these negotiations was announced on March 14, 2008 when the Fed Board of Governors voted to authorize the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) to provide a $12.9 billion loan to Bear Stearns through J.P. Morgan Chase against collateral consisting of $13.8 billion.”

To facilitate the actual sale to Bear Stearns, the Fed created a special purpose vehicle (SPV) called Maiden Lane I. As Felkerson explains, “Maiden Lane, LLC would repay its creditors, first the Fed [$28.82 billion] and then J.P. Morgan [$1.15 billion], the principal owed plus interest over ten years at the primary credit rate [one of the discount window rates] beginning in September 2010. The structure of the bridge loan and ML I represent one-time extensions of credit. As onetime extensions of credit, the peak outstanding occurred at issuance of the loans.”

On March 16, 2008, the same day that JPMorgan Chase issued its provisional merger with Bear Stearns, the Fed set up the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF). This facility was meant to prevent these investment banks (banks that were not eligible to go to the discount window for assistance) from experiencing liquidity issues, which could quickly become solvency issues.

I use the word “prevent,” because theoretically, that is the idea with any backstop, including FDIC deposit insurance. Its creation is meant to instill confidence, and banks only avail themselves of the facility when its mere existence is not enough to prevent a run. (All of these liquidity issues can be characterized as runs.) However, just as with the discount window, the use of these facilities can come with stigma, with investors and market participants questioning the general viability of the firm when it resorts to using the lending facility.   

Felkerson summarizes the PDCF as follows: “Initial collateral accepted in transactions under the PDCF were investment grade securities. Following the events in September of that year, eligible collateral was extended to include all forms of securities normally used in private sector repo transactions…. The PDCF issued 1,376 loans totaling $8,950.99 billion…. [T]he five largest borrowers account for 85 percent ($7,610 billion) of the total. Eight foreign primary dealers would participate in the PDCF, borrowing just six percent of the total. The PDCF was closed on February 1, 2010.”

Fed Lending Continued – AIG Specific

In the wake of Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy filing on September 15, 2008, to prevent AIG from failing, the Fed first created a revolving credit facility (RCF), “on September 16, 2008, which carried an $85 billion credit line; the RCF lent $140.316 billion to AIG in total,” and the Fed created a secure borrowing facility (SBF) to facilitate repo transactions; “[c]umulatively, the SBF lent $802.316 billion in direct credit in the form of repos against AIG collateral” (Felkerson).

Then Maiden Lane II “was created with a $19.5 billion loan from the FRBNY to purchase residential MBS from AIG’s securities lending portfolio,” and these proceeds were used to pay off SBF (Felkerson).

The Fed later created Maiden Lane III to “address the greatest threat to AIG’s restructuring—losses associated with the sizeable book of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) on which it had written credit default swaps (CDS)…, [which] was funded by a FRBNY loan to purchase AIG’s CDO portfolio, [totaling] $24.3 billion” in lending (Felkerson). 

Then, “on December 1, 2009…FRBNY received preferred interests in two SPVs created to hold the outstanding common stock of AIG’s largest foreign insurance subsidiaries [AIA/ALICO transactions]… On September 30, 2010 an agreement was reached between the AIG, the Fed, the U.S. Treasury, and the SPV trustees…. [They] announced the closing of the recapitalization plan…, and all monies owed to the RCF were repaid in full January 2011” (Felkerson).

Let us pause at this point and consider that the United States central bank, whose dual mandate is price stability and full employment, and which is really not supposed to be buying anything but government-issued or, at best, government-backed (Agency MBS) securities, was purchasing CDOs of uncertain value, considerable opacity and high risk to help one corporation, AIG, which had become greedy and irresponsible. The total lending ($140 + $802 + $20 + $24 + $25) was over $1 trillion dollars. It is worth repeating. AIG got over $1 trillion in aid from the Fed while regular Americans often lost their homes, lost their jobs, went bankrupt or were plunged into poverty.

Fed Lending – The Alphabet Soup Continued

However, this was not the end of the Fed’s lending to help private industry, literally entire industries. Within the money market mutual fund (MMF) industry, the Reserve Primary Fund broke the buck on September 16, 2008. It not only held Lehman’s commercial paper but had actually increased its exposure to the firm prior to its bankruptcy.

