Tag Archives: christianity

Pope Francis, Presente!

Future Hope, , , ,

Growing up, I had virtually no contact with people who identified themselves as Catholics. Perhaps some of my friends and acquaintances in high school and college were but if so, I didn’t know it.

The first open Catholics I came to know in late 1969 at the age of 20 were people like then-Sister Joann Malone, Fathers Joe Wenderoth and Neil McLaughlin, John Grady and, eventually, Father Phil Berrigan. These were all leaders of the militantly nonviolent Vietnam War resistance movement, the Catholic Left.

These and other Catholics I came to know back then had been influenced by the South and Central American liberation theology movement which emerged in the 1960’s following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, led by Fidel Castro.

Castro had been raised in a Catholic family. In an interview in 1985 with Chilean priest Frei Betto, he spoke about the influence of his deeply religious mother and grandmother: “I always listened to them with great interest and respect. Even though I didn’t share their concept of the world, I never argued with them about these things, because I could see the strength, courage and comfort they got from their religious feelings and beliefs. Of course, their feelings were neither rigid nor orthodox but something very much their own and very strongly felt. It was a part of the family tradition.” (1)

Pope Francis prior to his being named Pope was connected with and supportive of the liberation theology movement, although he was explicitly not a supporter of armed struggle for the overturning of repressive and unjust governments. He was, however, a strong advocate for social and economic justice as made very clear in his famous 2015 encyclical, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.”

I re-read Laudato Si’ yesterday. There is much in it of value to all people, not just Catholics and including agnostics and atheists. In the introduction Francis summarizes the main questions the book deals with: “I will point to the intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet, the conviction that everything in the world is connected, the critique of new paradigms and forms of power derived from technology, the call to see other ways of understanding the economy and progress, the value proper to each creature, the human meaning of ecology, the need for forthright and honest debate, the serious responsibility of international and local policy, the throwaway culture and the proposal of a new lifestyle.”

Over the book’s 157 pages Francis does, indeed, deal with all of this and more.

Francis makes very clear over and over again that a central reason why the world’s economies and ecosystems are in such a critical state is the domination of government by “transnational corporations” and “powerful financial interests.” This is a good thing. Being truthful about the main source of our problems is always what those who want a world based on love, justice, peace and connection to nature should be about.

However, it is a problem that he never explicitly says that in order to create just societies and avoid economic, social and ecological collapse, the power and wealth of this billionaire class must be ended and drastically redistributed. Indeed, in such new societies billionaires would not exist. In my opinion, those who are now billionaires or multi/multi millionaires might come to appreciate how wrong they were to put the pursuit of obscene wealth and power before anything else. Some of them might actually come to realize that love and service to others is, indeed, a much better way to live.

Related to this problem with Laudato Si’ is the fact that nowhere in the book that I could find does Francis use the phrase, “fossil fuel industry,” much less call for it to be immediately and drastically downsized, moved aside so that wind, solar and other clean, renewable energy sources can take their place as rapidly as possible.

The fossil fuel industry and those banks and insurance companies who are financing their ecosystem-destroying pursuit of private profit must be named, called out, targeted for consistent, militant, nonviolent demonstrations and risk-taking direct action. They are truly public enemy number one and need to be treated as such.

As the Trump Must Go movement continues to grow and build its strength, with the next big showing of our power coming up on May 1, we can draw inspiration from the life and teachings of Pope Francis. He was a man of the people, humble, willing to take on conservative Catholic theology and speak truth to power. Let us hope that the new person elected to replace him continues and builds upon his forward-looking teachings.

1—p. 47, Fidel Castro and Frei Betto, “Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism and Liberation Theology.”

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

“Love Your Neighbor” Pope/Vance Controversy

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Recent news reports brought to my attention something that I completely missed when it first happened almost two months ago: JD Vance opining ignorantly and dangerously on Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings about “doing unto others as you would have done unto you.” Less than a month into the Trump/Musk/MAGA regime, Vance said this:

“You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world,” Vance said.

Two weeks later in a letter to US Catholic Bishops Pope Francis responded strongly to this outrageous distortion of the teachings of Jesus, explaining:

“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. . . The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.

“Worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.

“I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters. With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all.”

You don’t have to be Christian or a religious person or even a supporter of Pope Francis to appreciate his willingness to speak truth to power, and his efforts to get US Catholic Bishops to do the same. On this issue, the Pope demonstrated timely and important moral leadership.

