Dear Church:

What in the fuck will it take to get you in the fight?

Dear Church: What in the fuck will it take to get you in the fight?

Christo-fascism is about to take over the nation, not in metaphor, or politics, but with steel, and blood. Honestly: I’m starting to believe our denominational leaders are more than ok with it. Or at least they see a church that can hedge it’s bets on the over and under of democracy’s survival. 

Dear Clergy Peers: The social construct that was the republic of the United States of America is in cascading failure. It’s over. Noone else is coming. All three branches of the government, designed to work at least as a duo in case one gets out of control, have instead all been infected with this disease. 

Make no mistake, Christo-fascism is a disease. Terminal: unless aggressively treated and the treatment may kill us. 

It’s funny how people perceive my political analysis through my writing. In all the time I have offered that publicly around the subjects of systemic racism, and policing, no one has ever asked me what I actually believe. Everyone assumes I am a “democrat”. Progressive. Some believe I am anarchist because I am anti-facist. I am very much opposed to the idea’s espoused in fascism and yes,  that makes me an anti-fascist, a movement that doesn't seem out of order now. 

The truth is I am more likely to read the Federalist papers for inspiration in a tough time like this week. I would become more entranced by the soaring language of the Declaration of Independence as a kid than I was by the prophetic words of Angela Davis as a kid. It’s just the truth. 

All I have ever asked for is a promise that is 4 generations old now in my family. Thomas Duncan, Army Private, my great, great, great, grandfather was promised 40 acres and a mule after he served honorably in the Union army. All I have ever asked this country for was Mr. Lincoln’s promise. That's it. Objectively a patriotic goal. 

In the course of the pursuit of that I have jumped systemic hurdles in an endless obstacle course where the only prize is more empire and another hurdle. 

But here we are and honestly this is the turning point in this now decades old battle that I only joined in a very real way 2009. 

Any leader of the church who is trying to get us to negotiate in good faith with this virulent Christo-fascist movement is either so completely out of touch with what's happening you should immediately move to have them unseated, or they are more than ok with the direction this country is headed. Either way the hour is so late no one has time to discern which.

It feels like our leaders would have asked Daniel to negotiate with the lions, to “keep the peace.” 

Brownshirts are coming and a lot of our leaders are in the fucking way. In my own church if there isn't some mass action at churchwide assembly 2024 we are truly lost. Period. Take a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order, burn that shit , and snatch the mic. These good reverends will use ecclasistical inertia to drown us all and call it baptism. While the rest of us clergy and lay leaders are learning how to create abortion duala networks: it is buisness as usual in most our denominations. I bet you had to go to some mandatory bullshit this week.

A church that is so worried about its image and tithes that it can't respond, in real time, to the pain of the world,  is no longer a church. I don't know what we are, but we are not the church. Perhaps a social club that likes the same bedtime stories and lullabies that gathers once a week so we can stay dreaming? 

Roe v. Wade is just the beginning. Obergefell v. Hodges. Loving v. Virginia. Brown v. Board of Education. 

It’s all on the table now kids. If you dont know all those cases, that might be because you haven't literally had to track you and your family's life and history by what was legal for you. What the oppressor finally let you have access too. 

I have. I have read every one of your documents, your amendments, your provisions, your precedents. I have tracked them my whole life. I watched as you burned them all on the Capitol steps Jan 6th 2021, and I watched as all three branches of Government tried to deal with this existential crisis of conscience for a very young nation comparatively to other world powers. I have hated almost every ruling SCOTUS has laid down for decades, felt they were short sighted, and often felt they were a perversion of justice and liberty for all. Never giving all of us access to the promise inherent in those early fiery words of Hamilton and others. 

When a so-called “conservtive” justice, a constitutional originalist, is willing to use that same textual criticism to undue everything that same constitution has barely accomplished, and the societal sense of finality the court provides in contentious civil political situations, well the last shoe has dropped. 

Could you imagine anyone trusting the three branches of government to keep the peace, and to litigate during a case in 2025, like Bush V Gore? 

The violence and bloodshed alone would preclude a civil democracy. Even as an emergency measure  “temporarily” put in place, at minimum, you are talking about martial law in parts of the country while the rest of us are just watching the news in horror, and it will just accelerate the fire already spreading. Because no matter who seizes control to stop us from burning the whole thing down, they will be ideologically “the enemy” to almost half the country. 

That's if your state chooses to participate in the Presidential election in a democratic manner. You have dozens of people running to make sure even if you vote, it won't matter. Remember when the state secretary was as innocuous as the auditor general? Good times. 

I believe we can win, but only if we adjust what we think victory is, because no matter what: America will be changed by the next 5 years in an utterly unalterable way if we stay on the current collision course. 

Victory is: how many mutual aid networks can you get rolling out of your community? Does your faith community's leadership have clear eyes about the days ahead? What sort of training that isn't about creduitentislong or profit can we get to people in the places most affected. Street medics, “stop the bleed” training. De Escalation Training and modalities of community interaction. Trauma informed leadership praxis. Ontological counter narrative building that is decolonial in its criticism of the current situation with a restorative justice hermeneutic. Land based epistemologies and intangible heritage are all we will have. 

In my opinion: this battle is still completely spiritual in nature. These times are meant to churn up fear, hatred, and shatter the connections of love and mutual affection in our lives. To throw cries of misfortune into the ether and cover this world in shadow. 

That's the front I believe we as people of faith are called too. That is where I am making my stand. With the same God I have been following this far. 

In a world that is trying to convince you that nothing you do matters, I propose everything you do matters. All of it. Finding joy in the midst of an all out assault on freedom and human dignity. Chasing love through the battle lines across the country. Dancing until you can no longer move while the empire is in free fall. Every neighbor you meet. Every crossroads along the way, pay attention, these are the times that break history in half, that shatter societies, and the Creator is on the move. 

Fuck your retirement. Fuck your 20 year plan for your community. Fuck your “thought leader famous” social media plan. Fuck your doctrine. Fuck your endowment. 

It was all just to get us here. What will history say of us? What will they say when we return home? Well done or where were you when it mattered? 

Written in Love and Liberation 

The Rev. Lenny Duncan