This event triggered a run on the entire industry, which was over $2 trillion at the time. (Institution investors generally treat money market funds like depository institutions, that is, they seek capital preservation not returns.) The redemptions triggered a downward spiral in asset prices as the funds were forced to sell assets to meet them.

AMLF

The Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF) was created on September 19, 2008 to facilitate nonrecourse loans to MMFs at the primary credit rate. “Two institutions, J.P. Morgan Chase and State Street Bank and Trust Company, constituted 92 percent of AMLF intermediary borrowing…. Over the course of the program, the Fed would lend a total of $217.435 billion…. The AMLF was closed on February 1, 2010” (Felkerson).

CPFF

The mutual fund industry’s distress resulted in a flight to safety, which had an adverse effect on the commercial paper market. With companies issuing commercial paper unable to find enough buyers, the commercial paper market froze. “To address this disruption, the Fed announced the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) on October 7, 2008. [The SPV purchased] highly rated ABCP and unsecured U.S. dollar-denominated CP of three-month maturity from eligible issuers…. The cumulative total lent under the CPFF was $737.07 billion…. The CPFF was suspended on February 1, 2010” (Felkerson).

Note that even “highly rated ABCP” are still opaque instruments, and conservative institutional investors assess the risk of the instrument typically by the issuing bank not the underlying collateral.

TALF

These liquidity provisions were still unable to stabilize financial markets, which had transitioned to an originate-and-distribute model, and “the Fed announced the creation of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) on November 25, 2008. Operating similarly to the AMLF, the Fed provided nonrecourse loans to eligible borrowers posting eligible collateral, but for terms of five years. Borrowers then would act as an intermediary, using the TALF loans to purchase ABS [Asset Backed Securities]…. Although the Fed terminated lending under the TALF on June 30, 2010, loans remain outstanding under the program until March 30, 2015. The Fed loaned in total $71.09 billion” (Felkerson).

Summary of Fed Lending in 2008

Felkerson summarizes all the Fed’s lending programs as follows and provides the figure below: “When all individual transactions are summed across all unconventional LOLR [lender of last resort] facilities, the Fed spent a total of $29,616.4 billion dollars! Note this includes direct lending plus asset purchases…. Three facilities—CBLS, PDCF, and TAF—would overshadow all other unconventional LOLR programs, and make up 71.1 percent ($22,826.8 billion) of all assistance.”

Note that MBS data can be found on the SOMA site. (Felkerson separated them from the traditional Treasury securities that are a standard part of open market operations.) Felkerson notes that “[i]f the CBLS [central bank liquidity swaps] are excluded, 83.9 percent ($16.41 trillion) of all assistance would be provided to only 14 [of the largest financial] institutions [in the world]…. [And] the six largest foreign-based institutions would receive 36 percent ($10.66 trillion) of the total bailout.”

As calculated by Felkerson, the Fed’s lending programs in response to the 2008 financial crisis was massive, double the nominal GDP at the time; the institutions directly benefiting were relatively few, and the risks were high. The legal justification for what was at the time unprecedented actions was flimsy, the Federal Reserve Act—Section 13(3), if not illegal.

What was the reward for the American people, whose lives and tax dollars were ultimately at stake, for all of this Federal Reserve support for a financial system that had grown too large, too corrupt and too greedy? What did you get from the Fed’s astronomical amounts of lending? You got a system that learned how to exploit the existing order and you, the American people. The Federal Reserve has become captive to these financial players and markets, and you, the American people, are its victims.

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Jesus’s Power Is the Antidote

Power
Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash

Many of us might feel understandably powerless right now, as we face numerous hardships. A dangerous pandemic is costing hundreds of thousands of lives. At present, there have been at least 240,000 deaths from it worldwide. Our democracy is slipping away. The person who has taken over the White House is evil, greedy, corrupt and traitorous, as are his cronies, who have taken over our government.

Many institutions, such as the Justice Department, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, among numerous others, have become corrupt in whole or in part due to the present administration. (See the latest development in Barr’s corrupt Justice Department.)