As I’ve gone through life I’ve increasingly come to view this particular teaching of Jesus of Nazareth as both an ideal I should very consciously, daily, strive for, as well as a needed approach when it comes to building organizations and movements that are about systemic political, economic and social change.

In my 21st Century Revolution book I said this along these lines: “There are many aspects of a winning strategy, but the one that I have come to believe is most fundamental, the one that is the key link to the social transformation process so urgently needed, is this: building and deepening a way of working together and developing organizations that is collaborative, respectful, democratic to its core and which, as a result, is truly transformative, built to last.” (pps. 22-23)

In other words, we need a way of working which puts love for others at the center. And this is true for each of us in the way we go about our organizing work whether we are Christian, religious in some other way, agnostics or atheists.

Vance speaking about his “concentric circles” approach to loving others is, however, of value. It helps to deepen our understanding of what is motivating him, Trump, Musk and other leading MAGA’s, with corruption and dishonesty at obscene levels among the billionaires and power-hungry politicians who lead this retrograde movement.

Fortunately, not all who voted for the MAGA’s in 2024 are this far gone. Polls and other developments, like the recent victory of a Democratic State Senate candidate in Lancaster County, Pa. in a district held by Republicans since 1889 (!), are concrete evidence of some MAGA disillusionment. Our job as progressive organizers is to do the visible and activist movement-building and outreach right now to keep this momentum going. Next up for all of us should be taking part in the massive and extensive April 5th Hands Off action this Saturday.  

We must hold fast to the vision of a world where, yes, “do unto others as you would have done unto you” is a guiding principle of how human societies are organized. We’ll only get there if we live our lives accordingly.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Jesus and Our Tasks in 2025 and Beyond

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“Jesus recognized fully that out of the heart are the issues of life and that no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people if it does not first win the victory of the spirit against them. Jesus saw this with almighty clarity. Again and again he came back to the inner life of the individual. With increasing insight and startling accuracy he placed his finger on the ‘inward center’ as the crucial arena where the issues would determine the destiny of his people.”
-Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited, Beacon Press, p. 11

Many decades ago while living in Brooklyn, NY I went to a church service at the House of the Lord church around Christmas time. Rev. Herbert Daughtry was the minister of this church, and I knew of him as a national African American leader of the progressive movement. At the time he was President of the National Black United Front. I had followed him through my participation in demonstrations and rallies in New York City against racially-based police brutality, the closing of hospitals in low-income, predominantly people of color communities and on other issues.

I can visualize Rev Daughtry speaking with great passion and power about the fact that Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t born in a mansion or a palace but a barn: homeless, poor, an immigrant. He was “illegitimate,” born to a mother pregnant before marriage. He grew up not as a teacher or rabbi or scholar but as a carpenter, a worker with his hands. And yet this man, one of “the least of these,” became one of the most impactful people of the past 2000 years.

Jesus grew up in Palestine during a time when armed revolutionaries, Zealots, were attempting to overthrow brutal Roman rule. There’s little doubt that at least one of his core team, his disciples, was a Zealot or close to them. Yet Jesus’ way of dealing with Roman occupation was different.

One way to get a deeper understanding of his life is via the very popular TV series, The Chosen. Over the first four years of its being shown it has portrayed the creators’ view of the reality of Jesus’ life, based on the New Testament. He is shown traveling throughout what is now the West Bank healing, speaking, teaching, building an organizational network and movement. I have my criticisms of this series, particularly its repeated portrayal of questionable miracles as facts, but overall it’s a valuable resource to understand Jesus’ historic activities 2000 years ago.

Another valuable resource for understanding this period of history is the book, Foundations of Christianity. This work, published in 1908, is a 472 page, impressive historical analysis by European socialist leader Karl Kautsky of the earliest days of the “Jesus movement.”

Kautsky raises up the fact that, based on Biblical verses found in the book of Acts, this movement “aimed to achieve a communistic organization: ‘And all that believed were together and had all things in common; and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need. . .’

Regarding women, he writes that: “With the dissolving, or at least the loosening, of the traditional family ties, there necessarily resulted a change in the position of women. Once she ceased to be bound to the narrow family activities, she was enabled to devote her mind and her interests to other thoughts.” 

