Russia’s War in Ukraine Is a War Against God and Identity

Ukrainian Identity
Maria Prymachenko – A Dove Has Spread Her Wings and Asks for Peace

Today, on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s attempted genocide of the Ukrainian people and the elimination of their land, their culture and their heritage, let us reflect on how deeply connected their fight is to our own and much of the world’s struggles. There is no doubt that Russian aggression is partially motivated by empire and economics. The satanic Russian s—t, also known as putin, wants the land that does not belong to him and the economic potential it holds. He also wants to burnish his name as one of the world’s great tyrants, like his idol the equally satanic Stalin, who “returns Russia to its former greatness.”

It’s all a myth, a depraved idea of leadership and legacy. What is not a myth, however, what is a harsh reality is Ukraine’s genuine struggle for survival. It is an existential battle but also more than that. It’s about an ancient people and culture retaining its distinctive features, its own character. It’s not about just surviving. It’s about being, in their case, being Ukrainian.

Identity in the United States

In the United States, we have also been fighting for and about identity. Our internal battles are not really about the evil one, trump, or his mini-me, DeSantis, or Republican or Democrat. There is of course an aspect of our divisions that is about power and economics because these are staple features of politics. More fundamentally, however, it’s about who is American and what it means to be American. It’s about being American.

It was not mere chance that during the evil one, trump’s, era we saw Muslim-Americans, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans and others asserting their rightful claims as American. (Please continue to do so. It’s a simple but important act of resistance.) For a time, time like the lifespan of a fruit fly in the long context of human history, being American meant being white. As we can now see with the passing of a few centuries, or is it mere decades, this was all a myth. It was what white people told themselves on stolen land so that they wouldn’t feel like the thieves they actually were.

Before the white colonists, there were people living on this land that we now call the United States of America and on this continent called North America. Note that both the country and the continents, North and South, are named after an Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, from the city-state of Florence. Italy was so fragmented during the Renaissance period that it did not exist as a country, leave alone, the once vast Roman Empire. Instead, “Italians” of this time fiercely identified with and defended their respective city-states.

We call the people original to both continents, North and South America, native/indigenous people as if they were a monolithic group. In reality, they were groups of people who had their own distinct characteristics. They had their own languages and cultures, but we obscure their rich diversity because we are focused on distinguishing them as a group from the stark contrast of the white invaders but also because their distinctiveness has been treated as unimportant by the dominant white colonialists, who viewed them as inferior and sometimes didn’t even view them as fully human.

The Nature of Identity

At its core, identity isn’t about power or money. It isn’t actually about this world. Identity is about how we reflect the gift of freedom and independence that God granted us to the world. When another person or another country tries to subdue our distinctiveness, we instinctually want to defend it because it is our birthright as children of God. Even if we don’t understand this consciously, we understand it subconsciously. To destroy identity is to make slaves of God’s free people, and it is an act of war against God.

Identity in India

In India, the horrific Hindu caste system is the institutionalized slavery of human beings that has lasted, by reasonable estimations, at least two millennia. The caste system, like all systems of slavery, modern and ancient, is an act of war against God and identity. Like Americans and others, Indians have been preoccupied with their own battle for identity. Many white people assume that everyone wants to be white since, at least subconsciously, they often think of themselves as superior. The irony is that, in the land of colorism, although Indians often want to be “fair,” (exactly what shade of light brown is that, could someone please specify?), they don’t want to be white. However, the reason doesn’t really have much to do with skin color and everything to do with identity.

Indians want to have indisputable claim to Indian soil. A fierce battle has been raging since what should have been an esoteric academic paper became fodder for political propaganda by Hindutva. The academic researchers presented genetic evidence for the migration of the people from the Steppe region into India, which supported the established linguistic research that described a similar migration. This scientific evidence, however, posed an inconvenient truth to the Hindutva who want to claim that Hinduism and their genetic lineage are native to the land of India.