The economy is being destroyed, as Cohen and Hsu (2020) report, “more than 33 million people have joined the unemployment rolls in seven weeks…. [E]conomists expect the monthly jobs report on Friday to put the April unemployment rate at 15 percent or higher — a Depression-era level.”

Our planet is also being destroyed by greed and consumerism. Global climate imbalances are yielding strange results, such as plagues of locusts, murder hornets, and a polar vortex is forecast to hit the Northeast in the next couple days while the West is set to experience record heat.

White “vigilante justice” seems to go unchecked while black men are being subjected to modern-day lynching. More generally, the lives of black and brown people are being valued less than others. They are being treated as second-class citizens and have to operate under a different set of standards than other Americans.

Our social fabric is being eroded in other ways, as people have abandoned religious institutions, many of which have forsaken the path of Jesus and instead of worshiping God have been worshiping worldly things. Their hypocrisy and the general misguided nature of secularism has driven people into the arms of other false gods, such as paganism, scientism, or cult-like leaders, such as Richard Dawkins.

Younger people, in particular, are frustrated, as the changes they want are frequently thwarted often by older people, the people who should care about them, or the political or economic establishment, the institutions that should care about them. These are dark times for the nation and for the world, and it can all feel so hopeless.

Jesus’s Divine Power

However, for Christians and for the world, there is one great hope, one eternal light to which we can fix our fortunes and our spirits – Jesus Christ. Mathis (2020) writes, “In the final tally, Jesus stands alone. No other human has left such a deep and enduring impression on the world, and he did so in only three years of active public life.” This is an indisputable truth. No other person has had anywhere near the impact that Jesus has had.

Where did Jesus’s power come from? As Christians, we would answer from God, as he is one with the Father. For non-Christians, the broad details of Jesus’s life are the following. He was a poor Jew from Galilee, who was born in Bethlehem. He had a mere 12 Apostles. He had no social media platform, with no hoard of followers. He wrote nothing, not a single word. He had no degrees or certifications. He had no worldly titles, wealth, power or prestige (aside from being of the line of David). Jesus spoke words, and he performed miracles. He was crucified, and he rose from the dead.

Those who believe him to be a mere mortal might ask: how could his one life have transformed the world more than any other, and what insight might that provide regarding our current challenges?

Man’s False Power

The reality is that those with power now, like the Caesars of their day, will be largely forgotten or will become a cautionary tale for others aspiring to be like them and for those who are inclined to be seduced by them. None of us can predict the future, but one thing is certain: no human present or future will compare at all with the power Jesus has now and will continue to have.

Some Christians are handwringing about the state of the faith, its trajectory, particularly in the West, and the rise of secularism. They have little faith and need to have more of it in God’s plan. They need to trust him more. They need to focus on glorifying God and not themselves. They need to stop compromising their morality and Christianity for political expediency or a false sense of power. Real power rests in Jesus, in God, and we only have access to real power when we rest in him.

The Benefits of Jesus’s Power

The benefits of Jesus’s power as it resides in us is peace and hope. In our darkest hours, we can turn to him, to our Lord and our God, and know that we are loved. If we entrust in him our lives, his power becomes our power. One might ask: how does this translate in practical ways in the real world?

A feeling of peace and hope helps one continue to fight another day. One needs to keep the faith and fight the good fight until the end. God gives us that resilience. Our faith in Jesus is our strength, and as Christians, we should never forget that. We should also share his power manifested in us with others during our shared trials and tribulations. With this, we will be and will do what we are called to do – be the salt and light of the world.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16). Amen.

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On Defining Oneself by the Negative

negative
Caleb Minear on Unsplash

A person in a negative is hard to see. Similarly, a person defined in the negative is hard to understand. To be simply and honestly Christian is to define oneself in a straight-forward and positive way: we are Christ-followers. Define who you are by defining what you are for. Are you for Jesus? If you say “yes,” then he has to be at the center of everything in your life. By everything, I mean everything.

Not in the Negative – Christian in the Positive

In this essay, Mattson (2020) highlights what we should all know and be clear about as Christians. He writes, “One of the hallmarks of following Christ is emulating his life. And this is what Christianity essentially is: Jesus. Christianity isn’t a political ideology, or a sovereign nation, or a set of laws legislating values or enforcing a society’s preferred brand of morality. Christianity is centered upon Christ.”