Understanding the importance of organization to efforts to transform society, Kautsky identified something which he saw as “why the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth had such an impact not just in the early First Century AD but for the next 2000 years: Jesus was not merely a rebel, he was also a representative and a champion, perhaps even the founder of an organization which survived him and continued to increase in numbers and in strength. It was the organization of the congregation that served as a bond to hold together Jesus’ adherents after his death. It was not the faith in the resurrection of the Crucified which created the Christian congregation and gave it its strength but, on the contrary, it was the vigor and strength of the congregation that created the belief in the continued life of the Messiah.” (1)

Kautsky is not the only internationally prominent socialist leader who appreciated the importance of the Jesus movement. The most prominent revolutionary of the 20th Century in the Western Hemisphere, Fidel Castro, might have appreciated Howard Thurman’s perspective on Jesus quoted above. In 1985, in an interview with Chilean priest Frei Betto, he spoke of his Christian mother and grandmother:

“I always listened to them with great interest and respect. Even though I didn’t share their concept of the world, I never argued with them about these things because I could see the strength, courage and comfort they got from their religious feelings and beliefs. Of course, their feelings were neither rigid nor orthodox but something very much their own and very strongly felt. It was a part of the family tradition.” (2)

As someone who identifies with the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as of value, repeatedly, on a personal level, I have also found that this identification has been helpful as I work to build a revolutionary movement for positive social change. When I am speaking with people, including those hostile to my views, I have found that being up front about how his life and death have enlightened and strengthened me has been helpful to get people to consider what I am saying. People are often taken aback when I do this, but almost never in a bad way.

In this Christmas season, this “birthday season” for Jesus of Nazareth, I hope more and more of us will meditate on the importance and continuing relevance of this great man.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

  1. 21st Century Revolution: Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation, pps. 4-5
  2. Ibid, p. 16

The Bonhoeffer Movie and Immigrant Rights

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“The church is the church only when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell people of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others. It will have to take the field against the vices of hubris, power-worship, envy, and humbug, as the roots of all evil. It must not underestimate the importance of human example (which has its origin in the humanity of Jesus); it is not abstract argument, but example, that gives the word emphasis and power.”

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, Macmillan Publishing, p. 381

In this relative lull before the second Trump Presidency begins, an important movie, Bonhoeffer, has just been released. It is the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a leading Lutheran minister in Germany in the 30’s and 40’s who was killed by the Nazis two weeks before the war’s end. He was part of an underground resistance movement from 1935 on, including unsuccessful organized efforts to assassinate Hitler, which is why he was eventually arrested in 1943.

This is a movie that should be seen by as many US Americans as possible. Those who have done so since it was released five days ago have liked it, garnering a 4.5 out of 5 rating by those who saw it according to a Google survey. That is good news.

I’ve known about Bonhoeffer for a long time. When I was in prison for 11 months during the Vietnam War for my draft resistance activism, the most important book which I had inside was his Letters and Papers from Prison. His life example helped a great deal in making my prison time, as difficult as it was on a daily basis, into something of real value, an important learning and deepening experience.

The movie is very sobering. As it portrayed the steadily mounting, brutal realities of Naziism in Germany in the 30’s and 40’s I increasingly found myself thinking that it is hard to see how anything close to what happened there could happen here, now, in the USA. I thought of how, prior to the Nazis winning power electorally in 1933, the political Left in Germany was seriously divided, with the Communists attacking the Socialists, portraying them as more of an enemy than the Nazis, so that when the Nazis won it was much easier for them to proceed with their anti-Semitic, anti-communist and regressive, violent program. There was no unified Left opposition; just the opposite.

That is not our situation right now in the USA. The overall progressive movement was overwhelmingly on board with the organized efforts to defeat Trump and MAGA. We understood that the only way that could happen as far as the Presidency was through the Democrat, Kamala Harris, getting more electoral votes than Trump. In many different ways, primarily on a grassroots level via door knocking and phone calling and postcard sending, we played an important role. That work was unquestionably a major reason why both the Senate and House are closely divided, which will make it hard, even under Republican control, for Trump/MAGA to do all the damage that they would be doing otherwise.

The Green Party and Cornell West, on the other hand, two Presidential candidates who campaigned knowing that their efforts could help to get Trump elected, together received no more than about 0.6% of the Presidential vote.

But as I’ve continued to think about the movie, I’ve come to realize that there is a key lesson that we need to learn from what happened in Germany in the 1930’s. That lesson is the absolute importance of the progressive movement as a whole prioritizing, when Trump takes office, more than any other issue, resistance to mass deportation of overwhelmingly people of color immigrants.

