The Elijah McClain Trials, Defueling Red Hill, More on Palestine
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hi all,
Thanks to all of you who came and talked to us at the Evolving Faith conference. It was so encouraging to meet everyone, and we’re glad to have so many of you here with us now! Remember, you can reply to any email you get from us or write to info@ktfpress.com with questions, suggestions for newsletter resources, podcast episode ideas, or any other thoughts you might have for us. We’d love to hear from you!
Without further ado, let’s get to this week’s highlights to help us leave colonized faith for the kingdom of God.
Sy’s Recommendations:
I didn’t write in this newsletter last week, and I give many thanks to Jonathan for pushing us toward a healthy and truthful way to think about and emotionally process the violence in Israel. Here are a few more useful resources. This op-ed in the Irish Times by Daniel Levy and Zaha Hassan, former diplomatic advisors to Israel and Palestine respectively, explains the importance of outside countries clearly stating Israel will not have support if it continues committing war crimes. They outline the key facts everyone must acknowledge if we are to walk Israel back from the brink of acting on its truly genocidal rhetoric. This interview with Levy situates everything going on now in the context of Israel’s recent politics and decades of unconditional US support for Israel’s actions in Palestine. And if you missed the viral clip of Levy on the BBC talking about the lies the world is telling itself regarding this conflict, definitely check it out.
Please also pray for peace, wisdom, and courage in the US. Reports are that Biden administration staffers do not feel the freedom to speak openly about Israel’s actions because higher-ups don’t want to hear any critique. People are also losing jobs or facing other consequences that discourage voicing pro-Palestinian thoughts, like a student at my alma mater. Hate crimes against both Jews and Muslims in the US are rising, including the devastating, brutal murder of a Palestinian-American boy in Illinois. The daily choices we make about how to speak about and interact with those who hold views different from our own have profound and wide-ranging consequences. We can easily err by dehumanizing others, or by failing to support those who speak the truth even when the price might be high. Let us stand with those being marginalized, and wrestle with the idea that God is our provider when we fear material consequences for doing so.
One of the three trials in Aurora, Colorado over the 2019 death of Elijah McClain has come to an end, and the jury convicted one of the two police officers on trial of negligent homicide. It acquitted the other officer. McClain’s case is particularly haunting for many. He was a young, autistic Black man whose neurodivergence led to behavior that was entirely harmless, but atypical and therefore suspicious to a 911 caller and the police. The second trial of the officer who put McClain in a carotid hold to restrict blood flow to his brain has now begun. The defendants in the third trial will be the paramedics who gave McClain an abnormally large dose of ketamine to sedate him. Please pray for the truth to come out in these trials (certainly not a guarantee), and for McClain’s community—and the wider Black community in America—to receive whatever sense of vindication or dignity this process can provide. And as always, continue to pray and advocate for dramatic, systemic change.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
Last week, Editor in Chief of Christianity Today, Russell Moore, wrote an article calling for all Christians to have “moral clarity” and side with Israel in its conflict with Hamas. He enmeshed support for Israel with Christian faith, even stating that an attack on Israel is like an attack on the Church’s family members because we have inherited the promise of Abraham through Christ. Dr. Bruce Fisk wrote this helpful response to seven of the faulty assertions in Moore’s piece. Many evangelicals are unable to consider let alone criticize Israel’s displacement and oppression of millions of Palestinians over the decades, or its ongoing occupation of their land. Excising this history from reality makes moral clarity much easier. “We need leaders who stand firmly against all human suffering and lead us in cries for justice, not vengeance,” wrote Dr. Fisk. And he couldn’t be more right.
This piece by Tony Ruperto, a realtor in the Hudson Valley north of New York City, explains one specific way in which racism doesn’t just separate people, but hoards White people’s resources and stops economic progress for BIPOC. He discusses the racist origins of zoning laws, and shows how they continue to operate as barriers to success for people who don’t already have money. Righting wrongs like this will take the concerted effort of wealthy and White folks to walk away from the idea that they are entitled to live separately from non-White people because they have the resources to do so.
Last month on Shake the Dust, activist and contributor to our anthology Dani Espiritu shared about the environmental disaster that is the Navy’s leaking Red Hill fuel storage facility on the island of Oʻahu. The massive and delicate project of emptying that facility of its more than 100 million gallons of fuel began last week. The process will take at least until January. Please pray for the safety of the people, land, air, and waters of Oʻahu. Ask that the result would be a miraculous cleansing of what has been a monumental contamination.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Jonathan and Sy