Instead of a positive self-definition, many Christians have fallen into this trap of negative self-definition, often leaving Christ behind as they refer to the world in which they are too much involved. Some are opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. Some are opposed to immigrants and non-whites. Some are opposed to, more generally, “liberal culture.” The list is long, tedious, and unhelpful.

Jesus denounced immorality and hypocrisy, but he was not defined by his opposition to these things or to the Jewish religious establishment and its corruption. Instead, what defined him was what he advocated, what he taught, what he asked of us, what he said and did. This is what we follow and try to emulate.

If you are about children and families, as most people are, by the way, then actually support families. Help poor families raise their children out of poverty. If you are about a certain cultural position, say traditional marriage, then support that cause. Broken black families, in particular, could benefit from real support from Christians, meaning financial, psychological and spiritual support.

Instead of chastising others who do not fit your worldview – help those that do. If you are opposed to immigrants and non-whites, you really need to revisit Jesus’s teachings because there is no support in them for those positions. If you are opposed to “liberal culture” or “conservative culture,” how do you define those cultures? This one exercise in definition might not be as straight-forward as you might expect.

The Negative Is More Dangerous for Non-Christians

For non-Christians, the negative trap is even more dangerous. There is no one example to which they can set their compass, no star of Bethlehem, as Christians have in Jesus. They are stranded on a vast ocean, water everywhere yet not a drop to drink. What good is water if one cannot drink it, if it cannot sustain life? We have the water of life. We just have to have faith in the Word, and it will flow.

Non-Christians have to not just define themselves in the positive, as we do, but first, they have to determine what the positive actually is. What does the positive look like? Some atheists say that they do not like organized religion because it makes people into robots. Having a clear and positive self-definition as Christ-followers have in Jesus is not turning someone into an automaton. Instead, it is similar to the difference between a photo and its negative.  

We are made in God’s image, and we have a clear image of God as man – an image in the positive. As any good Christian knows, emulating Jesus is hard. We will fail and fail again. We ask our God and each other for forgiveness. In this process, we become more aware of our own particular weaknesses and vulnerabilities, which we also take to the Lord in prayer to help us overcome them. There is nothing robotic in this lifelong spiritual journey. It is as individual as the prints on our hands and feet, as we are.

What is robotic, however, is looking to a stronger central government for direction on personal conduct, which really needs to be developed the hard way, that is character formation through individual introspection and reformation, and in the aggregate, a cultural unity that is as thin as the government’s decrees.

This is where Europe went astray. Its people, tired of the religious wars and their religious institutional failures, effectively abdicated morality to the government. However, governments are ill-suited for a task so complex and profound and are also even more prone to corruption than the church is while lacking a stable corrective mechanism as the church has. As argued here, Jesus Christ’s teachings are indelible and immutable; a nation’s laws are not. Once a bad leader rises to power, the country’s laws can be changed, and the leader can be hard to overthrow.    

It is tempting but unproductive to define oneself by everything one is against, that is in the negative. Define what you are for, and then do the hard work of committing to those things and fighting for them. Put your time, talent and treasure into those efforts. This applies to Christians and non-Christians alike. The difference is that, for Christians, we have a clear picture – in the positive – of what that should look like.

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The Dangers of Blind Ideological Adherence

ideological
Matt Noble on Unsplash

The dangers of blind ideological adherence apply equally to all. They are not limited to a certain political party or economic school of thought. When one objectively analyzes the present state of affairs of the real economy, the federal government’s and the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) actions have been an unequivocal failure.

It is both obvious and correct to say that the economy is not the stock market, and the stock market is not the economy. It is also correct to observe that there has been a clear divergence in the performance of the stock market and the real economy, with the stock market far outperforming the real economy. This divergence goes well beyond the ongoing dysfunctions in financial markets. It is also a grossly immoral outcome for the American people who, by and large, live and operate in the real economy.

Therefore, it would be incorrect to conclude that the Fed, whose dual mandate is price stability and full employment, i.e. to make sure that the real economy is performing well, is meeting its mandate because the stock market is performing well. I think this is elementary logic.