The Bonhoeffer movie shows how the first, major, mass repressive campaign by the Nazis was against Jewish people. One scene portrays Bonhoeffer watching as people wearing “Jewish badges,” the star of David, were forcibly put into trucks going, we now know, to the concentration camps which later became genocidal, murderous death camps for millions of Jews, as well for socialists, trade unionists, gay men, disabled people, Blacks, Poles and others.

What was the biggest issue of the Trump campaign? Immigration. Repeatedly he spoke in racist and violent ways about immigrants, using words like “vermin” and “criminals” to describe these struggling human beings trying to find a better life for themselves and their families. Much of the immigrant surge in recent years is because of the more frequent and destructive droughts, storms and floods happening because of the disruption of the world’s climate due to the continued burning of coal, oil and gas. Emigration is also happening because of the reality of repressive governments south of the border supported by successive US governments for decades on behalf of corporate interests.

If the MAGA’s are able to carry out their outrageous plans at the scale they are clearly hoping to, who will be next? Will the concentration camps set up for immigrants then become filled with others of us who refuse to kiss Trump’s ring?

Are there reasons to think we can mount a successful resistance to this planned mass deportation assault? Yes, there are. The Congressional reality is one of them. The continuing unified strength of the progressive movement is another huge one. The courts are still a place where some victories can be won. One helpful analysis articulating more specifics can be found in this article recently published by long-time revolutionary Carl Davidson.

As Bonhoeffer wrote, “we must not underestimate the importance of human example; it is not abstract argument, but example, that gives the word emphasis and power.” Like Bonhoeffer and so many others down through history, we must continue and step up our game to meet the new reality.


Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Jesus the Revolutionary Organizer

Future Hope, , , ,

In this season when people around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, when songs, videos and movies extolling peace and love are widely seen and heard, it would be a truly wonderful thing if the deeper truth about who this man became was more widely understood.

I remember once commenting in a Bible discussion group I was in decades ago that one of the things I noticed as we read and discussed the New Testament book of Mark was Jesus’ organizational leadership. He was more than a great prophet, teacher and healer. He was also all about developing the leadership skills of his band of followers, helping them grow in their understanding of and commitment to the need for truly revolutionary change of the kind that he called for in the Sermon on the Mount. He prepared and then sent them out to emulate what he had been doing as far as traveling and speaking and healing, to reach more people and build a stronger movement for change.

Karl Kautsky, a leading European socialist in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, put it this way:

“Jesus was not merely a rebel, he was the founder of an organization which survived him and continued to increase in numbers and strength. It was the organization of the congregation that served as a bond to hold together Jesus’ adherents after his death, and as a means of keeping alive the memory of their crucified champion. It was not the faith in the resurrection which created the Christian congregation and gave it its strength but, on the contrary, it was the vigor and strength of the congregation that created the belief in the continued life of the Messiah.”  (1)

What was it about these early Christian congregations 2,000 years ago which attracted growing numbers of people to them? Kautsky put it this way: Christianity “aimed to achieve a [small c] communistic organization. We read in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘And all that believed were together and had all things in common; and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need. Grace was among them, because none suffered lack, for the reason that they gave so generously that none remained poor.”  (2)

For much of organized religion, this fact about how early Christianity was organized, right there in the book of Acts, is like hidden history. I don’t remember this aspect of Christian history ever being spoken about by Sunday School teachers or ministers up there in the pulpit. It’s not that there weren’t valuable life lessons that I absorbed from my Christian upbringing; for me there were. But as is still true today for much of organized Christianity, it’s like a cap has been put on how much of what Jesus was truly about is taught.

The world today desperately needs Jesus of Nazareth’s revolutionary spirit, example and teachings. Jesus interacted with women as equals and broke societal norms by including them in his team of apostles. His Good Samaritan story challenged the discriminatory hostility of his own people toward Samaritans, similar to today’s hostility by some toward immigrants, Black, Brown and Indigenous people, Muslims and “others.” He put into practice the revolutionary idea of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” He opposed violence, militarism and war, calling upon us to “do unto others as we would have done unto us.” He was willing to die for these beliefs.

It is for all of these reasons that, 2000 years after his death, Jesus’ spirit continues to live on in the hearts and minds of people worldwide.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 
  

1–Karl Kautsky, Foundations of Christianity: A Study in Christian Origins. Monthly Review Press, pps. 376-378
2–Kautsky, pps. 331-332