It is more difficult to argue that to be Indian is to be Hindu if Hinduism isn’t original to the ancient Indus Valley civilization, which was contemporaneous with the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations, that had existed in India prior to the invasion by the foreigners of the Steppe. The satanic modi, much like other dictators and wannabee dictators around the world, did what they all do when faced with such inconvenient truths. He lied. They all try to rewrite history in their own image. However, it is just another myth, in this case, one that rewrites Indian history, lineage and identity to favor the dominant Hindu religion and maintain its institutionalized slavery, the caste system.  

Slavery Strips Identity

Slavery is to take a human being, who has an inherent value in God’s eyes and was made free by God, and to render the person nothing but an object stripped of agency to be used and disposed of as the oppressor chooses. Kevin Bales’s classic book on modern slavery is called “Disposable People.” People who are treated as disposable, whether indigenous, African, Indian, Ukrainian or other European, are not treated as people any longer. Let us not forget that slavery, in its myriad of forms, has plagued the European continent and Europeans, as it has every corner of the globe, since human beings have existed. Their white skin does not exempt from becoming enslaved, which is exactly what the evil ones, trump and putin, want to do,

The War on Ukrainian Identity Is Genocide

Russian terrorism is intended to subjugate the Ukrainian people, to eliminate them as a distinct group of people who have forged their own culture with their God-given uniqueness, and to force them to become slaves to their Russian masters. It is meant to erase their identity just as slavery in the United States erased the identities of the people brought from Africa. Terrorism is a barbaric method intended not just to sow fear to subdue resistance, but to use fear to force human beings to surrender the self and to extinguish their divine spark. Russia’s war in Ukraine is an act of war against God and Ukrainian identity.

Let us lay bare the truth of the age we’re living in. It is a period of fierce fighting over identity, yet, simultaneously, complete confusion about the nature of identity. It is a period of brutality cloaked in the soft modern language of politics. To seek empire, although discouraged by the international post-war order, can be contextualized as part of the perennially problematic quest for global domination, for power and money. To seek the erasure of a group’s identity, that is genocide, however, is abhorrent to our modern sensibilities, as it should be if we are to live as children of God. Let us not deceive ourselves. The latter is what the despots seek, in Ukraine, in India, in the United States and elsewhere. They are all engaging in an act of war against God and identity, and the world needs to act aggressively and decisively to eliminate them before they eliminate us.

Listening to the Devil’s Whispers

devil

The human mind is a beautiful thing. It is also a dangerous thing, enough so to bring about our own extinction. People who put their faith in evolution do not understand the nature of human beings. We do not evolve beyond our fundamental nature, and it has not changed since we came into existence. They simultaneously want to believe that we are the same as other animals while being superior in our intelligence to other animals. It is oxymoronic or perhaps simply moronic. What makes human beings dangerous is not the potential for genius, of which we are, on an objective basis, incapable. Only God is truly capable of genius. What makes human beings dangerous is our infinite potential for stupidity, pride, jealousy, greed and all other manner of sin and evil, driven, in great part, by our egos.

Adam and Eve

In the story of Adam and Eve, the devil whispers in Eve’s ear, and she listens. The devil says, “‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” She trusts the devil and disobeys God. Adam and Eve’s demise is driven by their own hubris, and their fall from grace is humankind’s original sin. Some atheists might find the story irrelevant, even absurd. On the contrary, Adam and Eve’s sin is the same one that bedevils us today, not just in the United States, but in most of the world.

Much like the beautiful planet humans have been privileged to inhabit, God gave Adam and Eve everything, but they did not appreciate what he had given them. Instead, they wanted more. They wanted to be like God himself. However, they did not become like God. The devil also said that they would not die, but they did. He lied to them, and they believed him. God then evicts them from the Garden of Eden. In the story of their first two sons, Cain and Abel, we witness the first murder. What motivates Cain is similar to what motivated Adam and Eve: jealousy. Cain, a farmer, is jealous of Abel, a shepherd, whom God favors. So, Cain murders his own brother. God then punishes Cain to a nomadic life.