Objective Premises, Ideological Conclusion

Krugman, however, arrives at just this erroneous conclusion given the same premises. To quote Krugman (2020) in his last opinion piece in the NYTimes, as of the present, “G.D.P. report for the first quarter. An economy contracting at an annual rate of almost 5 percent would have been considered very bad in normal times, but this report only captured the first few drops of a torrential downpour. More timely data show an economy falling off a cliff. The Congressional Budget Office is projecting an unemployment rate of 16 percent later this year, and that may well be an underestimate.” Thus, we are both of the mind that the present economy is terrible.   

Now, Krugman’s description of the stock market, again in his own words, “Yet stock prices, which fell in the first few weeks of the Covid-19 crisis, have made up much of those losses. They’re currently more or less back to where they were last fall, when all the talk was about how well the economy was doing.”

Now, here is Krugman’s assessment of the Fed’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, and by extension and implication, his assessment of its response to the present crisis, “Now, one question you might ask is why, if economic weakness is if anything good for stocks, the market briefly plunged earlier this year. The answer is that for a few weeks in March the world teetered on the edge of a 2008-type financial crisis, which caused investors to flee everything with the slightest hint of risk.”

Krugman continues, “That crisis was, however, averted thanks to extremely aggressive actions by the Fed, which stepped in to buy an unprecedented volume and range of assets. Without those actions, we would be facing an even bigger economic catastrophe.”

Explanation of the Ideological Argument

Let us consider the argument Krugman provides. The first main point is that the Fed responded to both crises by lowering interest rates, which is the standard monetary policy response to an economic downturn no matter how it is triggered, and lower interest rates hurt bond markets and help stock markets since market participants have to put their money somewhere.

Thus, the stock market is being helped by the Fed as a “side-effect” of its efforts to help the broader economy. (A debate worth having is how the Fed can gain better traction on credit availability and terms and do so without relying so heavily on financial markets for their transmission.)

Krugman’s second main point, although not as explicitly articulated, is that the Fed, acting as the lender of last resort, should have and has done everything it can, a “whatever-it-takes” approach, to mitigate the economic damage. This is the same ideological view that ended up prevailing in the last crisis (see this previous post), and by his assessment, this approach was a wild success.

Then again, maybe not, since Krugman also states the following, “While employment eventually recovered from the Great Recession, that recovery was achieved only thanks to historically low interest rates. The need for low rates was an indication of underlying economic weakness: businesses seemed reluctant to invest despite high profits, often preferring to buy back their own stock. But low rates were good for stock prices.”

The intellectual incoherence is symptomatic of an intellectual disease that afflicts many of all ideological persuasions. It is an obstinate adherence to a set of beliefs even when the evidence clearly contradicts the ideology. Krugman knows this problem well. It could be reasonably argued that he popularized the term, “zombie economics,” which was the title of a book by John Quiggin, Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us.

Ideologically Yours, Keynesian

In Quiggin’s words, which is what Krugman also believes, “For decades, their [market liberalism’s] advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many—members of the public, commentators, politicians, economists, and even those charged with cleaning up the mess.”

Instead of assessing the Fed’s performance based on a thorough, unbiased evaluation of the economy after the last crisis or in the midst of this present one, Krugman instead concludes that the Fed, headed by Jerome Powell, has done an incredible job, giving them and him an A grade. What is the basis for Krugman’s conclusion? The Fed has responded in what he considers Keynesian fashion. His is an analysis based on the application of an ideology, Keynesian economics – not on its actual outcome. This is essentially a variant of “zombie economics.” Even if the response might be theoretically correct, the form of the present (and past) application is clearly wrong because the outcome is clearly bad.

Intellectual Honesty Is Not Optional

The dangers of blind ideological loyalty and purity apply to all, including the right and the left, whether they are politicians, economists, or even Christians. In reality, when one objectively analyzes the state of affairs of the real economy, the federal government’s and the Fed’s actions have been disastrously bad.

