Tag Archives: jesus

Charlie Kirk

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I knew almost nothing about Charlie Kirk when he was killed on September 10th, other than that he was a leading organizer and thought leader for MAGA. One of the first things I saw in my email inbox about him after that misguided, violent act that took his life referenced the fact that he publicly supported dialogue between the Left and the Right. Here’s that quote, prominent on his website: “We heal our divides by talking to people we disagree with. . . You heal the country when you allow disagreement.”

I agree with these words. To what extent he acted upon these words I do not know.

I do know that he was a huge Trump backer and enabler, and Trump is all about division and hate. I wonder if Kirk ever said a word of criticism about this fact about the man he helped elect President and whose policies he advocated for until he died.

USA Today came out with an article after he died summarizing what can only be called his racist, sexist, homophobic views: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2025/09/11/what-did-charlie-kirk-believe/86101407007/.

It remains to be seen how many Trump/MAGA supporters follow what Kirk said about healing the country through allowing disagreement and talking to those we disagree with. The Republican Governor of Utah, where the killing took place, seems to have done so, to his credit.

For those of us on the political Left, the Kirk murder and Trump’s efforts to use it to ratchet up attacks on us, using a very broad, hysterical brush, should be just the latest lesson about the importance of nonviolent tactics as we continue to strengthen our resistance movement.

It appears as if Kirk’s alleged killer was not a Leftist. His family appears to be very Republican and pro-Trump. Perhaps as he went out on his own he was exposed to ideas and facts he had not known about before, but unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have been exposed to the importance of nonviolence and dialogue in efforts to oppose what is seen as wrong.

I’m not a pacifist. I support people defending themselves, their family and their community as necessary against violence of any kind. But acts like those alleged to have been taken by Tyler Robinson are not self-defense; they are self-defeating and destructive.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed the way forward, with active and militant, mass nonviolence at the center of that way. In his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church in NYC in April, 1967, he said this: “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Charlie Kirk did not like King. He said the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake. About King he reportedly said, “MLK was awful. He was not a good person.” I wish Kirk was still alive so that, perhaps, someday, through dialogue with people who disagreed with him, he would have changed his mind.

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

For Our Children and Grandchildren

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People gonna rise like the waters,
Gonna calm this crisis down,
I hear the voice of my great granddaughter
Saying keep it in the ground.
-sung for years at climate justice actions in the USA

32 years ago the phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid!,” was used by the Clinton for President operation as the primary message of that successful Presidential campaign. It seems to me that there are very good reasons why, in 2024, those of us who are working to defeat Trump, whether independent of or inside the Biden/Harris operation, and who are supporting genuinely progressive candidates otherwise, should be using and advocating for something else.

I believe it should be the phrase, “For Our Children and Grandchildren.”

The primary reason is because it is absolutely on point with our reality in 2024, particularly, but not only, because of the seriousness of the climate emergency. Human society is in a race to get off fossil fuels and onto wind, solar and other renewables before it is too late. We are literally in the make-or-break decade. It is so serious that three years ago the very establishment International Energy Agency called for an end to the buildout of any new fossil fuel infrastructure as of that year, 2021.

Unfortunately, particularly in the United States, that call has not been sufficiently heeded. The primary reason is the power of the oil and gas industry over almost all Republican and far too many Democratic politicians at both state and federal levels. Huge campaign donations and corporate support in other ways continue to have their corrupting, destructive impact.

As a progressive activist and organizer for a very long time, I’ve found that when I say we need to bring about major societal change because we need a better world for our children and grandchildren, it has an effect. The song quoted above is another example, a way of bringing into our present struggles the generations coming after us who we must be responsible to. Within many Indigenous cultures the concept of taking action with the seventh generation in mind is very strong and deeply rooted.

The idea of looking out for our children and grandchildren and those coming after us can connect people who otherwise would be on opposite sides of an issue. As one example, I increasingly find myself saying to police at demonstrations, including to some who are arresting me, that I and those with me are taking action for their children and grandchildren too, and I have seen on their faces, and sometimes heard in their words, that they relate to this idea. In their own ways they are worried about the state of the country and world and how their offspring will survive in it.

Just recently, during an action at the DC headquarters of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a Federal Protective Services higher-up in charge of policing us actually said to a group of us as we were leaving, unprompted, that “we appreciate what you are doing.”

This concept of the welfare of those coming after us as a primary motivation for our actions today is not just climate-related. It’s true for many issues. I’ve read of formerly enslaved Africans in the deep South explicitly referencing their children and grandchildren as the reason they were willing to risk their lives to end slavery. Today, the MAGA attacks on the rights of immigrants, women, people of color, lgbtq+ people and low-income, low-wealth families, are a huge threat to those coming atter us if Trump wins and Republicans do well in Congressional races. And clearly a Trump-led government would be a huge threat to US democracy, as flawed as it is, and a boost to neo-fascists worldwide.

11 years ago I took part in a Walk For Our Grandchildren and Mother Earth, a 100 mile walk of elders and others from Camp David to Harpers Ferry to the White House. The walk struck a chord and got national media coverage. Eight years later I was part of a similar walk in 2021 from Scranton, Pa. to Wilmington, De., ending up in Biden’s home town. In Wilmington we rallied close to Biden’s home and then concluded it with a civil disobedience action at the national headquarters of Chase Bank, one of the big banks funding oil, coal and gas corporations that are the main drivers of the climate chaos that is jeopardizing a livable future.

Our children and grandchildren must be openly and publicly at the center of what we do and why we do it.

 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. 

Jesus the Revolutionary Organizer

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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