The Devil

Pandering to our narcissism, the devil whispers many things in our ears. All of them are deceitful. The Latin word for “I” is “ego.” “Ego” is defined as “the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world.” In psychological terms, “ego” is “one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality.” The ego, whose function has always had a double-edged nature, serving survival but often yielding destruction, has become terribly imbalanced. For many, its sole function now is as an agent for mutual or self-destruction.

Taking on various human forms, the devil whispers all over the world, in Russia, North Korea, China, India, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and yes, also in the west, and many listen. In the United States, the devil’s human form is an ugly, soulless, traitorous man called Trump who has not a single redeeming quality. His hate and lies have made derangement as common as drunkenness. His MAGA followers’ brains have become intoxicated with the double drugs of demagoguery and conspiracy.

The Authoritarian Whispers to MAGA

One of the great ironies of this historical moment is that this particular derangement of the self, of the “ego,” is facilitated, in part, through an abandonment of one’s own agency. The strongman, or authoritarian rule, more generally, has always had an appeal. It is an abdication of personal responsibility that seems to make life easier. In fact, it not only makes life harder but also requires a relinquishment of personal freedom and dignity, which would presumably also injure one’s ego. This exchange does not achieve the objective of making life easier, and it also surrenders our God-given attributes in the process, making slaves and fools of us all.

At this historical moment, one could point to a variety of problems: the immoral levels of inequality, the last financial crisis, the rich’s unwillingness to moderate their destructive greed, climate change, the pandemic, technology and its negative psychological effects as causes for an erosion in people’s confidence in democracy and in their willingness to do the hard work of self-governance. The people might believe that it is “all rigged,” and in some ways, it is. However, handing over the levers of government to the very scoundrels who rigged it is the kind of folly to which only those who heed the devil’s whispers would fall prey. The sane and responsible response is resistance.

Putin, Trump and the other authoritarian “leaders” do not care about the values they pretend to care about. All they care about is power and money, and like the devil himself, they lie, lie and lie to obtain and retain both. The rich scoundrels who support these demagogues also care only about power and money. These rich supporters have amplified the dangerous authoritarians’ lies to enrich themselves while impoverishing the feeble minds who have purchased the devil’s siren song. These immoral rich traitors have concocted conspiracy theories with escalating levels of absurdity. In believing them, MAGA has effectively gone insane and has even engaged in violence, which has, in several cases, resulted in injury and death. 

What’s “New” Is Perennial

None of these “new” developments in the human drama should be surprising to anyone who has read the Bible. Despite their religious chest-thumping and their proclamation of “Christian nationalism,” which is, in reality, neither about God nor country, MAGA is also often entirely ignorant of Scripture. Our present condition is just the latest manifestation of the perennial sickness of the human soul. Are we our brother’s keeper? We are supposed to be, but we will not be if we listen to the dark voices who spew hate and lies to appeal to narcissism and ego.

Despite their seeming predilection to believe conspiracy theories, it is entirely possible, even likely, that at least some MAGA do not believe that Trump won the election. In other words, the problem for them is not a detachment from reality but an unwillingness to accept reality. They might know that he lost. However, accepting this fact might also mean accepting the fact that they are not superior simply because they are white. It might mean accepting a pluralistic society in which they are no worse than but also no better than others and in which they have to share power and wealth. It might also mean accepting that they have been lying to themselves their whole lives about their superiority and that their entire self-worth has been colored by this self-delusion. 

No matter how rich, no matter how poor, humans are, one and all, susceptible to the devil’s ploys because he knows well how to stroke our egos and how to lie to us. Elon Musk, the present owner of Twitter, feel into this trap just recently. Ultimately, it is not the devil who is to blame, but the fallen humans who have chosen to listen to him and his lies. So, Happy Halloween, MAGA and others who have listened to the devil’s whispers. He tricked you into a Faustian bargain. You were convinced that you were saving your country, “America First,” or some other delusion. Instead, your egos were being seduced at the expense of your soul and your sanity.

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.