To be a good economist or policy-maker, more broadly, a good intellectual, is to be intellectually honest. It is to have knowledge of various schools of thought and to dispassionately pick and choose from them based on what actually works. There are those among us who consider ourselves liberal economists but base our analysis not on the application of any one ideology, left, right or center, but on its actual outcome.

The outcome of the Fed intervention in the financial crisis, which was not fully disclosed to the public, was plainly and simply terrible, and the outcome of the present intervention is even worse. The data and facts speak for themselves. Lastly, the counterfactual is not redeeming when the reality is damning.

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St. Catherine of Siena – The Essential Role of Mystics

Catherine of Siena
Baldassare Franceschini – St. Catherine of Siena

In the Catholic Church, today, April 29, is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena. She is a beloved figure and one of the most important mystics and church leaders in history. Her remarkable life is worth revisiting any day but particularly now for the historical similarities and for the insights it provides into the soul of the church.

Catherine of Siena was born at a time of when the Black Death was decimating Europe. Estimates of the number of people felled by the disease differ, but they range from a third to almost two-thirds of the population. Also, as Black writes, “Less well known is that the plague continued to strike Europe, the Middle East and beyond for the next four centuries, returning every 10 to 20 years.”

In the video, Skipper explains that the pathogen “remains with us today,” speculating that our herd immunity, among other changes, might have led to its decline. Hatcher remarked that “Paradoxically, society was able to cope much better in the fourteenth century with deaths on this horrendous scale than we would be able to cope today, and this is primarily because people were, to a degree, self-sufficient and independent. Whereas today, we have such complex interconnections that deaths on anything like that scale would cause complete chaos.”

Even with relatively preliminary data, it is clear that the coronavirus pandemic is nowhere near as deadly as the Plague was. Hatcher’s statement was quite prescient, as this is indeed what the world has experienced. In spite of the coronavirus being considerably less deadly, it has wreaked tremendous damage, particularly economically.

On the other hand, similar to the Plague, an entirely possible outcome might be that we will have to live with a persistent novel coronavirus much like we live with the flu. We should all have been aware of this possibility from the start of our battle with the virus.

Catherine of Siena – Mystic

Mystics are a special group within the church, and Catherine of Siena is emblematic of them. They have a special relationship with God and live in a way that others might find baffling. Their beings and their lives seem to defy the laws to which the rest of us consider ourselves subject, and their passionate devotion awes and mystifies us.  

More broadly, mystics serve a greater role in the church. They remind us that the church, as a whole, is actually a mystical body. To reprise the thrust of G.K. Chesterton’s argument from yesterday’s post, Christianity is really an irrational religion. Christians are not really about checking piety or other boxes as acts of devotion.

On the contrary, our faith is and always has been expressed by the irrational: the erection of stunningly beautiful testaments of love and devotion to our creator, which are visited by tourists and are destinations of pilgrimage for the faithful the world over, lives of tremendous sacrifice as Catherine of Siena’s or, more recently, Mother Teresa’s of Calcutta. We are called to not measure and calculate our love, but to leave it all behind and to live with faith abandon to our Lord. His will be done.      

Perhaps, it is hard to sense this as most Christians, wrapped up in our daily, often tedious and stressful lives, worship in a more perfunctory but hopefully still sincere manner. We go to weekly services and progress through the liturgical calendar, paying a bit more reverence during its highlights. Again, in reference to yesterday’s post, if we are the “sense,” mystics are the “sensibility” of the church.

They make their way through the world in an enviable communion with God. What would seem entirely irrational for many of us, their reclusion, asceticism, sacrifice and visions, seem entirely in keeping with who they are. In the collective, they, along with the ascetics, are the legacy of John the Baptist, who resided in the dessert, eating locusts and wild honey, calling on his fellow Jews to be baptized, with one notable baptism.

Catherine of Siena’s power and influence in the church, which was considerable, as she is credited with convincing Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, did not really come from reason. Her power and influence came from her mysticism, her spiritual connection with God.

We are dust and to dust we shall all return. With death or the threat of it seemingly everywhere, let us remember this truth while also remembering that there are those who live and have lived among us who seem to have no fear of death. While their bodies surely return to dust, their spirits soar free of their bodies while still living. That is the power of deep faith in God. It is not rational. It is mystical.