Blah Blah Blah
We’re sorry. But someone has to say it: If “blah, blah, blah” were a meal, many of America’s “religious leaders” would be master chefs. Instead, most simply remain silent while bigots, racists and political cowards promote the Big Lie and attempt to deny millions of Americans of their right to vote.
“We’re only requiring that they present a notarized application for an absentee ballot or a copy of their state issued driver’s license so we can authenticate their ballot,” say those who continue to sell the myth of voter fraud – even though the great Myth Maker lost the 2016 and 2020 popular votes and President Joe Biden won the Electoral College by exactly the same margin.
A notarized document? Notaries cost money. A single $20 or $25 – even a $10 or $15 – fee means a day of eating or going hungry for families of two, three and four. Add a second voting parent and the choice becomes “Vote or Go Hungry.”
Measures designed to limit the voting rights of people of color, the poor, elderly and sick tell septuagenarians, octogenarian and nonagenarians “We know you listen to the news and read your local newspaper, you’re in full control of your thinking, and you have firm convictions. We know you’ve lived at the same address for forty years and haven’t missed a vote in forever, but you’re gonna have to get a new photo ID, even though your age and poverty make Uber or a taxi to county offices really difficult and expensive. So, you decide: Vote or go without your medication.”
Out-of-state and foreign university students pay four, eight, maybe more than ten times the tuition of state residents. They pay local, state and federal taxes with every purchase, including breakfast, lunch and dinner; they also pay income taxes for their off-campus job. Until now, their state university-issued student ID was all they needed to prove their eligibility. But too many are politically liberal and many are registered to vote from their campus precincts. There’s a solution to that problem. Require a state-issued ID and declare the state university’s ID inadequate. That may mean, if their lease or electric or water bill is in their roommate’s name or part of their housing fees, they can’t prove their residence. Too bad. So sad.
Those same legislators want to assure the elderly poor who rely on Medicare and the Affordable Care Act – ObamaCare – the abuelas (grandmothers) of Hialeah, which has one of the highest enrollment rates in the nation (Pay attention Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.) or the elderly poor of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles or the farm lands of the Dakotas and Nebraska and Kansas, those who live hours drives or subway rides away from healthcare “We know you’ll never vote for anyone who will endanger your health care coverage. So, we’re gonna make it more difficult for you to vote. You’ll have to reapply for your absentee ballots ‘cause we hope you’ll forget and give up.”
And there’s those self-identified “committed Christian” politicians who are struggling mightily – as if against some unspeakable sin – to keep DREAMERS from becoming citizens and eligible to vote. They’ll continue to insist they are motivated only by “patriotism” and keeping out “terrorists.” “Let’s keep those almost 800,000 kids stateless and unable to vote ‘cause they might vote us out of office. It is, of course, our Christian faith that motivates us.”
Today, more than 40 state legislatures are working to make it more difficult for the poor and people of color to vote – especially in November 2022 and 2024.
The Georgia legislature has passed and the governor signed the most sweeping changes in voting laws in modern history, including making it a criminal act to offer water to voters standing for hours in long lines. These “committed Christian” legislators supporting such Jim Crow laws are members of the “Screw Matthew 25 Party.” Will we ever see Roman Catholic bishops defy this un-Christian law and go to jail for obeying the admonition “When I was thirsty…”
For those of certain generations and denominations, the images of Episcopalian priests kneeling in pray with Freedom Riders and the photos of Sisters in full habits marching and praying with Black Civil Rights marchers still evoke anger in some and profound pride in others.
If one’s public protests against unjust laws is a measure of one’s belief that “What you do for the least of my brothers and sisters you do for me,” Jim Crow laws will sail through legislatures without a peep from too many religious leaders. These “leaders’” concerns are to get more federal funds for their church-related or private religious schools, where the annual tuition can easily exceed more than $15,000 – the annual before-taxes income of a minimum wage worker.
Too many religious leaders are concerned with maintaining the criminalization of “demon marijuana” and fighting off the tsunami of LGBTQ youth, despite the fact that these teenagers are far more likely than their straight peers to commit suicide. (So much for being “pro-life.”)
As the voting rights of people of color, the elderly, the sick and the poor are being unwound and destroyed – perhaps not to be regained for generations, as a minority political party runs its destructive course, religious leaders remain focused on “genitalia legislation.”
Our shared Faith traditions – Anglican/Episcopalian and Roman Catholic – teach us that responsible citizenship is a virtue and participation in the political lives of our communities and nation is a moral responsibility. This responsibility demands a properly formed conscience and the courage to speak the truth – even when that truth is unpopular.
In the Rite of Baptism, when anointing with chrism – the oil used in Baptism, Confirmation and Ordination, the newly baptized is admonished “As Christ Jesus was anointed priest, prophet and king, so may you live always as a member of His body, sharing everlasting life.”
Too many politicians and religious leaders forget that the Life of Faith calls us to a prophetic mission – the same prophetic-at-the-risk-of-losing-power-or-riches-or-life-itself mission and Priesthood of the People of God as
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – killed during the Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign because they were helping disenfranchised Black voters register to vote.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a founding member of the Confessing Church of Germany, theologian and vocal opponent of the Nazi euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was sentenced to death – without witnesses or a defense in Flossenburg concentration and executed by hanging on April 9, 1945 – two weeks before American troops liberated the camp.
U.S. Army chaplains Methodist George L. Fox, Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, Dutch Reformed minister Clark V. Poling and Catholic priest John P. Washington were aboard the Army transport ship Dorchester when it was hit by a German torpedo and sank in twenty minutes. Together they tended the wounded, rescued the trapped, encouraged the frightened, and prayed for all. When the supply of life vests ran out, each took off his vest and gave it to another man. Survivors saw the four chaplains with their arms linked and praying as the Dorchester went down into the icy water of the North Atlantic.
Blessed Miguel Pro – executed by firing squad – without trial – during Mexico’s violent persecution of the Church and clergy described by author Graham Greene as the “fiercest persecution of religion anywhere since the reign of Elizabeth.” As he was being walked from his cell to face the firing squad, he blessed the soldiers who were about to kill him, knelt briefly in prayer and shouted, “May God have mercy on you! May God Bless you! Lord, Thou knowest that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies!” He then raised his arms in imitation of Christ and shouted defiantly “Viva Cristo Rey! – Long live Christ the King!”
Anglican Church of Uganda bishop and martyr Janani Luwum, killed in 1977 because he dared to oppose the murderous dictator Idi Amin.
Christian minister Wang Zhiming of the minority Miao people was killed during China’s Cultural Revolution because he refused to participate in denunciation meetings held to humiliate landlords – “My hands have baptized many converts and should not be used for sinfulness.”
Bishop Oscar Romero was martyred at the altar as he finished celebrating Mass. He was an outspoken champion for the suffering poor during El Salvador’s brutal civil war. His death – only hours after his personal appeal to the common soldiers of El Salvador “I beseech you, I beg you, I command you! In the name of God: Cease the repression!” - was celebrated by the military and ruling class.
Manche Masemola of the Pedi tribe in the Transvaal province of South Africa was killed by her parents in 1928 because of her commitments to her newfound Christian faith and is now honored as a saint and martyr by the Anglican Church of the Province of South Africa.
Lucian Tapiedi, the son of a sorcerer on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, converted to Christianity. After the 1942 Japanese invasion, he aided foreign missioners who chose to remain among their people; 333 Christians – Catholics, Methodists, Salvationists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Seventh Day Adventists and members of the Evangelical Church of Manus - lost their lives during the occupation. Lucian was one eight Anglican clergy, teachers and medical missioners killed by the Japanese in 1942.
Too many of America’s religious leaders pay the “lip service” of false tributes and high honors to these men and women of faith, while kowtowing in terror before the “Screw Matthew 25” Party with its Great Myth of “rigged” and “stolen” elections and the “power” of “the Great Fabulist” hiding on the fairway.
These religious leaders “place cumbersome burdens on the shoulders of others, but are not willing to lift a finger to move them… they love the place of honor at banquets…and to be greeted with respect… shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in others’ faces… and have neglected the important matters of the Law – justice, mercy and faithfulness… blind guides, straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel.” (Matthew 23)
Perhaps the time has come for the People of God to abandon these “whited sepulchers, beautiful on the outside but smelling of death on the inside” and, in the spirit of Ignatius of Loyola “Go forth and set the world on fire.”
It is time for those anointed with chrism as “priest, prophet and royal people” to object and demonstrate, to condemn the sin and call the sinners – racist (whether conscious or unconscious) politicians whose only concern is their next election – to repentance and honesty and to explain to them that the meaning of “service” in the phrase “public service” is found in the words
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me,
I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.
[They attempted to disenfranchise me and you defended me.]
Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,
you did it to me.
Matthew25